Thanksgiving by the Sea

by Kathi Daley

  “So who does that leave?” I asked.

  “There aren’t a lot of suspects left. I have spoken to the mother of the four children currently residing in your home. I have no reason to believe she had anything to do with any of this. As I’ve said before, she genuinely seems to love her children. She was just overworked and overwhelmed and made some bad choices. I spoke to Leslie, the social worker assigned to take over the case from Trinity, and she agrees that the mother of the children really had no motive to shoot Trinity or Bryson. The father couldn’t have done it since he was in custody during the shootings, so it seems they are both off the list as well, although neither was ever actually on my list.”

  “Any luck finding a relative to take them?”

  “A relative no, but there is a friend of the family, a woman named Silvia Brown, who is currently living in Salem, Oregon and has expressed an interest in taking all four children into her home. She was friends with the children’s mother when they were kids and has kept in touch with the family. Leslie is looking into the possibility, and it is looking good at this point. The children’s mother has made plans to move as well if Ms. Brown’s request is approved. Of course, with the holiday this week, things move slowly, but given the situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if a temporary arrangement isn’t worked out by the end of the day. I guess we’ll see what happens. Hang on.”

  I could hear talking in the background, although I couldn’t hear what was being said.

  “I’m sorry, but I need to go. Can I call you back later?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied.

  After I hung up with Woody, I went back downstairs. The kids seemed happy with Trevor, so I headed into the kitchen to chat with Mom about the upcoming holiday. The kitchen smelled wonderful. I always had loved it when Mom baked.

  “Trevor and I spoke about going to the grocery store early in the morning before it gets too crowded,” I informed Mom. “I thought we could make a list today.”

  Mom picked a notepad off the counter. “I have a list started. I’m still trying to figure out quantities. I know you and Trevor, and Mac and Ty, and Donovan and I will be here. You said you invited Woody. Is he bringing anyone?”

  “Not that I know of, but I suppose I should have offered him that option. I’ll ask him the next time I speak to him.”

  “And what about the children? Will they still be here?”

  “I’m not sure. Woody said the social worker who took over the case is working with a family friend who has expressed interest in taking in all four children, but he wasn’t sure how quickly things would move given the fact that this was a holiday week. I think we should plan on them being here them just in case.”

  Mom nodded. “Was there anyone else you invited or plan to invite?”

  “Nope. That should do it. Let’s plan for eight adults and four kids at this point. If we don’t end up with that many, I’m sure someone will eat the leftovers.”

  “The leftovers are the best part,” Mom agreed. “Did Woody have any news about the man you saw watching the house?”

  “No. And, unless he returns, which he probably won’t, I’m not sure we’ll ever know who he was. It was all pretty random. I mean, we don’t really know why he was there. He could simply have been a hiker who came across the house and paused to take a look. It is a pretty awesome house.”

  “It is an awesome house, but I wasn’t born yesterday, and I don’t think either of us really believes the guy was simply out hiking and you just happened to catch a glimpse of him while he was looking toward the house. How did you catch a glimpse of him?” she asked. “The woods are pretty far from the house. It seems like you would have needed to have binoculars to see someone standing in the tree line.”

  “I guess it was more that I sensed him, so I sent Alyson to confirm he was there. Please don’t worry about this. I’m sure we’ll all be fine.”

  “Is Trevor staying again tonight?”

  I could tell that Mom hoped he would. “I think he might be. I’ll ask him. So about this grocery list.”

  Chapter 11

  Mom realized she was low on sugar, so I volunteered to run to the store. I didn’t want to interrupt the videogame war going on in the den, so I didn’t ask Trevor to come along. My plan when I left the house was to head straight into town, pick up the sugar, and then head straight back to the house. I really had no idea how I ended up at the courthouse, but that was exactly where I found myself. It appeared that court had been canceled for the entire week since there were very few people lingering in the area.

  I really wasn’t sure what sort of information I hoped to acquire by returning to the scene of Bryson Teller’s murder. I’d already established that his spirit wasn’t hanging around, and I sincerely doubted that some random person would wander up claiming that they had seen the whole thing and had been waiting for me to come back so they could tell me exactly what had happened. Still, I found myself inexplicably drawn to the place.

  Once I’d parked along the street, I got out and approached the steps where Bryson had died. I stood in the approximate location where he’d been standing when he died and looked toward the building across the street. I knew the crime scene guys had gone over the place with a fine-tooth comb after I’d given Woody the heads up about the fourth story office. I also knew they hadn’t found anything they considered to be relevant to the shooting.

  I tried to picture the event in my mind. Court had recently let out. There must have been a fair number of people still in the area when Bryson left the building. I closed my eyes and imagined the steps that I stood on littered with people. I pictured Bryson was dressed in a suit and most likely carrying a briefcase. The person who shot the family law attorney must have been a heck of a good shot to be able to put a bullet directly into his chest from an open window four stories up and across the street.

