When Jeanette finished writing down the names of the partygoers, she told me I was free to go.
“I’ll have the chief run this by Mr. Adama to make sure everyone who was there is on this list. This is a huge break, Allie. You’ve earned a cold drink. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
Ah, yes. Tomorrow. As in Saturday. Specifically, the Saturday before my wedding. Even more specifically, the day of my bachelorette party. Despite making it clear in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want one, my friends had insisted.
Sloane wanted to jet me and a small group off to Las Vegas for a weekend of shows and general misbehavior. The idea of a weekend in Sin City in July made me want to barf. I didn’t like to gamble, and the heat would make it impossible to enjoy outdoor activities. Sensing the only sure way to get out of the trip, I told her I wanted to support our local businesses by celebrating our way through Rushing Creek.
With a designated driver, of course.
To make sure I was in condition to make the most of my final Saturday night as a single woman, I spent Friday evening curled up on the couch, working on my case notebook, with Ursi snuggled next to me.
The greatest task before me was updating my suspect list. Prior to the visit to Galen’s house, I had five suspects. That was a manageable number. Now, with the partygoers included, the list had ballooned to twenty. While that in and of itself wasn’t awful, I was faced with a discouraging fact. I’d been looking for Ollie’s murderer for almost a week and now hadn’t been able to eliminate a single suspect. Well, negative thinking wouldn’t get me anywhere. Which meant I needed a change in thinking.
I still had a week to solve this murder. Seven days. I could do it.
To borrow a phrase from too many military thrillers to count, failure was not an option.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have faith in the police. Matt and his fellow officers in uniform were working hard. They were making progress. It was the tortoise-like progress that I couldn’t abide. If the investigation was still underway when I joined Brent on our Caribbean cruise honeymoon, I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing a killer was still on the loose.
Wanting to take a vacation worry-free was a selfish motivation for solving a murder. At the end of the day, if that’s what sent a criminal to prison, so be it.
So, with a sense of a ticking clock following my every move, I took a long hard look at my suspect list. It all came down to who was where and when. And, above all else, who had the skill to take that kind of shot.
A chuckle escaped me as my gaze arrived at Shirley Price. My good friend from the aromatherapy store was many things. A markswoman was not one of them. One time, we’d been talking about deer hunting season in Indiana, and she let me know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she didn’t like guns and thought hunting for sport was abominable.
Since it was a topic we’d never see eye to eye on, I’d moved the conversation in another direction. Now, though, that discussion had come back around to come in handy.
Her attendance at the Martins’ party made her a suspect. There was absolutely no way in the world she could be the murderer, though. I drew a line through her name in black ink. One suspect removed.
Thanks to that conversation, I was also to strike Shirley’s boyfriend, Ozzy Metcalf, from the list. When I asked her how she put up with Ozzy’s hunting, she said he’d given it up a number of years ago. Sitting still for hours on end was bad for his arthritis.
Two down. Even if they weren’t serious suspects, it was progress.
Since I was undecided about the rest of the partygoers, I left those names as is. I used a yellow highlighter on Willie, Zoe, Jack, O’Malley, and Fedorov. They were still my main suspects. They all had motive. Until alibis could be confirmed, they all had opportunity. The question came back to the same thing. Did any of them have the means?
“Ugh.” I tossed the highlighter to Ursi. “Have fun with it. I need a change of scenery.”
To distract my brain, I gathered the trash and scooped out my fur baby’s litter box. A trip down the stairs and out back to the dumpster would give me some time to let the information I’d collected simmer. By the time I returned to the couch, an idea would come to me.
That was the hope.
A few minutes later, I was coming around the corner of the building on my way back from the dumpster when inspiration arrived. Gabe had his hand on the front door’s handle. He let out a groan as he gave it a pull. Sometimes it got a little stuck in hot weather.
“Let me get that for you.” I sprinted to the entrance in time to hold the door open, then follow him across the threshold.
“Thanks.” He paused at the foot of the stairs and put his hand on the rail. His shoulders were slumped and he had dark circles under his eyes. “Days like these are when I really wish this building had an elevator.”
“When’s the last time you had a decent night’s sleep?” It was a wide stairwell, so I stayed by his side as we made a slow ascent to the second floor. “Don’t get me wrong, but you look like a cast member from The Walking Dead.”
He shrugged. “I dunno. A week, I guess. Been going on about four hours of sleep since Ollie was murdered.”
“Yikes.” In circumstances like these, Matt and his entire team worked extra-long hours. However, he never worked anybody longer than a double shift. With the exception of himself, God love him. If Gabe had been getting only a few hours of shut-eye, something else was going on.
