“Sorry, ma’am. I meant the adoptions.” Ray took off his baseball cap and scrubbed his short hair.
His short hair.
Why was his hair short?
“What happened?” I looked him over. He wore a flannel shirt over a black t-shirt, his usual jeans and boots, but the haircut had transformed him from pirate to lumberjack.
He smirked. “Really? I think it’s obvious.”
“It’s not.” I pointed to his head. “Why and when did you get a haircut?”
He rolled his eyes and looked from Liz to Momma and back to me. His expression said, let’s talk about this later.
The doorbell rang again.
“It’s open,” Liz called out.
“That’s not safe,” Joe said. “Lock it.”
“Okay, Joe,” Anisa, Mike’s wife, said from the front hall.
“Ray?” I prodded.
He groaned. “Fine. After Kristi did a couple of age-progression photos and loaded them onto the National Website for Missing and Lost Children, the FBI called and said to stop what we were doing and they’d be right over. So, I went to Carole and explained that you went to Sam at Curl Up and Dye for information on an investigation that the FBI is now taking over and that she’s the first to know and she can’t tell anyone until it’s in the newspaper. She made me get a haircut.” He winced. “And she trimmed my eyebrows.”
“They look really good.” Liz tilted her chin up to inspect his eyebrows through her bifocals.
Momma grabbed Ray’s beard. “She should have shaved you, too.” She tugged and released, adding a disapproving eye twitch that I’d yet to master.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ray said.
“You look handsome, Ray.” I stood and hugged him. “Thank you for talking to Carole for me.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for talking to Sam for me.” He patted my back a couple of times and stepped back like too much hugging would give him cooties.
The doorbell rang again.
“Are you sure you don’t want to leave the door open?” Liz asked over her shoulder and headed to the foyer.
Tom came in a minute later, looking flushed. “Hello all.” He nodded his chin toward Ray. “Ray.”
“Let’s move into the dining room,” I suggested. I expected Ian and pizza any minute. “Can I get anyone a drink?”
Liz clucked. “I’ll get the iced-tea. You sit down.”
I was shepherded into the dining room by a deputy, a retired cop, and a worried husband.
“Is that the rest of Oscar’s stuff?” Ray asked.
“Yes.”
Ray pulled the box over and sat at the table, pulling out the notebooks, the photo envelopes and the birthday cards.
Tom sat next to him.
Ray handed a notebook to Tom. “He might have left a note to himself on one of these.”
The two men leafed through the notebooks.
“Did Tyler leave a note?” I asked.
Joe pulled out a chair for me. He sat next to me and rested his hand on my thigh.
Momma, Liz, and Anisa entered the dining room and served us iced-tea. Momma sat at the head of the table and Anisa took the other end. Liz sat next to Tom.
“Mike can’t make it, but he sends his love,” Anisa said.
“Thank you.” I turned to Tom. “Tyler’s note?”
“I can’t talk about an on-going investigation.” Tom’s cheeks got pinker.
I shot him talk-or-be-tormented glare.
The gals added their own versions of the glower.
He cracked like a small-town deputy should. “This doesn’t leave this room.”
We murmured our agreement.
“Tyler left a note. He confessed to buying babies off the dark web. He realized Oscar found out and over-dosed him with insulin. He said he put it into Tyler’s drink.” Tom pulled at his collar. “I’m sorry, Charlie. You were right about Oscar being murdered.”
I nodded. I’d suspected murder, even kidnapping, but I couldn’t see Tyler doing the actual killing himself. “I don’t believe Tyler was capable of murder. Or suicide.”
Joe squeezed my shoulder. “Maybe he couldn’t live with the guilt.”
The back door banged closed. “It’s me,” Ian called out and entered the dining room.
Ray threw up his hands and called out, “Lock the door.”
“Did Tyler say anything about my brakes?” I asked Tom.
“No,” Tom said.
Ian hitched his jeans up over his hips. “Tyler Rigby didn’t know how to change his oil. You think he could find a brake line?”
“I’m impressed he knew about the dark web,” Liz said.
Momma leaned closer to Liz. “What’s the dark web?”
“I’ll explain later,” Liz said.
“It doesn’t feel right,” I said. “Who cut my brake lines? How did Tyler find the dark web? Do you seriously think he was picking up the babies from the parking lot of the Pass-n-Gas?”
Tom held up his hands. “I know. We’re investigating and the FBI is involved regarding all of Tyler’s adoptions. It’ll take a while for it all to sink in but it’s over, Charlie.”
I looked at Ray.
He raised an eyebrow and shoulder as if to say, just go with it.
Joe squeezed my thigh like he seconded Ray’s suggestion.
“I’d like to read the note,” Ray said.
Tom shook his head. “Absolutely not. It’s evidence.”
“Just take a picture of it and send it to me.” Ray didn’t hide the exasperation from his tone.
The two men seemed to be having a cop-glare-off.
Tom pushed back from the table and stood. “I don’t know who cut Charlie’s brake line. We’re investigating that as a completely separate case. Have you made any recent enemies?”
The doorbell rang.
Ian held up his finger. “That’s the pizza. Hold that thought until I get back.”
Tom rolled his eyes but sat down. It was getting close to lunchtime. And it was free food. And he was a guy.
“Tom, did Oscar have a fake ID on him?” I asked.
“Why?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
“Because he wasn’t twenty-one but he was playing professional poker. Gwen at the Pickle said they’d checked his ID.”
Tom nodded. “Yeah, he did. And it was good. I’m guessing he made it a couple of years ago because the birth year made him twenty-three.” He smirked. “You may want to check Drew’s wallet.”
Joe sighed. “Yeah, we came to that conclusion too.”
Liz scurried into the kitchen and returned with a fresh pitcher of iced-tea and plates. She must have found
