The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer by Livia J. Washburn Page B

just talkin’ about what the chief might think.”
    â€œMy guess is that Allyson has an alibi,” Phyllis said. “Don’t you, dear?”
    â€œAlly was with several friends of ours until after the parade had started,” Nate said when Allyson didn’t speak up. “They can vouch for her whereabouts the whole time.”
    â€œBut you weren’t there, were you?”
    Nate sighed and said, “I went up to my office for a few minutes. It’s on the second floor of one of the buildings right there in the square. I still had all those documents Holbrook gave me from the trip out to the ranch earlier in the day. I wanted to drop them off. By the time I got back to where Ally and our friends were on the courthouse lawn, all the commotion had broken out. We could tell something was wrong withher dad’s carriage, so we got down there as fast as we could, and then we found out . . .”
    He couldn’t go on, but there was no need to. They all knew what he and Allyson had found: Barney McCrory had been murdered.
    â€œYou explained all this to the chief, too?” Phyllis asked.
    â€œYeah. Like I said, we figured it was best just to tell the truth. But then we got to thinking about how it might look.”
    They were the ones who’d needed Jimmy D’Angelo there to represent them, Phyllis thought. She asked, “Did Chief Whitmire advise you of your rights before he questioned you?”
    â€œI . . . I think so,” Nate said. “I’m pretty sure he did. I didn’t think anything about it at the time. We were still so upset about Barney.”
    Phyllis was confident that Whitmire had followed proper procedure, and he would have the two of them waiving counsel on tape, too.
    Sam was frowning in thought. He asked, “You said your office is on the square, Nate?”
    â€œYeah. On the second floor of the Cranmoor Building.”
    â€œThat’s on the northeast side of the square, isn’t it?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    Phyllis said, “You’re thinking about that flash you saw, aren’t you, Sam?”
    â€œYeah,” he admitted. He sounded like he didn’t want to take the next step in what he was thinking.
    It was unavoidable, though. Phyllis asked, “It came from that part of the square, didn’t it?”
    For several seconds, Sam didn’t answer. Then he said, “Yeah, it did. And it was up high enough that it could havecome from a second-floor window, too. That’s why I thought it was one of the lights strung up on a building.”
    Allyson let out a new wail of dismay.
    Nate’s face was set in grim lines as he tried to comfort her. He said, “After Chief Whitmire let us leave, we sat in the car and talked about it, and that’s when Allyson started worrying. We knew you and Mrs. Newsom were there, Coach, and Ally said the two of you solved crimes or something like that. I remembered reading about that, too. She said maybe you could help us.”
    â€œBy findin’ out who really killed Barney, you mean.”
    â€œIsn’t that the best way to clear my name?”
    â€œIt is,” Phyllis said, “and it’s the only way to make sure a cloud of suspicion doesn’t hang over you from now on, even if the police can’t make a case against you.”
    â€œCould we, like . . . hire you?”
    Sam started to speak up, but Phyllis said, “No.” She looked at him and added, “We’re not private detectives, Sam.” She turned back to Nate and Allyson. “But you can hire a lawyer we know named Jimmy D’Angelo. If the police do try to charge you with anything, he can help you. And we can help Mr. D’Angelo.”
    â€œWell, it’s kind of the same thing, seems like, but if that’s the way you want to do it . . .”
    â€œFor right now it’s the best way to proceed.”
    â€œAll right.