The Missing Dough(60)

“Do you have any other evidence that Samantha has a reason to be afraid of Kenny other than what she told you? I’ve looked into it, and there have never been any police reports filed on either one of them. As far as I can determine, she’s never shown up at the hospital with bumps and bruises, either. Has anyone actually ever heard him threaten her?”

“Just because she might not have proof doesn’t mean that it never happened,” I said, doing my best to keep my own temper in check.

“I understand that,” Chief Hurley said softly. “For all I know, everything she told you is true. There’s just nothing to back it up.”

“You know what? You’re right. There’s a chance that I could be all wrong about her,” I admitted. “There’s no way to prove it at this point one way or the other.”

To the chief’s credit, he didn’t gloat when I made the admission. “As long as we’re both keeping our minds open to the possibilities, we’ll both be better off.”

“Speaking of which, I think I should come clean with you.” I was going to share some of what we uncovered, but not tell him how we’d attained the information. I wasn’t that crazy. “We have four suspects on our list. Would you like to hear who they are and why?”

He looked around the small kitchen. “You’re not recording this, are you?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“I know. I was just teasing you, Eleanor. In all fairness, I’m not necessarily going to tell you anything else about the case, no matter what you say to me. You know that, don’t you?”

“I don’t expect anything, but I’ll take whatever you can give me,” I said.

“Then go ahead.”

“Okay, here we go. I’ll give you the names first and then why we suspect them. It would be great if you could tell me if I was off base on any of them.”

“We’ll see,” he said.

I was about to start when Maddy came into the kitchen with three more orders. “Are you still here?” she asked Chief Hurley with a grin.

“Sometimes you just can’t get rid of me,” he answered sociably enough.

Maddy turned back to me. “Is that pizza ready?”

“One second,” I said as I watched it pass the center point of the exit line, the place where I considered it safe to pull any pizza or sandwich from the conveyor. I knew that sometimes when Maddy ran the kitchen, she pushed that line back a little no matter how much I protested, but I wasn’t about to say anything about it now. I pulled the pizza, panned it, and cut it, and as Maddy took it, she winked at me without saying another word to Chief Hurley.

“Okay, let’s try that again,” he said.

“We’ve got Rebecca Whitmore first on our list. She may or may not have known that her brother had basically stolen her entire inheritance out from under her, but if she did, it could have made her mad enough to kill him. Next in line we have Samantha Stout. Not only did Grant lose her money, but he also started dating his ex-wife, Vivian Wright, the dry cleaner they just arrested in Cow Spots, the second they broke up. We know that Samantha claims Grant dumped her and begged her to take him back, but we don’t have anybody’s word but hers for that. Next, we’ve got her ex, Kenny. As I said, he was jealous, maybe even enough to kill Grant if he saw him as a threat.”

“Are you saying that he still wants Samantha back?” the chief asked.

“I’m not, but she might think so. Then again, it may be a case where he doesn’t want anyone to have her if he can’t.”

“Go on.”

“We’ve also got Bernie Maine on our list, for the obvious reason that Grant might have scammed him. From what I’ve seen, Bernie doesn’t seem like a man who takes to being trifled with.”

“He’s not. Is that it?”

“We have one more suspect on our list. Last but not least, there’s Vivian, the dry cleaner. If Grant dumped his ex-wife, it’s not hard to believe that she could have been mad enough to kill him out of anger.”

“Eleanor, are you and Maddy comfortable with your list of suspects as being final?”

“Not particularly,” I admitted. “That’s why we’re still digging.”

“I get that,” Chief Hurley said, “but don’t take any chances, especially with Bernie Maine. If you see him, get away from the guy as fast as you can and call me. He’s not playing around, Eleanor, and neither should you.”

“Is there anything that you would like to share? What’s your suspect list look like?”

“I have a few more names on mine than you do,” he explained a little reluctantly. “You’re not going to ask me who they are, are you?”