Free Peak Road - A Short Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 10) by Victor Methos Page A

fucked me last time, and I ain’t lettin’ it happen again. I’m done.”
    Earl went back to work on the car. Mickey grinned and turned away. I followed him back to our car and we got inside.
    “He hates me because the whole town thought he did it,” Mickey said. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t want anyone to know we had a person of interest, but someone let it out.”
    “Odd that he’d stay in town.”
    “People like what’s familiar. What was your sense?”
    “I didn’t get anything. We should check with his neighbors, but he could’ve easily snuck out at night and gotten back while his neighbors slept.”
    Mickey’s cell phone rang. “Hello?… Yes… No, email it to me. What’s it say, Gus?… You’re sure? How sure?… Okay. Thanks for getting it done so quickly.” He hung up and stared at his phone for a second.
    “What?” I asked.
    “I had the hair collected from Mrs. Noel sent to the labs in Quantico with a rush order. They have the preliminary report done. They’ve identified their origin.”
    “What is it?”
    He hesitated. “Wolf fur.”

 
    16
     
     
     
    By afternoon, we had talked to Earl’s neighbors. Most of them didn’t pay any attention to Earl. They said he was like a reliable clock. He got home at seven every night and left every morning at eight. On Saturdays, he ate at the diner, and other than that, he never went out.
    I kept staring at Earl’s home. It seemed like something a grandmother would live in, and I guessed he was renting so he wouldn’t have to register a deed in his name. Dark curtains covered the windows, and the lawn had long since died.
    “I’d love to be able to get in there,” I said.
    “I know,” Mickey said, walking down to meet me on the sidewalk.
    We stared at the home from across the street.
    “You know,” I said, “you’re not technically a government agent. If you were to go in there—”
    “A good defense attorney would tear me up on the stand. I was FBI for twenty-one years. No way a judge would consider me a civilian. Or you, even though you’re not a cop here. Anything we found would be considered part of an illegal search by law enforcement.” He looked over at a home half a block down. “Let’s try that one.”
    The house was larger than the other ones on the block, and the lawn was well cared for. As we walked up the driveway, I looked inside the black sedan parked there. The interior was clean. The car had to have been twenty years old but looked brand new.
    Mickey knocked, then we waited. Before long, an older woman answered the door. A cross dangled from a thin gold chain around her neck.
    “Yes?”
    “Ma’am, we’re investigators helping out Sheriff Briggs and just had a few questions if you have a moment.”
    She stared at him for a second. “Yes.”
    “On the night of April second, did you notice anything unusual in your neighborhood? Anyone leaving or coming home late in the night? Maybe on foot?”
    “That would’ve been Friday, right?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Mickey never called anybody ma’am . I’d noticed he patterned his approach based on who he was speaking with, and he’d even affected a slight southwestern drawl for this woman’s benefit.
    “I don’t think so,” she said. “What is this about?”
    “Just some follow-up we’re doing for the sheriff.”
    She stared at me before turning back to Mickey. “Is it about the Noels?”
    Mickey hesitated. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Oh. Okay, that makes sense. Come inside.”
    Mickey glanced back at me before going in. That look said he had hit a vein and we needed to follow it as far as we could. I followed them in, and the home was decorated like a memorial to a single man—probably her husband, but possibly a son. I couldn’t tell because I saw only photos of him, none of them together.
    She led us into the living room and sat us down on a sofa before she went into the kitchen. She returned a minute later with tea and cookies. Mickey took the tea, and