LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Three

      Grace eyed Dub Gleason and his friends, who sat outside the store and watched with smirking grins. She didn’t suspect them of the thefts. To a man, the four of them were the laziest polecats she’d ever seen. The most energetic thing they did was make fun of her when no one else was around.

      “Let’s go inside.” She nodded toward the open door of the mercantile. No use broadcasting the details of the robbery. As stupid as Dub and his friends were, they’d blab anything they heard all over the place. The guilty party might hear them and figure out a way to hamper the investigation.

      Mrs. Winsted turned in a huff and stormed back into her store. Grace didn’t fault her for being upset, but it seemed this usually levelheaded lady was becoming more like her daughter-in-law every day.

      Behind her, Grace could hear the Rev’s footfalls. She turned and gave him a quizzing look.

      He returned that bothersome attractive smile of his. “As I said the other day, I want to help.”

      “Right.” She shrugged. “Come on, then.”

      Inside the store, Homer Bean, the clerk, was straightening merchandise behind the counter.

      “Hey, quit that.” Grace tried not to bark the order, but Homer jumped nonetheless. “Don’t be moving stuff around. I need to look for clues, and you might cover them up.”

      “That’s just the thing.” Mrs. Winsted pressed trembling hands against her temples. “Nothing seems out of place. If I didn’t know my inventory like the freckles on my granddaughter’s nose, I’d say nothing had been stolen. Whoever took the items cleverly shuffled the other merchandise to fill the empty spaces.”

      When Grace reached back to retrieve the pencil and pad of paper she kept in her hip pocket, her elbow met something solid. She glanced to the side and saw it was the Rev’s arm. A pleasant shiver slid up to her neck, but he seemed unmindful of the contact. Instead, he was staring around the large room, frowning thoughtfully like he was the deputy doing the investigation. Grateful for his help, she poised her pencil over the paper. “Now, ma’am, what was stolen?”

      “Well...” Mrs. Winsted huffed a bit and stared off as though gathering her wits. “Several woolen blankets, a tan Stetson, a pearl-handled Colt .45, a Remington rifle and ammunition for both guns.” She gazed around the room. “That’s what we’ve figured out so far.” She tilted her head toward Homer to indicate he was the other part of we. “Last time it was a coffeepot, a bag of coffee, some tins of food and other such items a person might steal if he was needy. This time it’s much more serious, with guns being stolen and all.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” Grace listed the items on her pad. “Show me where they were displayed.” Even though she knew the store pretty well, she hoped to calm Mrs. Winsted down by keeping her occupied.

      The locked gun case appeared just as the woman had said. Seven handguns were displayed in an orderly fashion with no obvious empty spaces.

      The Rev bent down to study the lock on the front of the case. “It doesn’t look as though it’s been tampered with.” He straightened and looked to Mrs. Winsted. “Where do you keep the key?”

      Grace felt a pinch of annoyance that he asked the question before she had a chance. She’d have to talk to him later about letting her lead the investigation. “Is it nearby?”

      “No.” Mrs. Winsted walked toward the door to the back room. “I’ll fetch it.”

      “Wait. I have an idea.” The Rev gave Grace an apologetic grin. “If you don’t mind?”

      Grace answered with a scowl, but he’d already turned his attention back to Mrs. Winsted.

      “I know this may sound odd,” he said. “However, it may help us to find the thief.”

      Mrs. Winsted glanced doubtfully between the Rev and Grace. “Deputy?”

      Grace hid her annoyance with a smile and a shrug. Oh, she truly must speak to the Rev about this. He was damaging her image of authority. “Go on, Rev. Anything you can do to help.”

      “Very well.” His gray eyes twinkled with excitement, which considerably diminished her irritation. Not only was he way too handsome when he smiled, he seemed to be enjoying himself in a mighty big way. She couldn’t scold him for either one of those.

      “I recently read Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, which is a collection of his short stories. In one story, a murderer was caught because his bloody thumbprint was left on a piece of paper, and he was later identified through that mark. Recent research has shown that no two people have identical finger marks. Maybe we could find the thief’s prints on the key or this case.” He indicated the glass display. “Of course, we’d have to be sure no one else touches either one while we figure out how to capture the image. Then we can try to find the person whose prints match it.”

      Grace stared at him with new respect shaded with just a smidgen of skepticism. If what he said was true, it would help law enforcement immensely.

      “Oh, dear.” Mrs. Winsted frowned in dismay. “I’m afraid we already dusted and wiped down everything this morning. It’s the first thing Homer does every day. Isn’t it, Homer?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” The young, sandy-haired clerk had joined them by the gun display as soon as the Rev started talking about the Twain story. “And I’ve already handled the keys this morning when I showed Mrs. Bellows some items in the jewelry case.”

      “Hmm.” Grace wrote brief notes so she’d remember to tell the sheriff about the whole conversation. She wondered whether he’d heard about finger marks. “Let’s have a look at the other places.”

      Mrs. Winsted pointed to a plaster hat stand molded in the shape of a man’s head. “They stole the tan Stetson that should be here and put this porkpie hat in its place.” She leaned against the display case, and her usually friendly face drooped into a weary expression.

      Grace patted the woman’s forearm. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Winsted. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Now, who were your last few customers just before you closed up yesterday?” She glanced at Homer to include him in the question.

      They both offered names, and Grace wrote them on her pad, flipping to a second page to list them all.

      “The last person out the door was Adam Starling,” Homer said. “He bought some flour for his mother and asked to put it on their tab.” He cleared his throat. “Not that this means anything...”

      “Go on.” Grace kept her eyes on her notes. She’d had some concerns about sixteen-year-old Adam but would keep that to herself for now.

      “Well...” Homer shuffled his feet.

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