
Truth Tellers begins at Part One HERE.
Previous episode Part Thiry-Five is HERE.
Part Thirty-Six
It was getting late in the afternoon and Finbar was ready to wrap things up. The whole squad was there in the office with him, Dan, Lenny and Charley, and they had that collective feeling that it was just about over. Once the various lab results confirmed their conclusions, and they sure hoped that they did, then it would be “Case Closed.”
“Let’s see how it looks so far,” Finney said to kick it off. “I’ll go down the list and we’ll see if anything sounds amiss.”
Looking around, he continued, “Ok, Tony’s fire started from chlorine crystals falling into a Vaseline jar. When his nephew Willy saw the smoke coming from the kitchen, he jumped up from his whittling and ran in to see what was happening, stumbled and most likely fell on his own knife. He was still there when the fire got him. Same page so far?”
Everybody nodded and he continued, “Meanwhile, Joey was just a couple blocks away flirting with his girlfriend, the Waffle House waitress, and had no idea what was going on. Now just by coincidence, the next day some hungry mouse in Tony’s pawnshop shorts out an extension cord and starts a small fire there. While the mouse ate the wire, Mousey was unaware.” They all groaned at that one, but Finney pressed on.
“It looks like we have an unfortunate set of circumstances, but no murder and no arson.”
“You mean no crimes at all?” Charley piped up.
“That’s right,” Finney responded.
“What about Alderman Winters?” Len asked.
“No telling what he was up to, but his involvement with Spinoza is a police matter, not ours. I’m sending them what we observed and be done with it. Same thing with the burned money. Tony probaby won’t claim it because it would bring too many new questions. And don’t feel sorry for him, he’s still a crook. But we’re done with him.”
“So they were all telling the truth after all?” Danny added.
“Yep,” Finney answered, “Every one of them.”
And with that, he sent everybody home for the night and started out himself. “Finally,” he thinks, “I’m going to make it home in time for dinner for a change.” He wasn’t worried about what Mayrie would be saying this time.
Read the conclusion to Truth Tellers HERE.
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