Finlay Donovan Is Killing It(Finlay Donovan #1)(87)

I gestured impatiently for her to go on.

“Anyway, I guess that must have been just after seven,” she said, returning her attention to her book. “After that, everything was quiet for a few hours. I watched my TV programs and had a slice of pie, which is how I knew it was about nine forty-five when I noticed the lights in your garage. You left your van running when you ran inside. I figured you were grabbing something you’d forgotten before going to pick up the children from wherever you’d taken them earlier.”

“My sister’s,” I said, gesturing again.

“Your sister, the police officer? There sure have been a lot of them over there these last few days—”

“Yes, she was babysitting for me,” I said a little too brusquely. “Did you see anything else?”

“Of course,” she snapped, as if the very question of her vigilance was offensive. “I watched the house, to make sure nobody bothered your van while you were inside. I was irritable at first because you were taking a long while, and I was missing my late-night TV program on account of it. But then something strange happened.” She adjusted her glasses, the thick gold chain catching on the shoulder pads in her sweater.

“What did you see?”

She leveled an arthritic finger at me. “I saw someone snooping inside your garage.”

My breath rushed out of me. This was it. Mrs. Haggerty had seen the people who killed Harris. “Do you remember what they looked like?”

“It was hard to see clearly from here, especially so late at night. The headlights from the van were behind him, but I could tell he was tall. He had to bend down a bit to see inside the windows of your van. I thought he might be one of the hoodlums in the neighborhood planning to steal it, so I went downstairs to call the police. But by the time I got to the phone in the kitchen, you must have come out to the garage and scared him off. When I looked out my kitchen window, your garage door was already shut. As far as I could see he was gone.” I glanced behind her, at an electric chairlift perched on a track at the base of the stairs. My grandmother had one in her house. They moved like molasses. Who knew how much time Mrs. Haggerty had lost? Or if she could even be considered a reliable eyewitness. She hadn’t actually seen anyone close the garage door. And even if she had, the woman couldn’t see her face in the mirror to apply her own lipstick. A judge might just throw her testimony out.

“You said it was a he?” I asked, making sure I’d heard her right.

She gave a confident nod. I raked back my hair, struggling to puzzle it out. Feliks was tall. I supposed he could have come here with Theresa. Or even with Andrei. But something about that scenario felt off. I’d had enough run-ins with Feliks to see how he operated. Feliks didn’t do his own dirty work. That’s what he had Andrei for. And Andrei wasn’t subtle.

“Did you see who was with him?”

“I didn’t see anyone else. Only the one.”

But that didn’t make sense. Someone else had to have been there to help the killer close the garage. Maybe they’d waited in the car, only emerging after Mrs. Haggerty was on her way down the stairs.

“Did you see what kind of car he was driving?”

Her eyes narrowed. “There was no car. Not anywhere I could see.”

So the culprit had come on foot, as I’d suspected before. And without a description of a suspect or a vehicle—without proof that someone else had intentionally murdered Harris—I would become the prime suspect once Nick figured out that I was the woman at The Lush. My best hope was that Nick would hit a dead end. That Julian wouldn’t identify me to the police, and that no one could prove Harris Mickler had ever been to my house.

“Did you … happen to see or hear anything else that night? Anything odd … in my garage?” I asked cautiously.

“No,” she said. “I couldn’t hear much of anything over the dogs down the street. They must have seen the thief and it got them going. They seemed to quiet once he was gone.” She scratched her head, referencing back to her diary. “Let’s see … I saw your babysitter let herself in the front door. I figured everything over there was settled, and I went to bed shortly after that.” Mrs. Haggerty’s nose scrunched up, pushing the wrinkles in her forehead together into a maze of thoughtful lines. “Come to think of it, I woke up before dawn to a horrible crashing sound, but I couldn’t tell you what caused it.” That would have been the garage door falling closed after Vero and I got home from the farm. Which meant she hadn’t witnessed us coming or going in between.

“Good … I mean, thanks.” My shoulders sagged with relief. “Did you happen to call the police? About any of it?”

“No.” Her slack skin wobbled with the shake of her head. “I didn’t bother. No point wasting anybody’s…” Her thought broke off. She peeled off her glasses, staring up at me with her beady blue eyes. “Why?” she asked eagerly. “Did that man steal something? If he did, we can go down the street and talk to that policeman right now.” She pointed at Officer Roddy’s unmarked car.

“No, no. Everything’s fine,” I insisted, stepping back from her door. But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. By my best estimates, I had forty-eight hours to figure out who’d killed Harris Mickler before Nick dug up his body.