by Kathi Daley
“He could have had someone do it for him,” I pointed out.
“Yes, he could have. If he did, I haven’t been able to find a motive. It seems that William was working with Baxter to get first Henri and then the sisters to sell the estate. I can’t see any reason he’d kill him.”
“Yeah, I guess that really doesn’t fit. Go on. What else did you find out?”
“I was curious if anyone knew about the haunting other than William and Baxter. I asked around while I was at the corporate office in Houston, but no one seemed to know anything about the deal the men had made or the property in Maine. There was one woman who worked in reception. She didn’t want to give me her name, but she said that I should talk to Jose at the Cabo property. I guess Jose is some sort of manager who was close to William when he worked there. I called and asked to speak to the man, but he was out today, so I’m going to try back tomorrow.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
He nodded. “I found out that the man who owns the property next to Henri’s stood to make a good deal of money if she sold to Brighton and Baxter. It seems that while Ned Ballard’s property isn’t right on the water like the Rosewood estate, and therefore isn’t in and of itself of interest to the developers, there was talk about buying Ballard’s land to extend the resort and provide parking if the sale of the prime piece of real estate Henri owned went through. I guess that Ballard even had a deal in the works should the sale of the Rosewood estate proceed as planned. Of course, when Henri backed out, Ballard lost his payday.”
“I can see how that might make him angry, but I can’t see how killing William would help his cause if William was trying to help complete the deal he seemed to have wanted.”
“I agree with that. I just thought it might be worth my time to have a chat with the man.”
“I agree. Did you find out anything else?”
“Nothing specific to my trip to Houston, but on the flight home, I was thinking about William’s assistant. I remember hearing that William hired a man named Troy to help with the heavy work. I made some calls and found out that Troy Winkelman still lives in Holiday Bay. He currently drives a truck for the refuse company, so I’m going to see if I can track him down tomorrow.”
“I suppose Troy might have known about the haunting plot. It seems that William might even have needed help along the way.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I also called and spoke briefly with William’s landlord. She didn’t seem to know anything about his job at the estate, but she did say that William’s next-door neighbor, a man named Bob Green, might know more about whatever William might have had going on in his life. I’m going to check in with him tomorrow as well. I also want to re-interview the sisters now that I have a bit more information. Maybe they noticed something important that they might not even realize they noticed.”
“Sounds like you are going to have a busy day.”
“I will.”
“I have a few other names to add to your list if, in fact, you have a list.”
He yawned. “Okay, who do you have to add to the list?”
“Nazareth Goodwin. Nazareth works down at the marina during the summer, and he plows snow for the town in the winter. I guess he and William were friends. Also, William liked to bowl, so Rupert from the bowling alley might know something. Both were names given to me by others I spoke to.”
“Okay. I’ll add both names to the list.” He put an arm around my shoulder. “Is Georgia coming home tonight?”
“She is not.”
He grinned. “Then perhaps it might be time to change the subject to something a bit more personal.”
I grinned in return. “I like the way you think.” I leaned forward and kissed him firmly on the lips. “I’ve missed you.”
He pulled me into his lap. “I missed you too. More than I can say.”
Chapter 11
Tuesday dawned bright and sunny, which was a nice change from the gray skies we’d had the past few days. Everyone staying at the inn had signed up for today’s events, which included ice skating, lunch in town, a cocktail reception and buffet dinner at the inn this evening, and caroling in the park after dark. The fact that everyone was going to be gone with Jeremy and Mylie for the majority of the day gave Georgia and Nikki a chance to do a deeper cleaning than was possible when guests were underfoot.
I decided to go into town with Colt. He didn’t need my help with the interviews he’d set up, but I’d missed him when he was gone and welcomed the chance to spend the day with him. My plan was simply to tag along and stay well out of the way while he did his job, but even that, I realized, was something I looked forward to.
Our first stop was the liquor store where William’s next-door neighbor, Bob Green, worked. Colt had called ahead and let him know he’d be by at ten a.m., so Bob arranged to take his break then. After greeting the man, Bob suggested we go to the diner next door for coffee. He could take a break, and we could chat. I half expected Bob to be hesitant to share what he knew, but once he’d managed to get the first of the six cups of coffee he’d drink inside him during the thirty minutes we spoke, he was actually fairly cordial and helpful.
“William was an interesting guy. He was really into the spooky stuff, which was cool, I guess. I wasn’t sure about the legitimacy of his using his props to scare the old lady who lived in the house, but William explained that if he could scare her into leaving, he was looking at a payday that would help set him up for years to come.”
“So he told you about his plan to scare Henrietta into selling her land to Brighton and Baxter,” Colt stated.
“That’s what I just said.” He raised his hand and waved the waiter over. He automatically brought the coffee pot.
“I guess you did. So do you know if William thought his plan to scare Henrietta Rosewood into selling was working?”
