Plum Deadly (23 page)

She was going to have to steal her laptop back. She’d have the photos to make her case. Frank probably wouldn’t like that. But what choice did she have?

“Here are the wet towels—what are you doing? Put that down. I’ll call security.” Ron stumbled into the room. “Where are you going? You’re supposed to help me clean up the mess you made.”

“Later.” She ran out of the hotel suite with her laptop. “Sorry about the mess. Use the cardboard to scoop up most of the goo. It’ll help.”

She didn’t feel guilty about leaving him to clean it up. She was pretty sure he’d been the one who broke into the house and made that awful mess she and Aunt Clara had to clean up. She could easily imagine Stan giving Ron the order to get the laptop and the loyal employee doing his master’s bidding.

Her heart was beating fast as she approached the elevators. She expected Ron to run out and tackle her at any moment. She hoped he’d resorted to using the cell phone, explaining the situation to Stan.

Or calling the police.

Stealing her laptop back wouldn’t prove that Stan was guilty of murder—not the way his laptop might have. It proved that he was willing to break into a house and steal something from her, however. Maybe Frank could use that to show the lengths Stan would go to because of the theft.

Maggie knew taking her laptop wasn’t as bad. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but she was in panic mode.

What was done, was done. She had to worry about getting away with it. She hoped Ryan had some ideas on where to go from here. She seemed to be fresh out of them.

Her cell phone buzzed and she jumped. It was a text from Ryan.
Islebs on their way up. Get out now.

Her heart started pumping even faster. She ignored the elevator coming up, possibly with Stan and Jane on it, and ran for the stairs. She could go down a floor and get on another elevator to evade them—and possibly the police who might already have been called.

Once she was in the stairwell at the next floor, she found she couldn’t get back into the hotel without a card key. Maggie
ran down the next flight of stairs and found herself in the same predicament.

A couple opened the door from outside as she was about to run back upstairs. They smiled and held the door for her. She thanked them and got out as quickly as she could, hugging the laptop to her chest.

She texted Ryan that she was in the parking lot.

Hurry.

The police could be there at any moment. Maggie didn’t know if Stan would bother with hotel security. He’d know what it meant for her to have found her laptop in his suite as well as she did. The faster she was caught, the faster the possible damage to his reputation would be averted. If she had a chance to turn it in, explain the situation, Stan’s goose was cooked.

“You got it?” Ryan ran out of the hotel and found her at his car. “I don’t mean to sound astonished, but I am. I wasn’t sure if the plan would work.”

“It worked. Not exactly like I thought it would. But it worked. Let’s get out of here.”

They got in the Honda and Ryan left the parking lot, heading for Aunt Clara’s house.

“We can’t go back to my house,” she said. “We have to take this right to Frank. Once Stan finds out it’s missing, he’s going to either come after it or call the police.”

“He’ll have to figure out it’s missing first, right?” He smiled at her. “Right?”

“Ron saw me leave with it. I couldn’t help it.”

His smile rapidly turned to a frown. “You didn’t mention
that part. Maybe you should turn it on and let’s take a look at it first.”

“We don’t need to. This isn’t Stan’s laptop. This is my stolen laptop, the one that Aunt Clara bought me at the thrift store. It was in his hotel suite. You know what that means.”

“I know what I hope it means,” Ryan said. “This could go either way. He took it from you and you stole it back. You’re right. Let’s take it to Frank and see what he has to say about it. I hope it doesn’t involve both of us going to jail.”

They found out Frank was off duty when they got to the police station. Ryan managed to get his address from the desk sergeant who was an old friend of his. He didn’t tell him why he needed it and the sergeant didn’t ask. He’d done favors for Ryan before and Ryan had reciprocated.

“Did you ask him if the police had been dispatched to the hotel?” Maggie asked when he got back in the car.

“No. That would be asking him to investigate
if
that had happened. In order to ask him that question, I’d have to tell him why I was asking. We don’t need to do that right now. Let’s get this to Frank and hope he sees our side of the story.”

