Free Legwork by Katy Munger Page A

across from where Mitchell had been murdered.
    “That subdivision is up and thriving now,” I told him. “It’s practically old Raleigh these days. Ugly as hell. I don’t know how people can recognize their own houses, they all look so much alike.”
    He nodded slowly and stroked his goatee, pressing the scraggly growth carefully between long, tan fingers. “They won’t stop until the whole damn state is gone. Mark my words. One day these woods will be a parking lot.”
    I stared at him and his eyes locked on mine. I wasn’t sure if I liked what I saw. Something stirred in me but I couldn’t tell if it was fear or attraction. His eyes sparkled with the gleam of a fanatic and his voice vibrated with hatred when he spoke. But at the same time, I could feel his despair that the land he loved was being destroyed. How many of us really believe in anything? In an odd way, I was jealous of him.
    “Why’d you try to scare me like that?” I asked.
    “I’m getting tired of people trespassing on that land over there.” He nodded toward the side of the river where I’d discovered the pool of blood. “It’s getting busier and busier, especially at night. Someone ought to close off that road. It’s supposed to be private. I don’t like what I’m seeing and since the owner’s not around, I figure I ought to protect it.”
    “What kind of things are you seeing?” I asked, watching his eyes for signs of evasion.
    He didn’t even blink. And his voice grew more relaxed. “Trespassing is all. Fishing at night. Campfires. Noise that ruins my hunting. Smells that distract my dogs. That kind of thing.”
    I didn’t believe him. “You’ve got a problem,” I said, hoping to shake him up a little. “I’m a private detective. I’m working on a high-profile case involving a man named Thornton Mitchell and a politician named Mary Lee Masters. Ever heard of them?”
    “I know who they are,” he said glumly.
    “I think Mitchell was murdered over there a couple nights ago.”
    He shrugged. “Lots of funny things happen along this river at night.”
    “The cops are going to be all over you when they find out it happened across from your land. They’ll want to know what you saw.”
    He shrugged again, unconcerned. “That’s easy. Like I said, I didn’t see anything. Cops don’t scare me. I’m used to them.” He picked up his crossbow and turned his back on me abruptly. “Sorry to have scared you,” he apologized over his shoulder. “But I got to be going now.”
    He disappeared back into the woods, his figure blending instantly with the colors of the forest. I was pretty sure he had been lying. But about what?
    I pulled away from the bank, uncomfortably aware that my ankles were now covered in bug bites. I moved quickly downstream, anxious to put room between me, the killing spot, and Ramsey Lee. Besides, I had a whole barn to muck before I could go home.
    It wasn’t until I was a couple of miles up U.S. 1, headed back toward Slim’s farm, that I remembered something pretty damn important I’d picked up from scanning the back pages of the N&O: Thornton Mitchell had been one of the developers involved in the subdivision project that Ramsey Lee had been convicted of sabotaging.
    He was in for an SBI rousting supreme.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    I have the kind of answering machine that blinks once for each new message. At the moment, it was strobing like a disco from my distant youth. I counted the lights and fixed myself a large Coke from one of the two-liter bottles lining the bottom of my fridge. Between paddling and shoveling, I was exhausted. It was time for a caffeine jolt.
    Hmm… six messages in six hours. What a coincidence. That meant they were probably all from Bobby D.
    What a pleasant surprise. The first message was from Mary Lee Masters. Perhaps she had even dialed the number herself. It gave me a warm glow to know how important I had become in her life.
    “Goddamn it, Casey. Where were you today? You said