by Kathi Daley
“No. The man whose photo you showed me had an envelope with photos inside. He passed the envelope to the man who joined him, and they chatted for maybe twenty minutes. They kept their voices low, and they sat at a table in the back, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The snooty English gentleman took the photos with him when he left. I’m not sure if that helps you, but that really is all I have to offer.”
“Other than short hair, clean-shaven, and wearing a suit, can you tell me anything else about the guy? Hair color? Height? That sort of thing.”
The bartender rolled his eyes back into his head as if he was pulling up a memory. “I guess he was about thirty-five. He had dark hair. I didn’t notice his eye color. He was around six feet tall. Thin. He didn’t have any scars or tattoos that I could see. He did have a ring. A big one that really stood out. It was black with a silver image layered over the top. I didn’t get a good look at it, but it didn’t look like your typical class ring or wedding band. My first impression was that it was a family crest, or perhaps the guy belongs to some sort of a club.”
“Anything else?” Colt asked.
“Nope. That’s about it.”
Colt handed him his card. “If you see this man again or you think of anything else, please call me.”
“Will do.”
Colt slipped him a twenty and then turned and walked toward the front door. Neither of us said anything until we were settled in his truck.
“So, what do you think?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. The man Patrick met with could be law enforcement, but he could just as easily have been his attorney, a buyer for the stolen goods, or a colleague from his days at the university. Without more information, there’s really no way to tell. I am curious about the photos Patrick gave to the man who met him.”
“There’s a good chance he took the photos with his phone and then printed them off with the printer I noticed in his home office. If he did use his phone to take the photos, they may still be in the phone’s memory, or they might have been downloaded onto the computer. Either way, you might be able to figure out which photos Patrick shared with the man he met. Do you have both the phone and the computer?”
“I do. I’ll drop you off so you can pick up your car, and then I’m going to head to the county office and have a chat with our tech guy.”
Chapter 6
I awoke early the following morning, so I decided to join Georgia and the others for breakfast. When I arrived in the dining room, I saw that Georgia, who’d set up a nice buffet, was sitting and eating with Jeremy, Annabelle, Mylie, Amy, and a man who looked to be in his thirties I’d yet to meet.
“Abby, I’m so glad you decided to join us,” Georgia greeted. “I don’t believe you’ve met Austin Brown.” She introduced the clean-cut man with dark hair and big brown eyes who was sitting next to Mylie. “He’s in town to interview for a position with the local school district.”
“It’s so nice to meet you,” I greeted, pouring myself a cup of coffee. “What grade do you teach?”
“I have both a primary and secondary credential, but I’m here to interview for a position as a kindergarten teacher.”
“Really.” I suppose it was stereotypical for me to be surprised by this. When I went to school, all the kindergarten teachers were female, and you rarely found a male teacher below the fourth grade.
He shrugged. “I like kids of all ages, and a kindergarten teacher just happens to be the only position currently open in this town.”
“Well, good luck. When is your interview?”
“This afternoon,” he answered. “I know they had a large applicant pool, so I’m not holding out a lot of hope, but I really want to move to Holiday Bay, so I’m going to bring my ‘A Game’ and hope for the best.”
“I think you’d be a fantastic kindergarten teacher,” Amy said, in a voice that clearly conveyed her faith in him.
Deciding to grab a bagel to go with my coffee, I got up and headed toward the buffet table. “So, what are the rest of you doing today?” I asked after popping my bagel into the toaster.
“Jeremy and I are going to start designing the booths for Lobsterfest,” Mylie said. “We worked up a rough idea of what we would need last night. We just need to confirm the number of breweries planning to offer tastings and the approximate number of tickets the committee hopes to sell.”
“You can get that from Wanda Dollan,” I informed Jeremy. “She’s on the Lobsterfest committee this year.”
“I’m curious why they’re having the beer garden all the way out here,” Mylie said. “I know the majority of the weekend events are being held in town. It would seem to make more sense to keep all the side events close to the lobster feed and carnival.”
“The committee wanted to use the event to showcase the entire area, so many of the attractions are being held at lodging properties. Not everyone has the space to host an event such as this, but we, and several others, are lucky enough to have plenty of space. I know the wine tasting and jazz festival are being held at the Holiday Bay Grand Hotel, which is actually north of here.”
“Won’t the beer garden and wine tasting compete with each other?” Amy asked.
“No,” I answered. “The wine tasting is Friday evening, and the beer garden is Saturday afternoon, followed by the lobster feed in town Saturday evening. The carnival will be set up on the bluff south of town and runs Thursday through Sunday, and the local arts and crafts fair, which will take place in the park, runs Friday through Sunday. I think some of the lodging properties with less room to hold a large event are still planning to participate by hosting smaller teas and happy hours. There is a schedule, which includes all the events taking place over the weekend. I’ll get us a copy once it’s finalized.”
“I think your garden is going to be a wonderful place to gather,” Austin said. “I can’t wait to get out there and really explore your flowerbeds.”
