The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [101]
She looked straight at him. “He’s gotten worse, almost all of a sudden. And we were getting desperate.”
Joe swung for the bleachers, hoping against reason to put Michelle Fisher to rest at last. “If you’re talking about the murder,” he told her, “you’re right—it doesn’t get much worse than that.”
The effect was startling. Her face crumpled up with concern. He couldn’t believe his luck, after all this effort. “You can’t pin that on Ellis,” she cried. “That’s where the discretion thing comes in, right? He didn’t even know the kid. That’s got to count. And he just saw it happen. He didn’t even touch him till he had to bury him.”
Joe was stunned. This had nothing to do with Michelle. In the surprise of the moment, his brain locked and he couldn’t think at all what she might be referring to.
Instead, he punted. “Guess they got lucky there. Usually burial sites get uncovered pretty fast—dogs, hunters in the woods, you name it.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide. “You didn’t find it?”
“It’s the only missing piece,” he said quickly.
“It’s in the park, by the river,” she said without great interest. “Behind the State Office Complex.”
“Thanks,” he said, hoping to match her detached tone. “The other thing was, we couldn’t figure out why.”
She became suddenly animated. “That’s what I’m saying. And that’s what Ellis said. There was no reason. The kid was talking, telling Mel what he wanted to know. He just killed him. Ellis said it was like he was curious, like it was a whim or something.”
Joe abandoned Michelle for the moment, hoping to keep this new train on the tracks for as long as he could. At least he knew who they were talking about.
“What did High Top have that Mel needed?” he asked her.
She shook her head vaguely. “I don’t know exactly, but it tied into the Niemiecs, and Mel wanting to rip them off.”
She was suddenly very quiet, and he guessed she was thinking she might have said too much.
The problem was, he was stumped himself. He had no idea who the Niemiecs were. “Well, you’re perfectly right,” he tried, “Mel is getting crazier, and he is on a roll. The thing with High Top and the Niemiecs’ll end up being just the tip of the iceberg. Know what I mean?”
She nodded thoughtfully, to his relief. “Yeah, I do. Never do it honestly if you can steal it from someone else.”
Joe recognized that she was talking to herself as much as to him now. “There you go,” he played along. “But it’s like anything else in life. You can’t keep doing the same thing again and again, especially if you’re a guy like Mel. Life gets too boring. You keep wanting to stir things up. Problem is, eventually it all falls apart.”
She was staring off into space.
He took a stab at bridging their two divergent trains of thought. “It can end up like a death wish nobody else wants to share.”
That brought her around. She looked at him again. “That’s it. That’s been it for a long time. I was thinking maybe a baby and some security, getting a good job and buying a home. With him, it’s always been Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I just didn’t see it, I mean, not really.”
She knocked the side of her head gently with her fist. “Stupid. I’ve always been stupid that way. I don’t see people straight.”
“You fall in love with them,” Joe suggested. “That can fog your thinking.”
She suddenly looked irritated. “And I’m doing it again,” she said darkly.
But he didn’t want her to go there. Not now. “I don’t think so,” he said, hoping to steer her back. “Not from what I saw.” He leaned forward again for emphasis. “Just because you failed at something a few times doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, Nancy. Ellis is no Mel, right?”
“No.”
“He’s as horrified as you about what’s happened, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” she admitted, half reluctantly.
“Then don’t give up on him so fast. If you both get free of Mel, there’s no telling what you might be able to do together.”
Her expression became almost pleading. “That’s what I was hoping.”
He smiled broadly, grateful to be on surer footing. “Then stick with that. One thing at a time, okay?”
She nodded