“Yeah, that’s what Brooke said too. But who?”
Hearing her name again made Tyler’s chest ache. “How is she?”
“Scared. Confused. Trying to figure out if she can trust her own judgment.” Joe’s expression softened slightly. “But she hasn’t given up on you. She called me yesterday and said she needed to know the truth. We spent hours going through everything.”
“She did that for me?”
“She did that for herself. She needs to know if you’re innocent or if she’s making the same mistake she made with Kelsey.” Joe paused. “The mistake several of us made with Kelsey. I know Brooke blames herself, thinks that trusting Kelsey means she’s a bad judge of character, but Kelsey fooled all of us. Even me, and I don’t trust anyone.”
Tyler snorted. “Probably what makes you good at your job.”
“I’d like to think so. But anyway, about Brooke, she’s fighting for you even when she thinks staying away is safer.”
Tyler stood and walked to the small window overlooking the parking lot of the hardware store next door. A customer was loading something into their trunk. He glanced at the craft store across the street, where Monique used to work.
“I’ve been thinking about who might want to frame me and why. Honestly, I have no idea.” He turned back to face Joe. “There’s this game warden—”
“Yep. Henry Ayers. He’s on my list. Who else should be on it? That’s the question. Let’s work through it. Who knew both victims?”
Tyler thought about mentioning Robert, but it still didn’t feel right. Yesterday he almost had himself convinced Robert was having an affair with either Sheila or Monique, but he still hated to believe that, hated to make any accusations that might come out and cause trouble for Robert or Sue.
“Half the town.” He shrugged. “They’ve both lived here practically forever and worked locally. Everyone knew them.”
“But who knew them well? Who had access to them? Who could get close enough to kill them without raising suspicion?”
“Again, half the town. You’ve lived here for a while now, right? You know how this place is.”
“I’ve only been here since February, but yeah, I’m beginning to realize how it is. You went to school with them. Both Brooke and Phil said they had a bit of a reputation. Very cliquish.”
“Cliquish? I don’t know about that. They weren’t very nice to people sometimes. I’ll admit, I never thought much about it. It was high school. Who cares?”
“Brooke said there were a few others in their group. Do you remember any of them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Tyler thought back, trying to recall faces and names. “There was another girl—Stacy something. A few others, maybe. I think they were cheerleaders. Not Monique. She wasn’t. But Sheila and the others were. I knew them, but we didn’t hang out much outside of school. And I don’t know much about what happened while I was gone.”
“What about conflicts? Did Sheila or Monique have enemies?”
“It was high school,” Tyler said bluntly. “Everyone had conflicts. Raging hormones and all that. They made life difficult for people they decided weren’t worth their time, targeted kids who didn’t fit in.”
Joe made a note. “So potentially a lot of people who might hold grudges.”
“Yeah. But enough to kill them all these years later? That doesn’t even make sense.”
“People have killed for less.” Joe tapped his pen against the notebook. “What about more recently? Any conflicts you know about?”
Tyler thought about the conversation at the bank. Sheila mentioned getting together with old friends. She’d been friendly, normal, like they were just people who used to know each other.
“Sheila wanted to organize a reunion of sorts,” Tyler said. “She mentioned it to Edi and me. Said we should all get together, listen to music, have drinks.”
“Did that happen?”
“No. She died before anything was planned.”
Joe wrote something down. “Who else was she planning to invite?”
“Monique, probably. I think she mentioned her. A few others, but I didn’t recognize any of the names. She wanted to get the old gang back together.”
“Was Edi part of the old gang?”
