“Roger.” He turned back to me. “Sorry to cut this short, but something has come up.”
Something both he and Aida had been expecting.
“I’ll get out of your way,” I said. “Thanks for listening.”
“Thank you for keeping me informed,” he said as he held the door for me.
Out in the reception area, Horace had joined Aida, and they were both watching the front door with fierce, predatory expressions, like cats who’d seen a mouse disappear into a crevice. I paused.
“Is it okay to go outside now?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Horace asked.
“Because both of you are staring through the door as if you expected Billy the Kid to come bursting in any second now.”
They both laughed at that, and relaxed a little.
“You’re not far off,” Aida said. “They picked up Bart Hempel early this morning down in Virginia Beach. The ringleader of the real jewel robbers,” she added, in case I’d forgotten who Hempel was. “The chief sent Vern down to pick him up, and he just let us know he’s a few blocks away.”
“If Vern was a few blocks away when you buzzed the chief, he and his prisoner are probably about to walk through the door now,” I said. “Maybe I should keep clear of the doorway until you’ve got Hempel safely stowed in the interrogation room.”
“Interview room,” Horace corrected absently, his eyes still on the doorway. Aida raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes, as if to say she knew perfectly well that I was only staying put so I could catch a glimpse of Hempel. But they didn’t order me out, so I made sure I was well clear of the path Vern and his prisoner would take through the reception room and settled in to watch the door with them.
Hempel was a mess. From the way he shuffled as he entered the station, I thought at first Vern must have put leg irons as well as handcuffs on him. No, his legs were unfettered. Was the shuffle some holdover from his prison time? Or did he have some kind of neurological condition that affected his gait? He was tall and broad, but his whole body had a bulky, bloated look, like a football player or wrestler gone to seed. The mane of thick, curly hair I’d seen in his mug shot had thinned, grayed, and begun receding from the top of his head. His face was slack and wrinkled. I remembered that one of the newspaper articles had identified him as Bart Hempel, 25. If that was so, he was only in his fifties, but he looked as old as Grandfather—and a lot less vigorous.
Although his hands were cuffed behind his back, Vern was keeping a watchful eye on him—and probably would keep doing so until Hempel was safely stowed in the interview room. I’d have just come right out and called it an interrogation room, especially when someone like Hempel was occupying it. As he passed me, he threw a quick, frowning glance my way and I had to make a conscious effort not to shudder. Life had not been kind to Hempel, but even in his current somewhat-diminished state, he wasn’t someone I would ever want to meet in a dark alley. He wasn’t even someone I’d want to meet in a well-lit street unless I had at least a brace of burly cousins with me.
“Room Two,” Aida told Vern.
Vern nodded as if this was information he needed to know. Anyone who’d spent any appreciable amount of time in the Caerphilly Police Station knew that it only had two interview rooms. Room Two was the one in which the chair intended for the prisoner was bolted to the floor, the better to keep its occupant from coming over the table at you. Not something they had to use all that often, but I was glad they had it today.
Aida, Horace, and I watched Vern disappear. When the interview room door closed behind him and his prisoner, the two of them exchanged a look of—triumph? Not quite. But definitely satisfaction mixed with impatient anticipation. You didn’t have to be law enforcement to see what they were thinking. They’d brought in the guy. Now it was up to the chief.
I wished them good night and headed out to my car with a curious sense of anticlimax. However interesting my news about the Hagleys and the Washingtons might be, it was probably irrelevant and useless. And I hadn’t even had time to tell him about Mrs. Van der Lynden haunting the local antique and jewelry stores after the robbery. Probably also irrelevant. The police had a genuine bad guy in custody. Hempel would probably turn out to be Mr. Hagley’s killer.
Of course, it was always possible that Hempel would have an alibi. If it turned out that on Thursday evening he had been leading a prayer meeting or teaching an embroidery class or—more likely—locked up in some other county’s drunk tank—the chief might suddenly take a lot more interest in my information.
Meanwhile, it was time I relaxed with my family. One more errand, and then I could head for home. I pulled into the Trinity parking lot, which was empty except for the now-repaired van. I nodded with satisfaction at seeing that. I parked my car and strolled up the front walk to the familiar bright red double doors.
Before fumbling in my purse for my key to the doors, I reached out and pulled the right handle, almost out of habit.
The door swung open.
If it had been after dark, I’d have gone right back to my car and called 911. But this early in the day, finding the church unlocked wasn’t really that weird. There could be people here. Okay, empty parking lot. But still … people who lived within walking distance, or who would be picked up by friends or family when they finished whatever they were doing here.
Although I didn’t know of any planned activities for Saturday afternoon—we tried to keep Saturday free from church meetings so people could spend time with their families. Apart from the Altar Guild doing their prep for tomorrow’s service, which had probably finished hours ago, no one was scheduled to be here. Not that I knew of, anyway.
I kept my eyes and ears peeled as I walked as quietly as possible through the vestibule into the office corridor.
Mother’s umbrella and rain hat were sitting neatly on the bench just outside Robyn’s office. Not an unreasonable place to set something down, but a rather hard place to overlook them.
It occurred to me to wonder if Mother had actually forgotten them, or if she had deliberately left them behind.
“And why would she do that?” I asked myself.
To get me over to Trinity. I pulled out my phone and opened a document I kept saved in it—the roster of Key Holders, showing who was responsible for each day. And then I nodded. Sally Penworthy was Key Holder of the day. Mother considered Sally flighty—and I didn’t disagree with her. That was probably why Sally had been given Key Holder duty on Saturday, which tended to be the lightest duty of the week.
But Sally wasn’t here. She tended not to stay on site like the other Key Holders—she’d just show up when she thought all the meetings would be over and lock the front door. Either she’d already come and gone way too early, or she was planning to drop by later to do her usual half-baked job of checking things out and securing the church.
I could go back home and leave her to it.
But when we’d already had two crimes on the grounds, did I really want to do that?
Not really.
Obviously Mother knew that if I found the church unlocked, or anything else amiss, I’d do my usual thorough job of securing the building. So she hadn’t forgotten her umbrella and rain hat. She’d—
“Deliberately left behind,” I murmured. And not just the umbrella and rain hat. An idea was forming in my mind.
I still had my key ring in my hand, although I hadn’t needed it to unlock the front door. I unlocked Robyn’s office and sat down on the love seat to think for a moment.
Then I called the police station. The nonemergency number.
“I knew you’d call when you heard the news,” Aida Butler said, instead of hello.
“Hello to you, too, and what news?”
“Bart Hempel is alibied for the time of the murder.”