Chapter Forty-Two
I took a long nap after Teague left for the sheriff’s department.
As I drifted off, I heard a repeat in my head of the discussion with Teague and Clara about the dog park rumor that Pammy kicked Lucifer.
I’d been defensive, because I’d put my foot on my dog’s butt. Not the toe, not the top of my foot in boots or shoes, but the sole of my bare foot pressed against her fluffy butt.
Teague was right that Gracie enjoyed it.
He had experienced a different part of the elephant.
* * * *
The nap was blissful. With no dreams that I remembered.
I was awake, thinking about opening the manuscript — where had I left poor Alex? — but not moving when Clara called.
“Something interesting.”
I sat up. “Oh?”
“I talked to the ladies and had them ask around. Nobody knows about any neighbor of William Alsup falling for a craft beer scam by Damon Swindell. Or any scam by anybody. But—”
“Alsup was scammed over a craft beer franchise by Damon.”
“Bingo. How many motives are we up to for him now?”
“Depends on if you count the car washes and the craft beer scam as two separate motives or lump them together under financial.”
She snorted. “How about I come over and we can plan how to follow up.”
While I waited for her to arrive, I pondered if Teague knew about this.
Alsup had mentioned lawyers in connection with the neighbor fighting Damon over the craft beer enterprise. If that was true — though with him in the role of neighbor — there’d be a paper trail.
Was the sheriff’s department already mining those records?
Clara came in the back door with her phone up to her ear. She dropped LuLu’s leash to hold up one finger to instruct me to wait a minute.
“Uh-huh . . . Yes . . . . That is interesting. Thank you.” She clicked off. “C’mon, we have to go someplace. We’ll come back for the dogs before training.”
She let LuLu off the leash, then headed back out.
I followed, but asked, “Where? Who was on the phone? What did they say?”
She didn’t answer until we were in the van, headed away from my house.
“William and Blanche Alsup are arguing in a parking lot. A friend of ours saw them and thought we’d be interested in trying to hear what they’re saying.”
“Which friend? Linda? Carol? One of the other ladies?”
“Nope. It’s one of those Baader-Meinhof moments. Before we brought the Alsups to the front of their mind, they wouldn’t have even noticed.”
She made a turn toward the town square.
“Uh-huh. So, who Baader-Meinhoffed the Alsups? Rich? Are they at the Tavern?”
Another turn took us away from the Tavern. “Nope.”
“Clara—” She was enjoying this way too much.
She shot past the street bordering the north side of the square, then turned into the parking lot that served the courthouse and other county government buildings.
Including the Old Old Courthouse, now functioning as the historical society’s headquarters.
Urban stood in its open doorway. He spotted Clara’s van and pointed to an SUV parked at the end of a row, with William and Blanche Alsup squared off beside it. He was vehement. She was implacable.
We pulled in across from it and piled out.
Red-faced, William Alsup jerked around to us and swore before demanding, “What are you doing here?”
“Public parking lot. What are you doing here?”
“None of your business.”
“I’m asking him if he shot Damon Swindell,” Blanche said, sounding oddly bored. “He was out there that night — went to Gallows Path. Surprised the deputies haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Shut up—”
“Too late to tell your wife that now. All sorts of people know.” Clara gestured to Urban, who had his phone out, videoing. “Might as well tell us the rest.”
“There’s nothing to tell. Nothing.”
A gleam of malice showed in Blanche’s sleepy-lidded eyes, directed at her husband. “Way too late for any of that. The shorter one’s been on TV, but the other one’s got some connection to the sheriff’s department. If they didn’t know before, they’ll know real soon you were out there that night.”
Blanche wanted William to squirm.
I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t passing up the opportunity it presented. “Did you shoot—?”
“No. Don’t go telling the deputies— Listen, I saw him turn in and stop. End of story. Couldn’t do anything but go past.”
His words were more pleas than statements.
He absolutely could have done something else. He could have turned onto Gallows Path behind Damon, gotten out of his car, waited for Damon to get out of his . . . but then there was the gun issue.
“You followed him . . .”
“Yeah, I followed him. No law against that.” He was in full squirm mode.
“Your lawyer said not to,” Blanche dropped in.
He glared at her. She was unmoved.
“Your lawyer? Not the legal team for the Dailey Car Washes, but a lawyer strictly for you?” The other time he’d mentioned lawyers . . . A suspicion bloomed. “That neighbor you said had legal issues with Damon over the craft beer business, what’s his name?”
“None of your business.”
“It was you, wasn’t it. Damon cheated you out of money over the craft beer business. You’re paying for that lawyer to fight him and then he also threatened the family business. You must have been enraged.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, it was him. That’s why he wanted me to get close to Damon and find out what was going on,” Blanche said. “Behind enemy lines, he said.”
“You told your wife to . . . to —”
Clara saved me from using an accurate term by slipping in, “Cozy up to Swindell.”
“I told her the situation, that’s all. Told her what was at stake for us, for the family, for the business, for her.”
Like me, Clara turned to Blanche for a reaction.
She looked back without emotion. “He didn’t make me. He asked. It sounded kind of interesting. I said yes. No big deal.”
Her desire to make him squirm now belied her would-be casualness.
I clamped my mouth closed, fearing I’d sound like a toy motor boat if I let out the butbutbutbutbutbuts tumbling through my head.
“What did you find out?” Clara asked.
“Not much. He’d go on and on about being smart and a great businessman, but he whined that he couldn’t figure out where all his money was going. Never came right out and said he stole from people or anything.
“I told William this could take time, but he’s impatient. That night when Damon forgot we were supposed to meet after he left Zepke’s, we went to dinner at the Tavern, then William got suspicious that Damon must have something else going on.”
Clara and I both turned to William.
“All I did was follow him,” he said defensively.
“See anybody else at Gallows Path?”
“No. But I didn’t kill him. “Why would I? My cousins and I beat back his scheme to bring in that car wash chain to try to drive us out of business, the lawyers were making good progress on getting the rundown on the craft beer scam. I might not get all my money back, but he’d pay in other ways.”
He seemed to realize he’d made himself sound more suspicious by talking about making Damon pay.
He blew out a breath and tried to swagger. “None of your business, anyway. With your nosy questions—”
Clara interrupted him sternly. “Until the murder of Damon Swindell—”
“Swindle,” he muttered under his breath.
“—is solved, there will be more questions. But we have to go now—”
“For that dog training at Zepke’s.” He puffed up, aiming to look bigger and broader. “I know about that.”