“No,” I said. “Not a good reason—at least I don’t expect you’d find it good. Caroline and I were … searching Mr. Denton’s room.”
The chief nodded. I reminded myself that just because he wasn’t chewing me out for breaking and entering and, worse, interfering with his investigation, didn’t mean we were off the hook. He could be saving up to do it later when he had time to do a really good job of it.
“I presume you’d finished by the time the car exploded,” he said. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Yes,” I said. “Burglars. Other burglars,” I clarified.
I could see his jaw clench, but he didn’t immediately start chewing me out. Not necessarily a good sign.
“Are you sure these other people were not there with Mr. Denton’s permission?” he asked.
“They ransacked the room,” I said. “And took his laptop. They were wearing Flying Monkey uniforms. Leonard Fisher was with them, and he told them to leave the curtains closed so they wouldn’t be spotted.”
The chief nodded.
“And after the guards left, we overheard Mr. Fisher’s side of a very interesting cell phone conversation.”
I gave him a detailed account of our afternoon, including Leonard Fisher’s hasty departure just ahead of the tow truck. When I’d finished, he sat, frowning for a few moments.
“Before you arrest me,” I said, “or at least chew me out, may I ask a question?”
He raised one eyebrow in what I recognized as grudging permission.
“Do we know for sure that Stanley Denton wasn’t in the car when it blew up?”
“No sign of human remains in the wreckage,” he said.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“We don’t know he’s all right,” the chief said.
“But at least we know he’s not blown to bits.”
“Not here, anyway,” he said. “If you hear from him before my officers find him, encourage him to drop by the police barn for a chat.”
“Will do.”
“And try a little harder to stay out of trouble.”
He looked down at his notebook and I realized I was being dismissed.
I thought of half a dozen other questions I wanted to ask, and I was opening my mouth to start asking them, and then thought better of it. I seem to have survived the interview without ticking him off. Maybe I should keep it that way.
I tripped over my own feet in my haste to leave while I was ahead.
Chapter 30
Of course, once I had made my own escape, I had to wait while the chief interviewed Caroline. But within half an hour, we were ready to depart. The wreckage was still blocking the driveway, but one of the bellmen directed us to a service road—after apologizing profusely for the inconvenience, giving the impression that he considered the explosion an unforgivable departure from the hotel’s normally impeccable customer service.
I dropped Caroline as close as possible to the tent, and then as soon as she was out of earshot, called Rose Noire to warn her that Caroline had had a tough day and could use some cosseting.
“I’ll fix her some herbal tea,” Rose Noire said.
“Good luck getting her to drink it,” I said, as I pulled my van into Michael’s space. “Unless you chill it and serve it to her in a martini glass.”
I hadn’t meant it literally, but when I got back to the tent, I found Caroline sitting in my recliner with two fans blowing over her, a compress on her forehead, and another on her feet. She was staring dubiously at a highball glass containing a liquid that probably bore little resemblance to any concoction in the bartender’s manual.
The fact that she hadn’t already poured it out and demanded something better made me realize that Caroline was far from her usual energetic self. So when I had a chance I slipped back outside again, pulled out my cell phone, and called Dad.
“Could you drop by the tent when you get a chance and check on Caroline?” I asked him.
“Caroline? What’s wrong?”
I hesitated. If I told him about our morning’s adventures, would he be disappointed that I hadn’t included him in on the burglary? Even if his morning had been filled with an unusually large number of interesting cases, I felt sure Dad would much rather have witnessed the car bomb.
Then again, he’d hear about it soon enough on the news anyway. In fact, I was surprised he hadn’t already.
“Nothing in particular,” I said. “Except being chased by a sinister black van, clinging to the side of a building to avoid being caught as a burglar, and seeing a car get blown up. A day like that might be a little hard on a senior citizen.”