“The compartment,” Nans agreed. “Someone may not have wanted the cat at all. They wanted what was inside it.” She turned back to the street. “It doesn’t get us to the killer. But it changes what we’re looking for.”
They stood on the sidewalk in a loose cluster. The theory sat there, new and unhelpful in the particular way of theories that open doors without telling you what’s behind them.
“What we do have,” Nans said, “is a time window. Ten to ten-thirty.”
“Which is useless,” Ruth said, “unless we know where our suspects were during that window.”
“This town has no cameras,” Lexy said.
“No,” Nans agreed.
A beat.
Then Lexy said: “But we know someone who does.”
Ruth looked up from her iPad.
Nans almost smiled. “Trash-to-Cash Tina.”
“She had that phone running the whole morning,” Lexy said. “Every stall, every seller, every find. If Everett was killed between ten and ten-thirty and we can see our suspects on Tina’s video at that time it could rule them out. Not to mention that if she is the killer she won’t have any videos for that time span.”
“And most of Tina’s videos are online.,” Ruth finished. She was already typing.
Ida unwrapped her mint. “I’ve been saying from the start that woman was useful.”
“You called her annoying,” Ruth said.
“Both things can be true,” Ida said, and popped the mint in.
CHAPTER TEN
“So, where do we find Tina?” Ida asked.
They were standing on the sidewalk outside Sloan’s Antiques, which was not a productive place to stand. Ida had found another mint. Helen was checking her watch. Nans was looking at the middle distance with the expression of someone running through options and rejecting them.
“I’ll check online,” Ruth said suddenly. She pulled her iPad out of her giant purse. “She’s always live-streaming maybe we can see where she is.”
Ruth’s fingers were already moving. Ten seconds later she held up the iPad.
Trash-to-Cash Tina was indeed live. She was mid-sentence about a cast iron doorstop shaped like a Scottie dog, her phone propped on something at chest height, her voice carrying the particular bright energy of a woman performing for an audience of forty-seven. Behind her was a white fence, a big oak tree, and the very recognizable green shutters of the Pelletier house.
“That’s Oak Street,” Lexy said.
“Corner of Oak and Birch,” Nans confirmed. “Other side of the block.”
Ruth looked up from the iPad. “We can cut through.”
“Through what?” Helen asked.
“The backyards.”
Helen looked at the row of houses. “Whose backyards?”
“The Kowalski’s, the Fentons, and whoever bought the yellow ranch after the Garcias moved.”
“We can’t just walk through people’s backyards, Ruth.”
“It’s faster than going around.”