Thanksgiving by the Sea

by Kathi Daley

  “I feel bad for the kids,” Trevor said. “Their mom hooks up with this loser, and now their entire lives are in disarray.”

  “It is unfortunate,” I agreed. “Hopefully, they will end up in loving homes where no one hurts them. Every kid deserves to have a safe place to grow up.”

  “So what is going to happen to the mom?” Trevor asked.

  “I guess that is up to her. Hopefully, she will stay at the women’s shelter and continue what she started. I really don’t know if she has what it takes to get out of the abuse cycle she seems to be in. I would hope so, but there is definitely no guarantee. If she really wants to break the cycle, then help is available to her and I guess that is all any of us can really do.”

  Trevor dried the pots, put them away, and began wiping down counters. I supposed I could have offered to help, but he seemed to have a routine, so I decided to stay out to the way.

  “Are there any strong suspects in Trinity’s shooting other than Dyson?” Trevor asked.

  “Strong suspects, no. There are still a couple of the clients she was working with that Woody has not been able to verify alibis for, but when we spoke, he told me he didn’t have a strong reason to suspect any of them. As for the Teller shooting, he is taking a hard look at the court trial where Bryson served as a juror twenty years ago. Woody feels it is significant that the man was looking into the case again all these years later.”

  “It does seem like the sort of thing that might lead to a shooting,” Trevor agreed. “Especially if the person who killed the landlady, assuming Thornton didn’t, is still around. Keeping a secret like that might very well be worth killing for.”

  “I agree. Woody has gone through the file Bryson had, but unfortunately, most of the notes are cryptic in nature and don’t directly point to the reason he thought Thornton might be innocent.”

  “I wonder why he even decided to look into it after all this time.”

  I lifted a shoulder. “No idea. I suppose that Bryson might have come across a new piece of information. Maybe someone said something to him, or maybe he noticed something while researching another case.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have no idea, but there are a lot of possibilities. I suppose if that we are curious, we can look into it ourselves. I’m sure Woody would give us a copy of the file we found in the closet, and he can get access to the initial police report. It would be helpful if he can track down the court records and any information available relating to the trial. Mac is in Portland with Ty while he takes care of some things he needed to see to at his office, but she said she wanted to help. I bet if I call her, she can track down whatever Woody can’t get his hands on.” I looked at the clock. It was close to ten. “I’ll call him in the morning. Between you, me, Woody, and Mac, maybe we can figure out whatever it was that Bryson figured out that might have ended up getting him killed.”

  Trevor washed and dried his hands. “That sounds like a plan. I’m done here. Let’s head to my place so I can get what I need, and then we’ll head back to your place. I need to work tomorrow, but other than that, I’m all yours through the weekend.”

  Chapter 17

  Wednesday, November 21

  Twenty years ago, Vonda Valdez owned the Seafarer Apartments near the beach. There were twelve units, each with a water view. The units were in high demand during the summer, but during the winter months, the demand for the beachside units fell off sharply. Vonda didn’t believe in long-term leases. She liked to have the flexibility to move people in and out as the mood and demand for the units hit her. This made her a very unpopular landlady since she tended to double the rent when the weather turned warm. This caused those tenants who had moved in over the winter to see a major increase in their rent without notice. Some paid, and some complained. Those who complained were tossed out on the street without so much as a grace period to make other arrangements.

  John Thornton lived in the Seafarer Apartments twenty years ago. He’d been staying current on his rent and even agreed to the rent increase. When he complained about a plumbing leak in the unit he was leasing, he was told that repairs to the apartments were the responsibility of the tenant. John knew his lease did not state that, but he went ahead and repaired the plumbing at his own expense. The problem was that Vonda wanted his unit for a friend, so she decided to kick him out anyway. John was not a happy man when the eviction notice was served, and several rather loud altercations between John and Vonda occurred over the next several days.

  When Vonda turned up dead, there were a lot of people who assumed John was guilty. Not only had he publicly vowed to kill the woman who’d basically tricked him into repairing the plumbing in a unit she’d planned to take back all along, but he’d mentioned to several friends that he planned to get even with the woman for ruining his life.

  John was arrested and convicted of stabbing his landlady with her own kitchen knife. He spent the past twenty years in prison, all the while maintaining his innocence.

  I wondered about that. I wondered why he didn’t just admit to killing the woman if he had. He’d already been convicted of the crime and was serving a life sentence. I mean, really, what did he have to lose.

  I’d called Woody that morning, and he agreed to send me a copy of the file I’d found in Bryson Teller’s closet. He also agreed to send me a copy of the original police report. As for the rest, the court records and such, he agreed to work on it. I texted Mac and confirmed she and Ty would be back in Cutter’s Cove by midafternoon. Trevor normally wouldn’t be off until late, but he decided to close early today since it was most likely going to be slow anyway. I guess that was one of the nice things about owning your own business. If you really didn’t want to work, you could simply close up early.

