The Missing Dough(43)

“I don’t know. Maybe I am,” I said. I truly didn’t like the idea of confronting someone who might be a killer in the dark with nothing more than Maddy’s bag of defenses, as formidable as the contents of her purse might be.

“Come on,” she said and tugged at my arm. I gave in, more because I was curious myself. I knew that if I analyzed our successes in the past as investigators, most of them were due to the fact that we’d forged on when common sense had shouted at us to stop what we were doing and mind our own business.

“It was over here someplace,” I said, leading her a little bit away from the direction of the actual tape.

As we approached the bushes, I saw the light flicker again.

Maddy saw it, too, this time.

As we got closer, we were almost off the promenade and into the dense shrubbery, both of us ready to pounce on whoever was there.

Suddenly a car horn honked from the parking lot, and we were both blinded by a pair of headlights pointing straight at us. I heard a rustling sound as whoever we’d been stalking ran away, but I couldn’t make out who it was. The figure neared the railroad tracks and then suddenly disappeared into the walking tunnel beneath the rails.

“Blast it! He got away,” Maddy said.

“Are we even sure it was a he?” I asked.

“No, I couldn’t swear to anything about it,” she said as she looked toward the car that interrupted our hunt. “Who is that idiot with the headlights and the car horn, anyway?”

As the car crept forward and we got closer, I could see that it was a police cruiser.

That was just great.

Chief Hurley put the car in park, turned off the engine, and got out.

“What were you two doing skulking in the bushes like that?” he asked us. “I didn’t figure you two would be crazy enough to go looking at the crime scene after dark.”

“We saw someone back there as we were leaving the pizzeria,” I said.

“Who was it?” Chief Hurley asked as he reached through his open window and flipped a switch. At once a powerful beam lit up the parking lot, but when he trained it on the bushes, there was no one there. I could have told him that myself, but I doubted that he would have believed me, so it was just as well that he checked for himself.

“I don’t see anything,” he said as he turned the spotlight off.

“Not after that, you wouldn’t,” Maddy said. “What were you doing out here tonight? Were you staking out the crime scene, Chief?”

“No, it was nothing like that,” he replied a little sheepishly.

“Then why were you hanging out on the promenade?” Then I had a thought. “Chief, you weren’t keeping tabs on us, were you?” I asked.

He didn’t want to admit it, but after a moment he said, “Okay, I confess. Josh asked me to make sure that you both got safely to your cars. Don’t tell him I told you. It was supposed to be a secret.”

“But he was just here,” I said. “Why didn’t he walk us out to our cars himself if he was so concerned for our safety?”

The chief grinned. “That’s where it gets complicated. He’s got a new girlfriend that nobody’s supposed to know about, and I believe he had a date.”

“Josh is dating someone? Who is she?”

“I’m not saying,” he answered. “I wouldn’t have known anything about it myself if I hadn’t spotted him dropping her off at home one night last week. Do me a favor. Don’t say anything to him about this, okay?”

“About which part? The fact that you got caught watching out for us, or that you know he has a new girl in his life?”

“I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t let on about either one of them,” the chief said.

“Okay, but what do we get in return?” Maddy asked.

That got the police chief’s back up, and for once, I couldn’t blame him. I loved my sister more than anything in the world, but sometimes she definitely had shoe-in-mouth disease. “I’m sorry. Were you under the impression that your discretion counted as something more than a courtesy to me? If that’s the way you feel about it, tell my son whatever you want to. I don’t care anymore.”

He was about to get back in his squad car when I said, “Hang on a second, Kevin. Of course we won’t tell him about any of this. You can trust us.”

He shrugged, but at least he stopped retreating, so Maddy added, “I’m sorry for what I said. This whole thing has got me pretty rattled, but I shouldn’t try to use your friendship with either one us against you.”

“You’re forgiven. Given your situation, I can’t say that I blame you a bit,” the chief said.