by Kathi Daley
“I didn’t know any of that,” I admitted.
“I will admit that I wasn’t always an upstanding citizen. I got into quite a bit of trouble when I was younger. I was even arrested a few times. Nothing huge, but I had a record. But then, I got pregnant with Amelia, and I knew I needed to clean up my act. I got a job, and I rented a fairly decent apartment. I might have started out rough, but by the time Wallaby and DuPont framed me, I had a daughter I adored and was planning a future. All of that was stripped from me. And for what? Just so some dirty cop could get off scot-free rather than facing up to what he had done?”
“I’m so sorry. I can see that you have every reason to be angry. I don’t blame you for wanting to seek revenge for what was done to you, or for wanting to prove your innocence after all this time.”
Julie wiped a tear from her cheek. “At first, all I could think about was getting revenge for what had been done to me,” she admitted. “I even had a plan and a means of getting that revenge. But then, DuPont reached out to me on my last day in prison and told me that if I told anyone what I knew, he would make sure that I never saw my daughter again. I missed her so much and wanted her in my life, so I decided to let it go and try to rebuild with what I had.”
What a snake! “But something changed recently?” I prompted.
“Yes. Harriet came to me. I guess she’d overheard Mayor Wallaby and Deputy DuPont talking all those years ago and knew the truth. Her loyalty had been to Mayor Wallaby at the time, so she never did anything about what she knew, but it seems she recently had an awakening and decided that secrets were evil, so she told me that she wanted to come clean about what she’d overheard. She wanted to be sure that what she printed about the death of Robert Edmonton was factual, so she hoped I would be willing to be interviewed. I told her I was willing to speak to her, and we arranged to get together.”
“And then?” I asked.
“We met in my home. She told me what she knew, and I shared what I knew. I applauded her plan to make Deputy DuPont accountable for his crime both to Robert Edmonton and to me after all these years and told her I would support her in any way that I could. I had to hand it to the woman, she did her research and managed to dig up the proof she needed. I understand that a lot of people found her blog hurtful, but in this instance, I felt she was providing a real service to both Edmonton’s family and me. I’m not sure how, but DuPont found out what Harriet was doing.”
I remembered that Harriet had been seen arguing with DuPont, and I also remembered that Gina had told me that someone from the sheriff’s office had hacked into the town’s records. I supposed that was DuPont looking for what Harriet had. Of course, the proof she’d dug up hadn’t been in the town’s files, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t caught her when she accessed the police reports she had in her own files. “Go on,” I prompted.
“DuPont told Harriet that if she published what she knew, what had happened to me would likewise happen to her.”
“He was going to frame and then arrest her?” I asked.
Julie nodded. “That is what he told her. Apparently, framing people seems to be his thing. Harriet believed him, so she called me on the day of the explosion, and we met for lunch. We talked and came up with a plan. We figured if she told a bunch of people what she knew before DuPont was able to frame her, then the frame would be impossible.”
“So it was Harriet who called the emergency meeting?”
Julie nodded. “She was going to share with the entire town council what she knew, and she planned to provide them with the proof she had to support her claim. Her plan was a good one, and would have worked if the bomb hadn’t been planted and set off before she could tell the town council everything.”
“Do you know who planted the bomb?”
“No,” Julie assured me. “I don’t know who did, but if I had to guess I would say it was DuPont.”
“Why would he plant the bomb? The explosion revealed the existence of Robert Edmonton’s remains, which seems counterproductive to his desire to keep the fate of the man under wraps.”
Julie’s face grew thoughtful “That’s true. When I heard about the explosion, I just assumed it was him trying to prevent Harriet from telling what she knew, but I suppose the method used doesn’t make sense.”
“Did anyone else know the truth about what happened to Robert Edmonton? Someone other than you, Harriet, DuPont, and of course, Wallaby?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She furrowed her brow. “Well, maybe.”
“Maybe?” I asked.
“Harriet didn’t want to tell Deputy Fisher what she knew until she was able to talk to the council as a whole because she was afraid Deputy DuPont would find out what she was up to. But when we met the first time, she did say that she felt it only right that she talk to Edmonton’s widow. I don’t know if she had the chance to do so, but she might have.”
I supposed she made as good a suspect as anyone.
After I spoke to Julie, I headed back to Jenna’s. I gave her the sugar I had been sent to fetch and filled her in on my discussion with Julie. Jenna finished the pies she wanted to make today, and then we headed to Kyle’s. We called Roy and told him what we had found out, and he suggested that he come over for a brainstorming session.
Chapter 27
“Okay, so we now know who called the emergency meeting and why,” I started off. “We know who the body in the foundation belongs to and we know how he got there. We don’t know who placed the bomb in the town hall, or why they wanted to blow it up. We don’t know if the bomber intended to blow up the council, or if they assumed the place would be empty when the building went kaboom.”
