Murder at Jade Cove (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Book 2) (7 page)

“I’d forgotten how opposed
Bonnie was to that project, probably because she’s been opposed to so many
projects over the years. Yes, she would have a motive. I’ll put her on my list
of possible suspects. So, let’s see, at the moment we have Marcy, someone from
the tribe, Brandon, and now Bonnie. They’re all as different as night and day,
and yet, I would have to say that each one of them definitely had a motive for
murdering Jeff. Gotta go, babe, don’t want to be late for my meeting. Go to
bed. I’ll probably get home past your bedtime. See you in the morning and sleep
well. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

I really don’t know much
about Gabe Lewis other than he’s from old lumber money and there’s plenty of
it. Think I’ll spend a few minutes and see what Google turns up about him.
An hour and a half later
she pushed her chair back from the computer and rubbed her eyes.

Well, this is interesting.
He’s a lumber baron who also owns the largest lumber mill on the west coast and
although he used to be quite wealthy, lately he’s been having some serious
financial problems. According to what I read, he’s quite an outdoor sportsman
and belongs to several exclusive hunting clubs.

His wife owns a business
called Lewis Kennels. She breeds and sells hunting dogs. Evidently people pay a
lot of money for the dogs and her clients are located all over the country. She
specializes in chocolate labs, but also breeds yellow labs. One article
mentioned that although he had once been engaged to a woman named Marcy Jordan
from Portland, he broke the engagement and married a woman whose family founded
Sunset Bay during the last century.

I wonder if Marcy’s maiden
name was Jordan. Might fit. Her sister lives in Portland and I think that’s
where she grew up. I remember Jeff going there on business and coming back with
his prospective bride, Marcy. Don’t know what any of this means, but it might come
in handy. What if Marcy and Gabe were an item at one time and then recently
reconnected? Maybe they wanted to get married and Gabe killed Jeff. Other than
that, I can’t figure out any other reason Gabe would have for killing Jeff.
Think Jeff had more of a reason to kill Gabe than the other way around. This is
too much information for me to process. I’m on overload. Time for bed.

“Come on, Rebel, let’s
wind it up for tonight,” she said, opening the back door for him. “I need to
eat something and then I’m going to fall into bed. Tomorrow will come way too
soon and my brain is so tired from absorbing everything that’s happened today,
I need to shut it off for awhile.”

The next morning when Kelly woke up
she looked over at Mike who was sleeping peacefully next to her and thought,
I
really love this man. I’m so glad he asked me to marry him
. She quietly
reached for the alarm and turned it off, not wanting it to wake him.

I wonder what time he made
it home last night. I never even heard him get into bed. I’m really curious
what the coroner and Marcy had to say. Well, from the looks of him, it will
have to wait. He’s out like a light.

She motioned for Rebel to
follow her. She opened the back door for him, fed him, made a quick cup of
coffee, and got dressed. Fifteen minutes later she and Rebel were in the van on
the way to the coffee shop.

I am so looking forward to
this weekend. I could use a break. Whenever something happens in Cedar Bay, it
seems everyone has to come to the coffee shop to talk about it. I’m not
complaining because the more people that come in, the better the coffee shop
does financially, but I really get tired of having to talk all the time. I know
Mike would never believe that, but it’s true. I’d like to sleep in and do
nothing. Maybe I’ll even go out to Scott’s retreat center and take a yoga and
meditation class. That always seems to relax me and I haven’t been there in
quite awhile.

Just like they had the
previous day, the townspeople congregated at Kelly’s Koffee Shop, hoping that
someone had something new to share about Jeff Black’s murder. Kelly and Roxie
were busy from the moment the first customer arrived.

Slightly before noon,
Kelly
heard a welcoming woof coming from Rebel and looked up as Mike came through the
door. He put his Stetson hat on the hat rack and reached down to scratch
Rebel’s ears. “Morning, sweetheart,” he said, looking up at Kelly. “What’s the
special today? I slept like a baby and I’m starving.”

