Free Surest Poison, The by Chester D. Campbell Page A

change his tune.”
    Jaz stared into her cup as she stirred
her tea. “I doubt it. He’s determined to keep silent, no matter what. I feel
like I should go to the cops myself, but if he won’t cooperate . . . ?”
    She left the question hanging as the
waitress brought their plates. Sid buttered his biscuit and took a bite of
eggs.
    After sipping her tea, Jaz looked across
at him. “Have you seen anything else of whoever it was that put the tail on us yesterday?”
    “Yes.”
    “On the way out
here?”
    “No. A couple of guys knocked on my door
around ten last night.”
    She put down her fork and stared. “What
did they want?”
    “Said they weren’t
door-to-door salesmen.”
    She squinched her eyes. “What did they
want, Sid?”
    “Seems their boss thought I had been
messing around where I didn’t belong. He wanted it stopped . . . now.”
    “Do you think they were talking about the
HarrCo situation?”
    “What else? It’s the only thing I’m
messing around in currently.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I said threats only make me angry.”
    “How did they take that?”
    “Not too well.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “One of them came at me with his fist
cocked.”
    She waited in silence as Sid returned to
his eggs.
    “And?”
    “And he wound up on his butt in the front
yard. Along with his buddy. I told them they
could stick around if they wanted, I was going to
call the cops.”
    “Did you?”
    “No. I knew they would high-tail it out
of there as fast as they could get back on their feet.”
    “Did you get their license number?”
    His eyebrows went up. “I should have, but
at the moment I was highly pissed. I wanted to get away from them before I
did something I might regret.”
    “Did you ask what was behind their
following you?”
    “They wouldn’t have known. They weren’t
smart enough to be the brains behind this deal.”
    “Who knew you were on this case, besides
Arnie Bailey and Harrington?”
    Sid put his fork down and pushed his
plate back. “That’s a question I’ve been asking myself. Bailey told
Harrington about me yesterday morning. I can’t imagine why he would have
told anybody else.”
    “So who did Harrington tell?”
    Sid pulled out his cell phone and checked
the number he had previously used to call HarrCo Shipping. He pressed the
Talk button and got Harrington on the line. “Did you mention my name to
anyone after you talked to Arnie Bailey yesterday morning?” he asked.
    Harrington was silent for a moment. “No.
I don’t recall having any reason to. Why?”
    Sid thought of two other possibilities.
Somebody at the law office had provided the tip, which seemed unlikely, or
Harrington’s phone had been tapped or bugged. With the TCE pollution making
news in the papers and on TV, whoever was responsible would have good reason
to want access to discussions between Harrington and his lawyer, or anyone
else involved in the case. If they had intercepted Bailey’s call to
Harrington, they would have known about the lawyer’s planned meeting with a
private investigator named Sidney Chance. It would have been a simple matter
to get descriptions and license numbers for Sid’s car and truck.
    “I’m going to send a guy out to see you,”
Sid told Harrington. “Hopefully I can get him there pretty soon. His name is
Jackson. He’ll explain things when he sees you.”
    “What’s going on?” Jaz asked when he
closed the cell phone and stuck it back in his pocket.
    “I need to call my countersurveillance
guy. I haven’t used him since I left Lewisville. I’m afraid Mr. Harrington’s
phone has sprung a leak.”
    Her eyes widened with a knowing nod. “Did
you call him before you came out here yesterday?”
    “I did.”
    “And the blue car showed up.”
    “It did.”
    Sid checked Information and got the
number for Jerry Jackson, a technical surveillance countermeasures pro.
After he explained the situation, Jackson