by J. C. Kenney
“I can give you one name.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Only if you leave me out of your report.”
“I can refer to you as an anonymous source.”
“Deal.” I took a deep breath. “It’s no secret Georgie had a gambling problem. I think he may have gotten caught up with some big-time gamblers and gotten in over his head. Gamblers he met through Willie Hammond.”
“As in the guy who owns Hoosiers?”
“The one and only.”
Kim let out a low whistle. “The owner of the place where Alonso was drinking the night he was killed. Interesting.”
“Especially in light of Roger’s tip.”
My decision to suggest the unnamed gamblers potentially amounted to sending Kim on a wild goose chase. While I couldn’t rule out Willie’s associates, after receiving Diane’s information, I thought them unlikely to be Georgie’s murderers. I wasn’t proud of my misdirection tactic, but I was close, and I didn’t want Kim getting in my way.
“This is helpful. Thanks.” She got to her feet. “It shines a whole new light on the situation. I’ve got work to do.”
Once Kim was gone, I put my materials away and made my way to the crime scene. Maybe taking another look at the spot where this crazy thing began would provide some inspiration.
A makeshift memorial consisting of a cross, a teddy bear, and some flowers had been placed where I’d found Georgie’s body. I got down on one knee and stared into the shiny, black eyes of the bear. “Who killed you, Georgie?”
My musings were interrupted when I received a text message. It was from Jeanette and contained a single word.
Yes.
Adrenaline surged through me. Another puzzle piece was in place. I took a photo of the memorial and dialed another number. There wasn’t time for small talk. I went straight to the point.
“Matt, I know who killed Georgie.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Five minutes later, Matt was marching toward me at a pace just short of a run. Sunglasses shielded his eyes, and a baseball cap shaded much of his face, but his long stride told me all I needed to know.
I had his undivided attention.
He came to a stop a few feet from me and popped a square piece of gum into his mouth. “The nicotine gum’s supposed to help. Not sure it’s working.”
“When the kids get older, they’ll appreciate the effort.” Unsure of his mood, I figured flattery couldn’t hurt.
He opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head. “Thanks. I hope so.” Then he pointed his finger at me. “I told you to stay out of this.”
“A man was murdered, Matt.” My blood pressure went into the warning zone as I pointed at the memorial. “Right there. It’s been ten days, and you haven’t made a collar. I’m trying to help.”
“I know, and I appreciate it.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “The problem is, some people in town believe Maybelle’s story.”
At the mention of the town’s rumormonger, my blood pressure blasted into the red zone. I’d always thought the woman was bored and that spreading rumors gave her something to do and made her feel important. Now I was thinking boredom wasn’t behind her gossip, spite was.
“You know that’s absurd. It’s beyond absurd. It’s idiotic, infantile, reckless—”
“I agree, Ms. Thesaurus.” Matt smiled then chuckled, which got me laughing, too. He hadn’t called me by that nickname in years. Years ago, it had been his way of complimenting me on my smarts without making it sound like he was giving me props.
“I really think I’ve got something.” I led him in a slow circle around the memorial. “You can tell people you wanted to review my statement with me at the scene of the crime.”
When we completed the circle, he picked up the teddy bear and rubbed a spot of dirt from one of its paws.
“Tristan had a bear like this when he was little. He played with it every day and slept with it every night until the stuffing started coming out. The last time I saw it, it was in his closet in your sister’s house.”
After a moment, he took a hard chomp down on his gum and got out his notebook. “What do you have?”
I gave him my Tommy Abbott theory. I included everything I knew, beginning with the time Georgie harassed Tommy’s wife. I finished with the information Jeanette had given me.
“Don’t you see? Tommy must have planned this for weeks, if not longer. He used the fact he was on duty as cover to practice cutting the locks. When he got the call to follow Georgie home instead of arresting him, he saw his chance and put his plan in motion. He followed Georgie home from Hoosiers and then talked him into breaking into Parke Landscaping.”
“Why would they do that?” Matt’s tone indicated he wasn’t challenging me. He wanted details.
“To mess with Roger for firing him. He probably framed it as a prank. As drunk as Georgie was, it wouldn’t have been hard to talk him into it. Then, giving him even more liquor?” I snapped my fingers. “It would have been a walk in the park.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “No pun intended, I presume.”
My cheeks got hot. I’d pled my case and hadn’t convinced him.
After some more note taking, Matt looked at me. “What about Tommy’s cruiser?”
“What about it?”
“Georgie’s car is missing. We have to assume it was used in some of the crimes committed that night. If they used Georgie’s car, they’d have had to leave Tommy’s cruiser for a period of time. Why didn’t anybody notice it? We canvassed the neighborhood, and nobody reported seeing anything out of the ordinary. Including a police car.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.” Accusing a police officer of murder, and making the accusation to said officer’s boss, was tantamount to Pi Patel trying to survive on a lifeboat with a hungry, fully grown tiger for company, but I wasn’t going to be deterred.
