by Lee Hollis
Sergio turned his computer screen around and opened a file. Five rows of very crisp, clear photographs popped up, all of the family of tourists whom Hayley ran into at the Wildwood Stables.
The mother and her two kids.
The dad was obviously the one who took the photos.
In the background of roughly half of them, Hayley could make out Thorsten Brandt approaching Lightning, then clearly wedging the burr beneath the horse’s saddle and then casually handing him off to the stable boy, who brought him over to Hayley to ride.
“Oh my God,” Hayley said.
“The daughter uploaded the photos on her iPad when the family returned to the campground where they’re staying. She noticed right away, so they called me and came over to show me. I immediately got a warrant and sent Donnie and Earl to pick him up.”
“What did you book him on?”
“Attempted murder. And that’s not all. This afternoon a Redmond employee, a whistle-blower, e-mailed a number of documents to the feds. All were very specific examples of Brandt’s rampant corruption and questionable business dealings. He was operating a massive embezzlement scheme. He was taking out loans on behalf of Redmond Meats for his expansion plans and transferring the bulk of the money to dummy accounts overseas. He knew once the company’s financial officers realized something was wrong, he would be long gone and the company would be forced to file for bankruptcy.”
“Did Olivia discover what he was doing? Is that why he killed her?”
“I don’t know if he killed her. I have no evidence that incriminates him other than he didn’t like her and she was refusing to bend to his will. The feds are convinced he’s our killer. I am basically holding him until they get here and can question him. I tried getting him to talk to me, but he kept his mouth shut. I don’t see him talking to the government guys either. He’s already put in a call to a very high-powered lawyer.”
“Can I get some face time with him?”
“You know I can’t do that, Hayley. Besides, why would he talk to you? He tried to bump you off on the carriage trails.”
Hayley held up the Tupperware container that had a healthy serving of bacon potato soup left in it. “Maybe he’s hungry.”
“You know I am the chief of police and cannot allow a civilian to communicate with a murder suspect.”
“I would never want to get you in any kind of trouble, Sergio. I understand.”
“Although I will tell you I am thirsty and could use a soda. The machine is down the hall. I could be gone for five, maybe ten minutes. No more than ten minutes. And then I will be back here in my office expecting to see you just where I left you.”
Sergio stared at Hayley.
She knew the drill.
He was not willing to give Hayley permission to talk to Brandt in his cell. But he would not be at fault if she took matters in her own hands and did it on her own when he wasn’t around. That would absolve him of all responsibility.
“Do you need change for the machine?”
Sergio shoved a hand in his pants pocket and jangled some coins. “I’m all set. I guess I will head to the soda machine now.”
He whistled a tune as he strolled out of the office.
Hayley waited a few seconds and then poked her head out the office door.
The coast was clear.
She dashed down the hall with her Tupperware container to the row of cells in the back of the station.
She found Thorsten Brandt, his shirt open, an untucked T-shirt underneath. A hangdog expression on his face.
He was not happy to be here and he was depressed that his life as he knew it was basically over.
When he saw Hayley, he frowned. “I did not expect to see you here,” he said. “What do you want?”
She handed him the Tupperware container and a plastic spoon through the bars of the cell. “It’s my bacon potato soup. Very hardy. Much tastier than the slop they serve here. Enjoy.”
“Is this some kind of incentive for me to bare my soul to you?”
“No. But it is so delicious there’s no telling what you might admit.”
“The chief showed me the photos. I know I’m caught red-handed. I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to scare you. I did not want you exposing my . . . never mind.”
Thorsten took a mouthful of soup and closed his eyes.
He dropped the spoon and began slurping the soup down directly from the Tupperware container until it was all gone.
“I take it you like my soup,” Hayley said.
He shrugged. “It’s okay. Could use a little more salt.”
He loved it. He just wasn’t about to admit it.
“Did you kill Olivia Redmond, Thorsten?”
He threw the Tupperware to the floor. “No, I did not! And if you say that again, I’ll sue for defamation.”
“You’re in jail for attempted murder and embezzlement. There’s not much left of you to defame.”
“I had nothing to do with Olivia’s murder. In fact, I have an airtight alibi. I was whale watching with my secretary, who accompanied me here. I’m sure the crew as well as a few other tourists on the boat remember seeing us. We are probably in some of their pictures. Now, that’s all you get. I’m not talking anymore without my lawyer present.”
“Why did you tell me anything? Do you like my soup that much?”
“No. I feel bad about what happened at the stables. I was not thinking clearly. I should not have pulled that stunt. But I panicked. We are done here. Now go, please.”
Hayley nodded and raced back down the hall.
She knew her ten minutes were just about up and she had to get back to Sergio’s office before he returned with his can of Dr. Pepper.
Despite him nearly paralyzing her in the park, she suspected Thorsten was telling the truth.
He did not kill Olivia.
