Facts, Evie. Focus.
“But you returned later to ask Clancy about time off.” Unable to hear a ghost, the sheriff prompted Bernice. “Did you overhear what he was saying to Geoff?”
Bernice raised her chin. “The things Mr. Clancy said weren’t right. He was telling Mr. Hayes that the contract allowed the machines to be removed, which was a lie. He said Mr. Jackson-Ives had framed the mayor, which is another lie. Mayor Block stole my mother’s lot in the trailer park just like he stole from Evangeline’s family. We exchanged words, and Mr. Clancy told me to leave or he’d have me fired. So I did.”
Bernice was a large woman... She knew about the office cat... Evie shook her head. She couldn’t believe the older woman carried a .22—and peanuts?—in her pocket, no matter how heated the argument got. And Bernice’s aura didn’t reflect muddy guilt the way the others did.
Geoff shrugged and intruded when the secretary fell silent. “Clancy was always hot under the collar about something. He accused me of bringing in Jax to put him out of office so I could step in. I don’t know where that came from. I’m not a politician. I work better behind the scenes. Bernice left in a huff, said she had to visit her mother. Clancy yelled at her ‘to go away and stay away.’”
“What happened after she left?” Troy asked.
Geoff shook his head. “He was ranting. He told me the Swensons owed him, and if buying new machines was what it took to get elected, he’d make it happen. I didn’t know what he meant except that Clancy liked flaunting his influential connections. The machines do need replacing, and he was alive when I left him.”
Clancy’s ghost flared in red rage and a thumb drive flew off the desk, smacking Geoff in the middle of his forehead. Geoff’s aura colored with guilt.
Evie sighed in exasperation, seizing this opportunity to speak. “It was you who wiped out Clancy’s computer, wasn’t it? You needed the DVM contract, why? And don’t lie, Geoff. I can read you like a book.” She felt the men staring at her, but she focused on poor readable Geoff, who’d been trying to find that contract in Jax’s office. It wasn’t a great leap of logic.
Geoff reddened.
Hank glared at him. “You listened to that little twerp over there, didn’t you?” He nodded at Swenson. “What did he promise if you found that contract?”
“Your election,” Geoff whispered back.
Larraine briefly frowned, then apparently remembering that caused frown lines, she returned to benevolently observing.
The silence forced Geoff to continue. “Swenson hascontacts. He promised he’d owe me. I didn’t think it was a big deal. The contract was public record, even if the mayor had it squirreled away. At the time, I thought there wasn’t any reason Clancy’s suicide should prevent us from benefitting from Swenson’s contacts. Without Clancy, Afterthought needs a new source of influence.”
But he’d dropped the ball—the thumb drive—and blown his opportunity. That was Geoff all over.
“Well, that explains a few things.” The sheriff glared at all of them. “I ought to haul the whole lot of you in.”
Teddy scowled but continued looking down his nose and saying nothing. Even his aura reflected a dirty brown and gray over a dark blue-green—an unhealthy personality but a killer? She couldn’t say.
Hank glared at Jax. “What’s your part in this, Mr. Fancy Attorney? Dot brought me that letter about someone named Jackson suing a voting machine company.” He glanced at Evie. “Said she found it on Evie’s counter. There’s more to this story.”
Poor Dot, trying her best to win over a potential mayor. Maybe Hank wasn’t quite as dumb as he looked.
Jax leaned forward and tapped the sheriff on his shoulder. Troy nodded and moved his chair back to the wall so Jax could take the desk.
Beside her, Bernice straightened as if ready to take meeting minutes. Jax had that effect.
Evie had hoped the ghost would be focused on his killer by now. Instead, Clancy was muttering and spinning furiously around Jax so that he had to hold his papers down. If ghosts could kill... Evie held her breath, not knowing if she should shout a warning.
“Thank you for meeting with us, gentlemen. We’ll get down to the reason I asked you to attend. I am the current owner of the microchip used by DVM in their machines. I’m also in possession of a document recently filed with the federal voting commission claiming those machines are rigged in collusion with the parties responsible for assigning ballot positions. I will be filing suit for the return of my father’s patent rights, as he would have done had he not been killed.”
Reuben had been busy if he’d already filed that thesis he’d been working on. And using the wordkilledinstead ofdied... Evie winced and waited for the explosion.
Teddy Swenson’s aura darkened to an ugly shade of mottled gray. He rose and shoved his chair back. “I will be talking to our attorneys. You cannot make accusations like that without consequences.”
Clancy turned a fiery red.Consequences, you little shit! Talk to your daddy about consequences!
The lights blew out and all the computer screens went black—even the battery-operated ones.
The security alarms shrieked on full alert. Bernice screamed in terror and tumbled off her chair.
Over the racket, the sheriff shouted, “I’ll be turning Afterthought’s machines over to the feds. The lot of you may want to start talking to your lawyers.”
Twenty-three