"I know you lost a good man." Dupont’s face softened. For a second, he seemed almost human. "I’m willing to keep the third full-time officer in the budget, but you people need to produce results. What’s going on in the Palmer case?"
"We were just discussing that." Sam pointed to the corkboard. "We have a few suspects, and we’re going to continue questioning. If you would just let us do our job instead of coming in here and bugging us, we could have it solved sooner."
Dupont scowled, and Sam could practically feel Jo suppressing a smirk behind him. She usually remained quiet when Dupont was around, mostly because if she opened her mouth, whatever came out typically wasn’t helpful.
"It was one of those hooligan friends of hers, wasn’t it?" Dupont asked. "The parents have driven up and are very anxious and heartbroken over this."
An ache of sympathy bloomed in Sam’s chest as he thought of how he would feel if one of his daughters had been murdered. He would be burning for justice. Sam wanted to do right by Lynn Palmer and her family. He couldn’t give a crap about what Dupont wanted, but if they happened to be the same thing, then so be it.
"We understand that," Sam said. "We’re working to get it solved as quickly as we can. Where are they staying? I could go talk to them. They might know something that could be helpful."
"I put them up at the Covered Bridge over on Route 11," Dupont said. "I want all hands on this. There’s extra in the budget from the salary of Richardson. I strongly suggest you bring your part-time man up to full time and speed up the timeline of this case."
Sam glanced over at Kevin’s desk. Unlike Sam’s and Jo’s messy desks, it was stacked neatly with papers, pencils, and a notebook. Kevin wasn’t much of a go-getter, though he was an adequate cop. Sam didn’t know if increasing his hours would help, but maybe they could have him work on the smaller local calls, freeing them up for more investigative work. "I’ll do that."
Dupont gave a curt nod. He glowered at Sam and Jo then shot a parting look at Lucy on his way out.
"Sheesh. The guy acts like we’re just lollygagging around, not trying to solve the case. Doesn’t he know we want to solve it as much as anyone?" Jo asked.
"He just likes to be a pain in the ass. Where is Kevin, by the way?"
Jo handed him the digital camera. "He signed out. Said he was afraid he’d already worked too many hours. Pictures of the area where we found Lynn’s clothes are in the camera."
"Okay, I guess I’ll talk to him tomorrow about moving to full time."
Jo glanced at Tyler’s desk. "Temporarily or for good?"
Sam sighed. "I guess we should offer him the position for good. I mean, it’s only right. He’s been here over a year now, and it would be the right thing to promote him."
Sam was all about doing the right thing, but for some reason, the hollow feeling in his chest told him he didn’t really want Kevin as a replacement for Tyler.
"Yeah, I guess so." The tone of resignation in Jo’s voice told him she was as enthusiastic about bringing Kevin to full time as he was.
"In the meantime, I say we waste no time in finding out what the deal is with these suspects. Seems like Noah and Amber both might’ve had a reason to want Lynn out of the way. I say we question all the campers separately and see if we can find out what really happened the night Lynn Palmer was murdered."
Chapter Fourteen
Jo was eager to see how the campers reacted to their visit. In her experience, the deeper you delved in an investigation, the more nervous people got, and the more nervous they got, the more apt they were to slip up. She shoved her yellow smiley mug under the coffee machine’s spout and grabbed the little red K-Cup with the extra-caffeinated grounds. She could use the extra caffeine to keep her brain sharp so she’d be able to notice any telltale signs that their suspects were lying.
She balanced the warm mug in her hands from the passenger seat of the Tahoe as Sam drove them to the campsite.
They usually drove together like this when there wasn’t much going on. They did a lot of their collaborating in the car on the way to talk to suspects or visit crime scenes. Somehow, the scenery of the mountains and the absence of traffic on the backcountry roads had a way of helping Jo think better.
"Thing is, they’ve already had over twenty-four hours to get their stories straight and try to cover their tracks," Sam said.
"I know. That’s a bummer. But killers always make mistakes. If one of these kids killed her, they’re bound to reveal themselves." Jo sipped the coffee. "But I don’t think we should let on that we think one of them might have done it. We need to act friendly and see if we can get her cell phone. Once they realize we’re treating them as suspects, they won’t be so eager to comply with us."
"I want to check out the murder site again and the place where we found her clothes. Now that we know it’s a murder, I need to look closer. You’re right about not tipping them off to our suspicions. I’m going to make it seem like Jesse is our main suspect. I don’t think he did it. Doesn’t make sense for him. He has no motive unless it was a fit of anger because she rejected him when he came on to her. Jesse doesn’t seem the fit-of-anger type. He didn’t get that mad when I came to his work to interrogate him," Sam said.
Jo agreed. "We’ve never had any calls about him fighting. He’s more the sneaky breaking-in-and-selling-weed type."
"I still want to double-check what he told me, though. I would think one of them would’ve noticed that Lynn was still alive when Jesse left… if what he told me is the truth."
"Even if one of them did, they might lie if they are trying to point the finger away from them and toward Jesse."
"Playing along like we think it’s Jesse will set them off guard and give us a chance to observe them before they realize what we’re up to." Sam pulled into the campground, and the Tahoe bumped down the rutted path to the site. "It’s late afternoon. I figure we’ll start cutting them from the herd and getting down to business first thing tomorrow. Make it look like we’re just asking them in for official statements."
They pulled up to the site. Jo set her mug in the cup holder. The base was a little too wide, but she’d found she could balance it at an angle on the top indentation and the mug wouldn’t tip over. Usually.
Sam frowned at the precariously balanced cup, then his eyes moved to her navy-blue short-sleeved button-up shirt. "You have some jelly on your shirt."
Jo looked down to see a shiny red blob just below the white, gold, and light-blue police patch. "Darn it." She swiped at the blob, but it only smudged it in deeper.
Sam had already gotten out and was standing in the middle of the campsite. The campers surrounded him, their faces full of curiosity. Jo stood back and studied them. Was one of them a murderer? If so, she couldn’t tell which one.
"Did you catch him?" a teary-eyed Tara was asking. She was holding a newer-model expensive backpack that Jo knew was supposed to be very lightweight. These folks really took their camping seriously.
"Not quite yet. We think she was killed over there." Sam nodded toward the area where they found the clothing. It was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape strung between the pine trees. "And I want to take a better look to see if there’s any evidence."
"What kind of evidence?" Joshua asked, his eyes drifting over to the area.
"Signs of a struggle, blood. If we had a big forensics team, they’d be combing the area, but we gotta work with what we have."
"What about that local guy?" Noah asked. "Did you bring him in?"
"We’ve had him in for questioning. In fact, I was wondering if you guys could verify something he told me." Sam started toward the area, and the crowd followed. Jo admired the way he was handling it. Totally nonconfrontational, as if he were taking them into his confidence as though they were allies in the investigation.