One Chance: A Thrilling Christian Fiction Mystery Romance, page 8
The office looked just like it had last night when she had left it. Maybe she should just put a cot up in the corner, considering the way things were going.
Sheriff John Jackson had arrived back in town sometime overnight and was already in the building at six that morning when Penelope showed up. So Penelope was expecting it when Jackson called her into his office. Penelope had wanted to check on Doug first thing, but the Sheriff took precedence.
Penelope was surprised to see a young African American man in a Franklin Deputy Sheriff uniform smiling at her from where he stood behind Sheriff Jackson's desk. Penelope had never seen him before.
"Deputy Penelope Chance," Jackson said to her from his leather armchair, "this here is Officer Anthony Marks. He's from Tampa and will be joining our team for a while."
Confused, Penelope offered him her hand. "Good to meet you, Officer Marks. I hope you enjoy your time here with us. Are you, uh, staying long?"
He shook her hand firmly and said, "I'm pleased to meet you, Deputy. Sheriff Jackson here graciously agreed to let me do a ride-along for a week. I'd like to relocate to Franklin eventually, but I'm happy to be here now even if it is temporary."
"It will be nice to have another helping hand," Penelope said, "no matter how long you'll be with us."
He smiled broadly. She couldn't help noticing, he was a very good looking man.
"Did the Sheriff bring you up to speed, Anthony?" Penelope asked him. "This may not have been the best time for a visit to us."
He nodded, shifting his weigh to his other foot. "Y'all got a couple of cases going on, car thefts and what-not. Then you've got a guy in the holding cell who tried to run someone down and it looks like he might of killed his ex-wife."
The Sheriff cleared his throat noisily. Anthony looked down at him, knowing he had done something wrong but not able to figure out what.
"The guy in the cell is my friend," Penelope explained drily.
"Oh," he said, suddenly uncomfortable. "I, uh, didn't know."
"Don't worry about it. I've got some stuff to do on that whole thing, but there's something else that needs checking on now. Sheriff, did Jim tell you about the breakin at Jacob's house?"
The Sheriff nodded. "Got the report this morning. Any ideas?"
Anthony looked at Penelope and said, "If you need some help with this, I've got a clean plate right now. New guy, and all."
Penelope nodded. "Okay. I'll call Jacob in a bit and tell him to expect you. You have the address off the report?"
Anthony nodded. "Yup. Borrow a cruiser, Sheriff?"
The Sheriff quirked an eyebrow at Penelope. "See? he's a go-getter. That's why I want him on our team. Off you go, then. Keys are on the ring in the next room."
Anthony nodded to both of them. And winked at Penelope.
Penelope wasn't sure she had seen what she saw, and then Anthony was on his way out of the room, the equipment on his belt swinging in time to his hips.
"What do you think?" the Sheriff asked her.
"Honest opinion?" She waited for the Sheriff to nod before she said what was on her mind. "I don't know. I kind of get a feeling he could be trouble."
The Sheriff waved his hand in the air. "Bah. Trouble for women who aren't attached to a loving man like you are, maybe. But he comes highly recommended. Even got a few commendations under his belt. I think he'll make a good addition to our little force here."
God save us from good ideas, Penelope thought to herself. To the Sheriff, she said, "Didn't know there was room in the budget for another officer." Penelope sat down in one of the chairs in front of the Sheriff's desk. It was going to be another long day. She could feel it already.
Sheriff John Jackson, man of few words, Sheriff in their little community for thirty-plus years, smiled a sad smile and shook his head. "There's room in the budget. If someone retires."
"Like who... Wait, you mean you? You're planning on retiring?" The idea of it was hard for Penelope to put her head around. For as long as she could remember, when she thought of the Sheriff's Office, she thought of John. She couldn't picture the place without him.
The Sheriff shrugged. "Been planning on it. Just didn't know when the time would be right. Seems right to me, now. After this mess with Doug gets cleared up. Where are you at with that?"
"I have some leg work to do today on it, Sheriff, but the paperwork is filed." The words tasted sour in her mouth.
