Pierce drew out his chair. “Where have you been?”
“At a buddy’s cabin outside of Whitefish,” Hoyt said, his voice rough. “Ice fishin’ and drinking. A lot.”
Pierce waited a beat. “Where were you last night?”
“Got home around midnight and crashed,” Hoyt said, flattening his hand on the table. His knuckles were scratched and looked swollen.
“What happened to your hand?” Pierce asked.
“I told you I was ice fishin’,” Hoyt hissed. “It’s not like normal fishing.” He looked around the small room. “Why don’t you go do your job and make sure the case against McLintock sticks? The bastard and his bitch killed my dad for money, and you know it. Everyone knows it. But you’re so far up his lawyer’s ass that you can’t manage the job.”
I couldn’t see Pierce’s face, but his shoulders tightened just enough for me to notice.
He didn’t move otherwise. “Somebody has shot at McLintock twice, and earlier today somebody threatened his lawyer to drop his case. Uniformed officers found you at your place of business, where you could’ve easily gone afterward. The police are serving warrants on your home and the bait and tackle shop, and if they find a taser, I’m arresting you.”
Hoyt smiled and the sight wasn’t pleasing. “I have a taser, as do most folks around here. That’s not probable cause, and you know it.”
“How much do you owe in gambling debts?” Pierce asked, smoothly changing topics.
Hoyt shrugged. “Nothing now, but I’d rather have my dad than money, so don’t go there.”
“Any chance a loan shark took out your dad as a warning? Or to get paid?” Pierce asked.
I stood closer to the window. Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.
“No.” Hoyt clasped his hands on the table. “Not a chance. It was that Bernie asshole. Period.”
“Speaking of whom, were you aware that your father set Bernie up by drugging him and convincing him that he’d slept with Sharon Smith, the woman your father included in his will?” Pierce asked.
Hoyt shrugged. “I knew something was up with the apartment, but I didn’t pay attention. Good for Dad. We play to win, you know.”
What a jerk.
Pierce took more notes. “You’re going to walk me through your activities during the last week, hour by hour. Then you’re going to give me a full list of anybody you owe money to as well as the amounts owed. Start at the beginning.”
I pulled a chair closer to the window so I could sit. Was Hoyt the guy who’d shoved me against the building?
Chapter 32
Ididn’t learn anything of significance by watching Hoyt’s interview and had a uniformed officer escort me around the park to the prosecuting attorney’s office, where I used to work. Before Nick fired me. Somebody had placed a pink tree in the corner of the reception area and had half decorated it with silver bulbs. There was nobody behind the reception desk.
Nick walked out of the nearest office, my old office, reading a case file. He looked up, glanced at the tree, and sighed. “We ran out of bulbs. Just sent the receptionist to buy more.”
I looked around. “Where is everyone?”
“Either in trial, depositions, or on vacation already,” he said, not sounding happy about any of it. “What are you doing here?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his polished black shoe and headed down the hallway.
I followed him, noting his dark gray suit that he’d partnered with a yellow power tie. “Are you in trial?”
We reached his corner office at the very end of the hallway, and he stretched his long legs over several file boxes before striding around his desk, yanking his tie free as he went.
His jacket went on his chair, and his tie ended up on his desk next to three empty coffee mugs. “Yes to the trial, no to why you’re here.”
I stepped around the boxes and lifted a couple of notebooks off a leather guest chair before sitting and crossing my legs. “You know why I’m here?”
“Nope.” He released the first two buttons on his shirt and then did the same with the ones at his cuffs, rolling up his stark white and very pressed shirt. “Don’t care.”
I frowned.
