Colt could picture Betsy at the front desk and Monica Merriweather standing right in front of her. Betsy would tell it like it was, even in front of Monica. Betsy might be a pushover for her family because she loved them but she’d learned to hold her own and was known as a woman who voiced her opinion. Further, she worked at a Police Station. Pushovers didn’t last long at a Police Station.

“Tell her I’ll be right down,” Colt told Betsy.

“Other things I’d prefer to tell her but I’ll tell her that,” Betsy replied and then put down the phone.

“Monica,” Colt told Sully.

Sully grinned and said, “Go get her, tiger.”

Colt grabbed his blazer and shrugged it on while he took the stairs. When he saw Monica, his eyes never left her.

She had a bob of dyed red hair that didn’t suit her coloring or the shape of her face. She was hitting middle age badly, was short and the last couple of years had put on a little pudge mostly due to regular flybys at Mimi’s and a summertime habit of stopping at Fulsham’s Frozen Custard Stand.

Her position as top reporter for the Gazette gave her importance in town, people wanted her attention, wanted their name or event in print. Monica had elevated that importance on her own and the last five years or so, her self-conceived power had led to her getting nosier than she should, even given her profession. Her decades of consistent but thwarted attempts to get on staff at the Indianapolis Star saw her writing turn gossipy and sometimes nasty, something which was not only unnecessary for a small town weekly but also not popular. The real power she held, the power of the printed word, meant she could get away with it and people still showed her respect. They might have done it but behind her back she was widely disliked and, by some, even hated.

She’d never married, likely because she carried the triple curse of being unattractive, unlikeable and giving up the status of being a woman to be known only as a reporter.

“Colt,” she said with a false ingratiating smile when he approached her.

He stopped well away and greeted, “Monica.” And as he knew she would, she moved into his space so he quickly asked, “What can I do for you?”

She tipped her head to the side and said, “Figure Sully talked to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Feds are here,” she went on.

“Yeah,” Colt agreed.

“Somethin’ goin’ on that the people should know about?” she asked.

She didn’t want to do a service to the citizens of the town. She wanted a juicy story she could break and show the editors of The Star.

“Figure they know already what they should know,” Colt told her.

“What I hear, there’s more to it,” Monica returned.

“Yeah? What’d you hear?” Colt asked and she grinned again and put her hand on his arm, touching him briefly then pulling away before he could.

“Now wouldn’t be good for me to tell you that, would it?” she asked.

Colt played dumb. “Why not?”

She just grinned again.

Colt wanted to be at the bar, not talking to Monica, so he got down to it. “My advice, Monica? You should leave this alone.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“At this point, it’s far less interesting than you think,” Colt lied, she got closer and it took everything Colt had not to step back.

“What I hear, it’s very interesting,” she whispered.

Colt played a card. “You tell me what that is, maybe I could confirm or deny it. You don’t, and you run with it now, you’d be all kinds of fool.”

He gave her confidence a hit, she was unsure. She knew talk was talk and things could get embellished along the way. She moved too soon, no matter how miniscule, any dreams she had left of being at The Star would be lost. She tried to hide it but he saw it in her face.

Colt kept going, dangling the carrot. “You work with us on this we give you an exclusive after it plays out.”

“An exclusive to a weekly?” she asked, eyebrows up, disbelief in her tone.

“Town’s paper, who else?” Colt returned but she knew what he was saying. He wasn’t offering the Gazette an exclusive; he was offering it to Monica.

She studied him before wheedling, “Worth my while to wait?”

Colt wasn’t giving her that. “Sorry, Monica, you’ll have to wait and see, just like us.”

Her hand came back to his arm but this time she kept it there and again Colt fought the urge to pull away. “Colt, the Feds are here. There are four dead bodies in three states. Same MO.”

“Not the same.” That, at least, was the truth, or it was in Marie’s case.

“Close enough,” she returned.

“Monica, trust me, I’m givin’ you good advice on this one.”

“You’re tryin’ to gag the press.”

That pissed Colt off. Sure, that’s exactly what he was doing but he hadn’t put up with her shit and played her game for years to have her call him on something she had to know was important.