  I opened my eyes and looked around once again. Picking out a single individual from amongst a crowd would be tricky. It seemed as if it would take a pro. I supposed the killer could have been a hired gun. If that were true, then anyone with the financial means to do so could have hired him. But if the individual who wanted Bryson dead acted personally, the list of suspects would have to be whittled down to very few people indeed.

  I supposed that someone who had military training might have accomplished the task. I didn’t know a lot about guns or sharpshooting, but I supposed a seasoned big game hunter might have had the skill necessary to carry out the task. But the parents of most of the kids Bryson was working with would never have been able to pull off what had been pulled off on the day Bryson had died.

  Maybe Bryson’s death had nothing to do with his job. Because of the link with Trinity and the fact that both worked in the area of family law, it was natural to conclude that the person responsible for both shootings would be found from within their case files. It was also briefly discussed that the cases might not be linked, but what no one had mentioned, at least anyone that I knew of, was the possibility that the two victims might have something in common other than their jobs. Perhaps they went to the same gym or attended the same church. Perhaps they’d gone to the same college or frequented the same conferences or conventions. There were dozens of ways two people could be linked, and just one of those ways was to have clients in common.

  Of course, the handgun versus the sniper rifle dichotomy still led me to return to the possibility that the two weren’t linked at all.

  A man dressed in slacks and a polo shirt came out of the building. He wasn’t dressed like an attorney, but he did look like he belonged. He walked over to the side of the building and took out a cigarette. Leaning his back against the wall, he took out his phone and appeared to be checking messages while he smoked. Once he was done, he tossed the butt on the ground, stomped it out, and headed back into the building.

  What was it with people who couldn’t dispose of their trash? There was a trashcan ten feet away from where the man had stood. I walked over to the cigarett
e butt and picked it up. As soon as I touched it, I had a vision of a man doing the same thing the man I’d been watching had done. He’d tossed his cigarette on the ground, stomped it out, and left it where it landed. The man in my vision, however, had been standing next to a huge gun that was mounted to a tripod type support.

  I glanced at the building across the street. I hadn’t actually been inside the empty office on the fourth floor where Trevor, Alyson, and I felt the shooter had been stationed. Suddenly, the urge to take a look around was almost overwhelming.

  I hated to bother Woody, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to get inside without him coming with a key. Deciding to check out the situation ahead of time, I crossed the street and entered the lobby on the ground level. There were six offices on the first floor, including a dentist, a law firm, an insurance company, a real estate office, an accountant, and a chiropractor. Deciding to take a chance on the realty office, I headed in that direction.

  “Can I help you?” A pleasant-looking woman asked.

  “I’m interested in the empty office on the fourth floor. I was wondering if there was someone with a key. I’d like to take a quick peek before I go to all the trouble of filling out an application.”

  “Actually, our office is handling the lease. I’d be happy to show you around. Hang on, and I’ll grab a key.”

  The office, as Alyson had indicated, was very dusty, although, by this point, there were all sorts of footprints on the floor. There was very little furniture in the room, but it looked as if what there was had been moved.

  “As you can see, this office has been empty for quite a while. I’m not sure why. It’s a nice enough office, although it is small. What exactly did you want to use it for?”

  “A bookkeeping service,” I improvised.

  “That should work as you will probably have only have one client in the office at a time.”

  I walked over and looked out the window. The line of sight to the courthouse steps was perfect. I ran my finger along the sill. It had been wiped clean. “It looks like someone started to clean.”

  “I guess you heard that a man was killed across the street last week. The crime scene guys were looking around in here. I told them that there was no way that someone snuck into the office, shot a man, and left again without anyone seeing him, but they insisted that it appeared as if the shot could have been fired from here. Personally, I think they were mistaken, but you can’t tell those guys anything.”

  I looked toward the few pieces of furniture in the room. “Does the furniture come with the office?”

  “Sure, if you want it. It’s pretty old and beat up though.”

  I walked over to an old desk and began opening and closing drawers. Then I bent down as if to look beneath the desk. This allowed me to get a better look at the floor. I was about to give up and call Woody after all when I noticed something on the floor beneath the drape that hung to almost to the floor. I stood up and walked in that direction.

  “What about the drapes?” I asked.

  “You want the drapes? They are really in pretty bad shape.”

  I pulled the drape to the side. A cigarette butt laid on the floor. It didn’t necessarily belong to the shooter, but given the vision I’d had, I wasn’t leaving without it. I wondered why the crime scene guys hadn’t found it. I guess it wasn’t obvious unless you were down close to the floor. I pulled my sleeve over my hand so as not to disturb any DNA that might be on the butt and then slipped it into my jacket pocket.

  “I’ll need to consider things before I decide on the office. Can you tell me if anyone else has been looking at it?”

