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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

He shakes his head. “I had this great plan to record the exchange so I would have proof she was blackmailing me if it ever came to that, but Jessica is smart. She patted me down, found the phone, and said she was keeping it. It was her insurance if I ever tried to prove she was blackmailing me.”

“And what, you just left and then someone came and strangled her?”

“Yep and they took the two hundred thousand dollars with them.”

…

The President drops me off five blocks from my house at 3:50 a.m.

I open the door and ask, “So if you didn't kill her, then who did?”

He had no idea.

:11

I have no idea if the Clemens moved back. If they have, I will know in the next thirty seconds.

I pick up a rock from a nearby garden and weigh it in my hand. It has some heft, maybe three pounds. It will work.

My plan is to smash the lock on the sliding glass door and hope it opens. I raise the rock above my head.

Meow.

I look down.

I decided to bring Lassie along for my B & E encore, hoping he might be able to sniff out something the cops had missed.

“I know it’s a stupid idea, but how else are we going to get in?”

Meow.

“Really?”

Meow.

“Well, why didn’t you say something earlier?”

He shrugs, then leads me to a flower pot at the back edge of the porch. The flowers are long dead, having not been watered in two weeks, and the soil is filled with small crusty leaves. I dig my hand in the soil and feel around, then hit pay dirt. I pull out a key.

“Good job, Watson.”

Meow.

“No, I’m Sherlock.”

Ten seconds later, we are inside.

It is 3:10 a.m.

The TV remote is in the same place I last saw it, and I decide the Clemens are still tanning their hides in the Florida sun. I wonder what their plans are for the estate. And I also wonder if they believe in ghosts. Ten to one, the house would be on the market within the year. Virginia real estate prices were on the rise, some were even throwing out words like “seller’s market,” but I’d be surprised if the Clemens get sixty percent of their asking price.

As for the cops, if they’d moved stuff around, they’d put it back in relatively the same fashion as they’d found it.

I head into the kitchen and I grab myself a couple string cheeses from the fridge. Lassie springs onto the counter and begins clawing at one of the cabinets. I open it and find some little treats. I feed him a couple. He gobbles them down.

“Dude, you didn’t even chew it.”

Meow.

“You’re gonna spoil your appetite.”

Meow.