One Chance: A Thrilling Christian Fiction Mystery Romance (15 page)

He nodded his head again and took a deep, shaky breath. "Not his...name. Know...his...face."

"Can you give me a description?" Penelope asked him.

Dan nodded. "Can. Hurts...to talk."

"Okay. Let's leave that for now. How about I ask the questions and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. Sound good?"

Dan managed to look relieved behind his bandages, and nodded. He swallowed and his one eye looked over towards the table next to the bed, with its glass of water. Penelope reached over for it and held it for Dan, positioning the straw so he could drink.

"So," Penelope began. "You saw something this guy didn't like. I'm guessing it was on Friday night? Around Ricky's Pub?"

Dan nodded, pushing the straw away.

"You know who Doug Foster is, right?"

Another nod.

"Did what you see anything to do with Doug's truck?"

A nod again. "Blue truck...with flames," he managed.

"Right. Doug's pickup. You saw someone drive it away from the bar, didn't you?"

After a hesitation, Dan gave one, slow nod.

Penelope almost didn't want to ask this next question but she knew that she had to. "Was it Doug?"

To Penelope's relief, the answer was no.

"Was it the guy who beat you up? The guy who did this to you?"

Dan swallowed, then managed to rasp, "Yes. Didn't want...to say...anything. Was going...to...keep...quiet..." He broke down, tears streaming from both his open eye and his swollen one.

Penelope held the man's hand tightly again. "It's okay, Dan. It's all right. He can't hurt you anymore. Never again. Just tell me what you saw."

And when Dan had finished making his painful way through his story, a lot of the pieces finally fit.

CHAPTER 26

Heading back to the office, she had a feeling there would be something waiting for her. Turned out she wasn't wrong. Things were happening quickly now. Everything was starting to make sense and Penelope was beginning to be able to see the big picture, even if it was fuzzy around the edges. "God," she prayed as she drove into the station parking lot, "I thank you for your help so far. Please, let it continue in this way, that the light of truth may shine, and that innocent men will not face wrongful justice. Thank you, God."

Inside the station, she found Officer Anthony Marks just walking out of the Sheriff's Office. He closed the Sheriff's door behind him and stopped short when he saw Penelope.

"Hi," Penelope said, not sure what she saw in his face. He wasn't wearing his uniform anymore, but of course the sleeve would have this big cut in it. "What's up?"

He stepped over to her and held out his hand for her to shake. "I wanted to thank you."

Penelope took his hand, sensing she was missing something here, too. "Thank me? For what? Getting you hurt?"

He laughed and let go of her hand. "Just, thanks. I got a lot more than I bargained for with this ride-along. I appreciate the perspective you've given me."

And then he winked at her and walked away, speaking over his shoulder as he did. "Package came for you. It's on your desk."

Penelope was left scratching her head as he left the room. Turning to her desk she found a thick manila envelope with her name and the station address on it. She knew what it was from the return address, and she ripped it open to find the evidence report from Doug's truck. Just a day earlier, she would have been afraid to look at it, afraid it would only give further proof that Doug was guilty of attempted murder. But now she knew better, and scanning through the trace evidence report, she found exactly what he was looking for.

She knew about the dents in the grille and on the hood, the cracked headlight with blood on it. The blood was a match to Pete's. No surprises there. It was Doug's truck that ran down Pete.

It was the fingerprint evidence that was the big news.

"What's that?" asked Sheriff Jackson's deep voice.

Penelope looked up from the information in front of her with a smile. "The biggest piece of the puzzle yet, Sheriff." She handed over the whole packet and sat quietly while the Sheriff read through it.

The Sheriff whistled a note, low and long. "I would never have expected that!"

"My thoughts exactly, sir," Penelope said. "At least I wouldn't have, if I hadn't just spoken with Dan Hughes."

"Dan Hughes? Think I know him. Lives over near Ricky's Pub. Nice guy. Annoying dog."

Penelope smiled. "Yes, that's him. He gave me a description of a guy he saw drive away in Doug's pickup truck from the bar on Friday night, and the time frame puts it just before Pete Lamb was run down. That description matches the owner of those fingerprints on page four. If I may say so, I believe this exonerates our prime suspect. It means Doug is innocent."