“All of this went down at night, when the neighbors were asleep. Tommy probably parked a few blocks away. As a police officer, he’s also smart enough to make sure he didn’t leave any prints.” I took a step back and put my hands on my hips, confident my logic was unassailable.
“I don’t know.” Matt shook his head.
“And another thing. How many times did Tommy have to follow Georgie home instead of putting him in jail? There has to be a report you could run. Imagine being told time after time that you have to ignore the law so the man who cost you a promotion can stay out of trouble, all because that man’s living with the mayor’s daughter.”
“Watch it, Allie. That’s a serious accusation you’re making.”
“Yeah, and a true one, too” Now I was angry. Orwell’s Animal Farm had made a great impression on me. To this day, the idea of everyone being equal, but some being more equal than others, made me want to puke. “Don’t insult me by trying to deny it. You can’t.”
Matt walked away but returned after taking a few steps. A bead of sweat was trickling down his temple, one I was sure wasn’t due to hot weather conditions. “Sorry, Allie. Tommy told me he followed Georgie home. Once Georgie’s car came to a stop, Tommy returned to patrol duty. I believe him.”
“Did he see Georgie get out of the car or go inside the house?”
“No.” Matt scratched his chin. The breeze whistled through a nearby grove of trees, breaking the silence that had developed between us. “Okay, for the sake of discussion, let’s say Tommy is the perp. I need hard evidence to tie him to the crime. I can’t, I won’t, move on him based solely on circumstantial evidence.”
“You don’t believe me.” I laced my fingers together behind my head as I turned away from him. If I maintained eye contact, I’d have said something I’d regret.
He touched me on the shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I have to get this right the first time. I can’t take the risk of bringing in one of my own if there
’s a chance he’s not our guy. It could destroy his career.”
Matt was one of the good guys. His heart was in the right place.
I had trusted him while I was hunting Thornwell’s killer. I needed to trust him now. He’d earned it, after all. “Are you guys looking into Georgie and Lori’s banking records?”
“You can be scarier than a hungry junkyard dog.” He laughed. “We’ve requested a subpoena. Do I want to know why you’re asking?”
“No, you don’t.”
“If I ask you to leave this to me and my team, you’ll say no, won’t you?”
“Yep.” In fact, I was already planning my next move.
“Then I won’t get in your way if you promise not to get in mine. Deal?”
We shook hands.
After a tip of his hat, he turned to go. He was twenty feet away when he turned back to me. “Be careful, Allie. This town needs you.”
I gave him a wave. “Right back atcha, Chief.”
Once Matt’s cruiser was out of sight, I checked the time. It was a little before four. Plenty of time to swing by the apartment to get Ursi and make it to my next destination, Lori’s house, before she got home from work.
While taking Ursi for a walk was always good for her, in this instance, it was also a way to throw Matt or one of his officers off the trail in case they were tailing me. It was unlikely, but after Matt’s admonishment to be careful, my level of paranoia had risen to high alert.
Since the weather was sunny and dry, my kitty was thrilled to be outside. During our trek to Lori’s house, Ursi dashed as far as her leash would let her after an early-falling leaf or froze and crouched low to the ground when she saw a bird or squirrel.
The only time her tail puffed out in alarm was when a beagle barked at us while its owner stopped to look at his phone. The dog, which was on a leash, and its owner were on the other side of the street, so I was pretty sure we weren’t in mortal danger.
I burst out laughing when my fierce feline responded to the barks with a loud hiss. The beagle literally took a step back in response.
“Don’t mess with Ursula Cobb, feline huntress.” I gave her a kitty treat and scratched her along her spine for a couple of minutes until she calmed down.
Once we got moving again, I started a one-sided conversation with her about the case. Fortunately, nobody was close enough to overhear us. While Ursi was kind enough to respond to a couple of my questions with a half-hearted meow, I was sure my crazy cat lady vibe was turned all the way up to eleven.
I didn’t care. It was a sunny day with a few clouds to make me appreciative of how intensely blue the sky was. Ursi was enjoying herself being explorer kitty, and I was enjoying stopping from time to time to take pictures of her with my phone.
The exercise was also helping me work off the stress from the day while also letting me talk through the case out loud. While the dialogue didn’t provide any a-ha insights, it did help me make sense of what I’d learned.
It also forced me to think hard about my conviction that Tommy was the murderer. Yes, my hypothesis had holes in it, including my inability to figure out how the life insurance policy fit, but Matt’s rebuttals did, too. That was why I decided to model Kim Frye’s approach and go back to the beginning.
To Georgie and Lori’s house. The place where he was last seen alive.
Ursi and I came to a stop when we rounded a corner and the house came into view. The neighborhood was populated with modest, bungalow-style homes on small lots. Every now and then, a two-story home rose above the others, like a mother keeping watch on her children.
The homes were well-maintained, with welcoming front porches, tidy lawns, and enough mature oak and maple trees to make me happy I didn’t have to rake the millions of leaves that would fall in the next month or so.
