it from his trailer? Sorry to deflate your balloon, but it’s got to be a prop gun.” I explained what Barry had said about fake guns having an orange plug on the front. Adele got a stormy expression on her face as the three of us looked at the barrel of the gun. But then her face broke out into a triumphant smile. There was nothing orange or otherwise on the barrel of the gun.
Adele started doing a happy dance and singing her own praises as a superdetective.
Dinah and I continued to look at the gun, realizing it might very well be the murder weapon. “It has to have his fingerprints and they can match it up to the bullet casings,” I said. “We did it. We found the evidence to solve the case.”
“We?” Adele said getting back to her usual self-importance.
“Okay, you did, but it was a group plan,” I said.
“Now, what?” Dinah said. “It’s great that we have the evidence, but we can’t do anything with it.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
CHAPTER 26
Neither Dinah nor I knew anything about guns, and even though Adele claimed to be good at the shooting galleries in amusement parks, she was clueless about the real thing. Since we had no way of telling if it was loaded, no one wanted to touch it. Carrying it with the chopstick seemed a little risky because the chopstick was one of those disposable kinds you get at the grocery store and seemed like it might break at any moment.
“The Pinchy-Winchy might work,” I said. Dinah had borrowed the device to pick up some icky stuff in the corner of her garage and still had it. She went off to fetch it.
I had thought of calling Detective Heather, but nixed the idea. Instead of thinking we’d helped her, she might consider our having the gun as tampering with evidence.
“This ought to be better than the chopstick,” I said when Dinah returned with the Pinchy-Winchy. I positioned the open claw over the trigger guard and let the claw hand shut. Carefully, carefully I lifted the Pinchy-Winchy and the gun dangled from it as I held my arms out so that the gun was as far away from me as possible. Slowly, the three of us headed for the greenmobile. Nobody wanted to take over holding the gun, so I got in the backseat and Dinah drove. Adele had gone from freelance detective to CSI expert and kept looking back to make sure I was dangling the gun, so it wouldn’t hit the seat and smudge the prints.
By the time we pulled into my driveway, I was sweating. Dinah and Adele got out first and then I slid out holding the Pinchy-Winchy in front of me with the claw gripping the gun. Dinah led the way to the house, opening the gate to the backyard and then the kitchen door. Adele took up the rear.
“Barry,” I called loudly as soon as I was in the door. I yelled his name again, and said I needed him. I heard footsteps and then he was in the kitchen. He started to take in the scene, but his eye went right to the gun. I guess even though it was hanging upside down, it looked like it was pointed at him and his face went pale.
I realized he was having an automatic reaction that stemmed from his incident with the shoplifter so I quickly moved the Pinchy-Winchy so the gun wasn’t pointing at him anymore. Before I could explain, Adele stepped in. “I found the gun that killed Kelly Donahue.”
“I thought you’d know what to do with it,” I said. Barry’s color had returned and while shaking his head with disbelief, he told me to lay the gun carefully on the floor.
While he moved closer and crouched next to it, Adele poured out her story of how she’d figured it all out and then checked North’s trailer, not mentioning that she’d broken in.
Barry sat back on his heels and asked me to hand him a knife. He used it to pick up the gun without touching it as he continued to examine it. The head shaking started again and this time it was accompanied by a laugh.
“North Adams might have killed Kelly, but he didn’t do it with this. Sorry ladies, but this isn’t the murder weapon. This is Jake Blake’s gun from the show.”
“What?” I said. “I thought you told me fake guns always had an orange plug in them.