5 A Bad Egg (12 page)

“So, where
are we going?” I asked Moose as we walked out to his truck.

“No place
that you’d ever expect.”

As my
grandfather drove, I asked him, “Well, are you going to tell me what our
destination is, or do I have to guess?”

“It turns out
that Sam Jackson’s a big baseball fan. The high school is playing a game today,
and I heard that Jackson doesn’t miss a home stand.”

“We’re really
going to a baseball game?” I asked.

“We have to
go wherever our suspects are,” Moose said.

“Fine.”

“What’s
wrong, Victoria? You used to love baseball.”

“I
still
do. I just hate to mix our
criminal cases with my pleasure.”

“I understand
that,” Moose said, “but it’s the only place I could confirm where he would be,
so we can’t really afford to pass it up, can we?”

“You’re
right. I’m just being silly.”

“Don’t worry.
It won’t be that bad.”

I looked at my
grandfather and smiled. “Will you still buy me a bag of peanuts like you used
to?” It had been our tradition when I’d been a little girl that Moose had
always treated me to a bag of nuts when we went to a game, something I still
remembered fondly.

“You can have
two, if you behave yourself,” he replied with a grin.

“Then we’d
better stick to one if you’re going to place those kinds of restrictions on me.
Do you think Jackson could have killed Gordon?”

“As far as
I’m concerned, he’s one of our likeliest candidates. Think about it. Who would
you rather it be, a man who’s known to live on the dark side of the law, or
Ellen? If not our waitress, though, then one of the folks closely connected to
her.”

“We can’t
choose our suspects based on how much we like them,” I said.

“True, but
think about how nice it will be if it turns out that Sam Jackson is the one who
hit Gordon with that pipe.”

“It won’t be
that nice for him,” I said.

“That’s
his
problem.” My grandfather parked the
truck in the baseball field parking lot, and after buying us box seats, we went
in search of Sam.

“He’s right
there, behind home plate,” Moose said as he pointed.

“Who’s that
with him?” I asked. There was a familiar face there, but not one that I
expected to see associating with Sam Jackson again. “Is that Mitchell Cobb?”

“It is
indeed,” Moose said. He turned to a vendor and said, “Two bags of peanuts,
please.”

I offered to
pay, but my grandfather said, “Put your wallet away. This is my treat.”

“Thanks.” I
took the offered bag, opened it, and cracked a few peanut shells. The nuts
inside were warm and salty, and a flood of memories poured in with that first
bite. I hated tainting those images with this investigation, but Moose was
right.

I just needed
to get over it.

“Are they as
good as you remember?” Moose asked me.

I smiled
brightly at him. “Even better. I could use a soda, though. I forgot how salty
these things were.”

“
You
can buy those,” he said with a
smile.

“It’s a
deal.”

After I got
us drinks, Moose asked, “Now, are we going to talk to our suspects, or are we
going to order hot dogs, too?”

“Hot dogs? I
could go for some hot dogs,” I said.

“Victoria,
we’re here for a reason, remember?”

“Okay, fine.
You win.”

We approached
the seats near Sam and Mitchell, even though our tickets were for seats that
were quite a bit away from them. No one was going to mind, since the stadium
was nearly deserted.

“Fancy
finding you two here,” I said as Moose and I sat down directly behind them.

“I was just
leaving,” Mitchell said as he started to stand.

“Don’t go on
our account,” Moose said.

“I have to
get back to the office. I just wanted to see what this year’s team looked
like.”

“What are
their chances?” I asked.

“They’ve got
potential,” Mitchell said, and he started to go.

Moose patted his
jacket as he winked at me. “Victoria, I must have left my wallet at the
concession stand. I’ll be right back.”

I started to
stand as well, but my grandfather shook his head and looked straight at Sam
Jackson. I got it. We were dividing and conquering. He was going to handle
Mitchell on his own, and I got Sam. Good enough. I was sure that I could handle
him.

As I settled
into my seat, I said, “Word around town is that you had the best motive of
any
suspect to want to see Gordon Murphy
dead. Do you happen to have an alibi for the time of his murder?”

