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“Sheriff, have you got a minute?” Lassiter called as he turned to leave.
He wanted to throw the man out the back door by the seat of his pants. He had to remember that he was a public servant. He moved to the cell.
“Can you come in?” Lassiter added, when Cody seemed glued to the floor.
“You can say what you want through the bars, can’t you?” Cody growled.
Lassiter was amused. “Not really.”
Cody was weighing the options of going into that cell with a man he wanted badly to lacerate.
“It’s not what you think,” Lassiter began, noting the other man’s bridled fury and guessing at the cause. He lowered his voice. “And if you kill me, somebody will notice you digging a hole behind the detention center.”
He had such an angelic look on his face that Cody burst out laughing against his will. He closed the cell door and moved closer.
“Nice assessment,” Cody remarked.
“Oh, I’m no stranger to homicidal rage,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. He looked past Cody to the jailer.
Cody followed his gaze. “Jones, go get something to eat.”
“But, Sheriff, I don’t go to lunch for another...!”
“And I said, go now,” Cody said, lowering his voice.
The jailer swallowed, hard. The look in those dark eyes was like a loaded gun pointed at him. “I’ll go right now.”
Cody and Lassiter watched him go hesitantly out the door.
“What?” Cody asked Lassiter.
“He’ll be back as quickly as he can wolf down something. He and your trooper friend had a brief conversation, after which he was watching Abby and me like a hawk. And yes, I kissed her, but it was to distract the jailer, nothing more,” he added abruptly. “He was listening to every word we said. I don’t know what he and the blonde talked about. Plus that, Abby had news.”
“What sort?”
“Apparently Mr. Grant has paid two local citizens and a woman—and we both know who the woman is—to take out Mr. Whatley,” he said, lowering his voice so that Whatley, in the nearby cell, couldn’t overhear.
“What?” Cody exclaimed. “How does she know this?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. But she said it’s legitimate. She got it from someone whose significant other has mob ties. That means that at least one of Grant’s operatives has them as well.”
“Damn,” Cody said under his breath. “Well, at least we know who they are—Jack Owens and the so-called witness who saw Horace rob the store. The third is now painfully obvious.” He shook his head. “I should have checked her out. That was stupid on my part.”
“We all make mistakes,” Lassiter said. “She even looked legit to me.”
“She did to me, too, at first.”
“One of my calls was positive. They’re doing the autopsy on Miss Henry’s sister this morning. We should have results on that soon. And one of our operatives based in Denver has been questioning people who work in the restaurant where Candy, Miss Henry’s sister, had a date the night she disappeared.”
“He’d better work fast,” Cody said. “Or more people might conveniently disappear...although I can’t see the logic in it. Bobby Grant doesn’t have Mr. Whatley’s sister in his pocket anymore.”
“Obviously he thinks he will have,” Lassiter replied grimly. “Either by coaxing or force. Nita’s afraid of him, remember. They couldn’t hold him in Florida for assault because she was too afraid to press charges. After which the bleeding heart judge set him free.”
“What a mess,” Cody said on a long sigh.
A door slammed and the jailer was back. “I’ll be checking the other prisoners, Sheriff,” he said helpfully.
“Never saw a man eat that fast who wasn’t starving to death,” Lassiter remarked dryly, but so that the jailer couldn’t hear.
