“I’m never doing another thing for them as long as I live. Call Helen will you, please? I’d like to get this worked out so I can get the ideas formed.”
“Where’s the project?’
“I don’t know, yet. That’s the fun part.” She checked her watch. The library would be closing for lunch in an hour. “I gotta go. Tell me what you discuss.”
“Ah, Summer…”
“They aren’t paying for it, J. I want to do it for the town. It’s my home.”
The silence stretched on the line. “Okay, but only this once.”
“I have two places I call home. You already have a painting of mine over your mantel. Let me do this one. Now get on a plane to Europe to visit your mother and Merry Christmas.”
“Bah humbug. I’ll talk to you soon.”
She tossed her phone onto the seat and drove the route to the library. “And so it begins,” she whispered.
The twinkling lights of town agreed.
&&&&&&&&&&
Tom had seen guilt written on too many teenagers’ expressions not to recognize it in Mianna Devlin’s brown eyes.
“What did you do?”
She jerked her shoulders back, flipped her long ponytail in a practiced move, and scowled at him. “I did nothing.”
He frowned, not happy with the answer. “What are you doing?”
“Forensics study. I’m taking a class.”
“You’re fourteen.”
“Yes, duh. Online college.”
Well, shoot. Tom rubbed his forehead, not even sure where to start. If he asked her what she’d found, he’d encourage her. If he didn’t, she’d sneak around and do it anyway.
She pointed at the ground. “There’s footprints. The person wasn’t tall enough or strong enough to heft the figure over his or her shoulder so Santa got dragged behind Slade’s to the alley of Hickory Street. I’m guessing it weighed sixty pounds because Misty Slade helped her dad move it into place, and she guessed it was as heavy as some of the boxes in their last shipment.”
She moved a bit further away from him and pointed. “I also tracked the marks on the ground, but they disappeared around the dumpsters by Lynn’s Fibers because it’s paved there. Don’t worry I didn’t step on the footprints or touch anything. I checked the street on the other side, but the prints and drag marks don’t continue. Could be they met with someone and that person was big enough to lift it off the ground.”
She finally ran out of breath, and if she hadn’t been fourteen, he’d have complimented her on her tracking. Debating, he examined what she’d done and couldn’t find fault. “Good job on this, Mia, but it’s a police case and, from this point forward, Detective Vogel and I will do the footwork.”
“But why? I can help.”
“I have no doubt. But we don’t know who took the Santa and why. If you’re right and this person met someone else, we have no information about that suspect. Your family won’t be happy if something happens to you.”
“Okay, but one more thing. I took a picture of the shoeprint and narrowed the shoe to one. It’s a Hoka Men’s Mach X3. Size nine. The depths of the shoeprint will let you estimate his weight.” Her hopeful eyes killed him.
“Excellent work. I’ll pass the info on to Detective Vogel. Do you have a way home?”
“Aw, come on. I can help.”
“Nothing to do right now but check security footage and that needs a badge. Do you have one?”
Her mouth collapsed into a pout. “No, I don’t.”
“Can I give you a ride home?”
