Ring for Murder (Lighthouse Inn Finale) by Tim Myers

found Sheriff
Armstrong standing there with his hand on the front door.
    “Here I am,” Alex said.
    “I was about to give up on you.”
    “Rooms need to be cleaned and chores have to
be done, no matter what else is going on around here,” Alex
said.
    “Understood.” The sheriff
stared down at the hardwood floor, and then said, “I just got the
report from the coroner’s office. Your brother was killed between
one and three am .”
    Alex realized that it had to
have been Tony leaving the inn. That door slam had marked the
beginning of the end for his brother. What if he’d gone out into
the night looking for him? Would his brother still be alive, or
would Alex have joined him in death? As he considered the
ramifications of what he hadn’t done, Alex realized that the sheriff had asked him
something, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it had
been.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Are you going to make me say it again?” the
sheriff asked.
    “I’m sorry, I zoned out there for a
second.”
    The sheriff took in a deep breath of air,
let it out, and then said, “I don’t mean to be indelicate, but I
have to ask you this question. Can anyone confirm where you were
between one and three the night of the murder?”
    “Elise can,” Alex said.
    The sheriff actually blushed slightly as he
nodded. “I’ll have to have her confirm it, there’s no easy way
around that, but it’s good enough for me. Ordinarily it wouldn’t be
any of my business.”
    Alex couldn’t believe the man. “We were
sitting on the couch the entire time drinking hot chocolate and
reminiscing about our lives since Elise came to the inn.”
    “That was about the time that Reg Wellington
was murdered, wasn’t it?”
    “Exactly that time,” Alex replied, surprised
that the sheriff had remembered Elise’s first days at the inn. Then
again, when it was tied so closely with a murder, it made perfect
sense.
    “She’ll be able to confirm that?” Armstrong
asked.
    “Confirm what?” Elise asked as she came down
the steps and joined them.
    Alex started to explain when Armstrong held
up a hand. “Alex, I need a minute with her. Go out on the porch.
Now.”
    He was about to ask why when he realized
that the sheriff was trying to confirm his alibi. Alex didn’t want
there to be any hint of suspicion, or impropriety, about what
they’d been doing the night before, so he nodded and did as he was
asked.
    A minute later, the sheriff came out and
rejoined him. “Where’s Elise?” he asked.
    “She had to answer a phone call.”
    “Did she back me up?”
    “To the T,” Armstrong said. “It was off just
enough to be convincing.”
    “What parts didn’t we agree on?” Alex
asked.
    “Doesn’t matter. I believe you both, that’s
all that counts. It looks like you’re in the clear.”
    “That’s good to hear,” Alex admitted. He’d
been under the sheriff’s scrutiny before when it came to murder,
and he didn’t like it one bit.
    “Well, I won’t trouble you anymore,” the
sheriff said.
    Alex thought about telling him about their
two guests, especially since they’d found the gun in Monique’s
purse, but something made him hold the information back. This was
his brother’s murder he was investigating, and he couldn’t just
hand it all over to someone else.
    There was one thing he could ask, though.
“Sheriff, I need to know something, and I’m hoping you can tell
me.”
    “Depends on what it is,” the sheriff said.
“I can’t reveal much about an ongoing police investigation, so if
it has something to do with the case, I can’t tell you much.”
    “It’s personal,” Alex said. He had a ready
excuse as to why he wanted the information, and only part of his
rationalization was a lie. “Have you found Tony’s will? We’ve never
been close, but I’d always hoped that someday we could work things
out. Finding out he thought of me, if only for a moment, when he
was making out his will would make all of this a little