The Cantaloupe Thief Read Online Free Page B

driveway. It wasn’t a bad vantage point to see family members arriving in twos and threes, some granite-faced, some crumpled and wailing. Jody and two other reporters gathered information at the crime scene while Branigan and the rest of the staff worked from the newsroom, preparing a front-page story about Mrs Resnick’s life and charitable contributions, and another in which Grambling society talked about the loss to the community.
    That was day one.
    In the confusion of the murder, no one noticed that Mrs Resnick’s car was missing from a detached garage. So the lead story on day two was that the murderer had apparently stolen Mrs Resnick’s 1980 Thunderbird from her garage and abandoned it a mile away in the parking lot of a vacant grocery store — the very lot where Branigan’s Honda Civic was now parked outside Jericho Road. Inside the store, three homeless people, squatters, lived without running water or electricity. Police interviewed them repeatedly, but they seemed genuinely bewildered by the whole thing.
    On day three, The Rambler had another blockbuster: a witness had seen Mrs Resnick’s distinctive gray-green T-bird streaking by early on the afternoon of July 5. The young man laughingly told friends later that day, “She’ll have fun, fun, fun ‘til her children take the T-bird away.” The comment made its way back to neighbors, who told police, who brought the young man in for questioning. He’d been on a bicycle and didn’t get a look at the driver, he said. That was why he assumed it was Mrs Resnick. Police assured him she was dead by then.
    For a week, a month, three months, police chased leads, interviewed and reinterviewed family members and neighbors and service providers. Mrs Resnick’s neighbors were understandably nervous and eager to speak with officers. The net was cast broad and wide, for Mrs Resnick’s sons had hired numerous workmen at her home in the weeks preceding the July 4 party. So workers from a fence repair company were interviewed, painters, landscapers. People who were visiting neighbors came under suspicion. In a city with no unsolved murders, this over-the-top stabbing in broad daylight stymied police.
    Now, as the tenth anniversary neared, the case was on Tan’s mind. Which meant it was on Branigan’s.
    â€œTan-4 has asked me to do a piece on Mrs Resnick’s murder,” she explained, “looking at the investigation and how it could have gone unsolved this long.”
    Liam nodded. “There’s still a lot of interest. But how can I help?”
    â€œWell, you remember how every lead fell through on the family members, the workmen she’d had in, the neighbors?”
    Liam looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yeah, and remember that stranger living in her pool house? And then coming inside her house and playing her piano? Looking back, I’m sure he was mentally ill. At the time, we didn’t know what was going on.”
    â€œExactly. Once every logical suspect fell through, the police wondered if it wasn’t some transient who killed her, hopped on a train, then left.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œWho would know better about that population than you?”
    Liam’s eyes widened. “Now I see where you’re going.”
    â€œCould you ask around? None of us knew these folks ten years ago. But now you do.”
    â€œI guess so,” Liam said slowly. “But there’s no reason to believe a transient would have returned.”
    â€œI know. It’s a long shot. But I’ve been at the police station for a week, looking through boxes and boxes of files. Believe me, Liam, these guys were committed. They eliminated everyone who had the remotest connection to Alberta Resnick. I’ll be spending most of my time looking over their shoulders and interviewing family members. But what if it was a stranger? Someone with no reason — no sane reason — to kill