Mrs. Thistlethwaite and a Shadow of Doubt (Tillamook Tillie, #3) by J.B. Hawker

Author:J.B. Hawker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.B. Hawker
Published: 2018-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

27

Following Tillie’s call about the hit-and-run car, Ransom couldn’t settle down to his reports.

“A dark sedan!” he muttered. “That’s some big clue. What does Mrs. T. expect me to do? Arrest half the county?”

“What’s that, boss?’ Forester said, stepping into the doorway.

“Nothing, sorry. Just talking to myself about our amateur sleuths,” Ransom replied.

“Has Mrs. T. been seeing dead bodies again?” Forester quipped. “She may be losing it, but at least she can still bake up a storm,” he added, helping himself from her latest box of treats and returning to his desk.

“She’s not losing it, though. She seems as sharp as ever,” John thought. “Maybe that’s why I can’t shake her off.”

He picked up his phone to call Harmony to see what the FBI may have learned about the missing investigator or the scammer he had been tracking.

Meanwhile, Audrey’s comment about needing a suspect echoed in Tillie’s mind as she worked on her watercolor painting.

She’d moved her painting supplies and easel into the dining room for the time being.

Applying a gray-blue wash to the upper half of her canvas, she considered possible candidates. The thuggish bartender came to mind, first. He was nasty enough and it could have been his dark sedan parked outside the bar, but no one would describe him as tall and thin or mistake his bald head for dark hair. She couldn’t imagine Audrey’s late parents having been “taken” with him, either.

What about the other two cars she’d seen parked behind the college?

Who had she seen around the campus who might fit the description?

She pictured the surly custodian. He was tall and slim enough, plus he had dark hair and an angular face. She remembered seeing him wheeling the refuse bin out of the trees near the bus stop on the night she’d discovered Spillane, too. She recalled thinking it was odd at the time.

He could sit at the top of her mental list while she tried to recall the other faces she’d seen around the school. Who else might tick off all the boxes?

Tillie thought her welding teacher was unpleasant enough to be a criminal, but, unfortunately, he didn’t match the description, either. There were a couple of other teachers she’d seen who could possibly fit the bill, but she didn’t know their names.

Rinsing out her brushes, she decided to keep her eyes and ears open that evening when she went to class.

“I’ll be back to pick you up after class,” Slim said, as Tillie slipped out of the car in the school parking lot. “Unless you’ve decided to give it a pass tonight. You’ve been through a lot, lately. It’d be no shame if you gave up on your welding dream, you know.”

“I am committed to finishing this class, and I always fulfill my commitments, as you well know,” she said. “Besides, I’ve got investigating to do.”

With that, she turned and trotted up the steps of the school building.

“Investigating? Oh, no,” Slim sighed. “I’d better hang around, just in case.”

He parked the car and

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