I tried to hide my reaction. Was Calvin the real murderer? But if so, why would he have told me about the tie and the photos? And why wasn’t he using Patsy as a convenient scapegoat? “Did Patsy know Carol Ann was at the Broken Branch Motel?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t find out from me.”

“Could she have scrolled through your texts?”

He shook his head. “I deleted them as soon as they came in.” He paused. “Well, she sent the photos to me too, and I kept them. I figured Patsy had already seen them. The harm was done.”

That meant Patsy must have found out where Carol Ann was staying from someone else. Who? Carol Ann herself?

“I take it Patsy wasn’t too happy.”

He grimaced. “No. She came tearin’ out of our bedroom, angrier than I’ve ever seen her, throwing around a bunch of things . . .” Guilt filled his eyes. “She said she was gonna kill us both, but she didn’t really mean it,” he said emphatically.

“Do you know when Carol Ann got back into town?”

“Uh . . . early last week. I saw her twice before Saturday.”

“Where did you see her? Another motel?”

His face flushed. “Not exactly.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“I met her out by the lake. On a side road.”

“So you don’t know where she was staying before Saturday night?”

“I didn’t think to ask. I just knew she was back in town.”

“Did she tell you why she was back or what she’d been up to?”

The crimson on his cheeks deepened. “Uh . . . we didn’t do much talkin’, if you know what I mean.”

I gave a short nod, averting my gaze. “Did you know that Carol Ann was takin’ photos of you on Saturday night?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not that stupid. I’m not sure how she managed it, but they weren’t selfies.”

Oh, mercy. I couldn’t believe what I was about to ask. “I’m gonna need you to send them to me.”

“Why?” he asked in panic.

“Because I want to see where she might have hidden the camera. Maybe it caught footage of whoever killed her.”

He hesitated for several seconds, a war raging on his face, but finally released a loud groan and pulled out his phone. “I’ll send them in an email.”

“Okay,” I said, then gave him my email address.

He tapped into his phone. After nearly half a minute of tapping, he set it down on his desk and my phone buzzed with an incoming email. I opened the email to ensure it had attachments, then closed it before they could load.

“So after Patsy threw her fit, what happened next?”

“She left.”

“And that was around three o’clock? Did you see or talk to her after that?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“I don’t know. Is that all?” Calvin asked, retrieving his handkerchief again. His face was covered in beads of sweat, and damp spots were spreading under the armpits of his blue shirt. He looked like he’d run a half marathon. “The office staff’s about to return.”

I was about to leave—he’d clearly told me all he intended to—but then realized I hadn’t gotten Calvin’s alibi. “What were you doin’ after Patsy left?”

“I took a nap and watched some TV.”

I tried to hide my disbelief. How had he taken a nap after that? “And how did you find out that Carol Ann was dead?”

“When the sheriff’s deputy showed up at my house last night looking for Patsy.”

“Do you happen to know which deputy it was?”

He grimaced, but it was obvious he didn’t want to think about it. “Uh . . . Randy?”

I perked up. “Randy Miller?”

“Yeah. That was it.”

That could work out in my favor. I was actually friends with Randy. I pulled a business card out of my purse—not the glittering ones Neely Kate had made that said Sparkle Investigations, but a plain white card with my name and number and the name of Kermit’s agency—and slid it across the desk to him. “If you think of anything else you think might be helpful, will you give me a call?”

He picked up the card and put it in his desk drawer. “Yeah. Sure thing.”

I found Neely Kate in front of June’s desk, her mouth hanging open. A young woman was telling Neely Kate a story while June shot daggers at her back.

“And there Calvin was on his hands and knees, his drawers at his ankles, and the girl was sitting on his back like he was a pony while she smacked his butt cheek with a riding crop. And then you’ll never guess what she did with that thing . . .”

“And we don’t want to know,” I quickly inserted.

Neely Kate gave me the stink eye. “Speak for yourself.”

“We don’t actually need to know all the details about Calvin’s flings,” I said.

“Flings?” the young woman asked with a raised eyebrow. “Is that what he’s calling them?”

“You disagree?” I asked.

“That’s enough of this nonsense,” June said, her steely eyes staring down the young woman. “Don’t you need to get back to the meeting?”

The young woman looked properly chastised as she picked up a notebook and pen from a desk and hurried toward a hall close to the exit.

The tension on June’s face faded slightly. “Calvin has had a wandering eye for years. But his . . . indiscretions . . . have been a lot shorter lately.”

Something about her choice of words struck me. “When we first arrived, you thought we were here to have a . . . fling with Calvin. Why?”

“Women just show up sometimes. But they’re different from the ones he used to bring around. I’m sure they’re prostitutes.” She tsked.

Neely Kate’s eyes widened. “You thought we were prostitutes?”

June had the good sense to look embarrassed. “They would show up during the staff meeting.”

“How did he get these prostitutes to drop by?” Neely Kate asked. “Last time I checked, there wasn’t an app for that.”

“I’m not sure,” the older woman said, curling her upper lip. “I never asked.”

I handed her a business card. “If you think of anything that might help Patsy, give me or Neely Kate a call.”

She nodded.

Neely Kate and I headed out to the truck, remaining silent until we were shut inside the cab.

“I hope you got more information than I did,” Neely Kate said, “because other than the prostitute twist, I got squat.”

“You’ll never believe what I found out.” I told her about the photos and the tie.

“I knew Calvin had a wandering eye, but I had no idea he’d been with so many women. It certainly makes the prostitute angle even more likely,” Neely Kate said. “How many women in this town would want to sleep with him?”

She had a point. “I suppose with the tight rein June and Patsy have on that man, it’s the only way he can get women.”

She snorted. “Plus, he looks like a pasty sack of flour.”

There was that.

“So,” Neely Kate said, “other than the fact that Calvin could potentially be a suspect too, we’ve got diddly to clear Patsy.”

Looked like it.