Ken took a step toward me, pointing the gun at my chest. “An ecoterrorist? Is that what you think I am? Someone has to protect innocent wildlife from humanity. Handing out pamphlets and giving lectures isn’t enough. It doesn’t stop the poaching. Everyone knows it’s going on, but no one does anything about it. But I’m stepping up to the plate. I’m taking care of it!”
“Is that why you’ve set fishing boats on fire?”
Ken gave a humorless laugh. “If they don’t have a boat, they can’t go out poaching, now, can they?”
I flinched as he took another step forward. “Vandalizing property is one thing,” I said cautiously. “But killing people?”
Ken lowered the gun and looked over at the sun setting on the water. “I didn’t have a choice,” he said softly. “Darren had overheard Connie and me talking about setting those fishing boats on fire. He recorded the whole thing on his phone and threatened to go to the police with it unless I paid him off. He even had some pictures that he got off a website of the two of us next to a boat we torched.”
“Is that what you got in the mail the other day at the turtle sanctuary? Pictures?” Ken nodded. “But couldn’t you have just turned him in for poaching?”
“With what evidence?” Ken asked sharply. “And even if I did have any, all they would do is make him pay a fine. This way, I could keep him from blackmailing me and stop the poaching.”
“So why Suzanne?”
Ken waved the gun toward the shoreline. “Because of this. She was going to destroy the turtle habitat with her resort development.” He narrowed his eyes and looked intently at me. “Everyone who is complicit with the resort development—people like you and Chuck, agreeing to sell your cottages to her—are in on it!”
“But we don’t want to sell,” I stammered.
“I’ve heard Scooter talk about selling.” Ken pointed the gun at me again. My legs started trembling. I tried to scream for help, but I couldn’t get any words out. “Don’t even think about yelling. If you do, I’ll shoot you. Besides, the sun has set and the beach is deserted. No one would hear you.” He gripped my arm and spun me around, pressing the gun into my side. “Now, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to walk over to your house, slowly. Any false moves and…well, you know what will happen.”
I stumbled as he pushed me forward. As I tried to regain my balance, I saw a ball of fur flying through the air and heard Ken scream. Then I felt a sharp pain in my leg, collapsed on the sand, and everything went black.
* * *
I felt something scratchy on my face and opened my eyes. Mrs. Moto was standing on my chest. She licked my nose, meowed loudly, then pawed at the side of my head. “Hey, that hurts!” I rubbed my eyes and took in my surroundings. I was on the beach, my head propped up against a piece of driftwood.
How did I get here? I wondered. Then I saw the large sandcastle and remembered. When Mrs. Moto had attacked Ken, he’d dropped the gun and it had gone off. I glanced down at my leg. Blood was dripping down it, and although I was in agony, the bullet appeared to have just grazed it. I slowly got to my feet and looked around in a panic. “Where is he?” Mrs. Moto yowled and tore down the beach toward our cottage. That’s when I smelled it—the fire.
I hobbled after her, keeping an eye out for Ken and doing my best to ignore the pain in my leg. My heart was racing, and I was struggling to breathe, but I kept pounding my feet in the sand, trying to catch up with my cat and keep her safe from that madman. Finally, I saw her, sitting quietly on the beach. She stared at me with those green eyes of her, meowed softly, then looked straight ahead of her.
I followed her gaze and saw what was burning. Our cottage. Our home. Our everything.
16
BLING FOR MRS. MOTO
“Mollie and Scooter are here, everyone!” I heard a voice shout as we walked into the Tipsy Pirate. A crowd swarmed around us, giving us hugs and asking us a million questions.
“Let them breathe, folks,” Ned said, gently pushing people aside. “We saved you some seats at our table.” He pointed at a spot near the stage where Penny, Ben, Alejandra, and Nancy were sitting. “You two must be so stressed out and exhausted after everything you’ve gone through. Come on, let’s get you a drink.”
