“Stay here with me,” I said, as I flipped open my cell phone to call Chief Burke.

Twenty-One

An hour later, I was leaning against Chief Burke’s car, trying to look cool, calm, and collected. At least I’d managed to convince the chief to have one of his officers take Rob and Timmy home—with sirens to gladden both their hearts—but I wasn’t sure the chief would let me go anytime soon.

Most of the assembled police were off behind the house. Maybe even in it, some of them, though I had a feeling whoever was in charge of the crime scene probably had less trouble than usual keeping extraneous personnel outside. Some of them were milling around near the chief, talking in low tones, though from time to time I overheard a word or two. I’d heard “gunshot wound” several times, so I deduced someone had shot Jasper. And I’d also overhead that they thought Jasper had been killed two or three days ago.

Off in the distance, I could hear a few of the officers still checking the surrounding area. It was easy to keep track of them, not only by the rustling noises they made in the fallen leaves but also by the fact that they were all exclaiming over how much poison ivy was growing all over everything.

“Whoa!” I heard Sammy shout. “You should see this vine. Thick as your wrist!”

“I’ve got one to beat it over here,” another officer shouted back. “Thick as your ankle!”

“This one’s got leaves a foot long,” Sammy called. “Where’s the camera?”

I checked to make sure my cell phone was still on. I’d talked to Michael, briefly, to tell him about finding Jasper, but he’d been dragged away by his chairman for yet another interminable meeting. He’d call when he could. I focused back on the search team and its poison ivy adventures, hoping that like Timmy and me they’d escape getting the dreaded rash.

I was so focused I started when I heard Chief Burke’s voice at my elbow.

“I’ve got a few more questions for you,” the chief said. That was probably a lie. I suspected he had a lot more questions for me. He didn’t look happy. Not surprising—between the break-in at Karen’s apartment and the embezzlement at the college, he was already in the middle of a crime wave, at least by Caerphilly’s standards. And now here I came adding a murder to his workload.

“So what were you doing looking for Jasper Walker?” he asked.

“I wasn’t,” I said. “Not for his own sake, at least. I just wanted to see if he knew anything about Karen’s whereabouts.”

“We’ve been looking for Mr. Walker ourselves,” the chief said. “Without any success, I might add, until you called in. Just how did you know to look for him here?”

“One of Karen’s friends told me that Jasper was back, and living at his uncle Hiram’s place. And that Hiram was one of the Clayville Basses.”