“We also don’t know why Edmonton was taking a bag of cash from his bank’s vault at the time DuPont shot him if that is even what happened,” Roy added. “Maybe the midlife starting over elsewhere theory wasn’t all that far off. Maybe that is exactly what he would have done if DuPont hadn’t shot him.”
“Speaking of DuPont, do you have enough to arrest him before he has a chance to take off?” I asked.
“Based on the official statement provided by Wallaby, DuPont is currently in custody,” Roy confirmed. “We are going to need to find hard evidence if we want to keep him there.”
“I doubt it will be easy to find anything to prove what Wallaby told us if he doesn’t have any proof of what occurred,” Jenna said.
“Maybe Harriet did have proof,” Kyle said. “Maybe the proof she had was the reason someone, probably DuPont, blew up the town hall.”
I tilted my head just a bit. “So you think the bomber believed that proof of what went down that night was located somewhere within the town offices, so he blew the whole thing up to destroy the proof he believed might exist?”
“It’s a theory,” Kyle said.
“Okay, so I assume that if DuPont blew up the building to destroy the evidence that he believed Harriet had about the night he’d killed Edmonson, then he must have been successful in doing what he intended, and the proof most likely no longer exists.”
“Maybe not,” Kyle said. “Wallaby had a floor safe in his office when he was mayor. I don’t think there are many people who even knew of its existence. I found out after Judge Harper died, and I was looking for clues relating to his death. I know Harriet knew about the safe, but other than that, I don’t know of a single soul who knew of its existence.”
“I wonder if anyone has accessed the floor safe since the building was destroyed.” Jenna wondered.
“It would be buried beneath the rubble at this point, but I do know that it was made of reinforced steel. I’m sure it survived the explosion,” Kyle answered.
“Maybe we should check it out,” Roy suggested, before offering to drive. Jenna, Kyle, and I piled into his cruiser, although of the three cars available to us, his was the least comfortable.
Shortly after we arrived at what r
emained of the town hall and were able to access the hidden safe beneath the rubble, we realized we’d found the rest of the story.
“Well, I’ll be dammed,” Roy exclaimed, as he thumbed through a file stuffed with the evidence that Harriet had somehow managed to dig up.
“James Kingston has been blackmailing people?” I gasped.
“Based on the items found in this file, it looks like he has been blackmailing people in order to obtain the land he desired, but the owners had been unwilling to sell for a long time,” Roy said.
“How on earth did Harriet get ahold of this file?” I asked. I picked up one of the documents. I had to hand it to Kingston; he knew how to get what he wanted. The document I found was a purchase agreement between himself and Byron Boatman for the land where he was planning to build his condominium development along with Lloyd Benson. The land had been in the Boatman family for generations, and I’d wondered how Kingston had gotten ahold of it, but apparently, Byron had cheated on his taxes, Kingston had found proof that would probably have landed Byron in prison, so Byron had agreed to sell him the land in exchange for his silence.
“Here is a contract between Kingston and Lloyd,” Kyle said. “I would say we know why Lloyd was helping Kingston with his vacation rental issue. Did you know that Lloyd illegally obtained a piece of beachfront property when he had the land surveyed and the property lines redrawn to benefit himself?”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “If you remember, he tried to maneuver things so he would end up with Zachary’s property after his death even though Zachary had made it clear he had no intention of selling.”
“And it looks as if the dirt on Kingston is not the only file Harriet had in the safe,” Roy jumped in. “Here are the original documents relating to Kate’s arrest and the subsequent scrubbing of her file.”
“Where on earth did Harriet get all of this?” Jenna asked.
No one knew, but the documents in the safe were probably enough to give any number of people motive to blow up the town offices if they suspected Harriet had the documents hidden somewhere inside, but they didn’t know where.
Kyle narrowed his gaze. “Harriet must have known she was playing with fire. I’m still not sure how she got ahold of these files, but given what we’ve found, I would say another conversation with Kingston is warranted.”
“I agree. I’ll track him down and see what he has to say for himself,” Roy said.
Chapter 28
Wednesday, November 22
As it turned out, Kingston had an answer for every question Roy threw at him. So, in the end, all Roy was able to deliver to the guy was a stern warning that he was onto him and was going to continue to dig. He also left him with the promise that he would be back and send him to prison if he was able to find the proof he needed to prove his theory. After Roy had talked to Kingston, and the two of us had discussed the situation in depth, we both agreed that, while James Kingston was bad news, he probably hadn’t been the one to blow up the town hall and the town offices.
Which left us back to square one as far as I was concerned.
I decided to go back and look at everything we had uncovered to date. This included all the files Harriet had in the cloud, all the files we found in her home office, and all the files we’d found in the floor safe. After hours and hours of considering numerous suspects and numerous theories, I found that I’d settled on the simplest theory of all.
“Can I help you?” The tall, distinguished woman asked after I’d rung her bell.
“My name is Tj Jensen. I hoped I might speak to you about a story Harriet Kramer was working on before she died.”
