The Missing Dough(9)

Chapter 3

“He’s really dead?” Maddy asked incredulously. The look of shock on her face would have been impossible to fake. “Kevin, how can he be gone? We all just saw him not an hour and a half ago.”

“I’m afraid it’s true enough,” Kevin said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

“And you think one of us did it?” Bob asked angrily.

“Bob, everyone in Timber Ridge knows that you were fighting with him at the celebration tonight,” the chief said, “so save your righteous indignation for somebody else. If you’ll recall, I had to break you two up before you started brawling on the promenade in the middle of the fair, like a couple of teenagers.”

“It wasn’t nearly as bad as all that,” Bob said.

Kevin bit his lower lip for a second before speaking again. “If Grant Whitmore hadn’t just been murdered tonight I might agree with you, but as it stands, you have to know that you’re at the top of my list.”

Bob just shrugged. If he was particularly upset about being accused of murder, he wasn’t showing it. “If you’re here to arrest me, I’ll be happy to go along with you willingly.”

“He might come peacefully, but I’m not making any promises,” Maddy said. “Chief, I’m truly sorry to hear that someone killed Grant, but Bob didn’t do it.”

“How can you say that for sure, Maddy? Eleanor told me herself that you split up coming over here.”

“I know Bob,” Maddy said. The shock of her ex-husband’s death was finally sinking in. “How exactly did he die?”

“It wasn’t a very pleasant way to go. Someone stabbed him in the heart with a barbeque skewer,” he said as he looked at the foil-wrapped feast we’d all just had. “Did you folks happen to have some barbeque at the fair tonight?”

“Of course we did,” I said. “Along with just about everyone else on the promenade. It was just about all there was to eat there, remember?”

“But you got more to bring here with you when you left, didn’t you?” Kevin asked.

“We didn’t steal a skewer, though,” David said.

The police chief didn’t respond to that, so I had to wonder if he’d already made up his mind about Bob. Kevin was usually a good cop, but when he got his sights set on one suspect, it took some monumental evidence to get him to change his mind. That was usually where Maddy and I came in. We’d been known to dig into a murder or two in the past, and it was looking more and more as though we were going to be forced into duty again. Not that I minded. I wasn’t about to let my sister’s fiancé take a fall for something he hadn’t done.

“David, what exactly was your contact with the deceased?” the police chief asked.

“Are you honestly asking me if I had a motive?” my boyfriend asked.

“At the moment I’m just looking for information,” he said.

“David was acting as a peacemaker, not an instigator,” I said, trying my best to defend him. It was only a second later that I realized what I might be implying about Bob. “Chief, you might not know this yet, but we weren’t the only folks angry with Grant tonight.”

He was clearly unhappy to learn that I might know something that he might not yet. “What are you talking about, Eleanor? If this is a ploy to distract me, I’m telling you right now that it’s not going to work.”

“It’s the truth,” I said. “David and I saw Grant arguing with a stranger during the show, and when the cover band playing onstage took a break for the fireworks, it was pretty clear that the lead singer wanted to talk to Maddy’s ex-husband, and just as obvious that the guitar player wasn’t pleased about the prospect.”

“Eleanor, you can’t be serious.”

“You bet she is,” David said. “I saw that myself. Why aren’t you talking to them instead of coming here and grilling us?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to everyone involved before I’m through.” He stepped away and had a conversation with someone over his personal radio, and I had to wonder if the band was being detained even as we tried our best to listen in.

When Kevin Hurley finished up, he turned back to us. “That’s taken care of. They’ll be held until I have a chance to speak with them.”

Maddy pulled out her telephone as Kevin spoke, and he put a hand on hers before she could dial. “Who do you think you’re calling?”

“I have to phone Sharon,” Maddy said as she tried to pull her phone away.

“Who exactly is Sharon?” Kevin asked.