“Well since it’s almost
noon, how about some of those special baked beans with hamburger you’ve always
liked, you know the ones called Calico Bean Bake? I can fix you a great chicken
salad sandwich that would go well with them.”

“You don’t need to go any
farther. I’d like an extra-large serving if you don’t mind. You can arrange for
that, can’t you? Seems to me I should get a perk for being engaged to the
owner, don’t you think?” he asked, winking at her. “I’d also like an iced tea.”

“No problem, since you’re
absolutely my favorite sheriff. By the way, have you been giving Rebel special
treats when I’m not around?”

“Nope. You asked me not
to, so I haven’t. Why do you ask?”

“Well, look where he is,
under the table at your feet. He doesn’t do that for anyone else who comes in
here. He’s always on his bed by the cash register or back in the kitchen with
me, not under a table, which makes me think you’re slipping him things when I’m
not looking.”

“Kelly, Kelly, I’m shocked
that you’d think that. Why, since you never tell fibs to me, how can you even
suggest that I might be telling you a fib?” Mike asked with a wide-eyed
innocent looking expression on his face.

She rolled her eyes at him
and went into the kitchen to get his order and waited for Rebel to follow her
into the kitchen. He didn’t.

Now I’m sure of it. Mike’s
got to be feeding him when I’m not looking. I’m probably going to lose him to
Mike. Just might have to get a puppy for me. That’ll show Mike. A wedding
present from me to me.

She set the iced tea and a
heaping plate of the Calico Bean Bake along with a large chicken salad sandwich
in front of him and sat down at the table. “Mike, when you come up for air, I’d
like to hear what happened last night.”

He was silent for a few
minutes, enjoying the beans and sandwich. “Okay, my stomach has stopped
screaming, so I guess I can take a break. It was an interesting evening. The
coroner placed Jeff’s death at about 4:30 p.m. He told me Jeff died from a
gunshot wound which we already knew. What we didn’t know was that he was shot
with a 30-30 hunting rifle. There was no gunpowder residue on his body, so the
shot must have been taken from quite a distance. That was the first interesting
thing.”

“Wow! I would think that
would help you narrow down the list of suspects. Not many people around here
own a high-powered hunting rifle.”

“It doesn’t really help
me. It could have been someone who was hunting where they shouldn’t have been,
thought they saw a deer, and shot Jeff instead. I’ll probably never find them
if that’s the case.”

“Yeah, that’s true. What
was the other interesting thing?”

“Well, I had a long talk
with Marcy. She’s not happy that everything was in Jeff’s name, but since their
divorce wasn’t finalized and she was on a couple of his bank accounts, she
still has access to some of his funds. Brandon told her she could live in the
house as long as she wanted to and since he was named as the executor of Jeff’s
will, he also told her he wouldn’t close the accounts or take away her credit
cards. Even though she won’t inherit anything from Jeff, she still has access
to most of what she had while he was alive. She was actually quite calm, at
least not angry like you’d described her when you saw her at the bank a few
hours earlier.”

“So she’s going to stay in
the house for now. Any talk about whether the hotel and spa are going to be
built?”

“We didn’t talk about it
specifically, but if she’s going to stay in the house that would mean it isn’t
going to be razed for the construction project any time soon. I’m assuming that
it’s not going to be built right now. I did get a call from Lem last night. He
told me he agreed to help Brandon. Kid just can’t do everything that needs to
be done and try and stay in school. Lem’s got a lot of business sense and Jeff
trusted him. I think he’ll be a big help to Brandon. You may remember that even
though Jeff was going to build the hotel and spa on his property, Lem was
opposed to it. He thought a project of that size would result in too great a
change to our sleepy little town. I imagine he would advise Brandon not to
build the hotel and spa on the property. If Brandon needs money, he can always
sell off part of the property or subdivide it. With its great location, it
would be very desirable in the real estate market.”