“Drinks are on me tonight,” a nasal voice said behind us. I turned and saw Norm holding his hat in his hands. “It’s the least I can do,” he said. He lacked his usual bluster, probably because he was now under investigation for his role in the real estate scam. Before we could thank him, he walked over and told the bartender that he would be picking up our tab. I hoped he didn’t think that would get him out of our bet. I was still determined to finish the bottom paint on Marjorie Jane and then throw a boat renaming party when Norm changed the name of his boat to ET.
“You look really good, Mollie,” Penny said as I sat in a chair between her and Alejandra. “Is your leg doing okay?”
I glanced down at the bandage wrapped around my calf. “A little sore, but it’s fine.”
“It’s hard to believe it was just yesterday that Ken had you at gunpoint, you got shot, and your cottage burned down,” Alejandra said.
“You probably didn’t sleep well last night,” Ben said. “You have some dark circles under your eyes.”
Alejandra gave him a warning look. “No, she doesn’t. She looks great. I like your top. Pink’s a good color on you. Don’t you like her top, too, Ben?”
Ben shrugged. I noticed he was sporting his dolphin T-shirt again, probably hoping Alejandra would notice that instead of what I was wearing.
“Thanks. Penny lent it to me,” I said. “We haven’t had a chance to go buy new clothes yet. Everyone has been so great helping us out.”
Ben leaned forward. “I want to hear all about how you solved the case.”
“Well, I wouldn’t really say I solved it. I didn’t figure out who did it until it was too late.” I bit my lip. “Too late to save our cottage.”
“But you put all the puzzle pieces together,” he said. “Come on, tell us how you did it.”
Nancy scowled. “For goodness’ sake. She’s not a detective. If you want to know what happened, ask Chief Dalton.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”
“I’d actually be interested in hearing what Mollie has to say,” Alejandra said.
The waitress handed me a gin and tonic. I took a sip, then glanced at Scooter. “Are you okay if I tell them what happened? I promise I’ll leave out any gory details.” I reached into my purse and handed him a pack of M&M’S. “But just in case, these should help.”
“We should probably start buying these in bulk,” he said with a smile.
I leaned back in my chair. “Well, at first, when it was a question of just one…” I looked at Scooter and watched him pop some candy in his mouth. “Of just one…um…victim, I thought Liam might have done it. I wasn’t sure why, though. It could have been because Darren was involved in poaching with Liam. Apparently, he had been blabbing about it all over town. Maybe Liam wanted to put a stop to that in a permanent sort of way.”
“Did you hear Darren talking about the poaching?” Penny asked.
“Not exactly,” I said. I glanced at Ben. “I happened to overhear you talking about it with Liam out there on the deck last week.”
Nancy peered at Ben over her reading glasses. “So, you knew about the poaching, and you didn’t tell anyone.”
Ben squirmed in his seat. “I didn’t know for sure. It’s not like I had any proof,” he said. “Besides, these guys were buddies of mine.”
“Leave the boy alone, Nancy,” Ned said. “It’s hard to rat out your friends. Anyway, it’s all out in the open now. Liam is going to pay the price for what he did.” He looked at me. “You said you weren’t sure why Liam might have done it. What other theory did you have?”
“Well, there was obviously no love lost between Melvin and Norm. Liam told me that he often had to do his uncle’s dirty work. What if he kill
ed Darren on his uncle’s instructions to drive him out of business? The loss of his nephew was devastating to Melvin. He’s even been talking about getting out of the fishing charter business as a result.”
“I talked to him earlier,” Penny said. “He’s decided to sell Nassau Royale. It’s just too hard for him to manage now that Darren is gone.”
“Is he going to go back to the Bahamas?” Alejandra asked.
“No, he’s decided to stay and focus on the marine store,” Penny said.
