by Maisy Morgan
“I know, I know,” Nathan said. “I’ve got an alibi for the robbery. I know where I was off the top of my head because I was the only person around here who didn’t hear about it that day. I was on a plane for a business trip headed home. You can look up my flight information and confirm that I was still in the air when the robbery was taking place. I didn’t land back in Atlanta until hours after it was all over.”
Preston frowned. “You’re telling me you were on a flight?”
“Yup,” Nathan replied. “It was an overseas flight too, so you can track my passport I bet.”
“I will,” Preston said a bit matter-of-factly.
“Did Roger really shoot a deer on your property?” Mary asked as Preston stood upright pulling out his phone to call the station to get someone to go ahead and look in on Nathan’s claim. Preston stepped down from the porch and was speaking to whomever was on the phone somewhat loudly.
Nathan ignored Preston and looked at Mary before taking a sip of his beer. Then he leaned back in his rocking chair and told her, “Yeah, he did shoot a deer on my property. You’re an LA girl, right?”
“That’s right,” Mary said. “You know me?”
“Yeah, you opened up that dessert shop,” he said. “I haven’t been by yet, but my niece swears your key lime pies are better than my mother’s. I’ll have to be the one to judge that. I looked your shop up and read the little bio on your website, and I remember reading that you and your grandson are here from LA.”
“That’s right,” Mary said. “We just needed a change of scenery I suppose.”
“I’m guessing the whole deer hunting thing isn’t as big of a deal in LA?” he asked.
“Not really,” Mary said. “I can admit my ignorance in that department.”
“Well then, I can explain it to you. You can’t shoot a deer on someone else’s property for one. As a matter of fact, you can’t even shoot on someone else’s property period. Genius Roger had to hop my fence to get to that deer. I came outside after hearing gunshots in my backyard, and I gave him the boot. I told Roger if he didn’t beat it that I’d call the cops on him which wouldn’t look good for several reasons. One being that he was trespassing. Two, he was discharging a weapon on private property. Three, it wasn’t hunting season. However, he wanted his deer because he had killed it, but by law, it was mine. If he had stuck around, he would have lost his hunting license and probably been in a lot more trouble than that,” Nathan explained.
“And that’s what the dispute was about the morning he was killed?” Mary asked.
“That’s what it was about, and I haven’t changed my story once,” Nathan said. “He saw me when I was talking a morning walk and trying to get healthy or whatever. Then, he came marching up to me and started calling me cheap and sleezy because of the deer. I told him that the next time I’d call the cops, and our voices kind of escalated a bit. The next thing I know, that dope punches me in the nose. Now, he was my neighbor, and I wouldn’t wish anything on him. I’m upset about what happened to him even if our last interaction had been a sock in the face. I left after speaking with Preston that day, immediately after. I was long gone by the time Roger was killed, and I bet you that Josephine was too because we both took our cars and left. Unless she circled back, it was just Roger, Preston, and your grandson left in that park when we left.”
“You saw Josephine leave the park?” Mary asked.
“I did,” he said. “And when we left, Roger was still alive.”
“Did you see anyone headed in that direction on your way out?” Mary asked, and Nathan paused. Evidently, he hadn’t been asked this.
“No, I didn’t see anyone coming,” Nathan said. “Come to think of it, you know I did see a bicycle. It was tied up in the parking lot. It couldn’t have been Rogers I don’t think. He had ridden there with Josephine.”
Preston came back up the steps of the porch and sat himself down. “Your story checks out,” he said.
“I told you it would,” Nathan said.
“Preston, Nathan just confirmed that there was possibly someone else in the park other than himself and Josephine that day,” Mary said.
“Who?” Preston asked. “Why are you just now telling me this?”
“Because I didn’t actually see another person, I saw a bike. It was tied up at a bike stand,” he explained. “I didn’t think about it until just now. Josephine and I left at the same time, and I remember seeing a bike tied up in the parking lot.”
