The Missing Dough(69)

As we drove, Kevin repeated his earlier scolding. “That was incredibly reckless of you to follow him like that.”

“Hey, he started it,” Maddy said from the back.

“It doesn’t matter who started what. I told you that the man was armed. I’m just afraid how it might have ended.”

“Do you really think that he’s that dangerous?” I asked Chief Hurley. “He’s a businessman, for goodness’ sake.”

“You tell me. One man’s dead, and Bernie Maine is one of my prime suspects. How much more dangerous can you get?”

“So, do you really think he did it?” Maddy asked, peeking her head out from the cage that separated us.

“I like him for it better than most of the other suspects on my list,” Chief Hurley said.

“Hang on a second,” Maddy said. “Did you just share something with us?”

“Sorry. It won’t happen again,” Chief Hurley said as he shook his head. As much as I loved my sister, there were times when I wanted to stick a sock in her mouth.

“Chief, I still can’t figure out why Bernie was following us. It was pretty risky, wasn’t it, given that you’ve been looking for him all day?”

“Is that a jab coming from you, too, Eleanor?”

“No way. I know how slippery the man can be. But why is he so interested in us? We’re not making any progress at all.”

“Who knows? He’s got to realize that the two of you have been digging into his life these past couple of days. Maybe he thinks you got lucky and stumbled across something that could nail him. After all, even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the analogy, but I wasn’t about to comment on it. “So, does that mean that you’ve written off Rebecca, Samantha, and Kenny?” I wasn’t about to include Bob’s and David’s names in that particular roster.

He shook his head. “Like I said, Maine’s the most likely, but nobody’s been eliminated. To be honest, I’m kind of surprised that you left Vivian Wright off of your list.”

“That’s because Art Young got us her alibi,” Maddy said.

I turned and stared hard at my sister, and she got the message immediately. Maddy made a motion as though she was locking up her lips, but if she was, I wanted the key so nothing else could slip out “accidentally.”

“How did he manage to do that?” Chief Hurley asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but the man I spoke to felt as though Art’s involvement was enough to ensure that he was telling the truth.”

“I thought you two were through,” the chief said.

“We were, but we’re back on again.”

“So you got him to use a little muscle for you to get what you wanted. Are you sure that this is really a guy you want as a friend?” the chief asked. He made no bones about his displeasure with my renewed friendship.

“He doesn’t give me any grief about you being one of my friends, so why should you care about him?”

Chief Hurley took his gaze off the road for a second to look at me. “Are we friends, Eleanor?”

“Well, if you had asked me before, I would have said yes, but hearing that question, now I’m not so sure.”

“Easy. I didn’t mean anything by it. To be honest, I’m flattered that you feel that way.”

“I’ll be your friend, too, if I can turn on the siren,” Maddy said.

I looked back at her, and she just grinned. Evidently, riding in the back of a squad car was making her feel a little goofy. If that were the case, I was going to make sure that it didn’t happen again anytime soon.

The chief ignored her request, and soon enough, we were in front of the Slice. I wasn’t sure about the message it was sending to the rest of Timber Ridge for us to climb out of a patrol car, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said as I opened the door.

“Hey, there aren’t any handles back here,” Maddy protested.

The chief smiled at me for a brief second, showing a glimpse once again of the young man I’d been crazy about in high school. “What do you think, Eleanor? Should I drive her around the block once or twice before I let her out?”

I smiled back at him. “You’d better not. She might get to like it and ask you to do it again sometime.”

“That’s a good point,” he said as he unlocked the back door from his control panel.

Maddy climbed out, and as the chief started to drive away, he said, “Be careful, you two.”

“You’ve got it,” I said.

After he was gone, I said, “I know it’s going to be anticlimactic after that high-speed car chase and taking a ride in the back of a genuine police cruiser, but do you feel like making some pizza?”