“Speaking of the flowerbeds,” Jeremy said. “I want to be sure they’re protected, so I’m going to string rope around some of the areas that border the lawn. I’m afraid they might get trampled with so many people in the yard at one time.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said.
“I’ll do something low key so it will look natural, but also act as a reminder to folks to go around rather than through the beds.”
“And Georgia and I are going to start working on the menu for the event,” Amy said with a huge smile on her face. “We talked about it last night and have a ton of ideas.”
“I really appreciate the help, but I want to be sure that you and Mylie both know you don’t have to help out. You are guests, after all. I almost feel like we’re taking advantage of you by putting you to work.”
“I want to help,” Amy said. “I came here to work with Georgia, so this is an awesome opportunity for me.”
“Me too,” Mylie seconded. “Being here with you all feels like being with family, and as part of that family, I am thrilled to pitch in.”
I sat down at the table with my bagel. “Okay. If you’re both sure.” I glanced at Georgia. “Is Nikki coming in today?”
“Yeah, she’ll be here in an hour or so. We have two arrivals today, but both rooms were cleaned yesterday. How about you? What are you up to today?”
“I’m going over to the Chadwick house with Lacy. She’s picking me up after she drops her kids off at the sitter’s.”
“How’s the remodel coming along?” Georgia asked.
“It’s really coming along nicely. You know how good Lonnie is. We’ll be starting in the library today, which I, for one, am really excited about. Once he removes the damaged section of the bookshelf, the answer to the question of whether or not a secret room exists behind the bookshelf will be answered once and for all.”
“Call me when you find out,” Georgia encouraged. “I’ve been wondering about that as well.”
By the time I’d finished my coffee and bagel, Lacy pulled up out front. I offere
d her a cup of coffee, which she declined, preferring to head out right away since she had to pick the kids up by mid-afternoon.
“So tell me all about this murder investigation you were helping Colt with yesterday when I called. You said you couldn’t talk and were going to call me back, but you never did.” Lacy said as she pulled away from the inn.
“I know. I’m sorry. I really did mean to call you, but I got distracted once I got back to the inn.”
“That’s okay. I get it. You’re busy. I’m busy, too, and get distracted all the time. So tell me now. Who died, and why are you involved?”
“It all started when I went by the museum on Tuesday.”
“The museum is closed on Tuesdays,” Lacy pointed out as she merged on the highway and headed west.
“I know that now, but I didn’t know that then. Anyway, I wanted to see if someone at the museum might know more about the Chadwick family, so I decided to stop by. When I arrived, I saw the sign notifying visitors they were only open Thursday through Sunday. I was about to leave when I noticed a man inside. I figured it couldn’t hurt to see if he had a minute to talk, so I knocked on the window. Surprisingly, he let me in to chat with him while he went through the inventory, packing some of it into a duffle bag to move into storage.”
Lacy sped up as she left the incorporated area. “Okay, so far, I’m following. How does this lead to a murder?”
“I’m getting to that. Anyway, I spoke to this man, who told me his name was Patrick, for a good thirty minutes while he completed his chore. He was very knowledgeable and had a lot of good information, which I will share with you at another time. For the purpose of this conversation, the fact that I spoke to him while he was loading up his duffle bag is what’s important. Once he was done, we both left, he drove off in one direction, and I drove off in another. Then on Wednesday, I find out from Colt that a man with my business card in his pocket had been found murdered. That man was Patrick.”
“That’s really creepy and strange.”
“It gets even stranger,” I said. “According to one of the other volunteers at the museum, while it is true that Patrick was a volunteer at the museum, according to this woman, he wasn’t supposed to be there on Tuesday, and he most definitely wasn’t supposed to be removing anything from the building.”
“Wait. What?”
“Colt believes that Patrick was at the museum to steal the stuff he put into his duffle bag.”
“Why?” Lacy asked.
“He didn’t know. None of us do. There are some theories out there, but none of them really make sense. What we do know at this point is that Patrick was shot twice in his home office, and the items he took from the museum are nowhere to be found.”
“So he did something with them between leaving the museum and arriving at his home where he was shot.”
“That seems to be the case. Colt said that Patrick was shot Tuesday night around eleven o’clock, so he must have gotten rid of the items he stole fairly quickly after leaving the museum. I’m not sure if this next part is relevant, but we also found out that Patrick met with a man at a bar up near Portland on Monday afternoon. The bartender told Colt that Patrick brought an envelope full of photos which the man looked at and then took with him.”
“Photos of what?”
“The bartender didn’t know. He said the man looked like a Fed. Clean cut and wearing a suit even though the bar where the men met was pretty much a dive.”
“Sounds like a Fed, but he could also be a banker or an attorney or a dozen other professions that require a certain dress code.”
“I agree. Colt agreed. He even said as much. At this point, we have a description of the guy, but it’s much too general to track him down using the information provided by the bartender. I do think Colt was going to call his buddy in the FBI and float the description by him just in case. We know that the guy spoke with an English accent, so that stands out despite the otherwise generic description provided by the bartender.”
