Free tj jensen 01 - barkleys treasure by Kathi Daley Page A

about his community cover up a murder?”
    “Maybe the key to this whole thing is in figuring out who it is the deputy cares enough about to lie for,” Kyle suggested. “Is Savage married?”
    “Meg said he’s single and childless, although he does have siblings: two brothers and a sister. One of the brothers and the sister live on the island and the other brother lives in Savannah,” Ben reported.
    “Do you think Meg found it odd that you were asking all these personal questions about Deputy Savage?”
    “No, because I didn’t just ask about him. It was slow at the museum today, so I took advantage of the downtime to ask about pretty much everyone I’ve met since I’ve been here.” Ben looked at Kyle. “Did you know Willow has a daughter?”
    “Yeah, she introduced us. Cute little thing. Her dad is out of the picture, so Willow is raising her alone, although I have a feeling she might have her eye on someone to take on the dad role.”
    “Do you know who?” I had to ask.
    “She didn’t say and I don’t know her well enough to ask. You know, there’s a boy at the kids’ camp named Rory Savage. I wonder if he’s any relation to the good deputy.”
    “Rory is his nephew,” Ben confirmed. “Deputy Savage’s brother has three children. The deputy coaches Rory’s baseball team.”
    I had to wonder where Savage found the time to do so much volunteer work. Managing both a youth and an adult team must take up a lot of time when you accounted for practices and games. I said as much to the others.
    “Meg commented that most of the time there isn’t a lot of crime to deal with on the island. I guess the low crime rate allows him to multitask. She made a joke about the fact that he’s been known to show up at a crime scene wearing his softball uniform.”
    “You really did manage to dig up quite a bit of information in just a couple of hours,” I said admiringly.
    “Meg likes to talk and I was motivated to listen. The thing is, the more she talked about Savage, the more certain I became that if he’s covering up a murder he must have a really good reason to do it. He seems like an all-around good guy.”
    “Yeah, something isn’t jiving.” I looked at Doc. “Are you sure the damage to the skull couldn’t have occurred as the result of a fall?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Okay.” I looked around the table. “Where do we start?”
    “We really only have a limited impression of Rick Savage,” Doc pointed out. “Maybe we should chat with a few more people to see if a different picture emerges.”
    “We’ll need to be careful not to arouse suspicion,” Kyle added.
    “I’ll take a note from Ben’s playbook and talk to Gertie about Savage and a few others. She likes to talk even more than I do, and she’s very opinionated. I like that.”
    “And I’ll do with same with Willow,” Kyle promised.
    Ben looked at me. “The pharmacist called. He needs me to sign a release I missed when we were there before. Care to give me a ride? Maybe we can chat the man up while we’re there.”
    “I’d be happy to. We’ll all very casually try to get a general impression about Savage and then reconvene this evening to compare notes. Oh, and tonight is the movie on the beach. I promised the girls we’d go, so everyone be sure to be back home in time for an early dinner.”
    “Meg said there are food trucks and most folks just bring a blanket and eat on the beach.”
    “Even better. I have to admit I’m almost as excited about the movie as the girls are. There’s something magical about the idea of watching a movie under the stars.”
     
    “Rick is about as good a guy as they come,” the pharmacist, George Brolin, commented as we sipped root beer floats from the soda fountain. “I had a problem with some kids loitering in front of the pharmacy a few summers ago and Rick very nicely got them to move on down the road without causing any sort of trouble.”
    “I guess the soda fountain tends to attract a