Page 46 of Eye on the Ball
“Hey, Jack. Ms. Pennywhistle wants to talk to you.”
“She needs a lawyer.”
“She doesn’t need a lawyer. Sheriff Gonzalez isn’t going to arrest her. There’s no evidence she had anything to do with either Truckman disappearing.”
“Susan makes you call her Sheriff Gonzalez?”
Lizzie flushed. “No, she keeps asking me to call her Susan.” She leaned toward me and dropped her voice into a whisper. “It doesn’t seem proper, though.”
“Susan cares more about talent than protocol, and she thinks a lot of you. Keep that in mind.”
I’d been out of the rebel commander gig for a while, but what I’d learned about motivating the troops would never leave me. Treating people with respect and letting them know they were appreciated went a long way toward building morale. I knew that’s how Susan operated, too. It would just take Lizzie a minute to find her confidence in her new job, but I was sure she’d get there.
“Oh. Remind me to talk to you about a werewolf on the Riverton police force when we get a minute,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “You didn’t tell anybody about me, did you?”
“No, and I never would without your permission. Let’s talk about it later, okay?” Because I could hear Susan and Alejandro wrapping it up. “Take me to see Brenda.”
We walked down the short hallway to the jail cell. Brenda sat inside on the narrow bench, her head in her hands.
“You locked her in?”
Lizzie shook her head and pushed the door, which swung open. “Ms. Pennywhistle, here is Mr. Shepherd for you.”
Brenda looked up, and I was surprised to see her ravaged face. She’d been crying.
For Ace?
Worse—forProbie?
“Hey, Brenda. How’s it going?”
“Not my best weekend, I gotta tell you, Jack.”
“I’ll leave you to talk,” Lizzie said. “Let me know if you change your mind about something to eat, Ms. Pennywhistle.”
We watched her walk away in silence.
When the hallway door closed behind her, Brenda sighed. “That girl may be too sweet for this job.”
“Dealing with hardened criminals like yourself?”
She snorted a laugh. “That’s me. Brenda Pennywhistle, CPA and criminal mastermind. Jack, I need to tell you some things. Are you still hired as my private investigator?”
“You never actually hired me in the first place,” I pointed out. “And I’m pretty sure you need a lawyer, not a P.I. If it’s a matter of money, I’m glad to?—”
“No. No but thank you. You’re a nice guy, too, Shepherd.”
“Nah. I’m just worried about our softball lineup.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just listen. First, what I didn’t tell you the other morning? It’s this. Ace was on the phone with a woman named Celine when I went over to his house a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t hear me come in, clearly, because he was setting up a hookup.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
“Exactly. We had a big fight when I told him I’d caught him. He had ‘I’m guilty’ written all over his face and refused to explain what was going on. Since I’ve met Celine before, I know that she’s absolutely gorgeous. So, I knew exactly what he was up to. I broke up with him that night.” She looked up and saw something on my face that made her frown.
“Look. I know Ace comes off as a total jerk a lot of the time, but when he’s not competing for something, he can be funny and charming. Well, when he’s not trying to defraud the government in his business tax return. Oh, heck, I don’t know what I saw in him! Let’s just chalk it up to momentary insanity.”