The Missing Dough(59)

So Chief Hudson had ratted us out. I honestly wasn’t all that surprised. “It was all perfectly innocent. We were there looking for an earring I lost.”

“Eleanor, don’t insult me with a story like that,” he said with a slight grin to ease the sting of his words. “I know that you have just one pair of earrings you care about, and unless I miss my guess, they’re both at home, on your dresser, right now.”

“How could you possibly know that? Have you been snooping around my house, checking up on me?”

“I’d never do that without an invitation, certainly not without your knowledge,” Chief Hurley said, “but you told me yourself in the past about the way you feel about your earrings. The only pair you care about were an anniversary gift from Joe, and I know that if you really had lost one, you would move heaven and earth to get it back. Am I right?”

“On all counts,” I admitted. It amazed me that Chief Hurley had remembered that about me, but then again, he was good at his job, and that included retaining bits and pieces of what a great many different people had told him over the years.

He looked surprised by my admission. “What, you aren’t going to try to bluster your way out of it or offer heartfelt denials?”

“Hey, it is what it is. We were there snooping again, plain and simple,” I said. “Bernie Maine had a real motive to kill Grant, and right now he’s at the top of our list.”

“You’re talking about Orion.”

“I am.”

“If you’ve done your homework, you know that based on that, Bernie wasn’t the only one with a motive to kill Grant, then.”

“Don’t worry. Samantha and Kenny Stout are both on our list, too.”

The chief didn’t react when I asked him to move so I could retrieve a pizza sub that was just coming out of the oven.

As I cut it, Greg came back. “Is that one mine?”

“No. This is Maddy’s. Yours is next, though.”

“I’ll take it for her, and then I’ll be right back,” he said before he disappeared.

“Sorry to bother you here, Eleanor. I can see that you’re busy, but I thought you should know,” the chief said and started to leave.

“It’s under control. You’re fine. You don’t have to leave.” I didn’t want him to go, not when he was in the mood to share information with me. Who knew how long it might be before he felt that way again?

“Have you had a chance to talk to Kenny Stout yourself?” I asked, remembering how Samantha had shivered in fear the last time I heard her say his name.

“I have,” he admitted. “But I really don’t see him having any real motive here. Whatever Samantha has been up to, it happened when the two of them were separated, and Kenny told me that he didn’t have any of his own money invested with Maine himself.”

“It goes a lot deeper than that, at least as far as what Samantha told us today,” I said as I cut the next sandwich in line, plated it, and put it on the table for Greg to pick up.

“What I still don’t get is why she even came to you in the first place this morning,” the chief said. “What did she think you two would be able to do?”

“Actually, that wasn’t the first time she reached out to us,” I said. “She and Kenny both came here yesterday to enlist our help.”

“Help with what?” he asked, clearly intrigued now.

Greg came in, grabbed the sandwich, and then left without a word.

“They were afraid they were going to be railroaded into an arrest and a conviction if they didn’t do anything to protect themselves.”

He looked grim as he said, “Eleanor, I wouldn’t take part in that. Not ever.”

“Everyone knows that,” I said, “but Maddy and I were hoping we would get alibis from them and eliminate them as suspects. We both know that turned out to be a bust. We never even got Kenny’s alibi, and we already told you that Samantha’s is basically nonexistent.”

“If it’s any consolation, Kenny’s isn’t any better,” the police chief said. “They both admit that they took separate cars from the fair, and neither one of them has a single person vouching for their whereabouts. You were telling me about your conversation with Samantha Stout before. What was your overall impression of her?”

“Well, she’s afraid of her ex-husband. Kenny’s got a temper, something I’ve seen for myself, and he hated Grant with a real passion.”

“You say that you saw him upset, but what about the rest of it?”

“What about it?” I asked.