"I didn't put any poison in that bottle. And you guys can't pin this on me!"
"What makes you think we can't?"
"Because I never knew the fellow and you can't prove I did. So how are you going to make anybody believe I killed somebody I didn't know and had nothing against. You think I'm nuts or something?"
"It's a possibility," I said.
Donovan narrowed his eyes at Garver and said, "You're holding something back. Come on! Out with it."
Again that guilty look as Garver shook his head. But you can't send a guilty look to the chair and it seemed Garver had us stymied. At least for a while. We jugged him on suspicion but we knew unless we got something else to strengthen the case we wouldn't get an indictment against him. There just wasn't enough.
Donovan and I chewed it over with the Captain and he couldn't give us any help except the advice to keep plugging. We told him we'd try to come up with something and went on back to the tavern.
The owner had been there and gone and we still had a patrolman stationed in front. Donovan unlocked the door and released the patrolman for his regular beat and we went inside.
It was very quiet. Naturally. Nothing is quieter in this world than an empty bar. I said, "Well, where do we start?"