“It didn’t seem to be. In fact, William was getting pretty discouraged. I guess he was even looking at taking a different approach. He said that he’d worked out a plan, but he never did share it with me before she died.”
“A plan?” Colt asked.
“Like I said, he never shared his new plan with me, but he had mentioned on several occasions that his plan to scare the woman wasn’t working and that he was going to need to come up with something else.”
“Do you think he pushed her down the stairs?” I blurted out despite my resolve to simply listen in and let Colt handle the interview.
“No, it wasn’t William who pushed the old woman,” Bob said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that the man who pushed the old lady down the stairs is the same one who killed William and stashed him in the toolshed.”
I glanced at Colt. He had a serious expression on his face. “Someone pushed Henrietta Rosewood down the stairs?”
Bob waved for this third cup of coffee. The man topped off his cup and then left the pot.
“Yeah, according to William, someone who knew what he was doing and was helping him in some way got tired of waiting for the plan to work, much the same as William was tired of waiting. The thing is that while William was coming up with a new plan to get the old woman to sell, the accomplice decided to take matters into his own hands and pushed the old broad down the stairs. At least that’s the story I heard from Nazareth after William died, and I began asking around.”
“And William knew about this?” Colt asked.
“Not at first, but after the lady who lived in the mansion died, William did some investigating. He figured out that the man who’d been helping him had gotten antsy and killed the woman he needed to have alive to seal the deal he’d made with his former boss. He was pretty angry at first, but then he decided to try blackmailing the man who killed the old woman. I’m not sure if his blackmail subject had much money, but I guess he figured he’d get what he could.”
“So it seems possible that whoever William was threatening to blackmail or actually was blackmailing might be the one who killed him,” Colt said.
&nb
sp; “I think it’s likely,” Bob agreed.
“And do you know who this individual might be?” Colt asked.
Bob shook his head. “No idea. William only referred to the guy as his assistant. He’d say things like, ‘My assistant took care of running the props last night,’ or ‘My assistant got tired of waiting for his payday and pushed the old woman before I could stop him.’ He never said who his assistant was, and I never asked.”
I looked at Colt. “Maybe it was his actual assistant. Troy something.”
Colt’s lips tightened. “I was thinking the same thing. We have an appointment to speak to him in an hour.” He turned his attention back to Bob as he poured the last of the coffee from the pot into his cup. “Is there anything else that William may have said or done that might help us understand who killed him?”
He slowly moved his head from left to right. “Nope. I can’t think of a thing.”
Colt handed him a business card. “Okay. Thank you for using your break to speak to us. The coffee is on me. If you think of anything else, please call me.”
“Okay. And good luck with your investigation.”
After we left the diner, we decided to head over to the park where we were meeting Troy Winkelman. He was working a trash route today, but he said he ate lunch in the picnic area of the park most days, so we’d arranged to meet there. We doubted he’d be there yet, but Colt didn’t want to be late. He figured he’d call Jose in Cabo while he was waiting for Troy to arrive.
Colt made the call from the truck, so I decided to get out and stretch my legs. I’d worn a heavy coat and gloves today, so I was actually quite warm in the sun. There was snow on the ground, but someone had shoveled a path between the gazebo, the play area, the picnic area, and the bandstand, which was decorated with dozens of different sized Christmas trees.
Colt was still on the phone when a garbage truck pulled up. I waved to the man to let him know I was one of the people expecting him. There were actually three men on the garbage truck. A driver and two men who rode on the back, who I imagined were the ones who dumped the trash containers into the back where the garbage truck’s compactor would process the items that they collected.
Two of the men, with brown bags in hand, headed to a table in the sun while the third man headed in my direction.
“I’m Troy Winkelman. I’m supposed to meet Police Chief Wilder.”
“He’s in his truck finishing up a call, but I’m sure he saw you and will be here shortly. If you want to grab a table, you can go ahead and start eating while you’re waiting.”
He nodded and headed toward an empty table in the sun.
“It’s a beautiful day today,” I said as he unwrapped a deli sandwich.
“I appreciate the warmer weather. The route can be miserable if it’s snowing or raining.”
“I can imagine. Have you been doing the route long?”
He took a bite of his sandwich and then answered with a full mouth. “No. Just for a few weeks. After Mrs. Rosewood died, William and I, and everyone else, were laid off. I’m not a fan of the work, but the pay is good, so I guess we’ll see.”
I could only imagine how miserable it would be to have to be driving the truck in inclement weather, let alone being outside in the elements picking up trash when it was stormy out.
The man was almost halfway done with his meal when Colt arrived.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I was on a call to Mexico, so I didn’t want to hang up until I had all the information I needed.”
“No problem.” He shoved a handful of potato chips in his mouth.
“As I said on the phone, I wanted to talk to you about William Andrews.” Colt slid onto the bench across the table from the man.
“You know that he’s dead, right?”
“I know,” Colt confirmed. “I’m interested in his movements during the past month or so.”
