Scattered Graves

the part about wanting to bug Jefferies, I guess. But I don’t have a good story as to why I was skulking around in a hoodie. I thought I might say I wanted to report Bryce but was undecided, so I just stood outside his house trying to figure out what I should do. Lame, I know. But the truth—well, more or less.’’
‘‘For now, Garnett is in the clear, I think. I’ll find out,’’ said Diane. ‘‘You can tell the truth. Say you had all this evidence that Jefferies may have been involved in a murder, but you couldn’t go to the police because you thought the chief of police was in on it. So you decided to investigate Jefferies yourself. That’s all true. You don’t have to say you were going to plant an illegal bug. But first, let’s see what’s up.’’ She turned to Frank. ‘‘What do you think?’’
‘‘That sounds like a plan,’’ he said. He looked at David. ‘‘One way or another, you’re going to have to clear up your presence on the video.’’
David nodded. ‘‘I should have thought of the simple explanation. That’s the trouble when you embark on a life of crime. Your thinking gets muddled.’’
Diane went to the phone and called Colin Prehoda. He would know if Garnett had been released. She dialed his cell and he answered on the first ring.
‘‘Diane, I’m glad you called. There are some things I need to tell you.’’
After listening to Colin, Diane hung up the phone and sat back down on the couch beside Frank.
‘‘Well, the good news is they’ve dropped the charges against Garnett on the murder of Jefferies because the evidence was muddied by Bryce. The bad news is it was a bullet from Garnett’s gun that killed Edgar Peeks—and Garnett had his gun on him when Colin and I found him over the body.’’

Chapter 25
    ‘‘What are you saying?’’ said Frank. ‘‘Garnett shot Edgar Peeks?’’ He looked as disbelieving as Diane felt. ‘‘That’s what the police are saying,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s what ballistics shows, and it sounds very much like what Colin believes.’’
    ‘‘Who did the ballistics?’’ said David.
‘‘I’m sure they did it at Rosewood’s ballistic lab,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Unless they sent it to the GBI, but I doubt they did that. I didn’t ask.’’
Diane was still reeling from the news. She grabbed Frank’s hand. It was warm.
‘‘I don’t believe it,’’ she said. ‘‘I can’t believe Garnett’s a murderer. Something is wrong.’’
‘‘What does Prehoda want you to do?’’ asked Frank.
‘‘He wants me to continue to investigate, but he’s up against the wall on this one. He says if we can discover what the mayor and his friends were up to, then we can show that Garnett had reason to fear them, that he had reason to fear for Rosewood. I didn’t have a chance to tell him about Judge McNevin. He was in a hurry. But it will certainly reinforce his thinking.’’
David stood up. ‘‘I have to go downtown right now. They need to know I was there.’’
He looked at all the papers and photographs lying on the coffee table as if it was going to be impossible to pick them all up and get them back in order.
‘‘Wait on that,’’ said Frank as David bent down to pick up his briefcase. ‘‘It won’t change the ballistics evidence, and right now you’re under the radar. That gives you an investigative advantage.’’
Diane looked at Frank in surprise. She thought he would be the one to insist that David go to the police immediately and identify himself as the person in the video. David was surprised too. He looked blankly at Frank for a moment, still stooped over his briefcase, then slowly sat back down. He let out a deep breath. Diane understood his relief. The revelation could ruin David.
‘‘A few minutes ago,’’ said Frank, straightening the papers on his coffee table, putting them into or derly stacks again, ‘‘I said this is now the police’s business and they should be the ones to deal with it. But I’ve since rethought
looking at your network
wondering.’’
that position. I’ve been diagram and it’s got me
    Frank put a stack of photographs down and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
‘‘In the beginning, it looked to you like the mayor was in charge of this conspiracy, cabal, or whatever you want to call it because he was the mayor, he was in the highest leadership position. But was he the leader? Maybe, maybe not.’’
Frank put the tips of his fingers on