by Kathi Daley
“That’s the only thing that makes sense if it was him you saw. When I spoke to Parker, she mentioned that she had news. Maybe she’s spoken to Jackson. Maybe that’s the news she has to share.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I hope so. If I did see Jackson this morning, I really would like to get the story behind the whole thing. To be honest, at this point, I don’t know what to think.”
Luckily, we didn’t have long to wait. Josie came home five minutes after we’d headed inside, and Parker arrived fifteen minutes after that. Parker sat at the kitchen counter to tell her story while Josie put a casserole together, I made a salad, and Jemma opened a bottle of wine.
“So spill,” Josie jumped right in. “What did you find out?”
“First of all, it was Jackson Ainsley saw running from the Christmas tree lot this morning,” Parker started off.
No one spoke. “He didn’t?” I asked, barely able to form the words.
“If you are asking if he killed Bradford, the answer is no,” Parker answered. “At least based on what Jackson told me, the answer is no. Jackson told me that he had something he needed to discuss with Bradford, so when he saw his truck at the Christmas tree lot this morning, he decided to stop in and chat with him before all the volunteers arrived. When he entered the office, he didn’t see Bradford, but he had seen his truck parked behind the building, and the door to the supply closet was partially open, so he poked his head in, and that’s when he found Bradford dead on the floor. He closed the door and ran.” Parker looked at me. “He swears he didn’t see or hear you. He just followed his instincts and got himself gone.”
“Why?” I asked. “If Jackson didn’t kill Bradford, why did he run? He should have just called 911 like Brenda and I did.”
“He said he ran because he has a motive for wanting Bradford dead. He told me that he was afraid that his motive would come out during the investigation, and Deputy Todd would think he was guilty even though he wasn’t. I don’t think he stopped to think things through. He just panicked and ran.”
“If he closed the door to the storage room behind him when he left, his prints are on the door handle,” Jemma pointed out.
“I thought of that,” Parker said. “Jackson thought of that as well. That’s why I was able to talk him into turning himself in.”
Okay, I guess I wasn’t expecting that. “And did he? Turn himself in?”
“He did.”
“And?” I asked.
“And he was arrested,” Parker informed us.
“Deputy Todd arrested him even though he came clean about what happened?” Josie asked.
“He did, and I guess, in a way, it’s not surprising. Jackson was at the Christmas tree lot this morning before any of the volunteers arrived. He did find the body, and he did run when he found it. His confession that he left the scene of a crime should have helped him with the fingerprints, but the reality is that, as Jackson had already told me, he had a good reason to kill Bradford, which seemed to sway Deputy Todd’s decision to arrest him.”
“What motive?” I asked, wondering what seventy-something-year-old Bradford could have done to twenty-something-year-old Jackson to give Jackson a motive for murder.
“It’s kind of a long story,” Parker said.
“We have time,” Josie pointed out.
Parker took a sip of her wine and then started in. “Apparently, the reason Jackson decided to move to Gooseberry Bay in the first place is because he’d spent time here as a child. I guess his mother had come to the area as a child, as had his grandmother, so spending summers in the area was a bit of a family tradition.”
“I know this,” Josie said with a tone of impatience in her voice. “Jackson’s shared a lot of stories about summering here when he was a kid.”
“Hang on,” Parker said. “I’m just getting started.”
“Sorry. Go on,” Josie apologized.
“Apparently, Jackson’s grandmother had known Bradford when she was a young woman, and he was a young man. Jackson said that his grandmother had mentioned Bradford’s name to him on a few different occasions, but he’d never really thought much about it until he happened to meet up with Bradford in the bar a while back. I guess Bradford was having a bad day and had come in to get drunk and Jackson, who had just stopped in to have a beer with a friend after work, made a comment about public displays of intoxication. Bradford took offense and told him to mind his own business. Jackson shot back, and an argument ensued.”
Parker paused. I looked at Jemma and Josie. Both appeared to be as confused as I felt.
