”I don’t believe I do.”

”I think he was here last night.”

”Really? What would make you think that?”

”Just some information I picked up. He was killed last night.”

She gasped and covered her mouth. ”Oh, my goodness. That’s terrible!”

Landers held the photo up in front of her face again. ”You’re absolutely certain you didn’t see him in your club last night?”

”Well, now, I don’t believe I could say for certain.

Lots and lots of men come and go. I don’t notice all of them.”

”I’m going to need to interview the employees who were working last night and as many of your customers as I can.”

”Well, I swan,” she said. ”You’ll scare my girls to death. And the customers? Honey, they’d run from you like scared rabbits. Most of them don’t even want their wives to know they’ve been here, let alone the police. If you were to come in here and start asking them about a murder, why, I just don’t know what would happen to my business.”

”I didn’t say anything about a murder.”

The phony smile she was wearing stayed frozen on her face, but her eyes tightened the slightest bit.

At that moment, Landers knew she realized she’d fallen face-first in a pile of shit. It didn’t surprise Landers. Any woman who dressed like that had to be a dumbass.

”I thought you said the man was killed,” she said.

”I did, but I didn’t say he was murdered. I didn’t say anything about how he was killed. He might have been run over by a train or gotten killed in a car wreck. He could have jumped off a building or blown his brains out. What makes you think he was murdered?”

”I don’t claim to know a whole lot, honey, but I didn’t think the TBI got involved with car wrecks. I thought they only sent you boys in for the bad stuff.”

Nice try. She knew something, and now that she’d fucked up, she was trying to backpedal. Landers decided to try to get her out of her element and into his, get her to a place where she’d be less comfortable.