by Kathi Daley
“Isn’t Lobsterfest the weekend after next?” Georgia asked.
I nodded. “It is, and that’s why I almost declined the offer when I got the text, but then I decided to talk it over with the team.”
“It would be good publicity for us,” Jeremy said.
“It would be,” I agreed, “but it would also be a lot of work. We’d need to set up booths for the breweries that have agreed to participate in the tasting, and the host is expected to provide both food and entertainment. Then there are the tables and chairs to consider. We’d need a bunch, and I wonder if we have time to rent any.”
“The inn that was going to host the event must have had tables and chairs reserved,” Georgia pointed it out. “I can call and speak to them and see if we can’t just take over their reservation. As for the food, I can handle that.”
“I can help,” Amy said.
“Me too,” Christy added.
“And I can build the vendor booths in a few days,” Jeremy assured me.
“I’m good with a hammer,” Mylie offered.
“And I’m sure Noah would help as well.” Christy volunteered.
I looked at Georgia. “What about the guests we have staying with us? We like to plan our events ahead of time, so we can warn people about any large events at the time of their booking.”
“Mylie and Amy will still be here the weekend after next, and it doesn’t seem as if either would mind the extra crowd on Saturday.”
Both agreed they wouldn’t.
“David and Barbara will also be here that weekend, and I’m sure they won’t mind, although I will call them.” David and Barbara were Hannah’s grandparents and had stayed at the inn in the past when visiting. “The suite I mentioned as having a cancellation will still be empty that weekend, so I can just not book the room and reassign the vacancy to suite one on the first floor, which would be the busiest. That just leaves the guests in suites three and four, who I will call and speak to if we decide to move forward.”
“The beer garden guests will be out on the lawn,” Jeremy said. “We can bring in portable toilets and set them up along the driveway, which we’ve done for other events, which means that no one would actually need to venture inside the inn other than staff and guests staying at the inn at the time.”
“Why don’t I call the manager at the inn that had to cancel to see what they had in place and what we might be able to simply absorb,” Georgia suggested. “That way, we’ll know how much work it will actually be to put this thing together.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll text the committee back and let them know we’re discussing it and will have an answer later in the day.”
Chapter 4
I was about to follow the group down to the bluff for a short walk when my phone rang. It was Colt, asking me if I could come down to his office so we could discuss a few things. Of course, the nondescript content of his request thrust my imagination into overdrive, so I asked if the things he wanted to discuss related to the murder he was investigating, and he admitted they did. I’d been dying to find out more about the homicide ever since Peach mentioned it, so I assured Colt I’d grab my keys and head in his direction.
“Who died?” I asked the minute I walked into his office to find him sitting at his desk, waiting for me.
He indicated I should take a seat across from him.
“Was it someone I know? Not Velma,” I asked, reciting the first name that popped into my mind. Velma owned a local diner and was close to both Colt and me.
“No. Not Velma. But possibly someone you know.”
My heart sank. “Who?”
“Patrick Montoya.”
I frowned. “Who’s Patrick Montoya?”
Colt leaned in just a bit. “Are you sure the name doesn’t ring a bell?”
I shook my head. “I’m sure. Why do you think I might know this man?”
Colt held up a business card. My business card. “I found this in the pocket of our murder victim.”
I frowned, and then my eyes shot wide open. “Patrick. Of course. I did meet a man named Patrick yesterday. I didn’t realize his last name was Montoya. He works at the museum, and was kind enough to answer some questions I had relating to the history of the Chadwick family.”
“So, you spoke to this man yesterday?” Colt clarified.
“Yes. I stopped by the museum to see if I could speak to someone about the research I am doing for a book I’m thinking about writing based on the Chadwick house, but it was closed. There was a man inside. Patrick. I knocked on the door, and he answered. I told him what I was after, and he told me I could come in and talk to him while he packed up.”
“Packed up?” Colt asked.
“I guess the museum is expecting a new shipment of items next week, so Patrick was there to select items to move into storage. He was there alone and seemed happy to have someone to talk to. He really was a very knowledgeable man.” I paused and took a breath. “What happened to him? How did he die?”
“Shot in the chest.”
I gasped. “Who shot him?”
“I have no idea. Yet.” Colt tapped his fingers on the desk in front of him. “You said this man was packing stuff up to transfer to storage. Do you know what he did with the stuff he packed up?”
“He put it in a duffle bag, and then he took it with him. I guess there must be some sort of offsite storage unit. I didn’t ask.”
Colt picked up the phone and made a call. Based on his end of the conversation, I could tell that the call was to a woman named Nadine, who was somehow connected to the museum. Colt asked about Patrick, at which point I noticed his expression fade into a deep frown. “Can you meet me down there?” he asked. The woman must have said she could because Colt provided a time and then hung up.
“What is it? What did Nadine say?”
“Patrick was a volunteer at the museum, which is why he had keys to the place. The museum was closed yesterday, and according to Nadine, who manages the museum, no one including, Patrick, was supposed to be there.”
