“Thank you.”
“Hardly payment for all the hard work you have put in on my case, but it is something to lessen my debt.”
Max disappeared, and Hope went back to bed. To her surprise, she slept.
She was almost finished with her orders at the bakery, when Detective Robinson called. She didn’t need to hurry, but he was getting ready to question Patton. Hope finished her work and sailed out of the bakery.
“I don’t know how cooperative he’ll be,” Detective Robinson said, as he led Hope to the observation room. “Attorneys know the law, so they can be difficult to question.”
Hope looked through the one-way glass and saw Patton Boney sitting listlessly at the table. He had a small bandage on his head, testimony to whatever Max had done to him the night before. Hope smiled with pride. With any luck, that would teach Patton not to break into people’s houses.
“Hello, Patton,” Detective Robinson said, as he sat. “Want to tell me what happened last night?”
“I have no idea,” Patton said. “I was ambushed.”
“That so? Talk to me.”
“I would think it obvious,” he said. “That woman, Herring, called and asked me to come over. She wanted to talk about her problem with the Clive Thomas murder. I thought it was a bit late, but Castle Park is a small market. I’m always on the hustle. When she asked me to come in through the back door, well, that was odd too. And the kitchen was dark. Then, as I walked in, she hit me over the head.” He pointed to the bandage. “I’m going to sue her for assault.”
“And then what happened?”
“Then, the police showed up, and I was taken to the hospital. You know the rest.”
“Mrs. Herring called you and asked you to come to her house?”
“Yes.”
“On your cell?”
Patton hesitated, and from behind the one-way glass, Hope could see the wheels spinning in his head.
“Your residence doesn’t have a land line,” the detective said. “I checked.”
“Then, it must have been my cell. I’m a bit woozy on that. My head. Or it might have been a text. I would have deleted that.”
“I’m going to give you some facts. Then, I’m going to give you a chance to retell your story.”
Patton’s sleepy eyes opened up a bit more.
“Fact one, the back door was jimmied.”
“She must have done that to make it look like a burglary.”
“Please, just listen.”
Patton nodded.
“You were wearing gloves. You had a flashlight and a small crowbar used to jimmy the door. Mrs. Herring was in her bedroom, talking to the dispatcher the entire time it took for the uniforms to get to her house and find you on the kitchen floor. At no time, did she say your name, although she knows you.”
Detective Robinson tapped the table. “Patton, don’t get yourself in deeper than you are. Tell me again. What happened?”
Patton looked off for a second before he made a fist and hit the table. “All right, I’ll explain, but it was all Clive’s fault.”
Hope frowned. What did Clive have to do with the burglary?
“How so?” Detective Robinson asked.
“Clive and I were partners,” Patton said. “I did some work for him, and he talked me into investing in the Culpepper House. It wasn’t a lot, but it was all I had. He convinced me that he was about to franchise the restaurant. There would be Culpepper Houses throughout the South. He could paint a pretty picture. Only, the franchise thing was all hooey. Once he had my money, he laughed like a hyena. I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t. He said he had this incredible artifact or art object, something that was worth a bundle of money, maybe seven figures. That was hooey too. I wanted the money back that I’d invested in Clive’s stupid restaurant. I’ve had my own difficulties in the last year.”
Hope wondered how the artifact pertained to her.
“Clive was an idiot,” Patton continued. “He couldn’t help but chase the next pretty face. He said he was drunk when he gave the valuable object to a woman. He wouldn’t say who, but after talking to the mayor, I figured he’d given it to the Herring woman. Clive couldn’t stop talking about her. He told me he was drunk when he gave it to her and he promised he would retrieve it. Then our troubles would be over. Then, he died.”
“So, you decided to get the art object yourself.”
“Yeah, I figured it would be a simple job.”
Hope stared into the room where Patton and the detective were sitting. What art object? Then, she remembered.
The elf.
But the elf didn’t look like something precious. Yes, it was old and not the standard elf of TV. What made it so special?
“What’s the art object?” Detective Robinson asked.
“I don’t know,” Patton answered.
“You broke in to steal something you couldn’t recognize?”
“I wasn’t entirely clueless. Clive said it had something to do with Christmas, and it was old. One walk through the house would have been enough.”
Hope watched as Detective Robinson worked the wheels.
“I get it,” Detective Robinson said. “You followed Clive on Christmas Eve. You caught up with him on the porch. You argued. Things got heated. He said something you didn’t like, so you fought. You managed to grab the Christmas lights and wrap the wire around his neck. Then, you choked him to death.”
“No, no, no, I never saw him that night. We talked on the phone. He was half drunk, but he swore he was going to get the thing back.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No, he didn’t. I talked to that Hope woman, and she was clueless. I chatted with Carol Thomas, and she had no idea what I was talking about.”
“If you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“Isn’t it obvious? That Hope woman. She found out about the art object, and she killed him to keep it.”
18
Hope gaped. How in the world could Patton say such an outlandish thing? Hope had known nothing about the object, the elf. As far as she was concerned, it was just some cheap trinket meant to play to her heart, like a stuffed animal from the county fair. Hope listened to the end of the interview, but Patton Boney offered nothing else that Hope found interesting or surprising. She waited in the room for Detective Robinson to join her. She didn’t have to wait long.
“You heard him?” Detective Robinson asked.
“I did,” Hope said. “I had no idea that the old elf Clive gave me was worth a lot of money. In fact, I gave it to Cori to put in her room. It’s old and ugly. I’m not even sure it’s worth anything. If it is, I’ll return it to Carol.”
“I believe you,” he said. “But he makes a case.”
“It would be a case, if I denied getting anything from Clive. Or, if I buried the thing in the backyard so no one would find it. I didn’t, so it’s no case at all.”
“You think Patton killed Clive?”
“I don’t know,” Hope said. “He doesn’t impress me as a murderer. He seems too unorganized and lazy, but people can surprise you. Was there really any reason to kill Clive? I guess it could have happened in a fit of rage, but Patton’s best chance of getting back his money was to keep Clive alive.”