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Authors: Margaret Grace
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keep track of it.
I was betting on the key’s being for David’s room, probably found on his person. I wondered if it had been reprogrammed or if it would still work. Should I take it? It would certainly help if I needed to do some investigating myself. If Skip needed to get into a hotel room, I reasoned, he could just flash his badge.
What would I do with it? I had a pretty good idea. Was it evidence? No, if it were evidence it would be in a marked bag. It was now LPPD property, however—hard to get around that. Unless it was Rosie’s key card, in which case, it was also mine.
Before I could decide the level of misdemeanor I was willing to risk, I heard Skip. His tenor voice came closer and closer as he greeted his colleagues with a “Hey,” or a “Dude,” or a “What’s up?”
I had no time to place the key card in the exact location I’d taken it from. It made sense, therefore, to slip it into my pocket. With the jumble of papers, folders, and notes on his desk, he wouldn’t miss it. Not right away at least. I could always sneak it back later.
“Hey, Aunt Gerry, you’re late,” Skip said when he entered his cubicle. He looked at his watch. “I expected you over an hour ago, right after we hung up.”
Very funny. “I had to take Maddie to lunch,” I said.
“And you brought me . . . ?”
I handed over the rest of the ginger cookies. I could have sworn he stared at the spot on his desk where the key card had been. I had to concentrate, swallowing hard, distracting myself from looking there myself. I remembered a thriller I’d seen where the suspect revealed his guilt merely by looking at a spot on the wall where the bullet had penetrated, something he couldn’t have known unless he’d put it there. I held fast, but I was sure I saw out of the corner of my eye a red glow where once the key belonging to the LPPD had been.
“I thought you might want to share more with me. About why you were looking for Rosie Norman?”
He chewed slowly on a ginger cookie. “Mmm,” came out of his mouth instead of information. “Still the best, Aunt Gerry.” He picked up my paperback, which had fallen to the floor. “This is your snooping cover, right? I don’t see a bookmark.”
My nephew was so annoying when he was right. “Skip? You called me, remember? I just want to know what in the world makes you think Rosie murdered David Bridges?”
“Did I say that?” he asked.
“Not in so many words. Do you deny that you think she might be involved?”
“Not exactly.”
My heart sank, my last miniature amount of hope flitting away. I clung to his qualified answer. He hadn’t given me an outright “no.” “Can you at least tell me where his body was found?”
“A group of teenagers found him when they went to Joshua Speed Woods for some early morning necking. We don’t know if that was the actual scene of the crime, though the last word was yes, probably he was killed right there. The kids’ statement says that the trophy was next to the body. They picked it up to see whose it was. I have a feeling every one of them handled it, so we’re still sorting out whose fingerprints are recoverable.”
Up to now, when I’d had occasion to pass by or talk about the wooded area to the west of the main part of town, I imagined the look on the face of one of Lincoln’s closest friends, Kentuckian Joshua Speed—if he could have known that his namesake woods were used mostly as a lovers’ lane. Now, for a long time, I’d remember it as a murder scene.
The worst realization at the moment, however, was that Rosie lived on Joshua Speed Lane, which bordered the woods.
I felt the strangest regret that I hadn’t listened more closely to Rosie when she described her long-ago relationship to David. All the times she’d gone on and on at the crafts table, and most of us absorbed less than half of what she said, I guessed. She’d mentioned one “date gone bad” as I recalled. I didn’t care at the time, but
I was betting on the key’s being for David’s room, probably found on his person. I wondered if it had been reprogrammed or if it would still work. Should I take it? It would certainly help if I needed to do some investigating myself. If Skip needed to get into a hotel room, I reasoned, he could just flash his badge.
What would I do with it? I had a pretty good idea. Was it evidence? No, if it were evidence it would be in a marked bag. It was now LPPD property, however—hard to get around that. Unless it was Rosie’s key card, in which case, it was also mine.
Before I could decide the level of misdemeanor I was willing to risk, I heard Skip. His tenor voice came closer and closer as he greeted his colleagues with a “Hey,” or a “Dude,” or a “What’s up?”
I had no time to place the key card in the exact location I’d taken it from. It made sense, therefore, to slip it into my pocket. With the jumble of papers, folders, and notes on his desk, he wouldn’t miss it. Not right away at least. I could always sneak it back later.
“Hey, Aunt Gerry, you’re late,” Skip said when he entered his cubicle. He looked at his watch. “I expected you over an hour ago, right after we hung up.”
Very funny. “I had to take Maddie to lunch,” I said.
“And you brought me . . . ?”
I handed over the rest of the ginger cookies. I could have sworn he stared at the spot on his desk where the key card had been. I had to concentrate, swallowing hard, distracting myself from looking there myself. I remembered a thriller I’d seen where the suspect revealed his guilt merely by looking at a spot on the wall where the bullet had penetrated, something he couldn’t have known unless he’d put it there. I held fast, but I was sure I saw out of the corner of my eye a red glow where once the key belonging to the LPPD had been.
“I thought you might want to share more with me. About why you were looking for Rosie Norman?”
He chewed slowly on a ginger cookie. “Mmm,” came out of his mouth instead of information. “Still the best, Aunt Gerry.” He picked up my paperback, which had fallen to the floor. “This is your snooping cover, right? I don’t see a bookmark.”
My nephew was so annoying when he was right. “Skip? You called me, remember? I just want to know what in the world makes you think Rosie murdered David Bridges?”
“Did I say that?” he asked.
“Not in so many words. Do you deny that you think she might be involved?”
“Not exactly.”
My heart sank, my last miniature amount of hope flitting away. I clung to his qualified answer. He hadn’t given me an outright “no.” “Can you at least tell me where his body was found?”
“A group of teenagers found him when they went to Joshua Speed Woods for some early morning necking. We don’t know if that was the actual scene of the crime, though the last word was yes, probably he was killed right there. The kids’ statement says that the trophy was next to the body. They picked it up to see whose it was. I have a feeling every one of them handled it, so we’re still sorting out whose fingerprints are recoverable.”
Up to now, when I’d had occasion to pass by or talk about the wooded area to the west of the main part of town, I imagined the look on the face of one of Lincoln’s closest friends, Kentuckian Joshua Speed—if he could have known that his namesake woods were used mostly as a lovers’ lane. Now, for a long time, I’d remember it as a murder scene.
The worst realization at the moment, however, was that Rosie lived on Joshua Speed Lane, which bordered the woods.
I felt the strangest regret that I hadn’t listened more closely to Rosie when she described her long-ago relationship to David. All the times she’d gone on and on at the crafts table, and most of us absorbed less than half of what she said, I guessed. She’d mentioned one “date gone bad” as I recalled. I didn’t care at the time, but
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