“So, there was a third person in that park,” Preston said. “Someone we didn’t know about.”
“It may have been someone who came there to track down Roger,” Mary said. “Can you tell us what the bicycle looked like?”
“I can tell you it looked like a street bike. You know, something you’d ride in a street race,” Nathan explained. “It was red and black.”
“Okay,” Preston said. “Thank you, Nathan. You might have just gotten us an actual lead.”
“Good,” Nathan said taking another drink, “because all this questioning is starting to get old.”
Preston shrugged. “Well, sorry Nathan, but I had to go with the odds.”
“Yeah, I know,” Nathan said. “But unless you two got anything else you’re wanting to say to me, I’d appreciate it if you just get going. I was having a nice, relaxing evening until you called me.”
“Whatever, Nathan,” Preston said with a slight chuckle. He stood up and so did Mary.
The two of them thanked Nathan for his cooperation, and Preston warned him he might be calling him again. However, this time to send him some pictures of potential bicycles to identify rather than to interview him as a potential suspect for the murder. Nathan laughed slapping his knee a bit as he did so. “Well, ain’t that just a breath of fresh air? You do that Preston.”
Preston and Mary loaded up inside of the patrol car, and Mary breathed a little bit. “How many times have you interviewed him already?” she asked.
“This would be my third time,” Preston said. “You can tell he’s really starting to get irritated with me.”
“He should have mentioned the bicycle before,” Mary said. “Well, he probably just didn’t think about it. This proves there was someone else at the park. Whoever it was, they’re probably the one who killed Roger Stout.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tripp really enjoyed the new church they had been attending. The church had its own separate building for youth which allowed them to be somewhat loud and disruptive with their activities and worship time. The kids there were all really cool, and best of all, the families of both Hannah and Draco went there. He hated his church slacks that Mary made him wear, but it was one of those churches where people still got at least a little dressed up for Sunday morning.
After final prayer and dismissal, Tripp gathered with Draco and Hannah as last in line out the door to meet the adults, who would be leaving the sanctuary at the main building in just a moment. Hannah was in her electric wheelchair today, so she didn’t need anyone pushing her, but she liked to travel behind the crowd so that no one was waiting on her chair to move along.
The youth building had a small pathway leading toward the main building, and the three of them remained at the back of the line chatting. “So,” Draco said in a whisper looking a little less like a cartoon character today in his short-sleeved button up and slick black church pants. “I didn’t want to mention it until after church, but Tripp, I found out where your grandfather is staying.”
“Wait, seriously?” Tripp asked also whispering.
“I told you Draco would be able to figure it out,” Hannah sang somewhat triumphantly.
“Well, where is he?” Tripp asked somewhat excitedly.
“He’s staying at a Marriot Hotel in Fayetteville,” Draco said. “I got the room number and everything.”
“I don’t even want to know how you managed to do that,” Tripp said smiling. “I’m just glad you did. Okay, so we know where he’s at, so how are t
hree teenagers with no car and no license supposed to get there without our parents finding out?”
“Let’s first see if they’ll let us hang out together after church, and then we can figure something out,” Draco suggested.
Hannah was on it. As soon as her mom came into view as she excited the sanctuary, just as they were entering into the church lobby, she waved Cindy down excitedly. “Mom! Can Draco and Tripp come over?”
“Oh!” Cindy said in surprise. “Well I don’t mind, but we should ask what their parents think. It’s Sunday, so it’s not like I was planning on doing anything.”
Things from that point ran rather smoothly. Mary had no problem with Tripp hanging out at Cindy’s for the afternoon, and Draco’s parents were always happy to see him socializing. Draco’s little sister pouted for a bit about not being invited, but the Morris’s promised to take her to do something fun with them for the day. The next thing Tripp knew, he was seated in Cindy’s car destined for her house alongside Draco and Hannah. The three of them were messaging one another on their phones while Cindy drove, devising a plan on how to get to the hotel.