Lacy had a lot more questions, most of which I was unable to answer. We both agreed that the whole thing made no sense. If Patrick was in the middle of executing a burglary, why on earth had he invited me in to watch the whole thing? And if his intent hadn’t been personal gain and he really did have a good reason to remove certain items from the museum, what reason could that have possibly been?
And then there was the fact that was he was murdered just a few hours after taking the items. It made sense that the theft and his murder were related, but were they?
Lacy pulled off the highway and onto the road leading out to the house. Lonnie’s truck, as well as a half dozen other trucks, were already parked out front. The first time I’d visited the house, I was certain I’d never be able to find my way around without a map, but by this point, I’d been there enough times to be able to walk directly to the library.
Lonnie had been working on the house for months now and expected to be busy with the remodel for months to come. It was a large house and big project, but I had to admit that my primary interest to this point had been the library, the books and journals contained within, and the possibility of a secret room behind the wall of the library that had no windows, yet according to the blueprint, faced the sea.
“So is today still the day?” I asked Lonnie, hoping he hadn’t changed his mind and pushed the demolition of the part of the bookcase he planned to replace to another day.
“Today is the day,” he verified. “I’m hoping to save most of the wall, so I’ll need to work carefully to remove those boards that have water damage, but we should have a large enough hole to see if there is anything behind it in an hour or two at the most. In the meantime, Lacy needs help wrapping the desk. After all the work she’s put into refurbishing it, we wouldn’t want it to get scratched during the demolition.”
“Okay. I’m on it. Yell once you have an opening.”
Lonnie called his team in, and they began removing the damaged boards very carefully. I was curious as to what we’d find, but I also wanted to stay out of the way while Lonnie worked. Lacy seemed to know what she needed to do to protect the desk, so a lot of my helping took the form of standing around and fetching things she asked for.
“Did you come across any more journals when you boxed up that last section of books?” I asked while I waited, and she worked.
“No. But I do wonder if maybe the journals that came after the one you found might have been hidden. The journals that came before were more the musings of a young girl, but if the author was Catherine as you suspect, and she was a teenager when she first started writing about Sebastian, and if she was secretly crushing on this guy, perhaps she felt more protective of her thoughts as time went by, and rather than leaving her journals here in the library, she hid them somewhere only she would know about.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I admitted. “The journal I found must have been written either the summer Olivia died or the summer before Olivia’s death. Patrick told me the family never returned to the house after she died, so the journal entry wouldn’t have been after, and it sounds like Catherine was only sixteen the summer Olivia died, so if she was already lusting after the man in her life, it seems to me that the diaries couldn’t have been written much earlier than her fifteenth summer.”
“That makes sense.”
“I wonder if Baron knows whether Will and Diana were at the house for more than one summer. If not, then the journals have to have been written the summer Olivia died, but if they had been, then I do think it is possible the one I found had been written the summer before.”
“Baron doesn’t seem to know a lot about his father’s family, but I can ask him if he knows the next time I speak to him,” Lacy offered.
“How did he like the chairs you found for the dining room?” I wondered.
“He loved them. He said they were exactly as he imagined. The amount of money this guy is spending on this house is almost absurd. I hope he is really happy with every aspect of
it by the time Lonnie and I are done.”
“I’m sure he will be. The two of you are very good at what you do.”
By the time Lacy and I had the desk wrapped up, Lonnie and his men had made an opening in the wall large enough to squeeze through.
“There is definitely an interior space back here,” Lonnie said. “It’s dark. Grab a couple of flashlights, and we’ll check it out.”
Lonnie went through the opening first to make sure it was safe for Lacy and me to follow. Once he’d looked around a bit, he called out that we could file through the opening one by one. The space was one large room, which reminded me of a warehouse. The walls, as well as the floor, were finished, but there were no windows, no furniture, and no décor of any type.
“Patrick said that he suspected that Ozzie Chadwick used this room to store items he smuggled into the country. Illegal items, whatever those items might have been,” I informed the others.
“I guess that makes sense,” Lonnie said as he slowly walked around the large room, shining his light on both the walls and the floor. “But I don’t see a door or entrance of any sort.”
“Patrick said the entrance would be below the house,” I added. “At sea level. He said that a cave system of sorts would lead from the water to the room. Less chance of discovery if there was no way to access the room from the house level.”
“I guess that makes sense, but it also sounds really inconvenient for the person living in the house.”
“There are those old rotted out stairs leading down to the water. I assume the occupant of the house used them to access the water level and then came up through the tunnel,” I pointed out.
Lonnie walked around the room, looking at the floor. “I suppose we’re looking for a trap door leading to a hidden passage.”
“That would make sense,” I agreed.
“I think I see something on the floor over near the far wall,” Lacy said.
Lonnie shone his light in that direction. “Yeah. I see it. Hang on, and I’ll check it out.” He slowly made his way across the dark room. Eventually, he stopped walking. He knelt down and then stood up. “The item Lacy noticed is a blue duffle bag, and it’s full of a variety of old objects.”