The man took a swig from a cola. “Don’t know. After the lady who owned the big house on the bluff died, we were all laid off. I haven’t seen William since.”
“I understand that before Ms. Rosewood died, William was involved in a plot to scare her into selling her home to a developer he was working with. Do you know anything about that?”
He shook his head. “William was the head groundskeeper. He had access to the house and all the outbuildings. I heard from the maids that strange things were going on at that house at night. They were sure the place was actually haunted, but I figured the noises the owner of the place was hearing and the lights she was seeing were probably just William helping himself to the jewelry and artwork.”
“Do you think that William was stealing from Ms. Rosewood?” Colt asked.
“I know he was. He told me as much. I want to make it clear that I wasn’t part of any of that. I needed a job. William gave me a job. The pay was decent, and the working conditions tolerable. I showed up when I was told to and did what was asked. Other than that, I kept my nose clean and my business to myself.”
“So you knew there were strange things going on, but you simply ignored it,” I said.
“Not my job to police the situation. I was hired to do a job, and I did it. End of story.”
“Do you know if the maids, the cook, or anyone else knew that William was stealing from Ms. Rosewood?” Colt asked.
He shrugged as he balled up the tin foil the sandwich had been in and tossed it into the garbage can. “Not that I know of. I rarely went inside the house except to grab a cookie or other sweet treat every now and then. The only one I ever really talked to was William. There was one part-time maid, Sonya. We ran into each other a few times when she was bringing trash out to the compactor or beating rugs on the patio. She’s the one who told me about the haunting that she and the other maids were sure was taking place.”
Colt asked Troy a few more questions, but then Troy had to leave to return to his route.
“So what do you think?” I asked Colt after he’d pulled away from the park.
“I’m not sure that I buy the fact that William’s assistant didn’t know about William’s plan to scare Henri into selling, but since the haunting did happen at night, I suppose it’s possible that he really didn’t have any idea about what was going on. The way he answered the questions relating to the theft Troy was certain was taking place seemed to indicate that he didn’t want to know what was going on, so he turned a blind eye even when he did see something.”
“Yeah, that’s the same impression I had.” I glanced out the window. “So where to now?”
“I’m going to head over to the estate and talk to the sisters. I know we talked in-depth on a couple different occasions, but I’ve been out of the loop all week, and with all the new developments, I want to check in with them. Do you want to come along?”
“I do. I’ve been wanting to see how they’re doing anyway. And Jose in Cabo. Did you learn anything new from him?”
“Not a thing,” Colt replied. “The guy either really doesn’t know anything, or he isn’t willing to say.”
“I guess I can understand why he wouldn’t want to get involved. Did you ever get ahold of Nazareth Goodwin, Ned Ballard, or Rupert from the bowling alley?”
“No. I did call the bowling alley. Rupert works a late shift today and won’t be in until four. I guess we can stop by then. Nazareth is probably out plowing, but I’ll call dispatch and try to figure out when it might be a good time to catch him. I suppose we can go by and try to catch Ned at home after we speak to the sisters.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s head out to the estate to talk to the sisters.”
When we arrived at the estate, all three sisters, along with Shelby’s boyfriend, Scot, were sitting in the living room in front of the fireplace looking at photo albums. They seemed happy and content, which did my heart good. Shelby invited us in and offered us seats near where the group had been relaxing while Sierra made a fresh pot of coffee.
“Wow, your tree looks fabulous,” I said as I took in the twent
y-foot tree, which had been totally decked out with antique ornaments.
“It was a big job to get it cut, hauled into the house, set into the stand, secured, and decorated, but between the four of us, we managed,” Shelby said.
“The four of us?” Scot raised a brow. “It seems to me that I was the one doing most of the heavy lifting.”
“We all helped,” Shelby defended.
“Well, it looks wonderful. The mantel does too. Did you find all those decorations here in the house?”
“We did,” Sierra confirmed as she set a tray with six cups of coffee on the coffee table. “There was a bunch of stuff upstairs. I suspect there are decorations from several generations. It was really fun to look through it all.”
“I really like the nativity set,” Shelby said. “It has to be at least a hundred years old. We set it up in the family room. Be sure to stop in and take a look at it before you leave.”
“We will,” I said.
“So about the body in the toolshed, did you find out anything?” Sage asked once Colt and I had each taken a cup of coffee from the tray and sat down.
“Not a lot, but I do have some updates and a few additional questions,” Colt said.
“Okay, shoot.” Sage seemed eager to get the show on the road. I had the feeling that when she had work to attend to, she wasn’t the sort for small talk.
Colt began by filling the group in on what he’d learned since he’d last spoken to them. Once everyone was up to date, he asked if there had been any additional strange noises or lights. Everyone agreed that whatever had been going on seemed to be over now that William was dead. The idea that Henri might have been pushed from the top of the stairs didn’t sit well with anyone, which led to a lively and lengthy discussion.