One Chance: A Thrilling Christian Fiction Mystery Romance (4 page)

"Then tell me which fraternity," Penelope said. The bluff had worked. Pedro and his partner both were too old for the law to require him to call their parents.

Pedro gave her the information grudgingly and even told her where to find the first two cars.

"Thank you, Pedro. I'll be sure to let the Gainesville police and our judge know that you were very cooperative. In the meantime, I have to hold you here until Judge Dirksen can hear your case. That may not happen until Monday. Maybe Tuesday."

Pedro nodded. "I understand, ma'am," he said dismally.

Penelope interrogated Bill Macos next and was told the same story. The case of the red Buick thieves was now almost closed. The only thing that remained was to cancel the BOLO messages and arrange for the return of the vehicles to the owners.

She personally called Mrs. Briggs and Mister Fredericks to tell them that arrests had been made and that their cars would be returned as quickly as possible. The gratitude from them both was enough thanks for taking up some of her Saturday.

But not enough to take her mind off Doug's troubles.

CHAPTER 7

A little more than an hour later, the paperwork done, Penelope went over to the clinic to check on Pete's condition. The clinic was normally closed on weekends. But today, Doctor Jacob was still there, tending to Pete's wounds.

She suddenly remembered he had asked her to call when she got home last night. Between Doug and everything else, she'd forgotten. She hoped he'd forgive her. She made her way to exam room two and opened the door.

Jacob was there, his back to her.

"Hi Doc," she said by way of greeting.

As he turned around she could see the bloody gauze bandages in his gloved hand and she started to feel lightheaded. She backed out of the room and returned to the waiting area to sit down. In a few short minutes the swirling dizziness left her and she could breathe normally again. Soon afterward, Jacob came out of the exam room walking quickly to her.

"I'm sorry, Penny, I—" he began, but she waved a hand in the air at him.

"My fault," she said. "I should have knocked before I opened the door."

Jacob let her play the macho police woman, even though he knew why her reaction had been so strong. They had shared just about everything about themselves with each other.

"Those bandages you were holding from Pete?"

Jacob nodded. "Yes. And I just don't understand why he's still bleeding so bad." He scrubbed at his face and ran his hands through his thick brown hair. He took a moment to regain his composure before taking the seat next to her.

"So, this a business or personal visit?" he asked, leaning up against her.

She grinned and took his hand. "Little of both," she replied, "if you'd be willing to kiss a cop."

"Well, I don't know. Is this the same cop that forgot to call me last night?"

She winced, her smile becoming lopsided. "Yeah. About that?"

"Don't let it worry you, Penny. I know you have a lot going on right now." He was referring to Doug, of course, but everything else, too. Penelope had more than a little bit of a martyr complex and liked to take on the weight of the world.

"Doesn't mean you weren't in my dreams, Jacob."

He laughed, enjoying the feel of her hand in his. "You're an incurable woman, Deputy Chance."

"I don't want to be cured. I only want a kiss," she countered, taking his chin in her free hand. She gently kissed his lips and let him go.

She savored that touch for a moment before she had to return to business. "Now for the other reason I dropped by. The Sheriff is expecting me to finish this one up quickly. I wanted to see how Pete's doing, see if I could talk to him."

Jacob sat back and sighed. He had been here since four this morning, after the night nurse had called and said Pete's vitals had slipped. "He's not as well as I first thought, Penny. I'm starting to think it may take a lot longer for him to heal. And, I'm having him transferred to Gainesville for better attention than I can give him."

"He's going to be okay, though, isn't he?" Penelope asked. "I mean, he's not in danger of dying, right?"

"I stabilized his vitals this morning and he's got some pretty strong meds on board now," he said. "But I won't know any more until I can get him to Gainesville for testing. I've already called Grace Memorial. The ambulance should actually be here any minute now to transport him. If you want to see him you'll need to do it now."

She nodded, embarrassed to find herself thinking that this would give her plenty of time to look into the case before pressing charges against Doug.

Jacob knew that look. He knew her. "You look like you don't want to believe this is happening," he said.

"No, I don't," she said. "I really don't. But I guess I don't have any other choice."

He leaned closer and looked into her eyes. "There's something about this that's bugging you. I can tell. What is it?"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I keep coming back to the fact that Pete didn't see who was driving. I know it was Doug's truck, and all that. But Doug swears he didn't do it. And I believe him."

"Our Doug? Come on, Penny, I like him too, but how can he be so sure? If poor Pete in there is the town drunk it's only because he beat Doug to the position first." he said.

"He swears he wasn't drunk before he got to The Last Chance. He told me all about it and I believe he's telling the truth. I talked to him for a long time this morning. I'd know if he was lying."

The look that Jacob gave her spoke volumes. "You spoke to him this morning? I thought you were home?"

"Uh, yeah," she said. "I was. I brought him to my house to keep an eye on him. He's there now."

"I'm not really sure how I feel about that, Penny."

"Jacob, come on. It's Doug. Our Doug." She touched his cheek gently. "You've got less than nothing to worry about."

He squeezed her knee, trying to be reassuring. "I know how much you love your friend, Penny. It shows. And I trust you, I do. But you have to be ready for the very real possibility that he did do this to Pete. And I don't want you tangled up in that if that's what shakes out of this."

"We've been inseparable since we were about five years old. I won't just give up on him. He's the closest thing I have to a real brother," Penelope said, almost tearfully.

A moment later, the ambulance from Grace Memorial Hospital in Gainesville pulled up to the curb outside the clinic. Penelope rose and opened the double doors for the EMTs, and then left to check on Doug's story of how sober he was the previous evening.

