There aren’t any discrepancies,” I yelled. “He’s lying! It was all a setup to have me killed!”
Mr. Findley looked distressed. Oh, he was good. Give the man an Emmy for Most Convincing Crook of the Year.
“Mrs. McConnell, please—”
Then I finally remembered my trump card. “I have the flash drive, Mr. Findley. Jerry’s flash drive, remember? He lost it in my flower bed a couple days before you had him killed and his computer equipment stolen. And I found it tonight!”
I saw the look of mixed dismay and fury cross Mr. Findley’s usually bland face. But he was facing me, not the officers, so only I had that privilege. Then, as smoothly as if he were adjusting a mask, his expression shifted back to good-ol’-boy bewilderment before he turned to face them, and he played his bluff like a high-stakes poker expert.
He shrugged as if he had no idea what I was talking about. “May I make my phone call now, please?”
“Give us the number, and we’ll make it.”
Mr. Findley fumbled in a pocket and brought out a small, leather bound day planner. He opened a page and handed it to the officer.
“See what else he has in his pockets!” I said. “He had directions that took us right out there in the woods where those guys were waiting to ambush us!”
The deputies obviously had their doubts about my version of events, but they weren’t playing favorites here.
“Would you empty your pockets please, Mr. Findley?” one asked.
He did. No incriminating scrap of paper.
“Maybe he chewed it up and swallowed it,” I muttered, which earned me lady-you’ve-been-reading-too-many-spy-novels looks from everyone present.
An officer dialed the number from his own cell phone. He briefly interrogated whoever answered, then handed the phone to Mr. Findley. Then we all heard Mr. Findley give his apologetic “lost” story. Very convincing.
“You did that very well,” I said when he was done. “But I still have the flash drive.”
“I don’t know what Mrs. McConnell is trying to pull here, and I have no idea what this flash drive is that she keeps talking about.”
Mr. Findley heaved a big sigh, as if he were bone weary. Or maybe he really was tired. He’d jitterbugged some tricky mental footwork coming up with instant and convincing rebuttals to my accusations.
“But I’d really like to go home now. Unless I’m under arrest?”
“No, you’re not under arrest, Mr. Findley. But we’d like you to come into the station tomorrow morning so we can take a formal statement.”
“Of course. Glad to help any way I can. Now, if someone could give me a ride home?”
I felt a big whoosh of doubt. Was the flash drive really irrelevant? Mr. Findley’s glance at me was more pitying than frightened. Poor deluded woman, it plainly said. Was it possible the flash drive didn’t hold any incriminating information, that it was just copies of Web site work Jerry’d done and had nothing to do with his murder?
More radio squawks, and then the police car, with Mr. Findley inside, pulled onto the paved road. No arrest, no handcuffs, nothing. The second car that had been back in the woods arrived just as the one with Mr. Findley inside was leaving. The three officers got out.
“We can’t do any more tonight,” one of them reported. “Too dark and way too much underbrush out there. We’ll have to bring in the K-9 unit in the morning and try to track them.”
I couldn’t tell them what the gunmen’s faces looked like, but I gave as much description as I could about height, weight, and clothing. A discussion with someone by radio confirmed that they wanted the limo towed in, and I was also told to come to the station for a formal statement in the morning.
Fitz arrived just as I walked back to sit in the limo. Wobbled back, more accurately, considering the state of my black heels. One officer checked out Fitz’s ID before letting him come over to me.
Fitz gave the ruined windshield and shredded tire a surprised but fleeting glance and wrapped his arms around me. I was grateful for his warmth and strength.
“You okay?” he asked.
I was grateful that his first question was about me, not the why of the battered limousine.
“The glass really is bulletproof.” I didn’t care what Matt called it. It had gone beyond resisting the bullets; it had stopped them. Bulletproof. Blessedly. Because I knew I was not. More now than when the bullets were flying, I realized my vulnerability, how life could have ended in an instant.
“Thank God,” Fitz said.
I knew Fitz meant that in a figurative way, but in the last couple of days I’d acquired a new perspective on God’s activities.
“Yes,” I said fervently. “That’s what I’m doing. Thanking God.”
“Can you leave?”
“I think I should wait until the tow truck for the limo gets here. Did the officer tell you anything on the phone?”
“Only that you were out here and your vehicle was ‘incapacitated.’ I’d say that’s something of an understatement.”
I leaned back in his arms. “I’ve been shot at umpteen times. My limo is a mess. And I’ve ruined my shoes.”