“How can I help?” I glanced at the door of my apartment when he paused before going on to the third floor. An idea came to mind. “Forget I asked. Don’t move. Be back in a sec.”
A few minutes later, I was following Gabe into his apartment. My case notebook was under one arm and my phone was pressed to my ear.
“That’s right. Extra-large pie with green peppers and double pepperoni. And an order of breadsticks and two large iced teas. Perfect.” I ended the call as Gabe closed the door behind me.
“Dinner will be here in thirty minutes. Go get yourself a shower. I’ll do some picking up around here.”
By the time the delivery person knocked on Gabe’s door, I’d emptied the dishwasher, refilled it with the dirty dishes from the sink, folded a load of laundry that had been occupying a chair, and switched the overflowing trash bag in the kitchen with an empty one. I’d take the trash out after we ate.
“I got it. Don’t get up.” I dashed to the door before Gabe could move. If I was going to pump him for information later, the least I could do was take care of him now.
When I turned toward him with dinner in my hands, he pointed at the glass-topped coffee table in the middle of the room. “You even ordered drinks. To what do I owe this unexpected display of kindness?”
“Figured you could use some time to kick back and chill. You’ve been hitting it awfully hard this week.”
With closed eyes, he leaned over the pizza box as I opened it and inhaled. He reacted with a big smile as the mouthwatering, savory aroma filled the room. Next, he opened the bag containing the breadsticks and held it close to his nose.
A moment later, his stomach growled.
“Holy moly, this is amazing,” he said through a mouthful of breadstick. “Marinara’s is a little outside my budget. I’m more of a frozen pizza kind of guy.”
“In that case, enjoy.” I slid the smallest piece of pizza onto a paper plate. “Maybe I can talk them into offering a discount to public safety folks and emergency responders. I kind of know the owner.”
Gabe chuckled. It was encouraging to see him smile. “You sure it won’t be a problem for all of us who work for the owner’s ex-husband?”
I waved the question away with a flick of my wrist. It was well known throughout Rushing Creek that Rachel and Matt’s divorce had been far from amicable. A lot of bad blood had been spilled. It took a few years, but to their credit they decided to work on their relationship together. That way, their twin children could grow up in an environment that, while it wasn’t postcard perfect, wasn’t toxic, either.
They’d chosen to keep their family counseling sessions quiet. It was tough enough for Theresa and Tristain having the chief of police and a big-time restaurant owner, the Rushing Creek definition of a power couple if there was one, as parents. It was the hope that by keeping the therapy quiet, the little ones would be spared potentially bullying behavior.
As one who was an open book about my own mental health challenges and need to see a counselor, I didn’t agree with the hush-hush approach. It led to situations like the one at hand, where people weren’t aware of what was behind the progress Rachel and Matt had made. They’d never get back together, but their relationship was much healthier than it had been since the divorce. Which was a big help to both their own mental health and their kids.
It wasn’t my call to share with others what they were doing, though. If Gabe didn’t know, I wasn’t going to tell him. I could drop a hint or two, though.
“Rachel’s a supporter of all of y’all. I think she’d be proud to make that support become better known. I’ll talk to her. After all, she’s been there. She knows how hard you all work. And how your hearts are in the right place. Most of the time, at least.”
The last part got out before I could reel it back in. Was it a Freudian slip, given some of the information I’d unearthed? Didn’t matter.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know how I’m investigating Ollie Watson’s murder.”
“Yeah, I heard about the bullet casing.” He plopped three pieces of pizza on his plate. “That was good work. Thank goodness you did it when you did. Otherwise, that casing would have been long gone.”
“Yeah, well. There’s some bad to go with the good.” I took a sip of my tea. Gabe wasn’t going to like it, but he had to know. Despite my promise to Al, I told him about my conversation with the man revealing Ollie’s arrangement with Willie.
At the moment, it seemed too important to keep that information from the authorities.
To my amazement, he didn’t get angry or deny it. Instead, he grew quiet and shook his head, then practically inhaled a slice of pizza. He finished chewing, dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a paper napkin, then sat back in his chair.
“I knew that guy had something shady going on. Don’t get me wrong. He was a nice guy and all, but there were things that made me wonder. Something off, you know?”
“Tell me more.” While I’d totally planned on pumping Gabe for case info, I hadn’t expected anything like this.
“When I was first out of the academy, I spent training time with everyone in the department. That included Watson. I remember a few times when we were on patrol, and he’d stop at Hoosiers. He’d tell me to stay in the car, that he had something he had to check out.”
“Shouldn’t you have gone with him? I mean, on-the-job training doesn’t seem very effective when you’re told to stay in the car.”
“I thought so, too. But I was starting out and didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. That was the only place he did that, and a couple weeks later, I was off on a new training rotation.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’d forgotten all about it until now.”
