Spellcraft and Sorcery (What the Cat Dragged In Cozy Mysteries Book 3) by Sara Bourgeois

Author:Sara Bourgeois [Bourgeois, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Jen expected Lil to drive back to the cemetery and collapsing church. Instead, she drove down the hill. “He doesn’t know who pays him,” Lil said.

“You think he’s lying?” Jen asked.

“Holding something back, anyway,” Lil said.

Jen voiced her suspicion. “Probably a member.”

“We’ll figure that out soon enough,” Lil said. “He seems healthy enough to attend a meeting.”

“Think about it,” Jen said. “It puts him together with Sprat.”

“A possibility. That doesn’t get us any closer to finding Sprat’s murderer. Why would the militia members want to kill one of their own?”

“Whoever killed him knew him well enough to know where he would be,” Jen argued.

“It could’ve been a crime of opportunity,” Lil said.

“Opportunity for what?”

“We don’t have all the facts. Besides, if you knew Sprat, why attack him at the country club on one of the first nice days of the year? Why not just wait for him someplace less busy?”

Jen frowned. “Yeah, I guess we need to look harder. There doesn’t seem to be a solid motive.”

“What about a killer who had it out for the militia?” Lil tossed out. “Sprat defended the group, and that could’ve inspired animosity.”

“From who?”

“Whom,” Lil corrected. “Anti-gun lobby? Anti-military?”

“We need to keep digging.” Jen didn’t buy it. “Sprat had no wife, no kids, no one to benefit from his death.”

“Benefit,” Lil repeated. “From what we do know, Sprat’s death will seriously impact the Spencers’ squatter case. That will either drag out for years or bring an immediate end to the city’s golf course scheme. Who wants that?”

Jen turned the idea over. “Green Warriors, I guess. Mike is getting old. He can’t keep maintaining the campgrounds much longer. They want nature to reclaim the land.”

“Think bigger,” Lil said. “Who in this town would benefit from the civic golf course plan stalling out or ending?”

“Well, this is kind of silly,” Jen said as it occurred to her. “I guess the Conflict Country Club might be out a few members.”

Lil pulled into the lot behind Graphomancy. “A few members, a few meals, a few golf games.”

“You may be biased,” Jen got out of the car.

“True, that,” Lil headed for the back door. “But where there’s big money involved, there’s big motive.”

***

Jen found Mags early the next morning in the library’s history room. The smell of books hung, that undefinable smell of aging leather, paper, binding and dust. Mags already had a stack of maps on a table.

“I’m in here all the time,” Mags thumped a big book in front of her. “I already checked the plat maps. They don’t extend much beyond the city limits. But we do have a copy of the GLO maps from the 1870s.”

“What’s that?” Jen opened a large bound tome, the spine creaking.

“General Land Office. They were the agency the Bureau of Land Management took over from. If you wanted to get land for logging or mining, you had to go through them.” Mags leaned over the map. “See here? This is the north side of Conflict. The nice part of town began with a logging claim.

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