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Cody made a face, his back to the jailer. “Well, I’ll get back to work, and I’ll check with your father about that contact in Florida,” he added, his face expressing the fact that he was making up things as he went.
Lassiter quickly caught on. “You do that. He has something on one of Bobby Grant’s contacts,” he added, just loudly enough that the jailer could overhear.
“I’ll check into it. Things are coming to a head very quickly,” he added with a chuckle. “Heads will roll, I promise you.”
“You keep an eye on yours,” Lassiter replied.
“And you quit kissing my girl,” Cody said unexpectedly, and then his cheekbones flushed, because that had just slipped out.
Lassiter chuckled. “I’ll consider it,” he mused. “But you’d better watch out for your cousin. I’m not into marriage at the moment, but Bart Riddle is. If you get my meaning.”
Cody’s eyes burned in his tanned face. “And we’ll see about that,” he muttered as he left the cell. He paused at Horace Whatley’s but the little man was sound asleep. He left the two men behind and went into his office.
MINUTESLATER,THEjailer stuck his head around the door. “Sheriff, I think there’s something wrong with Mr. Whatley,” he said.
Cody was out of his chair and down the hall in a flash. He glanced at Lassiter, who was standing at the bars with a solemn expression. He gave Cody a speaking glance.
Cody opened the cell and went in. Horace Whatley was almost comatose. “Get an ambulance,” he shot at the jailer. “Tell them to hurry.”
“Yes, sir!”
Cody was starting artificial respiration with a tube he carried in his duty belt for emergencies, alternating with chest compression. “Did you see anything?” he asked Lassiter.
“No. And the jailer didn’t come near him,” Lassiter said worriedly.
Cody kept on with artificial respiration until the ambulance came, and he rode in it to the hospital.
The attending physician was thorough. He called for lab work, X-rays and even an MRI to make sure there were no hidden head injuries.
“Check for poison,” Cody told him.
The physician who was mostly on duty in the emergency room had been a combat medic. He was loved in the community.
“Just like last time,” the doctor murmured as he worked with his team to get Horace breathing normally.
“Yes, and nobody saw a thing,” Cody said furiously.
“You know what comes next.”
“I do. A thorough vetting of everyone who brought food and on your part, a precise examination of his stomach contents.”
“You got it,” the doctor said.
“Will he live?”
“He’ll live.”
“Just make sure you save enough samples for the FBI lab,” Cody told the doctor. “This case is going to involve a lot of people before we’re through, and not just here in town.”
“I’ll do that. You be careful out there,” the doctor added.
Cody gave the doctor a thumbs-up sign and went out the door. He was furious. This had happened right under his nose. Twice! But if the jailer wasn’t involved, then who was?
HEDIDQUESTIONhis jailer first, however. “The blonde trooper spoke to you this morning,” Cody said without preamble. “Lassiter told me she was here.”
“Oh, uh, yes, sir, she sure was,” he blurted out.
“Why?”
