“Okay, I think that covers everything, Megan. Do you have anything you need done to wrap up the geo-Cache, or anything else for that matter?”
“You know what, Janice, I think I do. I was going to run out to Mary’s farm to pick up some videos that are being put together for me. But if we have someone running out that way and coming back fairly quickly, I’ll have them do my errand, too. That will give me more time to work on things over in my private office.”
“I’m sure we can manage that. What time do you need these films by?”
“The next hour or so. If not, I’ll go out myself-”
“Delegate, Megan. You need to work on that. If you need the film within the next hour, we’ll make it happen. Do you want it brought over to your office?”
Megan laughed at Janice, she was constantly reminding Megan to let go of the little tasks and concentrate on the bigger picture. She agreed that she would like the tapes brought to her office. Megan watched as Janice ran through a list on her desk, pointed to a name, and called a staff member to inform them of their new task. Megan had to admit, it was nice to have someone else do the leg work and free up some of her time from the petty things that always seemed to be there, hanging over their shoulders.
“There is nothing here for you to do Megan, I’ve got everything under control. Go back and keep trying to figure out who killed Mary. No one around here will relax until the killer is caught. You’ve done it before, just please be careful. Make sure you let me or someone else know if you take off anywhere, okay?”
Megan saw the concern and unease in Janice’s eyes and reassured her friend she would be careful.
“The sheriff will get this wrapped up so quickly that he probably won’t even need my help.”
Although her words were meant to be reassuring, she didn’t believe them. Megan still felt the sheriff and Aiden were looking at the murder motive from the wrong angle. She kept her doubts to herself, not wanting to make Janice or anyone else more nervous than they already were. Megan walked back out into the open work area, gathered the dogs and led them back to her office. She wanted to check and see if anyone had sent the pictures she had asked for.
By the time they made it back to the office, the dogs were worn out. It was hard work to chase the many lizards that crossed their path as they walked. Megan walked back to the kitchenette to get the dogs a bowl of water and a couple of treats. She stopped long enough to hook up her iPod to the stereo speakers and paused to enjoy the beautiful sounds of Tim Janis for a moment. Once the dogs were taken care of, she grabbed her laptop and sat down on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, and started to look for any responses that might include pictures. She was pleased to see that most of her volunteers were sending her tons of pictures from each of the geo-cache sites. As she downloaded the pictures to her laptop, she also printed a copy.
There was a huge table in the conference room that she intended to lay each photo out on to look at in more detail. After five minutes, she got up to pick up the pictures that were ready and headed to the table. With a start, she realized she hadn’t heard a peep out of the dogs since she poured their water, she hunted around for them. It didn’t take long to find them, and she could help but to grab her own phone and take a picture of the two of them curled up together in Barney’s bed, sound asleep. Thinking Aiden would enjoy the sweet picture, she sent it off to him in an email and went back to the pictures from the printer. She made a pile for each of the geo-cache sites, and one for random shots taken downtown sorting the pictures accordingly.
Megan was walking back from the printer with the second stack of pictures when her phone rang. She answered it with a good morning, but Lucy’s excitement cut her off from saying anything else.
“You will never believe what I just found out. I know who killed Mary!”
“What? Tell me everything. You really know who did it?”
“Well, I don’t have proof yet, but I’m right about this.”
Megan took a deep breath to keep herself from being drawn into Lucy’s hysteria. She wanted to hear what was going on before she celebrated the discovery of the murderer’s identity.
“Start at the beginning and tell me, in detail, what you think you know.”
Lucy didn’t take offense to Megan’s words after all Megan was the more level-headed one of the two of them. Lucy slowed herself down and she told Megan what had happened a short time ago.
"Charlotte called a few minutes ago and she had an awful lot to say this morning. It seems she's been worried about the girls being out at the farm by themselves. So she took it upon herself to hire Deputy Young to patrol the property, in particular the back gate and barn area when he was off duty from the police department. Earlier this morning her intuition paid off."
"What happened?"
"When Sean was making his patrols he noticed that the back gate was open. Luckily it wasn’t open long, and no animals escaped. You'll never believe who he found by the back barn where Mary was killed and all that money was stashed."
Megan drummed her fingers on the desk trying to keep her patience and let Lucy tell the story her own way. But she wished Lucy would hurry and get to the point.
"When Sean came around the corner of the barn there was Rita Thomas ready to tear down the police tape and open the barn door. She told Sean that she was looking around at what would be her property, but he didn't buy it. He escorted her back to the gate where her car was parked a little ways down the road. Well, let me tell you, I don't buy it either. Rita has something to do with this. Why else would she be trying to break into the very barn where we found, well you know what we found. She had to be after the money. And let's face it, if Charlotte wasn’t so concerned about the girls, Sean wouldn’t have been there and we would have never known that Rita was involved. Oh, I had a feeling she was in it, right up to her pretty little neck, but now there’s proof."