The Sheriff leaned forward across his desk. "Look, Penelope. I know you only kept this case because I insisted. But I know, in my heart and in my soul, that you're the right one for it. You think your friend is innocent, go prove it. But if he's not, you do your job, got it?"
Penelope nodded, unable to answer.
"Good. Because when I'm gone, I'm going to need someone to take my place. And I want that someone to be you, Penelope."
Penelope sat without speaking, digesting what the Sheriff had just said, for a few heartbeats. "You want me to what?"
"You heard me. Ain't no one else suitable. Just you. Unless Doug's mess becomes your own. Do your job. Do it right. Hear me?"
Penelope nodded. "Sheriff, I always do."
CHAPTER 19
Penelope made a quick call to Jacob to let him know that a new officer was coming over to start the investigation on the breakin to his house. They talked for a little bit, but Penelope did not say anything about the Sheriff retiring or wanting Penelope to take over for him. It all still seemed too big. Plus, John wanting her to be Sheriff wouldn't make it so. The Town Council and the Mayor would have to sign off on it. So, best not to count those particular chickens until the eggs were even in the basket.
While Officer Anthony Marks was checking out her fiance's house, Penelope went out to begin talking to the townspeople so she could nail down a timeline of who saw what and when they saw it. She already knew the approximate times when Doug was at The Pizza Palace and Ricky's Pub, so she was looking for someone else to verify them. Someone who knew something more. That elusive bit of missing information that she knew was there but just couldn't see. If she was lucky, there would be a few folks from each location who could help her.
Before she had left, she'd filled the Sheriff in on the angle she had on Camille's boyfriend. The Sheriff said he'd call the police over in Gainesville and let them know about it, and coordinate a search for this guy. If he even existed. The Sheriff thought it might just be Doug blowing smoke. Penelope wasn't so sure. Doug had lied to her once already, and where she had been sure of their friendship before all this started, now she had to question it. Was Doug telling the truth about Findley? Well. This was how she was going to find out.
Penelope started at The Pizza Palace. By now it was nearing eleven o'clock and they opened their doors at ten, so the crowd was still light on a mid-morning Monday and the staff had the time to talk to her. She asked the waitress if anyone else was there at the same time as Doug last Friday evening. The waitress thought for a moment, then told her the names of three people who all lived within walking distance of the restaurant. Penelope wrote the names down. She knew each one, and knew they'd recognize Doug if they'd seen him. She just hoped their memories held out.
Then the waitress, Mandy Blonkin, a good woman who Penelope knew was holding down two jobs to support her family, told her something that made her pen slip. "There was a really creepy guy in here, too," she said. "He sat in the back booth and kept staring at Doug, but I don't think Doug saw him."
"Why do you say that?" Penelope asked.
"Doug was in one of the front booths on the other side and was facing away from Mister Creepy," she answered, shrugging. "The guy sure looked like he was mad about something."
"Can you describe him for me?" Penelope asked.
Mandy thought for a moment and said, "You're asking a lot at this point, Penelope. Um. I guess he was about six-foot, I don't know, maybe shorter. But he had greasy black hair and his nose was bent. You know, like it had been broken a couple of times? And he had the creepiest looking skull and crossbones tattoo I've ever seen. Right here on his right hand. The thing looked downright evil." She shuddered.
Michael Findley. She was describing the man from the wanted poster Doug had given her. The wanted poster of Camille's current boyfriend, supposedly. There's no way that could be a coincidence.
But if the man was in town, that was trouble. Especially if he'd been stalking Doug the night of the attack on Pete.
She thanked Mandy for the information with what she hoped was a poker face. She asked her if someone could come by later and take a statement from her about what she had just said, and then set out to speak with the three other people who had pizza for dinner on Friday night.
Hard to believe all of this had happened over one weekend.
