Every House Has a Secret - 26

 

 

The email arrived moments later, Brady forwarded it to his personal email, then closed up and went home.

 

When he got there, Rand was in the kitchen making supper. After sharing a kiss, he told Brady to go change. "We have a house to paint."

 

"Yes, boss."

 

"Did you find out anything about the murder?"

 

"Maybe. But since you're so hell-bent on our painting…"

 

"Brady," Rand growled.

 

"Vern sent me a file. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet."

 

"Now would be a good time, if you have it with you."

 

"It's in my email. I'll get changed, we'll eat, and then we'll see what's in it."

 

"Or look while we're eating."

 

Brady hugged him. "That, too, impatient one." He went to change into an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days. By the time he'd finished, supper was on the table, along with his laptop.

 

They waited until they'd made inroads into their meal before Brady turned the laptop on and retrieved the email from Vern. He opened the file it contained, Rand moved next to him, and they began reading.

 

"As Vern said, the cops had the killers' fingerprints. What he didn't tell me was that they went under the radar after the murder. If Hodges was able to locate them…" 

 

"It could explain the gun we found," Rand said.

 

"I think so. Hodges decided to go on a vendetta after he was dismissed from the force. I'm surprised no one connected him to the killers' deaths."

 

"According to this," Rand tapped a paragraph at the bottom of the file, "they were put down to a falling out among thieves."

 

"Lousy police work, if you ask me. If one of them killed the other, who killed him?"

 

"Like it says, the detective in charge of the case found out they were part of a gang of burglars and decided the other members didn't like all the attention that was focused on Mrs. Hodges's murder and took care of the problem."

 

"I don't believe it for a second," Brady said. "Okay, I might have if we hadn't found the gun. Even the detective must have had his doubts because according to this he did look at Hodges, but there wasn't any proof he killed them."

 

"So what now? Do we turn the gun over to Vern?"