Gray closed the textbook.“Go.”
“One set of emails went to an email address registered to Lex Jansick.”
Gray’s hand tightened on the phone.Jansick.The man who had written the state’s official report concluding the fire was accidental.The man whose report had closed the case and sent eight widows home with nothing but grief and death certificates.
“The other set?”
“County building inspector.A guy named Dale Fenton.He signed off the final inspection of the barn.”
“The barn without sprinklers.”
“The barn without sprinklers,” Cooper confirmed.“The payments to Fenton date to the year the barn was built.Shoemacher paid him to sign off on a structure that didn’t meet the fire suppression requirements of its own blueprints.”
Gray stared at his timeline.The payoff emails slotted into it like the final pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.Now that it was complete, the picture revealed was devastating.
“What happens now?”Gray asked.
“I’ll putting the full package together.All your evidence and mine.Once it’s compiled, it’ll go to Montana’s justice department.”
“How long till the package is ready?”
“A week.Maybe less.”
Gray nodded, though Cooper couldn’t see it.“Can I tell Bonnie the names of the email recipients?”
A pause.“Your call.She’s your partner on this.”
His partner.He liked the sound of that.A lot.
“She’s the one who found the emails.She deserves to know,” Gray said.
“Fair.”A pause.“Gray, the work you’ve done on this is exceptional.You’ve built a case any prosecutor would be proud to present.”
He didn’t know what to do with a compliment from Cooper, who did not dispense them casually or often.“I just followed the evidence.”
“That’s all any good investigator does.”
They hung up, and Gray texted Bonnie right away.Cooper got the names.I figured you wouldn’t want to be ambushed by this, either.May I see you tomorrow?
Her response came quickly.Lunch at Rose’s.Noon.
Rose’s Diner at noon on a Tuesday was the worst possible place to share sensitive information, but it was the only place in Cobbler Cove where two single adults could have lunch together without the entire town assuming they were romantically involved.Everyone ate at Rose’s.It was the great equalizer.
Gray arrived first and took the booth in the corner.The pinochle group occupied their regular territory near the front window.Ruth Sanger was holding court, as always, her voice carrying over the lunch crowd like a public address system with opinions.
The topic of the day, it seemed, was the fire station.
“...a real civic gesture,” Ruth was saying.“Lucas may have his faults but reopening the station was the right thing to do.Not every mayor would have done it.”
Walter Meeks grunted.“The man approved a building permit.Let’s not throw him a parade.”
“After what happened?After that fire took eight of boys?Reopening the station—that takes courage.That takes a man willing to face the past.”
Gray stared fixedly at his coffee, his jaw tight.
Bonnie walked in.
Ruth fell silent.Gray couldn’t tell if she shut up because one of the widows of the fire walked in or if she got distracted from her gossip by the pinochle game she was supposedly playing.Either way, he was grateful for an end to the singing of Lucas Shoemacher’s praises.
