Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

be a plea deal. Palmer is cooperating. And we were able to find a list of the blackmail victims on Hatch’s computer.” She grinned. “You’d be surprised at who they were. Several of our town’s upstanding citizens.”
    “Hark will be publishing the list in the paper, I suppose,” China said, straight-faced, without a hint of sarcasm. “I’m eager to read it.”
    Sheila hooted. “Don’t you wish—you and Hibler. He likes nothing better than scandal in high places. But that list will never see the light of day. Lipman will use it as leverage to do a deal with the DA. You can bet that Howie Masterson won’t want to see it entered into evidence at trial or on the front page of the
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. Timms wasn’t the only one of Masterson’s friends whose name was on it.”
    “Not to speak ill of those in power, of course.” China eyed Sheila. “Now that we’re talking about powerful people, what’s this I hear about Clint Hardin leaving? My spies tell me he’s taken a job down at Rockport.”
    “Your spies are right,” Sheila said with a grin. “And ain’t that just too, too bad? Turns out that he wasn’t just fishing for redfish on his vacation. He was trolling for a new job. And he got it, too—the chief’s job at Rockport. I’m sure he’ll love it there, China. When he’s not pushing stacks of paper around on his desk or taking credit for the good work of other people, he can get out on the Gulf and go fishing.”
    Sheila was amazed at how lighthearted she felt about this new development. Maybe her problems with the job had less to do with the paperwork and more to do with Hardin. When she’d heard he was leaving, itwas as if a giant weight had rolled off her shoulders. She even felt okay about the paperwork—not good, of course, but okay. And she had decided that she would try to spend more time out in the community, partnering on investigations. Less desk work, more real police work.
    “In my experience, it’s usually leftovers from the previous regime who cause the biggest problems,” China said knowingly. “I’ve heard it called ‘old think.’ Some people have a hard time adapting to new ways of doing things.” She paused. “How are you going to fill the deputy chief’s position?”
    “Most likely, we’ll do an inside search. Open it up for applications, and take the best. It’s a little early to see how that’ll turn out.” Sheila raised an eyebrow. “Funny you should mention leftovers from the previous regime. You may be interested to know that I’ve found a new home for my chair.”
    “Your
chair
?”
    “Yeah. You know that big executive chair I inherited from Bubba Harris? It’s been a huge pain since the moment I sat down in it. It’s designed for a big guy with long legs, not for me, and there’s no adjustment that makes it comfortable. I should have gotten rid of it earlier, but I was stymied. I couldn’t swap it out with anybody in the department. It was the chief’s chair. The
big
chief. If I gave it to somebody else, he’d be the chief.”
    “The seat of authority, so to speak.” China rolled her eyes. “Belongs to he who can fill it.”
    That made Sheila giggle. “So to speak. I’m trading with the new city comptroller, Steve Seymour. He’s as big as a grizzly bear, but the office chair he inherited from Emma Heartwell would just about fit Goldilocks. So we’re swapping.” She made a wry face. “Of course, there’s a three-inch stack of paperwork documenting the trade, which has to be approved by the city council. Ridiculous.”
    China looked out across the lake. “Speaking of grizzly bears,” she said thoughtfully, “what have you heard about that mountain lion?”
    “The report came back yesterday,” Sheila said. “The animal your neighbor shot is the one that killed George Timms, and there’s DNA evidence to prove it. Hark Hibler says there’ll be a story about it in the next
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.” She grinned. “I understand that your friend Jessica Nelson is writing it. She’s practicing her human-interest skills from a different angle, I guess. I heard that she was interviewing both of the Banners.”
    “Not that cat,” China said quietly. “The other one. The one that got away.”
    “It got away,” Sheila said. “Totally, I mean. Parks and Wildlife decided not to spend the money to track it. After they looked at that rock you found—the one with the fur and the blood on it—and compared it to the wound on the cat’s