The Missing Dough(81)

“But we heard them together,” Maddy protested. “He was clearly threatening her.”

“At the pizzeria she could have been playing us,” I said. “What if she already had her exit planned and was just setting us up as her alibis for running?”

“Maybe that’s true, but what about what we overheard backstage? Eleanor, there’s no way that she even knew that we were there.”

“I’m not sure that she didn’t see us, but even so, she was egging him on. Sure, he was bossy and pushier with her than either one of us would ever stand for, but did he say anything that would make us think that he was capable of murder? Remember when he had the stun gun and refused to use it on us?”

“The way you tell it is pretty convincing. Should we call Chief Hurley and stop him from making a mistake with Bernie Maine?”

“Let’s see if the money’s here first,” I said.

Instead of sliding into the dirt on my next lunge, the shovel in my hands hit something hard.

Maddy heard it, too. “Is that what I’m hoping it is?” she asked.

“There’s only one way to find out.” I got on my knees and reached down into the hole. It took ten seconds, but I finally found something I could pull up on. When we wrestled the object out of the hole, I realized that it was an old suitcase, and from the look of it, it hadn’t been buried that long.

I was about to open it when I heard a man’s voice behind me say, “Nicely done, ladies. I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”

It was Kenny Stout, and when I looked up at him in the light of the moon, I saw that he’d brought a shovel of his very own to the party.

“You didn’t kill Grant, did you?” I asked. I hated to see my carefully reasoned solution to the crime fall apart just before I breathed my last breath.

“What? Of course not. I knew he took the money, though, and I figured that whoever killed him didn’t have it. I broke into his place over there, but I didn’t find a thing, so I thought I’d keep an eye on you two and see what you were able to come up with.”

“But you had to know that something was buried here. Why else carry a shovel and pick around in your station wagon?”

“Truthfully? I was going to plant a flower bed,” he said with a smile.

“But you rent.”

“What can I say? I like a little color in my life. It just worked out that I had all the tools I needed with me when I spotted you two sneaking out of your house tonight.”

“But you bought that huge footlocker,” Maddy protested.

“Sure. I needed a new one so I could put some of my things in storage. Why? What did you think I bought it for?”

“We figured you were going to kill Samantha and bury her in it,” I said.

That brought out a full laugh from him. “Are you kidding me? Why would I kill my meal ticket? Without her, I’m just an okay musician. She’s the draw onstage, and we both know it.”

“You know, it took a while, but it’s finally nice to hear you admit it,” Samantha said as she stepped out of the shadows behind him.

The moonlight revealed the gun in her hand, and I felt little consolation knowing that I’d been right about who had killed Grant Whitmore after all.



“How did you find us?” I asked her. “And why did you even come looking for us in the first place?”

“I spotted your pizza boy following me earlier today,” she said. “He wasn’t very clever about it, so it wasn’t all that hard to do. I had a hunch that something was up, so as soon as he left my apartment, I began trailing Kenny.” She looked at her ex-husband and added, “You’re too easy. You know that, don’t you? There were two of us on your tail at one point, and you didn’t see either one of us.”

“Why were you following me?” he asked.

“I was going to kill you, of course,” she answered. By the tone of her voice, she could have just as easily said that she was going to take him out to dinner, and I realized that something in Samantha must have snapped. “I’m leaving the country, and I wasn’t about to let you think that you ran me off. You bullied me onstage and offstage in our marriage, but I was going to get the final say.”

“What about us?” Maddy asked her.

“Sorry, but you’re just collateral damage from friendly fire.”

“Surely you can’t expect to get away with killing all three of us,” I said.

“Four, actually. Don’t forget Grant. That was a mistake, actually.”

“Killing him? I’d think so,” Maddy said.

I tried to figure out what chance we had of stopping her as she spoke. Should I throw my shovel at her like a spear? She was far enough away from us that I doubted I’d be able to do any damage. How about if I shouted out for help? No, the neighborhood was as dead as we were about to be if we didn’t do something quickly.