Raspberry Ripple Murder by Abby Byne

Author:Abby Byne [Byne, Abby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-27T22:00:00+00:00

Within hours, the police were back at the bakery doing what they should have done to begin with, which was taking a much closer look around. Stan called Bitsie to let her know. His old chief had given him a heads-up when Stan had called in to see if there had been any progress on locating Monty.

“It’s officially a homicide investigation now,” said Stan.

“What brought them to that conclusion?” Bitsie asked.

“I bugged them about for one thing,” said Stan. “They took a look at the tape from the surveillance cameras on that ATM three blocks down from the bakery and what they saw—I should say, who they saw—was very interesting.”

“Who did they see?”

“According to the chief, there was an unusual volume of traffic past there for it being two in the morning—the cameras caught Monty Burge in front of the ATM.“

“What was Monty doing?”

“That camera only captures a small section of the street, but shortly after two o’clock in the morning, a woman driving a large red pickup pulls up to the curb. She gets out. She doesn’t go to the ATM, though. She walks out of the frame and doesn’t come back to the truck for almost forty-five minutes. The camera isn’t angled properly to see the license plate, and the woman is wearing a hoodie, so you can’t see her face real well, but going on your description of Marco’s ex-girlfriend, it could be her.”

“What about Monty Burge?”

“One of the officers who viewed the tape has arrested Monty twice before. He identified Monty right away. Monty’s only been out of prison for a little over a year, but he’s had a lot of minor run-ins with the law since he’d been out. I don’t know that anyone would be willing to testify under oath that they’re 100% sure it’s him, but yeah, they’re pretty sure.”

“So, when does Monty show up?”

“About five minutes after the woman walks away, Monty pulls up behind the red truck. He’s driving a black sedan. He doesn’t get out right away. He just sits there in the car for about ten minutes, then he abruptly gets out of the car and hurries away.”

“Did the camera catch either of them coming back?”

“Yeah. Monty Burge comes back first. He’s running. He jumps in his car and speeds away. Clips a fire hydrant with his front bumper on his way out but doesn’t bust it. I checked that out, and, sure enough, there’s a bit of black paint on the fire hydrant in front of the ATM.”

“When does Monty come back?”

“Around a quarter to three.”

“What about the woman?” asked Bitsie.

“It’s a few minutes after Monty peels out that she comes back, and she’s taking her own sweet time. She saunters up, smoking a cigarette. In fact, she’s leaning against her truck and finishes that one off before she lights up a second cigarette. She’s there standing by the truck until well after three.”

“By that time, Hector and Anabel had already discovered Marco’s body, and the police were on their way,” Bitsie said.

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