by Kathi Daley
“So how are you feeling?” he asked after kissing me gently on the lips.
“A little sore, but I’ll be fine. Any updates since we spoke?”
“Not really. I did manage to pull up the police file for the jewel theft in Las Vegas, but neither man involved in the incident appears to be our plumber.” He pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of the two men.
“So, our plumber wasn’t part of the jewel theft?”
He put his phone back in his pocket. “I didn’t say that. The two men in the photo I showed you are career criminals who’ve been in and out of prison their entire lives. Julian, the man on the left, was seen on a security camera on the night of the jewelry store robbery. There was a second man with him, but the second man had a mask over his face. I spoke to the Las Vegas PD and was informed that Julian had been arrested two days later when he ran a red light and was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol just outside Reno. He told the investigator that the man on the tape with him was new to the area and that the jewel theft was the first job they’d worked on together.”
“Did the accomplice have a name?” I wondered.
“Julian knew him only as Woody. Las Vegas PD did some digging and found out that a former drug dealer named Woody Oberman had just gotten out of prison three months ago, and at this point, the assumption is that he made his way to Las Vegas and somehow hooked up with Julian. Of course, we don’t know for certain who the second man was. Julian might have lied.”
“Why would he lie?”
Colt shrugged. “Maybe to settle an old debt, or perhaps to appear to be cooperative while still protecting the name of his accomplice. Who knows why he might lie, but the guy is a liar.”
“But so far, the second guy hasn’t been caught.” I verified.
“He has not. And so far, the jewels haven’t been recovered.”
“Okay, so while it appears that our plumber, the man we now know as Lewy, wasn’t involved in the robbery, there’s no way to know that for certain.”
Colt nodded.
I pulled on oven mitts and checked the food I had heating. I’d hoped that at the very least, we could prove that the reason Lewy had been snooping around in the rehearsal room in the first place was to retrieve jewels he’d had shipped there, but it didn’t look like we even knew that for certain at this point.
“So if our fake plumber wasn’t wrapped up in the jewel theft, then what was he looking for?” I asked as I closed the oven door and rummaged around in the refrigerator for salad makings.
“I still think the jewels were involved. I know it isn’t looking that way at this point, but my gut is telling me not to abandon that theory too quickly.”
I turned the oven off and slipped the leftovers out. “Okay, so I guess it’s possible that the accomplice is Lewy, but to be honest, it seems unlikely to me.”
“Maybe. And maybe the masked man was Woody Oberman. The timing works with his release from prison. But even if Lewy wasn’t featured on the security camera, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved. Maybe he was the lookout guy or the escape vehicle driver. Perhaps he was in charge of something behind the scenes such as surveillance before the job, or maybe it was his job to take the jewels and hide them once the job was complete. Those are theories that might explain how he knew about the jewels and the fact that they’d be delivered to our theater in the boxes of props and costumes, even if his face wasn’t caught on camera.”
I set the salad on the table and then took two plates from the cupboard. Since there were several options, I figured we’d each fix our own plate to take to the table. “It sounds like there really is no way to know any of this for sure unless you’re able to find and capture this guy.”
Colt smiled. “Maybe we’ll luck out, and he’ll run a red light like Julian did.”
Chapter 15
With the arrival of Thanksgiving week, Georgia and I were both really busy. The sisters had checked out, and a new batch of guests had checked in. There were eleven guests between the six rooms, and all eleven were staying until the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Once everyone was checked in and settled, and a schedule of both mealtimes and events had been posted, things calmed down just a bit.
Annabelle was out of school for the entire week, as were Lonnie and Lacy’s children. I doubted I’d see either Lonnie or Lacy until we got together at Tanner’s on Thanksgiving evening, but I’d spoken to Lacy on the phone every day, and I knew that they were both still a little worried that the man we assumed had killed Hollander was still at large. The part that really concerned me was that we didn’t know with any certainty that Lewy had actually killed Hollander. If he had, then fine, the mission it seemed was simply to track him down and bring him to justice. But what if he wasn’t the one who killed the local attorney? What if his being on the premises and looking through the boxes that had been delivered was simply a coincidence? The theory that Hollander had stumbled onto Lewy while he was looking for the jewels and Lewy had killed him was a good one, but the truth of the matter was that even if the guy was a jewel thief, that didn’t necessarily mean he was a killer.
Of course, if Lewy hadn’t killed Hollander, then the question remained who had. For all we knew, Hollander’s killer was still walking around town, believing that he or she might very well have gotten away with murder.
“Whatcha doing?” Georgia asked later that morning as I sat at the little dining table in the cottage, looking over the list of notes I’d scribbled down over the past few days.
“I’m still trying to decide if Lewy really was the one who killed Hollander, or if we have two bad guys to track down.”
“The theory of the jewels being hidden in the boxes that had been delivered, and Hollander walking in on Lewy while he looked for them, does possess a certain internal logic,” she reminded me.
