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“He’d go back and shower and get dressed for the day. He usually went straight to the hospital from the house instead of going to the church. He liked being with the people more than he liked being behind a desk.”
Vaughn tapped his finger against his knee, and it was the only sign I could see that he was upset. I knew this was hard on him.
“On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he visited the nursing home after his hospital rounds, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays he spent time at the youth rec center. He’d stop back by his house and grab some lunch and then he’d head to the church to work in his office in the afternoon. You could practically set your watch by the man. That’s probably what killed him.”
I could tell by the look on Jack’s face that he agreed. “Did Daniel ever have any run-ins with George Murphy?” Jack asked.
“Not that I know of. George wasn’t one for regular church attendance, and I know for a fact Daniel took his car over to The Happy Mechanic just down the road.”
“Do you have a .38?”
The tension in the room skyrocketed as Vaughn understood where Jack was going with his line of questioning. I hadn’t been prepared either, and I’d picked the wrong moment to take a drink, because I started choking as soon as the words left Jack’s mouth. Vaughn pounded me on the back, and Jack just sighed and shook his head.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said. “It just went down the wrong hole.”
“If I had a nickel—” Vaughn said, making Jack and I both snort out a surprised laugh, breaking the tension a little.
Vaughn sighed, looking a little sad, and stood up. “Yeah, I’ve got a .38. It’s upstairs.”
“I’m going to have to take it with me,” Jack said.
“I figured as much. Let’s get this done. I’m not in much of a mood for unpacking crates of furniture. It seems like a good time to open that bottle of whiskey you got me for Christmas last year and have aMurder She Wrotemarathon.”
Jack squeezed the back of my neck before I could make a smartass comment, and we followed Vaughn up three flights of stairs to his living quarters. The top floor was bigger than most people’s houses, and Vaughn led us in through the spacious living room, down a narrow hall, and into the smallest bedroom where he kept his office. Everything was neat and organized, and I wondered if I surrounded myself with people who had that quality because I lacked it myself.
“I keep all my guns in the safe,” he said, moving several books off the third shelf of the built-in bookcases against the wall. “I’ve got a .38 and a .22 in here. And I’ve got a rifle in the top of my closet.”
“Sometimes it terrifies me how much of this county is armed,” Jack said. “Half the people in my jurisdiction have conceal to carry permits.”
“I overheard Hilda Martin at the grocery store telling someone she got hers to prepare for the zombie invasion,” Vaughn said. “I’m almost positive she wasn’t kidding.”
A metal door appeared and Vaughn typed in a quick code before I heard the soft snick of a lock opening. I knew as soon as I saw the inside that we were going to have a problem.
“I don’t understand,” Vaughn said as we all looked inside the empty box. “I had this open not a week ago and everything was here.”
“Anything else missing besides the guns?” Jack asked.
“A couple thousand in cash. That’s it.”
Jack sighed. “I’m going to send someone over to take fingerprints, and I’ll need you to fill out a statement. Anyone else have the combination to the safe.”
“Just—Daniel,” Vaughn said, obviously shaken. “But he wouldn’t have taken anything without telling me.”
Jack didn’t have to say what he was thinking aloud. I’d been thinking the same thing. Whoever had killed Daniel Oglesby had tortured the information out of him.
“You need to get in touch with your attorney,” Jack said. “If the gun we found with George’s body comes back with your name on it, we’re going to have a problem on our hands.”
Vaughn blew out a breath, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Good thing I can count on you to find the killers before it comes to that.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jack and I rode in silence to Reverend Oglesby’s house. A case like this one could really get to you, not only because it affected people you cared about, but because we’d reached that point where it didn’t seem like the good guys were going to win after all. I watched as the Reverend’s house passed us by, and I turned to Jack.
“Where are we going?”
“This is the direction he ran every morning,” Jack said, slowing the cruiser as the road turned into one lane. The curves were treacherous at high speeds, and it was the type of road that flooded easily. “The worse the road gets, the less traffic and neighbors there are. No one out here owns a white Cadillac. We did a thorough check. But according to Vaughn, there was one out here at six in the morning when Daniel Oglesby went running Saturday, so the person in the car was either visiting someone and just leaving or they were up to no good.”
“A secluded area like this,” I said, “It’s prime space for kids looking to party, but I can’t see any of them driving daddy’s Cadillac out here for that. And we would’ve gotten reports of more traffic in the area.”
