The Missing Dough Read Online Free Page B

porch?”
    “You’re not going to tell us what happened first?” Maddy asked.
    “If you have any hope of getting anything out of me, you’ll have to answer my questions first,” he said in a voice that offered no compromises.
    “Hold on there just one second—” Bob said, but I interrupted him. I knew the attorney would want to control this situation, but it wasn’t the time for us to dig our heels in.
    “We won’t gain anything by holding back.” I turned to the police chief and said, “After we left the fair, we came here and had a little impromptu picnic right out here in front of everybody. We don’t have anything to hide.”
    Was it my imagination, or did he look a little relieved by my admission? “Let me ask you this. Did the four of you come here together, or were you each in separate vehicles?”
    “Maddy and I came together, but David and Bob drove their own cars. We all had to shower and change because someone in the crowd at the celebration threw a cup of beer on us as we were leaving.”
    “So, you two alibi each other,” Kevin said to Maddy and me, and then he turned to Bob and David. “How about the two of you? Is there anyone who can confirm that you did exactly what Eleanor just claimed you did?”
    David shook his head, as did Bob. The attorney said, “Chief, we don’t have airtight alibis, if that’s what you’re asking. No matter what Eleanor says, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to insist that you tell us what this is about before we answer any more questions.”
    The police chief considered the request for twenty seconds and then shrugged as he said, “I don’t know what harm it will do telling you now, since you’ll hear about it soon enough.” He turned to Maddy and said, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but someone killed your ex-husband at the fair tonight.”

Chapter 3
    “H e’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