Blazing Star. Suzanne Ellison

still wary around her, but they kept their anger in check. Steve still didn’t trust her, and said so on a regular basis. Cindy Lou cowered every time Karen entered the room. Orson Clayton had bought a larger shirt and had gone on a diet. Everybody knew but Karen.

      Everybody also knew that there was no point in worrying about a woman who’d been dead for forty years, but Karen insisted on pursuing that investigation, too. She’d even set up an appointment to talk privately with Zachary Phelps, who’d been chief of police back then. Naturally Zachary had notified Brick at once and had confidentially reported the gist of the conversation. Karen didn’t know that, either.

      She also didn’t know that although Judson had divorced Margaret on grounds of desertion years ago, he’d never gotten over her. Proof of her death, even now, would rock him. It would devastate Alyssa. Brick dreaded having to break such grim news, but it was not a job that he’d entrust to anybody else. The Ingallses were practically family.

      When Joe Santori had discovered the body some months ago, Brick had gone through the motions of a preliminary investigation. When he’d found out that Margaret Ingalls’s dentist was dead, Paul had told him that the time-consuming task of tracking down her dental records would have to wait until after he finished the legwork on a current case or two. Paul had kept him busy with something else ever since.

      But Captain Curvaceous had insisted that Brick hit the trail of the dental records again, and to his surprise, he’d turned up some new leads at once. A few quick calls to the dental association in Chicago had netted him the necessary records. The overworked county coroner had promised to cross-check them with the deceased’s teeth as soon as possible and get back to him sometime in the next week or two.

      In the meantime, he had an investigation of his own to pursue, one he kept quite diligently from Karen. A few discreet calls here and there had sent out the hounds, and the first to report came to Brick by mid-December from Bill Riley, an old pal from the police academy. Nowadays Bill was a lieutenant at the Belton substation, with his eye on the captain’s chair.

      “Sorry I’m late,” Bill apologized as he joined Brick for lunch at a coffee shop on the highway one Friday afternoon. It was about halfway between Belton and Tyler, a natural place to get together to catch up on old times, which they did every month or so. “We just got hit for the second time by two punks in a blue van. I had to check out an anonymous tip on my way here, but it didn’t pan out.”

      “That’s okay. Sorry you couldn’t nail the guys,” commiserated Brick, who was enjoying spending his day off in a sweatsuit instead of a uniform. “Things have been pretty quiet out our way.”

      “Well, that may be about to change,” warned Bill. “These two guys were working Casner for a few weeks before they moved on to us. Just when the Casner substation gathered enough information to lay a trap, they vanished into thin air.”

      “And showed up ten miles down the road.”

      “You got it. And since you’re another ten miles or so away from Belton, I figured they’ll head on to Tyler when they feel us nipping at their heels. Why don’t I have a copy of the file sent over to you? It might help you get the jump on them.”

      They broke off long enough to order, then Bill asked, “I imagine you’re eager to know what I found out about your captain.”

      “Well, now that you mention it...” Brick’s eyes met his friend’s. Two weeks ago he’d been reasonably certain that Bill, or one of the other guys he’d put on Karen’s trail, would turn up some dirt. Now, curiously, he suspected that her record was as clean as his own. Odder yet, he really hoped that nobody would uncover evidence that he’d be honor-bound to turn over to Commander Harmon for the protection of his men.