Page 36 of No Offense

The young deputies stared down at their shoes, their humiliation so complete that Molly almost felt a little sorry for them.

She also realized why John had allowed none of Mrs. Tifton’s friends but herself into the house. Imagine what Meschelle Davies might do with this piece of information. “Deputies Too Busy Accepting Bribes to Catch High School Thief” was only one of the many headlines Molly could imagine in tomorrow’sGazette.

“There were no youths throwing down, sir,” the female deputy had the courage to pipe up and say. “But no one wasoffering free coffee, either. It’s the house alarms, sir. They tend to go off for no reason. Sometimes if the wind blows too strong, they go off. Then we haul ass to get over there, and it’s a false alarm.”

“And was the wind blowing too strong this evening, Deputy Juarez?” John asked in a tone that made Molly thankful she wasn’t Deputy Juarez.

“Well, no, sir,” the deputy responded meekly. “It was a fairly calm evening, weather-wise.”

“Right. Just like I imagine it was fairly calm in the parking lot of the Coffee Cubano. You both wanted to finish your coffees before driving over here to check out what I’m assuming you thought would be another false alarm. But it wasn’t a false alarm, was it?”

Both Swanson and Juarez kept their gaze on the carpet, which, like the couch Molly was sitting on, was pure white, except for several dirty gray footprints that the crime scene techs were measuring, photographing, and tweezing for what Molly assumed were soil samples, though it seemed obvious to her that the dirt had come from Mrs. Tifton’s backyard pool area.

“No, Chief, it wasn’t.” Only Juarez had the courage to reply. “Sorry, Chief.”

“Go write up your reports,” the sheriff said in a stern voice. “And quit calling me Chief.”

Dismissed, the two young deputies hurried away, their heads hanging in shame. John turned his attention back to Mrs. Tifton, who was huddled on the couch beside Molly,sipping a cup of tea, her poodle, Daisy, on her lap. Mrs. Tifton had insisted on making everyone tea, a special herbal blend she’d brought back with her from a yoga trip to India. So far everyone had declined except for Molly, who hadn’t wanted to be impolite.

“So what exactly are we missing here, Mrs. Tifton?” John asked.

“Well, like I told the other officers, I’m not really entirely sure. I know I left my iPad right there.” She touched the low glass coffee table in front of her and Molly, where the tea service sat and where there were several large glossy art books. “And of course now it’s gone. And Norman’s camera—it was a very expensive Leica—it’s gone from the bookshelf over there. And I don’t see my sunglasses. But perhaps I was wearing my sunglasses. Molly, was I wearing my sunglasses? Perhaps they’re in my bag—”

“You were wearing your sunglasses.” Molly laid a gentle hand on the widow’s shoulder. “Remember? You put them on at our table when the sun was in our eyes.”

“Oh, right!” Mrs. Tifton set down her teacup and opened her evening bag, which was on the couch beside her. “Yes, here they are. So he didn’t take my sunglasses. But my iPad and Norman’s Leica are definitely gone. Oh, that’s so upsetting. Norman loved that Leica. You can’t get them like that anymore. It was one of the first digital kind, but pocket-sized. It still worked quite well.”

John nodded and wrote something down in the weatherproof notepad he always seemed to carry, even on nights hewas attending a charity ball. Molly tried not to notice how strong his hands looked, or imagine how those hands might feel on various parts of her body.

Fortunately she was spared from these very unprofessional thoughts by another officer she didn’t recognize—this one an older woman with thick dark hair coiled in a tight bun at the nape of her neck and a different-colored uniform than the others—entering the living room from one of the open French doors. She was carrying a paper bag.

“Chief,” she said. “We might have found something.”

The sheriff snapped his notebook shut. “Now that’s what I like to hear. What have you got, Marguerite?”

John stepped across the room to speak with the officer, whose nametag readSergeant Ruiz. Molly didn’t want to look as if she was eavesdropping, but she also didn’t want to miss a single part of the first criminal investigation in which she’d ever taken part (obviously the search for Baby Aphrodite’s mother didn’t count because she’d already been found and she was clearly not a criminal).

So she asked Mrs. Tifton brightly, “More tea?” and before the old woman could respond, she leaped up to refill her cup, putting herself in a perfect place on the far side of the coffee table to listen to the officers.

“Found it out back,” Sergeant Ruiz was saying in a low voice, opening the paper bag and showing whatever was inside to the sheriff. “It was hanging from some of the bougainvillea along the homeowner’s fence.”

John nodded. “Maybe when he was making a run for it, it got snagged.”

“Would make sense that he’d leave it behind, rather than risk getting caught.”

“But it could be hers.” John nodded at Mrs. Tifton, who’d answered her cell phone (it had been ringing nonstop as news of the break-in spread across the island, and the widow couldn’t be persuaded not to answer it). She was twittering once more about how fortunate it was that she’d taken Daisy with her to the ball, since who knew what that nasty thief might have done to the poor animal if he’d found her there, all alone and defenseless (although Molly had once seen Daisy lunge at a chicken at the library, so she wasn’t entirely sure how defenseless the dog actually was).

Sergeant Ruiz shook her head. “And what, it blew off a wash line? Didn’t see a wash line, and this isn’t really her style. My boy’s got one just like it. This is menswear.”

“One way to find out,” the sheriff said with a shrug, and took the paper bag from her, turning just as Molly was lowering the teapot back onto the coffee table. They almost collided.

She thought she recovered nicely by smiling, hoisting the teapot high, and asking, “Tea, Sheriff?”

He looked at her with a comical expression—comical to her, anyway. His mouth was twisted as if he were trying not to smile—this was a serious situation, after all—but his blue eyes were alight with humor.

“Thank you for the offer, Miss Montgomery, but not right now.” He turned toward the homeowner. “Mrs. Tifton, this was found just now in your backyard. Does it look familiar to you?”

From the paper sack, he withdrew something black, using the pen with which he’d been scribbling in his notepad so as not to taint it with his DNA (or so Molly assumed). It took her a moment to realize that the object was a hoodie.