Step one was to get away from Cindy. “So,” Tripp said halfway to Cindy’s house. “Ms. True, I was thinking, you know, I got my first paycheck this week. I would really love to take Hannah to a movie.”
Cindy nearly swerved off the road. “Oh, yeah?” Cindy questioned.
“Yeah, well, there is this movie playing at the theater in Fayetteville in an hour. We were kind of hoping we could go,” Tripp said. “I’d like to pay for Hannah’s ticket.”
“I’ll pay for myself. I mean, I’m invited, right?” Draco said with a laugh that was a little too forced.
Cindy smiled and asked. “What time is the movie?”
“One-thirty,” Tripp proudly answered.
Cindy checked the time on her dashboard. “Hmmm…” she said. “You know, there is some stuff I need to do there. Tell you what, this is what we can do. If we head to Fayetteville now, we’ll have time to swing through a drive through for some lunch before the movie starts. You kids can go to your movie, and I’ll run some errands I’ve been meaning to do while in the shopping complex.”
“That sounds perfect Mom,” Cindy said. “Is that okay?”
“I don’t mind,” Cindy said. “I’ve got some clothes in the back of the car that I’ve been meaning to return anyway.”
“Sweet,” Tripp said, and soon Cindy was turning around in someone’s driveway before heading toward Fayetteville. It seemed like phase one of their poorly put together plan was now in motion.
They swung through a drive through with lunch being courtesy of Ms. Cindy. The only downfall to this plan was that Tripp wound up paying for two movie tickets that he had no intention of going to, but it would be well worth the expenditure. Tripp was too afraid to tell Mary that he knew about his grandfather being in town because he was afraid that she wouldn’t let him meet the man. Therefore, he was taking things into his own hands with the help of Draco and Hannah.
Cindy pulled off away from the theater once she saw them enter into the theater lobby, but instead of going to the movies, the three of them remained in the middle of the lobby trying to decide how they were going to get halfway across Fayetteville to the hotel. “It’s only a ten-minute drive from here,” Draco said looking it up on his phone. “I don’t think there is any way we can get there from here before the movie is over especially with Hannah not having her faster electric chair.”
“Sorry,” Hannah said. “I didn’t realize we were going to try to ditch my mom this morning when picking out which wheelchair to bring to church.”
“Ok, so now what do we do?” Tripp asked.
“I just ordered a Lyft,” Draco said looking up from his phone with a satisfied grin.
“Do you see the size of this thing?” Hannah asked tapping her chair. “This isn’t going to fit into just any car.”
“You can put in specifications. The car we’re going in is going to be a van it looks like,” Draco said. “We just gotta wait out front.”
“I’ll pay for the Lyft,” Hannah said, “since you bought the movie tickets that we are apparently not going to get to use.”
“Are you okay with doing this?” Tripp asked. “I hate for you guys to have to lie because of me.”
“I don’t care,” Draco said. “I mean, did we really lie? We told her we wanted to go to the movies, and we’re at the movies. We just decided to go somewhere else, too.”
“That’s still awfully deceptive,” Hannah said. “However, if it means you getting to meet your grandfather, I have to admit I’m way too tempted to just sit this one out.”
“Then let’s go,” Tripp said, and the three of them headed outside and waited by the curb. Draco kept a close eye out for Ms. Cindy’s car. The last thing they wanted was for her to be leaving one of the nearby shops and see them getting into a random car. That would certainly give the poor woman a heart attack and be something they weren’t trying to do.
The Lyft driver was a young man in a large van, and he frowned when he saw Hannah. “What?” Hannah snapped at him.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out how to fit that in my car.”
“Umm, how do we get you in the car Hannah?” Tripp asked.
“Are you kids sneaking off somewhere or something?” he cautiously asked.
“No, just going back to our hotel,” Tripp said casually. “Dad got stuck at the hotel, his car won’t start, so he ordered us a Lyft.”