The woman pursed her lips but stepped aside. She led me down a long hallway to an elaborately decorated room. “I only have a few minutes. I have a book club meeting in just under an hour. We are having our monthly luncheon.”
“I’ll be brief,” I promised.
The woman sat down across from me.
“I understand that before she died, Harriet found proof of what really happened to your husband.”
Mrs. Edmonton nodded. “So she told me. I wasn’t sure I believed her at the time, but in light of recent events, I can see that she knew what she was talking about.”
“I understand that she informed you that your husband had not taken off as everyone seemed to think, but had, in fact, been murdered and buried in the foundation of the town hall.”
“Yes, that is what she told me.”
“When exactly did she tell you this?”
The woman glared at me. “I don’t remember the exact date.”
“Would you say it was a week or more prior to the explosion that eventually exposed your husband’s remains?”
The woman leaned forward slightly. “What exactly is it that you are trying to ask me?”
“Did you blow up the town hall in order to prove that Harriet was right, and your husband was indeed buried there?”
The woman didn’t answer, but I knew it was true.
“Innocent people died.”
The woman’s expression began to crumble. “I know. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. The man I hired to purchase and plant the bomb told me it would go off in the middle of the night. No one was supposed to get hurt.” The woman looked me directly in the eye. “I swear to you. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I only wanted the money.”
“Money?” I was expecting her to say she wanted justice or closure or something, but money?
“The insurance money,” The woman explained as she nervously pleated her skirt with her hands. “Before he died, my husband had been stealing from the bank in order to pay off a blackmailer who knew about the affair he’d been having. At the time, I didn’t know this of course, but after he passed and I took over at the bank, I found the missing money and then was eventually able to track down the blackmailer, who’d fled the country by that point. While I was furious about what my husband had done, I was the most upset about the fact that the money was missing, and I had no way to replace it. I hoped that I would be able to use the twenty-million-dollar life insurance policy my husband had to make things right at the bank, but since there was no body or any proof at all that my husband was dead, the insurance company refused to pay. I can’t tell you how hard it has been to keep the missing money a secret. I borrowed the money I needed to keep the bank running, and I’ve sold off most of our property other than this house, as well as most of my antiques and jewelry, just to make the payments. I am to the point where I have little else to sell and have been feeling desperate, and then Harriet came to me with the answers I needed. The insurance company told me in no uncertain terms that they needed a body in order for a payout to be possible, so I decided to provide them with a body.” The woman swiped angrily at her tears. “I really didn’t want anyone to die or to get hurt. I’ve done what I can to make it right, but I guess I can never make it right, can I?”
“No, I don’t think you can. Are you the one who sent me the box of cash?”
The woman nodded. “I knew that the medical bills would provide a hardship for you and Mr. Warren. The others wouldn’t be affected by the expense, but I wanted to do what I could for the two of you.”
“I want to thank you for that, but I do need to call Deputy Fisher and tell him what I know.”
The woman bowed her head. “I know. It’s how it should be.”
“Between you and me, I understand why you did what you did. I’m sorry about what happened to your husband. It should never have gone down that way, and hopefully, Deputy DuPont will spend a whole lot of years in prison for doing what he did.”
The woman spoke in a tired voice. “I suppose bringing Robert’s killer to justice is the silver lining in this whole mess.”
Chapter 29
Thursday, November 23
A house filled with people I loved made for just about a perfect day.
The sun was high in the sky, the blue, blue lake shimmered outside the windows, the food was made to perfection, and everyone who showed up seemed to be relaxed and happy. As usual, Jenna was in the kitchen seeing to the last-minute details before the meal was served, and as usual, I could be found standing around watching her make the gravy.
“You always seem to be able to avoid lumps,” I said, as I watched in amazement. “Every time I make gravy, there are lumps. A lot of them.”
“That is because you just dump the flour in. You need to blend it slowly. Can you grab the pepper?”
“So did you talk to Dennis last night?” I asked after handing Jenna the pepper.
“I did.”
“And?”
Jenna paused and looked at me. She hesitated, and then she turned back toward the gravy. “He was less than thrilled at first. I really wasn’t surprised. He pointed out that we had new roads to travel and plans for the future that would be much harder with a child. I shared with him that I didn’t disagree, but I also shared that it really didn’t matter. I reminded him that I was already pregnant. Debating whether or not it was a good idea to have another baby was moot at that point. We talked some more, and both agreed that what was done was done and we needed to find a way to deal with what existed rather than discussing the pros and cons of the situation. Dennis wanted me to take a second pregnancy test, just to be sure. I agreed that a second test might be a good idea. As we waited for the test to process, I found myself praying for another positive result. It was at that moment that I knew that in spite of my initial feeling of denial, I actually wanted this baby very much. When the test came out positive, I felt this intense joy, and I knew everything would be okay.”
“And Dennis?”
