Page 54 of Killer on the Homestead
“Let me grab my keys,” he repeated firmly, striding over to his door.
She could leave without him. Handle this on her own. She didn’t need a partner. She didn’t need his input.
But she waited for him all the same.
Chapter Sixteen
Duncan wasn’t surprised to be met with Detective Beckett’s creatively crude curses when Rosalie strode into the little office the detectives shared.
Because the man who’d been introduced as Hart was standing in a corner—he also wasn’t wearing his sling anymore. Then there was a woman. Blond and blue-eyed, dressed in slacks and a Bent County polo shirt. Midthirties, or maybe pushing forty. Cop,clearly, so maybe a third detective. She looked vaguely familiar, but Duncan couldn’t place her and didn’t have the energy to try.
“We’re too busy to deal with you two,” Detective Beckett said disgustedly.
“And apparently too busy to do your job,” Rosalie returned, none of that fake cheer she usually used on Beckett. She was just straight pissed.
She slapped the bag with the map in it on the desk. “I found that in Owen Green’s bible.”
“Don’t BS me, Rosalie,” Beckett said disgustedly. “There was nothing in that damn bible, and what the hell were you doing poking around Owen Green’s room?”
Since Duncan didn’t care for this guy’s entire demeanor, he waded in. “She had the property owner’s permission.”
Detective Beckett’s angry gaze moved to Duncan. “Last time I checked you weren’t the property owner.”
“Yeah, but my father is. He knew. He was okay with it. You can verify that.”
“Your parents should reconsider just who they’re so free and easy with giving permissions to,” Beckett replied.
“Why don’t we all take a breath,” the female detective said, pushing into a standing position from behind the desk. “I understand this is stressful and heated. We have an unsolved murder, a burglary, and a suicide attempt. This is serious, but sniping at each other certainly doesn’t solve anything.”
“My case,” Beckett said, crossing his arms over his chest and continuing to glare at Rosalie. “I like sniping.”
“Your case, your screwup,” Rosalie retorted. “That map was in that bible. You didn’t search it hard enough,” Rosalie insisted, clearly ignoring the other detective.
“You can make a stink all you want, but you’re not a cop. You’re not a detective. Go private investigate all you want, but this is my case, and I don’t need you screwing it up with lies brought on by whatever this is,” he said, gesturing at Duncan. “I searched that bible. I’ve got bodycam footage to prove my point—not that I need to prove it toyou.”
Bodycam footage. Duncan frowned. Beckett had to be lying. It didn’t make any sense otherwise. “I watched her do it,” Duncan said. “I watched her upend the bible and the map fell out. It happened. So explain that with your bodycam.”
The detectives somehow all shared a look. A beat of silence.
“It wasn’t there this morning,” Detective Beckett said, sounding more in control of his irritation. More concerned and considering than offended now. “Not only did I shake out the bible, I flipped through every page. There’s not a stone I didn’t turn over in that room. So if it was thereafter…”
“Someoneelseput it there,” Rosalie said, finishing for him.
Duncan didn’t like thatifstill hanging out in Beckett’s sentence, but Rosalie didn’t seem offended. Like Beckett, sheseemed to have turned frustration and irritation into concern with the case at the drop of the hat.
It was enough to give a normal guy emotional whiplash.
“Which means that map isn’t Owen Green’s and he didn’t put it there,” Rosalie said. “Because Owen was in the hospital in between the police search and mine.”
Even with the whiplash, Duncan kept up. “So was Terry. Terry Boothe, our foreman,” Duncan clarified for the detectives, though they probably knew all the players. “He went with my mother to the hospital to wait on word about Owen’s prognosis after the ambulance left.”
Detective Beckett nodded thoughtfully. “I guess that’s three people we can mark off the list. Who else has access to the bunkhouse?”
“It’d be the same list we gave you after Hunter’s murder. Nothing would have changed.”
“No. Nothing would have changed,” Beckett agreed, but his gaze of suspicion was pinned on Duncan. “I don’t recall your name being on that list.”
Duncan blinked in surprised. “Myname?”
