A Sea Oak Mystery Boxed Set

by Adele M Cooper

  “Which it would,” April said.

  He nodded. “That’s . . . that’s probably true. Which explains all the bitter feelings in town nowadays. And in a sense, Mr. Rockingham and I are in the center of it.”

  April chewed her donut, swallowed, and washed it down with coffee. “Yes, that’s true. I was at the planning commission meeting, and Rockingham did not give a recommendation. He said it was his job to present the facts about the project, which he did, and he did a very good job. But, the county commission will be asking him for his recommendation, and they won’t take no for an answer. Do you know what he’s going to tell them?”

  “I think so. The chamber, and Blue Sands, and certain people in the business community have leaned heavily on him. I think he’s leaning toward approving the project.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  Joe lifted a finger and pressed it against his lips. “Confidentially, Blue Sands has also hinted to Mr. Rockingham that it will need a planner to help with future projects. The salary would be . . . considerable; more than he’s making with the county and that he would be a fine candidate for the job. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

  “That’s a bribe,” April said.

  “Well . . . not legally. No money has exchanged hands, and there’s been no promise made. It was hinted and alluded to, but it’s nothing that can be proved in a court of law. Mr. Rockingham is a year or so from retirement. He might like to have a good-paying job for a few years before stopping work entirely. If he retires from the city and works just two or three years for Blue Sands, he could build a nice retirement nest egg.”

  “Rockingham seems to be a good man, but that offer would be difficult to forget,” April said.

  Joe nodded. “I think he’s leaning their way. If he’s going to recommend a yes vote, I will have to make a statement.”

  April raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “In years past the planning department has, of course, given our recommendations to the county commission. Most of the time the county commissioners went along with us. Not always, but most of the time. If Mr. Rockingham recommends the commission approve the project, I will have to ask to address the commission. I will recommend against the project. I have marshaled my arguments and I think I can make an effective case against it.”

  “Does your boss know about this?” April said.

  “Not yet. I’m feeling kind of guilty. I merely said I’m opposed to the project—strongly opposed to the project. After I told him, I think he took a double shot of his ulcer medication.”

  “Boy, he has a heart condition and an ulcer and you have a bladder infection. Our county planning department isn’t exactly a healthy place to work.”

  “And it won’t be until the commission meeting in January,” Joe said.

  “Know which way the commission is leaning?”

  “I don’t, not for certain. I heard rumors that two are leaning for, and two are leaning against, and one commissioner, Elizabeth Sherwood, is genuinely on the fence. But those are rumors—only rumors,” he said.

  “That January meeting should be interesting and there will be standing room only.”

  “No doubt. But I will say this for Adam Lundmark, the Blue Sands public relations guy. He is good at his job. He not only brings a ready smile and friendly manner to commission meetings; he always has facts and figures on the tip of his tongue. He studies whatever issue is before him and can fire both his verbal shotgun barrels in a debate. I’ve never seen him lose his temper, or take a cheap shot at an opponent. That’s one reason why he’s so effective.” He shrugged. “Anyway we should get back. Jim may be getting cold.”

  April swallowed the last bite of her donut. “OK, but it you need to take a break just wave at me. I’ll keep an eye on the kettle.”

  “Thanks.”

  When they walked back to Joe’s station, Faraday willingly relinquished the kettle. “Boy, when that wind is blowing it gets a bit chilly out here,” he said, laughing.

  “Thankfully, the Salvation Army has a dedicated workforce. We’re like the postal service. Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor wind, will stop us from our appointed bell ringing,” April said.

  “I want to check on all our staffers.” He walked over to April and whispered. “I know about Joe’s medical condition, so I know you took that break to help him. I can come back in about thirty to forty-five minutes and give you a real break, April,” Faraday said.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. Now it’s back to my pom-poms.”

  “April, you have revolutionized our Kettle Drive. It may never be the same.”

  April laughed. “And next year I will revolutionize how we celebrate Thanksgiving.”

  As she walked back to her kettle through the swirling snowflakes, the five people standing around Clay applauded as she picked up her pom-poms.

  “Give the people what they want and they’ll come out and give,”

  Clay whispered.

  She glanced toward her kettle partner and breathed easily when he looked steady. Joe rang the bell with gusto and shouted, "Season's greetings!" to pedestrians. She smiled and raised the pom-poms.

  “Remember folks, we prefer cash, but, if like most people, you don’t carry much, due to credit cards, we will take checks. If you only have credit cards I’ll get my little computer and we’ll work something out. This Christmas no child will be without a Christmas present!”

  The crowd clapped its approval and several people shoved cash into the kettle’s slot.

  “You’re so enthusiastic. Do you get a cut of the proceeds?” Clay said.

  “Of course not. If I did I’d donate them to the cause,” April said.

  2

  An hour later, after Faraday came to take her place for fifteen minutes, April sipped a hot cocoa with Clay at a small table at the Coffee Tree. She had slipped on a heavier winter coat because the wind had picked up and was tossing snowflakes across the streets, and the sidewalks. Traffic had slowed down a bit, but there was still a steady stream of walkers passing the kettles.