Maggie wasn’t sure if she agreed with that. She wanted to know what was going on. She went along with it anyway, assuming that Ryan had a lot more experience dealing with the police than she did.

It struck her that he’d said
our side of the story
. He was putting it all on the line, even though he didn’t have to.

“Thanks for your help.” She touched his hand on the
steering wheel. “I hope I can make this up to you later when things quiet down. I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

Ryan smiled and took her hand in his. “You’re welcome. I wouldn’t have missed any of it.”

She still clutched her laptop to her as though someone was about to rip it out of her hands. Her heart was racing and her head hurt. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of work. Ryan seemed as cool and calm as though he did this every day. He didn’t even seem nervous.

They jumped out of the Honda when they got to the address the sergeant had given Ryan. It was a squat, brick apartment building, slightly out of range of student housing for the university. Lucky for them, last names were listed on the mailboxes inside the doorway.

Maggie buzzed Frank’s apartment, hoping he wasn’t out for the night.

“Yeah. Who is it?” His gravelly voice came out clearly over the intercom.

“It’s Maggie Grady. I need to talk to you right away.”

“I’m not on duty right now. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, I don’t think it can. Please. I need to see you.” Maggie glanced behind them, even though there were no sirens coming up the street. She could feel the police in hot pursuit.

“Okay. Fine. Let me put some clothes on. I’ll come down to you.”

She and Ryan stood in the shadows of a large fir tree, waiting.

“Are you
sure
it’s your laptop?” A little doubt had crept into Ryan’s voice. “They kind of look alike, you know?”

“It’s absolutely mine. I can’t believe Stan stole it from me. What was he thinking?”

“Maggie, someone murdered Lou, possibly to keep him quiet about a large amount of money that had been stolen from a multinational bank. It’s the stuff movies and novels are made of. What’s a little breaking and entering?”

“I suppose that’s true.”

The light came on in the foyer of the building. Frank, wearing jeans and a partially buttoned blue shirt, opened the door for them. His hair was almost standing on end and he smelled like pizza.

Maggie remembered that his wife was out of town and his mother-in-law had his kids some of the time. She shuddered to think what his wife would come home to.

A distant police siren reminded them that time was short. She and Ryan scooted into the foyer quickly.

Maggie hardly made it through the door before spilling the whole story. It all came out in one long breath. Frank listened without comment.

When she was finished, he groaned. “Are you seriously here to tell me you took a laptop from Stan Isleb’s hotel room?”

“It’s mine,” she tried to explain.

“I like you, Maggie. Why would you want to put me in a spot like this? I can’t look the other way. Even if he took it from you first, you’re not entitled to steal it back. You should’ve called the police.”

“It’s
my
laptop,” she repeated, bewildered by his misunderstanding.
“Don’t you see what this means? He needed it to find out what was going on. He wanted to protect himself, maybe enough to have killed Lou.”

“I get it, but . . .” He paused and seemed to let the idea roll around in his head. “Are you sure about this?”

She opened the battered laptop and showed him the butterfly sticker. “Mrs. Conner’s granddaughter gave me this sticker one day at the pie shop.”

Frank took it one step further. He had her turn it on as he watched. Her familiarity with the device was obvious. It was very clear that the laptop belonged to her. She knew the password for it and the emails were coming to her name.

“Let’s think about this for a minute.” Frank took the laptop, closing it and sitting on the steps. “I think I need some coffee. I must still be asleep in front of the TV because this is starting to make sense to me. Let me get my shoes and we’ll talk about it over a cup.”

Since the pie shop was closed, they drank coffee at Biscuitland. Drinking coffee here seemed to have become some kind of terrible ritual.

There was only one other person in the place and employees were mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms. The smell of Pine-Sol didn’t add anything to help the flavor of the coffee.

Maggie watched Frank butter a biscuit that looked a little stale. She and Ryan were too nervous to eat anything.

“So, let me get this straight. You pretended to be delivering pies so you could get into the Islebs’ hotel room and steal the laptop that he stole from you.” Frank summarized after he’d had a few bites of his biscuit and sips of coffee.

