Strange Medicine (Dr. Maxwell Thornton Murder Mysteries #1)(37)

“Thanks. That would be a great help.”

“I’ll do my best. I still say he could never have afforded that place.” She shook her head.

“He told me he’d inherited money.”

“He did?” She scowled. “He told me he’d gotten a loan from his brother.”

“Hmmm.” I rubbed my chin. “Why would he lie?”

She rolled her eyes. “Why do people do anything? The longer I live, the more I think I just want to buy an island and drop out of society.”

I smiled. “We’d miss you too much, Mrs. Numi.”

She smacked my arm with a little smile. “Oh, hush, you smooth talker.”

I grinned. “If you don’t mind, can you keep what you told me just between us for now?”

“Of course. Whatever you want. I haven’t told a soul because I’ve just been sick with worry.” She sighed. “If something happens to me, Sheriff, you know for sure it has to do with that damn house.”

I patted her back and watched her stride away purposefully toward her Mercedes. She’d been a wealth of information. I decided my next step was to return to the station and talk to Steve, my local digital forensic expert. He mostly worked on cases around the country because we had so little crime, but he lived in Rainy Dale and he just happened to be available at the moment. He’d been going through Ned’s laptop, and I hoped maybe he’d found some emails that would lead us to a particular person we could zone in on.

When I got to the station, Steve was in his lab, working on a cell phone. I approached, wondering why he wasn’t working on Ned’s laptop. I’d made it clear that was my priority.

He looked up, squinting because he still had on his magnifying glasses. “Is that you, Sheriff?”

“Yep.” I stopped next to him. “I thought you were working on the laptop?”

He pulled off his glasses. “I found some interesting emails, and I decided to wait for you.”

“Really?”

“I’ve already contacted the ISP by following the IP address, and they’re going to give us the owner’s registration information later today. I was able to pinpoint the city, but I need the ISP to give us the owner’s physical address.”

“Was the IP address local?” I held my breath.

“Looks like it.”

I exhaled. “Makes sense.” I glanced toward the laptop. “What were the emails?”

He stood and moved to the computer. “Both emails were from a Bandito57 that talked about how careful Ned needed to be. Something about if the news got out, every gold digger in the universe would descend.” He clicked his mouse and opened the email program.

I leaned in and read the emails. “Hmm. What could they mean about gold diggers descending?”

“No idea.”

“I spoke to Mrs. Numi today, and she said Ned was trying to buy Maxwell Thornton’s house.”

“Seriously?” He laughed. “That’s not the nicest house in town. The lot is large, but I wouldn’t say that was a really valuable piece of property. The house is old as hell.”

“True. But it bordered his land. Maybe that was why he wanted it.”

“Sure. But why all the secrecy?”

I rubbed my chin. “The more I dig, the more confused I become.”

“I agree.”

“But Ned was murdered at the house he was trying to buy. Obviously that place is connected somehow.”

“No doubt,” Steve murmured. “There are only three emails from Bandito57, and the last one was warning Ned to start using a burner phone and not to email anymore.”

“Damn. We can’t find Ned’s phone.”

“Odds are that’s no accident.”

I sighed and leaned on the desk. “We need that address from the ISP. Hopefully that will lead us to someone with some actual answers instead of just raising more questions.”

Steve nodded. “So you really don’t think Dr. Thornton had anything to do with Ned’s murder? This stuff only started happening after he showed up.”

“He couldn’t have killed Ned. The coroner gave us a window that makes it impossible. He was working all day nonstop, and in the evening…” I cleared my throat. “I had dinner with him.”

He widened his eyes. “Really?”

My face felt hot. “Yeah.”

“You had dinner with Maxwell Thornton?”

“I did. He’s cool.”

He grimaced. “From what I’ve heard, he’s an asshole.”

I held my irritation at bay. “I’ll agree he can be a little too blunt. But he can also be pleasant, and he’s funny too.”

He looked like I’d said Jeffrey Dahmer was a nice guy. “He’s insulted just about every person who went to see him.”

I laughed uneasily. “Most of those people were just there for free cookies and to gawk at the new guy. He’s serious about his work. He doesn’t like it when people waste his time.”

“Obviously.” He frowned. “Sorry if I insulted the guy. I mean, if you two have a thing…”

“We don’t have any official thing.” I used air quotes. “But I might see him again sometime. Like I said, he’s okay when you get to know him.”