the scene—which turned out to be seven minutes, John explained.
“Seven minutes?” Molly repeated, throwing an incredulous glance in John’s direction.
But he ignored her. He was busy staring at his deputies—not the crime scene techs, who were busy dusting the door handle for prints, or taking photos of what they believed to be the thief’s footprints in the pile of Mrs. Tifton’s recently vacuumed carpet—a thin young blond woman and an equally thin young man, who’d apparently been first to arrive.
“There were a couple of youths throwing down in the parking lot over at the Coffee Cubano, Chief,” whined the male deputy, whose badge had the name Swanson printed on it. “It took us a little while to get it under control and get over here.”
“Youths throwing down at the Coffee Cubano?” The sheriff raised a single dark eyebrow. “Or was Carmelita giving away free con leches again?”
The young deputies stared down at their shoes, their humiliation so complete that Molly almost felt a little sorry for them.
She also realized why John had allowed none of Mrs. Tifton’s friends but herself into the house. Imagine what Meschelle Davies might do with this piece of information. “Deputies Too Busy Accepting Bribes to Catch High School Thief” was only one of the many headlines Molly could imagine in tomorrow’s Gazette.
“There were no youths throwing down, sir,” the female deputy had the courage to pipe up and say. “But no one was offering free coffee, either. It’s the house alarms, sir. They tend to go off for no reason. Sometimes if the wind blows too strong, they go off. Then we haul ass to get over there, and it’s a false alarm.”
“And was the wind blowing too strong this evening, Deputy Juarez?” John asked in a tone that made Molly thankful she wasn’t Deputy Juarez.
“Well, no, sir,” the deputy responded meekly. “It was a fairly calm evening, weather-wise.”
“Right. Just like I imagine it was fairly calm in the parking lot of the Coffee Cubano. You both wanted to finish your coffees before driving over here to check out what I’m assuming you thought would be another false alarm. But it wasn’t a false alarm, was it?”
Both Swanson and Juarez kept their gaze on the carpet, which, like the couch Molly was sitting on, was pure white, except for several dirty gray footprints that the crime scene techs were measuring, photographing, and tweezing for what Molly assumed were soil samples, though it seemed obvious to her that the dirt had come from Mrs. Tifton’s backyard pool area.
“No, Chief, it wasn’t.” Only Juarez had the courage to reply. “Sorry, Chief.”
“Go write up your reports,” the sheriff said in a stern voice. “And quit calling me Chief.”
Dismissed, the two young deputies hurried away, their heads hanging in shame. John turned his attention back to Mrs. Tifton, who was huddled on the couch beside Molly, sipping a cup of tea, her poodle, Daisy, on her lap. Mrs. Tifton had insisted on making everyone tea, a special herbal blend she’d brought back with her from a yoga trip to India. So far everyone had declined except for Molly, who hadn’t wanted to be impolite.
“So what exactly are we missing here, Mrs. Tifton?” John asked.
“Well, like I told the other officers, I’m not really entirely sure. I know I left my iPad right there.” She touched the low glass coffee table in front of her and Molly, where the tea service sat and where there were several large glossy art books. “And of course now it’s gone. And Norman’s camera—it was a very expensive Leica—it’s gone from the bookshelf over there. And I don’t see my sunglasses. But perhaps I was wearing my sunglasses. Molly, was I wearing my sunglasses? Perhaps they’re in my bag—”
“You were wearing your sunglasses.” Molly laid a gentle hand on the widow’s shoulder. “Remember? You put them on at our table when the sun was in our eyes.”
“Oh, right!” Mrs. Tifton set down her teacup and opened her evening bag, which was on the couch beside her. “Yes, here they are. So he didn’t take my sunglasses. But my iPad and Norman’s Leica are definitely gone. Oh, that’s so upsetting. Norman loved that Leica. You can’t get them like that anymore. It was one of the first digital kind, but pocket-sized. It still worked quite well.”
John nodded and wrote something down in the weatherproof notepad he always seemed to carry, even on nights he was attending a charity ball. Molly tried not to notice how