Riptide

a good chance we'll find out who
    she is. She was young, probably late teens. That makes it even more
    likely that she was a runaway. She was murdered, though. Now, that
    makes it a big problem, my big problem."
    "It's not possible that it's a local teenager, Sheriff?" Becca asked.
    The sheriff shook his head. "Nobody just up and disappeared in
    the town's memory, Ms. Powell. Something like that, folk just
    wouldn't forget. Nope, it's got to be a runaway."
    Adam Carruthers sat forward, his hands clasped between his
    knees. "You think this old man, Jacob Marley, did it?" He was sitting
    in a deep leather chair that old Jacob had liked. He looked like
    he was the one in charge and that burned the sheriff a bit. Fellow
    was too young to be in charge, not too much beyond thirty, about
    the same age as Maude's nephew, Frank, who was currently in
    prison out in Folsom, California, for writing bad checks. Frank had
    always had soggy morals, even as a boy. Maybe the fellow was shiftless,
    like Frank. But hell, the last thing this guy looked was shiftless.
    "Sheriff?"
    "Yeah? Oh, it's possible. Like I told Ms. Powell here, old Jacob
    didn't like people poking around. He had a mean streak in him and
    no patience to speak of. He could have bashed her."
    Adam said, a dark eyebrow raised a bit, "Mean streak or not, you
    believe he actually bashed a young girl in the face with a blunt instrument
    and walled her in his basement because he was pissed to
    see her trotting across his backyard?"
    Sheriff Gaffney said, "A blunt instrument, you say. Well, the ME
    didn't know what the murderer struck her with, maybe a heavy

pot, maybe a bookend, something like that. Did Jacob do it? We'll
    just have to see about that."
    "Nothing else makes much sense," Tyler said, jumping to his
    feet. He began pacing the room. His -whole body was vibrating
    with tension. He had good muscle tone, the sheriff thought, remembering
    his own buffed self that the ladies had stared at when
    he was that young. Tyler whirled around, came to a stop, nearly
    knocking over a floor lamp. "Don't you see? Whoever killed her
    had to have access to Jacob's basement. Surely Jacob would have
    heard someone knocking away bricks, then putting them back up.
    The killer had to have cement to do that. Also, he had to haul the
    body into the house and down the basement steps. That would be
    quite an undertaking. It had to be Jacob. Nothing else makes
    sense."
    Adam said, leaning back in that old leather chair now, his legs
    crossed at his ankles, his fingers steepled, the tips lightly tapping together,
    "Now, wait a minute. You're saying that Jacob Marley never
    left his house?"
    "Not that I remember," Tyler said. "He even had his groceries
    delivered. Of course, I was gone four years when I was in college.
    Maybe he used to be different, went out more."
    "Two things were always true about old Jacob," Sheriff Gaffney
    said slowly. "Two things you could always count on. He was here and
    he was mean." He heaved himself from his seat. He froze when the
    button right above his wide leather belt up and popped off. He
    watched, paralyzed, as the damned button rolled across the polished
    oak floor to stop at the big toe of Carruthers's right boot. He sucked
    in his belly, but he still felt that wide leather belt of his continue to
    cut him something fierce. He didn't say anything, just held out his
    hand.
    Adam Carruthers tossed him the button. He didn't smile. The

sheriff clutched that damned button close. Jesus, maybe he should
    think about that diet Maude was always nagging him about.
    Becca pretended not to see anything. She rose and stuck out her
    hand to the sheriff. "Thank you for coming and telling us in person.
    Please let us know when you find out who that poor girl is."
    "Was, ma'am, was. I will. I'm glad I called them. I had to worm
    it out of them, but I finally got to speak to the main guy, a hard-nose
    named Jarvis, and he finally coughed up the info." He nodded
    to Tyler McBride, who looked hollow-cheeked, as if he'd been put
    through a wringer, and then to Adam Carruthers, a cocky bastard
    who hadn't laughed when his button had popped off.
    "I'll see you out, Sheriff," Becca said and walked beside him out
    of the living room.
    Adam said to Tyler, "Becca told me what was going on. I'm glad
    I was nearby and could get here to help."
    Tyler eyed the man. There hadn't been time to question him before
    the sheriff had arrived. He said slowly, suspicion a sharp thread
    in