Grave Sight Page 0,3

it was short.

"Sheriff," I said, nodding. "Mr. Edwards, Ms. Teague, Mr. Vale. How are you all this morning?" Tolliver held out my chair and I sat. This was an extra, for-show courtesy. He figures the more honor he shows me publicly, the more the public will feel I'm entitled to. Sometimes it works that way.

The waitress had filled my coffee cup and taken my first swallow before the sheriff spoke. I tore my gaze away from my paper, still folded by my plate. I really, really like to read the paper while I drink my coffee.

"He was there," Harvey Branscom said heavily. The man's face was ten years older than it'd been the night before, and there was white stubble on his cheeks.

"Mr. Chesswood, you mean." I ordered the fruit plate and some yogurt from a waitress who seemed to think that was a strange choice. Tolliver got French toast and bacon and a flirtatious look. He's hell on waitresses.

"Yeah," the sheriff said. "Mr. Chesswood. Darryl Chesswood. He was a good friend of my father's." He said this with a heavy emphasis, as if the fact that I'd told him where the old man's body was had laid the responsibility for the death at my door.

"Sorry for your loss," Tolliver said, as a matter of form. I nodded. After that, I let the silence expand. With a gesture, Tolliver offered to refill my coffee cup, but I raised my hand to show him how steady it was today. I took another deep sip gratefully, and I topped the cup off. I touched Tolliver's mug to ask if he was ready for more, but he shook his head.

Under the furtive scrutiny of all those eyes, I wasn't able to open the newspaper I had folded in front of me. I had to wait on these yahoos to make up their minds to something they'd already agreed to do. I'd felt optimistic when I'd seen them waiting for us, but that optimism was rapidly deteriorating.

A lot of eye signaling was going on among the Sarnites (Sarnians?). Paul Edwards leaned forward to deliver the result of all this conferencing. He was a handsome man, and he was used to being noticed.

"How did Mr. Chesswood die?" he asked, as if it were the bonus question.

"Cerebral hemorrhage." God, these people. I looked at my paper longingly.

Edwards leaned back as though I'd socked him in the mouth. They all did some more eye signaling. My fruit arrived - sliced cantaloupe that was hard and tasteless, canned pineapple, a banana in the peel, and some grapes. Well, after all, it was fall. When Tolliver had been served his eggs and toast, we began to eat.

"We're sorry there may have been some hesitation last night," Sybil Teague said. "Especially since it seems you, ah, interpreted it as us backing out on our agreement."

"Yes, I did take it that way. Tolliver?"

"I took it that way, too," he said solemnly. Tolliver has acne-scarred cheeks and dark eyes and a deep, resonant voice. Whatever he says sounds significant.

"I just got cold feet, I guess." She tried to look charmingly apologetic, but it didn't work for me. "When Terry told me what he'd heard about you, and Harvey agreed to contact you, we had no idea what we were getting into. Hiring someone like you is not something I've ever done before."

"There is no one like Harper," Tolliver said flatly. He was looking up from his plate, meeting their eyes.

He'd thrown Sylvia Teague off her stride. She had to pause and regroup. "I am sure you're right," she said insincerely. "Now, Miss Connelly, to get back to the job we're all hoping you'll do."

"First of all," Tolliver said, patting his mustache with his napkin, "Who's paying Harper?"

They stared at him as if that were a foreign concept.

"You all are obviously the town officials, though I'm not real sure what Mr. Edwards here does. Ms. Teague, are you paying Harper privately, or is she on the town payroll?"

"I'm paying Miss Connelly," Sybil Teague said. There was a lot more starch in her voice now that money had been mentioned. "Paul's here as my lawyer. Harvey's my brother." Evidently, Terry Vale wasn't her anything. "Now, let me tell you what I want you to do." Sybil met my eyes.

I glanced back at my plate while I took the grapes off the stem. "You want me to look for a missing person," I said flatly. "Like always." They like it better when you say "missing