Page 126 of Death on Gallows Path

“Only see a small part, don’t realize there are other parts, you think it’s all like that one small part,” Clara recapped succinctly.

“I was looking at people as suspects—”

“That is usually how it works,” Teague murmured.

I gave him a warning look.

“—then tried looking at them as motives to answer the why now? question.”

His eyes sparked. “And that led to Pammy.”

“Of course it did,” Clara said, loyally.

I grinned. “Oscar’s scuffle with Damon brought attention from the sheriff’s department—”

“Hensen,” he said.

“—William Alsup’s lawyers were poking into Damon’s business, and Zoley was losing her hold on Damon.

“Even the dogs were a why now? factor. Lucifer got in the house and Willow said Pammy was apoplectic — she didn’t use that word. Pammy was behind the couples going to training together to establish evidence of animosity between the men. A longer timeline would have been more subtle, but she wanted Lucifer gone after he jumped on her white couch.”

I felt Clara’s mood darken. I quickly continued, “She knew Damon was losing interest in Zoley. She needed at least a shred of that connection to get him out to Gallows Path. All those answered why now.”

“And left only Pammy as the one to benefit,” Clara concluded. “Though how she thought she could get away with it, especially if she’d shot Zoley and us . . .”

Teague’s turn to answer. “She had a flight leaving tonight to a non-extradition country. She’d had a reservation for a few weeks from now as part of her overall plan, but moved it up yesterday — after talking to you two.”

“Overall plan?”

“Foreign accounts, identities, safe houses — we’ll be unraveling it for a while. One thing we can say is she’s made no plans for a funeral for Damon.”

“That’s awful,” Clara said.

“Comes in a distant second to murdering him,” Teague said.

With her usual fairness she said, “Good point.”

EPILOGUE

Teague didn’t tell us, but it came out that Damon had multiple burner phones he’d used to communicate with women.

The sheriff’s department found the one he’d been using for Blanche, but not the one for Zoley. Best guess was Pammy secured it after shooting Damon and disposed of it.

But, since Zoley had called Damon from her regular phone that night and all the other times, the authorities had that history.

Bryon Georger had suspected his wife was having an affair.

He swore he hadn’t known it was with Damon.

Sure, that’s what someone trying to shake off any vestiges of being suspected of murdering Damon might say.

The difference was, he hadn’t stopped there. He’d suspected the affair was with a woman because of scraps of overheard conversation. And was sure of it that night outside Zepke’s because — according to him — Zoley said so.

In this rare instance, I believed Berrie’s account.

She said Zoley had been acknowledging having an affair with Damon. No doubt as part of Pammy’s plan to establish a motive for Bryon to murder Damon.

If Pammy had known Bryon misinterpreted her plot, she might have killed him, too.