He looked around to see if
anyone was listening to them and then leaned close across the table and quietly
said, “She did tell me something quite interesting and also a little
disturbing. It looks like there’s another possible suspect.”

“Get out! You’ve got to be
kidding! Who?”

“A drug dealer from
Mexico…”

Kelly interrupted him in a
loud voice. “What are you talking about?”

“Kelly, keep your voice
down.” He looked around again to make sure no one was trying to overhear what
he was saying. “Well, according to Marcy, she got a call yesterday from a man
named Carlos Delgado. He said he had something to tell her about Jeff. She
asked him what it was, but he said he could only tell her in person. He told
her he was on his way to the ranch and would be there within the hour. Sure
enough, he and another man arrived at the ranch about forty-five minutes after
she got the call. She described Carlos as having a drooping mustache and a
swarthy, scarred face with long greasy black hair. He had a large diamond stud
earring in his left ear. Anyway, he told her he and Jeff were partners in the
marijuana business. He said he had supplied Jeff with all of the money for the
marijuana plants, the irrigation, and provided the workers for the marijuana
farm Jeff was secretly operating on the back part of his property.”

“Are you kidding me, Mike?
This is pretty far-fetched. Jeff in cahoots with some Mexican drug cartel? Who
would have thought?”

“Believe it or not, that’s
what she told me. Anyway, Carlos demanded that she pay him one and a half
million dollars. He said he and Jeff had a deal that no matter what happened to
the marijuana plants, whether they were confiscated by the narcs, whether the
plants died from some disease, or whatever else, Jeff had to repay him the
money he’d advanced to finance the construction and operation of the marijuana
farm. When the marijuana farm burned down, Carlos had demanded that Jeff pay
him, but Jeff refused. Now that Jeff was dead, he told Marcy she had to pay him
what Jeff owed. Marcy told him she didn’t have that kind of money and that Jeff
had filed for divorce. Carlos told her the divorce had nothing to do with
Jeff’s promise and he wanted his money.

“She said Carlos motioned
to the man with him and the man pulled out a switchblade knife and made a
threatening gesture to Marcy. Carlos told her she better pay him or she’d have
a scar on her face similar to the one the other man had on his face. Marcy told
me the man had a horrible looking jagged scar that ran from his right eyebrow
to below his chin. She said it was one of the most frightening things she’d
ever seen. Then, without warning, the other man stepped behind Marcy, put his
arm around her neck, and held the tip of his switchblade under her chin. She
felt pain and looked down at the white blouse she was wearing. There was a drop
of blood on it. The man released his hold on her and threw her to the ground.
Carlos said he’d be back in a few days and she better have the money for him or
Brandon might not be able to finish college because he’d be dead. Naturally she
was panicked. She told Carlos she might be able to use the money from an
insurance policy Jeff had taken out on his life since she was the primary
beneficiary.”

“Mike, this sounds like
something out of a pulp fiction movie. Marcy isn’t one of my favorite people,
but I can’t imagine the fear she must have felt when he threatened to harm her
and kill Brandon.”

“I’m sure she was
terrified,” Mike said. “She doesn’t know what to do. She told me she has
someone in mind that she thinks will loan her the money until she gets the
proceeds from the life insurance policy.”

“Wonder if she’s thinking
Gabe will loan her the money. From what I pulled up on the Internet last night
about him, he seems to be having some serious financial problems of his own and
I doubt he could loan her any money,” Kelly said.

“That I don’t know. I told
Marcy to call me immediately if Carlos calls her again. Her sister’s gone back
to Portland so she’s alone. I asked Marcy if she had a gun and she told me she
did and that she wasn’t afraid to use it. She said her father had belonged to a
hunting club in Portland and always took her hunting with him. She said she was
an excellent shot. Uh-oh, looks like your time with me is up.”

Kelly looked over her
shoulder and saw Roxie approaching. “Sorry to interrupt, Kelly, but I can’t get
out all of the orders that are ready to go in the kitchen. Need a little help,
plus Zen Master Scott would like to talk to you.”