Jo and Sam had a sneaking suspicion that he was also responsible for the influx of drugs coming into the community, but they hadn’t been able to prove anything.

Any time they had any sort of an investigation going, it had been thwarted by Dupont, who had the ear of Judge Thompson, who would become suddenly reluctant to sign the necessary search warrants. But even though they had never been able to prove anything against Thorne, that didn’t stop them from trying.

Sam turned around. "Forget about him. We have an investigation, and it’s almost quitting time."

"Which makes it the perfect time to question one of our leads." Jo glanced out the window at the small stone-and-wood church wedged in between two tall brick buildings. It was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, buildings in town. Old-timers said the people who settled the town were religious and had built the church first so they’d have a place to worship, then the rest of the town had sprung up around it.

Religion must have gone out of style, though, because the old church had been decommissioned, and it was now a bar frequented by the locals. One of those locals was Jesse Cowly, who the campers had described as having been with Lynn the night before.

"What do you say we go grab a beer?" Sam asked.

"What a great idea." Jo tossed her pencil down on the desk and stood.

Chapter Seven

Sam had discovered long ago that he got more information out of people in the bar when he didn’t show up in his police uniform. Even though everyone in town knew he was the chief of police, apparently when he was in his civvies they saw him as just plain old Sam. He preferred wearing jeans and a tee shirt anyway. So did Jo.

It didn’t take Jo long to change. She came out of the bathroom in a gray long-sleeved jersey and jeans. The outfit wasn’t fancy, but the color of the shirt highlighted her gray eyes and her coppery-brown hair. He didn’t know what she’d done to her hair. She usually wore it stuffed up under a baseball cap, but she’d ditched the cap and fluffed it up in the bathroom, and now the mass of curls framed her head like a halo. A few silver strands had snuck in at the temples since she’d first come to work for him, but somehow they looked good on her.

Jo didn’t go in for a lot of primping. She was attractive without having to put any effort into it. She wasn’t a glamorous stunner like Sam’s second wife, Evie, but Jo had a down-to-earth charm that shone through without having to build it up with lots of makeup and fancy hairstyles.

Jo grabbed her black leather biker jacket off the peg. She shrugged into it, the buckle-and-zipper-clad jacket falling just below her slim hips. It was still chilly at night, but Sam suspected she wore it more to hide the gun that was nestled in her belt at her waist than to ward off the cold.

Sam wore his own leather jacket. A dark-brown bomber jacket with a shearling collar that he’d picked up at the army-navy store. He’d worn the same style almost all his adult life. Evie had tried to get him to wear something more sophisticated. A shiny thin leather coat that reminded Sam of a leisure suit. Thing was, Sam wasn’t sophisticated. The jacket didn’t take, and he quickly went back to wearing his old comfortable bomber jacket. That was just one of the reasons why Evie was his ex-wife.

They spilled out onto the street. The late-afternoon rays of the setting sun gave the town a yellow glow and made Jo’s curls shine like a new penny. Sam noticed a few new laugh lines were forming at the corners of her eyes.

She caught him looking and made a face. "What?"

"Nothing."

She smirked and punched him playfully in the arm as they fell in step beside each other.

They had an easy relationship. Closer than most who worked together. Even though there wasn’t a lot of crime in their town, there had been a few tense situations, and Sam and Jo had learned to trust each other with their lives. That tended to create a special bond. There was nothing sexual about it. Sam didn’t want to go there. He valued having Jo in his life, and after two failed marriages, Sam was done with commitments.

Holy Spirits—or just Spirits, as the locals called it—still looked like a church on the outside and was often mistaken as such. Out-of-towners who opened the tall front doors seeking a quiet place to pray got a big surprise at what they found inside.

The church wasn’t big, but the twenty-foot-high ceilings gave it a spacious feel. The atmosphere was dim. Lights low. The dark wooden floors were scarred, scraped, and stained. The walls were large fieldstone about halfway up, the mortar marred with cracks and patches where it had been repaired. The noise was a constant hubbub with the drone of a low-playing jukebox in the background. Sometimes it got rowdy, but tonight it was fairly quiet.

Four of the original pews had been rearranged so as to act as seating for long tables in the back. Up front, there were several round tables with maple captain’s chairs around them. Half of those tables were occupied with locals, full mugs of foam-topped beer in front of them.

Sam and Jo headed toward the bar at the back where the altar used to be. It ran the length of the small building. The windows high up on the wall behind it had been fitted with red, blue, and green stained glass in a pattern of squares and rectangles—the original church windows had disappeared long ago. The new stained glass didn’t let much light in, which was exactly the way the owner, Billie Hanson, wanted it. She said dim lighting encouraged more drink purchases.

Under the stained-glass windows, colorful bottles of booze were lined up in front of a mirror that reflected the room behind them.

The seats around the bar were worn but comfortable. Sturdy wood with black pleather seat cushions edged with giant brass tacks. The bar itself was pitted and scarred with burn holes from when they used to allow smoking inside. The smell of grilled meat and french fries made Sam’s stomach grumble.

Billie came to stand in front of them on the other side of the bar, her short-cropped gray hair sticking up in a blue-and-lavender-tinged spike on top. She wore one diamond stud in her left ear and a gold hoop in her right.

Her face, weatherworn from years of hard outdoor work, crinkled into a smile. Like most of the town residents, Billie had spent her lifetime outdoors doing manual labor. Her parents had owned a dairy farm, which she’d worked at year round. Now, in her sixties, she’d sold off the farm after her folks had died and bought the bar from the previous owner.

Billie could usually be found behind the bar during business hours. Most everyone called her Reverend Billie, but she wasn’t a real reverend. Not unless you counted the certificate she’d gotten from the online Church of Good Will that hung behind the bar. She thought the title went great with the ambiance of the bar. She’d worked hard to build up the business, focusing on pouring a good drink and making the best gourmet burgers in the area.

Her left brow quirked up. She wiped chapped hands on her apron. "The usual?"

Sam and Jo both nodded. As Billie walked away, Jo leaned over the bar and yelled, "Add some curly fries to that, will ya?"

Billie raised a hand in acknowledgement and kept walking toward the beer fridge.

"Some day, huh?" Jo asked.

Sam huffed out of breath and nodded. It was hard to believe that the day had included Tyler’s funeral, a death scene, and a run-in with the mayor.

Billie slid two beers in front of them. A Moosenose in a green bottle for Sam. Sam liked supporting local businesses, and this one was a local brew with a slightly lemony flavor that Sam had acquired a taste for. Jo got a Sam Adams Boston Ale.