THANKSGIVING IN PARADISE Read online

  “Kingston isn’t a resident,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe not, but he has employees who are. He’d just need to put their name on the ballot.”

  “So is this a real threat?” Jeff asked.

  “Not as far as I’m concerned,” Kyle answered. “In my opinion, if the majority of the town’s residents want to see elected positions, then maybe it is time for a change.”

  “Maybe but you know that Kingston is just trying to stack the council with people who will support his business ventures,” Jeff pointed out.

  Kyle nodded. “I know that stacking the council is his goal, but keep in mind that the citizens who live here still have to vote for the change in the bylaws, and even if that change passes the popular vote, the registered voters still need to elect the candidates they feel would do the best job. I think we should trust the people who live in the area to know what is best for them.”

  Kyle was right. It did seem that the residents of Serenity would be able to figure out that Kingston was up to no good. I picked up an envelope that had been sitting near Kyle’s elbow. “What’s this?”

  “It is a certified letter that was dropped off this morning.”

  “Certified letter from whom?” I asked.

  “Kingston’s attorney,” Kyle answered. “He is threatening to sue the town and the individual members of the town council if a ban on vacation rentals is put into place. The letter is dated October 31st.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “Lloyd had lunch with Kingston on the day of the explosion, so Kingston must have given him a heads up about his plans to sue everyone which might very well be why Lloyd decided to call the emergency meeting.”

  “It seems like it could have waited,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Kyle agreed. “Not only was Lloyd Kingston’s friend and colleague, but he was also a town council member. After meeting with Kingston, Lloyd might have decided to let the council members know what was going on before the letter could be delivered.”

  I paused to let this sink in. “That does make sense. As a developer, Lloyd was very much against the ban. He may have gotten together with Kingston to make a power play. If I had to guess, Lloyd asked Harriet to call the meeting at which time he planned to present a grim picture of a lengthy court case that would cost the town as well as the individual town council members thousands of dollars.”

  Kyle nodded. “Lloyd was a very articulate and impassioned man. I’m sure he would have made a heck of a case that the council should just drop the idea of banning vacation rentals before it ended up costing everyone a lot of money.”

  “So why is this letter just being delivered to you now?” I asked.

  “Once the town hall was destroyed, there was nowhere to deliver mail, so it has been held either at the post office, as in this case, or by the courier service. I spoke to Hazel yesterday, and we opened a post office box for the US mail sent to the town. I have let everyone I can think of, know if they have deliveries or packages to take them to the post office as well. I’m sure it will take a while for word to get out about the temporary address. I anticipate that mail and deliveries will continue to trickle in for months.”

  “I can’t say for sure that Kingston would blow up the town hall, but everything does seem to be circling back around to him,” Jeff pointed out. “At the very least, I think we should try to get a look at his banking and phone records.”

  I looked at Kyle. “Did you ever find out who had been calling Lloyd in the days leading up to the explosion? With everything else we have been juggling, I forgot about the calls until Jeff just brought up the subject.”

  “The calls were from a burner that had been purchased by Lloyd.”

  “Lloyd. Why would Lloyd be receiving calls from a phone he purchased?”

  “I guess he bought it and gave it to someone for the purpose of communicating with him,” Kyle answered.

  That did make sense. I should have thought of that. “So the calls are a dead end?”

  Kyle nodded. “Unless new information is made available to us, then I would say yes, the calls are a dead end.”

  “We do have a lot of evidence to suggest that Lloyd and Kingston were in cahoots to a certain degree,” Jeff pointed out. “Maybe that information can be used to strong-arm Kingston into telling what he knows.”

  Kyle bobbed his head slightly. “I suppose that Roy might want to take a closer look at Kingston, and it does seem possible that he knows more than he has said at this point, but the reason we are meeting today is to come up with a plan to get the town back in business.”

  “You’re right,” Jeff agreed. “It is easy to get distracted. Where do we start?”

  “It seems to me that the first step is to appoint new members to the council,” Kyle answered. “We need to find replacements for Lloyd, who is definitely not going to be back, and Hank, who is most likely not going to be back, and we still have that open seat to deal with.”

  “Okay,” Jeff agreed. “Any suggestions?”

  “What about Brandon Halliwell,” Kyle said. Brandon owned one-half of Guns and Roses, a combination flower shop and guns and ammo store, along with his sister, Rita.

  “Brandon is a good choice,” Jeff agreed. “He has lived in the area for a long time, he seems to know most of the locals, and he has a good head on his shoulders.”

  “What about Rita?” I asked. “She is all of those things as well.”

  “I don’t think that it would be a good idea to have a brother and sister team on the council, but both would make good candidates,” Kyle answered. “I think we should add both Brandon and Rita to our list. What about Nick Grainger? He has lived in the area longer than almost anyone.” Nick owned Grainger General Store along with his wife, Emma.

  “Nick has the background that would make him a good candidate, but he is getting on in years, and I know he is looking to sell the store so he and Emma can retire,” I informed the men. “What about David Harris?” David owned the local pharmacy.