His voice dipped lower when he said, “You pay attention, you’ll see I’m tryin’ to give you somethin’. You don’t play, this ends, you got nothin’.” Her interest was even more piqued, he saw that too.

“You want this, you gotta give me more,” she pushed him, the greedy bitch.

“More than exclusive?” he asked.

“You gotta give me Cal Johnson.”

“Old news, Monica, you reported on that this week.”

“Not with an interview with the cop who got him to roll over.”

Colt couldn’t see it as news, just her way of taking his time, something she liked to do.

“No one’s interested in that shit.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she said agreeably. “So, instead, I’ll take you and Feb.”

Colt swallowed a growl. She had that all along. She knew the murders were linked with him and Feb and she wanted it all.

She squeezed his arm, getting excited. “High school sweethearts, brought back together by murder and mayhem,” she leaned in, “hell, this could be a book.”

“It’s not gonna happen,” Colt told her.

She squeezed his arm again. “That’s my offer. I lay low until this busts and then you give me the real exclusive.”

“You don’t lay low, you don’t get jack shit,” he returned.

She dropped his arm, leaned back and grinned again, thinking she was calling his bluff. “I could live with that.”

Colt shook his head but smiled, leaning back himself, calling hers. “Nope, Monica, run it and for the next forty years you’ll kick yourself.”

Her head jerked and her lips parted before she gave it away. “We’re not talkin’ The Star here, are we?”

Colt knew reporters would soon be crawling all over town. This shit was going to be big news and national and Monica wasn’t wrong, it was worthy of a book and probably some hotshot would even make a movie out of it. If it had to be someone might as well be one of their own but even so, Colt had no intention of handing her him and Feb. And given the fact she’d made a lot of enemies in that town, folk wouldn’t care Monica was one of their own. They’d talk to anyone about what they knew about Feb and Colt before they’d spill to Monica. She’d fucked herself.

Therefore Colt bit back a smile before he replied, “Book tours.”

Greed suffused her face and her grin turned to a smile.

“Exclusive?” she pressed his promise.

“I’ll talk to Sully.” And he would talk to Sully and maybe Sully would give it to her, if he felt generous but that was doubtful. Colt wasn’t going to go after the Feds. They might talk, they might not. They wanted to seal their retirement by resigning and making their own deals, he wasn’t going to hand them to Monica.

Luckily, she didn’t think to pursue that.

“I’ll be expecting your call to confirm,” she said.

“Don’t. I won’t call. This is trust or we got nothin’.” Sully might screw her, Colt knew, and he had no problem with that since he intended to do it himself.

“You think I’ll leave with that?” she asked.

“Life is risk, what I’m tellin’ you, this one is worth takin’.”

She stared at him longer than was comfortable but Colt withstood it. Then she reached out and clutched his arm one more time before turning and walking away.

Colt had no idea if he’d contained her or not but he hoped he did. It was Saturday, the Gazette didn’t run until Wednesday. Denny would probably be caught by then, God willing. She shopped this to The Star, it was likely they’d screw her and hand it to someone on staff. They had far better resources than Monica and the Gazette. They wouldn’t give her access to those, no way they’d work with her and she likely knew it. She was fucked if she tipped it now.

“Need to call the janitor, mop up the slime trail she left,” Betsy commented from beside him, Colt turned and grinned at her.

“Tell him to prepare, Bets, another coupla days we’ll be drippin’ with it.”

“Can’t wait,” she muttered.

Colt laughed quietly then said, “Later.”

She turned to him and her annoyance fled, light hitting her eyes before she said, “Have fun with Feb.”

Colt shook his head, waved at Betsy, put Monica out of his mind and headed to the door which would lead him to J&J’s.

* * *

Colt sat on his stool, Jack and Morrie in front of him behind the bar, all of them sipping bourbon through their smiles.

Dee was at the middle of the bar with Jackie. Dee was cat calling, Jackie slamming her palms on the top of the bar like everyone else who sat or stood the length of it. The rest of the bar was clapping, whooping, whistling, stomping or some combination of the four.