Megan sighed, wishing it was that easy. But she was the voice of reason, and she needed to calm Lucy down before she went around telling other people she thought Rita was Mary’s murderer. Without evidence, they could scare the killer off and never be able to prove who had killed Mary or why.
"Lucy, we really don't have any proof. She was trespassing on the property, that’s all. She might have thought that because Aiden was out of town, it was a perfect opportunity. He's been trying to keep her on a tight leash so she doesn't get everybody riled up and hinder her own case against the town. What did Charlotte have to say about this?"
"Pretty much the same thing you did. But, you two are all wrong. Rita has been in trouble since she was a little kid, and a tiger doesn't change his stripes that easily."
"Lucy, being a troublemaker does not equal being a murderer. But if she is, we have to make sure we have all the evidence before we accuse her. She won’t get away with anything, especially when she is essentially fighting the whole town. Let’s slow down and get it right the first time."
Megan could hear the exasperated sigh Lucy let out over the phone. She felt for her friend’s frustration, but things needed to be done step by step in order to get the right results. Changing the subject, Megan asked Lucy what she was planning to do for the day. Lucy hesitated a moment before she answered her.
"I really need to stay here and get a jewelry order together. But if you need me to help you with anything…" she offered her help with a question in her voice.
"No, you get what you need to get done. I'm working in the office on some pictures that were taken during the geo-Cache. I’m also going to view the security tapes for the last couple weeks out at the farm. I think that will take up most of my day. Why don’t we get together this evening for dinner? Aiden should be back by then and he can join us."
Lucy agreed with Megan’s suggestion and wished her good luck with the pictures. With a goodbye, the two hung up. Megan turned back to the pile of pictures in her hand, waiting to be sorted.
Chapter 28
During the next 40 minutes, Megan
made some sort of semblance of order to the piles of printed out photographs. When she had them grouped according to location, she went over each picture looking for faces that she didn't recognize. She could quickly take each pile and divided into two, with a larger selection being pictures of people she knew and thought were above suspicion. The second pile had at least one unfamiliar face she needed to identify who they were and who they were with. When she finished sorting each pile, she discarded pictures of the people that she was acquainted with and went back to the starting point. She spread out the pictures by location so she could examine the piles closer. She went through this process three times, each time the stack of photos got smaller until her suspect list became almost nonexistent.
Feeling like she was looking at the same thing over and over again, Megan rubbed her eyes and then stretched, bending at the waist to try to work out the kinks in her lower back from sitting at the table. She decided she needed to look at a new set of photos, so she started on the pile of photos that were random shots of both participants and supporters throughout the day. There were pictures of the morning kickoff at her own business and a few shots of the party at Carol's.
Since these were in no certain order, she was randomly looking at them when she heard someone calling out to her as they walked up the pathway to her front door. Both dogs woke up, their tails wagging as they barking excitedly at the prospect of company. Megan had left the door open with a screen door to keep out the bugs and could see Janice as she walked to her office, carrying a bag in her hand.
"Come on in, Janice."
"I just wanted to drop off these tapes for you. I figured you were anxious to go through them. Charlotte had them dropped off before we even had time to send somebody out. She said to call her if you have any questions or notice anything that might be helpful."
"Thanks. Maybe looking at something in motion will keep my eyes from going stir crazy."
"Listen, I can’t stay long, but I'll send over some lunch because otherwise you forget to eat. Call me if there's anything I can do to help."
"I appreciate that, Janice."
Janice started to say something more, but she saw that Megan was putting the first of the CDs into her laptop, and her focus was now on the screen, and nothing else. Janice snuck each of the dogs a treat, and then, quietly closing the screen door behind her, went back to the main office. Megan wasn’t even aware that she left. The dogs settled back down for another nap once it became apparent that they wouldn’t get any more treats or attention.
Megan decide she didn't want to re-watch the videos over and over again like she had been looking at the pictures over and over. Instead, Megan grabbed a pad of paper and sat down in front of her computer. Her plan was to make a note of the date and time when she saw something or someone that caught her attention.
She played the tape at a faster speed than real time, hoping to get through them quicker. Two hours later she finished the last of the tapes and scrutinized the list she had made on a pad of paper. There were several notations. It seems that Mary had quite a bit of traffic coming in and out of both of the store and the petting zoo. Megan concentrated on the adults coming and going, not paying any attention to the children. But she couldn’t help but to note how happy they seemed to be while they were there playing with the animals.
Megan peeked at her watch and saw it was almost lunchtime. She remembered that Janice said she would have food brought in, and was grateful she wouldn’t have to fix her own. She decided to take the dogs for a quick run before her food arrived and to give herself a break, both mentally and physically.
Megan returned from a walk just as the delivery person from the barbecue stop restaurant pulled up in front of the office, the bag containing her lunch letting out delicious smells. Megan took care of paying the bill, giving the boy a tip as she took the bag from him.
"Come on, you two, I promise I'll share," she told the two dogs as she opened the door.
It didn't take long to finish her lunch, especially with her two helpers, who were more than willing to eat as much as she could give them. Feeling refreshed after her walk and her hunger satisfied, Megan regarded the photos piled in front her and decided it was time to get back to work.
