Page 39 of Take a Hike
“Seriously, Fifi? B?” She glared at the two across the table, who looked like they were holding back laughter. “You’re the absolute worst back-watchers of all time.”
“You really are.”
Shocked that Kieran backed her up on this, but also triumphant, Charlie swung her arm toward him as if presenting evidence. Unfortunately, she used a little too much force and whacked him on the chest with the back of her hand. “See? Kiki agrees.”
“Not if you call me Kiki.”
The server’s gaze jumped from person to person at their table, looking bewildered. “Um…okay. Who ordered the pork?”
***
Once she’d inhaled half of her food, Charlie’s brain turned back to the mysteries at hand. Retrieving the list of names from her lap with her left hand, she waved the fork in her right one to get the attention of the others at the table. “Okay, Kieran, this is probably going to be more on you, since we’re not townies. Tim Helling?”
“Which one?”
“There’s more than one Tim Helling in the Freedom Survivors?” Charlie thought that was a bit odd, since Simpson wasn’t a highly populated place.
“Yeah. They’re father and son.”
“Oh.” She glanced down at the list again. “It doesn’t say TimJunior, so we’ll go with father, but keep the son as a possibility.” No one seemed to object to that, so she continued. “Does either strike you as especially murderous?”
“No.” When he thought, the space between his eyebrows wrinkled in a slightly different way than when he was straight scowling. Charlie forced her gaze off of Kieran’s adorable face wrinkles and back onto the list. She was starting to worry that she was getting a bit obsessive about Kiki…possibly even ranging over the border into creepy stalkerhood. She needed to focus on the case, especially since Kieran was still talking. “They’re both a bit strange, but that’s not unusual out here. My gut says they’re harmless, but don’t take them off the list.”
“Okay. Terry Buck.”
“A bit too dumb and lazy to commit murder and get away with it. Besides, I think he was pretty tight with Cobra before…” He waved a hand instead of finishing the sentence.
“Before Cobra got his head bashed in?”
“Yeah.”
“Archie Innis.”
“Too drunk.”
“But we don’t know when Cobra was killed,” Fifi protested. “No one’s drunkconstantly.”
“Archie is,” Kieran said. “He’s the Liverton Riders’ lawyer—or he used to be.”
“Daryl Alexander.”
“Can’t see it. Kid’s a follower and scared of his own shadow.”
“Maybe if Clint gave him orders from jail?”
“Maybe.” Kieran’s tone was skeptical though.
“Saul DuBois.”
“Hmm.”
Charlie perked up when he didn’t completely shoot down the possibility like he had with the others on the list.
“I can see it. Saul has a mean streak, and he and Clint have always been tight.”
“I’ll put a star by his name.” Glancing at her occupied right hand, Charlie quickly amended that. “I’ll put amentalstar by his name. This mac and cheese is amazing, and I’m not going to put this fork down until it’s gone.”
“Doubt he’ll talk to any of us,” Kieran warned. “DuBois is angry and suspicious, especially of women.”