  “David would be a good option,” Kyle said. “We’ll add him to the list as well.”

  The room fell into silence as we all considered the question at hand. I could hear the tick-tock of the old grandfather clock that had sat at the foot of the stairs since before I’d first met Zachary. There were actually three council positions to fill in addition to finding a mayor, and finding the best people to fill those positions was going to be key.

  “What about Greg Remington,” Jeff suggested, after a moment. “He hasn’t lived in the area as long as some of the others, but he is a hard worker who is well-liked and respected in the community.” Greg was the principal of the high school where I worked. We all agreed that he’d be a good candidate.

  The three of us continued to discuss options. It was decided that if Bookman was up for it, Kyle and Jeff would make a list and then discuss the options with him before they tried to put the men and women on the list in any sort of order. As for the town clerk/mayor’s secretary position, Kyle suggested that they post an advertisement for the position and see who applied. Once the list of candidates seemed complete, I decided to ask Jeff about his memories of the night of the explosion. I knew that Kyle wanted to focus on town business, but in my mind, finding the person who killed Harriet and Lloyd was the most important subject of all.

  “Harriet texted me about the meeting. I was just closing up my shop, so I headed directly over. When I arrived, Lloyd was already in the council chambers. I asked him what was up and he said he didn’t know, although I had the distinct impression that he did know and just wasn’t ready to talk about it. Bookman came in shortly after, and Harriet came in a few minutes later. Hank came in next, and then you and Kyle came in last, but no one ever did say why we were there. My impression was that whatever was going on was a big deal, and Harriet wanted to wait to fill us in until everyone was there.”

  “Did you
notice a package or backpack in the room?” I asked.

  Jeff shook his head. “No. I wasn’t looking for one, but nothing stood out as being odd. Harriet had that big purse she always carries. She put it in the drawer of her desk, but I didn’t notice that anyone else brought anything in with them.”

  “Was anyone in attendance acting oddly?” I wondered. “Unusually nervous or perhaps impatient?”

  “No,” Jeff answered. “Lloyd had a serious look on his face, and his tone of voice was sort of flat, but Lloyd can be taciturn at the best of times. Bookman was his usual happy self, but Harriet seemed sort of distracted. I had the feeling she wanted to hurry things along. When Hank first walked in, he seemed irritated about being pulled away from the restaurant, but then he started joking around with Bookman and lightened up considerably.”

  “And during the time you were there, did anyone else other than council members enter the building?” I asked.

  “Other than you, no.”

  Chapter 9

  After Jeff left, Kyle and I entered into a discussion about how we wanted to spend our day, but shortly after Jeff drove away, Roy pulled up in his police cruiser, so we put our plans on hold in order to speak to him.

  “Do you have news?” I asked after inviting Roy in and offering him coffee.

  “I do,” Roy confirmed. “Most of it is good, but some is not so good.”

  I sat down on the sofa across from where Roy sat next to Kyle. “So what’s up?”

  Roy took a sip of his coffee and then set the mug on the table in front of him before he answered. “First of all, Hank woke up.”

  I smiled. “That’s great. When I spoke to Hunter the other day, he told me he wasn’t sure he would.”

  Roy rested his elbows on his knees and based on the expression on his face, I had to assume that the not so good news was actually bad news. I figured it was best to give Roy the time he needed to work up to saying what he needed to, so I just sat quietly.

  “According to Hunter,” Roy began, “while Hank is conscious and responsive to verbal cues, he has a long recovery ahead of him. Not only is he paralyzed from the waist down, but at this point, he is unable to speak, although it is Hunter’s opinion that he will regain the ability to speak over time. As for walking, he isn’t certain. They are moving him to a larger hospital off the mountain where they can deal with his long-term care better. Hunter shared with me the fact that he won’t be at all surprised to find that Hank will never again be able to resume normal activities such as running the restaurant or sitting on the town council.”

  Poor Hank. “I guess we should be happy that he pulled through, but if he doesn’t regain the use of his legs, it is going to be tough on him.”

  Roy sighed. “Yeah. It is difficult to think of the big Texan in a wheelchair. Still, I imagine that life in a wheelchair is better than no life at all.”

  “Were you able to ask him about the night of the explosion?” I realized the odds of him knowing anything were slim, but I still felt the need to ask.

  “I tried. I hoped he could nod in response to my questions, but he just looked confused when I brought it up. I don’t think he remembers anything. At least not at this point.”

  “Maybe with time.” I glanced at Kyle, who had a look of contemplation on his face. “Anything else?”

  Roy bobbed his head slowly. “I was able to speak to the crime scene guys who did have a few of the pieces we were missing. The most interesting thing I discovered is that it looks like the bomb was brought into the building in the purse Harriet was carrying. We don’t know for certain that the bomb was in her purse, but we do know that the explosion originated from the location where her purse was stored.”

