Buried in Secrets (Carly Moore #4) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,24

this was the first time we’d looked at them together with a critical eye, trying to determine which leads were most promising.

“Hey,” Marco said, sitting up. “This one’s new.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Which one?”

“The Drummond lumber yard employee whose house exploded from a gas leak twelve years ago.” His gaze lifted. “It looks like it was considered an accident.”

“It was,” I said as I cracked several eggs into the skillet. “But a family of five died in the explosion.”

“You don’t think it was an accident?”

“I wasn’t sure at first, but then I discovered that about a week after the funeral, a man crashed his car into a tree on Highway 107.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Go on.”

“The article says that there were no signs of skid marks. There were no other cars. No alcohol or drugs involved. He just hit a tree.”

“Are you suggesting it was attempted suicide?”

“I’d bet money on it,” I said, turning around to face him. “He tried three more times over the years in various other ways. If you flip forward several pages, you’ll see them all. His name is Ted Butcher.”

“Was he ever successful?”

“I didn’t find an obituary on him. His last two attempts were drug overdoses, and I suspect they only made the paper because he was found in public locations. The Ewing city park and the grocery store parking lot. The last one happened two years ago.”

He cocked his head, studying me. “Why isn’t it next to the explosion?”

“Because I didn’t connect him to it until last night. After I came home from your place, I started looking them over.”

“I thought we were going to work on it together.”

“We are,” I said, flipping the eggs. “But my notes were in my purse, just begging to be looked over again. Ted Butcher and the explosion weren’t even on my most promising list before last night.” I took a deep breath. “Look. I don’t know that all of these cases have anything to do with Bart. I don’t know that any of them do. I just searched out weird, unexplained accidents and deaths. Ted caught my attention because he tried to kill himself so many times, in different ways. It wasn’t until I put together the timeline that I realized his first attempt was two weeks after the family died.” I pointed to the book. “The timeline’s at the back.”

He started flipping pages, then stopped on a page and began to read. After a few seconds, his gaze lifted. “I think you might be on to something, Carly.”

“So I need to talk to Ted Butcher.”

He made a face. “If his last two dances with death were drug overdoses, it sounds like he’s a habitual user.” When I gave him a blank look, he added, “He loses credibility.”

“So you’re saying if I can get Ted Butcher to confess to doing Bart Drummond’s bidding, it might not help me one bit.”

“Help us one bit,” Marco said. “And yeah. That’s exactly what I’m sayin’…unless he has evidence tying him and the deed to Bart.”

“How likely is that?”

“Not very.”

I pulled the cookie sheet with turkey bacon out of the oven, and Marco made another face. “I’m not eatin’ that, Carly.”

“Good. More for me and Hank.”

“Your reluctant prisoner.”

“Hey!” I protested, turning to face him with a pair of tongs in my hand. “I’m only trying to prolong his life. And he doesn’t protest. Much.”

He grinned. “I was teasing. But I’m still not eating turkey bacon.”

I dished up a plate for Hank and cut his pancake into pieces before pouring a small amount of maple syrup on them. Then I grabbed the coffee pot to give him a refill and carried it and the plate out to the porch. When I came back, Marco was patiently waiting, his forearms on the table, but he gave me a weird look.

“What?”

“Do you cut up his meat for him too?”

It took me a second to realize what he was saying, and it didn’t set right. “Are you serious?”

“I know your job is to help him in exchange for free rent, but he’s not feeble.”

“The man is eating on his front porch so we can have privacy,” I said in a low tone, internally acknowledging that Hank was on the front porch because that was where he chose to be, but even so. “He’s got a kitten in his lap. How’s he going to balance a plate and a kitten while he’s cutting up his pancakes?”

Marco held up his hands up in self-defense. “Okay, you’re