  Once I received the items from Woody, I sat down at the dining table to go through everything. It looked like the actual murder investigation was pretty brief. The officer in charge found a bloody footprint on the victim’s kitchen floor that matched the size of shoe John wore. John had scratch marks on his face which he said he received when he grabbed Vonda’s wrist during the last altercation they’d had. He admitted that they’d argued; he admitted that it had gotten ugly, and he’d called her names; he admitted that she tried to slap him, and he’d grabbed her wrist; and he admitted that she’d then scratched his face with her other hand, but he also said that Vonda was very much alive when he left her apartment.

  The detective was able to track down another tenant who confirmed the altercation earlier in the day between John and Vonda. It really had looked as if he might be guilty and there didn’t seem to be any other viable suspects. So after a cursory investigation, John was arrested for Vonda’s murder and eventually convicted.

  Based on the files I’d found, it looked as if the defense attorney assigned to John put about as much effort into proving his innocence as the police did in trying to find an alternate suspect. If John was guilty, then I supposed justice had been served in spite of the negligence of those involved, but if he was innocent…

  “It looks like you’re busy,” Mom said when she came through the dining area from the kitchen.

  “I’m just looking at one of the files Bryson Teller had in his closet. Have you heard from Donovan? Do we know when he will arrive?”

  “His flight was delayed due to a storm on the East Coast, so he had to take a later flight, but he should be here by midday. I’m planning on him for dinner. Will the others be here as well?”

  I nodded. “Mac and Ty will be here this afternoon, and Trevor is closing early. I think if we have dinner around eight, he should be able to join us.”

  “I think eight would be fine for dinner. If anyone is hungry, I can throw together an appetizer. Have you heard from the children?”

  “No. I’ll ask Woody if we can get a contact number or maybe he can arrange for them to call us.”

  “It would be nice to confirm that they are okay. The poor dears have been through a lot.”

  �
��Yes. They really have.”

  Mom sat down across from me. “So are these files providing any information you didn’t already have?”

  “Not really. At least not yet. If Bryson Teller was shot because of something he’d found out about the case, then it makes sense to me that the person who shot him would be Vonda Valdez’s real killer. But if that is true, then figuring out who killed Bryson will not be an easy thing to do.”

  “What about the other tenants who lived in the same apartment complex twenty years ago? I wonder if you can figure out if any of them are still around. It seems like if Vonda treated everyone the way she treated this John Thornton, then perhaps one of the other tenants is the one who killed her.”

  “Perhaps.” I picked up the file that Bryson had compiled. “I seem to remember seeing something about the other tenants in this file. Twenty years is a long time. It seems likely that most have moved on, but tracking them down might be a worthwhile endeavor. But not today. Today, I just want to focus on getting an overview. I still think the man who looked at the office building across the street from the courthouse is the man we are looking for.”

  “Was he old enough to have been involved in whatever happened twenty years ago?” Mom asked.

  “Actually, he was. The real estate agent I spoke to said that he was a tall and distinguished-looking older gentleman, who told her that he was retired from law enforcement and had decided to become a private investigator to fill his time. I don’t know if any of that is true, but it sounded like the man was probably in his fifties.”

  “Were there any male tenants in their thirties or forties at the time the landlady was stabbed?”

  I glanced down at the file. “Names and apartment numbers are listed, but not ages. Again, I’m sure this information is easily obtainable. Maybe I’ll have Mac work on it when she gets here.”

  Mom stood up. “I’m going to run into town to take care of a few last-minute errands. If Woody is able to work it out for us to speak to the children, please let me know. I’d really like to be here when they call.”

  “I’ll let you know. And just so you know, things are crazy in town, so plan on everything taking twice as long as it normally does.”

  “Will do.”

  After Mom left, I returned my attention to the file. I wasn’t sure if someone related to the events surrounding Vonda Valdez’s murder was responsible for Bryson Teller’s murder, but it did seem as if Woody was running out of suspects. He’d cleared almost everyone from his original list. I think there were still a few suspects he hadn’t been able to verify alibis for, but none of the suspects left seemed to be viable options. Of course, if someone associated with Vonda Valdez’s murder had killed Bryson Teller, then I had to wonder where Trinity fit into the whole thing. Could it be that there had been two different shooters? It seemed unlikely, but it certainly wasn’t impossible.

  I spent the next hour reading the notes Bryson had left. He seemed to be focusing on what happened after the shooting rather than on the events leading up to it. It seemed that Vonda Valdez was not married at the time of her death, nor did she have any children. She didn’t leave a will, so when all was said and done, the apartment building, as well as her other assets, all went to her brother, a man named Vince Valdez. It seemed that Vince and Vonda had been estranged for decades and hadn’t so much as spoken to each other since they were both in their twenties, until two weeks before Vonda’s demise when Vince apparently visited Cutter’s Cove.

  I turned the page I was reading over, but the note left by Bryson seemed to end. It felt like he had continued his notes on a second sheet of paper, but it didn’t appear to be in the file. The file I had was a copy, and Woody still had the original, so I decided to head into town to see if I could find the missing notes. Mom was still in town, so I texted Woody with my request. He was in the middle of an interview across town but replied that he would be back to his office within the hour, so I went ahead and headed in that direction.