“But what about the pieces that Patrick was moving to make room for the new items set to arrive?” I asked.
“No new items are being delivered. Nadine told me that if Patrick was removing relics from the museum, then he was stealing them. The museum isn’t open today either, so until I called Nadine, no one even knew about the theft.”
I frowned. “That makes no sense.”
“I don’t disagree with that. Nadine is heading over to the museum as soon as she can get there to see what’s missing. We are going to meet her there in an hour. In the meantime, we’re going to head to Patrick’s house to see if we can find this duffle bag you told me about.”
I sat back, shaking my head as if that would somehow help me to make sense of everything. “I can’t believe that nice man was executing a burglary the entire time I was sitting there talking to him. He said he was a volunteer. He seemed to be highly educated and well-traveled. Why would he do that?”
Colt stood up, shuffling a stack of papers and sliding them into a folder as he did so. “I don’t know. Maybe he needed the money the stolen artifacts would bring. Let’s just hope he didn’t have the chance to fence the items he took.”
I followed Colt out to his cruiser. When he opened the front passenger door for me, I slid in. Since he’d already been to Patrick’s home when he was called in earlier to deal with the homicide, he knew exactly where he was going.
“Maybe Patrick was in some sort of trouble,” I said as we headed south. “Maybe he’d been compelled by someone to steal the items he did, and when this person came to collect whatever it was he or she was after, the exchange went badly, and Patrick was shot.”
“Perhaps,” Colt acknowledged. “Or maybe Patrick was simply down on his luck and realized that a few stolen artifacts would bring him a cash infusion, so he went down to the museum on a day he knew they’d be closed and helped himself. Perhaps his death is related to the burglary, and he was shot by w
homever he planned to sell the items to, or maybe his death was unrelated, and the theft is simply a coincidence.”
“Seems unlikely the theft and the murder are unrelated,” I said.
He shifted his hands on the steering wheel. “Agreed, but at this stage in the game, I know it is best to explore all options.” Colt made a sharp turn to the right. “Did Patrick seem interested in anything in particular when you were there talking to him?”
I paused to think about Colt’s question. “No. At least not that I noticed. He opened and sorted through several different cabinets and display cases. There were items he removed, looked at, and then replaced, while other items he inspected were set aside and eventually put in his bag. I really wasn’t paying all that much attention to which items he selected and which he put back, although I do remember a knife with rubies and emeralds on the handle, which he took with him. There was also a necklace with a huge emerald and a few other things with large gems. I guess he might have been looking for items that would bring in a lot of cash if sold, although he identified the knife as having fake gems and took it anyway.”
Colt turned onto a residential street and slowed. “It still seems odd to me that he invited you in to chat with him during the execution of the burglary. He must have known that when the museum opened tomorrow, someone would realize there had been a burglary and call it in. He must have realized that by inviting you in to watch him work, you’d eventually realize he was the thief and identify him. He even gave you his real name. That part doesn’t fit at all.”
“I agree. Unless, of course, there was something else going on other than a simple burglary.”
“I have a feeling that when all is said and done, we’re going to find that to be true.”
Colt pulled up in front of a house that had been painted blue, although the trim had been left white. It was a nice house. Small, but well kept. Roses lined the drive, and the lawn looked to be well maintained. I wondered if Patrick lived alone, or if there was a Mrs. Patrick inside, grieving the loss of her husband.
“Was Patrick married?” I asked.
“He was widowed. His wife passed away seven months ago.”
The poor guy. “Did he have children?” I wondered.
“No. Based on what I’ve been able to dig up, Patrick remained single until after his sixtieth birthday when he met a woman named Vonda and fell in love. Patrick and Vonda had seventeen years together until she passed away this past winter.”
“So Patrick must have been around seventy-seven?”
“He’d just turned seventy-eight three weeks ago.”
I thought about the man with the pale blue eyes. He’d obviously lived an interesting life. Not only had he told me that he’d climbed Mount Everest twice, but based on the tales he told, it sounded like he had traveled widely as well. I could only imagine what it would be like to walk amongst pyramids and other ancient ruins, and the idea of actually participating on a dig where ancient cultures had once lived out their lives was something truly spectacular.
“I’m still having a hard time believing that a man who dedicated so much of his life to preserving history would steal local artifacts as a means of making a buck,” I said as Colt opened his door and slid out.
“I don’t disagree. Nadine was very surprised when I told her about the burglary. She assured me that despite what you’d seen, there was no way Patrick would steal items of such value only to turn them into cash. She agreed with you and was quite adamant that if he had indeed removed items from the museum, he must have had an awfully good reason for doing so.”
By the time Colt and I arrived at Patrick’s home, the body, as well as the crime scene unit, were gone. Colt handed me a pair of gloves, cautioning me all the while not to touch anything. Our task was to look for the blue duffle bag as well as the artifacts I’d seen Patrick take. Colt reminded me that the artifacts might have been removed from the duffle bag, so it was important to notice any objects that might have been part of the haul taken from the museum.
