Free Illegally Iced by Jessica Beck Page B

asked.
    “No, but think about it. I knew where the key was, didn’t I?”
    “Suzanne, you both need to leave, and I mean right now.” There was no room for play in his voice, and I knew that he was serious.
    “We’ll be glad to,” I said. “Be sure to check out the card and the letter on top of the desk, though.”
    “I’ll conduct my own investigation, thank you very much.”
    As we were leaving, he called out to me, “Is this why you called me earlier? Were you actually asking for my permission? And why are you both so dressed up? I know Jake’s out of town, so why are you wearing a dress, Suzanne?”
    “Hey, a girl can choose to look pretty whenever she wants to without a man having to be involved in the decision,” I said. I was trying to deflect his original question, seeing the kind of mood he was in at the moment. I’d considered going ahead and telling him the truth about why I’d called him, but I wasn’t sure how much information I should volunteer. The journal in my purse felt red-hot and I knew instantly that I should turn it over to him, but if I did that, we might miss a golden opportunity to investigate a little more. I didn’t plan to keep it forever anyway; I was just going to search through it tonight and mail it to the chief tomorrow anonymously. Maybe I was playing a little fast and loose with the law, but there was no way that my curiosity would let me turn it over before I had a chance to do more than just glance at it.
    Grace and I were almost outside when he asked, “What was that telephone call about, then? Why were you calling me?”
    I didn’t have any choice now. As I turned to face him, I said, “I shouldn’t have to explain it to you, Chief. You already contacted James’s next of kin.”
    He was clearly puzzled by my response. “True. He had a contact card in his wallet with a phone number, and I had Lincoln call it and give them the bad news,” he admitted. “They haven’t come to identify the body yet, though.”
    “And that’s all that you know?” I asked. Wow, Grace’s Internet search had been more effective than the April Springs police investigation.
    I knew that he wasn’t going to like what I was about to tell him, but I had to share the information nonetheless. “We were going to Pinerush, and I wanted to touch base with you first.”
    “What were you doing there, and why would you need my approval?”
    It was time to come clean with all that Grace and I had discovered. Well, most of it anyway. “It turns out that James Settle wasn’t his real name. At least not all of it.”
    The chief looked surprised by the statement. “Do you mean that it was an alias?”
    “Sort of. His full name was James Settle Pinerush, so we went to see his family so that we could pay our respects. It’s just the polite thing to do,” I added.
    As I’d figured, Chief Martin didn’t like that one little bit. “Admit it. You were both snooping. You two are digging into this mess, aren’t you?”
    “Like I said, we went to Pinerush to offer our condolences,” I repeated.
    “And nothing else?” he asked as he studied us both.
    “We might have asked a few questions about James’s life when he lived there.”
    The police chief was clearly unhappy with that. “What did they say?”
    “It sounded like a nightmare, to be honest with you. His aunt and her son had him committed to a mental institution when he tried to give his share of their fortune away, and the second he got himself free, he came here to live in April Springs.”
    “They told you all of that?” The chief of police looked amazed by what we’d discovered so far.
    “We might have also picked up a few things off the Internet,” I said casually, holding Harry’s name back unless I absolutely had to rat him out. He’d most likely lose his job if the Pinerushes found out that he’d talked to us, and I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
    “Let me guess. They were after his money themselves. How much