Penned In - Lynn Cahoon Page 0,15

the group and Angie glanced across the room. No one was watching them.

“The first person you suspect. Just a name, not why.” She pointed at Matt.

“Marty.”

Then one by one she pointed to the rest of them. When they had gone around the table, Marty had four votes, Glen had two votes, and Tad had one. She looked at the names Felicia had written down. “Marty people, why?”

Matt shrugged. “Pat was giving him a hard time with the girl. If she’d changed her mind and gone back to him, Marty would be out in the cold. It’s hard to fight against exes and history.”

“Anyone else?”

Nancy shook her head. “It doesn’t feel like Marty. He seems to be a nice guy.”

“Okay, anyone else who did vote for Marty have a different reason?” She watched while Ian, Felicia, and Estebe shook their heads. “So the jealousy and keeping what’s now mine motive.”

“Nancy, you and I said Glen. Why did you pick him?” Angie knew her reason for choosing Glen, but she didn’t know Nancy’s.

“Glen was missing too long. He avoided answering direct questions. And,” Nancy flushed but continued, “this is stupid, but he reminds me of my ex. He’s definitely hiding something.”

Angie nodded. She’d felt it too. There was a secret hanging around Glen’s neck, and he wouldn’t let it go easily.

Ian turned to Hope. “So why did you choose Tad?”

“Besides being an ex-con? He doesn’t like his uncle. Or his sister for that matter. He’s always making faces at her behind her back. Then he sucks up when she’s looking. Anyone that mean, he has to be the killer. The other people are nice. Tad doesn’t have a nice bone in his body, as my grandmother would say.” Hope leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. No one was going to mess with her logic.

“I don’t think we made any ground in ruling anyone out.” Angie looked at the others. “Maybe we should ask some questions and see if we can eliminate at least a few of the players.”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s all take one person and go talk to them. Then we’ll come back here and compare notes. Someone has got to have an alibi.” Ian glanced at Angie. “What do you say, want to call a break?”

“Just as soon as we divide up the names.” She wrote down the names of everyone in the room, then handed the notebook to Felicia. “Write your name next to someone you think you can get to chat. Then pass it to the next person. We can try to get to everyone in the room before the guards come back. We may have to do a second round. Or a few of us will.”

She watched as everyone scribbled their names by the suspects’. She glanced at the name left when it came around. She had Uncle Thaddeus. “Thanks guys.”

“If you wanted an easy assignment, you should have picked first, before you passed around the notebook.” Ian shook his head. “What were you thinking?”

“I guess I wasn’t.” Angie admitted. She stood and called out. “Ten-minute break. Don’t take off.”

“Where would we go? We’re locked in, remember?” Felicia said in her best bored valley girl tone.

Angie tried not to smile. Her team could pull the wool over anyone’s eyes-which may or may not be a good thing. She went to the coffee pot, glanced around the room, and decided not to sit by anyone from her group. She sighed loudly as she sat next to Thaddeus who was playing with the deck of cards that Matt had found.

“Your team seems to be dissolving. You ever think of firing the whole lot of them and starting over? It’s worked for me several times in my career.” Thaddeus didn’t look up from his game of Solitaire.

Angie snorted. “I would, but one of the trouble makers is dating my partner. And she’s not going to let me get rid of the guy. So what business were you in?”

“Sales. I sold just about everything through my years, except for electronics and those damn computers. They said I wasn’t smart enough to sell computers. Hell, I could sell ice to Eskimos.”

“You should have seen the guy who sold us our accounting system. He had to be twelve. And he didn’t know anything. I swear, wisdom isn’t considered when they’re giving out jobs today.” Angie sipped her coffee and stared at Estebe who was talking to Tad. “Especially if you have a pretty face.”

“Exactly. You can be a total