To my
surprise, Jackson started to chuckle softly. “I’ve got to hand it to you,
Victoria. You’ve skipped the whole subtle approach and gone straight to the
heart of the matter.”

“Do you have
an answer for me?”

“I’d like to
help you out, but I didn’t kill Gordon.”

“Why should I
believe you?” I asked as the batter got a base hit and the meager crowd
cheered.

“You might
find this hard to believe, but it’s not all that important to me that you do,”
Jackson said.

“I saw how
angry you were when you found out that Gordon was back in town. Are you trying
to tell me now that you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Oh, no. I
confronted him,” Jackson admitted as he watched the next batter swing and miss,
and I nearly choked on a peanut.

“You’re
actually admitting it?” I asked.

“Why
shouldn’t I? He paid me back, with interest, a few hours before someone killed
him. As far as I was concerned, it was over. Sure, I was mad at the time, but
he paid me enough to make me let bygones be bygones.”

“Do you have
any proof that’s what really happened?” I asked him.

Sam reached
into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of bills. The only denomination I
could see was a hundred, and the rest could have been all ones for all I knew,
but it was an impressive show of money. “How’s that for proof?”

“There’s no
evidence that you got that from Gordon, and even if you did, how do I know you
didn’t punish him anyway after he paid you off?”

“Victoria,
I’ve got to say that you’re really starting to annoy me,” Jackson said as he
put the money away.

“Well, we
can’t have that, can we?”

“Why are you
so interested in who killed Gordon anyway?” he asked me. “I can’t imagine that
you were that big a fan of the man.”

“Ellen’s a
part of my family,” I said. “I take all threats to her seriously.”

“So, are you
telling me that you might have whacked old Gordon yourself to protect your
family?” he asked with the hint of a smile.

“No,
I
don’t work that way.”

“And you’re
implying that I do?” he asked as he swung around in his seat.

“I’m not
saying anything,” I answered. I was suddenly uncomfortable having Sam Jackson’s
full attention directed straight at me.

“You need to
be a little more careful about how you act around me.” There was a sudden
intensity to his words that made me glad that we were in a public place with a
hundred witnesses around us. Sam Jackson was not a man I wanted angry with me.

“There’s no
need to get angry. I’m just asking questions, remember?” I asked.

“That doesn’t
mean that I have to like them,” he said. “Maybe you should do us both a favor
and find another seat.”

“I don’t
know. The view’s pretty good from here, Sam.”

He frowned
for a moment, and then Jackson stood. “Fine. You can have it. I’m done with this
conversation, Victoria. I think that it might be a good idea for you to mind
your own business whenever it concerns me. You’re not a cop, no matter how much
you might enjoy trying to be a detective.”

“I do more
than try,” I said, not breaking our eye contact. “In case you’ve forgotten, my
grandfather and I have solved more than one murder in Jasper Fork.”

“He’s not
here right now to save you, though, is he?” Jackson asked. He was definitely
threatening me now, and I could almost taste the anger in his words.

“I’m sure
that I can handle you just fine without him,” I said, though I didn’t entirely
believe that myself.

“I wouldn’t
be so sure if I were you. If you keep snooping into my life, you might just get
more than you bargained for.”

“Are you
really threatening me?” I asked, doing my best to smile at him, though I had to
admit that he’d shaken me, and more than just a little. This was one seriously
bad man, and I might have just pushed him too hard.

“We’re just
having an innocent conversation, remember?” Jackson asked as he stood and
walked to another section of the stands.

That had been
productive, if I counted angering one of our primary suspects to the point
where he felt the need to threaten me. At least life was never boring. I’d have
to watch my back a little more carefully until the case was solved, but I
wouldn’t let Sam Jackson, or anyone else, keep me from digging into Gordon
Murphy’s murder. There was too much at stake.

Moose walked
back to our seats a few minutes later. “What happened to Sam?”

I pointed him
out, and then I told my grandfather, “He didn’t care for my company any longer,
if you can imagine that.”

