Your Chariot Awaits (35 page)

Mr. Findley heaved a big sigh, as if he were bone weary. Or maybe he really was tired. He'd jitterbugged some tricky mental footwork coming up with instant and convincing rebuttals to my accusations.

“But I'd really like to go home now. Unless I'm under arrest?”

“No, you're not under arrest, Mr. Findley. But we'd like you to come into the station tomorrow morning so we can take a formal statement.”

“Of course. Glad to help any way I can. Now, if someone could give me a ride home?”

I felt a big
whoosh
of doubt. Was the flash drive really irrelevant? Mr. Findley's glance at me was more pitying than frightened.
Poor deluded woman
, it plainly said
.
Was it possible the flash drive didn't hold any incriminating information, that it was just copies of Web site work Jerry'd done and had nothing to do with his murder?

More radio squawks, and then the police car, with Mr. Findley inside, pulled onto the paved road. No arrest, no handcuffs, nothing. The second car that had been back in the woods arrived just as the one with Mr. Findley inside was leaving. The three officers got out.

“We can't do any more tonight,” one of them reported. “Too dark and way too much underbrush out there. We'll have to bring in the K-9 unit in the morning and try to track them.”

I couldn't tell them what the gunmen's faces looked like, but I gave as much description as I could about height, weight, and clothing. A discussion with someone by radio confirmed that they wanted the limo towed in, and I was also told to come to the station for a formal statement in the morning.

Fitz arrived just as I walked back to sit in the limo. Wobbled back, more accurately, considering the state of my black heels. One officer checked out Fitz's ID before letting him come over to me.

Fitz gave the ruined windshield and shredded tire a surprised but fleeting glance and wrapped his arms around me. I was grateful for his warmth and strength.

“You okay?” he asked.

I was grateful that his first question was about me, not the
why
of the battered limousine.

“The glass really is bulletproof.” I didn't care what Matt called it. It had gone beyond resisting the bullets; it had stopped them. Bulletproof. Blessedly. Because I knew
I
was not. More now than when the bullets were flying, I realized my vulnerability, how life could have ended in an instant.

“Thank God,” Fitz said.

I knew Fitz meant that in a figurative way, but in the last couple of days I'd acquired a new perspective on God's activities.

“Yes,” I said fervently. “That's what I'm doing. Thanking God.”

“Can you leave?”

“I think I should wait until the tow truck for the limo gets here. Did the officer tell you anything on the phone?”

“Only that you were out here and your vehicle was ‘incapacitated.' I'd say that's something of an understatement.”

I leaned back in his arms. “I've been shot at umpteen times. My limo is a mess. And I've ruined my shoes.”

I held one out to the side to show him and, ridiculously, a tear trickled down my cheek. All that had happened, and I was crying over shoes
.
“I thought you told me sixty was prime time.”

“There can be days like this at any age.” Fitz paused, and we looked at each other, and unexpectedly I felt a smile breaking through the tears. “Well, okay, not exactly like
this.
You know what I mean. Bad-hair-type days.”

“After this I will be grateful if they're only bad hair days.”

“Okay, let's get you home.”

“Fitz, I know who killed Jerry. We were wrong about Elena's husband and Big Daddy Sutherland. Mr. Findley did it. At least he hired the goons who pulled the trigger.”

“Mr. Findley?” Fitz repeated.

It took almost forty-five minutes for the tow truck to arrive, and I used the time to tell Fitz all that had happened, from Moose's disinterment of the flash drive to Mr. Findley's plan, with my poor limousine the innocent victim in tonight's shoot-out.

Then, once more, away went my limousine. Before we left in Fitz's car, one of the officers said, “I talked with Detective Sergeant Molino. He's going to meet you at your house and pick up that flash drive. He thinks it may be important.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Just before we reached Secret View Lane, Fitz said, “I don't think you should stay at the house tonight. With Joella staying at the hospital with the baby, you'd be alone. After the detective comes, we'll go to the boat. You can have one of the guest cabins.”

I was too tired to protest. I didn't want to protest anyway.

DDS MOLINO HADN'T yet arrived when we reached the house. I was just putting the key into the front door lock when Fitz put a restraining hand on my arm.

“Did you leave a light on when you left?” he whispered.

I looked where he was pointing, at a peculiar flicker of faint light showing around the drapes. I couldn't remember about the light, since it hadn't been dark when I left, but I was sure of one thing. I hadn't pulled the drapes shut . . . and they were pulled now!

“I think someone's in there,” Fitz added. “Has that sliding door ever been fixed?”

“Not yet. It's hard to open, but it can be done. It can't be locked.” And, I remembered with a sinking feeling, I'd opened the door earlier when a bird crashed into the glass, and I'd gone out to see if it was okay. And I didn't remember putting the rod brace back in place. . . .

I tried not to panic. Whoever it was, there was a logical solution. We didn't have to rush in like gangbusters.

“The detective is coming. We can wait for him.”

“I don't think so.” The faint light around the edge of the drapes grew fainter still, then disappeared. “I think he's going to escape out the back. Wait here.”

Fitz dashed around the side of the house. Wait here? No way! I dashed after him. A shadowy figure ran across the back-yard. Fitz raced after him. The figure reached the line of cedar trees and bushes at the property line. I heard an
oof
and a curse as Fitz dived in after him.

Thuds. Thumps. Crashes. The two figures stumbled out of the bushes, entwined to make a four-legged monster.

“Fitz, be careful!” I yelled.

