Free Don't Cry Over Killed Milk by Stephen Kaminski

replied.
    Damon paused. “You probably shouldn’t have used it. The police will want to look at it.”
    “The killer didn’t use this one,” Emmanuel said confidently. “I let a buddy of mine borrow it a week ago, and he didn’t return it until this morning. So it wasn’t at the park when Jeremiah died. I think the killer used our electric pressure washer. It’s in there now.” Emmanuel nodded toward the garage but Damon couldn’t see the machine from his position near the trees.
    “That one’s not quite as strong as the gas powered washer,” the maintenance man said. “But it has more than enough juice to murder a man if the person wielding the water gun knew what he was doing.”
    “Electric,” Damon said. “So it would have to be plugged in.”
    Emmanuel cut him off. “Alex told all of the staff here what she saw in the shed. Only the outlet on the main floor was fried, not the one in the basement. And the electric pressure washer has its own cord.”
    “But how could the killer have known both outlets wouldn’t blow when he cut the power cord with the hedge trimmer?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t have enough experience in circuitry. You could ask Milt Verblanc. He’s a whiz with electronics. Builds his own robots.”
    Interesting, Damon thought. Was Emmanuel subtly suggesting that Milt Verblanc was the killer? And did Emmanuel really lack the requisite circuitry knowledge? He seemed fairly astute when describing how the killer could have shorted the outlet on the main floor of the shed.
    * * *
    Damon’s head was swimming with information when he left Emmanuel Alvarez and made his way to the Tripping Falls parking lot. Emmanuel’s theory about the instrument of murder made sense. A pressure washer could leave horrific marks and break bones, without charring skin. And it would account for Jeremiah’s wet uniform and the damp basement.
    Damon’s mind wrinkled. If Emmanuel lived in the cabin, how could the killer have spirited away, and then brought back, the pressure washer, hedge trimmer, and power cord without Emmanuel’s knowledge? Perhaps the maintenance man was involved in the crime somehow.
    As Damon returned to his car, he noticed Gerry Sloman in the parking lot speaking with a pair of park rangers. One was a solid man with tree-trunk legs and powerful shoulders. A thick brown moustache lined his upper lip. The other was a wisp of a woman. She had green saucer eyes and straight blond hair with dark roots. Damon tentatively approached the trio. Gerry looked up.
    “Hi, Damon,” he said and introduced Lawrence Drake, the park’s ranger who doubled as a naturalist, and Aylin Erul. Gerry asked Damon what he was doing back at Tripping Falls.
    Damon stopped himself from blurting out that he hoped to speak with Gerry alone—to get the detective’s thoughts on the private investigator, convey Emmanuel’s theory of how the murder was committed, and discuss the man Cynthia had seen poking around her neighbor’s crepe myrtles. Given the presence of the rangers, he instead said, “I paid Dottie Milk my respects this morning on behalf of Hollydale. She asked me to touch base with Veronica Maldive and arrange a meeting between the two of them prior to Jeremiah’s funeral.”
    “Too bad for Veronica,” Aylin said. “I think she liked Jeremiah a lot.”
    “Was he an affable person?” Gerry asked.
    Aylin hesitated. “To be honest, I didn’t know him very well. He was reserved. When we interacted, we only spoke about work. But he wasn’t unpleasant.”
    Gerry turned and looked at Lawrence Drake.
    The big man shrugged his massive shoulders. “He was okay,” Lawrence grunted.
    “What the hell is he doing here?” Margaret Hobbes thundered. She strode out of the visitor center and toward the group in the parking lot. Hobbes jabbed a finger in Damon’s face. “You’re not a police officer, Mr. Lassard,” she shouted. “You interfered the last time I had a murder investigation, and it