The Missing Dough(80)

“That’s just going to make it easier for someone to spot us. We should have some kind of cover story to explain what we’re doing before we go.”

She just smiled and shook her head. “If you can think of anything that would make any sense to anyone who might catch us, then you’re three steps ahead of me.”

“Okay, then it will be on to Plan B,” I said as we changed into the darkest clothes we had.

“What’s Plan B?” Maddy asked.

“If someone comes by while we’re digging, we drop the tools and run.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“Hey, who said we couldn’t plan things out?” I asked. “But instead of dropping our tools when we take off running, we have to take them with us. They belonged to Joe before we got married, and I’ll be hanged if I just leave them behind.”

“That’s what I love about you, Eleanor. You’re practical to the end. We might not know who killed Grant, but at least we have a shot at retrieving the money he probably buried there. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.”



We parked down the street after driving past Sharon’s house. I was afraid that Rebecca might still be awake, but there were no signs of her, so hopefully she’d be sound asleep, like any sane person would be at that hour of the night. Maddy and I walked together in the darkness, ready to run the moment we saw anyone’s headlights, but thankfully we didn’t see anyone as we made our way into the yard.

“Where was that spot exactly?” Maddy asked, peering around in the darkness. Though there was light from the moon, it was obscured by clouds that had come barreling in, and we were left with flashes of illumination, only to be plunged into darkness and, just as quickly, back out again. In addition, the view from ground level was quite a bit different from the one looking straight down from a satellite. It took me a moment to orient myself, and then I spotted the largest tree we’d seen in the image.

“It’s got to be right over there,” I said as I led the way.

“There it is,” Maddy hissed when she spotted the disturbed soil, and we both hurried toward it.

“Let’s start digging,” I said.

As we worked at removing the clay soil, Maddy asked, “Do you think there’s a chance that Bernie Maine really killed Grant?”

“I don’t think so, but the chief of police does,” I said. The repacked hole was tougher to dig than I thought it would be, and we were having a difficult time breaking up the soil even using the pick. “Maine seems like he’s the type who would get his money back before he killed Grant. He’s still hanging around here, though, and he’s following us, so I think that means that he doesn’t have the money himself.”

“What about the others?” Maddy asked as she took the pick from me and drove it home. The clay began to break up a little easier once we got past the top crust of it, and my shovel went in easier this time. It actually felt as though we were making some real progress. “Wouldn’t any reasonable person want to have that money before they killed the only person who knew where the cash was?”

I nodded as I pulled another shovelful out. “Nobody’s run yet, so whoever killed Grant is obviously still looking for the money.” I stuck the shovel back in the hole and wiped my brow. This was harder going than I’d ever imagined. “That could mean that the murder was an act of passion instead of greed.”

“Well, all three of our remaining suspects could have had that motivation,” Maddy said. “Kenny was jealous of Grant, Rebecca felt that her brother was cheating her, and Samantha had both motivations.”

I started to dig again, but then I stopped. “What’s the difference between the three of them, then? We know that Rebecca and Kenny plan to hang around, and Samantha is the only one leaving, isn’t she? Doesn’t that look bad on her?”

“She’s fleeing an abusive ex,” Maddy said. “That’s reason enough for her to escape, isn’t it?”

“Only if we believe her. Think about it, Maddy. Every time we’ve heard her interact with Kenny, she’s played the victim, but what if she was just doing it to divert suspicion away from herself? She clearly knows which buttons of Kenny’s to push, so it wouldn’t be all that hard to get him to lose his temper whenever they were together. It would make a pretty convincing argument for her to run away.”

“What about the money, though? Doesn’t she care about that?”

I dug another scoop of soil out. “How about this? What if she believes that it’s already lost to her? She waited around long enough so that it wouldn’t look suspicious when she finally left, and Kenny gave her the perfect excuse. You know, Chief Hurley was right. We have no outside verification that anything she told us about him abusing her is true.”