Page 112 of Death on Gallows Path

“No. I’m not that stupid.”

“Oh? Were you aware of his business conflicts with other people?” Clara did innocence so well.

“Conflicts? I was aware of his scams. I’ve told the sheriff’s department everything I knew about them. That’s why I spent so much time there.” He looked up from under his brows at us, checking if we believed that.

I hoped he focused more on Clara than my inferior poker face.

“All I know is if he’d had half the brains and ability with finance Pammy does, he’d have done a lot more damage. When we started doing things together as couples, she helped me get set up, saving, investing — nothing wild. Solid. And it’s done well.”

That fit with what Carol heard from the B&B owner in Georgia who’d said Pammy was a star in her finance courses.

“Damon didn’t listen to her advice?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. Haven’t heard her giving input in the past few years. Hard for anybody to get a word in with Damon around.”

“Zoley seemed to like him.”

Even Clara’s innocence didn’t quite pull that off.

Bryon exhaled through his nose. “I know what you’re hinting. Heard plenty of it at the sheriff’s department. I didn’t know — I don’t know. Neither do you.”

But he sure as heck suspected.

“Was that what caused the friendly feelings between you and Damon to go last Thursday?” I asked.

“Like I said, nothing specific.”

“But you said specific things to him outside Zepke’s. About being a man of action, about things not turning out well for him.”

“I gotta go.”

I tossed another question as he turned away. “Did you accuse him of having an affair with your wife?”

He gave me a look over his shoulder . . . The phrase murderous look sprang to mind and I wished it would unspring.

Watching him exit the enclosure, Clara did not comment on that look, but said, “Did you notice he referred to Izzy as it?”

I wonder if Bryon Georger knew he’d raised his profile as a potential killer based on the impersonal pronoun.

* * * *

Teague was in the shower when the dogs and I got home.

In far less time than it would have taken me, he came into the kitchen where I was standing at the sink, absently staring out the window to the back yard.

“Just a pit stop,” he said when I turned to him. “Got to go right back.”

That answered the question I hadn’t voiced — How’s it going?

I brushed Teague’s damp hair back. “Sorry to hear that.”

He grinned. “You’re not entirely sorry, because it means we haven’t made an arrest. By the way, I looked up what you said about scientific research into dogs picking up people’s emotions—”

“Except psychopaths.”

“—except psychopaths. Because psychopaths don’t react to emotions or possibly don’t have emotions, so they don’t excrete as much of what dogs pick up.”

“I told you all that.”