The man looked hesitant, but he accepted their story as fact. He didn’t look too comfortable with the situation, so they didn’t ask him to help with getting Hannah out of her chair. Tripp blushed slightly when Hannah wrapped her arms around his neck to help pull her up and out. She wasn’t heavy, and this was clearly something she was used to having to do. She knew how to move to make it easier on whoever was helping relocate her.
Once Hannah was buckled in, the Lyft driver was a bit more willing to help out with the chair. He and Draco worked on carefully putting the chair away in the back. Tripp sat in the back with Hannah, and Draco sat up front next to the driver to tell him how to get to the hotel. “Thanks for getting here so fast,” Draco talked to the driver.
“No problem,” the driver said, and soon they were driving up Highway 85 away from the theater.
Tripp started to feel nervous. They were really doing this. They were ditching Ms. Cindy, who had been so nice to take them to the movies and buy them lunch. He was keeping a serious secret from his grandmother too. He also had just pulled his friends into it, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t jumped on board with this crazy idea. There had to be a reason his grandmother didn’t want him to meet his grandfather, right? What if he was dangerous or something? Tripp shook the idea out of his head. No, he felt his grandmother was just bitter. It was a terrible thing, abandoning your family, but that didn’t make the man evil or anything. If his grandfather was looking for him, Tripp wanted to know, whether his grandma wanted him to or not.
Tripp was instinctually shaking his leg, and he suddenly felt Hannah’s hand brush up against his. He glanced over at her, and he smiled nervously in her direction. She took his hand in hers and gave him a reassuring nod. “You ready?” she whispered as Draco chattered away with the driver up in front of them.
“I think so,” Tripp said. “We’re going to be in so much trouble. I mean, we’re going to get caught, most likely.”
“I know,” Hannah said. “Mom is going to find out when we’re not at the theater, and if your grandfather is still here at the hotel, he is going to want to talk to you. We’re going to have to wind up telling my mom what we did, otherwise she’ll be freaking out at the movie theater when we don’t show up after the movie is over.”
“Yeah, well, I appreciate it,” Tripp said.
“Is it going to be worth it to you if it means getting to meet your grandfather?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said.
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She smiled. “Then it’s worth it to me too.”
The driver pulled up in front of the hotel, and after several minutes of struggling, they eventually got the wheelchair out of the car safely. Tripp eagerly helped Hannah out of the car and back into her chair. She gave him a rather troublesome smile as she let go of him from around his neck and sat herself upright in the chair adjusting her legs slightly.
Draco paid the Lyft driver through the app he had downloaded on his phone, and the man drove off probably eager to be done with whatever odd situation this was. They headed into the hotel doing their best to act like they belonged there before loading up in the elevator. “Third floor,” Draco said, and Tripp pushed the button.
The elevator rose up, and his nerves increased with each passing second. Tripp had all kinds of questions racing through his head. What was he going to say? The next thing he knew was that he was standing in front of a hotel door. “That’s the one,” Draco said.
Tripp knocked. A few second passed by, and the door opened. Standing in front of him was the man his grandma had gotten into it with just days before at the sweets shop. He was dressed more casually in an oversized t-shirt and a nice pair of blue jeans. His graying hair was slicked back, and he looked at the three of them with a peculiar gaze as if he felt like they probably had the wrong hotel room.
“Hello, Mr. Hopkins,” Tripp said. “My name is Tripp. I’m your grandson.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Since it was Sunday, the bank was obviously closed, but Eddie had been kind enough to meet Preston and Mary in Peachtree City. He’d said he would let them go over some of the footage the bank had to compare it with the footage from the bookshop’s cameras. Preston had already seen all of this, of course, but he and Mary had decided to use the day to follow up on this particular piece of evidence. Preston especially wanted to have Mary check out the footage from the bank, as she hadn’t seen it yet, and he wanted another opinion.
“Has Peachtree City police seen this already?” Preston asked as he sunk into one of the chairs around the various monitors in the back room of the bank.