The Inn at Holiday Bay: Clue in the Clam, Kathi Daley [early reader chapter books TXT] 📗

That was a good question. “I suppose the folks from Evagrius Industries might be blackmailing these men. Assuming they target men who tend to attend church and generally live a somewhat conservative lifestyle and it isn’t simply a fluke that Stan happened to do his recruitment at a church, maybe the plan is to get these men to an out of the way place for the week without their wives, girlfriends, bosses, pastors, or clients, and then provide every sort of temptation for them to cut loose. Maybe these weeks are taped, and Evagrius Industries then uses the tapes to get money or cooperation or something from these men.”

Noah took a moment before answering. “I suppose that makes sense. Stan was married. I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted his wife to know that the annual men’s retreat he attended was really a way for him to enjoy hot and cold running women without her knowing about it.”

“And Oliver worked in investments. He handled a lot of money, and it sounds like he had a gambling problem. I imagine he’d have done whatever it took to keep his little gambling problem to himself.”

“And Don had a heart attack a while back. I bet his wife and doctor had him on a strict diet.”

“So the men who attend are tested. Some, like Travis, if he’s telling the truth, avoid temptation and are probably of no future use to whoever is behind Evagrius Industries. But men like Oliver, Stan, and Henry with a lot to lose might become targets for future use. I remember that Sydney said that all three of our murder victims made payments to Evagrius Industries. That means that there’s a good chance this wasn’t the first weeklong retreat for any of them. Stan seemed to be the one who put the group together, but it’s likely the others may have helped in some way.”

“I guess we should ask the men if they’ve been contacted by anyone from Evagrius Industries since the retreat.”

“I can also see if Sydney’s friend, Genevieve, can find out if Travis, Don, Lance, or Kurt have made payments to the company.”

Noah pulled into the parking lot next to the office building where Don Perry had an office. We both got out and headed toward the door with large lettering stating that insurance was sold there.

“Noah, Abby. What are the two of you doing here?”

“We’d like to speak to you in private,” Noah said.

A look of concern flashed across the man’s face. “Sure. I’m holding down the fort while my receptionist is out, but we can talk in my office.”

Between Noah and me, we got the man up to speed. We shared pretty much everything we knew, figuring it was best to get right to the questions with answers we didn’t know.

“I can’t believe Stan is dead. I’d heard about Oliver and Henry, of course, and to be honest, I figured their deaths were related to the political nightmare associated with that new development.”

“And they may have been,” I jumped in. “At this point, we don’t know anything. And I think it is important to point out that we don’t know whether or not you might be a potential target. We’re looking at every angle and warning everyone we can think of to warn.”

“And I appreciate that. I’m going to head home after we finish here and talk to my wife about spending the weekend at her mother’s. She’s been nagging me to go for weeks. She’ll be thrilled.”

“In the meantime, don’t agree to meet anyone,” I cautioned. “It appears that at least one of the victims was heading out to meet someone when they were last seen.”

“I’ll go straight home after speaking to you and be on the road to my mother-in-law’s shortly after that.” He looked at me. “What do you need from me?”

“Travis filled us in on the general goings-on of the men’s retreat last year, but I did have a few additional questions I didn’t think to ask him.”

“Such as?”

“Did you know before you arrived at the retreat that it was anything more than the power building seminar it was touted to be?”

“No. Stan is the one who talked me into the whole thing in the first place. Initially, I really wasn’t interested, but he said that he’d attended a seminar put on by these same folks a year or so ago and that it had really helped him. He was a good guy and, quite honestly, one of my better customers, so I eventually decided to go. I had no idea what I was getting into until after we arrived.” He paused briefly and then continued. “Things seemed normal at first, but then some of the guys disappeared. When we found out where they’d gone off to and what they were doing, I was shocked. When I saw all that food just sitting out on a table without a gatekeeper to tell me not to eat it, I went a little crazy. Months and months of nothing other than clean eating had turned me into a glutton of the first degree. I’m lucky I didn’t have another heart attack.”

“Did you hear from Evagrius Industries after that week?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. What I did was come home, come clean to my wife, and then swear I was all veggies all the way from that point forward.” He stuck out his chest. “I’ve lost fifty pounds since I returned from that retreat, so I guess it did do me some good in the long run.”

“I guess it did,” I agreed.

Don didn’t seem like the sort to be a blackmail victim. His “sin” was food, and he’d come clean to his wife, so perhaps since he wasn’t a blackmail target, he wouldn’t be a target for the killer either. Of course,