“What about the others?”
“Well, we don’t think Will had a reason to do it,” he teased. “And Danny Creedmore’s been pretty open about the relationship. Oh, he doesn’t admit in so many words that he put her in place and has told her what to do from the beginning, but we’ve never heard a word of disagreement between them and he seems to have eased her over to Woody Galloway.”
“To take his body or take his seat?”
He laughed. “I don’t think he cared which. Woody’s a pretty empty suit as far as the county’s benefited, but he doesn’t take orders from Danny, so maybe backing her for the state senate wasn’t just going to be a holding action.”
“If Woody gets knocked out of the governor’s race, will he still keep his seat now?”
“I expect so, don’t you?”
“Yeah. He’s not totally dumb. If we’ve heard rumors that Candace wanted to run for real, he must have, too. Sounds like a decent enough reason for murder.”
“Except that he was in conference in Raleigh with a half-dozen senators when Candace was killed.”
“Greg Turner wasn’t in their pocket,” I said. “He’s a Democrat and often voted against the others. He and Jamie Jacobson both.”
“Yeah, but you read what Linsey Thomas wrote about him. Maybe Candace and Danny helped keep it quiet about him dipping into a client’s funds.” He hit the steering wheel in frustration. “I just wish to hell we could find her flash drive.”
“It’s bound to turn up sooner or later,” I said soothingly.
“You think?” He slowed to turn in to our drive. “If the killer took it, it’s probably been smashed with a hammer and thrown in Possum Creek.”
Now there was a thought.
CHAPTER 23
Weekday mornings are normally harried and a rush to get Dwight off to work and Cal off to school, but Wednesday morning seemed to move on snail legs. Cal’s backpack was sitting by the kitchen door at least twenty minutes before he needed to leave with Dwight to catch the bus at the end of our long drive and he had already bicycled down and back with the morning paper.
There was plenty of time for him to show us the new trick he had taught Bandit. I’ve always liked dogs, but I became particularly fond of this one after he helped get me out of a very tight spot last winter.
“Watch, y’all!” said Cal.
He told the little dog to sit, then gave an upward swoop of his hand.
Immediately, Bandit rose on his hind feet and bobbled across the kitchen floor.
Dwight laughed and I shook my head. “All that dog needs is an opposable thumb and he could be people.”
Cal beamed and gave Bandit a small morsel of food as a reward.
He performed twice more, then it was finally time for them to go meet the bus.
“Lunch?” I asked Dwight as they headed out to the truck.
“Buzz me,” he said. “I don’t know what the day’s going to be like.”
Once I was sure they were really gone, I rushed to my computer and popped the flash drive into one of the side ports.
To my total chagrin, the thing was password-protected. Who the hell protects a flash drive?
“
“
“
I started with the obvious things—variations of her name and the company’s name, her daughter’s name, Danny Creedmore’s, Woody Galloway’s, the Colleton Board of Commissioners, with A-B-C or 1-2-3 before and after each one. Nothing.
By the time I was ready to bang my head against the screen, I had to quit to get dressed and go to work, but I put the flash drive in my purse and a notebook and pen on the passenger seat beside me. On the drive to the courthouse, I jotted down everything I could think of that Candace might have used as her password.
At the break, I found a computer down in the clerk of court’s office that wasn’t being used and ran through my list in about four minutes flat.
No luck.
As I slowly returned to my courtroom, I had to admit to myself that I had only three choices at this point: smash this stubborn piece of aluminum, plastic, and memory circuits to bits, give it to Dwight, or slip it back in the
