“I hate to say it, honey, but I agree with your father one hundred percent. Baxter Brighthouse’s office is no place for you. What I want you to do is spend a great day with Brooke. She’s only goingto be here for a little while longer. Okay?” Ten pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“Okay.”
“Uncle Cope mentioned going somewhere special for lunch, and it’s one of your favorite places. Have a great time, and call us if you need to speak to me or Kotter.”
“I will.” Everly didn’t look happy about Ronan’s decision, but she also didn’t look as if she were about to melt down either.
Half an hour later, Ten, Ronan, Jude, and Fitz were on their way back to Fun-A-Rama. It was weird to be heading back there without the kids. “Win, lose, or draw, I want free passes to come back again when old man Brighthouse has been dispatched to that great big amusement park in the sky.”
“Me too,” Jude agreed. “Wolf had so much fun on all of the rides.”
“What about you, Fitz?” Ronan asked.
“I’d like to go back when Jace is free. Aurora did pretty well on the rides, and there were a few that we, uh…” Fitzgibbon trailed off, sounding distracted.
Ronan eyed his friend in the rearview mirror. “Everything okay with you, Cap?”
Fitz shook his head. “I was just thinking about who could have possibly killed Kotter Brighthouse.”
“With a staff of over two hundred people, plus vendors and janitors, the possibilities are endless.” Ronan knew that it was going to be next to impossible to nail down a killer if Brighthouse didn’t tell them who was responsible for his death.
“Not to mention the fact that this was a two-man job,” Jude said.
“What do you mean?” Fitz asked. He pulled out his notebook and a pen.
“Well, someone was sitting in the Ferris wheel car with Kotter, and there needed to be someone on the ground manning the ride.” Jude paused. “They would have loaded the passengers into a car and stopped the ride at the top of the wheel. Then, once the deed was done, that person would have had to bring the killer back down.”
“I never thought of it like that.” Fitz started scribbling in his notebook.
“It would have had to be someone that Kotter trusted,” Ronan suggested.
“Well, there are the usual suspects, the wife and Baxter.”
Ronan shook his head. “Baxter was fifteen years old when his father died. He’s not a very big man and was probably a scrawny teenager. Mary Lou is an inch or two over five feet and cares more about style over anything else. I can’t even imagine her getting on the grimy Ferris wheel, never mind having the strength to push him over the bar. Not to mention that she wouldn’t have wanted to risk cracking a manicured nail.”
“I disagree,” Jude said.
“Okay, play it out for me. How could Mary Lou or Baxter have been the killer?” Ronan couldn’t see it happening but was interested in hearing how Jude thought it was possible.
“You said it yourself that there had to be someone on the ground manning the ride,” Jude began, his voice filling with excitement. “So that person stops the ride at the top. Mary Lou sets up a ruse where she sees or hears something on the ground and urgesKotter to look over the front bar, and when he does, she shoves him over.”
“It’s a workable theory, but I don’t think she could shove him out on her own.” Ronan could see it clearly in his head. “Think about the front seat of the SUV as the Ferris wheel car. Ten would be sitting about a foot closer to me than he is now.” Ronan reached out and grabbed Ten’s right shoulder, pushing him forward. “There’s not a lot of room to maneuver, and the angle is awkward.”
“What you’re forgetting is that those old cars swung,” Fitzgibbon said, sounding as if he was warming to Jude’s theory. “The gondola-style car we were in the other day was fixed. It didn’t move at all on its own. Half the fun of riding those old wheels was that you tried to swing the car back and forth to scare your girlfriend or whoever was riding with you.”
“Right,” Jude agreed. “When we rode it the other day and the car stopped at the very top, we had a few seconds to look out at the view of the whole park, but when the ride started again, it was with a bit of a jolt forward.”
“That’s right,” Fitz muttered. “The sudden movement scared Aurora and threw her forward off her seat.”
“Jesus,” Ronan muttered. “When the ride started again, it was sort of a gentle bump to keep people from getting hurt, but if the person manning the controls turned the wheel back on at full speed, that jerk forward would have been much stronger.”
“It wouldn’t have taken a lot of strength to shove an off-balance person out of the car.” Fitzgibbon scratched more notes on his pad. “I hate to say it Ronan, but Mary Lou and Baxter have to be considered as suspects.”
Ronan nodded. “You’re right.” There was no arguing with Fitz and Jude’s logic. “What if Kotter used the ride as a means of intimidation,” Ronan said. It was a pretty far-out theory, but he could see it working.
“What, like the mob taking you for a long ride off a short pier?” Jude asked with a grin.
“Yeah, exactly. What if Kotter figured out who stole the missing money? He takes the guy on a ride to the top of the Ferris wheel, where they could discuss business without anyone overhearing and where he’d have the upper hand. During the confrontation, things turn violent, and the embezzler pushes Kotter out of the car so that his secret remains safe.”
