Page 3 of Head Room

“You know about—?”

He cut me off.“I know.”

He knew not only thathis manhad been found dead, but that the authorities’ math added up the facts to equal Frank Jardos shooting himself and — in the process or beforehand — setting his cabin on fire, accidentally or on purpose.

And yet, Shelton sent him to talk to me.

“What makes you think he’s missing?”

“Because he did not commit suicide.”

CHAPTER TWO

“I don’t—”

Crawford didn’t let me finish.Again.

“That’s what the theory is, correct?That despondent and lonely after the death of his wife, Sergeant Jardos shot himself in the head and somehow his cabin caught fire.Alternatively, he started the fire, then shot himself.”

That pretty well covered it.

Except where was the gun?Had I missed that in the coverage?

No.

No mention of a gun.

That was potentially interesting.

Also potentially of no import.

Either way, it wasn’t my goal in this conversation to strengthen the colonel’s contention that Frank Jardos did not commit suicide.

Matter of fact, I wasn’t sure I had a goal.

“You don’t buy that theory?”I asked mildly.

“Not for a second.”

“The suicide rate among vets—”

“I know those stats.”The gravel in his voice turned rougher.

I kept going.“Add those to the stats about rural suicide, with rural men’s rates much higher than urban.And older men—”

“Not Sergeant Jardos.”

“How can you be sure?”

Without unbending his erect posture, he pushed back into the chair, surveying me for a long moment before he spoke.

“The same way you knew what that phone call you skipped from your mother would have entailed.”

He wasn’t showing off, either.After all, there had been that clear M-O-M on the phone’s screen before I dismissed the call.

We regarded each other for a couple dozen seconds.

“Have you been to the site?”I asked.