Chapter 28
“DO YOU HAVE anything else for me?” Detective Nichols asked.
I thought over the conversation with Amy. It had filled in a lot of blanks for me, but it wasn’t new information to the detective. “You’re holding the wrong person,” I finally said.
“I’ll take that as a no. Good night, Ms. Tamblyn.”
She hung up first. I set my phone down and laid Ebony’s necklace on the sheet of paper marked MEDALLION. That left the money and the trench coat.
The trench coat equaled Grady. What else did I know about him? He lived close enough to Blitz’s house that he could have gotten in to steal. He even could have used their friendship to gain entry without raising suspicion. I’d heard that both he and Blitz were big practical jokers. Had this started out as a joke? Steal a piece of jewelry and hock it—and then sit back and watch while the family freaks out? I didn’t understand the kind of games that these people would play, but as far as theories went, it felt thin.
And then there was the money. Dig had found it in an envelope in Ebony’s car, and the envelope had blood on it. That meant the envelope had been on Blitz when he was killed and somebody took it and put it in Ebony’s car. When? And was the plan all along to frame Ebony, or had her presence in the kitchen made her the easiest decoy?
Volunteering that Ebony had had $20,000 from Blitz after he was murdered would have raised a lot of questions. Some people might have claimed it was her motive. After Dig found it in her car, she must have moved the cash to a blank envelope. Maybe she was going to put it in the bank. Maybe she was going to hide it in her house. Maybe she was going to give it back to the Cannons. But she couldn’t do any of those things. Not while under suspicion.
But the money still didn’t make sense. Why had Blitz been carrying so much money at the costume party? His own costume party? Either it was the money he intended to pay Ebony with or he was planning on using it to pay someone off. But for what? Ransom?
Maybe Amy was lying about how she came to be in possession of the ring. Maybe she’d been the one to steal it all along. And maybe, just maybe, she demanded money in exchange for its return.
Blitz liked to play the joker, the leader of the pack of prep school pretty boys, but I’d learned enough about him to know that under that fa?ade was a guy who had been forever changed the day his real dad died. Sure, he had money to spare, but the one thing he couldn’t buy was the family he once had. That ring would have meant something to him, more than what it was worth. If someone stole it, he’d get it back, regardless of the price.
I thought it through. I had to follow the money. Blitz had the money at the party but it ended up in Ebony’s car. There’d been blood on the envelope, which told me the killer had moved the envelope from Blitz to the Cadillac. Whatever Blitz had planned to do with that money didn’t matter. Someone had used it as a diversion.
I picked up the phone and cued up redial. Would the detective believe me if I called her again so soon? Would she even take the call? I set the phone down. The last thing I needed was to annoy her while she was pushing to arrest Ebony. I didn’t know what would happen if a judge signed off on the warrant, but if a warrant was issued, I’d annoy the detective plenty.
I pushed concerns about Ebony aside to focus on getting the place ready for my dad to come home. The combination of Soot and Ivory running loose was like having to clean up after a pair of five-year-olds who’d been allowed access to a playground. Pillows had been shoved from the sofa thanks to pushy paws, and the bedspreads had been tugged off center thanks to sharp kitty claws. Litter had been tracked a few feet from the litter box, and Ivory had left a little surprise on the kitchen floor. Toys were strewn about, like the discovery of a new one meant ignoring the last. I walked from room to room, peeking under chairs and tables, rounding them up. Both animals lay in the middle of my bed, two feet apart. Soot’s head was propped on his paw. Ivory was upside down with his paws in the air. Neither had a care in the world.
I woke up Ivory with a gentle stroke of the fur and he rolled over and yipped.
“Outside,” I said. “No more surprises in the kitchen.” I clipped a leash onto his collar and we went downstairs and out back. He delivered both number one and number two almost immediately, and then hopped around my ankles like he was ten pounds lighter.
Back inside and upstairs, I dusted, ran the vacuum, Windexed mirrors, and mopped in the kitchen. Three bags of garbage and one overflowing bin of recycling were lined up by the stairs. I carried them downstairs one by one and dragged them to the curb. By the time the house was done, it was after midnight. My mind was losing focus and my body ached with exhaustion.