Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

Hatch still have a key to the shop?” she asked, and made a note to check the employee records for others who might have had keys.
    “Of course not,” Palmer said defensively. “I mean, why would he? He doesn’t work here anymore.” He reached into his pocket and produced a ring with several keys. “If you’re looking for keys, here’s mine. The front door and back door are marked. The little brass one is the cash register. There are some file cabinet keys on there, but we don’t lock the drawers.”
    Bartlett closed his phone and stepped back to the counter to look over the keys. “Thanks,” he said, returning the ring to Palmer. “We have Mr. Kirk’s keys, so you can keep these. First thing tomorrow,” he added, “please come to the station so we can print you. Okay?”
    “Fingerprint
me
?” Palmer frowned. “But I don’t see— How is this connected to—”
    “Just take our word for it,” Sheila said. “We need your prints, Mr. Palmer. In fact, we’ll be printing everyone who’s worked in this shop.”
    Palmer’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you need.”
    Bartlett added, gently, “And about Mr. Kirk’s mother—we’ve already started the notification process, and she’s been contacted. You can get in touch with her whenever you like. I’m sure she’d appreciate hearing from you.”
    “Thanks,” Palmer said glumly. “Yeah, right. I’ll call her when I get home.”
    Sheila thumbed the Rolodex and found the card with the names ofthe contract people on it, written in the same backslanted hand that she had seen on the grocery list and the calendar notes in Kirk’s kitchen. As she looked at it, something clicked. She turned to Palmer.
    “Larry Kirk,” she said. “Right-hander? Left-hander?”
    “Larry?” Palmer chuckled sadly. “Southpaw, his whole life. Except when one of his teachers—maybe first, second grade—tried to get him to change. ’Course he couldn’t. Aunt Jenny finally had to tell the teacher to lay off.”
    Sheila read the quick look Bartlett gave her, but neither of them said anything. At their request, Palmer pulled a half-dozen manila file folders from the cabinets—employee records and job tickets—and put them into a box. Most of it, he said, was also on the computer. Bartlett filled out an evidence sheet, and Palmer signed for the records and the laptop. Then he pushed his bicycle out the front door and locked it behind him.
    “Wow,” Bartlett said admiringly, walking around the bike. “A Madone. Lance Armstrong’s bike.”
    “You bet,” Palmer said, fastening his helmet. “Lance won seven Tour de France titles on a Madone. You know bikes?”
    “A little,” Bartlett said. “This looks like a sweet ride.”
    “Nothing better, in my opinion. It’s a 6.9 Pro, Dura Ace equipped, 7850 carbon laminate wheels. Top-end Bontrager components throughout. Only fourteen pounds. Can’t beat it for racing, especially on hills. Good for commuting, too.”
    “Yeah,” Bartlett said. He grinned. “Bet it came with a sweet price tag.”
    “A little over ten grand,” Palmer said, “by the time I customized it.”
    Bartlett chuckled. “Guess I’d better start saving my pennies, huh?”
    “If you’re serious about bikes, you can’t do better than a Madone,” Palmer said, and rode off into the rainy dark.
    A few minutes later, the evidence stowed in Bartlett’s black-and-white, Sheila and Bartlett stood together under the awning in front of Chipotle Chicken, the red and green neon rooster in the window coloring the darkness around them. The rain was coming down a little harder now, and the air was turning chilly. It was more like November than it had been that afternoon, Sheila thought. The weather was fickle this time of year.
    Bartlett flicked a lighter to his cigarette. “So he was a southpaw,” he said quietly, leaning one shoulder against the brick wall. Water sluiced off the awning, the streetlights turning the puddles to silver. “Looks like our shooter didn’t know Kirk very well, after all.”
    “Either didn’t know or forgot,” Sheila said. “It’s not the kind of thing you’d automatically think about, if you were trying to make a homicide look like a suicide.” There would have been lots of stress in the situation. Apprehension, fear of discovery, perhaps even regret. The killer might have known the victim intimately and have forgotten that one simple detail.
    “Either way, we can scratch