“Okay,” I said. “Jackson and Bradford argued. There must be more to it. I wouldn’t think an argument in a bar would lead to a motive for murder.”
“In and of itself, you are correct,” Parker said. “But at some point during the argument, Bradford very bluntly informed Jackson that not only had he known Jackson’s grandmother when they were younger, but that he’d fathered her child.”
“Bradford was Jackson’s biological grandfather?” I asked after quickly assembling the puzzle pieces in my head.
Parker nodded. “When Bradford first spouted off about being his grandfather, Jackson didn’t believe him. In fact, he was certain he was lying just to get his goat. Jackson told me that his grandmother had been a very conservative woman who was married to a very nice man he’d known as his grandfather for his whole life. But Jackson did admit to being intrigued enough about the idea that Bradford hadn’t been lying to do some research. He was able to confirm that his grandmother had dated Bradford when she was a young woman and that the two had been serious for a while. Once he had this piece of information, he decided to do a DNA test, so he gathered Bradford’s DNA when he was passed out in a booth at Walter’s Place, and then he sent it to one of those DNA companies, along with a sample of his own saliva. He received the results yesterday, and according to those results, it appears that Bradford hadn’t been lying.”
“Wow,” Josie said.
“Wow is right,” Parker agreed. “Jackson shared with me the fact that finding out that the grandfather he’d known and loved his whole life hadn’t really been his grandfather was a huge shock. He told me that he had so many questions, and he swore he only went to the Christmas tree lot to talk to Bradford. He wanted to ask him why he deserted his grandmother and why he never claimed his mother as his child or him as his grandchild. Jackson said that after he thought about it, he realized that he was hurt and angry that Bradford had so much money that he couldn’t even spend it all while he and his mother barely scraped by when he was a child. In Jackson’s opinion, if his mother had a rich father, then he should have seen to her needs. He wanted to ask him why he hadn’t.”
“Did Jackson talk to his grandmother about it?” I asked.
“No,” Parker answered. “Both his grandmother and the man he knew as his grandfather are dead. Jackson did call and ask his mother about it, but she told him that she didn’t know who her father was. She told him that she’d always assumed her father was the man who’d raised her, but she did one of those ancestry things a couple years ago and realized that she hadn’t even been related to the man she’d known as her father.”
“So did Jackson tell his mother about Bradford?” I wondered.
“He said no. He said it would only upset her. He felt that allowing her to think of her father as a huge question mark seemed the kindest thing to do, so when she asked why he was asking so many questions about her past, he told her that he was doing a family tree.”
“Okay,” Jemma said. “So Jackson, who has reason to be angry with Bradford, goes to see him, but he’s already dead. Jackson panics and runs, which I think we all agree was the wrong thing to do. Parker goes and talks to him, and he agrees to turn himself in, but Deputy Todd arrests him anyway. How do we help him?”
“We find the real killer,” Parker said. “I feel really bad that I talked Jackson into confessing before we had an alternate theory for Todd. That might not have been the best
move. I hate that he’s going to have to spend time in jail.”
“Does he have an attorney?” I asked.
“I guess he must have been assigned a public defender,” Parker answered.
“Maybe the judge will let him out on bail,” I said. “If Jackson’s out of jail, it will take some of the pressure off. Not that we don’t need to find the real killer; because we do, but at least we won’t have to think about poor Jackson rotting away in jail while we try to solve this case.”
Everyone agreed that getting Jackson out of jail had to be our first priority. We talked about filling everyone else in and decided there was no reason not to since Deputy Todd already knew that Jackson had been at the Christmas tree lot, so Josie called Tegan, who agreed to fetch Booker and Coop to come over as well. We figured that if four minds were good, then seven were even better.
