Page 33 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Road Kill

for specimens, but there was Ronny with his oversized gym bag. I
guess we were so accustomed to seeing him with it that nothing
seemed out of the ordinary.”
“It sounds to me,” I said slowly, “that he had all the angles
covered. Why couldn’t he use some of that ingenuity to get better
grades? And all you really had was a circumstantial case against him,
didn’t you?”
“Yes. That’s why I had to smoke him out. Sherrie was the weak
link in his chain. He needed a witness to his stunt, but Sherrie alone
was unreliable and an obvious connection to him. So he asked her to
bring along someone else to their meeting, ostensibly someone they
could use to collect plant samples for them while they made out in
the bushes. At least, that’s what Sherrie thought. So she picked me,
no threat to her relationship with Ronny and a sure bet to gather
more than enough specimens for all of us.”
No threat? I felt like laughing but suppressed it.
“Well, it worked pretty much like he planned it. Sherrie’s fear of
what might really have happened got mixed up with her shock and
grief, and nobody noticed what was at the bottom of her distress. She
had to be wondering about the coincidence, the same as I was, but
didn’t know what to do about it. So she was willing to come with me
today up here. I told her I wanted her opinion of the rope marks on
the tree.”
“Oh.” I clearly had not paid enough attention to Sherrie Cook in
the days since the tragedy. Her behavior had struck me as normal,
Labelle’s as obsessive. So much for my training.
“I counted on her telling Ronny about it. I also fed her all the little
clues leading up to the conclusion that he was guilty, without saying
as much. She didn’t put it together, but he did. So he was waiting up
there for us, ready to fake a double suicide or whatever, to get rid of
us.”
“I saw him running at you, Labelle. That was an awful chance to
take. He’s a lot stronger and heavier than you are.”
“Exactly,” she nodded. “The ideal opponent for a black belt in
aikido.”
“And what is that?” I was reaching the limit of my capacity for
amazement.

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