“That wasn’t the knife that killed Blitz. The police know that.”
Black Jack stepped into the room and put a consoling arm around his wife. “Margo, we can both understand that it’s hard for you to accept what happened, but there’s just too much evidence pointing to Ebony for us to ignore it. Maybe we could if she hadn’t been linked to the robbery, but now”—he shrugged—“there’s just no denying it.”
“The robbery?” I asked. “What about Amy Bradshaw?”
“She’s the one who put two and two together for the police,” Linda said. “She found my engagement ring at a local pawnshop. She even spent her own money to buy it, the poor thing. It was awfully brave of her to come forward like she did, but she knew it was the right thing to do.”
“When did this happen?” I asked. The information didn’t fit together the way it should.
“Amy came to us yesterday,” Black Jack said. “Once we spoke to the police, they tracked down the pawnbroker. He made the ID. Ebony Welles was the woman who pawned my wife’s jewelry.”
Chapter 25
EBONY COULD NOT have been the person to bring in Linda Cannon’s jewelry. The robbery had taken place on Monday night and Ebony had been—Ebony had been missing all day. Before I tried to defend her, I needed to know where she’d gone.
I quickly assessed that it would do more harm than good to admit that I didn’t know Ebony’s alibi for the day of the robbery. What I did know was that Amy Bradshaw had been wearing that engagement ring on Sunday morning, a full day before the Cannon house was broken into. Maybe she hadn’t expected me to notice, but I did. I’d even commented on it. And what had happened days later when I mentioned the engagement? Denial. Which meant one thing: she knew the presence of that ring on her finger on Sunday morning was going to create problems for her.
There was nothing more to be gained from an afternoon at Linda and Black Jack’s house, so I made as polite an exit as I could under the circumstances. Across the street, Grady’s silver sports car sat in the driveway. He would have easily seen my scooter when he parked his car. A friendly hello might have been in order, but all I wanted was to get out of Christopher Robin Crossing and find out what was going on.
It was after five. I hadn’t eaten since my smoothie that morning and I was hungry. And I had to go to the bathroom. Not the best combination when driving a scooter over a road with potholes and ruts. Main Line Road was backed up with cars, and I’d never been the type of scooter driver who was comfortable easing my way up the aisle between two lanes of traffic. On the right, I saw the glowing sign for Hoshiyama Steak House. As soon as I got close enough, I pulled off and parked in the back.
Truth be told, it wasn’t just the possibility of a bathroom that led me there, or the fact that Tak had asked me to stop by. My mind was a loop of problems with no solutions, and the best way think outside of the box was to get outside of the box. In short, I needed unfamiliar surroundings to shake me out of what I already knew.
I’d been a fan of teppanyaki restaurants since my sixth grade graduation. Dad, Ebony, and I had driven into Las Vegas for the day. He’d promised that I could pick any restaurant I wanted for dinner. After a day spent wandering around the strip, I think he expected me to choose McDonald’s or Burger King, but I didn’t. I spotted an old wooden building with a low gabled roof. MORI’S RESTAURANT read the sign over the door. A pretty lady in a pink satin kimono opened the front door and looked out. Her black hair was pulled back in a bun that was secured with sticks. She smiled at us. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. My dad must have noticed, because he asked if I wanted to eat there.
“That’s a restaurant?” I had asked.
“Yes. They make the food in front of you like a show,” he said.
Ebony clinched the deal. “I love their fried rice. Let’s go!”
They were right. I loved every aspect of it, from the outfits on the serving staff to the volcano that the chef made out of a sliced onion. After I moved to Las Vegas, I’d treated myself to lunch at Mori’s every year on my birthday, even when the cost of the meal could buy my groceries for two weeks.