Page 38 of Murder By the Millions
He pivoted to return inside.
I trailed him. “See the mud on the floor and the runner? Jason has mud on his shoes.”
“So?”
“Maybe he went outside. It’s a beautiful evening. He could’ve gone to look at the stars, spied a menacing trespasser, and raced through the gardens to escape. If the killer followed him, there might be footprints in one of the flower beds. The soil should be wet. The sprinklers were on when I arrived.”
“My team will check it out.”
I eyed Jason’s phone. “Could you please review his phone for the texts?”
He lifted it and was unable to open it. “Password protected.”
Swell.I glanced at the foyer table. If the Celtic knot earring was, indeed, the mate to mine, how had it gotten here? Only one explanation came to mind. The killer found it the day I lost it, and, seeing the matching one dangling from my earlobe, knew it belonged to me and brought it to the scene. Where could that have taken place? Ragamuffin? Blessed Bean? Big Mama’s Diner? I had been furiously making deliveries and hadn’t noticed it missing until dinnertime. I’d run into just about everyone I knew at one place or another. Even Zach.
I bent down to look beneath the table, hoping I could divine the answer.
“Allie, don’t touch anything,” Zach cautioned.
“I haven’t.”Other than the murder weapon,I thought glumly. “I won’t,” I added, revising my answer. I spotted something glistening beneath the table, close to the wall. It looked like another piece of jewelry. “Zach, what’s that?”
“What’s what?” He crouched to have a look.
“See it?”
He rose, shoved the foyer table away from the wall, and retrieved the item. It was a cuff link with a cursive letterJon it.
Jason’s. Not the killer’s.Dang.
CHAPTER8
“They’re a rotten crowd … You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
—Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’sThe Great Gatsby
After the evidence team arrived, followed by the coroner, who officially declared Jason dead from a stab wound, and after Zach asked me each question two more times to see if I would change my answers—I did not—he released me on my own recognizance, adding I was a person of interest and not to leave town.
As if.
On the drive home I went over every detail of the crime scene. Had the killer staged the clues? Had he or she tossed my earring under the furniture to make Zach think Jason and I struggled, and I killed him? Why frame me? I’d just met him. My motive to want him dead was weak at best. Big deal if I didn’t want him building on the historic properties. I had no say. All I could do was carp about it.
Way past midnight, I carried Darcy into the house and released him from his carrier. Despite his bandaged paw, he scampered toward the fireplace, but I intervened. “No, sir.” I scooped him into my arms. “You may not play here until I’ve made it cat friendly. For now, it’s bedtime.”
My gaze landed on the collection of spearpoints hanging on a plaque to the right of the fireplace. I teetered. There had been five. Now I counted four. One was, indeed, missing.
No, no, no.
Resigned, I immediately dialed Zach. While I waited for him to show up, I inspected the front door lock. It didn’t look like someone had tampered with it. How had the thief gotten in?
Zach arrived within thirty minutes, leaving Bates to manage the evidence team at the Sugarbaker estate.
I showed him inside, relocked the door, and ushered him into the living room. “I’m not sure when it went missing. It’s not something I look at every day. It could’ve vanished months ago.”
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and snapped pictures. Darcy butted his leg. Zach bent to pet the cat’s head and said, “Sorry, pal. I’m busy.”
Darcy retreated to the belly of the llama cat-scratching station, probably hoping I wouldn’t notice he’d already stripped the bandage off his paw, the sneaky Pete. The vet had said he might do it and not to worry. Infection was her main concern. As long as I inspected and reinspected the toenail and determined it was healing, I could let him be.
“The plaque isn’t dusty,” Zach noted.
