Which was why the killer had also thrown a cat—to which he was severely allergic? Jax bit his tongue. There was a bit of knowledge he wasnotabout to repeat. He couldn’t believe he was even thinking it. Insanity must be contagious.
“I’m sure his doctor can tell you more than I can. Clancy did not return asking for more supplements, so I assume what I gave him didn’t help. I imagine everyone who knew him well heard his complaints about peanuts. Personally, I think he wanted to get rid of peanut farmers and turn crops into Wal-Mart.” She sounded as indignant as she looked.
Evie was a chip off the old block. What was that old saw about looking at the mothers to see how the daughters would turn out? Interesting.
“Can anyone verify that you weren’t carrying peanuts when you went to city hall to confront Clancy?” Troy asked, sitting back in his chair with his hands crossed over his chest.
“All I did was remove my name from the ballot. I might have gone in and hexed him over the water bill if he hadn’t been busy, but I wasn’t willing to wait around to do so. He was a mean man, and I didn’t like him, but I have never so much aswishedanyone dead. That’s extremely bad karma.”
Jax raised his eyebrows and waited for Troy to skip the obfuscations and ask the obvious.
“Busy? Doing what?” Bingo, Troy hit the keyword.
Mavis waved her hand vaguely. “Talking. He was a salesman. That’s what he did best, talk.”
Even Jax sighed in exasperation. “Mavis, you can’t protect the entire town. Others would have seen who was in there. Just tell the sheriff what he probably already knows and let us get out of here.”
She huffed. “It’s not my business to know what others are doing. Clancy wasbusy. I mentally hexed him and left. I am quite certain my hex did not kill him.”
“But one of those people in that office might have,” Troy insisted. “If you recognized them, give me their names. If you didn't, describe them.”
Jax reached over and stopped Mavis’s hands from making evil signs. “Even if it was Evie,tell him.”
She glared. “Fine lawyer you are. Aren’t you supposed to tell him he has to arrest me and read me my rights, and I don’t have to say anything if I don’t want to?”
Jax was quite certain he heard the sheriff chuckle. An officer without a sense of humor might pin Mavis down on the matter of hexing and believe she had sufficient motivation to kill her opponent. Troy knew his suspect too well.
“You aren’t accused of anything, and you aren’t being arrested,” Jax told her. “You are an honest citizen who is doing her duty by acting as a witness to circumstances that led to a crime. The people in that office might know something that will help Troy find a killer. Do you want to leave a killer on the streets? Now tell him.”
She drew herself up straighter and glared at both of them. “It was just poor Bernice and Geoff Hayes. They were waving papers and Clancy was shouting a lot. Discussing the town budget sounds a lot like that in council meetings. Troy, you really can’t upset Bernice. She’s having a hard time with her mother’s cancer and all.”
“We’re questioning all the secretaries. I have a job to do.” Troy stood. “Thank you for coming in.”
“Is that all?” Looking surprised, Mavis didn’t immediately get up. “You don’t need my fingerprints or anything?”
“We have your fingerprints, Mavis. You’ve been run in so many times over the years that we keep them on our Most Wanted bulletin board. We know you weren’t in that office.” Troy held out his hand to Jax. “I wish you luck if you mean to take Miz Carstairs on as a client.”
Mavis hmphed and stalked out.
Jax shook the sheriff’s hand. “I’m only here as a friend.” Deciding, no matter how distant the connection, he couldn’t sit on information, he lingered. “Look, I don’t know how there can be any link, but I would be remiss in my duty if I didn’t tell you about a similar case in California.”
“California?” The sheriff raised his shaggy eyebrows.
Evie would kill him for implicating them more, but it had to be done. “A lawyer Evie and I consulted out there was killed in an almost similar fashion. He was rendered unconscious before someone put a.22 caliber to his temple.”
Troy sat down and dredged out his notebook. “Facts.”
“I don’t have many.” Jax pulled out his phone and gave him the number for the sheriff’s office.
Troy scribbled it down. “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“Since we think it may be related to a thirty-year-old death and voting machines, no, you’re not. But I’ll warn you that Theodore Swenson and Hank Williams were in my office just half an hour ago looking for a voting machine contract that only Clancy seemed to have. None of this has anything to do with Evie and her family, just mine, so I’d appreciate it if you kept them out.”
Troy snorted. “Like that’s ever happening in our lifetimes.” He reached for his phone.
Dismissed, Jax strode out in Mavis’s wake. Maybe he should buy steaks for dinner. It had been a damn frustrating day.
That’s when Ariel texted him.margaret thompson owns m&s leasing.