“That’s odd,” Star whispered as we both hid behind a palmetto tree. “John Harmon hasn’t shown his face around Grove Park since the grand opening of his truck.”
With so many of the food truck owners furious with him over stealing their spots, avoiding Grove Park seemed a smart decision.
"You've been drinking again, haven't you?" Chris said as he pointed his finger in John's face. John responded by slapping Chris's hand away with his right hand. “I smell it on your breath.”
"That's none of your concern," he replied in a snarky tone. "With having a worthless and pathetic step-son like you, who'd blame me?"
The more I listened to John talk, the more I noticed his speech was slurred. On top of that, his face appeared red and bloated. He also was overly animated with his gestures while talking. Maybe he was drunk.
Of the two, Chris tried to keep his cool. Although with each hate-laced insult, his gaze intensified. I started to wonder if someone should step in and ease the tension. The last thing we needed was a fist fight in Grove Park. Or worse, the impending video going viral on YouTube.
"You think we should do something?" I whispered to Star. "It's getting pretty heated over there."
"Are you kidding?" she replied. "This is just getting good."
"I don't think I'm being unreasonable, John," Chris said, patiently holding his ground. "Business is booming and we have the money."
John shook his head in disgust. He brushed Chris off and made a gesture with his hand.
"I don't have time for this," he said as he turned his back and stormed off. John had a slight stumble in his step as he made his way to his black BMW 7 series sedan.
John wasted no time in leaving. He started his car and revved the engine loud. His tires squealed, leaving only a trail of dust and a ticked off step-son behind. His car shot out of the parking lot and barely missed hitting a man on a bicycle.
"What got up into his craw?" Star asked as we watched his car disappear in the distance.
I drew a blank. The only thing certain was that John left Chris in a foul mood as well. He slammed the door as he stomped his way inside the truck.
I didn't know Chris that well at the time, since he moved to Sunny Shores around the time I was away at school. From our few interactions in the park, he seemed mild-mannered and balanced. That wasn't the case today. Chris was furious.
"Let's go over and talk to him," I suggested. I felt it was the neighborly thing to do. "He seems very upset."
"That's a big negative on that one," Star replied.
"Why not?" I asked.
"If you must know, we went on a date a few weeks back. It was before you came back to town."
"You dated Chris Kelly?" I asked.
"No" she shouted. By the tone in her voice, it seemed that I’d insulted her. "I went on a date with him, only one."
"So what's the big deal?"
"The big deal is I never called him back or responded to his texts."
"That's awful. If you weren't interested in him, why not let him know? Why keep the poor guy in suspense?"
"That's not how dating works now. You don't tell someone directly you're not interested. The trick is to fade away slowly. The term is ghosting."
"Ghosting?"I asked. “Great. Another new dating term.”
"Ghosting is when you just vanish out of their lives. No calls, texts, emails. To them, it's like you disappeared into thin air. Like a ghost."
Her statement summed up, in a nutshell, why I avoided dating. With so many codes and rules, who could keep up? My head spun trying to comprehend it all.
"Fine. I'll go alone."
As I approached the Mama Mia food truck, I heard the sound of objects being slung around inside. Chris mumbled obscenities under his breath as he paced around.
"Knock, knock," I said as I stuck my head in the main window. "Is everything OK in there?"
Startled by my sudden appearance, he stopped pacing and turned toward me. Chris, embarrassed by what had previously transpired, turned red in the face. In the midst of the screaming and fighting, I figured he failed to realize they had an audience.
"You heard all that?” he asked as he bit his upper lip.
“Everyone in Sunny Shores heard that,” I replied. “You two weren’t exactly being discreet.”
“He’s just so frustrating,” he said as he noticeably started to get worked up again. "Sometimes I want to ring his neck and choke his lights out."
He obviously harbored a deep disdain for his step-father. His comment seemed a bit extreme and violent. It didn’t help matters that he pretended to choke the air in front of him with his hands.
I started to question my choice of going there alone. A reasonable person might have left by slowly backing away. Unfortunately for me, my nosy side dwarfed any reason I possessed. I couldn’t walk away until I knew the reason for the argument.
“Your step-dad seems like a jerk. What’s his deal, anyway?”
Chris took a deep breath and tried calming down before responding. “He put me in charge of this truck, and I think I’ve done a great job. Business is booming. We’re making great money.”
“If that’s all true, what’s the problem?” I asked. If the truck was making money, you’d think his step-dad would be happy. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
“We need more help. With the number of customers we have daily, it’s too much for two people to handle. All I wanted him to do was hire another person. That’s all.”
“Seems reasonable enough,” I said. The Burger She Wrote truck experienced only half the business of his truck, and we had more than we could handle. I couldn’t imagine how he managed to stay sane.
“He’s too much of a tightwad, and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. I’ll never understand what my mom sees in him.”
I shrugged my shoulders in response, but knew the answer to that by the car he was driving. It certainly wasn’t his looks or charm. Let me give you a hint. It’s green and rhymes with honey.