"Now Penelope," the Sheriff said, "you know we need more than this."

"More than fingerprints? More than an eye witness who got beat up for seeing what he saw?"

"Yes," the Sheriff said simply, sitting down in the chair next to Penelope's desk.

"What more could we possibly need, sir?" Penelope felt her anger rising and did her best to control it but it was just so frustrating, to be this close to setting Doug free, only to have the Sheriff throw up a roadblock.

"You have a witness who saw this guy in Doug's truck, and the fingerprint evidence proves that too. But, do you have someone who saw this guy try to kill Pete in Doug's truck?"

Penelope hated to admit it, but she had to. "No. I don't have that."

"Do you have a motive?" The Sheriff pressed.

"Well, kind of. It's all guess work at this point."

Sheriff Jackson just looked at Penelope, and said nothing else. Penelope slumped back in her chair. "Okay, fine. My work's not done yet. I get that. Let me finish up with our suspect, and I'll get what we need."

"You're sure of that?" The Sheriff tapped a finger on Penelope's desk. "The guy obviously lied to you once."

"Yes, I know he did. But I think with this, I can get the truth from him. I'm confident I can."

The Sheriff nodded. "Good. That's what I like to hear, Penelope. By the way, Officer Marks is leaving us."

Penelope blinked. "Leaving us? He just got here. What happened? Is it because he got cut arresting Findley? That really wasn't his fault."

The Sheriff was nodding, waiting for Penelope to finish. "I know that. He does too. Funny thing. He came into my office not an hour before you got back and started talking to me about how he had figured out what he became a police officer to do. Seems he comes from a bad neighborhood down there in Tampa. Kind of what motivated him to become a police officer, from what I gather. Now he's decided he wants to go back there and help the people in his neighborhood get away from crime like he did. He said talking to you opened his eyes to that. What'd you say to him?"

Penelope was amazed. She'd meant every word she'd said to Anthony during their stakeout. She'd tried to guide him onto a path not by insisting or pushing, but by giving simple encouragement. She guessed it had worked.

"Uh, I just told him to be the best police officer he could, I guess," she told the Sheriff. "Everything else was him. And God. Guess He had a plan for him that didn't include being here."

The Sheriff smiled a crooked smile. "Guess so. Just like I guess you'd be too humble to take credit for something like that. Too bad, though. Now I'll have to find someone else to bring on board when I retire. And you take my place."

"I'm still not sure if I'm the one for that, sir," Penelope tried to protest.

Sheriff Jackson waved a hand as he stood up. "Way I see it, you're the only one for it. Now. You gonna go talk to our suspect again?"

"Yes. Let me gather a few notes and things and I'll get at it. Do we have time of death yet from Gainesville M.E. yet?"

"Not yet. I want to watch this one, if it's okay."

Penelope had to smile. For as long as Sheriff John Jackson had been in this game, he still liked to be involved and to learn from other officers. "That sounds like a plan. Our guy is still in the examination room?"

The Sheriff nodded. "Yes. Findley's just where you left him. He's not happy about it, but that's too bad."

Penelope nodded agreement. Findley had a lot to answer for.

Starting with why it was his fingerprints that were inside of Doug's truck.

CHAPTER 27

Michael Findley was still in the chair where Penelope had last seen him, handcuffed by each wrist to an arm. Penelope could tell that some of the bravado that had been in the man last time had evaporated. Some of it, but not all.

"You need anything, Mister Findley?" she asked in a conversational tone as she sat down with her folder opposite the man. She started leafing through papers as if she was trying to find something.

"I need to get out of here, is what I need," Findley answered her. "Why don't you just charge me for cutting that cop and bring me in front of a judge already?"

Penelope refused to rise to the bait. Her anger at Findley was justified, considering what she now knew, but anger wouldn't help her solve this puzzle. Findley still had information she needed. And God willing, the man was going to give it to Penelope. He just didn't know it yet.

"We're working up the charges on that right now, Mister Findley. And the charges for breaking into the doctor's house." Her fiance's house, but she wasn't about to tell Findley that. "So. Let's talk about something else."

