I work my cell phone from my pocket as I climb behind the wheel and call Lois at the station. “I need a favor,” I begin, knowing I’ll get a higher level of cooperation if I ask nicely. Lois isn’t the most obliging person working for me, but she’s got a good work ethic, strong organizational skills, and she can type like a bat out of hell.

“Glock just handed me a year’s worth of typing and these phones just won’t shut up.” Her sigh hisses through the line. “What’s up?”

“I need a central meeting room where I can meet with my officers while we’re working this case. I thought that file room next to my office might work. What do you think?”

“It’s cluttered and kinda small.” But I can tell by her tone she’s pleased to be in on the decision-making.

“Do you think you could get someone to help you clear it out and put that folding table and chairs in there?” When she hesitates, I add, “Call Pickles. Tell him he’s on active duty effective immediately. He can help you with that old file cabinet.”

Roland “Pickles” Shumaker is seventy-four years old and my only auxiliary officer. The town council tried to force me to fire him two years ago when he shot Mrs. Offenheimer’s prize bantam rooster after the thing attacked him. But Pickles has been a cop in Painters Mill for going on fifty years. Back in the eighties, he single-handedly busted one of the largest meth labs in the state. I couldn’t see ending his career over a dead chicken. So I asked him to accept auxiliary duty and, knowing the alternative, he agreed. He’s a grouchy old goat, smokes like a teenager on a binge, colors his hair a weird shade of brown, and lies incessantly about his age. But he’s a good cop. With a murder to solve and the clock ticking, I need him.

“Pickles’ll be glad to get the call, Chief. He still checks in every day. Been driving Clarice nuts since he got the axe. She don’t like him hanging around the house all day.”

“We’ll put him to good use.” I think of some of the things I need for the meeting room. “Order a dry-erase board, flip chart and corkboard, will you?”

“Anything else?”

I hear her phone ringing. “That’s it for now. I’ll be in to brief everyone in ten minutes. Hold down the fort, will you?”

“Kinda like trying to hold down a leaf in a tornado, but I’ll try.”

Next, I call Glock and ask him to run a background check on Connie Spencer. In typical Glock fashion, he’s already on it.

“She got a DUI in Westerville last year and an arrest for possession of a controlled substance, but no conviction.”

“What was the controlled substance?”

“Hydrocodone. Her mom’s. Judge let her off.”

“Keep digging, see what else you can find.” I tell him about Donny Beck and pass along the list of names Spencer gave me. “I want checks on all of them.”