Overall, my first thought was that the doctor seemed on the up-and-up. But I had to keep in mind that he was old and retired. It was possible that he got it wrong. If you're looking for something, you're gonna find it. And if he truly believed it was her spiders that did it, finding evidence of that could have been easy.
It's a trap spies often run into. You're hoping that the room you're searching at the embassy has the hard drive with encrypted files or that your contact really does have access to the intel she promised you, which means you can interpret anything you find into being just that. It was sloppy and lazy, but it had happened to me before.
Once again, I'll go back to Carlos the Armadillo. He had a study. It was pretty nice too, considering he was a very wealthy drug lord. I'd always assumed that I could find his secrets in that room.
But I was wrong. The man used his bathroom for work. If you tugged on the toilet paper roll a certain way, a secret panel opened up and a small table emerged, complete with laptop. He kept paper files under a stack of towels in the linen closet. Carlos never let anyone use his private bathroom, but I did once while he was in Mexico at a meeting with One-Handed Tim.
To my shock, as I tugged on the toilet roll, the desk popped out and the laptop opened. I was so startled that I shoved it all away to search later. I never got the chance again because I was transferred to Okinawa. It was my second greatest regret of that undercover operation.
My greatest regret? Forgetting to use sunscreen at the 11th Annual Colombian Drug Lord Beach Volleyball Tournament and Tug-o-War Fest. Never, ever, ever get sun poisoning in an equatorial country where the mosquitos are so large that they are often confused with vampire bats (with practically the same results) and who bite every five hundredths of a second. When your skin hurts too much to breathe on, scratching is an agony best reserved for the fifth circle of hell.
The fact of the matter was, I'd need to corroborate Dr. Morgan's statement with a few others. If they all came up with the same thing, all I'd have to do was sell the house and move on with my life.
But something bothered me. The woman had left me clues. She'd hidden them. Granted, they were poor excuses for even a glimmer of evidence. I feel it in my bones. Come on! I'd need to find the other letters and see if they were just as confusing. If they were, and my interviews with others around town were similar to the doctor's, then I'd know my time was wasted.
On the other hand…
Dr. Morgan had said some interesting things I didn't know about. Aunt June was wealthy and had gone to college. And she was bitten by the brown recluse. And then there was that rumor of a treasure that I wasn't going to bring up again. At least not while Betty had a sledgehammer.
What was I saying? We had that kind of thing all the time back in Who's There. They were bedtime stories. Pure fiction to get kids excited. People probably thought the same thing about me since I'd been a spy, had two houses, and was, like Aunt June, quirky.
And then there was Basil's statement overheard by the girls that Aunt June had three suitors. While that wasn't too strange, with her wealth and all, it was unusual if the three suitors didn't know about each other. In a town this small, how could she have kept that under wraps?
Jealous suitors, all seeking money more than companionship, could've gone to great lengths to either cut off the competition or lash out at the woman in a jealous rage. Was that what happened? Or was my imagination running away with me…again or as per usual?
I wasn't ready to go home yet. Besides, we had the camp to explore. Kelly and the girls had come all this way to see Camp des Morts. I'd need to make sure we had dinner there and did some exploring tonight. The girls deserved that for being dragged to this town and forced to go through some woman-they-didn't-know's house.
"Stop doing that." Betty pointed a sugar-coated fry at me.
"Doing what?"
"Looking at us like you're going to take us off of this investigation."
"Speaking of investigation," Kelly said, "who's the law in these parts? This town is too small to have a police force. And that's who you need to talk with to confirm the doctor's story. So who's law enforcement for Behold?"
Nancy stopped by with the check. "Oh, that would be Sheriff Carnack."
I stared at her. "Who?"
"Sheriff Carnack," she repeated. "Big fellow. Very nice."
"We have a Sheriff Ed Carnack," Betty said as she messed with her phone. She held up a picture of the man. Why did she have a photo of him?
"That's him! Or someone who looks a lot like him." Nancy frowned.
Kelly shot me a look that implied she was a genius for thinking of this. More likely it was Why didn't you think of this?
I asked, "Where can I find Sheriff Carnack?"
"Actually," Nancy said, "I need to deliver his meatloaf sandwich. He orders one every day."
"I'll take it," I said quickly.
Nancy nodded and disappeared.
"Betty." I turned to the kid. "Why do you have a picture of Sheriff Carnack in your cell?"
She gave me a look. "Well, obviously I have my files on everyone."
I wondered what she had on me but decided not to ask.
We finished eating, and I picked up the sheriff's lunch at the counter. Once we were on our way walking back to the house, I realized there was a new dilemma.
"What do we do with the girls?"
