“For once in your life, it wouldn’t kill you to do something just because it was right.”
Shayne narrowed his eyes and said musingly, “There’s always a money angle — if you look hard enough.”
Phyllis wailed, “Do you have to be mercenary? And on our vacation?”
He pushed her gently from his knees and stood up. The questing look in his gray eyes had been replaced by a bleak and driving intensity. He said, “There wouldn’t be any vacations if I didn’t collect on my cases. Murder is an ugly business, but it’s my business. And by God, I’m not going to pass up any dividends.”
He seized his hat, crushed it down on his unruly red hair, and stalked from the room.
Chapter seventeen
IT WAS LATE THAT AFTERNOON when Shayne encountered Sheriff Fleming in the Teller House barroom. His eyes lighted when he saw the detective. “Been looking for you,” he drawled. “I got a government report on the dingus that measures high water in the creek. Got a man to come out from Denver when I told him it was official business.”
“What did you find out?”
“The water got up past the stump, all right. I got the county surveyor to take his measuring thing out there and he took levels and figured how much rise it would take to’ve floated her down there.”
“That was a smart angle,” Shayne conceded. “And the water rose that high?”