  “Helping out is kind of fun,” April said. “You can genuinely interact with people. All of them want to help out the kids.”

  “The real Santa will give you a gold star this Christmas,” Clay said. “But how come your boss let you off during Christmas season? Isn’t that a busy time for newspapers?”

  “Community relations,” said April, as she sipped the cocoa. “We are a business, and one of our interests is helping the community, and the needy kids. We are not just about profit. And it’s not just me. We have another reporter helping out too.”

  Clay raised his cup of cocoa. “Here’s to public service.”

  April clinked her cup on his. “By the way, there is something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, shucks, really?” Clay’s voice had an apprehensive tone to it. “When a woman wants to talk to you, that’s not a good sign. You generally have done something wrong. I’m racking my brain but I can’t think of anything. Maybe I’m just dense.”

  April shook her head. “No, you have done nothing wrong. I did want to have this discussion privately at one of our residences, but this week I am—as they say in Florida—up to my elbows in alligators. The job, the volunteering, getting Christmas presents, and I’ve got a cousin coming in to stay a few days. I haven’t seen Jenn for about three years and, I am looking forward to her visit. So we have to have the chat in a semi-public place.”

  “So should I add some bourbon to the cocoa? This sounds serious.”

  April smiled but also fidgeted in her chair. She opened her mouth but then quickly closed it. Her fingers drummed on her cup of cocoa. Shoulders hitched up and down.

  “OK, here it is. I want us to go a bit slower, maybe even do a little retrograde thing.”

  Clay’s features dropped. He gave her a blank look.

  “It’s not you, Clay. You have done nothing wrong. In fact you are a wonderful boyfriend. It’s just that
we seemed to have clicked when we met one another. Things have gone smoothly since day one. We’ve been like two people who sit down at a piano to play a duet and instinctively know what keys to play so they meld with each other.”

  Clay nodded. “And isn’t that a good thing?”

  April gesticulated, bringing her hands up and back as if she were conducting an orchestra. “Yes, in every way except in one minor little thing, and it’s something I feel may be missing in the relationship. We seemed to have skipped past the . . . the romance.”

  “We have had romantic evenings.”

  “Yes, occasionally. We had magnificent walks on the beach. We had wonderful nights under the full moon. But we clicked so fast I feel I missed the . . . the . . .”

  “Romantic courtship?” said Clay.

  “Yes! I was looking for the words for it, and those are the words for it. A lady likes to be courted, so to speak.”

  “Yes, but I’m not all that good at that.”

  April dropped her voice to a stern tone. “Get good at it,” she said.

  Clay looked as if he’d been slapped with a wet mackerel. Words came quickly from him. “Yes, of course . . . by all means, we can try that. Yes, we can do that!”

  “Thank you,” April said. “This can be your Christmas present to me.”

  “And I was going to get you a diamond necklace.”

  “This can be a second Christmas present to me. It would mean so much to me.”

  Clay nodded. “Of course. We will do the courting thing.”

  “And for the next couple of days it may have to be from afar, because I am booked up with work and volunteering, and Jenn comes in tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’s fine. I can court from afar. Better in person, but I can do it from afar.”

  “That would be so nice.”

  “It’s a deal—and a Christmas present,” Clay said.

  “You are so sweet.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Now I have to exit. My fifteen minutes are up. Sorry.”

  “That’s OK. I’ll spend the afternoon looking up ‘courtship’ on the internet and writing the instructions down.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t write everything down. The internet can be really questionable on some things.”

  He waved as April dashed out. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out his smart phone.

  “Courtship, courtship, have to look up courtship,” he said. “I feel like I’m back in college but without the hangover.”

  As April hopped, skipped, and danced to a rendition of “Winter Wonderland,” shoppers rushed to donate. She wore a wide smile as her audience pressed dollar bills into the Salvation Army Kettle.

  “You have a great voice,” one man said as he bent over to fit money into the kettle slot.

  “Thank you. But it’s only average,” she said.

  “Better than average. Much better,” a woman said as she dropped change into the kettle.

  “I’ve had a lot of practice singing in the shower,” she said.

  An elderly man who walked with a cane and wore a wool, felt fedora held up a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Twenty dollars for a chorus of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.’ It’s my favorite Christmas song,” he said.

  “Hark, it is,” April replied.

  She stretched her arms out and sang about angels celebrating a birth two thousand years ago in Bethlehem. True to his word, the man tipped his fedora to April and slipped the twenty into the kettle.

  “Thank you, sir! Any other requests? Christmas songs only.”

  In the midst of lyrics about having a blue Christmas, she glanced south and saw Joe was absent from his post again. She frowned. Joe should be home, she thought, sipping some warm liquid that would not aggravate his infection. The lyrics flowed over the crowd as she ended the song.

  “There will be a brief intermission folks. I’m going to take a quick break. But just because I’m not here, that doesn’t mean you have to wait to give,” she said, gaining a few laughs from the crowd.

  She dropped the pom-poms and walked through the two inches of snow toward Joe’s kettle. She looked down the alley but Joe was nowhere to be seen. Footprints in the snow led into the alley.

