Poison Spring (Maggie Blackthorne Book 4) by LaVonne Griffin-Valade

Author:LaVonne Griffin-Valade [Griffin-Valade, LaVonne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn River Publishing
Published: 2023-01-23T13:00:00+00:00

Sheriff Norton arrived about twenty minutes after the event began, and by then Hollis and I had pretty much won over the crowd. We had started by explaining we were under the supervision of an experienced homicide detective during our investigations, after which we briefly laid out all of the recent cases and described how each crime had ultimately been solved.

Clell Robertson rose from his chair. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with us and helping us to understand these incidents better. I appreciate how you were able to find the killers in fairly short order, but I guess I want to know what’s happening out here on our little patch of Earth. Why have we had so many murders in the last few years?”

“I can only speculate about that, Mr. Robertson,” I answered. “Scary times, a bad economy locally speaking, possibly drugs, all of that along with some people’s pent-up anger or untreated mental illness.”

I almost added the proliferation of guns to my list, but of the seven other homicides in the preceding fourteen months, three died by other means. Even so, Mike Drake was the fifth person shot to death in recent years.

And all of those killings had occurred on my watch. Thinking of it that way was unsettling.

The sheriff had ended up at a table on the other side of the room. He now stood to add his two cents. “Evening. I just want to say as your sheriff, I think we’re fortunate to have Sergeant Blackthorne and Trooper Jones working on this investigation—in part because of their experience, but largely because they both have good heads on their shoulders and they’re under the leadership of Detective Al Bach, who has a heck of a reputation in Oregon police circles.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” I said as he sat back down, and focused on the audience. “I would ask one thing of all of you. If you have any information, or if you believe you saw or heard something, let us know.”

Hollis moved to the chart paper, picked up one of the markers, and wrote down our names and the main phone number at the office.

“We’ll also leave some of our business cards,” he told the crowd. “Back to you, Sergeant.”

“To begin with, how many of you knew Mike Drake or knew of him?”

Almost every hand shot up.

“Because this is such a small community, we’re interested in talking to anyone who may have heard anything related to Mr. Drake’s homicide. For example, is there anyone we should speak with who held a serious grudge against Mr. Drake or made threatening comments about him?”

The audience chewed that over, and I looked around the room to see if there were any takers. I happened to spot Lydia Reed sitting at a back table and recalled her dislike of Mike Drake. She had called him an asshole who thought of himself as a big shot. Said he had robbed water from her father for years. Thinking about her remarks, it seemed possible others in the room might have had similar views and experiences.

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