The break had been just what she needed to look at the photos with fresh eyes. As she went through the small piles once more, this time she took a pen and circled the faces that stood out to her. She began to see a pattern, which seemed to be two women that she couldn’t remember meeting who managed to be at most of the sites. Grabbing her pad she looked at the notes she had made as she had watched the videos. Megan decided to concentrate on the two women she saw the most often in the photos. She took her pen and drew a line through any of her notes that mentioned men or women who did not resemble the women from the pictures.
Twenty minutes later she was ready to put specific videos back in the laptop. She fast forwarded to the location that her notes indicated and then paused the video to click on the computer for prints outs of a still picture. Megan didn't try to analyze the pictures as she found the location from the tapes. Her goal was to print them off so she could compare them with the still pictures, hoping to find a common denominator. Now that she knew what she was looking for, having narrowed it down to just two women, she could to go to the videos and print out what she needed. She hit print for the last time and pushed her chair away from the desk, and made it spin like a little kid. She had the answer in front of her. The certainty was like a feather tickling her ear, faint but consistent, ready to be discovered.
She flipped through the pictures of the geo-cache sites, with more assurance this time, and found that she could eliminate all but those of the lighthouse. All the unneeded pictures were stacked off to the side. Laid out, side by side, each one from the lighthouse was stacked in another pile. Then Megan laid out stills from the video of Mary's farm. Once this was done, Megan walked away from it for a moment. She went the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water. As she drank, she tried to clear her mind of any preconceived notions. She wanted to walk in and view those pictures with fresh eyes, taking them at face value. After she finished her water, she tossed the bottle into the recycling bin, took a deep breath, and walked back to the conference room table.
It took a few moments, but then she could say that there were two women that seem to show up at both locations the lighthouse and Mary’s farm more often than the normal tourist would. They were young, beautiful, athletic women in their late 20s, dressed to fit in with the tourist crowd that came to both locations. Megan had been specifically looking for something out of the ordinary, not something that fit in.
Now that Megan recognized what she was looking for, she began to search for why they were at these locations. It would be odd if they were returning to the same side over and over again just to see the sights. There was a purpose for their visits and Megan needed to find out what was. Before Megan tried to figure out what their actions meant, she examined the stills from the farm and verified that they were consistently there as well. When she looked at the dates, she found that the visits to the farm were usually at the end of the week. She circled dates on the list in front of her on the pad of paper and then went back to look at the pile from the lighthouse.
It didn't take long for Megan to find what she was looking for. It was so simple that it was almost brilliant. There were two or three different pictures taken from different angles but all showing the same thing. One of the woman had walked to the top landing of the lighthouse and was putting something into the comment box attached to the wall, next to the railing. It was a bag of some sort, pale blue which made it easy to see in the pictures as she was putting it in the slot of the box.
Feeling a sense of excitement, Megan remembered seeing that same blue-colored bag in some of the still shots of Mary's farm. She quickly searched through the pictures and pulled three of them out that showed both of the women walking towards the back barn of Mary's property.
"Got you!"
Taking note of the dates on the pictures, she saw that each time she saw them with the bag, it was a Friday or Saturday. As she tapped her fingers against the tabletop, Megan puzzled over what it all meant.
"Of course, the bag has to be removed before the park rangers pick up the comment cards on Sunday."
Megan silently congratulated herself on her deductive skills. One advantage of living in a small town is that you were aware of the habits of those around you. And in this instance, Megan remembered that for the last 20 years, the park ranger had been picking up the comment cards without fail every Sunday morning on his way to church. The rest of the week nobody bothered with the comments box, except those putting one the cards inside. And who would bother with the box once you put your card in? No one would ever pay attention to the thin blue bags that were dropped off and then picked up later.
*** While Megan spent the afternoon pouring over pictures, trying to find a clue that would lead to Mary's murder, Lucy started to follow her own trail of investigation. After hearing from Charlotte about Rita's attempt to gain access to the farm, Lucy decided it was time to take action of her own with some investigation in what she thought was clearly an avenue that needed attention.
Lucy acted nonchalant as she hurried Paul off to work and got on with her morning activities-or at least she appeared to be but as soon as he was out the door she put her plan into action.
Lucy watched Paul back his truck out of the driveway and head toward work. As soon as she was sure he was on his way and wouldn’t be doubling back for anything, she had the phone in her hands and was making calls to pinpoint Rita Thomas’s exact location. It didn't take long to figure out where the woman was, and then Lucy was ready to go. She was excited to get started and rushed to get out the door. She only made it halfway to her car when she doubled back to the house and grabbed a small cooler, filling it with water and fruit in case she had a long wait to figure out what Rita was up to. As she went out the door the second time, Lucy grabbed a pair sunglasses and a large hat, thinking she might need a disguise at some point during the day.
Murder at the Geo-Cache...A Citrus Beach Mystery (Citrus Beach Mysteries Book 3) Page 17