Gideon tensed beside me. I got the impression very few people talked to him so rudely.
“So, how’s it going?” I asked.
Jim’s dark eyes bore into mine. He’d been so sweet the other day when he’d come into the shop looking for a gift for his girlfriend’s mother, but today he was like an entirely different person. His arm muscles flexed, and his mouth flattened in a grim line. “That’s what you want to ask? Really?”
Gideon stepped closer to Jim, drawing the contractor’s attention from me. Then Gideon edged ever so slightly between us, like he thought Jim might lash out, and he wanted to take the brunt of the attack. But yeah, that didn’t work for me. Not that I wanted to be hit, but I wasn’t some kid in need of coddling either. I inched to the side a bit so I could see Jim better again.
“We want to ask you about what happened the night Winston told you to quit working,” Gideon said.
“The night he was killed, you mean.” Jim took a large swallow of his water.
Gideon nodded.
“The bastard damn-near begged me to work late. Said he wouldn’t pay us anything more until the job was done. Then he tells me to stop?” Jim shook his head. “What an ass.”
To say his attitude toward Winston surprised me would be an understatement. I’d expected him to pretend everything was hunky-dory.
Wait, was I using that right? And what did hunky-dory even mean? I must’ve spent too much time with Elwood when I was a kid. Sometimes the strangest phrases popped into my head.
But would a murderer call his victim a bastard and an ass?
“You, uh, didn’t like him?” I ventured.
“No.” Jim snorted and flipped his hammer in his hand. Yeah, that wasn’t menacing at all. “I’ve heard what everyone’s saying about the shit he was causing for me. I know how that looks, but I’m not going to lie. And I’m not sorry he’s dead. I just wish he’d paid me before he got offed.”
“What did you do that night, after he asked you to stop working?” Gideon asked.
“I left and didn’t look back.” Jim frowned. “I should’ve packed up my shit that night, too. I would have done it if I’d known he was going to die, and the police weren’t going to let me back into the Nook to get my stuff.”
“Can anyone vouch for you?” I asked, because how could I not? We’d heard him banging around in that shop after Winston left the meeting, which meant Jim was lying.
“Like an alibi?” Jim scowled. “No. I was home alone.”
Liar!
“Did you kill him?” Gideon asked.
Jim shook his head. He rubbed the cool water bottle across the back of his neck. “How the hell am I supposed to get paid if he’s dead?”
Well, if that was true, why would he lie about where he was?
“So, who do you think killed him?” I asked.
“How would I know? Like I said, I was home.” Jim shot me a hard smile.
Then his gaze was drawn to the gate. I glanced over my shoulder to see more vendors arriving and asking an irritated Lily for directions. His gaze darted around to a couple of the other attendees before returning to us. Hmm… if he didn’t want people to hear what he was saying, maybe it was something juicy. Or was he hesitating for some other reason?
“No guesses?” I prodded.
“He got around a bit, didn’t he?” Jim said slowly, as if weighing his words carefully. He mopped more sweat off his forehead. If it wasn’t so hot outside, I’d think he was sweating because he was lying.
“Are you talking about Tulip?” I asked.
“Who?” Jim asked.
“Brooke. She goes by Tulip now.”
“Nah. Not her. She’s weird, sure, but I don’t think Winston was all that serious about her. That assistant of his, though? Now she had her claws into him pretty deep. He could barely take a piss without her demanding it be added to his schedule first.”
