THANKSGIVING IN PARADISE

by Daley, Kathi

  Helen nodded.

  Sinful Secrets was a blog that had shown up in email boxes around town beginning in late July. The blog was a gossip rag that focused on revealing the secrets of anyone and everyone the author of the blog chose to pick on. The blog had started with the tone of any other gossip rag, but as time went by, the content of the blog had become downright mean. As a motive for murder, the blog fit the bill perfectly.

  “But the August issue of that blog seemed to be a direct hit at you,” I reminded Helen. “The three secrets revealed were: the plot and working title of the book Bookman had just completed and wanted to keep secret until the big reveal party, the fact that Bree had been locking lips with Pastor Dan in spite of the fact that she had also been working as his nanny, and the fact that Jenna and Dennis had been having marital problems since his promotion to Captain. Why would Harriet pick on the people you loved the most? She was your best friend.”

  Helen blew out a shallow breath. “I don’t know why she decided to write what she did. At the time the blog came out, I was livid that someone would pick on my family that way. Keep in mind, I didn’t know that Harriet was behind the whole thing at that point, and the two of us even talked about how mean and inappropriate the person behind the blog was, and how they needed to be punished. Harriet even made a comment about the person being a coward since she was clearly hiding behind her anonymity. When I finally found out that Harriet had been writing the blog all along, I wanted to wring her neck. I confronted her and asked her about her motive for being so evil and she reminded me that I had been the queen of gossip in the area for decades and that the secrets she had revealed about Bookman’s book, Bree’s relationship with Dan, and Jenna’s marital problems were really no worse than the sort of things I had whispered into the ears of town residents for years before marrying Bookman and retiring from the gossip game.”

  “But Bookman is your husband, and Jenna and Bree are your daughters. How could she do that to you or to them?”

  Helen bowed her head. “I don’t know. Of course, I was very upset about what she had done, but the fact that she knew about the plot and title of Bookman’s book, Bree and Dan’s relationship, and Jenna and Dennis’s marital problems was because I’d told her. It really was my own gossiping that came back to bite me. Harriet and I were never close after I found out what she had been doing, but she didn’t deserve to die.”

  “That may be true, but not all the secrets revealed by the Sinful Secrets blog were harmless,” I pointed out. “The blog is responsible for Nancy Johnson filing for divorce after Sinful Secrets revealed that her husband, Jimmy, had been seen heading into a motel room with an unidentified woman with long blond hair.”

  Helen cringed. Both she and Frannie looked as guilty as if they had written the blog themselves.

  “The blog not only caused Jenna all sorts of grief with Dennis, but I know of at least two other relationships that were destroyed by what was revealed,” I continued. “Why didn’t you tell someone what Harriet was doing? The person behind that horrible blog has been the biggest mystery to hit the town of Serenity in decades.”

  “We didn’t know until recently,” Frannie said.

  Helen nodded. “When the first blog came out in July, it was light-hearted and funny. Sure, it picked on some of the town’s favorite citizens including you and Kyle, and it made a few folks mad, but all in all, it seemed that most of the town’s residents found the blog to be entertaining. Then the second blog came out at the end of August, and it was focused on my family. And yes, I was angry. Livid in fact. But I didn’t know who was writing the blog, and it didn’t seem that enough harm had been done to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. Then when the September blog came out, and Jimmy’s affair was revealed, along with a few other gasp-worthy revelations about other folks in town, I could see the opinion of many folks in town begin to change. There were those who felt that the blog was causing more harm than it ought to, and perhaps the blogger should be stopped. I found I agreed and I even made noise about tracking down whoever was responsible and making them pay, but I had no idea who the blogger was or how to track down the identity of this very hurtful person.”

  Frannie continued after Helen paused. “Then the October blog came out, and the author of Sinful Secrets revealed that Margie Holden’s husband, Carl, was not, in fact, the father of their middle daughter, but that she had been conceived during a brief affair between Margie and her tennis instructor. No one knew Margie’s secret except for Helen, who Margie had confided in.”