He continued. “If it weren’t for him, I’d own three food trucks by now. He’s only holding me back.”
I grinned nervously and tried to lighten the mood, “Family, right?”
At this point, I felt awkward and wanted to head back. I needed an out.
“OK, Star, I’ll be right there,” I randomly shouted back in the direction of my truck.
Chris looked confused. “What’s that? I didn’t hear anything.”
“That was Star. She gets impatient when I leave her alone,” I said as I began to walk away. “It was good talking to you. See you around.”
“Thanks for stopping by. Tell Star to give me a call sometime. We had a fun date a few weeks back.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll let her know.”
Once I returned to my truck, Star was waiting by the door for me.
"Did he ask about me?"
"Why would you care? I thought you didn’t like him. What happened to ghosting him?"
"The beauty of the ghosting method is that it leaves the door open. It gives you the option to reappear in their lives if you change your mind.”
When it came to dating, I knew very little. However, there was one thing I knew. Councilman Harmon was making a lot of enemies around Grove Park.
5
The next morning started out like any other. That was until I reached Grove Park.
The sky was lit up like the fourth of July, which was odd given that it was only June 3rd. The usual smell of orange blossoms and ocean air was replaced by smoke fumes.
The fire was burning brightly in the spot that used to be the home of the Mama Mia food truck. All the spectators could do was watch from behind the yellow caution tape, as the Sunny Shores fire department worked hard to contain the blaze. It was a far cry from the usually drama-free morning in our small beachside town.
As soon as I spotted Chief Martin, I ran to him so he could clue me in to what was going on. He was talking to other members of the polic
e force and instructing them on where they needed to be. This was surely the most action any of them had seen in quite a while.
Our eyes made contact the moment I confronted him. I could see the worry and concern written all over his face.
“What’s going on, Sam?”
“We received the call about a half-hour ago. The eyewitness said they heard a loud explosion inside Grove Park.” He shook his head in disbelief of the situation at hand. “It appears to have been a propane explosion from inside Harmon’s food truck.”
“Oh no!” I exclaimed. “Was anyone inside?”
The Mama Mia food truck was a one man operation run by Chris Kelly. Chris Kelly was the biological son of Missy Harmon and step-son of John Harmon. While John was the full owner of the truck, Chris was in charge of all the day-to-day operations.
Chris seemed shy and a bit reserved, although he was always friendly to me. He would always wave or say hello each morning. I believe he was a bit stand-offish due to the controversy surrounding the parking space lottery. Even though it wasn’t his call, a few of the food truck owners resented him for it.
As I watched the local volunteer firemen put out the smoky blaze, I hoped and prayed that Chris wasn’t trapped inside the truck. It would have been a terrible and gruesome way to die.
Before I could ask Chief Martin if Chris was inside, I heard the screeching tires of a black Ford F-150 as it shot into the parking lot beside us. The door swung open and Chris Kelly hopped out of the cab and began to run towards the police barrier with a look of horror in his eyes.
“Easy there, son,” Chief Martin said as he reached out his arm to hold Chris at bay. “You need to stay back. It’s not safe right now.”
“That’s my truck,” Chris screamed.
“I know it’s a terrible feeling to have to watch your belongings being destroyed in front of you, but you have to stay back until the firemen are finished. For all we know, there could be another propane tank inside that is still intact.”
“Oh, no!” Chris said as he put his hand on his head. “He’s probably inside.”
“What are you talking about?” Chief Martin asked. “Who’s inside?”
Chris kept speaking frantically under his breath as he paced in a small circle. “I told him to wait on me. He doesn’t know anything about running a food truck. Why did he want to meet here anyway? What did he do?”
“Chris, calm down and tell us who you’re talking about,” I said, trying to settle him down. “Who do you think was in the truck?”
Chris took a deep breath. “I think it’s my step-dad, John Harmon.”
6
“Councilman John Harmon?” Chief Martin asked. “Are you sure?”
Initially, I had my doubts. Other than the day prior, I had not seen John Harmon in Grove Park that summer. Before I saw him argue with his step-son Chris, I knew very little about John.
“He sent me a text early this morning to meet him here,” Chris explained. “That’s his car over there.”
Chris pointed over to the parking lot. John Harmon’s black BMW was parked in the distance with no sign of John around.
“Did it seem unusual to you for him to contact you like that?” I asked Chris, trying to make sense of the situation. “Do you think he was in some type of trouble?”
The police chief interjected. “Kara, this is a police investigation. Please step aside. I’ll ask the questions.”
“Now Chris… Do you think John was in some type of trouble?”
“Sure, it’s odd for John to want to meet at the food truck, but I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was just another one of his drunken text messages.”
“Since you seem sure that it might be him, I should call your mother. We may need you two to identify the body, or what’s left of it.”
Chris nodded his head in agreement. “I understand, but I should be the one to call Mom.”
Chris pulled his phone out from his back pocket and began to dial. As he walked off, we both turned in the other direction to give Chris privacy.
