Gossip in the Garden

by Kathi Daley

  “Don’t touch it,” I said. “At least not any more than you already have. I’m fairly certain that duffle bag is evidence in a murder investigation.”

  I called Colt, who told me not to touch the duffle bag or anything else in the secret room, which I’d already assumed to be the case. He told me he would be over as soon as he could get there, and that Lonnie, Lacy, and I should wait. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be too long since Lacy had children to pick up from the sitter.

  Once Colt arrived with another man who was there to dust for prints, he asked us a few questions, and then went through the opening himself while the rest of us were told to wait in the library.

  “So the reason Patrick was able to describe the access to the secret room was because he knew where it was all along,” Lacy said.

  “That does appear to be the case,” I agreed.

  “What exactly did he tell you?” Lonnie asked. “About the room and the access to the room, I mean.”

  “He said the room was most likely used to house items Ozzie smuggled into the country, and that the access to the room would be a cave-like opening amongst the rocks at sea level below the house. He said the cave opening would be hidden, so you wouldn’t see it unless you knew it was there. He said once the cave was accessed, there would be a series of tunnels leading up to the house, and that the entrance into the secret room from the cave would be the only entrance into the room. He also said it was possible that the cave entrance would only be accessible at low tide.”

  “That’s pretty specific,” Lonnie said. “I agree with Lacy that he’d been inside the secret room at some point in the past.”

  “Why tell you all of this and then leave the duffle bag there?” Lacy asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I told Patrick that you planned to take down part of the bookshelf, and we would finally get a peek behind the wall. He would have known the room wasn’t a good place for a long term hiding place.”

  “Unless he hid the duffle bag in a place where he knew you would find it,” Lacy said.

  “Why would he do that?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Maybe his intent was to put the bag here temporarily while he did something. Maybe he needed to finalize his deal or whatever. Maybe he intended to come back for the bag right away. Like that same day or the next, before we would have found it. But maybe he also knew that what he was doing was dangerous, so he didn’t want to hide the bag where no one would ever find it should something happen to him. He figured if he was successful in his mission, he’d just come back for the bag before you accessed the room, but if he was unsuccessful and something happened to him, then at least he would know that you would eventually find the relics.”

  “That actually is a really good explanation,” I agreed. “But if all that is true, it shows that he cared about the relics and didn’t want them to be lost forever. It makes it seem even less likely to me that he simply took them for personal gain.”

  “Yeah,” Lacy agreed. “That part really isn’t making sense.”

  Shortly after Colt and his man went into the room, they reemerged.

  “So?” I asked. “Did you find the entrance?”

  “I did,” Colt confirmed. “It’s a tunnel leading down. I figured the three of you would want to come along while I check it out.”

  “We totally do,” Lonnie said.

  “Just stay behind me and take it slow. I don’t expect any problems, but I don’t want to find out until it’s too late that there are traps or something.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. Surely, Ozzie wouldn’t build traps into his own secret passageway.

  As it turned out, the journey down the passage to sea level was easily accomplished. When we arrived at the opening, it was partially covered with water, which seemed to indicate that Patrick was correct in his assertion that the passage could only be accessed at certain times of the day. There didn’t seem to be anything else to see or find, so we headed back toward the house. Colt picked up the duffel bag and brought it into the library through the opening Lonnie had created. He compared the contents of the duffel bag with the inventory list supplied by Nadine.

  “Is anything missing?” I asked.

  “The diary that Nadine told us was donated by the Bidwell family, which at one time was owned by Ademar Delgado and the bowl she mentioned as possibly being the Harvest Bowl.”

  “The diary that’s supposed to contain clues leading to the gold Delgado stole from Spain?” I verified.

  Colt nodded. “That would be the one.”

  “If the diary and bowl aren’t here, where are they?” I asked. “We didn’t find anything like that at his home.”

  Colt frowned. “I don’t know, but I do suspect that finding the diary and bowl might be the key to figuring out who killed Patrick Montoya.”

  Chapter 7

  When I arrived back at the inn, I found Georgia, Jeremy, Mylie, and Amy sitting on the deck, sharing a pitcher of lemonade. Annabelle had gone to visit Hannah and her family with David and Barbara, who’d arrived earlier. They planned to stay for dinner, and Austin still hadn’t returned from his interview with the school district. Jason Rivers, the man who was to check into unit four, had called and changed his reservation, and now wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow.

  “So we’ve had a bit of a situation today,” Georgia said after I joined the group.

  “Uh, oh. What sort of situation?”

  “Remember the woman I saw sitting on the bench along the bluff? The one who was waiting for Michael.”

  “Yes. Did she show up again today?” I wondered.

  “She showed up here at the inn,” Georgia said. “I was in the kitchen, baking pies for dessert when she poked her head in the door. She said that she was staying here at the resort, but had lost her key and wondered if I could let her into her room. I asked her name, and she froze, almost as if she didn’t remember. Eventually, she said her name was Rena. To be honest, I’m not even sure that’s actually her name, or if it’s a name she just came up with. I asked her last name, but she seemed confused, and the longer she tried to remember, the more upset she became, so I decided to drop it.”

