The sheriff turned his bug eyes on us with obvious suspicion. Thin, graying hair had been carefully combed over in an attempt at hiding a shiny bald scalp. Cheaters were perched crookedly on his nose. His uniform didn’t seem to fit him right. It was too big in the shoulders and pulled tight across a surprisingly large pot belly. A badge that looked a little too shiny for everyday wear was pinned to his chest, and one hand gripped a holstered sidearm on his hip.
“Don’t shoot,” Arthur said, raising both hands. “We come in peace.”
The sheriff’s sour expression didn’t change, but his eyes flicked downward at the bag in the center of his desk. It smelled like ham and eggs.
“And we’ve already eaten, thanks,” Arthur quipped, not even trying to hide the snark in his tone.
Craggs glanced down again at the takeout bag and kept his hand on his pistol.
“Sheriff, this is Skye Randall. Clare’s daughter.”
He didn’t stand up. As he squinted at us over the rims of his glasses, his expression tilted ever so slightly from open suspicion into a defensive frown.
“Skye and her daughter arrived from California yesterday. I mentioned her when I called you after Clare died. When I asked if you wanted to come over and look around, and you said no. Remember?”
“Nope.”
“And that she would be coming home.”
“Nope.”
Arthur crossed his arms over his chest. “We went into the Salt Box last night.”
“Okay.”
The sheriff seemed incapable of offering little more than brief responses. There was no offer to sit down. No effort at being sociable. And after the initial glance, he made no direct eye contact with me.
“Skye and I found something I hadn’t seen before.”
Craggs’s gaze flicked to a clock on the wall and back to the bag of food. Clearly, we were wasting his snack time, and the breakfast sandwich was getting cold.
Not waiting for an invitation, Arthur swung open the gate in the railing and ushered me into the sheriff’s inner sanctum. He pulled up a chair for me and one for himself. As we sat down, Craggs actually snatched the bag from his desk and placed it protectively behind him on the floor.
“I’m sure you’re dying to know what we found,” Arthur said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, the latch on side door of the shop is damaged. Now that I think about it, it might’ve been damaged the morning I found Clare. What if someone broke into the barn and was waiting for her? What if her death wasn’t an accident?”
The lock on that door had been broken for as long as I could remember. Clare never bothered to fix it. No point, she always said. She kept no money there. She brought her account books and any cash into the house every night. Besides, anyone going in through that door would have to enter through her garden.
But I wasn’t about to say any of that now. Any excuse to get the sheriff to check things out worked for me.
“Don’t you think you should come and take a look, Sheriff?”
The wheels were turning behind Craggs’s bulging eyes. Finally, he took his reading glasses off, folded them, and laid them on the desk.
“No need.”
“Why no need? Isn’t that your job?” Arthur repeated.
“Kids are breaking into garages and businesses all over town. No telling when they got into her shop. Could’ve been after. Probably was.”
That was as eloquent a speech as we’d heard since coming in here.
The sheriff didn’t wait for us to leave, though. Picking up the food bag, he made a production of taking out and unwrapping his sandwich. A croissant with egg, ham, and cheese. The man clearly needed sustenance to recover after his lengthy speech, and we’d been dismissed.
But Arthur was not easily dismissed. “There’s one way to find out. Clare’s next door neighbors. You know, those New Yorkers who rent their place out weekly, even though short-term rentals aren’t allowed in Harbor View.”
“What about them?”
“They have security cameras.”
