The Inn at Holiday Bay Books 7 - 9

by Kathi Daley

  “If she is the killer, perhaps she had things to put into place, or if she was working with someone, Caspar or someone else, she might have been sneaking off to speak with that person,” Georgia offered.

  “Perhaps,” Colt said, “but at this point, we have zero proof that Stephanie even knew Alvin before the weekend and if she hadn’t known him, she would have had no reason to put such an elaborate plan into play.”

  “Colt’s right. We’re assuming that the killing was premeditated,” I said. “Maybe someone hired Stephanie. Maybe, in addition to owning her own marketing firm, she’s a paid assassin.”

  Jeremy raised a brow. “A paid assassin?”

  I shrugged. “It happens. Stephanie is tall and looks to be the fit and sturdy sort. We’ve discussed that while Caspar had a motive, he doesn’t really have the physical prowess to kill and move a man as tall as Alvin. Maybe he hired Stephanie to make his problems go away. The fact that he showed up in Holiday Bay even though he hadn’t been invited to the event might be explained if he had plans to permanently remove the man who’d done so much damage to both him and Naomi.”

  “I suppose the theory has merit,” Colt admitted. “But we’re still going to need more. A confession would be the best, but physical evidence linking one of the guests to the crime scene would be almost as good.”

  We continued to sort through the photos. There were a lot of them. Some funny, some sweet, others romantic. I still wasn’t sure if Fiona was even going to want a reminder of the weekend, but maybe once she had a chance to calm down a bit, she’d be able to look at the photos and remember the memories from the weekend that were worth keeping.

  “Look at the floor in this one,” I said, sliding the photo to the center of the table. “There is sand on the floor. Based on what everyone is wearing and doing, I’m going to assume this photo was taken on Friday morning. The only sand in the immediate area is on the beach, and I have no reason to think that anyone had gone down to the beach. It’s a steep trek down and a steep trek back up, and it isn’t exactly beach weather.”

  “There’s sand in the garden shed,” Jeremy said. “I use it on the walks sometimes when they are really icy. I used to use salt, but it was damaging the lawn and plant life, so I switched to sand.”

  “It hasn’t snowed for a while, so I assume the sand didn’t come from the walkways,” I commented.

  Jeremy shook his head. “No. I swept up the remaining sand weeks ago as part of my yard cleanup. The sand has to have come from the garden shed.”

  Colt picked the photo up. “So perhaps the killer got sand on his or her feet when he or she was in the shed dumping the body and tracked it inside.”

  “That could totally have happened,” Jeremy agreed. “I didn’t notice footprints in the sand, but I wasn’t looking for them. I do know that one of the bags of sand broke a while back, and I haven’t gotten around to cleaning up the shed yet, so there is sand all over the floor. I’m the only one who ever goes into the shed, other than Abby during planting season, and I’m always careful to wipe my feet before I go inside.”

  “Were you in the shed for any reason on the day of Alvin’s murder?” I asked Georgia.

  “No. I haven’t been inside the shed in a year,” Georgia answered.

  “So did either of you notice sand in any of the suites when you were cleaning the rooms?” I asked, hoping the killer had tracked the sand all the way home.

  “I don’t remember any sand,” Georgia said.

  “Yeah, me either. But Nikki was the one to run the vacuum around,” Jeremy offered.

  “I’ll call her,” I said.

  Fortunately, Nikki did remember sand on the floor. She said it started at the back door and trailed through the main story into suite number one. The suite, I realized which had been occupied by Jordan and Stephanie.

  “Did we just prove that Stephanie is our killer?” I asked.

  “Prove, no,” Colt responded. “But the fact that we have physical evidence tying the suite she was staying in to the crime scene will help. Of course, there were two occupants of the room, and one of them might have invited someone else in. The sand wasn’t obvious on the floor in any of the photos from Thursday night, so it does seem it was tracked in at some point between when the last photo was taken on Thursday night and this photo on Friday morning. Are there any other photos with the sand on the floor?”

  We looked through all the photos, but only found two photos that were taken that morning. The first one where I’d noticed the sand had been a photo of Carson and Willa laughing at the foot of the stairs as they prepared to go into town for the day and the second one was a photo of Naomi hugging Fiona from behind. They looked so happy. And so close. The way sisters should be. I really hoped Alvin and his evil blackmail plan hadn’t forever ruined what they’d had for all time.”

  Later that evening, after everyone had left and Georgia had gone to bed, I settled in front of the fire with my cat, my dog, a glass of wine, and a decades-old diary. At least I assumed it was decades old. I hadn’t found a date yet, but Baron did say that no one had lived in the house for decades, so I guess I could assume the diary was at least that old. Mostly, while interesting, it was pretty tame. A few references to the good-looking neighbor, Robert, who helped them out at times, but most of the entries had to do with the recall of everyday tasks and thoughts. Tending the garden, longing for a new dress, favorite novels, and ordinary chores related to an ordinary life.

  And then I got to the last page of the thin volume.

  “Oh my gosh.” I looked at Rufus, who’d jumped up at my outburst. “I know whose diary this is.”

