One Chance: A Thrilling Christian Fiction Mystery Romance by Daniel Patterson

for the information with what she hoped was a poker face. She asked her if someone could come by later and take a statement from her about what she had just said, and then set out to speak with the three other people who had pizza for dinner on Friday night.
    Hard to believe all of this had happened over one weekend.
    The first was a retired widower, Mister Blane Morris. Penelope had grown up knowing Blane. The man had given her sticks of gum when she and Doug were both kids. Blane told Penelope yes, he remembered seeing Doug come in the restaurant at about six that evening, maybe a few minutes later. He had been getting ready to leave when Doug walked in. He added, "As I was leaving, a very rude young man nearly knocked me down on his way in. He seemed to be incensed, powerfully angry. You know how young people get these days."
    Penelope nodded and kept her smile in place even as her insides twisted. Angry young man. Could it be the same guy that Mandy the waitress had seen?
    Blane sucked on his dentures as he continued. "So I kept an eye on him for a minute in case he was planning to rob them, but he went to the last booth in the back and just sat down. So I left."
    Penelope shook the man's hand. "Thank you, sir. How's the leg doing you these days?"
    Blane, in his younger days, had served in the military. He'd loved to tell Penelope stories about those days, and Penelope would sit on the man's porch for hours and listen to him. His leg had been hit with several pieces of shrapnel during World War II and had given him a permanent limp.
    "It pains me during heavy rains. Can always tell when a storm's coming." He shook Penelope's hand. "Think one's coming now, Deputy Chance."
    Penelope couldn't help hearing a double meaning in the old man's words as she shook his hand. Things were building up. And a storm was coming.
    The next two people on her list were a young married couple. Gail and Hank Carpenter remembered Friday evening the same way. They remembered Doug coming into The Pizza Palace, they even remembered Blane Morris leaving and being nearly knocked down by a rude and angry man who went and sat in the back, near them, glaring at Doug. The two of them went to leave a little before seven. And Doug wasn't far behind them in line to pay.
    "We heard about what happened the next day," Hank said, "and we remembered how we had just seen Doug in there. I hope you can put him away for what happened."
    Penelope nodded, keeping her face neutral. Not everyone in town knew about Doug being Penelope's friend, apparently. But either way, the events of this weekend had kept the memory of seeing Doug at The Pizza Palace fresh in their minds, so that helped. They didn't have a description of the angry man, but it backed up Blane and Mandy's story, and both of them did have a good description.
    Of Michael Findley.
    The other side of this coin was a little brighter. She had good confirmation from four different witnesses that Doug was at The Pizza Palace from six until almost seven o'clock. That fit with what Doug had given her as a timeline for that night. Penelope knew exactly where Doug was for the entire end of his night. He was at The Last Chance Tavern, where Penelope had found him after getting the report that their poor friend Pete Lamb had been run down, supposedly by Doug.
    Doug had told her that he'd only had the one beer, with food, by the time he'd left The Pizza Palace, and Mandy the waitress had previously verified that. Doug was in the restaurant for three quarters of an hour and, given his height and weight and tolerance for alcohol, there was no way he could have been drunk when he left. He would definitely be blitzed by the end of the night, but at that point, Doug was still sober by all reports.
    Ricky's Pub, the next place that Doug said he went to after The Pizza Palace, wouldn't be open until a little later, so Penelope decided to knock on the doors of nearby houses. Besides, not even the owner of the bar remembered