A little late for that, with the other guy, bigger and heavier than Fitz, using his weight to force Fitz to the ground. Frantically I looked around for a weapon, some way to help. What? A floppy forsythia branch wouldn't do it. Neither would the daisies growing underneath. But then I stumbled over something . . . the burglar's flashlight!

Big flashlight. Heavy flashlight. No cheap stuff for this top-of-the-line burglar. I picked it up and circled the entwined figures. One was trim-bodied. Fitz. I didn't want to make a mistake and clobber him. The figures wrestled across the lawn, both panting and grunting, Fitz's agility was all that was keeping him from going down. I held the flashlight with both hands, took aim at the one who wasn't Fitz, and whacked with all my strength.

The figure went down. No
oof
this time. It was a silent tumble. Something fell out of his hand.

The flash drive.

Fitz rolled the limp form over and felt the throat. “He's breathing, just knocked out.”

I turned on the flashlight, the strong beam showing no ill effects from being drafted into battle. “It's Mr. Findley.” Still wearing the gray suit, much the worse for wear now. “He came to steal the flash drive.”

Which meant it definitely wasn't irrelevant after all.

I heard a car out front. DDS Molino had arrived. I started to head that direction, but Fitz grabbed me and wrapped his arms around me.

“You pack quite a wallop, lady. I like that.”

“Isn't that what a sidekick is for?”

“I think we can dispense with the sidekick business.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and smiled. “From now on, it's sleuth-'n'-sleuth, partners and equals.”

“No more sleuthing. We've got this killer. I'm retiring.”

38

J
oella set Tricia A. on the sofa and pushed a chair up beside her. At five weeks she shouldn't be able to roll off by herself, but she was one energetic, mind-of-her-own baby. Fitz was in the kitchen, making a new chicken-and-rice dish, trying it out on us before using it for guests on the
Miss Nora.

Mr. Findley was in jail, charged with murder. Seems hiring a killer is as frowned upon as pulling the trigger yourself. He wasn't admitting anything outright yet, but his two goons had been more talkative than Trudy Vandervort's parrot. They'd been picked up the morning after the shoot-out, their location revealed by a K-9 named Ruger. Bright guys. In the dark they'd gotten lost and couldn't find their stashed vehicle.

Their information, plus what was on the flash drive, had nailed Mr. Findley. Plus there was a clincher with the goons. Ballistics tests on one of their guns showed that it had fired the bullet that killed Jerry.

And now I knew what Mr. Findley had done, and why that article in the paper about Fitz and the identity theft had set him off. DDS Molino wasn't confiding in me, of course, but it was all over the news about a big identity-theft ring that had been cracked.

Seems Mr. Findley had been supplying a team of crooks down in California with information from the F&N files. He had everything they needed from insurance applications and records. Names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates, credit-card numbers, even bank account numbers. He was paid for each name, plus a cut of the profits when the names were used. The going rate for a credit-card number was five hundred dollars.

He'd been careful to use out-of-state names only, nothing local, so it wouldn't be connected with F&N here in Vigland. Fitz's information had been stolen when he lived in California and had his house insurance through F&N. Apparently it had shaken Mr. Findley considerably when Fitz's name turned up in the local article. Then when I, the woman who owned the limo where Jerry had been killed, showed up working at F&N again, Mr. Findley was sure I'd been in cahoots with Jerry and knew way too much.

Although Jerry hadn't been in on the scheme, he'd found out about it and used the information to force Mr. Findley to cut him in on the profits and arrange for his new job in San Diego as well. Jerry's computer and CDs were never found, but the incriminating information was all there on the flash drive. Names of people provided to the identity thieves, how Mr. Findley had done it, everything. Jerry had spelled it all out.

“Dinner's on,” Fitz called.

This was a little going-away party, because this was the last night Joella and the baby would be living in my duplex. God had provided. Friends of a couple from church had hired her as a live-in nanny for their two kids, the perfect job for her, because she could keep Tricia A. right with her. And the church was going to help with the medical bills she owed too.

I was glad for her, and she wouldn't be all that far away— just on the other side of Vigland—but I was going to miss having her and Tricia A. right next door.

Though she assured me we'd still see each other at church. Providing . . . ?

Oh yes, I'd be there. I was digging deeper into my discoveries about God and Jesus, begun the night Tricia A. was born.

Elena had showed up for our meeting the night after our adventures with Mr. Findley in the backyard. I could see why she was worried. In her husband's things she'd found a photo of herself and Jerry taken with a telephoto lens. It confirmed to her that Donny had known about her and Jerry and meant he'd probably killed Jerry. I was happy to assure her that Donny was not the killer. The last I heard, they were working things out and moving to Texas for a new start together. I hoped it worked.

The limo sat out in the driveway now. New windshield, new passenger's side window, new wheel and tire, all paid for out of F&N's severance check. Not all the repair work the limo needed, but all I could afford right now. Because there'd been a number of other expenses.

I'd jumped through all the hoops. I'd had the limo's title transferred and proper insurance set up. I'd dealt with the Utilities and Transportation Commission and the Department of Licensing and various county and city departments. I'd worked my way through applications, fees, business licenses, tests, a physical, and an eye exam. I had an advertisement in
The Vigland Tides
and listings with the chamber of commerce, various resorts in the area, and every business connected with weddings.

And now—tada!—I had
this
. I laid the box of freshly printed business cards on the table, and Fitz and Joella gathered beside me to see.

On the back of the card was a list of my services offered, along with my phone number and a post office box number, since Fitz had advised I not use my home address.

“Impressive!” Joella said.

Fitz draped his arms around me. “You're going to make a mint.”