  “There was one guy. Tall, dark, and handsome. He was an older guy, but very distinguished. He said he was interested in using the space for a PI office. I was surprised at first, but he said he was retired from law enforcement and needed something to fill his days. I get that. My grandfather retired from the police force after serving for over thirty years and opened a dry cleaning business. Anyway, the guy looked around and seemed interested. He asked a ton of questions and took some measurements and a lot of photos, but he never came back. I guess he changed his mind. Too bad. He seemed like a real prospect, and this office has been empty for a while.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  The woman frowned. “He didn’t say. Come to think of it, you haven’t said either.”

  “My name is Amanda. And you are?”

  “Celeste. Celeste Berg.”

  “Nice to meet you, Celeste. I appreciate you taking the time to show me around. I’ll get back to you about the office in a day or two.”

  Once I left the office, I called Woody. Call it a hunch, but I suspected our would-be PI was probably the gunman we were looking for. After speaking to Woody, I called my mother and assured her I was on my way with the sugar. I figured that by this point she would have begun to worry because I was taking so long, and once I explained to Woody that pies were at stake, he agreed to meet me at the house rather than having me come to his office.

  “It seems to me,” I said once Woody had shown up, “that this man pretending to be a PI interested in leasing the office probably used the opportunity to get a general layout of the area, and I assume to set things up so he could get back in. Perhaps he did something to the door to keep it from locking.”

  “And you think the man who shot Bryson was smoking this cigarette while he waited for him to come out of the courthouse?” Woody asked.

  “I think he was smoking a cigarette. I can’t say for sure if it was this cigarette. But if you come up with a suspect, you can use the cigarette butt to prove the guy was in the office, assuming you can extract a DNA sample from it.”

  “I suppose the woman who met with the PI might be able to describe him in more detail,” Mom said.

  “Too bad she didn’t think to get a name or take a look at the guy’s ID,” Trevor added.

  “Even if she had asked for a name or an ID, chances are they would have been fake,” Woody supplied. “Most of this makes sense. It seems reasonable that the gunman would have visited the office before the day he showed up to shoot his target. I’m sure there are a lot of things that come into play when making a shot like that. Angles, light, line of sight. I’m still not sure how he got a high profile rifle into the building with no one seeing him.”

  I frowned. “That is a good question. When you walk into the building, three offices look directly into the lobby. It seems that someone from one of those offices would have seen him access the elevator.”

  “Maybe he came back between that first visit and the last visit after everyone went home for the day,” Trevor suggested. “Most of the offices in the building close at five or six. If he had a way to get back in, he could have accessed the office during the early morning hours and then just hung out and waited until it was showtime.”

  “That actually makes a lot of sense,” I added. “It explains why Celeste didn’t notice him when he returned, and it also explains how he happened to be there even though court let out early.”

  “Did you ever figure out what case was being heard or why court let out early?” I asked Woody.

  “The case being heard had to do with a child custody case involving a woman who shared custody with her ex but wanted to move her son across the country. I don’t think it had anything to do with the shooting. The reason court was let out early is because the second case to be heard that afternoon was delayed while the social worker involved gathered additional data.”

  “Trinity?” I asked.

  “No, a woman named Wilma Barton.”

  “Okay, so it sounds like the cases being heard that day are probably not related to the shooting. It does make sense that the killer showed up before the offices opened and just waited.”

  “If the killer was already in the office when everyone showed up for the day, how did he get out of the building after the shooting?” Mom asked.

  “I imagine once Bryson was shot, everyone in the office bui
lding across the street from the courthouse must have gone outside to see what all the ruckus was about,” I answered. “It would have been easy to slip out in all the confusion. Especially if the gun was in a carrier that didn’t make it obvious that the item was a gun.”

  “Okay, so what now?” Trevor asked.

  Woody answered. “I’m going to send this cigarette butt in for DNA testing, and I am going to pay a visit to the woman from the realty office to try to get a better description. Before I go, I just wanted to let you know that everything is being done that can be done to have the children turned over to the family friend who has agreed to take them in. I don’t think it will be today, but hopefully tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mom said. “We can keep them entertained until you get the details worked out. I’m just happy to hear that the kids will be able to stay together. They seem to be really close. I think they have had to depend on and take care of each other for a long time.”

  Chapter 12

  Later that day, I received a call on my cell from a woman who claimed to have some information I might be interested in relating to the shooting of the social worker and the children I was currently harboring in my home. I informed her that I was not the one investigating the shooting and that she should call Woody. Then she informed me that she didn’t want to speak to the cops, and would just keep what she knew to herself unless I was willing to meet with her. I asked her how she had gotten my name and number, and she replied that she’d seen me at the hospital and inquired about me. Once she had my name, she claimed to have looked up my cell number. Here’s the thing. Very few people have my cell number now that Donovan has provided me with a secure burner phone. In fact, other than Mom, Mac, Trevor, Woody, and Donovan, of course, I’d only given the number to a handful of friends who might need to reach me. I’d also given it to Carmen Rosewood. I knew that the woman on the phone could not have looked the number up and must have gotten it from one of the ten or so people who had the number, but why, if she had gotten the number from someone I knew and trusted, hadn’t she simply said so.