“I’m so sorry, Delaney,” he blurted. “I didn’t know! I don’t know how the bullets got there. I just wanted to scare you. That’s all. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
He was babbling. I watched him plead with me. He might be faking it, his panic nothing more than realization that he had made a mistake and he was going to pay for it for a very long time.
I didn’t want to believe him. Dan Perkin was a pain in the neck on pretty much all levels. He had no real friends in town, and I didn’t think anyone would feel the least bit of remorse if he were locked up for life.
But my job was to look at the facts objectively.
And I was damn good at my job.
“I need you to calm down,” I said in the tone of voice I used when trying to talk Kressler and Wallery out of their garbage barrel battle. “Can you do that for me?”
He scowled like he was about to go off on a rant, but then he looked me up and down and slumped, pressing his forehead against the bars.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can be calm. Am I gonna need my lawyer here? Because I think she’s running the tie-dye booth.”
“No, you won’t need your lawyer. I’m not trying to trap you. I just want to ask you a couple things.”
He nodded, his forehead rubbing on the bar.
“Did you buy dynamite and blow up your garden?”
“I…” He licked his lips, his gaze skittering. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Were you having thoughts about blowing up Chris’s beer vats?”
He nodded.
Okay, two for two. Pearl had been right.
“Did you try to blow up Chris’s beer vats?”
He shook his head, miserable, though I didn’t know if it was because he hadn’t had a chance to blow up the beer or because I’d asked him about it.
“Did you kill Heim?”
He jerked away from the bars. “What? No! Why would I do that?”
“He was a judge in the contest, Dan.”
“I’d never!” he sputtered. “Never! Kill someone? I wouldn’t. I can’t believe you would accuse me.”
“You pointed a gun at me, Dan,” I said quietly. “And you pulled the trigger.”
“I…I didn’t know it was loaded. I don’t know how that happened, Delaney. You have to believe me. I didn’t load that gun.”
“If you didn’t, who did? Who had access to it? Who have you let handle it?”
“No one. No one.” He shook his head and gripped the bars again.
I waited, trying to decide if I believed him. I sighed. Even though I didn’t like it, I thought he was telling the truth.
“Okay, so you were waving around an empty gun—not the smartest move, Dan.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then, to my surprise, nodded. “I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted…wanted you to pay attention to me.”
“You have my full attention. I need you to really think about this: who do you know that hates you enough to frame you for shooting me?”
“I told you no one touched my gun.”
