Page 103 of For the Birds

“I know.” I grinned. “Neely Kate’s lucky to haveyou.”

“You can be our honorary cousin,” Witt said. “We’ll stand up for youtoo.”

“You already did,” I said, looking him in the eye. “What were you doin’ with a gun back there?”

“Do you know how it would have looked if I hadn’t had one? No one would have taken me seriously. But now that we’ve established you aren’t takin’ shit, I’m hopin’ we won’t have to pull ’em out again.”

Witt had a point. “If we ever get in a situation where you have a gun and the police are comin’, you give it to me. I’ll deal withit.”

“Rose . . .”

“I’m serious, Witt.”

“I know you are. Thanks.”

Neely Kate walked out of the liquor store, and I took it as a good sign that she wasn’t being chased. She climbed into the front passenger seat and shook her head. “There’s good news and there’s badnews.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“There was only one guy working in the shop, and when I told him I wanted to talk to the guy who’d been there an hour ago, he told me he wasn’t sellin’ whatever I’d been smokin’. Said he was the only one who’d been there all morning and he didn’t rememberme.”

“Is that the bad news or goodnews?”

“Neither. Then I told him I was Bud’s girlfriend, and I was lookin’ for him. He said he was too, and he’d appreciate it if I had Bud call him pronto.”

I cringed. “Unless Bud becomes a ghost, that’s not likely to happen.”

“I asked him for his name and number if I needed to give him an update about Bud, and he said the number for the liquor store’s in the phone book . . . as if people used those anymore.”

“So, he was an old fart?” Witt asked.

“I guess,” Neely Kate said. “His name tag said Gene, but I don’t know if that’s his real name. But he mentioned something about Bud workin’ at the junkyard on the side, so now we know two of them worked there. Maybe that’s where theymet.”

“Okay, short of following Gene around, there’s nothin’ more to do here,” I said. “Let’s head back to the office and see what we can find out about Elijah Landry and Sandusky Enterprises.”

* * *

An hour later,we didn’t know much more. Witt and I had taken on the task of looking up Elijah Landry, and we hadn’t found anything interesting. Apparently he’d lived in Shreveport all his thirty-six years, and there was no record of the time he’d spent in Henryetta.

Witt was sitting at Bruce Wayne’s desk searching the Henryetta Gazette when he shouted, “Hotdamn!”

“What?” Neely Kate and I asked simultaneously.

“There’s an Elijah Landry in the paper about fifteen years ago. He attended his grandparents’ golden wedding anniversary at the Henryetta Baptist Church.” He looked up and grinned. “It’s him—says he’s from Shreveport.”

I hopped up and rushed over to his computer. “Is there a photo?”

“A few, and a long list of the relatives who attended. Half are from Louisiana, and the rest are from Arkansas.”

“Anyone you recognize from Fenton County?” I asked.

“A Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Beagle and Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Landry.”

“You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” Neely Kate said. “Those women don’t get first names?”

“Now Neely Kate,” Witt groaned, giving me a conspiratorial wink, “what do those women need names for when their husbands’ names work perfectlywell?”

She shot him a glare.

---