Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries
Page 44
Chapter Thirty
Jack Burton stared at the blackboard facing his desk. He was tired and edgy and craving a cigarette. This case felt like it was unraveling at his feet, but with nothing at the end of the string.
Kazmaroff hit the door solidly with the palms of both hands as he walked through it and Burton jumped.
“So, you gonna answer her messages?” Kazmaroff asked as he settled himself in his desk chair. He scooted his chair out from behind his desk, the wheels squeaking annoyingly as he did so, until he too was facing the blackboard. “Still nothing, huh?” He nodded at the board.
“Unless you’ve thought of something between here and the can.” Burton sneered. “And no, I am not calling Paris, if that’s what you’re asking.” He tossed the chalk onto the blackboard tray and returned to his desk.
“Well, then. What do you think about her accusing Parker of being the guy?”
“That’s not what she said, Dave. She said he was the key. Big difference.”
“So you think she’s got something?”
“All I know is we don’t.”
“I think she’s crazy,” Kazmaroff said, flicking a blond hair from his burgundy blazer. “I think she’s got some idea that she’s Nancy Drew or something, and she’s pulled together a story in her own mind that takes care of someone at her office she doesn’t get on with.”
“We questioned everyone, Jack, right after the secretary got killed.”
“The secretary didn’t get killed. It was the traffic manager.” Jack watched Kazmaroff closely.
“Yeah, okay, whatever.” Dave jumped up and sorted through the pile of file folders scattered across his desk.
“You don’t even know who you talked to?”
“Listen, I talk to a dozen people a day. Give me a break, okay? Oh, yeah, hey, that’s interesting.”
“What?” Burton forced himself not to go and look over the bastard’s shoulder. “What does it say, man?”
Kazmaroff scrutinized the file folder contents. “I guess we didn’t talk to her.” “Who?”
Kazmaroff cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “The media director. She wasn’t available the day we hit most of ‘em at the office, and when we went to the memorial service she said she was too broken up to talk.”
Burton stared at him. “So we never got back to her?”
Kazmaroff scratched his neck and continued to look at the file. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Whatever.” Burton ran a hand through his hair. There was no way a dumpy forty-five-year-old spinster with six cats was behind these murders. And it only showed how truly desperate he was that they were even thinking of it. The murder at the apartment building had pretty clearly been a hit. That much they now knew.
“Did we get anything on the driver of the truck?” he asked Kazmaroff.
“Looks like he’s disappeared down whatever hole he came out of. He’s not in town at any rate.”
“That’s no big surprise. It’s been six months.”
“Who you calling?”
Dave looked up from the phone.
“Don’t call the media director, Dave. That’s ludicrous. We need to follow the line on the driver. You’re getting as bad as the Newberry woman.”
Kazmaroff hung up the phone and laughed. “Yeah, guess it just makes me feel like I’m doing something.”
Burton stood and wrote the name Gary Parker on the board. Under that he wrote: Victims: Elise Newberry (Maggie’s sister). Deirdre Potts (Agency employee). He tapped his lip lightly with the tip of the chalk stub. “She’s not wrong about one thing though,” he said, looking at the board. “Both victims are connected to Parker.”