“Fortunately, he didn’t lose his cottage in the fire,” Scooter said. “That probably would have been the last straw. All four of the cottages on the beach are right next to each other. It’s really lucky they didn’t all go up in flames.” He finished off his drink and motioned to the waitress for another one. “Ken Choi,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe we actually started to become friends with that guy. First, Darren and Suzanne, then setting fire to our place. Not to mention the cold-hearted bastard was responsible for my wife getting shot,” he said through gritted teeth.
“That’s something I was wondering about. Why did he burn your place down?” Alejandra asked.
“He was convinced we were going to sell our cottage. So he set fire to our and Chuck’s properties for what he saw as our role in the resort development.”
“But weren’t they planning on tearing down the cottages to develop the resort?” Penny asked. “What would it matter if they were burned down?”
“The man was completely unhinged,” Scooter said. “He just wanted to make a grand statement about what happens to people he thinks are abetting the destruction of the environment.”
“Do you mind going back to the part about Liam?” Alejandra asked. “I thought he had an alibi for the night of Darren’s murder.”
“Well, it wasn’t a really good one. He said he was at home watching a basketball game. But no one was with him.”
“He knew everything that happened in the game when I talked to him about it,” Scooter said.
“He could have read about it online,” Ned said. “I always check out the sports news every day. Sometimes, I even watch replays of games I missed.”
“True,” I said. “To be honest, even if you have someone to back up your alibi, it doesn’t mean the other person is telling the truth. Take Norm, for example. He definitely had motive to kill Darren because of Melvin, but Suzanne said the two of them had been at their office all night.” I leaned forward. “Turns out he had actually left during the time Darren was killed, only no one knew about it.”
“How did you find out about that?” Alejandra asked.
“Officer Moore might have let it slip when I saw her earlier today at Penelope’s. We bonded over our love of cinnamon mochas. Norm was actually meeting with an insurance agent that night. I happen to know that he took out a very hefty life insurance policy on Suzanne.”
Penny raised her eyebrows. “That would give him a great motive for her death.”
“Hang on,” Alejandra said. “Let’s focus on Darren’s murder first. Who else did you think could have done it?”
“Well, I thought Suzanne might have been a suspect when Mrs. Moto found one of her charms near the crime scene. But when I returned it to her, she seemed really calm about it and genuinely perplexed about how it had ended up there. And besides, I couldn’t picture her setting foot in the boatyard in those heels of hers, let alone killing someone and risking getting blood on her clothes.”
“It took a threatening note to get her to go into the boatyard the night she was, you know…” Scooter said. He took a deep breath. “It was probably the first time she had ever been there.”
“And of course Melvin couldn’t have done it,” Alejandra said. “He was his nephew.”
I looked over where Melvin was sitting in the corner with a few of his friends. “I thought so too. But I found out that he knew Darren was mixed up in poaching, and he was furious about it. Tiffany overheard them arguing about it at a basketball game.”
“Fortunately, he wasn’t furious enough about it to kill him,” Penny said. “He was his own flesh and blood, after all.”
“That’s what everyone assumed, myself included. But when I think about it objectively, did I assume that because I liked him? After all, I thought Norm might have killed his own wife.”
“Okay, tell us about Suzanne’s death,” Alejandra said. “Who had an alibi for that one?”
“Liam was with a woman that night. She’s married and was hesitant to come forward at first to vouch for him.”
Nancy frowned. “What was he doing with a married woman?”
I smiled, thinking about the texts I had seen on Liam’s phone. “You don’t want to know.”
Ben shook his head. “That guy just can’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar.” He glanced at Alejandra. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t go out with him? You deserve a one-woman kind of guy,” he said with a hopeful look on his face.
“So, what about Norm?” Alejandra asked without meeting Ben’s eyes.
“He claimed he was at the Tipsy Pirate when the murder took place. Officer Moore said there were a number of people who could vouch for him,” I said.
“Melvin told me the same thing,” Penny said.
“Yeah, he told me that too, but…” I glanced at Melvin again. He was staring into his beer, oblivious to his friends chatting away around him.
“But what?” Penny asked.
