“You mean about those two investigators? Or whatever they are.”
“I was thinking of the murders, but yeah, what’s your take on them?” Cassie asked.
“Not rightly sure. They seem okay. They sure have an interesting history.”
“You think? Gypsy family? Military? Now problem solvers? Whatever that means.”
“Love to know more about what they did in the military.”
“Me, too. But the question we have before us is can they be helpful in this?”
“I suspect they might. If they can track down people in Afghanistan maybe they can here.”
Cassie considered that. The truth was, she had the same impression. But with a few reservations. “This isn’t Afghanistan. I suspect over there whenever they found their target a shootout followed.”
Hack gave a nod. “That’s a concern. Then again, from what I saw over at the Finley place, these guys aren’t afraid of a shootout themselves.”
“Don’t even think that.”
“Just making conversation.” He smiled.
“Unfortunately, now you’ve put it out in the cosmos.”
“I suspect it was out there long before I bumped my gums about it.”
“Back to the murders. Any initial thoughts?”
“Seeing as how nothing was stolen and there wasn’t no break in, in the classic sense, I’d say someone in the family knew the killers. Invited them in, so to speak. And since John and Martha and Jennifer are stand up citizens and Tommy is a jerk-off, I’d say it’d be a smidge shortsighted not to think he was the one that knew them. Or at least they knew him. That means this ugliness reared up from his world. Don’t you think?”
She loved Hack. He had a way of cutting through the fog and getting to the heart of any matter. Not to mention telling it in such colorful ways. He probably should’ve been a writer or a newspaper man or something like that, but the truth was he was a good cop. He had been a good chief, too.
Cassie nodded. “Tommy’s world is drugs.”
“Yep. Which means we got some bad actors in town.”
“From what I’ve seen, this isn’t their first rodeo.”
“That’d be my take.”
Cassie let out a frustrated sigh. “The question is, who?”
Hack lifted the front brim of his department-issue Stetson with an index finger and looked at her. “With hunting season on us, there’re a ton of strangers in town about now.”
Fall and winter in Tanner’s Crossroads attracted game bird, deer, rabbit, turkey, and other hunters. Spring and summer brought in the fishermen. Both seasons pumped dollars into the local economy. Also pumped up the population of new faces in town.
“You mean like the bar fight over at Gracie’s the other night?” Cassie asked.
Gracie’s Tavern, where the crew had eaten breakfast that morning, had been a Tanner’s Crossroads institution since before Cassie was born. Opened in the 1950’s by the long dead Gracie Mueller, her grandson Wally now in charge, it was the focal point of drinking and dining for both locals and visitors. Last week, a couple of hunters had gotten sideways with one another, as Hack had put it, over who won the fifty bucks they had bet on bagging the day’s largest turkey. The dispute evolved into a few punches, a bloody nose, and a couple of broken beer mugs. Then all was forgiven. Once the damages were paid.
But, such incidents, even with the influx that hunting season always dragged in, were rare. Made the massacre of the Finleys even more disturbing.
“That and just the general insanity of anyone who hunts.” He smiled. “As you would know.”
Hack was a big fisherman. He lived down on the lake and fished whenever he could. He had even taught Cassie how to snag bass and crappie when she was in grammar school. Cassie never cared for it. Too passive and boring. She gravitated toward hunting. Something her father had taught her. Mostly rabbit and squirrel, rarely duck and geese. She got her first .22 at eight and her first 16 gauge shotgun at twelve. Some of her favorite memories of her father involved hunting trips.
“How do you want to approach this?” Hack asked.
“Sniff around Tommy’s world. Which means Jason Epp’s world.” She squared a stack of papers on her desk. “He knows more about this than he let on.”
“Sure does.”
“Maybe we can dig up some leverage on him,” Cassie said.
“We been trying for the better part of a year and so far we got bupkis.”
“Maybe this’ll up the ante for him. I mean, he has to have at least a sliver of concern about what happened.”
“He sure didn’t seem overly troubled to me.”
Cassie nodded, and then said, “It’s still possible he did it.”
“He passed the GSR test the boys did at the scene.”
“Could’ve washed his hands.”
“Jason ain’t that smart.” Hack angled his neck one way and then the other as if trying to work out a kink. “Besides, I don’t think he has the stones for something like this. This was pro. Someone on up the food chain.”
Cassie massaged one temple. “I hate this crap.”
“Chief?”
Cassie looked up to see Poppy Phelps standing in her doorway. Hack twisted her way.
“There’s been a shooting over at Shaffer’s Pharmacy.”
Cassie stood. “Just now?”
“Don’t know. But it’s Mr. Shaffer who got shot.”
“What?” Cassie stood. She scooped her Glock off her desk.
“That’s according to Penny,” Poppy said.
“Did she call an ambulance?”
Poppy shook her head. “She said he was dead.”
CHAPTER 22
Marla had slept poorly the night before. Even an extra dose of the heroin she’d gotten from Jason hadn’t helped. Not that she was allowed to shoot up, or take any drugs for that matter in Reverend John’s place. He had rules. Some were stricter than others but the use of drugs was a big-time taboo. Even having them on hand was forbidden and she’d seen more than one person tossed on the street for using in the house. But it still happened. What was he going to do? Strip search everyone who flopped there?
She now sat on the edge of
