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“What are you thinking?” the sheriff said behind me.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“You don’t think it’s a home invasion gone bad?”
I scratched the back of my neck, not looking at him. “It’s hard to read, Sheriff.”
“Maybe somebody sweated the safe combination out of them and then decided to finish the job.”
“Could be,” I said.
“But that’s not what you’re thinking.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You’re thinking that whoever did this knew the old man and hated his guts and decided to give him a preview of hell before he saw the real thing.”
“That’s a possibility.”
The sheriff dropped the .22 into a Ziploc bag. “Does a gun like this remind you of anything?” he asked.
“You can buy one like it in any slum in
America.”
“It looks like a throwdown to me. If we start counting up rounds fired, it’s more than six. So our shooter reloaded at least once, but he left no brass behind. Who always picks up his brass, Dave?”
“If a cop did this, why would he recover his brass and leave his piece?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to have it on his person if he got stopped somewhere. During the storm, emergency vehicles were all over the highways. I’ve heard that you and Clete Purcel have had a couple of confrontations with the Abelards and their associates.”
“You could call it that.”
“Is it true Purcel killed a federal informant years ago?”
“Don’t take the bait.”
“Would you repeat that?”
“Look back at everything we’ve seen. Start with the front door. Who tries to bust a lock by using a screwdriver on the keyhole? If the door was pried, the jamb would be torn up, not just dented. Why would the intruder pull open the drawers in a writer’s desk and knock the computer on the floor and rake books off the shelves? If he knew the combination on the safe, he wouldn’t have to look for it. This place is a stage set.”
“So if a burglar didn’t do this, who did?”
“Somebody who got his education on the yard. Somebody who wanted to shut some people up and make a big score while he was at it. Somebody who’d like to give Clete Purcel as much grief as he can.”
“I’ll bite,” the sheriff said.
Not on my meter, you won’t, I thought.
I walked downstairs and out into the sunlight, my ears ringing. He followed me into the yard. “Where you going?” he said.
“To give Miss Jewel a ride home. If I were you, I’d have a talk with Robert Weingart.”
“Who?”
Hopeless, I thought.
But that’s the way you think when you realize for certain you’re an old man and, as such, like Cassandra, destined to be disbelieved.