  It was cool and breezy today. It had been raining on and off for the past twelve hours, and while I generally enjoyed the rain, today it just felt depressing. I supposed my overall mood wasn’t quite what I’d hoped given the fact that tomorrow was going to be my first Thanksgiving back in Cutter’s Cove, but it was hard to maintain a positive attitude when investigating a murder and a shooting. Two murders and a shooting if you counted Vonda’s murder, which it seemed, I’d managed to find myself knee-deep in the middle of in spite of the fact that theoretically the killer had been arrested and convicted twenty years ago.

  The drive to town didn’t take anywhere near the hour Woody had told me he’d need to return to the office, so I decided to grab a coffee. I guess the rainy weather had everyone thinking the same thing since the place was packed, but I didn’t have anywhere else to be until Woody arrived, so I decided to get into line behind the woman who I recognized once I’d filed in behind her was none other than Trinity’s sister.

  “Carmen?”

  “Amanda.” the woman smiled. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. How are things with you?”

  “Much better now that Trinity is doing so well. The doctor said he is even thinking about releasing her today. He is going to do some tests to confirm a few things, but she has pretty much been back to herself since she awoke and with the holiday this week, he is trying to release as many patients as possible who have reliable adults to stay with them. I’m actually planning to bring Trinity to my house for the time being. I have a very comfortable guest room for her to continued recovering in.”

  “That is so great. Really.” I moved one space forward as the line moved up. “I don’t suppose she has recovered her memory.”

  “Not completely. She seems to remember most everything except who actually shot her. A doctor came in who deals with this type of memory loss, and he felt that she might be repressing the memory.”

  I frowned. “And why is that?”

  “Trinity remembers that she knew her shooter. The feeling of recognition, which quickly turned to shock when she saw the gun, seems to be intact. What she can’t remember is the identity of the person who held the gun. The doctor who spoke to us said her memory may return on its own, but that it is just as likely that it will never return. He suggested hypnosis, but I don’t want to put Trinity through that at this point. Her primary care doctor agrees. We both feel that what she needs right now is to simply rest and recover. If the memory comes back, then fine. But I really don’t want to push it at this point.”

  “I understand. And I hope for Trinity’s sake that she remembers on her own. It might be easier than to have that suppressed memory lingering in the back of her mind. I know if it were me, I wouldn’t be able to really be at peace until I knew.”

  Carmen moved up with the line. “I suppose you do have a point. It must be frightening not to know, but I also don’t want to do anything that will interfere with the progress she’s made.”

  By the time I got my coffee and made my way to Woody’s office, he’d shown up. He had the file in his hand that I’d inquired about and showed me into the conference room.

  “So what are we looking for?” he asked.

  “There was a handwritten note which I assume was penned by Bryson Teller in the file you sent over. It looked like the notes continued to a second page, but there wasn’t a copy of the second page in the file you forwarded me. Since you have the original file, I hoped you had the missing information.”

  Woody slid the file to me. “Feel free to take a look. Do you think there was something relevant in the notes?”

  I began to sift through the pages of the file. “I’m not sure. There was a note about Vonda’s brother. I guess she didn’t leave behind a spouse, children, or a will, so her next of kin, who was a brother named Vince, who Bryson indicated she’d been estranged from for decades, inherited everything, including the apartment building. The building, as we discussed, sat on the corner of the resort that encompasses that entire
block now. The sale of the apartment building would have brought someone a lot of money, even twenty years ago.”

  “So do you think that Bryson found out that the brother had something to do with her death?”

  “I’m not sure. If he did believe that, then it probably would have been included on the second page of the notes. He did note that Vince came to Cutter’s Cove for some reason a few weeks before Vonda was killed.”

  I paused as I found the handwritten sheet I was looking for. “According to this, Bryson found out that Vonda had been presented with a written offer to buy her apartment building six months before she was murdered. She turned the developer who wanted to build the Arlington Resort and Spa on the block that housed the Seafarer Apartments down cold, letting him know in no uncertain terms that her building was not for sale. According to Bryson’s notes, the developer sweetened the pot several times in an effort to convince Vonda to sell. It seems the other businesses on the block had already accepted the developer’s offer, which was contingent upon his being able to get all the properties he would need to do what he wanted to do.”

  “So maybe the developer was the killer,” Woody said.

  “Perhaps. It appears that Bryson looked into several suspects, including the developer. He also considered that one of the other business owners who stood to make a lot of money as long as Vonda sold might have met with the woman to force her hand, only to have their encounter end in bloodshed.”

  “Did he come to any conclusions?” Woody asked.

  I turned the page over and continued to read. “Not really, although he did say that he considered the brother to be a strong suspect. Not only did the brother come to Cutter’s Cove weeks before Vonda died after not having spent any time with her in decades, but once he inherited the apartment building, he sold it to the developer within days.”