Free Defiled: The Sequel to Nailed Featuring John Tall Wolf (A Ron Ketchum Mystery Book 2) by Joseph Flynn

have been human if he hadn’t googled Hale Tibbot’s name after he got back to his room. The local paper, the Prospector, had dozens of stories on the guy. How he’d had the nerve to run for mayor just a year after moving to town.
    The way Tall Wolf saw it, Tibbot must’ve made his plans before he moved to Goldstrike. The developer saw the town as a plum ripe for picking, but only if he could displace Clay Steadman. The mayor had run for reelection unopposed more often than not. Tibbot also had a long record of getting his own way. You put the two on a collision course and …
    Tibbot wound up not defeated but dead.
    Might make a cop wonder, that sort of thing.
    If the cop, in this case Chief Ron Ketchum, had been given a second chance in his professional life by the man he might otherwise consider a prime suspect in the commission of Tibbot’s murder, why, that particular cop might feel a conflict of interest.
    Tall Wolf, not beholden to the mayor, certainly considered him a suspect.
    The fact that Marlene Flower Moon knew Clay Steadman only added a reason to be suspicious. With Coyote working her wiles, there was no telling who might be to blame. Or who would wind up taking it.
     
    Roger Sutherland didn’t have a big money house on the lake shore. He had the next best thing, a medium big money house on a ridge opposite a public park and an unobstructed view of the lake. The chief and the special agent introduced themselves to the Sutherland family.
    Jessica Sutherland surprised Ron by leaning forward and kissing his cheek.
    “Thank you for saving our lake,” she said.
    Roger and Brant Sutherland shook the chief’s hand.
    John Tall Wolf kept a straight face.
    The men in the family led the two coppers into Roger’s home studio.
    A photographic portrait of the Sutherland family hanging on the wall behind Roger’s desk was lit by a sunbeam as the foursome entered the room.
    John Tall Wolf smiled. “Beautiful picture, great placement. Must get that light most of the day, this time of year.”
    Ron looked at the glass wall and the skylight that admitted the sunshine.
    He could guess how Roger Sutherland would feel if the city condemned the nearby public park and allowed a high-rise filled with condos to be put up between his house and Lake Adeline, “our lake,” as his wife thought of it. The Sutherlands and their peers in scenic privilege would file suits to stop construction. Others with a more rustic turn of mind might just unload their firearms on any politician who dared to consider doing such a thing.
    If Hale Tibbot had been elected mayor, he might not have survived his first term.
    Come to that, if some ornery soul, other than Clay Steadman, had gained advance notice that the picturesque vista he’d long taken for granted might be stolen from him by a scheming real estate developer, he might decide to take a prophylactic approach. Ding the sonofabitch with the big plans before he even got his financing in place.
    That thought enlarged Ron’s possible suspect pool beyond reckoning.
    The chief felt Tall Wolf give him a light nudge.
    “Sorry,” Ron said. “I was just taken by your view.”
    “We love it,” Roger told him.
    “I don’t ever want to live anywhere else,” Brant said.
    Ron and Tall Wolf declined the offer of a drink and took the seats Roger offered. The homeowner took a chair opposite them and his son stood next to him.
    “How can we help you?” Roger asked.
    “Tell us about your morning,” Ron said, “from the moment you left your house until you called 911.”
    “That’s a pretty short story, I’m afraid,” Roger told the lawmen. “Sunrise today was 5:36 a.m. Our plan was to be on the water by then, and we were. We got up an hour earlier, brushed our teeth, got dressed, packed our gear and provisions for the day and drove to the marina. We were the first boat out that I could tell … except for that boat we found, of course.”
    Roger turned to Brant. “Is that about the way