Page 36 of Longest Ride

“Too soon to tell. At least we know she’s with Mom and she’s okay. Let’s be happy with that for now.”

“Yeah. Are we gonna tell Dad that?”

“We’ll think about it while we work.”

“Good plan.”

Billy went over the case with us in the squad room when we got to the station. “Our first triple murder and one that’s going to take some figuring out.”

“Yeah,” said Virge. “We’ve got a couple of suspects and right now I’m kind of going with Paula. She shot us some shit like she was trying to make us believe they all got killed because of drugs.”

I shook my head, “Paula tried to steer us down that lane, but there was no evidence of that in the trailer. None.”

Molly nodded her head. “I read what she said to you boys, and it seemed like she wanted to believe that story herself.”

“Might have been a crime of passion,” said Billy, “in which case, the killer would be somebody who was jealous of one of the three dead people.”

“That could be Tim Perkins,” said Ted. “Jealous of Carla being with his brother and Harry.”

“Or a girlfriend of Alex Fleming that we don’t know about,” said Billy.

“Or Paula,” said Virge. “What if Paula knew Harry was cheating on her and she wanted him dead?”

“But Paula moving two trucks down to the Quarry Cutoff?” Billy shook his head. “I’m not buying that she could do that alone. One person didn’t do that.”

“Right,” said Molly. “One person didn’t move the trucks. They had to have somebody picking them up to do that. Had to be two.”

“Who would’ve helped Paula?” asked Virge. “Did Paula have a boyfriend and she wanted Harry out of her life?”

“That’s a possibility too, Virgil,” said Molly. “In that case, Paula’s boyfriend helped her kill the victims and move the trucks.”

“We any further ahead?” asked Ted.

“Nope,” said Billy, “but we’re not giving up. Virge and Harlan, go back to the trailer park and knock on more doors. Ask what the neighbors saw three days ago. Even a vehicle in Alex’s driveway that they didn’t recognize. A tag we can check. Anything at all.”

“Copy that, boss. We’re on it.”

Billy went into his office after the boys left to do more door-to-door. His cell rang and it was Tim Perkins.

“Have you found out anything about my brother’s murder, Sheriff?”

He’s not asking about Carla.

“Everybody at our station is working on it, Tim. We’re checking every lead we have.”

“Can I ask what leads you’re running down?”

“Nope. I can’t talk about that yet, but if you have any suspects in mind, I’d like to hear about them.”

“Since you were here, Sheriff, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and there’s this guy Archie Twig. He’s a bad guy with bad friends, and Alex sometimes hung out with him. Harry too, if he was at Alex’s trailer.”

Billy wrote down the name. “Got an address for Archie?”

“He lives in Sweetgrass. You can get the exact address from his license.”

“I’ll do that, and I’ll go talk to him this morning. Thanks for the call, Tim. I’ll let you know about Twig.”

“Thanks, Sheriff. I want to help you solve my brother’s murder.”

---