Page 48 of Death on Gallows Path

“Not anything I’m confident enough to share,” Ruby said. Then, perhaps compensating for that disappointment, she added, “In addition to talking to Pammy and Zoley, deputies talked to Bryon Georger yesterday.”

The door behind us opened.

Ruby straightened, looking past us.

But then her gaze returned to me. “Other thing I heard was they sure wish Teague was around, but they’re trying not to pull him away from his conference.”

I wondered if he was aware Ruby likely knew more about the thinking at the sheriff’s department than he did at this moment.

* * * *

Walking back to her van, Clara said, “Someone new — that has to be the woman I saw with Damon, the same one outside Zepke’s Thursday night. Plus, the guy who was watching her and Damon.”

“Has to be? No. Worth checking? Absolutely.”

“Mmm.” She didn’t like my caution, but didn’t argue.

Once we were in the van, she asked, “Why did you ask about marks outside the passenger door?”

“Thinking about the gun.”

“Thinking what?”

“If Damon kept it in the console or, say, the glove compartment, how did it get out of there?”

“He took it out himself,” she said promptly.

“To use on himself—?”

“Shot twice in the head,” Clara said.

“Exactly. So if he was trying to use it on himself, someone else would have had to be trying to wrestle it away from him—”

“And managed to shoot him twice in the head while trying to save him?”

“Yup. Nobody’s idea of a successful rescue mission. In giving our lousy rescuer the maximum benefit of the doubt, we can acknowledge Damon wouldn’t be the easiest person to take a gun away from. He wasn’t a bodybuilder, but not a pushover, either.”

She grunted acceptance of that description.

“Another possibility of why he’d take the gun out,” I said, “was to have the option or at least the threat to use it on someone else. Because he was scared for his own safety—”

Her grunt poured skepticism on that possibility.

“—or he wanted the advantage over someone else.”

“More likely, but what does that have to do with the passenger door?”

“If he was afraid for his safety or he wanted the gun to have the advantage over someone else, he’d be on alert,” I said.

“Ah.”

“On the other hand, say, he doesn’t take the gun out. That means — duh, I know — someone else had to. Who?” I didn’t give her time to propose an answer. “Say a man was with him, in the passenger seat—”

“Shotgun, so to speak,” she murmured.

“—and delays getting out, so Damon doesn’t see our mystery man get the gun out of the console.”

“But why would Damon and a guy be out on Gallows Path in Damon’s truck? If they were in cahoots, they might meet there, each in his own vehicle—”