She was more useful to him alive. He needed her to still be the face of the company until he was finished bleeding it dry and absconding with millions in company funds.
Someone snapping Olivia’s neck in the garden was not a part of his plan.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
The other night after getting off the phone with my mother from our biweekly phone call, I got an incredible urge for a Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin. Craving meat after speaking with my mother is a Pavlovian response from childhood. When my brother and I were kids, our mother’s idea of meat was a veggie dog or tofu brushed in BBQ sauce and browned on the grill. And everyone knows when you deprive a child of any food their friends are allowed to eat on a regular basis, they just want it more!
When I was around twelve years old I was suddenly introduced to the wonderful world of pork.
My mother worked one week a month at the local retirement community village where she was in charge of collecting the residents’ monthly rent. This was a job she absolutely loved and took very seriously. She was very proud of her 100 percent rent collection record each month.
She would actually prepare a plan of attack and approached her task with a military-like precision and an enthusiasm that I didn’t quite understand at such a young age. She seemed to enjoy taking me along with her. It was only later that I realized she had ulterior motives.
Sometimes she would sit me down in the common room. The nice elderly people were so happy to see a lively young child because I reminded them of their own grandchildren. They would always come up and speak to me. Then my mother would suddenly appear out of nowhere right in front of the poor old soul, startling them, with her hand out, unblinking, and request their monthly rent check. Her intended target would begin stammering an excuse about how she had left her wallet in her apartment. That didn’t deter my mother. She just placed an arm around her prey and headed her in the direction of her apartment, stuck to her side the whole way.
On a few occasions she would even have me wear my Girl Scout uniform and place me in front of an unsuspecting resident’s door as if I was selling cookies, and then she
would rap sharply on the door and hang back by the wall. Once the poor senior looked out of his peephole and just saw an adorable young girl in her scout uniform presumably selling cookies, he would then walk right into my mother’s ingenious trap. He would open the door and my mother would pounce, like a cat on a mouse. She would casually slip her foot in far enough so the door couldn’t be closed and, with a bright smile on her face, say something like, “Mr. Foster, I’m so glad I caught you at home. Would you like to pay your rent?”
What does all this have to do with pork? Well, even though I felt bad being a pawn in my mother’s scheme to hold on to her perfect rent collection record, I did find a beacon of shining light at this facility, and it was in the form of the residents’ dining hall.
One day after helping my mother catch yet another victim, she sent me off to the residents’ dining hall to get a bite to eat, and let me tell you, I never looked back.
It was a beautiful place filled with every imaginable delectable meat dish my young mind could conjure up, and I set out to try every last one of them while my mother was busy working her stealth maneuvers to track down every last senior who owed her money.
It was heaven!
One dish I couldn’t get enough of was the Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin. It was divine! And in my young mind, this mouthwatering treat ran circles around my mother’s bland, chewy tofu dogs.
But, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and for my mother and me they did rather quickly after one particular incident that may have been over the top even for my mother.
One day at work with my mother, I was just leaving the dining room after gorging on yet another meal of Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin when I heard yelling coming from the residents’ common room. I dashed off to see what was going on, arriving in time to see an unconscious woman being wheeled away on a gurney by the EMTs after suffering some kind of malady. My mother, who had apparently jumped up on the gurney and was practically on top of the poor woman, reached into her purse, all the while yelling to all of the stunned residents and staff who were frozen in place, that she knew poor Mrs. Clark would be horrified if her rent had been late while she was in the hospital, and how she wanted to relieve her mind knowing her bills had been paid on time.
That was the end of my mother’s job as the rent collector at the senior retirement village. It also meant the end of my meat-eating days in the dining hall. But it was too late to go back to fake meat. I was a goner. And after teaming up with my brother, we staged a revolt. My mother finally gave in and we were officially a family of carnivores.
But that is another story.
So in salute of my happy meat-eating youthful memories, I’m sharing one of my favorite recipes, Easy Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin. I’m also including my mother’s favorite cocktail—a Gin Fizz that she always drank as a reward for a job well done after collecting all those rent checks.
Gin Fizz
Ingredients
3 ounces of your favorite gin
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Ice
Seltzer
Add the first four ingredients to a shaker and mix together, then pour into a tall glass. Top with seltzer water and cheers!
Easy Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin
Ingredients
1 pork tenderloin, 1½ pound
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Pinch of cayenne (more or less to your taste)
6 slices your favorite bacon (or enough to completely wrap)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¼ cup mango chutney (or your favorite flavor)
2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Open the pork loin and make sure you pat it dry; set aside on a cutting board or platter.
Combine the brown sugar, salt, paprika, cayenne in small bowl, then rub the mixture all over the pork tenderloin.
Wrap the bacon around the tenderloin, securing with toothpicks.
Heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat until hot in a large cast iron pan and place the bacon-wrapped tenderloin in the pan and sear. Do not try turning to the other side until bacon is nice and dark brown. Cook each side for at least 6 to 8 minutes.
