Page 69 of Deathmarch

“Would you be willing to surrender your winter boots for a DNA test?”

“I don’t have winter boots.”

Grambus caught the skepticism on Harper’s face and stuck a foot out from under the table between them. He was wearing blue tartan house slippers, the same pair he’d worn when Harper had visited his apartment.

“You think you’re so damn smart, take a look at this.” The man slipped his bare foot free.

His toes were badly deformed, his big toe swollen to double the normal size.

“I can’t put on boots, not with my joints all twisted from inflammation. Hell, I can’t even wear socks. Got gout in my big toe that’s killin’ me. You don’t want to know what it feels like when somethin’s touchin’ the damn thing.”

Harper stared at the painful-looking, deformed foot. He nodded with sincere sympathy. “Would you sign a release for medical information so I can confirm all this with your doctor?”

“You got eyes, don’t you?” Grambus gave another one of his boy-you’re-a-dumbass looks. Then he waved Harper off. “Hand me the damn paperwork. And get on with finding my money!”

Within ten minutes, the papers were signed, Grambus gone, his name crossed off the suspect list. Harper was going to check with the man’s doctor, but it would be a formality so the piece of paper could be added to Grambus’s file before it was closed.

The victim’s Camry had run into the ditch a mile from Allie’s Chevy. The killer had walked that mile, stashed his gold in Allie’s trunk, then walked back to Broslin. It hadn’t been Grambus. Couldn’t have been, not on those feet.

Out of the four men, Frank Carmelo was in the best shape, the youngest of the suspects at eighty-two. He’d played on the senior baseball team at one point, hadn’t he?

Harper glanced at his schedule. Carmelo was the next interview on the books, right after lunch. The case could be solved before the day was out.

The thought put Harper in a good enough mood to tackle the paperwork piling up on his desk. He worked on that until he reached the point where he would just as soon set the remaining stack on fire than lift another sheet off the top.

As he headed out, Robin turned from her computer, her crystal angel earrings dancing at her ears. “How’s the case coming along?”

“Might be getting close. I don’t suppose you have any feelings about it?”

“Not about murder,” she said in all seriousness. “That’s all dark. The light doesn’t go that way.”

He nodded like he knew what she was talking about. “I’m taking an early lunch break.”

She was nobody’s fool. She smiled at him as she raised an eyebrow. “Time to check in on Allie?”

“I can’t deny or confirm.”

As he stepped through the door, she called after him, “Don’t forget that Mercury is in retrograde!”

He waved a thanks for the warning. Although as much as Harper understood about astrology, Mercury could have been in the third grade and he wouldn’t have known the difference.

Chapter Eighteen

Allie looked up from her revamped show schedule on her phone as a knock sounded on the door. She figured one of the Finnegans was coming to tell her to keep her hands off Harper. And since there was no escaping them, she called out, “Come in.”

“Are we bothering you? Hi. Just wanted to stop by to make sure you were okay. I’mSophie Bing. The captain’s wife. He said you had an accident,” the shorter of the two women entering said,petite with red curly hair and dancing eyes. She looked like what Orphan Annie would look like if she’d grown up into a seriously hot chick.

The other one was more than a head taller, sleek and sophisticated, and would have been listed in her high school yearbook asmost likely to appear on the cover ofVogue.

When she smiled, Allie felt the inexplicable urge to grab a camera.

“Hi,” she said, “I’mWendy. Married to Joe Kessler. He remembers you, and sends wishes for your speedy recovery.”

Joe Kessler. High school football god. That he ended up marrying a model did not surprise Allie. But that he actually remembered Allie? She would have bet her spurs against that.

“Thank you,” she said with a degree of uncertainty, which didn’t stop the women from tumbling forward, depositing half a dozen gift bags on the table.

“Brought some chocolate. Bonbons and hot chocolate, both. Do you like it with marshmallows or without? Doesn’t matter,” Sophie swept her own question aside with her hand. “I grabbed both.”