The first was a retired widower, Mister Blane Morris. Penelope had grown up knowing Blane. The man had given her sticks of gum when she and Doug were both kids. Blane told Penelope yes, he remembered seeing Doug come in the restaurant at about six that evening, maybe a few minutes later. He had been getting ready to leave when Doug walked in. He added, "As I was leaving, a very rude young man nearly knocked me down on his way in. He seemed to be incensed, powerfully angry. You know how young people get these days."
Penelope nodded and kept her smile in place even as her insides twisted. Angry young man. Could it be the same guy that Mandy the waitress had seen?
Blane sucked on his dentures as he continued. "So I kept an eye on him for a minute in case he was planning to rob them, but he went to the last booth in the back and just sat down. So I left."
Penelope shook the man's hand. "Thank you, sir. How's the leg doing you these days?"
Blane, in his younger days, had served in the military. He'd loved to tell Penelope stories about those days, and Penelope would sit on the man's porch for hours and listen to him. His leg had been hit with several pieces of shrapnel during World War II and had given him a permanent limp.
"It pains me during heavy rains. Can always tell when a storm's coming." He shook Penelope's hand. "Think one's coming now, Deputy Chance."
Penelope couldn't help hearing a double meaning in the old man's words as she shook his hand. Things were building up. And a storm was coming.
The next two people on her list were a young married couple. Gail and Hank Carpenter remembered Friday evening the same way. They remembered Doug coming into The Pizza Palace, they even remembered Blane Morris leaving and being nearly knocked down by a rude and angry man who went and sat in the back, near them, glaring at Doug. The two of them went to leave a little before seven. And Doug wasn't far behind them in line to pay.
"We heard about what happened the next day," Hank said, "and we remembered how we had just seen Doug in there. I hope you can put him away for what happened."
Penelope nodded, keeping her face neutral. Not everyone in town knew about Doug being Penelope's friend, apparently. But either way, the events of this weekend had kept the memory of seeing Doug at The Pizza Palace fresh in their minds, so that helped. They didn't have a description of the angry man, but it backed up Blane and Mandy's story, and both of them did have a good description.
Of Michael Findley.
The other side of this coin was a little brighter. She had good confirmation from four different witnesses that Doug was at The Pizza Palace from six until almost seven o'clock. That fit with what Doug had given her as a timeline for that night. Penelope knew exactly where Doug was for the entire end of his night. He was at The Last Chance Tavern, where Penelope had found him after getting the report that their poor friend Pete Lamb had been run down, supposedly by Doug.
Doug had told her that he'd only had the one beer, with food, by the time he'd left The Pizza Palace, and Mandy the waitress had previously verified that. Doug was in the restaurant for three quarters of an hour and, given his height and weight and tolerance for alcohol, there was no way he could have been drunk when he left. He would definitely be blitzed by the end of the night, but at that point, Doug was still sober by all reports.
Ricky's Pub, the next place that Doug said he went to after The Pizza Palace, wouldn't be open until a little later, so Penelope decided to knock on the doors of nearby houses. Besides, not even the owner of the bar remembered Doug being there the last time she'd asked.
This was the part of police work that didn't get shown a lot on the television shows. Hard leg work, asking questions of people and coming up dry time and again before you found what you were looking for. At the third house one block behind Ricky's Pub, Mrs. Betsy Isaacs suggested that the man across the street, Dan Hughes, may know something because, as she stated it, "He walks that snotty little Pomeranian of his at a quarter 'til seven every evening. Mouthy little mutt."
Thanking her for her help and cooperation, Penelope turned to leave. "He's not at home right now," she said. "He goes to Jacksonville every Sunday to visit his mother. Still gone."
"Did you see him leave yesterday?"
"No, I didn't," Mrs. Isaacs replied with a small shrug, "and I haven't seen him come back either. Sometimes he stays until the next day. He should be back by suppertime, though. He's gotta walk that dog, you know."
Penelope thanked her again and went back to her car. She had a feeling her neighbor with his noisy dog might have the information she was looking for so she planned to come back later in the evening. The feeling that she was on the right track lingered She took it as a good sign.