  Chapter 17

  “So you’re sure the diary belonged to Richard’s sister?” Lacy asked me the following morning after I’d shared my late-night reading with her.

  “I think so. I remember you telling me that Richard’s mother, Olivia, died after a fall from the bluff when Richard was nine. I also remember you saying that it had only been Richard, his mother, and his sister who’d gone to the summer home since Richard’s father had to work. At the time you shared this with me, I was imagining a younger sister. I’m not sure why. That was just the image that popped into my head. But after reading the diary, I now believe that Richard’s sister was older. A teenager of indeterminate age based on the diary, but I’m thinking she is at least fifteen or sixteen. Maybe older.”

  “I guess that could be true. What exactly did the last paragraph say?” she asked.

  “Here, I’ll read it to you.” I opened the book, which I’d brought along to return as promised. “‘As the days grow longer, my boredom increases as well. I used to look forward to spending time at the shore but now with Susan gone there seems to be nothing of interest to fill my days.’”

  “Who’s Susan?” Lacy asked.

  “I don’t know. She never said. I suppose a friend.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “‘The one bright spot on the horizon,’” I continued, “‘is that the totally unpredictable and oftentimes hilarious Diana is coming, and I overheard Mother say that she’s bringing Will. Dad will pop a button if he finds out Will is staying for the summer, but Mother has her secrets, and I have mine, so I guess for now I’ll simply enjoy the show and see how it all works out.’”

  “That’s it?” Lacy asked.

  “That’s it.”

  “If Olivia’s daughter knew that her mother was having an affair with Will, you’d think she would be upset and not simply amused.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe, but it sounds as if the girl is bored, and she had mentioned that her mother had shown interest in other good-looking men in the area several times. Maybe the mother was a tramp, and the daughter was used to it.”

  Lacy didn’t look convinced, but she agreed that perhaps that could be the case.

  “I’m going to look around and see if I can find the next journal,” I announced. “This one obviously ran out of paper, but the author did write in it almost every day,
so it seems likely she continued her dialogue in another volume.” I caressed the book in my lap. “The next time you talk to Baron, ask him the name of his father’s sister. After reading her thoughts, I find I’m very interested in learning more about the teen who has suddenly become a lot more interesting.”

  “I’ll ask him when I call him about the desk.”

  Once we arrived at the house, Lacy went to work doing what she needed to do in anticipation of her phone conversation with Baron, and I started scouring the shelves for the next diary in the series. The books on the shelves seemed to have been haphazardly placed. I couldn’t find any sort of rhyme or reason why a book about the history of the Revolutionary War was shelved next to a book about dogs, which was next to a children’s book about a misbehaving puppy. I started with the shelf where I’d found the diary I’d read last night, but the only other handwritten document on the same shelf was an essay about religious freedom or lack thereof during the sixteenth century.

  “I’m probably going to have to look through every darn book to find what I’m looking for,” I grumbled.

  “Lonnie does want us to box up all the books in anticipation of the work he has to do in here. The job will be laborious, but it will give us the opportunity to look at each and every volume as we box it up. If there are other diaries, I’m sure we’ll find them then.”

  I exhaled loudly. “Yeah. I guess. I was just hoping to find out more today.”

  Lacy stood up from her crouched position behind the desk and glanced around the room. “Check that wall over by the sofa. It looks like there might be journals or diaries in that stack.”

  I walked across the room to the section of shelving she’d indicated while she continued to work. It seemed as if she’d measured and re-measured the same thing dozens of times. I understood her desire to be precise, but I’m not sure I’d have the patience to be quite as precise as she seemed to be.

  By the time we were ready to leave the house, I’d found two additional diaries in the same handwriting as the one I’d read the previous evening, but after a quick survey of the first pages of each diary, it looked like they came before and not after the one I’d read, but I took them anyway. Suddenly, the everyday thoughts of Richard’s sister had stirred my imagination in the way little had as of late.

  As we prepared to leave, Lonnie came into the library. “I think I might have found out something about the space behind the wall that appears on the blueprints,” he said.

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  He walked across the room and put a hand on one of the walls that contained shelves from floor to ceiling. “It looks like this wall was added, probably to support the shelves. I’m not sure if it was added to intentionally create the space behind it or if the exterior wall wouldn’t work for the shelves for some reason. I don’t see an access point, and, of course, this wall has no windows.”

  “So, you think there’s just empty space back there?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “That’s the way it looks at this point. I spoke to Baron, and he’s given me permission to create a doorway to the space behind the wall once the books are removed, and I’m ready to work in here. I’ll probably seal it back up when I’m done, but we’ll take a look at that point to satisfy our curiosity.”

  “And when will you be doing that?”

  He looked around. “I guess in a month or two.”

  I sighed. Again with the waiting, but I supposed that all good things come with time.

  Chapter 18

  Colt called later that afternoon to let me know he’d be coming by after he got off work. He mentioned that he had new information relating to the Alvin Connor murder, but he wouldn’t say what he’d found. I supposed I’d just need to wait until he arrived to get the rest of the story, but as I’ve already established, I’m not actually a fan of waiting.

  “Okay, so what did you find out?” I asked once I’d given Colt a cold beer, and we’d both settled in on the outdoor patio.