Mix the chutney and mustard in a small bowl and when bacon is done, generously brush the mixture on the top and sides of the tenderloin in the skillet, then transfer the skillet to the oven for about 15 minutes or when a thermometer reads 140 F. Remove from oven, tent with foil, and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove the toothpicks, slice, and eat up!
Note: We like using the leftover chutney in the jar as a dipping sauce.
Chapter 26
“I have it right here on my computer screen, Hayley,” Candy Pryor said on the other end of the phone. “The photo was taken on the seventeenth. Same day as when poor Mrs. Redmond was murdered.”
Candy worked for her family’s whale-watching expedition company, which departed three times a week from the town pier.
“We put out a giant cardboard cutout of a whale on the dock about an hour before we set sail, and everybody who buys a ticket stops and has their picture taken with it, and then we print them out and sell them in the gift shop to anyone who wants them after the boat gets back. It was my dad’s idea after seeing it done at Disney World when he took the grandkids last winter.”
“And you’re sure it’s Thorsten and his secretary?”
“Hold on. I’ll e-mail it to you.”
After a few seconds there was a ding alerting Hayley to an incoming e-mail. She opened the file attached, and sure enough, there was Thorsten in cargo shorts and a polo shirt with a light sweater tied around his neck, and his secretary, a young woman no more than thirty with a fresh-faced smile, her auburn hair blowing in the breeze, who wore a tight-fitting pair of jeans, a pink blouse, and a bomber jacket. They were holding hands and smiling.
They looked like a couple on a romantic outing.
Except for the fact that Hayley now knew Thorsten was also seeing Red’s girlfriend, Peggy, on the side.
In addition to being an ethically challenged businessman, Thorsten Brandt was also a blatant womanizer.
“Looks like his alibi checks out,” Hayley said.
“I remember him buying the tickets. He was very charming with that German accent, and he spent the whole time flirting with me while I ran his credit card through the machine. He’s a very handsome man, don’t you agree?” Candy said, giggling.
“Not my type. Thanks, Candy,” Hayley said.
“Anytime, love. And be sure to come join us one of these days on an expedition if you don’t get seasick. We’d love to have you.”
“Yes, I’d love that,” Hayley said, hanging up.
She had no real intention of taking Candy up on her kind offer. She had been wrestling with a fear of water ever since a cold-blooded killer had discovered she had connected him to his uncle’s murder and taken her out to sea on a boat to dump her over the side so she couldn’t tell anyone. Luckily the coast guard had shown up in the nick of time. Mona had begged her to try and get over her irrational fear by joining her on her fishing boat to haul lobster traps outside the harbor, but Hayley was still resistant. Liddy had tried talking her into planning a luxury cruise through the Caribbean on a boat so big she wouldn’t even feel it moving. But so far Hayley was content to simply avoid sea travel altogether.
One of these days she would try to work through it.
Just not now.
Bruce bounded out to the front office from the bull pen. “Did Brandt’s alibi check out?”
Hayley nodded. “Yes. He’s officially off the suspect list.”
“So are Red and Peggy. I was able to confirm they weren’t even in town on the day of the murder. They traveled together by the company’s private plane from California the day after Olivia’s body was found. R
ed probably wouldn’t even have bothered to come to Bar Harbor because of his fractured relationship with his mother, but he saw a big payday with his mother’s will.”
“I’m sure Peggy did too,” Hayley added. “As well as the opportunity to spend some time with her secret lover, Thorsten. I checked the social registers for several Redmond Meats parties in New York and both Peggy and Thorsten’s names were on the guest list for one at the Met and one at Lincoln Center. I’m sure that’s where they met. Even though Red despised his mother and most likely didn’t want to attend, I’m sure Peggy pressured him into going since she loves high society and is so desperate to be a part of it.”
“Good work. See? Working together is fun,” Bruce said, grinning.
“We are not working together. We just work in the same office and just happen to be investigating the same case and are simply choosing to share information.”
“However you want to see it,” Bruce said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Of course, if you were my partner and not my competitor, I would tell you what I was able to find out about Rhonda Franklin.”
Checkmate.
He had her.
Hayley stood up from her desk. “What did you find out, partner?”
Bruce chuckled. “You’re so easy. I knew you’d see the light.”
“Tell me, Bruce.”
She was wild with curiosity. She’d do anything to find out.
Within reason, of course.
“I did a little online digging this morning by Googling Rhonda Franklin and I found this brief story on a Web site called Deadline Hollywood about Rhonda being offered a role in a major motion picture about six months ago. Her agent was in negotiations with the studio, and she was requesting a leave from The Chat so she could go shoot the movie in Texas. But then, just two days later, there was a follow-up piece announcing that Rhonda had pulled out of the picture and was going to be replaced by another actress.”
“So? Actors leave projects all the time because of scheduling conflicts, or personal reasons, or just about anything.”