  “I unwisely shared this information with Harriet after a girls’ night out, and the next week, Margie’s secret was revealed in the blog.” Helen bowed her head. “Of course, not only were both Margie and her husband hurt by this bit of news being made public, but Margie’s seven-year-old daughter found out that Carl was not her father, as did her classmates, and the fallout nearly destroyed the young girl. It was then that I figured out that Harriet was the author of the blog. I confronted her, and she promised to stop publishing it. The damage from the blogs she had already published could not be undone, and she promised not to write any new ones, so I didn’t see the value in ratting her out, even though I knew our relationship had been damaged beyond repair.” Helen wiped a tear from her cheek. “Perhaps if I had ratted her out, she’d be alive today. Perhaps Lloyd wouldn’t be dead, Hank wouldn’t be crippled, and Bookman wouldn’t have almost died.” Helen glanced at me. “I’m sorry. This whole thing is my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault. I probably wouldn’t have said anything either once Harriet promised to stop what she was doing. I still can’t believe that Harriet would do such a hurtful thing.”

  “I don’t think she meant it to be hurtful,” Frannie said. “At least not in the beginning. I think that she honestly believed after Mayor Harper died as a result of his secret, that secrets were dangerous, and the telling of them could very well save lives.”

  “I think Harper’s death messed with Harriet’s mind more than any of us really understood. If I had to guess, she sort of lost it after his death, but since she seemed to be dealing with things, at least on the surface, no one really knew how it had affected her,” Helen added.

  “I don’t blame either of you. I even sort of understand why Harriet might have felt justified in doing what she did, but now that I know about the blog, Harriet as the target of the bomb makes sense. Why didn’t you bring this up before?”

  Harriet and Frannie glanced at each other. Neither spoke at first, but eventually, Helen replied. “As far we know, Frannie and I are the only two who know that Harriet was behind the Sinful Secrets blog. We knew we didn’t plant the bomb, so we didn’t think the blog was the motive. In fact, until today, we just assumed that the council as a whole was the target and the motive was something the council was working on.”

  I supposed I could understand that. I hadn’t suspected that Harriet was the intended target until today either, and I’d been digging around in the incident. “I marked the blog as spam after the first one, and never even read any of them after that, although I have heard quite a bit about the content from those affected, especially Jenna. Still, I think reading what was said could be important. Do you have copies?”

  Both Helen and Frannie admitted that they didn’t, but they suspected that the blogs were saved on Harriet’s home computer.

  “I’ll call Roy and see if he has her computer. In the meantime, the two of you need to keep this conversation between us. If someone from the blog did plant the bomb in Harriet’s purse, I don’t want them getting wind that we are onto them which would give them the opportunity to disappear before Roy can identify and arrest them.”

  Chapter 11

  After the meeting, Kyle and I headed to his place. I called Roy, who headed to Harriet’s to get her computer. At this point, it seemed to me that the key to finding the killer was to identify those individuals who’d been injure
d by Harriet’s tell-all blogs.

  “I’m still having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Harriet is the person behind the blogs,” Kyle said as he made a pot of coffee.

  “I only read the first one which included a comment about you and me locking lips, and a comment about Rita Halliwell having a temper and slapping the new flower delivery guy when he tried to make a move on her. There was also something about Mark Riverton being a secret hoarder who’d kept everything he had ever owned. The blog was written in a lighthearted tone that wasn’t really cruel, but it did seem like the author was just trying to stir things up, so I marked the blog as spam and any additional blogs sent to my email would have ended up in my spam folder.” I frowned. “I wonder if they are still there.”

  “Do you delete your spam?”

  “Not very often. I have my laptop, I’ll take a look.”

  Unfortunately, the only blog in my spam folder was the most recent blog, which was sent out in October, but it was a place to start.

  “Read me what it says, and I’ll jot down the names of those affected,” Kyle suggested as we settled in at the kitchen table with our coffee.