“Well, I was going to take a look at Stan’s laptop. I wanted to see his calendar so we’d know for sure that he was in Durham before Lou died. Ryan and I had some information that Stan was here. Then I saw my laptop and I took it.”

Frank covered his ears with his hands. “Please, don’t confess to anything else. It’s bad enough that you took this laptop.”

“But it’s mine. He shouldn’t have had it.”

“I know. I know.” His cell phone rang and he answered it, nodding and saying okay a few times. When he turned it off, he said, “Looks like Stan Isleb is already at the station waiting to press charges against you for breaking and entering and who knows what else, Maggie.”

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Ryan said. “She didn’t break into the hotel room. Isleb’s assistant let her in. He’s trying to cover up his mistake.”

“There’s something we can do.” Frank grunted as he got up from the table. “We have to give it back and tell Isleb you’re sorry it happened.”

“Give it back?” Maggie demanded. “But—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We give it back. You apologize with a pretty, but dumb smile, and make up some BS about taking it.”

“What about Stan lying about how long he’s been in Durham?” she asked. “Why don’t we get to ask him about that?”

“I didn’t say we weren’t going to ask him about that,” Frank said. “First we get them to drop charges against you. You drop any idea of charges against him for stealing it in the first place. Then we ask important questions. Get it?”

Maggie agreed, even though she didn’t get it. There was no sense of wrongdoing on her part. Stan had broken into Aunt Clara’s house and stolen her laptop. She’d taken it back.

“He has a plan,” Ryan assured her as they followed Frank to the station. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she agreed with that. It hadn’t been so long ago that Frank had questioned her because he thought she’d killed Lou. That wasn’t particularly confidence inspiring.

It became even more debatable when they’d reached the station and saw Stan and a red-faced Ron waiting there. Maggie could imagine that he’d received a stern talking-to from his employer. She’d known assistants at the bank who’d been dismissed for less. She felt sorry for Ron. She didn’t care. She was sticking to her story.

Frank herded all of them into his office. There were only two chairs in front of the desk—Stan and Maggie sat down.

“Okay. I want to hear from Maggie first, and then we’ll get the other two stories.” Frank sat down behind his desk. “You’ll each get a turn so please don’t interrupt.”

Maggie took a deep breath and explained again what had happened at the hotel. She left out the part about wanting to see Stan’s laptop. There was no point in muddying the water. Frank had made that clear.

“Okay, Ron. You were there too,” Frank said when she’d finished. “You’re up next.”

Ron drew a deep breath and glanced at his employer before speaking. “I walked into the room as Ms. Grady had
picked the lock on the door and was walking in pretending to deliver pie—”

“There’s nothing in the report about the lock being tampered with,” Frank said, interrupting.

“I didn’t really see what she did,” Ron admitted. “She was standing there suspiciously. The door was locked the last time I’d checked it. She tried to convince me that Mr. and Mrs. Isleb had sent her to the hotel with pies. I knew something was wrong. They don’t indulge in sweets very often and then only the first quality.”

“Watch it,” Maggie warned. “Our pies are as good as anyone’s. Better than most.”

Ron ignored her. “I knew something wasn’t right. I went along to see what game she was playing. As I went to get money for her from the petty cash reserve, she dropped both pies on the floor, snatched the laptop, and ran out of the room. She left me to clean up chocolate cream pie from the carpet.”

“Do you know who owns that laptop, sir?” Frank asked him.

Ron looked at Stan again. “The bank, I suppose.”

“You brought it with you from New York?”

“No, sir. We—I—uh, appropriated it. I, uh, saw Ms. Grady with it at the pie shop and knew it didn’t belong to her. It’s standard issue from the bank to its employees. She was stripped of all bank-related paraphernalia and shouldn’t have had it. She signed a waiver so the bank wouldn’t prosecute her.”

“You broke into her aunt’s home, at your employer’s behest,
and took it?” Frank stared at him calmly. “Is that right?”

Stan abruptly sat forward in his chair, as though he couldn’t stand anymore. “If I may explain—”

“Okay. Let’s say it’s your turn, Mr. Isleb. Explain how you came to have this laptop in your possession.”