My walking shoes were silent on the concrete sidewalk as we approached our target. Situated on a corner lot, the house was a typical southern Indiana starter home. The light blue vinyl siding and white window frames made me think of a warm, sunny day. A four-foot-high chain-link fence enclosed a backyard of lush, green grass that was a little on the tall side. Inside the fence, there was a play set featuring a slide and a two-level fort. A short gravel drive led to a one-car, cinder-block garage at the back of the lot.
The flowers in pots on the front porch and the mums lining the walkway from the street were bursting with yellow, orange, and red. They added a festive touch to the scene and were, no doubt, the result of a lot of hard work. A tulip poplar in the part of the yard between the street and the side of the house towered over the lot. A tire swing hung on a rope from one of the tree’s lower branches. Overall, the home emanated a warm, welcoming vibe.
I loved it.
It was the kind of house I would want if I ever built up the courage to become a homeowner.
The mere thought of buying a house sent a shudder through me. Nope, I wasn’t ready for that canyon-like leap into full-fledged adulthood. I set the intimidating thought aside as we came to a stop across the street from my destination.
“What do you think, girl? You know as much about this case as I do. Anything jumping out at you?”
Ursi responded by plopping down on the sidewalk and licking her front legs. Okay, maybe she was limited in the amount of help she was capable of providing.
Since Ursi was preoccupied with grooming herself, I tied her leash to a stop-sign post and took a few pictures.
Two things had caught my attention, the garage and the tree. A scan of the neighboring homes indicated one-car garages were the norm around here. So, who parked in the garage, Lori or Georgie? If Lori did, then where did Georgie normally park his car? Was it alongside the house, perhaps taking advantage of the tulip poplar’s overhanging branches for cover? Or did he park in front, where he had a straight shot to the front door?
With Ursi still busy with her grooming, I dashed across the street to get a closer look at the area around the tree. Assuming for the moment that Matt was right, could Georgie’s killer have used the tree for cover and made his move after Tommy took off? There were no telltale signs like cigarette butts or shoe scuff marks. If someone had hidden in the shadows, he or she left no signs behind.
The hair on the back of my neck standing at attention told me I was on the right track, so I went to the garage. A peek inside through a window in the garage door didn’t reveal anything interesting. The middle, where I chose to assume Lori parked her car, was empty. A push mower was in a corner. Above it, a spin trimmer hung from a nail. Paint cans and lawn-care chemicals took up space on wooden shelves.
I was debating the wisdom of getting a closer look at the house when a truck rumbled down the road. Taking that as a sign God didn’t want me snooping any further, I snapped a couple more pictures of the house and returned to Ursi, who had stretched out on the sidewalk and was sunning herself.
“Nothing else to see here, girl. Let’s head home.” As I unwound the leash from the sign post, Ursi batted at my leg. Evidently, just because I was finished with my business didn’t mean she was finished with her sunbathing.
I kept my thoughts to myself on the walk home. Ursi was making sure I knew she was unhappy with me by refusing to even look at me. It was fine. I was too busy processing what I’d seen to chat.
By the time we reached the apartment, I’d changed my thought process. I was convinced the answer to the question of who killed Georgie wasn’t in what I had seen at Lori’s house.
The answer was in what I hadn’t seen.
A piece to the puzzle was missing. As I fed Ursi her dinner, along with a few extra kitty treats to get back in her good graces, I made notes to find out where Georgie normally parked his car and to find out where, specifically, Tommy had been when he parted ways with Georgie.
If he actually did part ways. Pending the answers to my two new questions, Tommy was still my top sus
pect. After all, if he didn’t do it, whoever did must have had intimate knowledge of Georgie’s whereabouts that night.
That left me with two options. The first was Lori. The second was someone connected to Hoosiers, whether Willie himself or his gambling associates.
The key seemed to be time or, more precisely, timing. I needed to figure out who knew where Georgie was and when they knew it.
Timing.
That was the missing piece I needed to find.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next morning, I was on the phone with one of my authors discussing a publication offer we’d received when there was a knock on the door. I ignored it. Celebratory times like this were too important to interrupt. If it was that important, the visitor could knock again or slip a note under the door.
“That’s right.” I glanced at the notes I’d made when the editor called with the offer. “It’s a three-book deal, in both e-book and print-on-demand paperback formats.”
The knocking came again, more insistent this time, followed by a male voice calling out my name. It was Matt. I opened the door and waved him in while my client asked a question about royalties.
“Yes, the royalty rates are pretty standard. One thing you may like about this publisher is they disburse royalties quarterly instead of semi-annually, like some do.” When she asked about an advance, I looked at Matt and pointed toward the coffee maker. “Advances on an offer like this are rare. The important thing to keep in mind is that this offer is from an established publisher with a sterling reputation. For a debut author like you, it’s a great opportunity.”
While we discussed a few more key points of the offer, Matt poured himself a cup of coffee. I handed my empty mug to him and signaled for him to fill it up.
“Let’s do this. Your manuscript is still being considered by three other editors. I’ll contact them. I’ll tell them you’ve received an offer and want to know if they want to make an offer as well. Since it’s Wednesday, I’ll tell them they can have until Monday morning to get back with me. That’ll give you time to think about the offer.”