  The blog contained just three paragraphs. There wasn’t a lot of text in any of the paragraphs, but there was enough to cause a lot of damage. I began to read. “Sinful secrets can easily turn into sinful lies when matters of the heart are at stake, and sinful lies, as we all know, can lead to all sorts of unforeseen tragedy. It was discovered this week by Sinful Secrets that for the past two months, Brandy Baldwin’s Monday night book club has really been Brandy Baldwin’s Monday night booty call. Reliable sources have confirmed that Brandy’s husband, Walter, has been biding his time at home with the twins while Brandy has been getting a little something on the side from local boy-toy, Ryder Walton.” I glanced at Kyle. “Ouch. That is downright mean.”

  Kyle nodded. “I agree. This blog doesn’t have the same lighthearted and funny tone as the first blog in July. Whether this is true or not, I can see both Brandy and Walter as having the motive to want revenge against the blogger who filled the entire town in on their marital woes.”

  “What about Ryder?” I asked.

  “Ryder is single and proud of the fact that he gets around. If I had to guess, he was thrilled that everyone knew that he’d managed to bag a good-looking woman like Brandy.”

  I raised a brow. “Bag?”

  “I’m sorry. That was rude. But you know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  Kyle wrote Walter and Brandy Baldwin down on his list. “What’s next?”

  I looked down at the blog and continued to read. “It seems that lust has run wild in Serenity, both currently and in the past, and Sinful Secrets is here to reveal it all. With a tiny bit of research into classified records, it has been confirmed by Sinful Secrets that Serenity’s most respectable housewife and mother has been keeping a shameful secret of her own involving the real father of her middle daughter, Haley, who Sinful Secrets has discovered, does not belong to her husband, the tireless, Carl Holden.” I glanced up at Kyle. “I can’t believe Harriet wrote this. Even if she was grieving, even if she went a little bit over the edge with Harper’s death, this whole thing is just so mean.”

  Kyle bobbed his head. “Yeah. It’s pretty bad. You said there were three paragraphs?”

  I looked back at my computer and began to read the third paragraph. “And finally, when it comes to lustful thoughts and deeds, it seems worth mentioning that Sinful Secrets has uncovered the fact that our own Hank Hammond was seen grinding pelvises with the newest waitress at The Beef and Brew, Fiona Walton, who by the way, is barely out of her teens and almost two decades younger than our esteemed restauranteur and town council member.”

  Kyle frowned. “Why on earth would Harriet print that? First of all, Hank is single, and it isn’t really a scandal for him to have intimate relations with whomever he wants, and it appeared to me that Harriet really liked Hank. I never saw any indication that she was out to get him.”

  “Helen was her best friend, and she devoted the entire August blog to tell-all posts relating to her husband and daughters.”

  “True.”

  “Helen didn’t seem to think that Harriet’s intent was evil, at least not at first. She said that it was her opinion that Harriet actually believed she was keeping those with secrets from future harm by revealing their secrets before the secret led them to harm. Of course, that reasoning is crazy, but I’m beginning to think that perhaps, in the end, Harriet really had gone over the edge.” I glanced at Kyle’s list. “While we have some viable suspects from the October blog and we know the content of the July and August blogs, we do need to get ahold of the September blog. If they aren’t on Harriet’s computer, I’ll see if I can find someone who saved them.”

  “So Helen really didn’t realize that Harriet was the author of Sinful Secrets until the October blog published?” Kyle asked with a look of doubt on his face.

  “Not according to what she told me. She said that Harriet never said or did anything to indicate she was behind the blogs, and it wasn’t until Helen realized that Harriet was one of the few people who knew about the secret behind Haley Baldwin’s birth that she began to suspect that Harriet was involved.”

  By the time Kyle and I had made our primary list, Roy arrived with the computer. It was password protected, so Kyle got to work breaking the passcode while Roy and I chatted.

  “I managed to track down the four blogs which had already been published,” Roy said.