  “Maybe she’s staying somewhere in town and simply got turned around,” I said.

  “Maybe. But the main question in my mind, is how did she get all the way out here? I didn’t notice a vehicle, and she didn’t have luggage, which I would think she would have if someone had dropped her off.”

  “So where is she now?” I asked.

  “Sleeping in suite one. I let her into the suite, gave her a pot of tea and a sandwich, and suggested she might want to take a nap. As you know, the suite is empty since the couple who’d reserved it had to cancel. The poor old dear seemed to be both disoriented and exhausted, so I hoped if she was allowed to rest up for a bit, she’d remember where she’s actually supposed to be.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. I guess if she still doesn’t remember where she’s supposed to be once she wakes up, we can call Colt. He may have a missing persons report if the poor dear has simply wandered away from her home.”

  “That was my thought as well,” Georgia said. “She’s a nice woman. Very sweet and appreciative. But she seems to be lost and confused. I feel really bad for her.”

  “I had an aunt with dementia,” Amy said. “She’s passed now, but toward the end, she spent most of her day looking for Uncle Wally. Uncle Wally passed away twenty years ago, but she talked about him as if she’d just seen him at breakfast.”

  “Someone must be helping her get around,” Georgia said. “There is no way she walked all the way out here from town. Hopefully, once she wakens, she’ll be able to tell us who to call.”

  Only she didn’t know who to call once she woke. In fact, she continued to insist that she was checked in at the resort, and was waiting for Michael to arrive. When we tried to tell her that we didn’t have her registered at the inn, she looked at us as if we were the ones who were crazy. Georgia and I di
scussed it and decided to go ahead and call Colt. It wasn’t that we were unwilling to let her stay with us for a few days if need be, but we were worried that someone was looking for her. Colt agreed to come by and speak to her. When he arrived, she told him the same thing she’d told Georgia. She insisted that her name was Rena, but she couldn’t quite recall her last name. She said she was staying at the resort, where she was to meet someone named Michael. Colt offered to call social services, but we didn’t want Rena to end up in the hospital, or even worse, a mental health facility, so we talked him into letting her stay with us while he tracked down this Michael or whomever it was who was helping the woman. He took her photo and her fingerprints before heading back into town.

  “I have a nightgown, extra toothbrush, and toiletries I can give Rena, but she’ll need some clothes to change into,” Georgia said. “She’s a tiny little thing, so she would probably fit into my jeans or shorts, but I’m not sure she’d find them to her liking.”

  “I’ll run into town and pick something up for her at the boutique,” I offered. “She looks like a size two petite, but let’s confirm that. I noticed the boutique carries pants and blouses for senior women very similar to what she has on. If Colt finds out where she’s supposed to be and she ends up not needing them, we can always return them.”

  “Okay,” Georgia said. “I’ll go and ask about her size.”

  Once Georgia spoke to Rena, and got her exact size and color preference, I headed toward town. I really needed to stop and drop some bookmarks and postcards off with Vanessa Blackstone at Firehouse Books anyway. I’d been promising to do so for weeks, but it seemed that every time I’d headed toward town during the past couple of weeks, I’d forgotten to bring the promised materials. Now seemed to be as good a time as any to drop them off.

  “Abby!” Vanessa greeted with an enthusiastic hug. “I’m so happy you stopped by.”

  I held up the box in my hands. “I finally remembered to bring you the bookmarks and postcards I’ve been promising.”

  “Fantastic. I have a display set up to help advertise your author talk and book signing. These are welcomed additions. So far, everyone I’ve spoken to about it is excited to have the chance to talk to you in person.”

  “And I’m excited to speak to everyone.”

  She took the box from my hands and set it on the counter. “I spoke to Colt earlier. He told me about Patrick. I have to admit I was both shocked and devastated.”

  “Did you know Patrick?” I asked.

  “Sure. Patrick was an educated man with a voracious appetite for the written word. He was actually one of my best customers. He wasn’t very interested in popular fiction or self-help books, so most of the books he was looking for had to be special ordered. When he came in to place his orders, we’d stop and chat. He’d lived an interesting life, and he had a lot of stories to tell.”

  “I met him the day before he was shot, but despite the short amount of time we spent together, I came away from my encounter with Patrick with the sense that he was an extraordinary man.”

  “He really was, and he will be missed. The whole thing is just so senseless. I just don’t understand who would have shot such a nice guy,” Vanessa said. “He was the sweetest man you’d ever want to meet.”

  I wasn’t sure if Colt wanted me to mention the theft, so I decided to keep that to myself. Still, if Patrick ordered books from Vanessa and if he stopped to talk to her about his work, then maybe she knew what he was currently working on, which I supposed might provide a clue.

  “So the books Patrick ordered,” I said. “What sort of topics did he seem most interested in lately?”

  “All sorts of things, but he was most interested in history. Local history for sure, but also history as it related to the development of New England as a whole. Lately, it seemed like he’d been looking at settlement and migration patterns and their effect on the native people who lived in the area in pre-colonial times.”

  “Was he focused on the colonization of Maine?” I asked.