CHAPTER 20
Returning to the police station, Penelope went directly to Sheriff Jackson's office. She knocked, heard the Sheriff tell her to come in. Closing the door behind her, she sat down in the same chair she'd been in that morning. "We've got a problem," she started to say.
Sheriff Jackson waved her to silence. "Go ahead, Detective Greene," he said, and it was then that Penelope realized the Sheriff was on a conference call.
"Who's that there with you?" the voice over the line said. Penelope recognized the booming bass tone immediately.
"Donny Greene," Penelope said, a little louder so the phone would pick up her voice. "Haven't seen you in a dog's age."
"Penelope Chance!" Donny said cheerfully. "I haven't seen or heard from you since you got engaged to that handsome Doctor Jacob Gordon. When's the first little Penelope due?"
Penelope laughed at her old friend. "I'm not even married yet, Donny. I'll be doing that in a few more months. Jacob said he's willing to have ten kids, but I think two or three would be more than enough. I'll be sure to send you an invitation to the wedding, though. So what's up? Why the call?"
The Sheriff was the one who answered him. "Michael Findley."
The hair on the back of Penelope's neck stood up.
"We can't find him over here," Donny explained. "Anywhere. But, we confirmed that the victim...uh, sorry Penelope, that Camille was living with him. A lot of his things are still in their house. The Sheriff was telling us that her son is over there with you?"
"Yeah, that's right. Camille dropped him off to her ex-husband before going back to Gainesville and ending up dead. Her ex is in a lot of trouble now as it is, Donny. But put all that aside for a minute. I know why you can't find this Findley character."
"Why's that?"
The Sheriff looked at her, waiting.
"Because he's here," Penelope explained. "That's what I was coming in to tell you, Sheriff. I've got at least two people who can identify him positively, and two others who probably could if I showed them a picture."
There was silence in the room and on the phone line too.
Then the Sheriff asked, "Do we know where he is now?"
Penelope shook her head. "No. We don't. I'm looking into a few things and I'll know more soon. Donny, do you have time of death yet?"
"Nope, not yet. The Medical Examiner's pretty backed up." the Detective answered.
"Sheriff, I've buttoned down the timeline for Doug on Friday, at least for the early part of the evening."
"And after that?" the Sheriff asked her.
"I don't know yet," Penelope had to admit.
The Sheriff nodded. "Detective Greene, we'll get back to you when we know more. Do the same for us, all right?"
"Will do, Sheriff. Penelope, you still there?"
"I'm here Donny."
"You have to know that the ex looks good to us for this murder, right?" Penelope could hear the apologetic tone in Donny's voice.
"Yeah, I know that. We're holding him here on our own attempted murder charges. He's not going anywhere."
"Okay." There was a long pause. "Good luck with this, Penelope."
"No such thing as luck, Donny."
"Only faith." The two laughed at their old joke. For Penelope, it wasn't just a joke. It was the truth.
*
When Penelope finished going over with the Sheriff what she had found out so far, she left the Sheriff's office with the intention of going to check on Doug. She knew how lonely the holding area was when it was just you back there, being watched over a monitor by the person at the front desk.
Officer Anthony Marks had returned to the police station to write his preliminary report and she found him now sitting at her desk, using her computer. He smiled at her when he saw her coming out. He held up the freshly printed report to her. "Deputy, I didn't find anything other than an unlocked window to the spare bedroom. No signs of forced entry, so I'm guessing the window was our perp's way in."
"Did you check for footprints or fingerprints?" she asked him, accepting the report and reading it over.
"Of course," he replied, leaning back in a way that accentuated his muscular physique, "and there's a good one on the side of her house. Looks like he braced himself to climb in. Came back for a fingerprint kit. Know where they are?"
"In the back of the cruisers," she told him. "We keep one in each. Why do you think the person who did this is a guy?"
"Big bootprint. Most likely a guy. Plus the only things taken were those photos. Why would a woman steal photos from him?"
"Why would a guy?"
He pursed his lips and kind of rolled his eyes. "Because they meant something to him, most likely."