The house itself was modest but nice. The flowered curtains, multiple throw pillows, and fragile china teacups evidenced a woman’s touch, but there were also books with torn covers and yellowed pages, photos of digs from around the world, and broken pieces of pottery and ancient weaponry, which demonstrated Patrick’s influence as well.
“Where did he die?” I asked. I hadn’t noticed blood on the floor or walls or anywhere else at this point.
“In his office. It’s down the hallway.”
I followed Colt down the narrow passage. He paused at the third door on the right. Opening it slowly, he cautioned me once again not to touch anything. This room, unlike the living area at the front of the house, looked like something out of a horror movie. “Why is there so much blood?” I asked.
“It appears as if Patrick was shot right about here.” Colt crossed the room. “It must not have been a fatal shot since, based on the blood spatter, it appears he moved across the room to here and was shot a second time. We found his body in front of his desk, where a large puddle of blood has stained the rug.”
I looked around the room, fighting back nausea. There was blood on the floor, blood on the walls, blood on most of the furniture. “So did someone call it in? A neighbor, perhaps?”
“The initial report by the medical examiner puts the time of death around eleven p.m. last night. The murder wasn’t called in until early this afternoon when a friend of Patrick’s came by with a cake she’d baked for him. I guess the front door was cracked open when she arrived, and she could hear the television blaring from the back of the house. She called out, but Patrick didn’t answer. Fearing that he might be ill, she came in to look around, and that’s when she found the body.”
“So, this man was shot twice, and no one heard the shots?” I asked.
“I guess the shooter must have used a silencer, or perhaps found another way to muffle the sound of the gunshots.”
I supposed that might be the case. I looked around the room. If Patrick had brought the duffle bag home, it was most likely he would have put it in his office, yet I didn’t see it. I walked around the room, being careful where I stepped. While the room did feature artifacts, which I assumed Patrick had collected throughout his life, I didn’t see anything I recognized from the museum.
“I don’t see the duffle bag or any of the items Patrick was looking at in here,” I said. “Of course, I have no way of knowing what sort of things he might have put into the bag before my arrival. Based on the size and the items I did see him take, I’d say the duffle bag was probably two thirds full by the time I showed up.”
“Let’s take a look in the bedroom and the guest room,” Colt suggested. “Other than the living room, this room, and those two rooms, there’s a bathroom and kitchen.”
The bedroom was cluttered with discarded clothing and dishes. It seemed that Patrick wasn’t much of a housekeeper. Nothing really stood out as being relevant, but there was a notepad on the bedside table with an address, time, and phone number jotted down on it. Colt picked up the notepad with his gloved hand and put it in a plastic bag. The guest room featured a bed and bedside table but otherwise didn’t appear to have actually been used as a guest room. There were boxes and boxes of books, pottery, and ancient weaponry stacked floor to ceiling. While the items in the boxes looked interesting, I didn’t see how the contents would provide a clue as to what had happened to the man who owned them.
“What about his car?” I asked. “Has anyone looked in the trunk? I saw Patrick put the duffle bag in his trunk right before he left the museum. In fact, he had a box of old letters in the trunk, which he lent me after placing the duffle bag inside. I really don’t see why he’d do that if he is nothing but a common thief.”
“I don’t either. That part makes no sense. I’ll check with the crime scene guys. When I saw the car, it was in the garage.”
A thorough search of the rest of the house didn’t turn up the duffle bag or any of the artifacts
I’d noticed Patrick selecting. We looked for a safe but didn’t find one, so we headed out to the garage to look in the car. Colt didn’t have the car keys, so he had to break into the vehicle in order to access the interior of the car, where he was able to locate a remote lever for the trunk. Unfortunately, the trunk was empty.
“I guess whatever he did with the stuff he took from the museum, he did before coming home, or perhaps whoever killed him took it.”
Colt bent down and looked in the glove box, under the seat, and then under the carpet in the back. “Yes, it looks like the duffle bag, as well as the artifacts, are long gone. I hoped to find a key to a storage unit of some sort, but so far, no such luck.”
I stepped out of the garage and into the bright sunlight. “So, what should we do now?”
“Let’s head to the museum and talk to Nadine. Maybe if we can figure out what has been stolen, we can figure out who would have wanted it.
Chapter 5
By the time Colt and I arrived at the museum, Nadine had printed out a list and was busily comparing the items on the inventory sheet with the items in the locked cabinets and display cases. Based on the deep crease in her forehead and the blush of red on her cheeks, it appeared as if she was more than just a tiny bit angry. Or maybe it was more concern than anger. At this point, it was hard to tell.
“As you indicated there would be, there are items missing that were here this past weekend,” she confirmed, huffing out a breath and looking up toward where Colt and I were standing. She picked up the inventory sheet she’d been working from and appeared to become even madder. “I just don’t understand why Patrick would do this. He loved history, and he loved this museum. The idea that he simply needed money and helped himself to the artifacts we had on display makes no sense.”
