Hometown Secrets (Linda Darby Mystery Book 2) by David Bishop

Author:David Bishop [Bishop, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2015-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

I put out black caviar and pimento cheese spread on Ritz crackers

SUNDAY

Linda didn’t go out for breakfast Sunday morning. She wasn’t up to starting her day with another encounter with Billy Cranston. She considered going to the Stop By, but ended up settling for a banana in her room. At noon she would have tea and sandwiches with Hildegard Caruthers, whom Vera had described as evolving into somewhat of a recluse. The real question was why would her former teacher want to see Carol Benson?

Dix knows who I am. Does Ms. Caruthers know too?

Linda climbed the stairs to the floor above the pharmacy. She knocked softly on the door at precisely twelve o’clock. Hildegard Caruthers opened the door so quickly she had to have seen Linda enter from the street and waited just inside her door. She looked down the stairs, saw no one and didn’t bother to extend her hand. She stepped back from the doorway and motioned.

“Come in, Linda Darby. Come in quickly.”

She knows.

* * *

“Mr. Cranston, Sheriff Blackstone is out here. You asked me to get him over here as soon as possible.”

“Get in here, Reggie,” Billy Cranston bellowed, his voice carrying past his secretary and through the door into the waiting room. Billy then waved his secretary away as if shooing a fly.

“You can go home now,” Billy said to the attractive backside of his secretary who didn’t usually work on Sunday.

“Shut the door.” Sheriff Blackstone did as he was told. They were alone.

While the sheriff soaked three ice cubes in a generous measure of bourbon, Billy Cranston started in on him. “Who the hell is this Benson dame? I have to have this, Reggie. We need it to decide how we’re going to deal with her.”

“Or determine we don’t need to deal with her. The way I see it, we just need to wait it out and she’ll leave, maybe on tomorrow’s mid-day flyer. I don’t think she’s any threat to either of us . . . sir.” After speaking in opposition to his boss’s thinking, something he rarely did, the sheriff took a long starter swallow of his bourbon.

“Leave the thinking to me, Reggie. Just follow orders. What have you got?”

“The FBI has no match for her prints. On a separate note, I could find no birth record anywhere for a Carol Benson that even began to match up as a possible.”

“So what did you find? You had to find something.”

“I’ve got the Connecticut driver’s license she used to rent the car.”

“What about the credit card she had to leave on deposit for the car?”

“She used a card from one of those banks that promote credit cards across the country. I can’t recall which one. It could have been the one that uses those Viking warriors in their TV ads. Those guys are a hoot. If you want to know which bank it was, I got the report back at the office.”

Billy stood and came around his desk to stand over Sheriff Blackstone who looked up at him.

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