“Kara, you should go home now. I appreciate your concern on the matter and how you want to help, but there’s nothing you can do at this point,” Sam said with a stressed and concerned look on his face. “I’m going to keep Grove Park closed today.”
“Star, wake up. The craziest thing just happened,” I said as I walked out of Grove Park and headed in the direction of downtown.
Star responded after letting out a big yawn. “What’s up?”
“There’s been an explosion at Grove Park. The police closed the entire park for the day.”
“So you’re saying that we’re off today?”
“I guess that’s one way to look at that, but you wouldn’t believe—”
Before I could finish the sentence, Star interrupted me. “I’m going back to bed. Later.”
As I heard the click on the other end, it was obvious Star was more interested in getting her Z’s than hearing about what happened at Grove Park that morning. She wasn’t the slightest bit interested.
I, on the other hand, could not stop thinking about it. It would have been the wise thing to do to go home and go to bed. Lord knows I needed more sleep, but my mind was traveling a thousand miles an hour. Rest was not in the forecast for me.
There was only one place I could go to help fuel the curiosity fire burning inside of me. I needed to talk to the one person whose curiosity and nosiness rivaled my own. That person was Bonnie May Calloway.
The Breezy Bean Café was more crowded than usual for a Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. This was no doubt due to the incident at Grove Park. A few of the food truck owners and townspeople were there. With Grove Park closed, there was nothing else for them to do.
Even with her shop being as busy as it was, Bonnie May had plenty of time to walk over and gossip… I mean discuss the hot topic of the morning. After all, according to Bonnie May, a good Southern woman never discussed her weight or age, and never gossiped. This came as no surprise to anyone who knew Bonnie May.
“It’s the talk of the town, dear,” Bonnie May said as she refilled my coffee. “Everyone is speculating.”
I wondered how everyone was aware of the news this quickly, since the explosion only took place a couple hours earlier. I guess news traveled fast in a small town like ours.
“Speculating about what?”
“Oh, it’s definitely him, dear. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind about that.” She drew closer in and whispered to me, “The real question is who did it?”
“Who killed him?” I asked. It had not yet occurred to me that any foul play was involved.
“John Harmon made a lot of enemies around town. Truth be told, all we can do is speculate to our heart’s content.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Any evidence left would’ve been burnt to a crisp, alongside John Harmon.”
“Chief Martin mentioned something about an eye-witness, but he didn’t say who it was.”
“Oh… The eye-witness,” Bonnie May said mockingly as she began to chuckle. “The only person to see anything was that old coot Willie Wylan. You’d get a more credible testimony from one of the palm trees in the park.”
Willie Wylan was another one of the interesting characters that had relocated to Sunny Shores during the time I was away at college. Willie was a tall and lanky older Jamaican man who worked as an artist in Grove Park.
Willie was a little out there, to say the least. I didn’t know much about him or his background, but a lot of the townsfolk had a less than stellar opinion of him. He was often referred to as crazy or homeless, due to his unkempt appearance and wacky antics.
I liked to give Willie the benefit of the doubt because he was always cordial to me. He would always say hello every morning on his way to his usual spot. Plus, his art was incredible. It was nothing like the hacks you would see in many tourist traps drawing caricatures.
“Besides,” Bonnie May continued as she wiped down
the table in front of me. “It could have been a number of people. Heaven knows that park is full of convicts working there.”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked, as her comment took me by surprise. “I wasn’t aware of any criminals working at Grove Park.”
“Carlos Martinez is one of them. Rumor is he served time before moving to Sunny Shores.”
“Carlos? Are you sure?”
She looked up at me and stared. It was as if I’d insulted her. Bonnie May didn’t appreciate my lack of faith in her sources.
“I have it on good authority. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s true. You can’t trust anyone in this town. Sunny Shores is a town of second chances and new beginnings. Unfortunately, some people never change.”
“Aren’t there any cameras in Grove Park?” I asked. I thought it reasonable to assume the busiest public area in the city to have security cameras.
“Nope. Not one camera in the entire park,” Bonnie May replied. “The cheapness of our penny-pinching mayor strikes yet again.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard Bonnie May take a cheap shot at our mayor, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. Bonnie May was also a member of the Sunny Shores city council alongside our mayor and John Harmon. From what I could gather, Bonnie May and Mayor Coltrane didn’t see eye-to-eye on most issues.
“I could talk all day dear, but it’s already getting crazy in here.”
With Grove Park shut down, the Breezy Bean Café was going to be extremely busy. In fact, every shop and restaurant downtown would be hopping that day. As much as Bonnie May loved to gossip, she loved money more. She was going to take advantage of it.
“No problem, Bonnie May,” I said as I stood up from the table. “I should probably get home and get some rest. It’s a rare day off for me.”
7
As I walked home from the Breezy Bean Café, my mind swirled as if it had a tornado of information inside it. The explosion at Grove Park shocked the town. Sunny Shores, while being populated with kooky citizens, existed as a relatively uneventful town. I couldn’t recall an incident this outrageous happening as long as I’d lived there.
Key Lime Crime: Sunny Shores Mysteries Book 1 Page 3