Findley shook the handcuffs against the metal chair. "Sure. Let's talk. I'm not going anywhere."

Penelope leaned back in her chair and dropped her pen on top of her folder. "You've been in here for a while. You need to use the bathroom? Drink of water? There's a water cooler right over there in the corner."

Findley looked at her with a blank stare. "No. I'm good. Thanks. Let's just get on with this."

Penelope nodded. "Okay. I want to remind you that you've been read your Miranda rights. And also that we're still recording this interview. So I have some questions I want to ask you."

"Ask away, Deputy. I don't have anything to hide. I've told you everything, and I know that I'm going to jail when we're done. I got nothing to hide."

Penelope centered her thoughts and said a short prayer that God would guide her. This was the most important interview she'd done in a long time. And she knew exactly what question to start with.

"How do you know Doug Foster?" she asked.

Findley blinked. It was just a simple little thing, but it told Penelope she'd struck her target.

"I don't know Foster," was the answer Findley finally gave. "He's my girlfriend's ex-husband. Father of that kid of hers. That's all."

Penelope wrote it down on paper just like Findley said it. "Okay. So you'd never met him before?"

"Never once. I came into town to see what kind of man he was. That was on Friday. I followed him just like I told you, to that pizza place, to that bar, and then I watched him drive away, and then I watched him come back, and then he went to another bar, and I left him there. Simple."

"It actually is pretty simple, the way you lay it out," Penelope said to him. "Kind of like you have it memorized."

"Not hard to remember it. It was only last Friday."

"And you're sure that's how it happened?"

The smile on Findley's face was infuriating. "Yup. Just like that."

"Okay, okay good. I just wanted to get that down so we were all on the same page, Mister Findley. See, I had three things, before you came along, that told me Doug didn't actually run anyone over. Now I've got four."

Findley's smile cracked. "What are you talking about?"

Penelope settled her elbows on the flat surface of the metal table and counted out her points on her fingers. "See, first of all, I know Doug. And he's had a lot of bad things happen in his life and he's made some pretty poor decisions too, but he's not capable of running someone over intentionally. So that's one.

"Then, I managed to find some witnesses that backed up at least part of his story. That was two. Of course, your story, as you gave it, blew number two away, so I was glad I had number three."

"And what was number three, Deputy?" Findley asked with a sneer.

"Well, a man like you may not understand number three. Number three was my faith. I had faith in the skills and intelligence that God gave me, and everything in me was saying something was wrong with this case. That there was something I was missing. So I wasn't willing to just write Doug off when everything pointed at him. My faith told me to dig deeper. And as I dug deeper, I found clue number four."

Penelope turned the folder in front of her around and pushed it across the table so that Findley could read it.

"That right there is a report on latent evidence found in Doug's truck. Which we seized from the Last Chance Tavern, where you said you left Doug. So, if all you did was follow Doug that night, Mister Findley, and you've never met him before, I'm stumped. How did your fingerprints get into his truck?"

Findley's eyes went wide. "No way. No way my prints are in that truck. You're lying. You're trying to get me to trip myself up! That's all it is!"

Penelope shook her head at the man. She had him now. Finally that cool facade of his had cracked.

Gotcha.

"It's right there in the report. You can see it for yourself. Oh, you were smart enough about it that the steering wheel had been wiped clean. But you kind of neglected everything else. You know the first thing people do when they get into a strange vehicle? They adjust the mirrors."

And there it was on Findley's face. He knew he'd been had.

"There's a nice set of your prints on the glass of the rearview mirror. Add into that the fact that you beat up a good man just to keep him quiet about seeing you driving Doug's truck, and guess what that means?"

Findley chewed on his lip and his eyes bored holes through the report in front of him.

"I know, you weren't counting on Dan Hughes talking. You thought you'd put enough fear in him that he'd never say anything about seeing you that night. But the truth is stronger than fear. And here's the truth. You were driving Doug's truck when it hit Pete, Mister Findley. You tried to pin it on Doug. Maybe it was because Doug was going to take Camille away, like you said. But I have the feeling I'm missing something. What am I missing?"