Free Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 01 - Too Cute to Kill by Linda Crowder Page B

and out of both the front and back doors all evening.  At one point, she’d left the desk to go into the storeroom. 
    A gift shop customer needed a t-shirt in a size not on display so she’d gone to get it.  She didn’t remember any one person passing through the lobby during the last half hour. 
    “He wouldn’t have had to come through the museum,” she reminded her husband.  “He could have left the Fort area and gone around the building to the parking lot.” 
    Jake nodded, remembering the ornamental fence that was in keeping with the Fort’s rustic feel.  It would be easy for a tall man to simply step over the fence if he didn’t want to be seen.  For that matter, it would have been just as easy for him to enter by stepping over the fence, as both Nick and his father had done.
    “So what do we do?” asked Nick.
    “First we go home,” answered Jake.  “You need a place to stay and we have a perfectly good guest room.”  He looked at Emma who nodded.
    Nick relaxed.  “I thought you were going to tell me I had to go to the police.”
    “No,” said Jake.  “I’m going to call the detective in charge of the investigation and ask that he come out to the house to speak with you.”
    Nick looked ready to argue but Jake was firm.  “You haven’t done anything wrong, except trespassing on your grandparents’ property after the sale was final.  Unless the new owners file a complaint that really isn’t an issue.”  Nick looked slightly mollified. 
    “You have to tell them what you know about your father’s murder,” said Emma gently.  “It may somehow help them find out who did that to him.  You owe your father that much.”
    Nick held Emma’s gaze for a minute then looked down.  “I wish I had realized what was happening,” he said.  “I would have helped, I would have at least yelled or something.  Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten away.”
    “I know,” said Emma, her voice brimming with sympathy.  “All you can do now is tell the police what you know and hope it helps.”
    As she locked the door to the counseling office, Emma raised her eyebrows questioningly at Kristy.  Her assistant smiled and patted her purse.  They all walked out to the parking lot together.  Nick, who had walked to the office, rode with Jake.  Emma and Kristy were parked nearby and Emma waved at Kristy’s cheerful toot of her horn as she left the lot.
    Jake had remembered the plan and stopped for Mexican food on the way home.  Emma had stopped at the mailboxes that sat just off the highway before heading up the mountain.  She had been home long enough to turn up the fire in the pellet stove and feed the demanding indoor cats.
    Emma was just coming in from the barn after feeding the dogs and completing the nightly barn cat count when Jake’s truck turned off the county road and started up the drive.  It was cold but she waited at the door for them and the three trooped into the house together.
    Jake disappeared into his office while Emma and Nick transferred the food to plates and set the table.  When Jake returned, he informed them that he’d caught the detective just heading out of the office.  “I told him we had lots of food so he’s heading right over.”
    Emma got out another plate and set a fourth place at the table.  She shooed the cats into the sunroom, which doubled as a “kitty jail” whenever they had company, and turned on the room heater for them.  She shut the door on a loud protest from Peachy and joined the men at the table.
    Detective Matt Joyner had been on the Casper Police force since he got out of the Marines in 1985.  He worked his way up from patrol and was now the department’s senior investigative officer.  There weren’t many murders in Casper, for which he was grateful. 
    He hadn’t liked Nate Carver, having busted him a couple of times when he was working narcotics.  Still, he didn’t like the idea of anyone committing murder so close to a museum full