It would have been too coy to pick another table, so I led the way to the open doors of the meeting room, the newspaper I’d bought from a vending machine tucked under my arm. The cramped room was almost filled with a big round table. Sarne’s movers and shakers sat around that table, staring at us. I tried to remember if I’d combed my hair that morning. Tolliver would’ve told me if I’d looked really bed-headed, I told myself. I keep my hair short. It has lots of body, and it’s curly, so if I let it grow, I have a black bush to deal with. Tolliver is lucky; his is straight, and he lets it grow until he can tie it back. Then he’ll get tired of it and whack it off. Right now, it was short.

“Sheriff,” I said, nodding. “Mr. Edwards, Ms. Teague, Mr. Vale. How are you all this morning?” Tolliver held out my chair and I sat. This was an extra, for-show courtesy. He figures the more honor he shows me publicly, the more the public will feel I’m entitled to. Sometimes it works that way.

The waitress had filled my coffee cup and taken my first swallow before the sheriff spoke. I tore my gaze away from my paper, still folded by my plate. I really, really like to read the paper while I drink my coffee.

“He was there,” Harvey Branscom said heavily. The man’s face was ten years older than it’d been the night before, and there was white stubble on his cheeks.

“Mr. Chesswood, you mean.” I ordered the fruit plate and some yogurt from a waitress who seemed to think that was a strange choice. Tolliver got French toast and bacon and a flirtatious look. He’s hell on waitresses.

“Yeah,” the sheriff said. “Mr. Chesswood. Darryl Chesswood. He was a good friend of my father’s.” He said this with a heavy emphasis, as if the fact that I’d told him where the old man’s body was had laid the responsibility for the death at my door.

“Sorry for your loss,” Tolliver said, as a matter of form. I nodded. After that, I let the silence expand. With a gesture, Tolliver offered to refill my coffee cup, but I raised my hand to show him how steady it was today. I took another deep sip gratefully, and I topped the cup off. I touched Tolliver’s mug to ask if he was ready for more, but he shook his head.

Under the furtive scrutiny of all those eyes, I wasn’t able to open the newspaper I had folded in front of me. I had to wait on these yahoos to make up their minds to something they’d already agreed to do. I’d felt optimistic when I’d seen them waiting for us, but that optimism was rapidly deteriorating.