Page 137 of Head Room

“You could have told me—”

“Wasn’t sure.Couldn’t test it until this morning.Didn’t know if my idea was right.Didn’t know if he’d talk to me.Even after he did, didn’t know if he’d stick when I drove out to get enough signal to call you, then Wayne Shelton.”

Somewhat mollified, I asked, “How’d you get the idea?”

“Talking to the vets one time about the land, I mentioned a few other places around the county they could consider.A couple were interested.I thought one of them might’ve been the guy they called Nance, though there weren’t what you’d call formal introductions.

“You were starting to talk about Nance maybe being connected to this business...Tell you the truth, thought I’d waste my time and not find anybody.Wasn’t going to waste yours, too.When I came in and saw somebody here, figured it was Nance—”

“A disturbed veteran who might have killed Jardos — and you went there alone and—?”

“Scouted it out first, Elizabeth.Only made myself known when I saw it was Frank.”

Who still could be a murderer.

Scratch that about being mollified.

“We will talk about this more,” I said with dignity.

“Uh-huh.Shouldn’t you call the colonel now?”

His assumed humility did not fool me.And wewouldtalk about it again.

But I did call the colonel.

“I knew he didn’t commit suicide,” Colonel Crawford said when I’d finished the pertinent outline.“Why the hell he didn’t come to me— But he and I will talk about that.”

A lot of that going around.

That might have me quaking in my boots, but I doubted it would even furrow the sergeant’s brow more than it was permanently.

“Thank you,” the colonel added.

“Don’t thank me yet.There are a lot of questions to be answered.”

“Good.”

****

Same clearing.

Victor and Zeke with the same two dogs coming out of the woods.But I was sure those added shadows amongst the trees behind them were more men.

Shadow thought so, too.

This time I didn’t wait for them to advance to me.I closed eighty percent of the distance between us.

“The sergeant—?”Victor started.

“Is alive, but in custody.”

“He didn’t kill Nance,” Zeke said.

Victor spoke to a suspicion I wasn’t entertaining.“We all figured it was probably Nance who was killed.Logical.Talked after you were here last time.Nance not around.Him and the sergeant about the same size.Fire’d make it hard to tell.One turns up, we expected it’d be the other one dead.”

“Nance,” Zeke said.“Sucks.”

Victor explained.“Nance worked it out so a share of each guy’s pay will go into an account that pays the museum, like a mortgage.Only the museum holds the mortgage instead of a bank.James Longbaugh set that up based on an idea of Nance’s.That’s why when he drifted away...”