Sam nodded and hunched back over his beer. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Mick slipped into the seat around the corner of the bar next to Sam. No sooner had his butt hit the leather chair than a drink appeared in front of him. He really had Billie trained.

Mick leaned toward Jo and Sam. "Did you run the print?"

"Yeah. Bad news. It didn’t match."

"It didn’t?" Mick pressed his lips together and shook his head. "I know there’s something funny going on there. It just adds up. The woman has a grandson into drugs. Drugs are found in the car. There’s got to be a connection." He downed his drink in one swallow. "What about your other case? You guys look pretty down in the dumps. Things not going good?"

"Got a few new leads. But they’re confusing." Sam took another swig.

"Anything I can help with?" Mick reached across Sam and snagged a fry. Sometimes they used Mick when they needed to get information that they couldn’t acquire in their official capacity, but with the Palmer case, Jo knew they couldn’t risk anything that wasn’t on the up and up. Not at this point.

Sam shook his head.

"What about your girlfriend?" Mick asked.

Jo almost choked on a fry. Sam had a girlfriend? She coughed and punched her fist in the center of her chest where a strange pang had surfaced.

"When did you find time to get a girlfriend?" She hoped her voice sounded casual. It wasn’t that she minded Sam having a girlfriend. Not as if she was jealous or anything. But, somewhere deep down inside, she was afraid a girlfriend might change their work friendship. And her work friendship with Sam was about all she had in the way of human relationships. She really needed to get out more.

Mick stood and slapped some money on the bar. "Yeah, she’s a real looker too. Brown eyes, black-and-brown hair, four nice legs. She could use a little shave, though."

"Oh, you mean Lucy." Jo laughed. "Have you seen her tonight? She ran off from the police station earlier today."

"Haven’t seen her, but I’ll keep an eye out," Mick said. "In the meantime, I’m going to dig a little further into this Bartles kid. I know there’s a connection."

"Thanks, Mick," Sam said as Mick sauntered out of the bar.

Sam finished his beer and signaled for another. Jo pushed the basket of fries to him and swiveled her chair to face out into the bar, her elbows on the bar top, feet swinging slightly in front of her.

The bar was mostly empty. Two couples sat in the pews at one of the long tables near the door, burgers loaded up with specialty fixings in front of them. Jo could smell sautéed onions and figured one of them must have ordered the Alps Burger. It was her favorite, smothered in sautéed onions and Swiss cheese.

A couple sat at one of the round tables, their chairs pushed close together. Two tables over, four local guys sat with beers in front of them. Jo knew them all.

"The Palmer case is getting stranger and stranger. Why didn’t Lynn tell anyone she was meeting with Richard? And what about her phone? Did the killer throw that in the river because there might be evidence on it, or did it fall in by accident?" she asked.

"Good question. Maybe if we ever get the information from Verizon, we’ll find out if there was something else on there the killer might not want anyone to know about." Sam ate a fry.

"What if the killer wanted to hide the fact that she had that appointment or hide any calls or texts between her and Richard? They might not have realized she used an online app to schedule the appointment or that we could get her phone information from her cell phone carrier."

"Lots of people don’t know about that. Doesn’t help us narrow things down."

Jo turned back facing the bar and picked at her beer label some more. It had gotten nice and soggy and peeled off easily. "Sure do have a lot of things to puzzle over. There’s the meeting with Richard."

"And there’s Tara seeing Lynn with Noah right around the same time."

"And Noah and Amber were both acting sketchy about where they were the night of Lynn’s death."

"And Lynn borrowed Tara’s bra?" Sam scrunched up his face and looked at Jo. "Do girls do that? And why would she want a fancy bra if she wasn’t having a fling with Noah?"

Jo had never had a girlfriend that she was close enough to to borrow a bra from. "Some girls borrow each other’s clothes all the time. I guess bras would be no exception. But Lynn might not have borrowed it because of Noah. Maybe there was someone else."

"True. And let’s not forget Derek saw someone at Noah’s tent that night. Could have been Noah sneaking out to meet Lynn."

"Or Amber." Jo leaned over the bar and fished behind it for another ketchup bottle, which she found exactly where she knew Billie kept it. She twisted off the cap and smacked the bottom until a blob oozed out onto the side of the french fry basket.

"Julie was the one that said she saw Lynn going to the antiques store, but Lynn never went there. Why would Julie say that?"

"Maybe Lynn just told her that’s where she was going and Julie assumed. Lynn would’ve had to head in that direction, and if she didn’t want anyone to know about the meeting with Richard, then she probably just told them she was going to the antiques store."

"Something doesn’t add up. Why wouldn’t Noah know that Lynn was meeting Richard for the financing? We need to talk to Noah. My guess is he’s smack dab in the center of this."

Jo crunched down on a lukewarm ketchup-covered fry. "He does benefit directly from Lynn’s death with getting the extra shares of the stock."

"Maybe the financing would have diluted his stock," Sam said. "They would have had to give Richard some shares in the company. Maybe Lynn did tell Noah about it. Maybe he didn’t want it. He might really have been meeting Lynn that day and lied about it to cover up that he knew she was seeking financing."

"Seems like he had a good motive, but there might be more to the story, and we need to talk to Lynn’s friends again, because Noah’s not the only one in that group that’s telling lies."

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sam drove out to the campground first thing the next morning. The early-morning sun filtered through the leaves, giving the air a golden glow. Just beyond the campground, the river gurgled. Sam battled a swarm of black flies as he approached the campsite.

On the picnic table, Tara was preparing lunches. Jars of peanut butter and jelly sat on the table along with the six waterproof lunch sacks. Something about that bugged Sam. Their friend was dead, and they were going about business as usual. Didn’t seem right.

Derek, who was backing out of his tent with a backpack, looked around at him quizzically. Tara stopped spreading jelly.

Julie finished spraying her arm with the bug spray and tossed the can to Sam, who spritzed himself.

Noah turned from the makeshift clothesline where he was taking down some pants. "Chief Mason? Have you found who… who did that to Lynn?"

"Not yet. But I have some interesting news." They’d all gathered closer to the picnic table, and Sam put his foot up on the bench, resting his arm on his knee and bending forward slightly.

"Seems that Lynn had seen an investor in town. She was trying to get more funding for the company. Did you all know that?" Sam studied the faces. They all seemed surprised. Thing was, he knew that at least a few of them were accomplished liars, and he couldn’t tell if they had already known and were covering, or if they were truly surprised.