“Melvin wasn’t at the Tipsy Pirate. Office Moore told me he was at the waterfront park that night getting some fresh air and thinking through everything.”
Penny gasped. “So was he the person who vandalized Norm’s boat?”
“No,” I said. “But he saw the whole thing and didn’t call the police. He honestly believed Norm killed his nephew, and he was so upset about it that he practically cheered the vandals on.”
“So, who did do it?”
“A woman named Connie. She shares Ken’s views on taking extreme measures to protect the environment, including sabotaging boats involved in poaching.” I took a sip of my drink. “Oddly enough, it turns out that both Liam and Melvin ended up vouching for each other at the time of Suzanne’s death. Liam was at the park as well with his lady friend.”
“But didn’t Liam see Melvin?” Penny asked.
“No, Liam was a little too distracted by other things, if you know what I mean,” I said. “Did you know that Leilani and I had actually seen Liam and this woman earlier that night when I was dropping her back off at the marina after the FAROUT event? The two of them were having a fight on the street by the marina entrance. He chased after her, and then they went to the park to talk things through. Melvin was sitting on one park bench thinking about the death of his nephew, and they were on another one making up.” I shrugged. “Liam did have a good reason to kill Suzanne. He was tired of her lording her son over him, but he didn’t do it.”
Alejandra swirled the ice around in her drink with a swizzle stick. “So, Liam and Norm had alibis for Suzanne’s death. I guess that brings us to Ken.”
Scooter reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “The thought of him holding a gun at you and you getting shot.” He turned pale and shuddered. I looked at the empty M&M’S bag on the table.
“Why don’t we stop off and pick up some chocolate ice cream to take back with us to the hotel tonight?”
He leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Good idea.”
Everyone at the table was watching me expectantly. “So, Ken. Well, he had alibis for both murders. Leilani and he were both on their boat the night of Darren’s murder. But she was in the back cabin and had her headphones on. Her husband was able to sneak out without her knowing. Darren had been blackmailing Ken about his ecoterrorist activities. The two of them had arranged to meet that night, and Ken was supposed to pay him off. But he did more than that—he killed him.”
“All because he was blackmailing him?” Alejandra asked.
“That was j
ust part of it. Ken was enraged that Darren was poaching. Saving the environment was very important to him.”
Scooter scowled. “So important that he’d kill for it.”
“How did Suzanne’s charm end up in the boatyard?” Penny asked.
“Ken went to her office to confront her about the real estate scam they were running. You know, the one where they were secretly buying property up in order to develop a large resort. It must have fallen off her bracelet onto the floor. He picked it up, thinking it might come in handy at some point. So he left it at the murder scene. But when I found it, it was outside of the cordoned-off area, and the police hadn’t found it during their initial investigation.” I thought about how Mrs. Moto loved to bat objects around. “Ken was probably wondering why Suzanne was never arrested for Darren’s murder after he tried to pin it on her.”
“So is the property deal what drove him to kill Suzanne?” Penny asked.
I nodded. “It is. When he heard she was still trying to buy property in Coconut Cove, including our cottage, he snapped. He sent her a note threatening to expose her and told her to meet him at Norm’s boat. And…well…you know what happened.”
“But he didn’t stop there,” Scooter said. “He held you at gunpoint, you got shot, and he burned our house down.”
“Thankfully, you weren’t hurt too badly, dear,” Nancy said gently.
I felt my eyes well up. “It could have been worse. I was sure he was going to kill me.” I took a deep breath. “But Mrs. Moto saved the day. When he kept waving the gun at me, she jumped out from the sandcastle she was hiding in, hurled herself at his leg, and sunk her claws and teeth in. He was so startled that he dropped the gun. That’s when it went off, and the bullet grazed my leg. Then he ran off to torch the cottages.”
“But you didn’t see him set them on fire?” Alejandra asked.
“Uh…no, I didn’t.”
“That’s because my little panda bear fainted from the shock of it all,” Scooter said, squeezing my hand.
Bodies in the Boatyard Page 20