“So, you believe Al’s story.” I flipped my notebook open. “And you think those stops were times when he picked up his protection money. Is there any way you could come up with those dates?”
“Probably, but it won’t be high on my priority list until this murder’s solved. I think you’re wasting your time on Willie Hammond. The timing doesn’t make any sense. Now, Watson’s wife is a different matter.”
“But she has an alibi.” All of a sudden, I was playing devil’s advocate. It was a welcome relief. Normally, I was on the other side of this kind of discussion.
“That nobody can corroborate. Between you and me, there’s been informal discussions about asking her to let us examine her work laptop. It would be easy enough to check the metadata to confirm she was actually working on it during the relevant time period.”
“Sure, but all that would tell you is that she was, in fact, working on the computer. For all we know, she could have been doing that while hiding out behind Mr. Adama’s house.”
He sat up straighter. “We’re aware of that. Which is one reason we haven’t started down that road.”
“Do you know if she’s a good enough shot?” At this point, that was what it all boiled down to. Which suspects were skilled enough with a rifle to pull the crime off?
“No. She’s a member of the Knobstone Rifle Club, though. This afternoon, the chief asked them for records from their shooting contests. They told him they’d be happy to cooperate as soon as he provided them with a search warrant.”
I snorted. Sometimes, the legal system drove me up the wall. “What do they want one of those for?”
“To cover their backsides since they’d be producing private information pertaining to their members. It worries me that they’re trying to protect the club’s reputation by stalling.”
“Yeah, might not be good for business if word got out that a club member was able to sharpen their murder skills at the club.” An idea popped into my head. “Do you think the murderer is a member?”
Gabe wiped his hands on a napkin and let out a long yawn. “Could be. I mean, if it is someone local. It would sure help speed up the investigation.”
“Okay, what about people on your radar who seem unlikely? Is there anyone Ollie arrested recently, like in the last few years, who could have pulled that trigger?”
“There is one woman, Gail Hamilton. She was a user and dealer. I’ve heard that before she got hooked, she was an amazing skeet shooter. Won some big-time contests back in the day.”
I jotted the woman’s name down. I’d heard of her but didn’t know her. One of the drawbacks of spending a decade away from town was that, in a situation like this, I didn’t know as many people as my siblings did.
It looked like more suspect homework for me.
When Gabe yawned again and leaned back in his chair, I took it as a sign he was out of gas. The breadsticks were gone and there were only two slices of pizza left.
“You look like you’re done. Let me put the leftovers into something for you.” While Gabe let his dinner digest, I scrounged around in the cabinets until I found a container for the pizza that had a lid that fit. At times like this, I wondered how some men survived the single life.
“I appreciate all this.” He got to his feet with a groan. “Did I give you enough intel to make it worth your while?”
“That wasn’t the reason—”
“Come on, Allie.” He laughed. “You’re getting married in a week. I know you’re not trying to hit on me. Brent’s a lucky guy. I also know when you really want something, like information on a murder case, you’ll stop at nothing to get it. Am I right?”
“That’s a pretty sweeping generalization.” My cheeks began to warm up. I didn’t know what was worse, that he was right or that he’d busted me about it. “I thought this could be a win-win. You got dinner and your apartment tidied up.”
“And you got”—he paused for dramatic effect—“information.”
Despite the annoyance nipping at me like Ursi attacking my ankles, I joined Gabe in a good laugh. It was the definition of laughing at myself and having the world laugh with me.
“Don’t get me wrong. You’d make a good cop. Sometimes, though, you’re about as subtle as a sledgehammer.”
Ouch. The jab stung because sometimes the truth did hurt.
“Alrighty, then. Enough with the subtleties. Tell me what you know about the people who were gathered at the Martins’ Fourth of July party. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”
Thirty minutes later, I closed Gabe’s door behind me, my notebook in one hand and the trash bag in the other. My writing hand ached. It had been an intense note-taking session. Matt was taking the lead on inquiries with each partygoer. So far, about half of the gathering had been provided with an alibi by two other people in attendance.
As I descended the staircase, I ignored the twinge in my lower back. It was a not-so-subtle reminder to use better posture when taking notes. Like a body of water during a drought, my pool of potential suspects had shrunk. That was good. I’d be happy to trade temporary discomfort for the elimination of eight suspects.
I pushed open the door to my building and took a deep breath. For the moment, it was quiet in Rushing Creek. It wasn’t going to stay that way for long, though.
After eliminating a dozen suspects in one night, my investigation had real momentum. The countdown was on until I had the murderer in my crosshairs.
And then Rushing Creek was going to be in for another round of fireworks. And they were gonna be big ones.