Cast Iron Cover-Up (The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries Book 3) by Jessica Beck Page B

honestly all that surprised that we’d take an active interest in what happened to Bones, I mean Julian?”
    “If you call him that, nobody will know what you’re talking about,” Henry said with the hint of a grin, despite the serious nature of our conversation.
    “Bones it is,” I said.
    “Who else are you looking at as suspects?” Henry asked me.
    “I’m not sure that I’m ready to share that information with the general public yet,” I said, hedging my bets.
    “We’re not exactly casual observers here, Pat. We have a stake in this as well.”
    “I understand that, but I still think it would be better if we kept our list to ourselves, at least for the time being.”
    “Okay, I can respect that, but listen, if there’s anything that we can do to help you find the killer, all you have to do is ask. The four of us have a bigger stake in this than you do.”
    “Even if helping us means that you end up implicating someone in your group?” I asked him.
    Henry frowned at the thought as he stared at his companions, who were all watching us at the moment.
    “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
    “But if it does?” I pressed him a little harder.
    “When all is said and done, I want to know what really happened to Bones. No matter what.”
    “And if Peggy or Gretchen did it, you’ll help us catch them?”
    “Hey, it could have just as easily been Marty,” Henry said.
    “Why do you believe that?”
    “I’m just saying, we all had the opportunity to sneak back to where Bones was and clobber him, but that means that someone else did, too. We were pretty spread out that day looking for the outside parameters of our digging zone. Anyone could have whacked Bones with that pickaxe, including a perfect stranger to us.”
    “I understand that, but then motivation becomes the question, doesn’t it?” I asked him. “Who else had a reason?”
    Henry shook his head. “That’s all that I’ve been able to think about since Peggy found Bones’s body. What if he found the hoarded money while the rest of us were off other places? Someone could have spotted him getting it, confronted him about it, and then killed him for it.”
    “That sounds like an awfully big coincidence to me, that someone just happened along at exactly the right time.”
    “Not if they’d been watching us from the woods all along,” Henry said softly.
    “Do you have any reason to suspect that was the case?” I asked him.
    “We saw some signs that someone might have been out there. You know, a tree branch snapping, a light we couldn’t explain at night, that kind of thing. I had the creepiest feeling that someone was keeping tabs on us, waiting and hoping that we’d find something. If that’s the case, we’ll never find the real killer.”
    “There’s another possibility that you haven’t considered in that scenario,” I reminded him.
    “What am I missing?”
    “One of your crew could have been secretly watching just as easily. If Bones made a discovery, would he necessarily tell any of you about it?”
    Henry pondered that for a few moments, and then he shook his head. “Maybe not. Since his dad was financing the trip, he might have felt entitled to keep the money all for himself.”
    “What would happen if one of you caught him taking it?”
    “There would be trouble, there’s no doubt about that,” Henry said.
    “So, the question remains, who might have done it?”
    “I still don’t think any of us murdered him,” he said.
    “I can understand you feeling that way,” I replied, “but until we learn something that eliminates one or all of you as suspects, we have to keep digging.”
    “I get that,” Henry said, and then he stuck out his hand. “Are we still good?”
    “We are,” I said, shaking it.
    “Excellent. Then if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat.”
    “I’d recommend it,” I said with a grin. I didn’t think that Henry was the killer, though I’d been surprised before. Still, I