Chapter & Hearse

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Chapter & Hearse Page 29

by Lorna Barnett


  “Then I’ll take a day of vacation. I still have more than a week left.”

  “And you always wait until it’s inconvenient to take it. You’d better be here tomorrow,” Josh ordered and hung up.

  Eyes narrowed, Katie stuck out her tongue at the phone.

  “Do you always end your conversations that way?” came an amused male voice from outside her still-opened window.

  Chagrined, Katie stabbed the phone’s power button and forced a smile for Deputy Schuler. “Only on days like today.”

  “This is Detective Ray Davenport, our lead investigator.” Schuler stepped away, revealing the stocky, balding man Katie had seen earlier. She eyed the ratty raincoat. Was he trying to channel an old Columbo rerun?

  Davenport nodded at her. “Ma’am.”

  Or maybe he was channeling Joe Friday.

  Katie studied the detective’s nondescript face, wondering if his no-nonsense demeanor was a defense mechanism he’d erected to shield him from the results of the violence he saw on a regular basis. Or could it be he was just grumpy? But then, grumpy was an apt description of her current emotional state.

  “What can I do for you, detective?” Katie asked, trying to be helpful.

  The older man opened a worn notebook and took a pen from the inside pocket of his raincoat. “Did the deceased—uh, Mr. Hilton—have any family?”

  Deceased. It made it sound so . . . permanent. Then again, it was.

  “Apparently Ezra had a nephew. His lawyer is contacting him,” Katie said.

  “And that man’s name is?” Davenport prompted.

  “Sorry, I don’t know.” She gave him Seth’s name and phone number, which he dutifully jotted down.

  “Did Mr. Hilton always close the place by himself?”

  Katie lifted her hands from her lap and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Davenport frowned. “Who might’ve seen the deceased last, ma’am?”

  “I—”

  “Don’t tell me—you don’t know,” Davenport supplied, slapping his notebook closed. “Would you have a list of all the vendors who rent space at Artisans Alley? We’ll want to talk to everyone to see if they saw something or can tell if anything else was taken from the building.”

  “I’m sure there’s a list somewhere in the office. I just don’t know where to put my hands on it. Ezra was pretty much a one-man show—from handling the paperwork, to arranging publicity, to manning the register if need be. From the looks of it, he may have spread himself far too thin.”

  “And that,” the detective said with a penetrating gaze, “could be what got him killed.”

 

 

 


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