Jack Beale 00 - Killer Run

door slammed itself shut with a loud jingling of the bell. He grabbed the newspaper, rustled through it until he found the article that he was looking for, and reread it frantically until he saw what he had hoped he wouldn’t see. “If anyone has any information about this crime, please call Lt. Mark Malloy at the Ipswich Police Department.” It went on to list phone numbers, adding that all calls would be kept confidential. The last person he wanted was to see was Lieutenant Malloy.

CHAPTER 70
    SILENCE FILLED THE CAR for the ride home from the Inn. It wasn’t until they were nearly past Dover that the first words were spoken. “Jack, we should go back on Saturday for the funeral.”
    “Sure.”
    “Jack, are you all right?”
    “Yeah. I was just thinking about finding Malcom and wondering, Why him? Why me? Why us?”
    “I know what you mean. But listen, we’ll go to the funeral on Saturday. Do you think we should ask Dave and Patti?”
    “Probably. I can’t imagine Dave wanting to do that, but Patti might.”
    “I’ll call when we get home.”
    * * *
    As soon as they arrived home, Cat greeted them at the door. She had quite a lot to say about having been left outside all day, although she also implied that being fed might earn her forgiveness. Jack went to feed her while Max went to the phone. The light on the answering machine was blinking, but Max ignored it, assuming that it was Patti who had called.
    “Hey Patti … . We just got back … No, I didn’t listen to the machine. I must have known that you had called… . No, Polly wasn’t there. I left off the quilt … We’re going to the funeral on Saturday. You and Dave want to come? … .” There was a long pause. Then her voice changed. When she said, “Stop, say that again,” Jack was all ears.
    He watched her as she finished the call. Then she slowly walked across the room and hung up the phone.
    “Max?”
    She looked at him with a kind of faraway look. “Remember, I told you about this really strange guy who came into the bar yesterday? He had an antiques store down in Massachusetts and he was asking about quilts and seemed interested in our trip up to the Inn?”
    “Sort of.”
    “He came back today. Looking for me.”
    Jack waited for her to continue.
    “Patti talked to him, and he gave her his card to give to me. He said he had some quilts he wanted to show me.”
    “So?”
    “So, you don’t think that sounds strange?”
    Jack shrugged.
    Max went on, ignoring him. “She said she got a real weird feeling about him, like he was after something else. All she told him was that I was off for the day and he gave her his card to give to me. How strange is that?”
    “Pretty strange.”
    The light on the machine was still blinking, so without really thinking, Max hit the Play button, intending to erase Patti’s message now that she had talked to her.
    But the first voice on the machine wasn’t Patti’s. She lifted her finger and listened.
    The message was for Jack. “This is Lieutenant Malloy from the Ipswich Police Department, and I’m looking for Jack Beale.” She stopped the message and looked at Jack with her mouth open in silent surprise.
    Jack had heard, and he was already on his way across the room. Max stared up at him speechless while he pressed the Play button again. The message continued, “I have a few more questions about the incident the other day at the race. Would you please give me a call back at …”
    “Jack,” Max began, but Jack, staring at the machine, signaled her to stop.
    He listened and wrote down the number. Patti’s message began to play. Ignoring it, he hit the Rewind button and listened to Malloy’s message again, double-checking that he had written down the number correctly. Patti’s message followed, and this time they listened to it. There were no other messages, and Jack asked if he could erase Patti’s.
    “I just talked to her, sure,” said Max.
    He hit Erase and then saved the message from Malloy.
    Max couldn’t contain herself any longer. “Jack, what is that all about?”
    “No idea.”
    Max went silent, but he could see that she was full on in conspiracy theory mode.
    “Okay, Jack, listen. We went up to the Inn. We never met Polly’s husband, but she told us he was a runner and was going to run that race. Then Polly gave me the wrong quilt, and she was going to have him pick it up on his way home. He never showed up. You never saw him at the race―at least you didn’t