  “Jeff mentioned that she had brought her purse into the meeting,” I informed Roy. “He said she put it in her desk drawer. Wouldn’t she have noticed the additional weight if it had been added to her purse?”

  Roy answered. “The bomb wasn’t all that large and most likely didn’t weigh all that much, but the raw materials that were used made it a powerful one. At this point, we are assuming that the device was made by someone with a background in munitions. What we don’t know is if the person who made the bomb was the one to plant it in Harriet’s purse, or if the person who did the planting simply purchased the bomb from a dealer of some sort.”

  “Was the bomb set up with a timer or a detonator?” I asked.

  “It looks like a timer was used, which means that we really have no way of knowing if the person who slipped the bomb into Harriet’s purse even intended to blow up the town hall with the members of the town council inside. The meeting had been a last-minute development, and there is really no way to know when the bomb was slipped into Harriet’s purse, if that is in fact, what happened. On the one hand, I suppose it is possible that the bomb was slipped into her purse after the meeting was called, and the bomber knew exactly where Harriet’s purse would be and who would be in proximity to her at the time of the explosion. On the other hand, if it had been disguised, the bomb could have been added to her purse earlier in the day. I don’t think we can eliminate the possibility that it was the bomber’s intention that the bomb detonate after Harriet returned home for the evening.”

  I wasn’t liking the sound of that at all. Could Harriet have been the intended victim? If so, I couldn’t think of a single person who would want her dead. If you asked me, Harriet as the intended victim made a lot less sense than either Lloyd, or the council as a whole, as the intended victim, but still…

  “Not knowing which scenario is true is going to complicate the investigation,” I pointed out. “It seems to me that the list of suspects who might want to kill an entire town council is going to be very different from the list of suspects who might want to kill an individual woman who might work for the town, but is also a neighbor, friend, and relative.”

  Roy leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “The ambiguity of the target does make this increasingly difficult. It may be a longshot, but it seems like it might be beneficial to speak to Helen if I can get her to open up.”

  “Helen?” I asked.

  “She was Harriet’s best friend. If something was going on in Harriet’s life that would have made her the target of the person to plant the bomb, she might know about it. I tried speaking to Helen early on, but it just seemed to make her mad. She seemed to think I was trying to push this whole thing onto Harriet and that I was accusing Harriet of doing something that led to her getting herself blown up. But that wasn’t my intent at all. Well, not exactly. If Harriet did make a very nasty enemy and the bomb was placed in her purse as some sort of retaliation geared toward her, then everyone else who was injured that night was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not trying to say that Lloyd’s death and Hank’s paralysis were Harriet’s fault, but if the bomber did plant the bomb because of a problem he or she had with Harriet, we need to figure out what sort of trouble Harriet might have gotten herself into.”

  I knew that a conversation with Helen regarding Harriet’s role in the bombing if indeed she had been the target, was not going to be an easy conversation to have. “I’ll talk to her,” I offered. “I have no idea what I am going to say, but I’ll try.”

  Roy ran a hand through his hair. “Thank you. That would be helpful. If we don’t get a break soon, I think this case is going to be the end of me.”

  “Kyle and I are here for you and willing to help in any way we can. Kyle and Jeff are working on getting the town council up and running which should help as well, although it will be awhile. I suppose there are those like James who will benefit from the chaos and those who will suffer negative consequences from that same chaos and delay.”

  Roy leaned back, a look of fatigue on his face. “I guess that rebuilding that which was lost is going to be an important next step.” Roy glanced at Kyle. “I’m sorry that this whole thing has been
dumped on you.”

  Kyle shrugged. “I’m happy to help in any way I can. Jeff and Tj are going to help out as well. The first course of action is going to be to get folks in place who can fill the openings left by Hank and Lloyd, as well as the open seat we already had.”

  “That makes sense. I’m sure you can use all the help you can get,” Roy said.

  Kyle nodded. “It’s going to be a time-consuming job. Not only do we need three new council members, in addition to the mayor we already needed, but we also need a new town clerk/mayor’s secretary and a new venue for the town hall as well.”

  “Seems like an overwhelming task,” Roy shook his head slowly.

  “Kyle and Jeff are making a list of potential town council members,” I informed Roy. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  Roy considered this for a moment and then responded. “How about Doc? He seems to have a lot of free time on his hands, he is intelligent, and he seems to approach situations in a fair and open-minded manner.”

  I glanced at Kyle. “Doc would be a good choice. I don’t know if he’d want to do it, but it couldn’t hurt to put him on the list.”

  “What about your dad?” Roy asked.

  “He’d be fantastic,” I answered, “but he is still recovering from the car accident he was involved in last summer, and he has the resort to run. Besides that, he is about to be married. I don’t think he has the time to really commit to such a huge undertaking. Still, I don’t suppose it would hurt to run it past him. I’d hate to make an assumption on his behalf that wasn’t accurate.”

  “We’ve actually come up with a pretty strong list,” Kyle said. “The question is: can we get three of the potential candidates to make the commitment.”