The Missing Dough(66)

My sister took it and said, “Hello?” After a pause, she added, “No. One second.”

She thrust the telephone at me. “He wants to talk to you.”

I took it from her, identified myself, and then listened.

“Vivian was with me from six to eleven fifteen the night Grant Whitmore was murdered.”

“No offense, but why should I believe you? I don’t even know who this is.”

“You might not, but we have a mutual acquaintance, and I promised him on my mother’s eyes that I’d tell you the truth. If you don’t believe me, then I guess you’ll just have to believe him. We both know that it would be foolish for me to lie to you at this point.”

For some reason, I believed him. It was nothing I could take to Chief Hurley, and now, more than ever, I was determined not to even mention it to him.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

I handed the phone back to Vivian and then turned to Maddy. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

“Are you sure?” she asked me, still staring at Vivian.

“I’m positive. Whoever was on the other end of the line might not have a problem lying to me or even the police, but I know that he would never mislead my friend.”

“Okay. Got it.”

When we left Vivian, I could swear there was a look of respect in her eyes, as if the fact that my connections were deeper than hers gave me something in her eyes. It was not something I wanted, but it had been useful, and I hadn’t regretted using it.

At least Maddy and I could strike one name off of our list of suspects, and that was real progress in my mind.





Chapter 15

As I drove back to Timber Ridge, Maddy asked me, “Who do you think killed Grant, Eleanor? Don’t try to tell me that you don’t have any idea, because I know you better than that. You’ve got to have come to some conclusions by now.”

I thought about her question for nearly a minute before I answered her. “Maddy, it’s like asking a mother of twelve who her favorite child is. Who knows? They might even have one, but I doubt they’d ever admit it out loud. If I guess right now, there’s a nearly certain chance that I’d be wrong. How about you?”

“I was hoping you had something more than I did,” she admitted. “What’s going on with us? We usually have a lot more luck with these cases than we seem to be having right now. Or is it just me?”

“I guess that it’s still just too early to say. You’ve got to remember that Grant has only been dead a few days. Most likely, it’s going to take quite a bit longer before we figure this out, if we ever do.”

“Don’t even think that,” Maddy said, the angst in her voice coming through loud and clear. “I don’t know how Bob is going to handle this if the killer isn’t caught soon.”

“Has he said anything to you about how this is affecting him?” I asked her.

“He called me last night on my cell phone after we went to bed. He was troubled by all of this and wanted to talk, and I was up half the night with him trying to calm him down.”

“You didn’t say anything to me about it this morning,” I said.

“Bob asked me not to, and since it concerned him, I didn’t see how I could refuse the request, you know?”

“But aren’t you breaking that right now by telling me about it?”

“He knows that when my promises concerning you are the subject, he’ll be lucky to get an hour of silence out of me.”

“If that,” I said with a slight grin.

“What can I say? I tell my sister everything.”

“And your sister appreciates that,” I said. “How bad is it?”

“He’s considering packing up his practice and moving somewhere else if things don’t get better soon,” she explained.

“Is he serious? Does that mean that you’d go with him?” I couldn’t stand the thought of Maddy leaving Timber Ridge. Not having her in my life would make my existence a pretty bland experience all in all.

“I don’t even want to think about it right now. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said.

That was not the answer I’d been hoping to get. I had to let it go, though. “Then we need to work harder at finding the killer, and fast.”

“What more can we do that we haven’t already done?” she asked, the exasperation clear in her voice.

“We need to keep digging, keep poking around, and get as many people off balance as we can,” I said. “Somebody’s bound to snap.”

“That sounds like a recipe for our own lynch mob,” Maddy said with a smile.