When she finished her account, she brought out the note that Bennett had left in her coat the night before. “I forgot about this earlier, but I found it this morning before you called. Bennett must have tucked it in my pocket last night before she slipped out of the Hepplers’.”
She handed it to Spence, who read it carefully. “Almost sounds as if she thought something was going to happen to her, doesn’t it?” he said, mostly to himself. He cleared his throat and shifted to a new position. “Just one or two more questions. Then I’ll take Mr. Ross’s statement and be on my way.”
He ended up asking rather a lot of questions, she thought, repeating himself more than once in the process and annoying her considerably. But she stuck it out, not wanting to have to go through this again later. Once or twice, she got up to peek down the hallway, and each time Larry Spence quickly called her back by saying he was almost done, that he had just a few more questions, as if he was afraid she was going to walk out on him and not come back.
When he was finished with her, he interviewed Ross, a process that for all the noise he had made earlier about drug connections and shady characters took considerably less time than it had with her. He raised an eyebrow when Josie Jackson was mentioned, but said nothing. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he’d lost interest in Ross completely.
“Guess that’s it,” he announced finally, checking his watch for what must have been the twentieth time, slapping closed the notebook, and rising to his feet. “Sorry to take so long.”
He was still nervous as Nest walked him to the front door, glancing everywhere but at her, looking as if he had something bottled up inside that he was dying to get out. At the door, he gave her a peek at what it was.
“Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, girl, but I’m worried about you staying here.” He seemed uncertain about where to go with this, his head lowered, his deputy sheriff’s hat in his hands. “There’s things about this investigation that you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you.”
I could say the same, she thought. She had no time for this. “Well, call me when you can, okay?”
He nodded absently. “If you want to come by the office later—alone—I’ll try to fill you in.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t do this, you know, I’m not supposed to tell you anything, but I can’t just leave you in the dark. You understand what I’m saying?”
She stared at him. “Not really.”
He nodded some more. “I suppose not. It’s pretty complex, even to me. But you got yourself in the middle of something, girl. I know you don’t have any part in what’s happening, but I—”
“Not this again, Larry,” she interrupted quickly.
“I know how you feel, but—”
“You don’t know how I feel,” she exploded, “and if you want my honest opinion, you don’t know what you’re talking about, either! If this has to do with that old man in the black coat with the leather book, I’m telling you for the last time— stay away from him. Don’t listen to anything he says and don’t do anything he tells you to. He’s dangerous, Larry. Trust me. You don’t want anything to do with him.”
Larry Spence screwed up his face and straightened his shoulders. “He’s FBI, Nest!” he hissed softly.
She looked at him as if he had just climbed out of a spaceship. “No, Larry, he isn’t. He’s not one of the good guys. He’s not your friend and he’s certainly not mine. He’s not anything he seems to be. Have you checked up on him? Have you asked for proof of who he claims to be from someone else?”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, please.”
“Well, maybe someone should! Look, do yourself a favor. Call Washington or whoever. Make sure. ‘Cause you know what? It’s entirely possible that old man is responsible for what happened to Bennett.”