Saving Scott (Kobo) by Terry Odell

Author:Terry Odell [Terry Odell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Scott carried two lattes down the hall and shouldered open the door to the detectives’ office. Detweiler and Kovak barely looked up when he entered.

Scott stepped across the room and set the cups on the desk. “Figured it was my turn.”

They’d moved the white board in here last night to make room for the party. Scott paused in front of it, noticing the additions. The column under Belinda’s name had filled. And, apparently last night’s paper duty had panned out, because there were several names—if you could call “Viper” and “Stinger” names—under the victim’s picture. “Boyfriends?”

Detweiler grunted.

“I thought you’d be at your party,” Scott said.

“Crime waits for no celebrations.”

“He’s glad to have an excuse to avoid the ragging,” Kovak said. “He lasted about ten minutes. Besides, he’s grumpy because we had a case a while back where a coffee mug was the definitive clue. This one doesn’t seem that straightforward.”

Scott broke in before Kovak could recap the old case. “Need anything? I’m on my official lunch break, but Chief said I should put myself at your disposal.”

“Do I detect a desire to get away from phones and filing?” Kovak said.

“I go where I’m needed most.”

Detweiler rubbed his eyes. “You come up with anything beside the coffee mug?”

“I called it a night at midnight,” Scott said. No reason to tell them what he’d been doing until then. After all, he had provided a new piece of evidence. “You get anything on it?”

Randy stared at his notes before speaking. “Good news. Small manufacturer. Less good news. They’re sold all over the country. Slightly better news. They’ve got a fairly exclusive clientele. Belinda Nesbitt placed one order with them, for two cases—that’s a total of twenty-four mugs. Not so good news. It was three months ago. The other good news is that they’ve only got three other customers who ordered that same mug in Oregon. One in Bend, one in Eugene, and one in Newport.” He handed Scott a sheet of paper. “Feel like making some calls?”

Scott accepted the paper, but said, “Have you asked Belinda to share her records? Odds are it came from her shop, not one of the others. Better to start checking out the horses before we go looking for zebras.”

Detweiler looked at him as if he were a green rookie. “She said she doesn’t keep those sorts of records.”

A red flag waved in Scott’s mind. He frowned. “How can she track inventory if she doesn’t track sales?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Detweiler said. “Sarah’s got a fancy computer system and spreadsheets up the wazoo. She knows who bought what, when, and probably why. Maybe what they had for breakfast. But before she got the computer program, she had to do it all by hand, and it was tedious. No telling how Belinda Nesbitt does her bookkeeping.”

“So, are you going to demand to examine whatever records she does keep?” Scott asked.

“If Belinda Nesbitt is our killer, I’d rather not alert her. Not until we have enough to consider her a viable suspect,” Kovak said.

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