“Funny, I can
handle it without too much of a problem myself,” he said with the hint of a
smile. “Were you able to get anything out of him, or did you spend the entire
time just ticking him off?”

“He told me
that Gordon Murphy paid him off, and he even showed me a wad of bills to prove
his point.”

“My, my,”
Moose said.

“I don’t put
much credence in it,” I said. “There’s no way to prove that he got that money
as a payoff from Gordon, and even if Jackson was telling the truth about that,
how do we know he didn’t kill Gordon after he gave him the money he owed him?”

“You didn’t
just come right out and ask the man that, did you?”

I shrugged. “I
might have said something to that effect,” I admitted.

“So, you
tried to antagonize him into confessing, is that it?”

“I thought it
might be worth a shot,” I said.

“Was it?
Victoria, even if he didn’t kill Gordon Murphy, we can’t forget that he’s still
a bad man mixed up in some things we don’t want to deal with.”

“Hey, all I
did was stir the pot a little.” It was time to change the subject. “How did
things go with Mitchell?”

“Not as well
as I’d hoped,” Moose admitted.

“So, he
didn’t confess, either?”

“He wouldn’t
even tell me his alibi,” my grandfather said.

“Did he
threaten you, though?” I asked.

“No, he was
almost apologetic as he raced out of the ball park.”

“Then I win,”
I said. “Come on, Moose, if our suspects aren’t offended by the way we’re
asking questions, then we aren’t trying hard enough.”

“I prefer to
think of my technique as one involving finesse,” he said.

I had to
laugh at that one.

“What’s so
funny, Victoria?”

“Moose, I’m usually
the one who uses subtle questions to get information from our suspects.”

“I know.
That’s what has me so worried.”

I looked at
my grandfather and saw that he was clearly upset. I touched his shoulder as I
said, “Come on. It’s not
that
bad.”

“You can’t
treat our suspects this way, and certainly not a man like Sam Jackson. What
were you thinking, Victoria?”

“I don’t
know. There’s just something about that man that rubs me the wrong way, and I’m
afraid that I let it show,” I admitted.

“Well, you’d
better learn to curb your feelings, or at least hide them better,” my
grandfather answered.

“I’ll see
what I can do. In the meantime, both of those men are still viable suspects.”

“Until we get
alibis from them, I’d have to agree with that,” Moose said.

“So, where
does that leave us?”

He broke open
a peanut, ate it, and then took a sip of his soda. “I don’t have the taste for
these that I once had,” Moose said as he wadded up the bag of nuts. “As for
what we should do next, I don’t have a clue.”

“If you don’t
mind then, I’d like to go back and talk to Wayne at the garage.”

“Is there
something you know that I don’t?” Moose asked.

I had a
hundred smart answers for that one, but I decided to let it slide. “Earlier
today, Jessie Blackstone came by the diner to apologize for the way she
behaved.”

“That’s good
information for me to have,” Moose said a little chidingly.

“I’m telling
you right now,” I said. “I’m sorry, but there just hasn’t been time to bring
you up to speed on everything that’s been going on.”

“It’s fine,”
Moose said. “What does Jessie coming into The Charming Moose have to do with us
talking to Wayne?”

“When Jessie
left the diner, I happened to glance out the window, and I saw Wayne following
her in his car. I have a hunch that our favorite mechanic is doing a little
sleuthing on his own.”

“And you want
to tell him to stop?” Moose asked wryly.

“Why not?”

“We’re not
technically supposed to be investigating murder, either,” he said.

“No, but we
have to be better at it than Wayne. I’m afraid that he doesn’t have the right
set of skills, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe, maybe
not,” Moose said. “He’s probably not going to take kindly to us warning him off
the case, though.”

“At the very
least, we can find out what he discovered following Jessie around. Who knows,
maybe he found something useful.”

“So, you
don’t want him digging into Gordon’s murder, but you don’t mind getting
information from his investigation. Am I the only one who sees a little bit of
a discrepancy in that attitude?”

“I never
claimed to be consistent,” I said.