  “The one bad thing about snow and cold weather is it brings flu and infections,” she said aloud.

  She greeted a few walkers while her apprehension rose. When the street cleared, she walked back into the alley. She followed the footprints to the exit door of the sports shop. She pushed on the door and it opened. Usually the exit doors are locked from the inside but Joe said the store had left it open for him. She stepped in and looked around. Joe was nowhere to be seen. To her right, half a dozen boxes had been piled up. Beyond them was the rear bathroom. She knocked softly on the door.

  “Joe, are you all right. Are you in there?”

  No answer.

  She knocked again. Then turned the doorknob. She gasped as she opened the door. Joe was in the room but he was on the floor. A line of blood ran down his face from an ugly, red contusion on his forehead.

  “Joe!”

  When she touched his face she realized he wasn’t breathing.

  Almost numb due to shock—somewhere in the corner of her mind—April thought the Sea Oak Police and the local EMTs did a dignified job when they arrived. The EMTs confirmed Joe was dead but lifted him gently, placed him on a stretcher and rolled him outside into the alley. They lifted him into the ambulance. As a flash of orange swept by her she realized Sheffield County ambulances had a mournful orange light spinning as they traveled to the hospital. She had not realized that before. Tires crushed the snow as the ambulance drove away. She thought the EMTs were totally professional as they handled the body and expressed condolences. Someone had offered her a cup of coffee, and she sipped it as she sat in an uncomfortable chair, at the back of the store.

  She gave a wan smile as a Sea Oak policeman, dressed in the blue uniform of the department, walked up to her. She recognized him from the time when she was covering the police beat. Captain Jeff Viceroy. He had a deep baritone voice, but the tone was gentle when he spoke.

  “April. It’s good to see you again, but I regret it’s under these circumstances,” he said.

  “Yes.” She took another sip of the coffee. “This has become a very bad Christmas season.”

  “I’m told you found the body?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then I need to ask you a few questions.”

  She nodded.

  “How did you happen to come back here, April?”

  “I was looking for Joe. He was working the Salvation Army kettle on this corner. I was working the kettle one corner down, but I had talked to him earlier. He was sick and fighting a bladder infection. I told him he should be home. Sometimes he would dash back here to use the bathroom. When I was out on the corner I noticed he was missing. I figured he had to take a break, but some minutes later he still wasn’t back out ringing his bell. I got concerned. Thought he might be sick and need help. I walked over to his kettle and then came down the alley. I opened the door here and entered, and opened the bathroom door. I found him here,” she said.

  “Did you see anyone else or anything that looked suspicious?”

  “No. I just saw boxes. I didn’t see anybody. I assumed every employee was out selling stuff to customers. I didn’t even hear anything.”

  “The door was open?”

  “Yes. Joe had told me it’s usually closed, locked from the inside but the owners had kept it open for him due to his medical condition.”

  “Did you know him before you two became Salvation Army Santas?”

  “Slightly. I’m on the feature beat currently, for the newspaper, but I’ve covered about every beat there is, including the county. I met him when I was covering the county commission. I can’t say we were friends, but we got along well. I can’t think of who would possibly kill him . . . except . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Except what?” Viceroy sai
d. He held a notebook and pen in his hands. He jotted down notes as she talked.

  “I had a chance to talk with him today over at the Coffee Tree. He was under a lot of pressure due to his job as assistant county planner. The Blue Sands Company wants to put a major development on the beach. It’s a big controversy in the county, and Joe was getting pressure from both sides.”

  Viceroy rubbed his chin. Short, blond beard stubble showed on his cheeks. “I must admit I don’t pay attention to county news.”

  “Blue Sands wants to put in condos and other stuff on a portion of the beach near the county line. Many citizens oppose the project. But the county zoning board approved it by one vote. It now goes to the county commission. A vote will be held in January.”

  Viceroy scratched the beard stubble. He spoke slowly, as if considering each word. “If that’s the case, I imagine a lot of money is at stake, and a lot of passionate feelings on both sides.”

  April nodded. “There sure is. I was at the zoning board meeting. I opposed the project, but I didn’t speak. I thought it would be inappropriate because I’m a reporter. But there were a lot of passionate people there, on both sides of the line. Oh . . . and if you’re going down this street, there’s something else you should know.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “When I talked to Joe this morning he thought his boss, Edward Rockingham, was going to recommend the commission approve the project. If that happened, Joe told me he was going to address the commission and recommend against it.”

  “Well . . . that’s interesting,” Viceroy said. “What else did Mr. Dinera tell you?”

  “Only that it was a very busy time and he was annoyed by the Blue Sands people. They were hovering over the planning office the way vultures hover over dead bodies. That’s not exactly his words. He put it differently, but you get the idea.”

  “Yes, I do. April, when you were on the corner as Santa, did you see anyone approach Mr. Dinera or anyone come down this alley?”

  She shook her head. “I was too busy. I looked down the street a couple times just to check on Joe. But I didn’t see anything unusual.”