Page 24 of You Can Leave Your Hat On
“Nope. All of them. Dozens. And somewhere in this stack is somebody who was mad enough to come looking for him. We’ve just got to figure out who.”
“How do we go about that?”
“It’s got to be one of two kinds of people. The first is somebody he borrowed an enormous amount of money from. And the second is one he borrowed money from, not necessarily a large amount, but it was all they had in the world, and now they have nothing.”
Maisey grimaced. “You forgot the third kind.”
“Who?”
“Somebody who loaned himsomebody else’smoney and they’re in deep, deep shit over it.”
Aaron nodded. “Yeah. That makes sense too. So I guess we just start going through all of this stuff until we figure out who the most likely suspects are.”
“Good luck with that,” a voice said from behind them, and Maisey turned to find Carly standing there in the doorway.
“Hey! How’s it going?”
Carly stepped into the conference room, pulled out a rolling chair, and plopped down into it. She huffed out a long sigh and said, “It’s a bad, bad day.”
“What happened?” Aaron asked.
“I just got back from an arrest.”
Aaron and Maisey both looked up at her from under furrowed brows. “You?” Aaron asked. “What were you doing at an arrest?”
Carly pointed at the door, so Aaron got up, closed it, and sat back down before she would speak. When she opened her mouth, Maisey and Aaron’s jaws dropped. “The mayor.”
“What?” Maisey fairly shrieked.
“He and his wife got into a knock-down drag-out that spilled out onto the lawn. A neighbor called nine-one-one, but the city cops wouldn’t touch it, so they called us. When the deputies got there, it was such a fracas that they called me and asked what to do. I arrested both of their asses. I don’t care if he thinks he’s my boss. He’s not. The county judge executive is, and I called him. He gave me the go-ahead. But the two of them are going to try to rip me a new asshole.” She pressed her hands over her face. “This is the part of my job that I hate. People who think they’re above-the-law big shots.”
“Wow. So what happened?” Aaron asked. “What were they fighting about?”
“What do married couples fight about? Money, sex, kids, in-laws, jobs, cheating… They were fighting about money, butI think they mentioned a little bit of everything. Apparently wedded bliss isn’t high on their lists of accomplishments.”
“Sounds like it,” Maisey said.
“So now we’ve got to sort all of that out. But she did say something about him embarrassing her, so I’m not sure.” Carly looked around. “You making progress on this?”
“A little. We’ve found out Hazel was in bed with a student’s father?literally,” Aaron responded.
“Oh, wonderful. That’ll be fun. Well, chase it down. I don’t have to worry about that. My arrests were pretty clear cut, although I’m fairly certain a judge is going to just cut them loose,” Carly said and stood. “Guess I’d better get on it. Good luck to the two of you and if I can help you with anything, let me know. But give me forty-eight hours, okay? I’ll need that long to recover.”
“Will do!” Maisey answered, laughing, as Carly shot her a backhanded wave. “Wow. Eventful day.”
“Yeah. For all the wrong reasons. And I think I know where to start.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to the middle school.”
Maisey grinned. “Can I come with you?”
“I’ll be disappointed if you don’t!”
They were together. Butch and Sundance. Cagney and Lacey. Turner and Hooch. Jonathan and Jennifer Hart. Throw in Carly and they could be Charlie’s Angels, but no. She liked it better when it was just her and Aaron. They made a great team.
The best.
