Page 147 of Slack Tide Kill

Sally tuned him out. If he did know something, he wasn't going to just blurt it out. His clean record meant he kept secrets well. Her thoughts dipped and rose, searching for a way in. A weakness. A place to–

Something struck her. Maybe he'd already told her more than he'd meant to? She flashed back to Umberside Lodge, her first day on Dungeness. The Rook brothers had been in the middle of something, all carrying boxes full of brightly colored…

"Vapes," she said abruptly.

Meeks was unmoved. "What about them?"

"In your current portfolio, you've got vape shops." She paused. "Does Roarke know about that?"

The twitch returned. Liam leaned closer.

"I don't see why Roarke Rook would want to–"

"I see it," Sally interrupted. "When he stretched out your arm with a digger, he thought he was getting everything. You stepped away from all his 'affairs'; you just said that yourself. Including vapes."

Meeks' lips thinned out. "I'm now asking you to leave my home."

"We're just getting started. If vapes are a Rook racket, imagine how he'll feel when he hears you've wormed your way back into his market?"

"As I said, I'm just a shadow partner in multiple small businesses, not the–"

"And where there's one transgression, there's bound to be others. Barbers? Nail salons? The tow company, that's waste adjacent, isn't it? I've seen Umberside Lodge. Roarke loves collecting old cars." She paused a moment, finally standing. "You're a sneaky little rat, aren't you, Crawford Meeks?"

His cheeks colored. "Even if Roarke Rook did somehow 'hear' about this, he is in custody now, likely to serve a decade or more in prison for human trafficking. He can't touch me."

"Sure about that, are you? Our theory is that there's a fifth Rook. Killing police officers in their name. You think a killer like that won't come down here to reclaim what's theirs? Maybe strap you up one more time, pull until something pops?"

She snapped her fingers. Meeks flinched.

"Arthur Bledd, Crawford," Sally said. "Reginald Rook. Tom Richter. Tell us what you know, now, and we're gone. I don't care about your sticky little fingers in all Roarke's pies. I just want to stop a killer, and you probably want that too now, don't you?"

For the first time, a look of fear stole over Meeks' face. He turned to the kitchen, where Stacey Meeks stood at the kitchen counter, pretending to pour a coffee.

"Upstairs, Stace," he said calmly. "For your own sake."

Stacey Meeks stared defiantly back. "Why?"

"Please."

She cocked her hip, seemed to think about arguing, then stalked away. Meeks waited as the sound of her footfalls on the stairs faded away.

"You are wrong about me, officers," Meeks said gravely. "I was never Reg's secret-keeper. That was my rule from the outset, when I financed Reactor Logistics. I did not want to know. Which means I never wanted to hear what I'm about to tell you." He paused, licked his lips, then went on. "It was right before Richter died. I never socialized with Rook, but Gerald and I would play golf from time to time. We had a rule to never talk shop. But this day, there was a storm. Like today. We shouldn't even have been playing, but Spate leaned on the club and they bent the rules. He was drunk on whisky and I was halfway there myself, and he said something about Arthur Bledd."

Sally's blood ran cold. "What did he say?"

"It was the seal story you mentioned. Something about Bledd catching a local boy torturing a seal. Carving it up. Taking its eyes."

Sally tried to parse that. "You said this was before the murder happened? How long?"

"At least a day. Maybe two."

Sally's mouth went dry. She looked at Liam but he was fixated on Meeks.

"Two days before the murder?" Liam asked. "You're sure about that?"

Meeks nodded. "One hundred percent. I remember Spate thought it was hilarious. He kept laughing, talking about all the things Bledd was going to do to this lad. Put cockle shells in his eyes."

Sally felt the case start spinning like a top.