Page 22 of Out to Get Her
The guy was smart enough that he wouldn’t slip up on anything he didn’t want known to Dustin or her or anyone else. But if he had information that didn’t incriminate him, she’d be the only one who could get it.
“I’ll head over there later. I’m just seeing what other stops I need to make while I’m on the road.” She tapped her pencil against the pad again. “Thing I can’t figure is what Paul was doing in that house in the first place. Feels like that’s the place to start, but I don’t know where that is exactly.”
Dustin studied her from across the room, thinking hard about those words. She hadn’t expected him to figure out what she hadn’t, but it was always enjoyable to watch him puzzle things out. He was turning out to be quite good at his job. If he wanted to, he could get a job in some bigger city one day. He’d probably end up making one heck of a detective.
“Think he just stumbled in drunk?” he asked.
Paul’s truck had been found parked at his house near Addie’s Lunch Shack. Not an impossible walk to Michael Sonnier’s place, but a good enough distance for no one to have seen him stumbling on the side of the road or through a field to get there. And there wasn’t even a bar between the two places.
“Could be a while on that tox screen and autopsy to know for sure.” Samantha’s brow furrowed as she considered a new possibility. “What if he went there with someone?”
“With the same someone who killed him?” Dustin looked intrigued but concerned by the possibility, mirroring Samantha’s own internal turmoil over the implications.
“Maybe.”
She didn’t like where this train of thought was leading her. Didn’t like it at all.
The door chimed and opened wide as a flustered, red-faced woman stormed into the station.
Samantha didn’t like this turn of events, either.
She switched on her calm, professional officer voice and said, “Hello, Addie. What can we do for you?”
“You can start by telling me why that brute of a man set fire to my restaurant.”
This was not how this day was supposed to goat all. This case was going to be hard enough in fifty different ways without Adeline stirring the pot with wild conspiracy mess and connecting dots that didn’t exist.
But she knew there was no way to simply brush off Adeline, so she motioned to the chair beside her desk. “Have a seat, take a breath, and we’ll talk. Officer Boutin, would you please get a cup of coffee for Mrs. Weaver?”
“Of course.” Dustin rolled his eyes, but headed toward the coffeepot.
“Remind me, Adeline. How do you like your coffee?” she asked, her voice sweet as cane syrup now.
Addie sat in the chair and looked back and forth between the two officers, then stuttered slightly as she said, “Two sugars, lots of cream.”
Samantha nodded at Dustin, who heard the order and nodded back. “Now, tell me why you think Paul was responsible for the fire at your restaurant. Because I know you believe it was intentional, but I’ve been over the files and statements again, and everything still points to an accident.”
“Well, for starters, that man was practically the only person in town who didn’t stick his nosy butt on my lot to see what happened.”
Samantha listened quietly while Dustin placed Addie’s coffee in front of her. She thanked him, and he smiled politely. Then, as he walked behind her, he twirled his finger beside his head with the universal cuckoo sign.
She made a mental note to talk to him later about showing respect for all of Etta’s citizens, even the ones with wild conspiracy theories. Maybe especially those.
“I know that isn’t a smoking gun or whatever you call it,” Addie said, “but I heard from Justine that he parked himself in that gas station talking to her for over an hour while he watched my place burn.”
Not a smoking gun. Not as far as Samantha saw it. Paul routinely “parked himself” in that gas station to harass Justine and anyone else who’d listen to him run his big obnoxious mouth.
“So why do you think Paul would have started a fire in your restaurant?”
From what Samantha could tell, there would have been no financial motive for anyone but Addie, least of all Paul. But since there hadn’t been a murder in this town for as long as Samantha could remember, she doubted she’d stumbled upon some elaborate crime motivated by money. They were most likely looking at some sort of rage-fueled manslaughter case.
The needle prick in his neck, however, put a gigantic hole in that theory.
“That bastard hated me. Always has.”
Samantha couldn’t argue with that.
“But especially since I asked him to leave last month. Remember, I filed that report after he got handsy with one of my servers?”