  “I read the first one, and I know the content of the second one, which featured Bookman, Bree, and Jenna. I had the most recent blog in my spam folder, but we still need to take a look at September.”

  Roy used his tablet to pull up the missing blog. By the time the September issue of Sinful Secrets was published, Harriet had definitely passed over to the dark side. The September blog had the information about Jimmy cheating on Nancy, as well as proof that Adam Levine had likewise been cheating on his wife, Veronica. A statement was also made about Wilma Fisher embezzling funds from her boss, which resulted in her being fired and criminal charges being brought against her. After deleting victims such as Kyle and me, Jenna and Dennis, Bookman, and Bree and Pastor Dan, we ended up with ten suspects: Nancy and Jimmy Johnson, Walter and Brandy Baldwin, Margie and Carl Holden, Adam and Veronica Levine, Mark Riverton and Wilma Fisher.

  “I’ll talk to all of them, and we’ll see where we end up,” Roy said. He looked at Kyle. “You should still try to get into her computer. It has occurred to me that Harriet might have other victims lined up to rat out. She has presented just three victims per month at this point. I can see how she might have other revelations just waiting for an opening. I can also see that someone might have figured out what she was doing and killed her to keep her quiet. I know Helen said Harriet promised to stop publishing the blog, but that doesn’t mean she would have. And even if she wasn’t going to publish it, potential victims who may have found out what she planned to reveal may not have known she planned to retire.”

  “I’ll get in,” Kyle promised. “I’ll call you when I do.”

  After Roy left, it occurred to me that perhaps it might be worth our while to search Harriet’s home. I was sure that Roy and/or his partner, Kate, had already done so, but I knew I would feel better if I took a peek myself. Kyle wasn’t a fan of breaking into her home since it was right smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood with a bunch of close neighbors, but I knew Helen had a key, so I asked if we could use it, and when she agreed, Kyle and I picked it up and then headed toward Harriet’s.

  “I’ve been inside this home dozens of times,” I said to Kyle after we arrived, “but now that I know Harriet is dead, the place feels somewhat creepy and haunted.”

  “I doubt the house is haunted, but I do understand what you mean. Let’s start with her home office and see what w
e can find. I’m hoping my software will have broken the password on Harriet’s computer by the time we get home. Between what we find here and what we find on the computer, I’m hoping we will have an idea as to the identity of our killer by the end of the day.”

  “That would be nice.”

  I followed Kyle through the living room and down the hallway to Harriet’s office. The first thing I noticed was that the room had been tossed. The file cabinet drawers were open, and every file that had been stored within was on the floor.

  “I think someone beat us to it,” Kyle said.

  “You don’t think the cops did this?”

  Kyle shook his head. “No. If they searched the place, they would have been a lot more deliberate in their effort. If I had to guess, the person who killed Harriet was most likely the one to come by looking for something. Don’t touch anything. We should call Roy. He might be able to find some prints or other physical evidence.”

  After calling Roy, Kyle and I headed back to his place. This investigation seemed to be getting increasingly frustrating with every clue we uncovered.

  “Grandpa planned to head over to Doc’s to work on the investigation into the explosion. Doc is a pretty smart cookie, perhaps we should call them and see what, if anything, they might have figured out,” I suggested.

  “Sounds fine with me. Ask them to come over if you want.”

  I called Grandpa, and he informed me that they did have news to share and would be right over. I made yet another pot of coffee and set out some snacks. All this running around was exhausting, in spite of the fact it was only mid-afternoon.

  By the time Doc’s car pulled up in the driveway, the coffee had brewed. “So you said you had news?” I asked Grandpa after he and Doc had settled around the dining table with Kyle and me.

  Grandpa looked at Doc. “Doc knows a guy who knows a guy who was owed a favor by one of the men who works at the crime lab.” Doc used to be a coroner, so more often than not, he had connections when we needed them the most. “According to the contact working the case, the bomb that was used to blow up the town hall was military grade stuff and not something an amateur might throw together.”