Free Deadly Gamble: The First Charlie Parker Mystery by Connie Shelton Page A

than you
did."
    She perked up. "You have an idea who did it?"
she asked eagerly.
    "Well, no. But I'll keep working on it.
Promise. And you can help me. Just keep trying to think of anything
Detweiller might have said to you, even in the most casual way.
Anyone who might have been angry with him, anyone he might have
shafted."
    "I've been trying," she assured me, "but
nothing comes to mind. It's just so hard, trying to act normal
around Brad, while this thing is weighing on me."
    She fidgeted with her food some more. She
wouldn't be any help on the case, I could see that now. I'd have to
think of some other avenues. When I dropped her off at home a
little while later, Brad met her at the door. I waved from the car
and drove off. We'd been gone exactly an hour.
    Three blocks away, on another of Tanoan's
winding little side streets, I found Ben Reed at home. He, too,
wore a jogging suit and top-brand running shoes. His once-red hair
was interspersed with so much gray that it appeared pale apricot.
His face and hands were covered with freckles. He greeted me with
an easy smile, but didn't invite me in.
    "Gary Detweiller? Name doesn't ring a bell,"
he said. He took the fuzzy newspaper photo from me and stared at
it. "The face I do know." He handed the photo back. "Guy hung
around the club, sucking up to the members. I knew from the first
time I saw him that he didn't belong. But he managed to get invited
somehow. I don't even know who he came with. I saw him around, oh,
probably a half-dozen times."
    "Did you ever speak to him?"
    "Let's say he spoke to me. Tried to
hit me up to finance some business deal he was getting into."
    "What did you tell him?"
    "Not only no, but hell, no," he chuckled.
    "Did you know he had your name and phone
number on a coded list in his wallet?"
    Reed looked puzzled. "Why would he? We never
did any business."
    "Maybe it was his prospect list."
    "That's kind of spooky," he said. "Like he
watched us all, and targeted those he thought he could work
on."
    "What about the women? Did you notice him
targeting them?"
    He thought about it for a minute. "Now that
you mention it, I did. He was a good-looking guy, you know. I don't
think he had to try too hard with the women. I noticed some
flirting going on at a couple of the Friday night dinner
dances."
    "Anyone in particular?"
    "Nah, he seemed to spread the charm pretty
equally everywhere."
    I hoped that was the impression everyone else
got, too. I thanked Ben Reed for his information and left. It was
nearing noon, but I wasn't the least bit hungry after the huge
breakfast with Stacy. I headed back to the office.
    Sally met me in the kitchen to let me know
that Ron would be at the county courthouse all afternoon. She would
be leaving at one, and the phones had really been busy all morning
with people trying to reach Ron after his week-long absence. Would
I be around to take the calls?
    I said I would, although I couldn't see that
it made much difference whether they left a message with me or on
the answering machine. She then proceeded to hand me a list of
Ron's replies. Tell this one such and such. Tell that one something
else. Apparently he had anticipated the deluge of calls, and
planned well for it. Why hadn't he put off his day at the
courthouse until tomorrow?
    Sally must have heard these thoughts run
through my head because she looked at me sympathetically.
    "Do you want some lunch before I go?" she
asked.
    I explained why I didn't and we spent the
next thirty minutes going over some pending correspondence. By the
time she left, my head was full of other things and it took me
awhile to get back on track with the Detweiller case.
    My yellow sheet of names and addresses was
pretty rumpled by now, but I smoothed it out and looked at it. I'd
checked off around half the names without making any serious
inroads with anybody. I stared at them, trying to find a common
thread, some pattern to the odd mix. I jotted a few notes from each
of the conversations, hoping