I blew out a breath. “Yeah. It is a good theory. I’m not sure why I’m so hung up on this.” I tapped my pen on my pad of paper. “I guess I just hoped that this investigation would end with an arrest and some sort of proof that what we think happened actually happened.”
She sat down across from me. “Things have been left sort of up in the air. Is Colt any closer to tracking down this Lewy guy?”
“No. I think the guy is probably long gone. The really aggravating thing is that we don’t even know for sure that Lewy was looking for the jewels when he dumped me in the trap-room. No one saw any jewels, so we don’t know they were even there.”
“The guy seemed to be looking for something,” Georgia said.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Lewy did appear to be looking for something. And the jewels stolen from the jewelry store in Las Vegas does seem like a good guess as to what he was after. Of course, so far, we don’t even know that Lewy was involved in the theft.”
Georgia smiled. “I can see you’re frustrated. I get it, and I’m sorry. But I really can’t see how you’re going to get your answers by making yourself miserable trying to figure out something that can’t be figured out without more data.”
“Yeah. I guess.” I pushed the notepad away. “How did breakfast go?”
“Really well. All the guests seem to be getting along. They even want to do a game night tonight after dinner. Someone suggested trivia, and then someone else suggested we come up with questions relating to the history of the area.”
“That sounds like fun. I guess I can work on that. Maybe I’ll call Velma and get some ideas from her. I might even just go over to the diner for lunch.”
“I think that’s a good idea. It’ll do you good to get away from this murder thing for a while.”
Georgia was right. I’d spent a lot more time than was really warranted on my part trying to figure out a mystery that wasn’t even my mystery to solve. Having a trivia contest to focus on might be just the thing to distract me.
By the time I arrived at Velma’s, the place was busy. I supposed I should have anticipated as much. Not only was it a Monday, but it was also the Monday before Thanksg
iving. Still, once I explained what I was after, Velma took my order and then promised to think about it. During the hour I was at the diner, Velma stopped by my table every ten minutes or so, feeding me another question as well as a detailed answer. I jotted down everything she said. She’d lived in the area for a long time, and she knew a lot about local history.
Georgia planned to add in a bunch of general knowledge questions as well since not all the guests would have a background in local history. She was working with Jeremy on those questions with Annabelle’s help. Two of the couples who’d checked in had brought a child along with them, so Annabelle wanted to be sure there were questions that someone her age might know the answers to.
I was just finishing my meal when Colt slid into the booth across from me.
“It looks like you’re just finishing,” he said.
“I am, but if you’re going to stay and eat, I’ll stay and chat with you. I have some free time.”
He smiled. “Great. I have some news for you and was going to call you later, anyway.” He motioned to Velma and nodded. She then put in his order, seeming to know what he wanted. I supposed he had favorites, and after years of eating most of his meals here, the two had developed a shorthand of sorts.
“So, what’s your news?” I asked.
“We have Lou Jenner behind bars.”
I raised a brow. “Really? That’s great. Where did you find him?”
“He was picked up as he tried to cross the border into Canada. I guess he’s been lying low, waiting for an opportunity, but it appears he didn’t wait long enough.”
“Did he confess to killing Hollander?” I asked, hoping for a positive answer.
“No.”
My smile faded. “No?”
Colt shook his head. “Lewy did confess to having the stolen jewels, and he did turn them over to the FBI, but he swears he neither stole the jewels nor killed Hollander or anyone else for that matter.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, he didn’t steal the jewels?”
“He told the agent who interviewed him that he was in Las Vegas at the time of the robbery. He was in an alley behind the jewelry store where the jewels were stolen from when two men came running out the back door. One of the two tossed something into the dumpster as he ran by. Once they were gone, Lewy went to the dumpster to see what had been tossed away and found a large bag with a drawstring top. He tucked it under his jacket and walked away. Since the cops were chasing the other two men, they didn’t pay any attention to him, and he made it out of the area without incident. When he got back to his motel room, he opened the bag and saw that there were jewels inside. A lot of them.”
“Wow. So what did he do?”
“Nothing at first, but he heard on the news that the stolen jewels were worth several hundred thousand dollars. Once he realized what he had, Lewy knew he would need to be careful about fencing them, so he waited to come up with a plan. Meanwhile, the news anchors for all the local stations were asking everyone to be on the lookout for the stolen items. They even included photos of some of the more valuable pieces in their newscasts. Lewy figured it might not be a good idea to be found with the stolen jewels since he was already wanted for knocking over a liquor store, so he came up with the idea to ship them somewhere far away, where no one would be looking for them.”
“Holiday Bay.”
Colt nodded. “He told the investigator that he’d been hanging out at a bar in Las Vegas where a group of magicians liked to hang out. He knew that a few of them were planning to come to Holiday Bay for a show in December since they’d been discussing the idea of having the props and costumes shipped. Lewy volunteered to help with the packing and transport of the props and costumes to the shipping company, and while he had access to the boxes, he slipped the jewels inside. Unfortunately, the group shipped their stuff the slowest and most cost-efficient way, so it ended up taking weeks for the packages to arrive. Lewy had been waiting here in Holiday Bay for over a week before they finally showed up.”