CHAPTER 8

Penelope's first stop on her way to verifying Doug's story was The Pizza Palace. The owners of the place had tried to get a Pizza Hut franchise, but when the big chain had turned them down they had opened their own version under a slightly different name. The waitress, Mandy Blonkin, told her she had worked a double yesterday and, yes, Doug came in about six and, yes, he only drank one beer with his pizza. In fact, he didn't even finish it before he left forty five minutes later. And he hadn't left her a tip.

Next, Penelope went to Ricky's Pub over on the east side of town. Ricky was there doing inventory before the meager lunch crowd came in. And all he could say was the place had done a banner business last night, best he'd seen in a long time, and there was no way he would be able to tell Penelope if his own mother had been in there.

Well. One for two. It was starting to look like Doug was in the clear, but if that was true, then did that mean Pete was lying? Nothing about this was making any sense.

She asked Ricky if she could get the surveillance footage from outside the bar for last night. Ricky looked a little sheepish and told her that the cameras out there hadn't worked in months. They were just there for show.

So much for that idea. That would have at least told her if there was damage on Doug's truck before he left for The Last Chance Tavern. She worked the problem over in her mind on the way back to the station.

As she walked into the building, waving to the front desk receptionist, Penelope had more questions than answers. The truth was always somewhere in the middle of everyone's version of events. But where was the truthful middle ground in this instance?

And the facts, rather than making things better, were making the puzzle harder to solve. There had to be a piece missing and Penelope was determined to find it to prove her friend was innocent.

*

Some time later she stepped out the back door for some air.

Lord, I'm going to need a little help with this one
, she admitted.

She didn't expect the answer to fall on her immediately and it didn't. It took a little over half an hour.

She was sitting at her desk trying to clear her mind, thinking about just going home to relax for the rest of her day off. She really should go home and be with Doug. Maybe talking it through with him again would bring out some other detail that they both were overlooking

She couldn't go home just yet, though. Days off or no days off, she had to see this through all the way. What she had tried to put off yesterday was now a weight for her to carry today.

I'm sorry, Lord
, she said silently,
for trying to put this off, for trying to make it go away somehow. I will do my best, now, as I should have done before.

The truth of the matter was, that someone must have seen something. It was time to go knocking on doors. She did it all the time with other cases. And it usually worked out that in a town where everyone knew everything about their neighbors, it was just a matter of talking to the right person.

So the comforts of home would have to wait.

She took the time to get back into her uniform and put on her duty belt. The weight of it settled comfortably on her hips. After so many years it was almost part of her persona now. She used most of the equipment on it on a regular basis. Handcuffs, flashlight holder, utility knife, and so on. But it had been a long, long time since she'd had to pull her service weapon, a Sigma .40 caliber automatic handgun. The strength she depended on to do her work didn't come from that.

It came from God.

She decided lunch could wait, even if her stomach had started growling at her. It was already after noon now. Waiting a little bit longer wouldn't kill her.

The first thing Penelope wanted to do was take a look at the crime scene. She drove to the east end of Main Street where her only choice was to turn either right or left onto the County road. The Last Chance Tavern was on the right corner. On the left was nothing but trees. Directly in front of her across the intersection were more trees and an overgrown lot where a house used to stand.

That house.

She could almost see the ghostly image of it before she pushed it back down deep. After all this time, she really would have thought she'd be over that, but she wasn't, and she didn't have time for that pain right now.

Penelope turned left and drove about a quarter of a mile to the scene of the assault. This stretch of the County road wasn't traveled much during the week, and on the weekend it was eerily silent. Pete lived with his only sister not much further down the road. Theirs was the only house out here for a long way.

She parked on the side of the road and stepped out into the mid-afternoon sunshine. After giving the road and the shoulders on both sides a good look, she found nothing more than what was in the investigators report.

She decided to pay a visit to Pete's sister, Patty.

Patty was Pete's older sister. She had never married and had lived in this same house now for most of her life. Pete had moved in with her a few years back. The resemblance between them was obvious, which was to say Patty was a very handsome woman.

In response to Penelope's questions Patty explained that she hadn't expected Pete to come home the night of the attack at all, but when she heard him on the road crying out for help she went running to see what had happened and found him crawling down the roadside, all banged up. She'd never forget it. No, she hadn't heard anything before that. Yes, she called the Sheriff's Office right away, and the phone had rung through to the Florida Highway Patrol when there had been no one at the Sheriff's Office to answer.

Penelope thanked her and promised to find out what had happened and who had done this to her brother.

"I know who did this, Penelope," Patty said to her with a level stare. "We all do. Now you do your job."

She had nothing she could say to that, so Penelope just nodded and walked back to her cruiser and drove away.

Back at the station she checked her watch and found it was almost two o'clock. She decided to call Doug to let him know his story, so far, had checked out. While she didn't have any leads yet, she felt confident she was on the right path to clearing Doug of the crime.

As she picked up the desk phone to call her best friend, her cell phone's text message alert sounded from its holster on her belt. She pulled it out and opened the text.

It was from Doug, as it turned out.

EUGHN.

The one word message seemed very odd, but there was also something familiar about it. A memory. Something from when her and Doug were younger.

Suddenly, she recognized their code word. EUGHN, the word on her cell phone screen, meant Extremely Urgent Get Here Now!

Get there now?

She jammed the cell phone back into its holder and ran outside to her cruiser, turned the emergency lights on and headed for home. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she was sure that Doug needed her there. Now!