A Luring Murder by Stacy Verdick Case Page A

her head in their direction.
    Claire had on her best Jackie-O face. Mr. Peterman still looked dazed from the day’s events.
    “I don’t know about him,” I said. “He seems broken up by everything that’s happened. But she’s repressing some dangerous anger toward Warren Pease.”
    “You have to stop saying that name.” She cracked a smile. “I know it’s childish, but I can’t take it anymore. Why would anyone name their child Warren Pease?”
    “I know. It would have merited a beating every day for life in my high school, and I went to an all-girl Catholic school.”
    Of course, a Catholic girl’s school can be tougher than most people realized.
    “Maybe that’s why Warren turned out to be the kind of person he was,” I said. “What do you suggest I call him instead?”
    “Calling him the victim, works for me.” She turned toward me with her brows drawn together. “What do you mean ‘like he was’?”
    “You know having an affair with a married woman, causing problems with everyone around him.”
    I shrugged. “Maybe he was hostile because he had to defend himself. Constantly being attacked has to make someone wary – ready to battle at a moment’s notice. Over time, I think that would make you hard.”
    Louise considered my harebrained theory.
    Before her thoughts could gel into a valid argument against it, I changed the subject. “Who else do we have?”
    “Patrick and Samantha King.”
    Louise leaned against a white plastic post, one of many that surrounded the Peterman’s weathered, aging deck, and rubbed her injured leg. She looked tired. Not at all how I was accustomed to seeing her.
    Being up and around this soon after being shot was taking its toll, though she would never admit it.
    “I don’t buy Patrick’s alibi,” she said. “He told you something when you went to the barn, didn’t he?”
    I perched my butt on the edge of the deck next to her. Rough splinters pressed into the back of my thighs.
    “Yeah, and he admitted to lying.”
    Digs wandered over to us in a pink and yellow Hawaiian shirt. He balanced a plate heaped with food in one hand, and a glass of punch in the other. The distinct smell of fried food wafted up with his wake.
    A quick glance around and he realized that every picnic table was occupied. He shrugged.
    “You two are missing out on quite a spread over there. They’ve got everything.”
    He used his tongue to lift a chip off his plate like a lizard trapping pray.
    “Nice,” I said. “You plan to eat all that food by shoving the plate in your face?”
    “I might, O’Brien.” He brought the plate up, about to snag more food, then looked at Louise. He lowered the plate. “I have utensils. I just came over to see what you two were so tight about over here.”
    “Just doing some more investigating,” I said. “Asking people if they know anything about the murder.”
    “Found out anything?” He asked.
    “We have some new leads,” Louise said. “Did you find out anything after we left?”
    Digs got the eager puppy look he got when he was trying to impress Louise. Excitement vibrated from every muscle in his body, with the same intensity as plucking an overly taught guitar string.
    “The knife you found under the table was used to cut open the victim. No doubt about it. Pease’s skin and blood were all over the blade. His and a lot of fish blood.”
    I really wasn’t hungry now.
    “Did the medical examiner ever show up?” Louise asked.
    “Yeah, apparently he was in the middle of the lake when his pager went off.”
    Digs raised his plate again then glanced at Louise. Finally, his stomach won out over his need to impress Louise. He licked up another chip, crunched it up, then swallowed.
    “Since there’s never been a murder here, he didn’t feel any urgency. Until the fourth time his pager went off. Then he was annoyed enough to come in and see what the urgency was.”
    I tried to imagine one of our M.E.’s in town ignoring a page. We