  “Not specifically. He did a lot of research into some of the very earliest colonies that sprang up along the entire east coast. You know, in addition to being a voracious reader, Patrick was also an author. He has a couple of books in the reference section of the library. You should check them out if you have a chance.”

  “I’ll do that. Did Patrick seem to be researching anything other than history?” I wondered.

  “He did seem interested in family histories, although I guess that falls into the category of history. Until I met Patrick, I had no idea there were so many families living in the area with roots back to the early colonial period.”

  I had to agree with that. “When I spoke to Patrick, he was very knowledgeable about the Chadwick family. I’d gone in hoping for a few small pieces of information, and came away with a much better understanding of who the family was and how they got to where they are today.”

  “Like I said before, Patrick was very knowledgeable about the history of the area. You know, it does seem that most recently he’d ordered several books having to do with geography and geology of the area.”

  “Do you have the titles he ordered?”

  “I do,” she answered. “I can print you out a list. Will his orders for the past six months suffice?”

  “Yeah, that would be great.”

  She walked over to her computer and typed out a command. “In addition to the books, he also asked me about old maps of the area before colonization. I suspect he might have been looking for the location of native villages, and the development from what existed historically to what exists today. He used to dabble in archeology, and I suspect he’d gotten the bug once again.”

  “Were you able to tell him where he could find these old maps?” I asked.

  “I gave him several resources. I’m not sure if he ever followed up.”

  The fact that Patrick was after old maps of the area seemed to fall in line with the idea he might have been looking for the gold Ademar Delgado supposedly hid before sinking his ship. If the journal did hold clues as to where Ademar hid the gold, and Patrick had access to the journal, it sounded like I might want to take a closer look at the items in Patrick’s home office. Of course, if Patrick was after the gold, it still didn’t explain why he stole the items he had. As Nadine had said, Patrick was alone in the museum all the time. He could have read or even copied the journal then if he was interested in the content. He didn’t need to steal it, and he certainly didn’t need to steal the other items he had. Something just wasn’t adding up.

  I glanced at the clock. “I’ve enjoyed chatting with you, but I should go. I need to stop by the boutique before it closes.”

  “And I should start cleaning up in preparation for my own closing. Thanks for bringing the bookmarks and postcards by.”

  After I left the bookstore, I headed to the boutique and purchased Rena two outfits as well as new undergarments. I really wasn’t sure if she’d need them, but the poor dear couldn’t wear the same clothes for days if it took Colt that long to find out where she was supposed to be. I called Colt for an update after I returned to the inn, and so far, he hadn’t found anyone looking for Rena, nor had her prints or photo turned up a name. He reminded me that these sorts of searches took time and that he’d call me if he heard anything. I decided to see what I could find out about Michael. Maybe if we were unable to figure out who Rena really was, we could use clues provided by her to find the man she was waiting for.

  Chapter 8

  By Saturday, our final guest for the weekend, a thirty-eight-year-old software developer, had checked in. Jason Rivers was in town to settle the estate of his great aunt, Ruthie Dobson, who’d passed away six weeks ago after a short bout with cancer. As executor of the estate, Jason had been tasked with selling his aunt’s home, paying off her debts, and distributing her remaining assets amongst her heirs. He’d been away for most of his stay, only returning to the inn to sleep, so I’d never actually met him,
but Georgia had filled me in.

  Also, by Saturday, Colt had arranged for his niece and nephew to go home for the remainder of the summer until it was time for the camping trip he had planned for late August. After discussing the situation with his parents, they’d all decided that ten weeks was too long to be away from home and their friends and that they’d actually be happier with a shorter visit. Colt was busy trying to find the man or woman who’d shot and killed Patrick, so his parents agreed to make the drive to Holiday Bay to pick the kids up. They planned to arrive early in the afternoon, so Colt had invited me to dinner this evening, which was something I very much wanted to do.

  As regards to Patrick’s murder, Colt still hadn’t put together all the pieces, but he did have interesting information to share. He’d spoken to a man named Owen, who served as a volunteer at the museum during the busy summer weekends. Owen told Colt that he had no memory of ever seeing the diary or the bowl Nadine had described on display at the museum. The inventory list given to Colt by Nadine was the only proof we had that the items even existed. When we hadn’t found these items with the other items in the duffle bag, we’d suspected Patrick had done something with them before leaving the duffel bag in the secret room at the Chadwick house, but what if the real reason we hadn’t found the diary and bowl in the duffle bag was because Patrick never had them? We had no reason to believe Nadine would lie about the existence of these items, but we also had no reason to think Owen might be wrong. Owen was just a part-time volunteer, but he had been volunteering for the past eight summers, so it seemed he would know which items had been on display and which hadn’t.

  Colt decided to speak to other men and women who would be in a position to know if the diary and bowl had ever been on display at the museum. He obtained a list of volunteers and regular visitors and planned to speak to each of them. The idea that Patrick might never have had either item created an interesting question since, at this point, someone wanting the diary in Patrick’s possession and the gold supposedly linked to the diary, was the main motive Colt was using to track down the killer.