I held one out to the side to show him and, ridiculously, a tear trickled down my cheek. All that had happened, and I was crying over shoes. “I thought you told me sixty was prime time.”
“There can be days like this at any age.” Fitz paused, and we looked at each other, and unexpectedly I felt a smile breaking through the tears. “Well, okay, not exactly like this. You know what I mean. Bad-hair-type days.”
“After this I will be grateful if they’re only bad hair days.”
“Okay, let’s get you home.”
“Fitz, I know who killed Jerry. We were wrong about Elena’s husband and Big Daddy Sutherland. Mr. Findley did it. At least he hired the goons who pulled the trigger.”
“Mr. Findley?” Fitz repeated.
It took almost forty-five minutes for the tow truck to arrive, and I used the time to tell Fitz all that had happened, from Moose’s disinterment of the flash drive to Mr. Findley’s plan, with my poor limousine the innocent victim in tonight’s shoot-out.
Then, once more, away went my limousine. Before we left in Fitz’s car, one of the officers said, “I talked with Detective Sergeant Molino. He’s going to meet you at your house and pick up that flash drive. He thinks it may be important.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Just before we reached Secret View Lane, Fitz said, “I don’t think you should stay at the house tonight. With Joella staying at the hospital with the baby, you’d be alone. After the detective comes, we’ll go to the boat. You can have one of the guest cabins.”
I was too tired to protest. I didn’t want to protest anyway.
DDS MOLINO HADN’T yet arrived when we reached the house. I was just putting the key into the front door lock when Fitz put a restraining hand on my arm.
“Did you leave a light on when you left?” he whispered.
I looked where he was pointing, at a peculiar flicker of faint light showing around the drapes. I couldn’t remember about the light, since it hadn’t been dark when I left, but I was sure of one thing. I hadn’t pulled the drapes shut . . . and they were pulled now!
“I think someone’s in there,” Fitz added. “Has that sliding door ever been fixed?”
“Not yet. It’s hard to open, but it can be done. It can’t be locked.” And, I remembered with a sinking feeling, I’d opened the door earlier when a bird crashed into the glass, and I’d gone out to see if it was okay. And I didn’t remember putting the rod brace back in place. . . .
I tried not to panic. Whoever it was, there was a logical solution. We didn’t have to rush in like gangbusters.
“The detective is coming. We can wait for him.”
“I don’t think so.” The faint light around the edge of the drapes grew fainter still, then disappeared. “I think he’s going to escape out the back. Wait here.”
Fitz dashed around the side of the house. Wait here? No way! I dashed after him. A shadowy figure ran across the back-yard. Fitz raced after him. The figure reached the line of cedar trees and bushes at the property line. I heard an oof and a curse as Fitz dived in after him.
Thuds. Thumps. Crashes. The two figures stumbled out of the bushes, entwined to make a four-legged monster.
“Fitz, be careful!” I yelled.
A little late for that, with the other guy, bigger and heavier than Fitz, using his weight to force Fitz to the ground. Frantically I looked around for a weapon, some way to help. What? A floppy forsythia branch wouldn’t do it. Neither would the daisies growing underneath. But then I stumbled over something . . . the burglar’s flashlight!
Big flashlight. Heavy flashlight. No cheap stuff for this top-of-the-line burglar. I picked it up and circled the entwined figures. One was trim-bodied. Fitz. I didn’t want to make a mistake and clobber him. The figures wrestled across the lawn, both panting and grunting, Fitz’s agility was all that was keeping him from going down. I held the flashlight with both hands, took aim at the one who wasn’t Fitz, and whacked with all my strength.
The figure went down. No oof this time. It was a silent tumble. Something fell out of his hand.
The flash drive.
Fitz rolled the limp form over and felt the throat. “He’s breathing, just knocked out.”
I turned on the flashlight, the strong beam showing no ill effects from being drafted into battle. “It’s Mr. Findley.” Still wearing the gray suit, much the worse for wear now. “He came to steal the flash drive.”
Which meant it definitely wasn’t irrelevant after all.
I heard a car out front. DDS Molino had arrived. I started to head that direction, but Fitz grabbed me and wrapped his arms around me.
“You pack quite a wallop, lady. I like that.”
“Isn’t that what a sidekick is for?”
“I think we can dispense with the sidekick business.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and smiled. “From now on, it’s sleuth-’n’-sleuth, partners and equals.”
“No more sleuthing. We’ve got this killer. I’m retiring.”