chapter 12

rnold went straight to the station to see if Michelle got any clues from the manuscript. when he walked in she was sitting at her desk sipping on a soda, there was a newspaper laid out in front of her.” Is it break time?”

Michele jumped and started coughing. “Jesus, You scared me. She stood picked up the newspaper and folded them in half. “Get a bell for God’s sake.”

“Sorry,” Arnold replied sternly. “I didn’t mean to disturb your slacking off.”

“I’m not slacking off.” Michele gave him a hard stare. “I finished reading the manuscript and was waiting for you.” She paused. “Boss.”

Arnold looked down.” Sorry.” he said meekly. he looked at Michele. “That wasn’t cool of me.” He paused a moment. “So did you find anything in the manuscript that could help us?”

Michele walked around the desk. “I’m afraid not. As you know he was in the middle of chapter thirteen when he was killed. The first four chapters were more about his youth.” she shook her head. “and I must say that there is nothing funny in this book.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Maurice said he was trying to add humor into his life.” Michele paused. “Well, he certainly tried. But with all the misery he describes in there, it is hard to laugh at anything.”

“that bad,” Arnold said bluntly.

“Well. You remember how Brandon said how controlling his father was? Well, Nathaniel’s writing confirms it.”

Arnold thought for a moment. You know. Maybe he was trying to inject humor in order to deal with his past.”

Yeah, well.” Michelle pursed her lips. “He failed”. “Was there anything in there about Izzy?”

“Of course. in fact, He mentioned the moment when they took her in. Both him and Brandon were not happy about it. They felt it would take their mom’s focus from them. Eventually, they warmed up to her. Nathaniel described her as a ray of sunshine. He said how he became very protective of her.”

Arnold walked around the desk and sat down. “Was there any mention about her and Lewis?”

“In regards to what?”
“About having suspicions that they were involved.”

Michele shook her head.” Not really. He did say they all hung out a lot. They considered themselves the Three Musketeers. They would hang out drinking and playing games, or going to the movies.” Michele went around the desk and stood next to Arnold.

Arnold gulped as her perfume tantalizing his nose. He sighed. “Was there any mention of Izzy attitude change?”

“No,” Michele said flatly. “all though in Chapter Thirteen he mentioned something about his dad becoming more irritable. He said would stay in his room more, and became more as he called it, on edge.”

“Hmmm.” Arnold stood up and faced Michele. “You know, Westley told me that Parker became more distant after he gave them Izzy, Who’s last name is actually Sanderstill. He said they stopped attending church regularly. And after Izzy died They cut off communication completely.”

“Sanderstill?” Michele sounded surprised.

“Yeah.”Arnold said calmly.”Apparently, The Sanderstills and Davidsons didn’t get along. Something to do with Parker accusing their son of Stealing.”

And what was the son's name?” Michele said excitedly.”

“George,” Arnold stared at Michele like she lost her mind. “Why.”

Michele walked to the other side of the desk and looked at Arnold.” Because Nathaniel did mention an encounter with a guy named George. He confronted him and Izzy outside of a bar. He got in Nathaniel’s face saying something about his family stealing his life and now he stoled his sister. They got in a scuffle and Nathaniel ended up knocking him out.”

Arnold’s forehead wrinkled. “Westley said after he was fired he got into drugs and eventually ran away. He said they haven’t seen him since.”

“Do you think he is back to get revenge?” Michele asked.

“It’s possible” Arnold sat down. “We need to run George’s name through the system and see if we got anything on him. Warrants arrests, known addressees.”

he began typing.” Damn, it looks like we finally got a lead.”

chapter 13