any of these suspects or looky-loos to muddy up the evidence.”
Right. Andi nodded, hoping Jackie would think she cared as deeply as she had the first time she’d answered one of his calls. Or even the second or third. Then she hadn’t realized how frequently she’d be giving Jackie the same nod. Now she knew better than to get her hopes up for a real case. “Why don’t we go inside and have a look? And we can move that bench right back under the window, to get things back to normal.”
Even before she got the second sentence out of her mouth, Jackie was shaking his head. The few red hairs that remained on top stirred in the weak breeze. “No, ma’am, first get statements from every one of these suspects. Then I’ll let you in to look around, take your fingerprints and do any of that forensic investigation. You better hurry it up, though. I’m losing the breakfast crowd.”
Andi stifled a heavy sigh as she looked at the crowd of “suspects” and decided it would be easier to go along with Jackie at this point. He wasn’t going to like that her forensic investigation would be sorely lacking. She could take fingerprints and get some photos, but considering the crowd that went through the diner, unless she found something really out of the ordinary, she’d have a hard time calling anything she found evidence. Thanks to television, everyone expected her to have a crime lab, a source at Homeland Security and a psychic in her back pocket. In most cases, Andi’s resources were limited to her powers of observation—which were pretty good. She was also lucky to work with talented deputies. For almost two years, they had been enough to stay on top of petty crime, not-so-friendly disputes, domestic violence calls, small drug busts and general safety concerns in Tall Pines. No laboratories needed.
Andi pulled out her pad to take down the names of Jackie’s suspects. As Andi surveyed Wanda Blankenship’s tiny tank and long, lean legs exposed by very short shorts, she nearly convinced herself that Wanda was guilty of whatever had been perpetrated. Any woman who looked as good as she did with that much skin showing had to be up to no good. Feeling just a little guilty about judging Wanda’s book by its cover, Andi straightened her shoulders in her neat, perfectly serviceable uniform, smoothed back any hairs that had escaped her no-nonsense ponytail, and asked, “Wanda, do you want to start?”
She shrugged. Andi figured she had to be innocent. There was no way she could hide a murder weapon or the crown jewels in that outfit. “Sheriff, I was jogging through town when Jackie grabbed me.”
Jackie bent to point a bony finger in her face. “You were running away from the diner. If you didn’t take it, you saw who did.”
“Has something been stolen, Jackie?” Andi was surprised. And excited. Traffic tickets and accident reports kept them busy, but this was the kind of work she’d signed on to do.
He narrowed his eyes at Andi. “Yes, but I won’t say what it is. One of these people knows and they’ll confess.” He turned to face the man lounging beside the door. “Or else.”
Andi watched the stupid smirk cross the stupid face of the way-too-smart newspaper editor and suddenly felt hot under the collar of her uniform. There was always a gleam of mischief in his gray eyes, as if he could see right through her. Mark Taylor had moved into Tall Pines to take over the paper almost two years ago. And then he’d taught her a very valuable lesson: never trust a reporter. Following his leading questions, she’d been too helpful, too prominent, too speculative. Determined to show just how well she could do her job in the early days after her election, she’d given him way too much information on the county’s domestic violence stats for an article he’d been working on, and she’d been paying the price with the local business and community leaders ever since. And instead of appearing only in the Tall Pines Times, the story had gone to the state paper, painting a stark picture of what really goes on behind closed doors even in quaint tourist towns.
Everything he’d printed had been true. He just hadn’t told the whole story.
People had stopped her on the street to explain how stupid they thought she was. And she’d gotten one angry, vaguely threatening note in her mailbox at home. She wanted to hate him for it, but he’d been doing his job. He sold a lot of papers, and she should have been wiser. It had been an excellent lesson: a little truth could travel a very long way in the hands of someone determined to twist it. “No comment” was her favorite answer any time he called now. Since then, unless something was part of the public record or a feel-good piece for community outreach, she’d made up her mind to say as little as possible to anyone who might write it down and publish it for the world to see. She’d also stopped reports to the local radio station and had to think long and hard before she answered any emails to her office.
None of that kept him from calling, emailing or stopping her on the street to ask for updates or quotes. And sometimes she thought he did it just to annoy her. For him, it wasn’t that hard.
Obviously she couldn’t trust Mark Taylor. But he bothered her more than she’d care to admit. He was always rumpled, but it was hard to pinpoint the problem exactly. Maybe it was his hair. He knew his way around styling products. Hair that perfectly messy and adorable had to be worked at, didn’t it? And it wasn’t his height. As the girl who’d held down the middle of every back row of every class picture all the way through middle school, Andi knew a thing about height. And Mark Taylor was only average. He’d certainly never played center on the high school basketball team. As Andi studied the smirk on his face, she figured him for a fast, sneaky guard, the kind that would score before she even knew he was in the neighborhood. And that was likely the problem. Mark Taylor was smooth. And Andi distrusted both the eternally rumpled and the naturally smooth.
He’d moved to town and slipped right into the flow as if he’d always been here. Andi had heard plenty of stories about his Little League sponsorship, his volunteering to help the high school yearbook staff and his charming smile. The ladies of Tall Pines loved him and loved to talk about him. She’d been born and raised here. The only family she had was here, but Andi still felt so out of step some days.
As Mark’s eyes met hers, his left eyebrow rose. And that one small gesture reminded her she was supposed to be investigating...something. “Sheriff, you have any questions for me? I’m completely at your service, but yesterday Joe Sales told me the fish are biting and Spring Lake is calling my name.”
She shrugged and did her best not to blush at being caught off guard. The only solution was to cut to the chase. “What brought you to the diner, Taylor?” He’d rattled her with one question and a mobile eyebrow.
He pointed at Jackie. “This one called me before I even made it out the door and demanded I get over here. When I asked him why, he said I knew why and I better get to the diner or I’d be in serious trouble.”
“And do you know why?”
He smiled slowly and shook his head. “Nope. No idea. But it might make for an entertaining story.” He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “Entertain me, Sheriff.”
Jackie propped both hands on his hips. “You were the first person I thought of, newspaper man. I know you’re jealous of my recipes. I better not see any more turn up in that blessed newspaper or I’m gonna lawyer up, you see if I don’t.”
At last year’s chili cook-off, Jackie won again, as he had every year since the contest started, but Mark, the new kid in the pot, won second place and published his recipe, minus one secret ingredient, in the paper. Jackie was convinced the recipe had been based on his. He’d never been able to explain how Taylor had gotten it or why he’d steal a recipe to alter it, but Taylor had produced a stained, handwritten recipe and a character witness in the form of his mother to prove his innocence. And he’d taken Jackie’s accusations the same way he took everything: with a joke and a laugh. If Jackie was a man who took his cooking seriously, Mark Taylor seemed to be a man who took nothing seriously. Well, maybe nothing but the news and how well it sold, anyway.
Andi noticed Mark Taylor noticing Wanda and wished she could arrest him for something, anything, but that’s not a game she wanted to play with the newspaper man, especially in an election year.
Before Andi could question the other