A Baked Ham Read Free Page A

  “Are you
accusing Martha now?   You’re kidding, right?”
    “I don’t know why that’s so hard
to believe.   I’m just as capable of doing it as you are, Moose,” my grandmother
said.   “Why shouldn’t I be a suspect?”
    “Is that really a list that you want to be on, Martha?” he asked her as
though the rest of us weren’t even there.
    “Of course not.   I just don’t want to be taken for granted,
that’s all.”
    Moose just shook his head as he
looked at the sheriff.   “The only alibis
we have are each other.   I’ve got a hunch
that’s not going to be good enough for you, is it?”
    “What about when you first
stormed off?” the sheriff asked.   “Martha, you didn’t leave for at least three minutes after your husband
off, and who knows how long it took you to find him.”
    Martha nodded.   “I suppose our alibis aren’t as good as I’d
hoped they be.   Sorry, but I can’t help
you.   I admit that it took me fifteen minutes
to find Moose back here at the diner.”
    “Martha,” Moose snapped.   “You didn’t have to tell him that.”
    “I want him to know the truth,”
she said.   “A lack of a solid alibi does
not make either one of us guilty of murder, Moose.”
    “Maybe not, but it can’t help
your causes,” I said.
    The sheriff looked at me and
frowned, but at least he’d dropped that bit of nonsense about Greg and me
leaving.   This was our diner, and it was
where we belonged.
    “Are you going to arrest either
one of them right now?” Greg asked.
    “Of course not.”
    “But they’re both on your list of
suspects, aren’t they?” I asked.
    “Victoria, even you’d have to
admit that I’d be a fool not to at least include them,” the sheriff answered.
    Moose surprised me by patting the
sheriff’s arm.   “You would indeed.   Sheriff, nobody here is blaming you for doing
your job, but I’m afraid this is a dead end for your investigation.”
    “Martha said that she was looking
for you,” the sheriff said.   “You never
told me what you were doing.”
    “I was driving around,” Moose
said.   “I hate it when my temper gets the
best of me, and I didn’t want to be around anybody.   After ten minutes, I decided that what I
really needed was a cup of coffee, so I came here and made myself one.”
    “There’s an awful lot of time
that you can’t account for,” the sheriff said.
    “That’s not strictly true.   I can account for every second of it,” Moose
said.   “What I can’t do is offer you any
proof that I’m telling the truth.   I
guess we’re at a stalemate, aren’t we?”
    “For now,” the sheriff said as he
headed for the door.   He hesitated before
he left, though, and turned back to look at my grandparents.   “You two aren’t going out of town anytime
soon, are you?”
    “To be honest with you, we had
thought about going to the fishing cabin tomorrow for a few weeks,” Moose said.
    “Well, I can’t make you, but I’d
appreciate it if you’d both hang around town, at least for now,” Sheriff Croft
said.
    “We can do that, can’t we,
Martha?” he asked his wife.
    “You were the one with a burning
desire to go fishing,” my grandmother said.   “If it were up to me, we’d have stayed here all along.”
    “There you go, Sheriff.   Can I pour you a cup of coffee to go?”
    “Sure, why not,” Sheriff Croft
said, the weight of another murder clearly pounding down on him.   Moose poured him a paper-cup full, and the
sheriff put a dollar on the counter.
    “Don’t worry about it.   It’s on the house,” Moose said.
    “You know me.   I always pay my way as I go.”
    “Suit yourself,” Moose said as he
folded the bill up and tucked it into his shirt pocket.
    After the sheriff was gone, I
looked at my grandfather and asked, “Would you mind explaining what that was
all about?”
    “What are you talking about,
Victoria?”
    “You haven’t been that nice to
the sheriff since you were selling raffle