Page 75 of Puzzle for Two

“Not that I can repeat in public. He was swearing. Understandably. He tried to run us onto the hillside, to slow us down, I suppose. We nearly turned over. Maybe it would have been better for us if we had. As it was, the car continued to pick up speed. Mr. Beacher tried to use the handbrake, but we hit another curve. I’m not sure if Mr. Beacher clipped the hillside, but he seemed to lose control completely and we headed for the cliff.” He shuddered. “The next thing I knew, I woke up lying in this bed.”

“He didn’t say anything about the condition of the car?” Flint persisted.

Topper looked at him in disbelief. “What do you imagine he would have said? The car was always perfectly maintained.”

“Something like… The brakes aren’t working?”

“That was self-evident.”

Zach said, “You were very lucky, Mr. Topper.”

Topper sniffed. “Yes. Poor Mr. Beacher.”

When Zach and Flint left Topper’s room, they discovered a young uniformed EDS officer, settling herself in the chair next to the doorway. She was so startled to see them, she nearly dropped her coffee cup.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Sorry we startled you,” Flint said. “I’m Flint Carey. This is Zach Davies. We’re private investigators Mr. Beacher hired shortly before his death.”

The officer took their IDs automatically, frowning down at the pieces of plastic. “How did you get in here?”

“The usual way,” Flint said. “We didn’t realize Mr. Topper was supposed to be under guard.”

She turned red, handed their IDs back, and said defensively, “It’s just a precaution. Mr. Topper is witness to a homicide.”

“Not really,” Flint said, and she looked more confused.

Zach sighed. “Sorry if we overstepped. We just needed to verify a couple of things before I check in with Lt. Cameron.”

The officer relaxed. “Lt. Cameron knows you’re here?”

Zach opened his mouth, but Flint said, “Yep. I guess we’ll leave you to it, officer.” He didn’t exactly drag Zach away, but that hand under Zach’s elbow wasn’t about Zach’s stiff knee.

As the elevator doors closed behind them, Zach said, “Alton was driving.”

“It sounds like it.”

“So, he is dead.”

“Probably. Yes.”

Zach expelled a long shaky breath.

Flint glanced at him, said briskly, “That was always the most likely scenario.”

“I guess so.”

Probably. But Zach had been hoping hard for the alternative.

Flint was not one for allowing time to wallow. “Look, the more we learn, the less likely it seems to me that Beacher really believed he was in serious danger.”

“But if Alton was manufacturing the threats—”

“I’m not saying that. Given how things turned out, I think we can assume the threats were real and that Alton’s reasons for coming to you were, all things being relative, legit. But I also think he quickly dismissed them as anything more than threats. I’m guessing he probably convinced himself Rusty Jordan sent them.”

“How do you figure that?”

“The fact that he jumped to the conclusion that Jordan tried to break into his safe. It seems like he did believe that the break-in was real. He didn’t wait for the bodyguard. He didn’t phone the police. He didn’t even phone you. He didn’t suspect a trap. And yet that was an obvious,obviousset up.”

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