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the man had to fear was inside the envelope. Jack opened it slowly, watching Oliver, expecting the worst. And yet he was still surprised by the contents.
    A dozen black-and-white photos of a very young, very naked Mitzy Baxter, her barely pubescent body so pale it looked bleached, the poses awkward and embarrassed making them all the more unsavory. Strictly amateur night.
    Jack dropped the snapshots on Oliver’s desk. ‘‘Did you take these?’’
    ‘‘Good God no,’’ Oliver said, not looking at either Jack or Tempest.
    ‘‘Then who did?’’ Jack asked. Tempest was staring at the photos spilled across the desk and frowning.
    Oliver poured a shot of bourbon into the weak coffee and took a drink. ‘‘I purchased the photos years ago from some hippie-type she’d taken up with one winter.’’
    ‘‘Are you telling me this guy blackmailed you?’’
    He nodded solemnly. ‘‘I wish I’d destroyed them.’’
    ‘‘Why didn’t you?’’
    He shook his head and poured more bourbon into his mug. And it was only a little after eight in the morning.
    ‘‘Does Mitzy know you have them?’’ Jack asked.
    Oliver shook his head without looking up. ‘‘I never wanted her to know I even knew about them.’’
    Jack closed the safe and went out to search Peggy’s part of the office. It was obvious that Peggy had been very organized and a much better secretary from the looks of things than her boss had led him to believe.
    Tempest followed him out and thumbed through the file cabinet without a word.
    He thought he heard a sound coming from Oliver’s office and stopped to listen. It sounded like crying.
    He moved to the doorway and looked in to find Oliver with his head in his hands, the dirty photos of Mitzy spread like solitaire cards across the desk, his mug empty.

CHAPTER SIX
    B ACK AT the sheriff’s department, Jack asked Tempest to look over the financial papers they’d confiscated from Oliver’s office, then he went to his own office and closed the door.
    For reasons he didn’t want to delve into, the photos of Mitzy had made him think of Frannie. Her small, dark, girllike woman’s body. So fragile. It had been a year since he’d buried her and a day hadn’t gone by that he hadn’t thought of her and agonized over why she’d left him the way she had.
    There was a tap on his door. He motioned for Dobson to come in.
    ‘‘Insurance policies?’’ he asked without preamble.
    ‘‘Just the ones Mr. and Mrs. Sanders had on each other for five hundred thousand. As for alibis…’’ Dobson consulted his notebook. ‘‘Mrs. Sanders left work about eleven a.m. and didn’t return. She had no showings on her schedule and couldn’t be reached by cell phone. Not that that means much in this area.’’
    ‘‘What about the candy shop?’’
    ‘‘The clerks there know Mrs. Sanders well, said she comes in a lot to buy candy for her receptionist and clients.’’
    Jack raised a brow.
    ‘‘The receptionist says Mrs. Sanders has never purchased her candy or any other gift,’’ Dobson said, looking pleased with himself for anticipating the question. ‘‘The receptionist said Mrs. Sanders always keeps chocolate in her locked bottom drawer.’’ Dobson nodded. ‘‘There were wrappers in the drawer from Sweet Things.’’
    So she’d lied about chocolate. And she shopped at Sweet Things. That didn’t mean she’d killed Peggy. But it definitely could have gotten her killed had she gotten into the chocolates before Peggy.
    ‘‘Good job,’’ he told Dobson. He noted that Mitzy had bought the candy for herself as cover, just as Tempest had said a woman might do. But it didn’t prove she’d bought the extra box. ‘‘And Mr. Sanders?’’
    ‘‘No one saw him leave his office. He walked to work that morning, taking the trail between The Riverside and his office.’’
    Jack nodded. ‘‘So there is little chance anyone would have seen him coming or going unless they’d been on the trail. See