  “After we all spoke yesterday and you noticed the sand linking the occupants of suite one to the shed where the body was found, I decided to look into the backgrounds of both Jordan and Stephanie a lot closer. As we already knew, Jordan is a real estate agent who has known Carson for quite some time. He isn’t the sort to really hang with Fiona’s crowd, but there has been some cross over between Fiona’s friends and Carson’s since the two became engaged. Jordan had met Alvin before the weekend, although according to Jordan, the two weren’t exactly friends. I spoke to Jordan, who admitted that he never really liked Alvin, but he also didn’t have a specific beef with him and certainly hadn’t killed him. I looked pretty hard for a link between Alvin and Jordan other than a causal relationship via Fiona and Carson, and was unable to find one.”

  He paused to take a sip of his beer and then continued. “I then looked more closely at Stephanie, her past, and her reason for wanting to attend the party in the first place. As I’d already established, Stephanie lives in Boston while Fiona, Carson, and Alvin all live in New York. She has clients in New York and spends a fair amount of time there. It occurred to me to try to find out where she stayed when she was in New York, which is when I discovered that Stephanie had a sister, Veronica, with whom she stayed when she was in the city. Veronica was married to a man named Garth Braverton, who is a man of means and comes from a family of means. I realized that while Stephanie Stevens might never have crossed paths with either Fiona or Alvin, Veronica Braverton would likely have.”

  “So Stephanie knew Fiona through her sister, Veronica?” I asked.

  “Fiona, no. When questioned, every member of the group other than Fiona, Carson, and Jordan stated that they had never met or even heard of Stephanie before the last Thursday. Jordan stated that he’d met Stephanie a few weeks before the party and that she’d requested to be his plus one, so he’d introduced her to Fiona and Carson when they ran into them at a charity event and asked if they’d mind if he brought her. They didn’t mind, so she made it to the list.”

  “Okay, so if Stephanie had never met Alvin before the party, why did she go to so much trouble to kill him?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t sure at first, but then I found out that Veronica Braverton died of a drug overdose about a little over a month ago.”

  I put my hand to my chest. “Oh, no. What happened? Did she commit suicide?”

  “That is unknown at this point. What is known is that even though Veronica had a husband she adored and two beautiful children, she suddenly became stressed to the point of being unable to sleep or eat. She wouldn’t tell her husband what had caused her to go from being a happy, vibrant woman to a total stress case seemingly overnight, but he did tell the police when they responded to the overdose call that she had started taking a sleeping aide to try to get some relief. It appears she simply took one too many sleeping pills and died. It’s unknown and will probably never be known if that was intentional or accidental.”

  “That is so sad and so tragic, but what does this have to do with Stephanie or Alvin?”

  Colt answered. “It occurred to me that while she never would tell her husband what had caused her so much distress, she might have confided in her sister.”

  Suddenly I knew. “Alvin set Veronica up so he could blackmail her into doing his bidding in the same way he set Naomi up.”

  Colt nodded. “This is only a theory at this point since both Alvin and Veronica are dead, and Stephanie isn’t talking, but that’s my current theory. I believe Alvin trapped Veronica with photos he set up after drugging her the way he set Naomi up because he wanted something specific out of her husband. I don’t know what that something was, but it is a theory that makes sense. The problem was that Veronica was so distressed about the effect the photos might have on her marriage, that she totally melted down and retreated into sleeping pills that eventually killed her. No one, other than Alvin, knew about the blackmail, or so he thought, but somewhere along the way, Veronica confided in Stephanie, so when Vero
nica died, Stephanie knew just who to blame.”

  I had to admit the theory worked. Stephanie decided to enact her own sort of justice on Alvin, but she needed to get close to him, so she tracked down Jordan, who she must have somehow known was going to the party and got an invite.

  “This whole thing works for me, but why frame Naomi? Why not just dispose of the syringe? She could have tossed it into the sea, or disposed of it while in town and no one could have linked it back to her.”

  “I wondered about that myself,” Colt said. “Then it occurred to me that Naomi and Veronica might have known each other.”

  “Naomi introduced Alvin to Veronica,” I realized.

  Colt nodded. “That’s my assumption at this point. Stephanie came up with the idea of killing Alvin and framing Naomi for his murder because she blamed them both for what happened to her sister. She was sloppy about it, but that’s where it seems her head might have been.”

  “So, what now?” I asked.

  “We don’t have enough to prove any of this. My buddy in the FBI is going to pick Stephanie up and question her. She lives in Massachusetts, Alvin lived in New York, and the murder occurred in Maine, so there is justification for his involvement.”

  “Do you think he can get a confession out of her?” I asked.

  Colt shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so. This is obviously a highly emotional situation for Stephanie. I think my friend has the training needed to get the truth out of her. I guess at this point, all we can do is wait and see how it all works out.”

  Chapter 19

  April had come and gone, and with the arrival of May, spring in Holiday Bay had officially arrived. The mud had given way to green, green grass, and the flowers Jeremy had so painstakingly been babying were beginning to bloom. I really loved this time of the year, and welcomed the arrival of each bright and sunny day with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.