it. Wade owed him money.”
Maddy whistled. “You’re kidding me, right? Was Wade really that stupid?”
“So you’ve heard of him?”
Maddy nodded. “Bob told me about him a few months ago. He was going to represent the man in a civil suit, but the case was suddenly dropped at the last second, and Art tried to get out of paying him the full amount he owed. This from a guy with illegal loans out all over our part of North Carolina, and who knows what else he’s into. Bob said that Art has never been formally arrested, but he’s come awfully close a few times.”
“He sounds like a real prince,” I said. “I can’t wait to talk to him.”
“Hang on a second, Eleanor. Are you serious? We’re going to question him about Wade’s murder?”
I glanced at my sister. “We can’t really be that choosy about our suspects, can we?” I thought about it a second, then added, “Maybe we’ll see if Bob will tag along with us when we talk to him. Do you think he’d do it?”
“For me? I think so,” Maddy said. Bob had a never-ending crush on Maddy, and she wasn’t beyond taking advantage of it when it suited her.
She looked out the front windshield, and then she asked, “Hey, I don’t mean to be nosy, but where are we going?”
“I thought we might have a chat with Wade’s neighbors to see if they noticed anything odd over the last few nights.”
“He was killed at the Slice,” Maddy reminded me, as if I needed that particular fact refreshed in my mind.
“Trust me, I didn’t forget,” I said. “But if Wade’s neighbors are anything like mine, someone might have seen something.”
“What are we going to do, just start ringing doorbells?”
I grinned. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
We pulled up in front of Wade’s place, and I reached in back for something I’d brought from the house.
“A clipboard?” Maddy asked when she saw me bring it forward. “You’re kidding, right?”
“This is just to get a foot in the door,” I said.
“So, what are we doing, getting petitions to banish the letter Q from the English language, or are we trying to free Willy’s little brother?”
“Nothing as dramatic as that,” I said. “We’re going to circulate a petition to create a Neighborhood Watch group in the area. That should give us a perfect segue into asking about Wade, and talking about what might have led to his murder. Are you in?”
“Have I ever said no to you?” she asked.
“More times than I can count,” I said.
“Don’t be so nitpicky,” Maddy said. “It’s unbecoming.” We got out of the car when we neared his place, and as we started for Wade’s closest neighbor, my sister added, “Actually, this is pretty good. I’m impressed with your imagination, Eleanor.”
“I was trying to think about what might work to get us the answers we need, and I kept coming back to this.”
Before we could get to the first front door, Maddy said, “Let me see the clipboard before we ring the bell.”
I had a blank sheet of paper under the clip, and a pen hung down from a string attached to the back. Maddy scrawled a few things on the paper, and then handed it back to me. “There, that’s perfect.”
I saw that she’d headed the paper Petition for Neighborhood Watch and she’d even added a few signatures as well. Below hers, Maddy had scrawled three names: one looked like Abraham Lincoln, one appeared to be Jesse James, and the third could be interpreted as Kevin Hurley.
I started to scratch out the police chief’s name when Maddy asked, “What are you doing?”
“I doubt Kevin would appreciate us forging his signature.”
She studied it a second, and then with a few slashes from her pen, it was hard to see what name was written there. “I think it’s a mistake, but I’ve made it more unrecognizable now.”
“Thanks,” I said. My finger was poised over the doorbell when I asked, “Do you want to do the talking, or should
Anne Perry
Susan Carol McCarthy
Richard K. Morgan
Cecilia London
Fran Baker
PAUL LEPPIN
Bernadette Marie
Iris Johansen
Ceri Grenelle
Glynn S. Lunney