A Deadly Walk in Devon by Nicholas George

Author:Nicholas George [George, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2023-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Wednesday, late afternoon,

Downsmeade Grange

Thanks to seeing Mike again, my spirits were high on the drive back to the hotel. I looked at the countryside going past with a new sense of wonder. Even the hints of a sunset showing on the far edges of the distant hills—a common sight this time of the day—sent a tingle down my spine. The prospect of spending more time with Mike made me feel like a lovestruck teenager. It was a bit jarring, though, to experience such a rush while investigating something as ugly as homicide.

Kilbride, by contrast, didn’t appear to be feeling as lighthearted as I was. Instead of looking at the glorious sky, he grimly studied his notepad. I asked if the medical examiner’s findings had led him to any further conclusions.

He looked up at me. “If your theory is correct, Chase, and that note came from someone in your walking group, we’re right back at the start. Someone in your group may very well not be who they seem. Or Mrs. Gretz had been playing a devious game with her husband.”

I still didn’t figure Summer as the culprit, yet I couldn’t deny she was leading the pack. Maybe she enjoyed seeing Gretz sweat and decided to write him those notes. He perhaps hadn’t been familiar enough with her handwriting—even though the note was in block letters—to recognize it. Another possibility was that her relationship with Brett Nielsen might not be as recently formed as it seemed. Could they have known one another before coming on this walk? That was something to explore.

I added that possibility to the other tidbits straining to connect in my mind. Some were connecting already. Before I pursued those, though, I had a question for Kilbride. “Brett Nielsen suggested that Gretz’s killer might be someone totally unconnected with the walking tour—perhaps that man we saw on the trail. Have there been any other murders or attacks of this sort around here?”

DC Bright spoke up. “There’s the bra bloke, sir. What about him?”

“Oh, Constable, for heaven’s sake.”

“Bra bloke?” I asked.

Kilbride gave a sigh. “It’s some local chap who grabs young women and forcibly removes their brassiere. He doesn’t rape them or molest them further. Once he has their brassiere, he dashes off. He always wears a ski mask, so we haven’t the foggiest idea what he looks like. I strongly doubt he was behind what happened to Mr. Gretz.”

“But he is a local lunatic, sir,” Bright said.

Kilbride regarded him with the studied patience of a schoolmaster. “In view of the fact that Mr. Gretz was neither a young lady nor was he wearing a brassiere, Constable, I don’t think that’s an angle worth pursuing. Plus, Mr. Gretz’s attacker wasn’t wearing a ski mask.” There was also the extremely unlikely possibility, I thought, that a local lunatic would have gained access to Brett Nielsen’s hotel room and stashed the green jacket in his suitcase. Plus, the man I spotted on the trail most definitely wasn’t wearing a ski mask.

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