I suspected it was going to be a late night of brainstorming, so I considered calling Adam to cancel tomorrow’s research session, but I really wanted to spend time with the man who’d been on my mind a lot more than he should have been. In the end, he was the one to call and cancel. He’d managed to get permission to open the Christmas tree lot as long as the building where the body was found remained locked, so the call was out for anyone who had time on their hands to head to the tree lot tomorrow and do the setup we’d planned to do today. Helping with the Christmas tree lot wouldn’t help me with my mystery, but it would give me a reason to spend the day with Adam.
Chapter 5
As I’d suspected, the seven of us had stayed up late in our effort to come up with some sort of a plan to prove that Jackson hadn’t killed Bradford. We’d spent a lot of time suggesting individuals who might have had a grudge against Bradford, exploring the probability that those individuals might actually provide us with a suspect, rejecting some names after a bit of discussion while keeping others. In the end, we’d had the names of three individuals we felt might actually have the means and motive to have done it.
The first of our three suspects was a man named Eugene Long. I’d never met or even heard of Mr. Long, but those members of the peninsula gang who’d been around a bit longer than I had assured me that the man was an aggressive sort who had a short temper and had been arrested in the past for hitting his now ex-wife, Fergie. Unfortunately, Fergie hadn’t wanted to file charges, so even though the man had been arrested after neighbors had called in the domestic disturbance, he’d never been convicted of his crime or forced to pay for his violent tendencies.
I asked what any of that had to do with Bradford and was told that Long and Bradford had been rivals in real estate for most of their careers. Both men had owned their own real estate offices before Bradford’s retirement, and both offices seemed to have done well. Most who knew Long and Bradford agreed that the rivalry between the men had run deep. There’d been talk a while back that Eugene had interfered with a real estate development Bradford had invested in after his retirement, which resulted in him losing a lot of money. Bradford had retaliated by turning Eugene in to the county for failing to disclose the use of sub-par materials in an office building he’d brokered. This resulted in an official investigation into Long’s part in the affair and a suspension of Long’s real estate license. His son was currently acting as the broker for the real estate firm Long had founded and would continue to do so until Eugene’s license was restored. Parker officially listed Long as Suspect #1.
The second person who’d survived our heated debate was a woman named Margaret Dover. Margaret had dated Bradford in the past, and those who knew her best agreed that she’d fallen for the man hard and had long-range plans in mind. When Bradford very publically and callously dumped her at a Halloween party the two had attended, Margaret had not only been humiliated but angered as well. In fact, the gang had shared that she’d flown into a rage, which had resulted in thousands of dollars’ worth of property damage to the home where the party had been held. Bradford, who declined to acknowledge any wrongdoing on his part, had, in fact, been badmouthing the woman to anyone who’d listen.
Coop wasn’t sure that Margaret would have had the strength needed to shove a knife into the man’s chest hard enough to kill him almost instantly, which seemed to be evidenced by the lack of blood anywhere other than where the body fell. But the group as a whole agreed that Margaret should be on the list, so Parker assigned her the title of Suspect #2.
Suspect #3 was assigned to a man named Gregory Fishman. Apparently, it had recently come to light that Bradford had been engaged in an affair with Gregory’s wife more than five years ago. On the surface, it would seem that an affair that occurred so long ago probably wouldn’t serve as the motive for a current-day murder. But apparently, Gregory had no idea that his wife had been unfaithful at the time of the affair and had only been made aware of the situation after she became ill and confessed her sins on her deathbed.
We all agreed that the news of her affair was one the woman should have taken to her grave, but that wasn’t the path she’d chosen. Naturally, poor Gregory was devastated to find out about the affair, and the case had been made by the group that Gregory, fueled by grief, anger, and betrayal, had acted in a way he normally wouldn’t have.
Parker planned to speak to all three suspects today. Josie, Tegan, Booker, and Coop all had jobs to show up for, and I had plans to help at the Christmas tree lot. Jemma was going to pull Bradford’s phone and financial records if she was able to get access to them, which she admitted wasn’t a given. We all agreed to meet at the Rambling Rose that evening to go over everything that developed over the course of the day.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d be at the Christmas tree lot today, so I got up early despite my late night, so I could take the dogs for a long run before I left to go into town. The day had dawned sunny but cold. The long-range forecast was for snow by mid-month. I really hoped the forecast held. If we had snow, it would be my first white Christmas since it hadn’t snowed the two Christmases I’d lived in New York. I didn’t think Gooseberry Bay got a lot of snow, but even a dusting would be magical.
