Trinity Harbor 3 - Along Came Trouble by Sherryl Woods Page B

the eye and said with a perfectly straight face, “I don’t know.”
    King regarded his son-in-law with disbelief. “You’re in charge of this investigation, am I right? Tucker is sensible enough to leave it to you?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you don’t know where in the hel your prime suspect is staying?”
    “I repeat, nobody has said she’s a suspect,” Walker shot back.
    “If she’s not, then you’re a fool,” King declared. “A woman who would cut the heart right out of a man like my son is capable of anything.”
    “That’s not the kind of thing you need to be running around town saying to just anybody,” Walker admonished him.
    “Why not?”
    “You ever heard of slander?”
    “Last I heard, you can’t accuse somebody of slander when they’re speaking the truth.”
    “As you see it. Unless you’ve got investigative skil s I know nothing about, you don’t actual y know a damn thing.”
    “Facts are facts,” King had said stubbornly.
    “Go home,” Walker advised. “Have a mint julep or something else that’l settle your nerves. Talking to Tucker when you’re al riled up like this wil be counterproductive.”
    “I’l talk to my own son when I damn wel please.”
    “First you have to find him, and my hunch is he won’t be anywhere you’re likely to think to look.”
    Walker had certainly been right about that. King had checked Tucker’s place as wel as the boardwalk, and now he was going to the most obvious place of al , the sheriff’s office. Maybe Tucker had come to his senses and locked Mary Elizabeth away behind bars. King could always dream.
    “Where is he?” he asked Michele, already pushing open the door to Tucker’s office.
    “Not in,” Michele told him. “He’s on vacation.”
    King stared at her, mouth agape. “Since when?”
    “Since an hour ago. He cal ed in early this morning to take the day off, then cal ed back to say he was taking two weeks off. Walker’s in charge, but he’s not here, either, in case you’re wondering.”
    King sank down on a chair beside the dispatcher. “What the devil is my son thinking?”
    “He was overdue for a vacation,” Michele pointed out. “He’d been getting downright cranky lately. I, for one, am relieved.”
    King frowned at her. Either she was completely unaware of the reason for King’s sour mood, or she was deliberately choosing to ignore it and play dumb by acting as if this vacation were nothing out of the ordinary.
    “Maybe so, but something tel s me he’s not on a beach in the Caribbean,” he snapped.
    In fact, King was one hundred and ten percent certain he would find Tucker somewhere in the vicinity of the widow Chandler. When he was calm enough to think rational y, a part of him couldn’t blame Tucker. The boy had been raised with a sense of decency and honor. The woman he’d once loved was in big trouble, and she’d come to him for help. What kind of man would turn his back on her at a time like that, no matter how devastated he’d been years ago when she’d walked out on him?
    And, to be honest, there had been a time when King had liked Mary Elizabeth just fine, a time when he’d hoped for a union between her and his son, but every bit of sentiment he’d felt toward her had died the day she’d rejected Tucker so she could marry that weasel Chandler. King was not inclined to welcome her back into the family fold, especial y not when she was caught up in a murder investigation that could wind up with mud being slung at anyone around her.
    He shot a sly look at Michele, a big woman with a bigger heart. She was every bit as protective of Tucker as he was, the only difference being that she was wil ing to protect him against King. In fact, she considered it her solemn duty.
    “Do me a favor. Try that beeper thing of his,” he suggested casual y.
    “I told you, he’s on vacation.”
    “Darlin’, you and I both know that man hasn’t spent a day in years without that beeper turned on. If it’s with him,