He laughed. “You mean you hadn’t had a chance to talk to them yet.”

I looked away with a frown.

“Ha! I know you better than you think I do.”

I lifted my hips, trying to throw him off, but he laughed and pressed harder. “Not so fast. What did you find out in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly tonight?”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“David Moore? Bruce’s best friend? What did he tell you?”

My mouth dropped. “You know who David Moore is?”

“I already told you I knew all kinds of details about the case. Now what did he tell you?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I want to help you, and the only way to do that is if you tell me everything you know about the case.”

It took a second for his words to settle in. “You want to help me?”

“I told you I know you better than you think. You’re not gonna let this go until you find justice for Bruce Wayne Decker. The safest way to do that is if I know what you know.”

I scowled. “Well, why didn’t you just tell me you wanted to help?”

He winked then leaned down, his mouth hovering over mine. “What fun is there in that?”

I lifted my head so my lips met his. He groaned and rolled onto his side, pulling me with him.

“Now tell me what he told you.”

“Not much, before you showed up. He said that Bruce was stoned on Daniel Crocker’s pot.”

“Ah… my buddy, Daniel Crocker.”

“When Bruce went into the hardware store, he found Frank arguin’ with some guy. Then the guy hit him with a crowbar, ran into the office, and left.”

“So how did Bruce Decker gain possession of the murder weapon?”

“He took it with him, and David convinced him to hide it under his house so they could use it to frame the real murderer.”

“And how did they plan to do that? DNA? Fingerprints?”

“They didn’t have a clue.”

Joe nodded. “Sounds about right. What else?”

“He said he heard the argument. Frank was shoutin’ that he was never gonna sell and the other guy said he was gonna get what was owed to him.”

Joe looked surprised, then smiled. “What else?”

“That’s it from those two.”

“But you know something else.”

He did know me. “Well, Neely Kate said Frank owed bookies and Anne in the paint department said he owed a lot of money to someone, but she wasn’t sure who he owed it to.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, some guy hung around the hardware store after the murder. I told you that already.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Anne.”

“The woman in the paint department? Okay. What did this man do?”

“He just hung around, lookin’ suspicious, buying odds and ends that didn’t make any sense.”

“Anything else?”

“Other than my vision? No.”

“So, Detective Rose, what do you make of this so far?”

I propped up on my elbow, looking down at his amused grin. “Well, we know that Bruce is innocent and that a man, not a woman, killed Frank Mitchell, but we don’t know who he is, but I know he’s left-handed and had a scar from his wrist up his forearm. And he has a pin he left behind with a dog, a tree and a bird on it. I suspect he was the guy wanting to buy Frank’s house.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“Because Frank told the guy he wasn’t goin’ to sell.”

“But Decker was pretty stoned when he heard that, by his own admission, according to his buddy. And he’s right. Crocker’s pot was pretty potent. And often laced with other stuff.”

“So it doesn’t mean anything?”

“I didn’t say that, but you have to take the source into consideration.”

“And the guy who killed him said he was gonna get what was owed him. He must have been a bookie.”

“It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”

Something in his voiced clued me in that I might be wrong. “It’s the obvious fit, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s why you have to be careful with that assumption. You’re just guessing at this point, you don’t have any evidence, which is why you were a suspect in your mother’s murder and Bruce Decker is sittin’ in the county jail. You both fit that empty hole.”

“Oh.” But what he said made sense. Presuming it was a bookie made me the same kind of lazy as the Henryetta police.

He lowered his voice, his tone serious. “You know you broke the law, Rose.”

“I know. I can’t believe you weren’t mad when you came to get me.”

“I was too relieved to be mad. Neely Kate scared the livin’ hell out of me. I thought you were hurt or dead.”

“What did she say?”

“Just that something terrible had happened and I needed to come to the Fenton County DA’s office. I thought you’d been… I didn’t want to think what might have happened to you. I tried to call Violet, but she didn’t answer. I got a hold of Deveraux while I was drivin’ down.”

“You called Mason Deveraux?”

“Well, he is the ADA. He knew about the case and together we convinced the judge to let you out.”