Once I’d exercised the dogs, showered, and dressed in warm clothes, I headed into town. When I arrived, I found Adam and three other men I hadn’t met building wooden tree stands. The small white building where Bradford had died had been secured with yellow crime scene tape, but someone had lined the trees up in front of the building, creating a barrier of sorts between the Christmas wonderland the volunteers hoped to create and the building where a man had been brutally murdered the previous day.
“You made it.” Adam smiled as I approached.
“I said I would.” I paused to look around. “The place looks great. Those lighted reindeer are new since yesterday.”
Adam nodded. “We had an emergency meeting yesterday afternoon and decided to go ahead and use this space rather than moving everything. Deputy Todd said it was fine to use the grassy area and the temporary sales booth as long as we stayed out of the taped off building. We all agreed that as long as we went overboard with the decorations, no one would really notice the police tape. Besides, Todd plans to remove the yellow tape after his men take a second look today.”
“When does the Christmas tree lot actually open for business?” I wondered.
“Tomorrow.”
I looked at the huge pile of trees, each needing a stand. “It looks like today is going to be a busy day if we’re to get all this done.”
“We have additional volunteers coming in this afternoon.”
“So, how can I help?” I asked.
Adam nodded toward two women who were setting up a display of fresh pine wreaths. “Brenda and Claudia are working on the display aspect of the lot. Maybe you can help them with the wreaths, lights, and decorations.”
“Okay.” I turned to walk away but then turned back. “By the way, I have some news about yesterday. If you take a break later, maybe we can get some coffee, and I can fill you in.”
“I’d like that.”
The
next few hours sped by. Brenda and Claudia both had a lot of ideas about how things should be set up and displayed, but unfortunately, they didn’t always agree on how things should look. When that occurred, they asked me to break the tie, which was a position I really would have preferred not to be in. Still, I supposed someone needed to provide a third voice, and I seemed to have been thrust in that position at least for the morning shift. Fortunately, neither woman seemed to get angry when I sided with the other.
Claudia had to leave to pick her daughter up from preschool around noon, and two of the men helping Adam had to go to work. Brenda wanted to go home and check in with her sitter but promised to be back that afternoon, so Adam and I decided to grab a bite to eat before the afternoon volunteers arrived. I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to talk freely if we ate at a busy restaurant, so we decided on deli sandwiches and coffee and ate in his truck, which he parked in the lot overlooking the bay.
“So tell me this news you have to share,” Adam said after we’d settled in to eat.
“I met with Parker and the peninsula gang last night to discuss options and develop a strategy after we realized that Jackson had been arrested.”
“Jackson’s been arrested?”
I set my coffee back in the cupholder. “I’m sorry. I guess I thought you knew. It turns out that Jackson tried to visit Bradford yesterday, but he was already dead. Initially, he panicked and ran, but he eventually told Deputy Todd.”
I explained Jackson’s reason for visiting Bradford as well as his discussion with Parker and the decision to turn himself in. I explained about his arrest and the realization by the gang that the only way to help him was to find the real killer. I went over as many of the names we’d discussed as I could remember, explaining why we’d kept three names on the list but eliminated quite a few others for one reason or another. I shared that Jemma and Parker planned to continue to work on things today.
Once Adam was up to date, the conversation segued to other less pressing matters. I asked Adam about his visit with his cousin, and he asked me about the Christmas tree cutting. He’d been sorry to have missed it but had ended up having a really nice visit with Wesley. Neither of his father’s brothers had children before they died, so the only cousins he ended up with on his father’s side of the family were those who lived overseas.