“Which explains why he had time to come up with a plan to retrieve the jewels.”
“It does. When he was finally notified that the boxes had arrived in Holiday Bay, he went directly to the theater to collect his stolen merchandise, but the packages hadn’t actually been delivered to the theater yet. He knew he’d need to go back after they had been delivered, so he came up with the story of needing to get parts. He claimed that there were people everywhere, and he never did make it back before the murder occurred. Once the body had been found, they changed the locks and alarm code, so he’d just been waiting for an opportunity to get the jewels and get gone.”
“And he specifically said that he didn’t kill Hollander?”
“Yes,” Colt confirmed. “He very specifically said he didn’t kill Hollander. He said he wasn’t even at the theater that night since he’d already decided to come by the following day.”
“So, how is it that it was his pipe wrench that was used as a murder weapon?”
“He said the pipe wrench wasn’t his since he isn’t really a plumber. He said he wanted to add authenticity to the uniform he’d picked up at a second-hand store, so he purchased a small toolbox. His plan was to carry the jewels out in the box, but it was totally empty when he went in.”
Okay, that was a twist I hadn’t seen coming. “So if he didn’t kill Hollander, who did?”
Colt slowly shook his head. “I guess we’re back to square one with that one.”
No, no, no, I thought to myself. Square one was not going to work for me. I thought back and tried to remember where we were with the whole thing when we became distracted by the plumber. We knew that Hollander had stopped by his house to pick something up on the way to the theater, but we had never determined what that something had been. We knew that Hollander had been seen in a lip lock with Paula Dearborn, although it appeared on the surface, at least, that her husband might not have cared even if he’d caught them. We knew that Scotty had told us that he’d been in the men’s room for the thirty minutes he’d been gone, and we didn’t have reason to claim he hadn’t been, but thirty minutes was a long time, even if he had been under the weather. Howard Langley, the electrician, had been another suspect. He’d been called in to fix the overhead lights after they’d fallen earlier in the evening. He’d been seen going into the building on the security tape, but he wasn’t seen leaving.
“Okay, let’s back up a bit,” I said. “As far as I can remember, before the fiasco with the plumber, you still had a handful of suspects on your list. Doctor and Paula Dearborn, Scotty Crabtree, Howard Langley, the electrician, and maybe a couple others. Were you able to eliminate any of them before the plumber tossed a wild card into the pile?”
“No. Robby saw Paula with Hollander, but we don’t know what time that was. When I spoke to Paula, she said she’d been talking to Hollander but had left after a brief conversation. She also said that the two of them were in no way involved in an intimate relationship.”
“But the boys saw them.”
“Paula claimed that the boys didn’t know what they saw. She said she spoke to Hollander about a business matter for a moment and then left. She also said she had no idea who killed him.”
“She might be lying. I remember she already told Colt that she and Hollander had been flirting.”
“She might be, but if she was talking to Hollander after Scotty returned from the bathroom, then that would give Scotty an alibi of sorts. No one remembers seeing Doctor Dearborn at the theater that night, but when I asked him for an alibi, he just said he had errands to do and couldn’t remember a timeline.”
“That seems suspect.”
“I thought so as well. I spoke to Langley, and he said he went out the back way because he wanted to have a smoke before heading home, and since he’s supposed to have quit, he didn’t want anyone to see him. Wanting to sneak a smoke is not an alibi, but I couldn’t find a single reason for the man to have killed Hollander.”
“T
he only one we’ve discussed who had a clear motive was Doctor Dearborn. Did you ever figure out what Hollander took from his safe?”
Colt shook his head. “I didn’t find anything in his car. There wasn’t anything unusual on his person when his body was recovered. We didn’t find anything in the immediate area of where his body was found. I really have no idea.”
“If we consider Doctor Dearborn, Paula Dearborn, Scotty Crabtree, and Howard Langley as our four main suspects, who would you consider to be the least likely candidate?”
Colt frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it depends. I’d say Langley unless he actually does have a motive we don’t know about. His being at the theater seemed to be a fluke. If he hadn’t been called in after the lights fell, he wouldn’t have been there, so it seems unlikely that he planned to meet up with Hollander. I guess, if I had to eliminate one suspect, he’d be the one.”
“If Doctor Dearborn had been at the theater, it seems the security cameras would have caught him coming in,” I said.
“That’s true, and I did think of that, but he could have come in through the back door. It should have been locked, but I found out the door sticks, and once it is opened, it’s hard to close tightly. If Doctor Dearborn came to the theater after Langley left through the back door, then the door could have been stuck open.”
“Dearborn would have to know the door was stuck open in order to even attempt to come in that way, and there really wasn’t a way for him to know that. The odds are much better that if he didn’t come in the front door, he wasn’t there. It is odd that his alibi wasn’t better, but maybe he was doing something he didn’t want to get out.”
“Maybe he was with his mistress,” Colt said.
“Exactly. I think we can eliminate him for now, which leaves Scotty or Paula.”
