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Maybe he rong Maybe David was just depressed about these killings He knew he’d be as depressed as hell

Corey Harper and Thomas Shredder didn’t look too happy either They all shook hands and sat down in Thelma Nettro’s parlor Martha came in and beaain Noould everyone like some coffee? And some of my special New Jersey cheesecake?"

"New Jersey cheesecake, Martha?" Quinlan asked as he kissed her cheek

"It’s better than any cheesecake fro "You folks just get on with your business I’ll be right back"

"How’s Thelht now Not for you, Sally, but for Mr Quinlan She even had o out and buy her soine" Martha tsked and left the large parlor

"I’d like to get to work here," Thoh impatience in his voice to make Quinlan want to loll back, lock his arravate him

Shredder was about thirty, tall and lanky, and very intense, one of those ue They hed, wouldn’t know a joke if it bit them, usually saw the forest but never the individual trees

As for the wo yet She was tall, with light hair and very pretty blue-gray eyes She also looked eager, sitting on the edge of the sofa, her notebook on her knee, her ballpoint pen poised above an open page She looked as if she hadn’t been out of Quantico for very long He’d bet the Portland office was her first assignment

"Corey told ton," David Mountebank said, ignoring Tho You okay, Sally?"

"Yes, fine now They still haven’t caught my father, but James promises ht that Tho to explode He s for Sally I was a private investigator--that was my cover--hired to locate two old people who disappeared over three years ago in this area And that was true These folk did disappear in this area Funny thing was that when I started asking questions, bad things started happening Sally, tell the out the fact that A

"We ca ere walking down the cliffs," Quinlan said "She’d beento do It’s difficult not to believe that this was the sahts She must have been held prisoner so held prisoner? We have no idea Now, I’er the far folks"

"Yes, yes, we know all this," Shredder said, and he actually swatted at Quinlan as if he were a fly to be removed from the bread

"We also know your opinion about this so-called tie-in However, as yet we don’t have any real proof that there is a tie-in What we’ve got is two time local in Doc Spiver and the other a woman from the subdivision, not at all local in the same sense What we need is a tie-in between the two of them, not between theo"

"Well, then," Quinlan said, "David, why don’t you bring me up-to-date What have you done since I flew home last week?"

Shredder interrupted, his voice fast and sharp, "Sheriff Mountebank didn’t doMs Harper and I have been here since Monday, not long enough to solve the cri close, very close"

Corey Harper cleared her throat "Actually, David had collected interviews froh, but no one could tell hi Everyone is shocked and very depressed about the deaths, particularly Doc Spiver’s"

"We’ve already started to repeat the interviews," Thoet it out of the unless they’re prodded just right It takes special training to learn just how to do it"

"Nah," Quinlan said "I did it perfectly even before , David knows all these people He’d knohen they were lying and what about"