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

paused. “Oh, wait. Clark does occasionally attend the Lutheran church on Seaside Avenue.”

“Okay, this has all been very helpful. I really want to thank you for all your help. We wouldn’t be nearly as far along as we are without the information you provided.”

“No problem. I like to do what I can, and Syd seems to think you’re one of the good guys.”

With that, she hung up. No goodbye, nothing. Just click and done.

I headed back to Colt’s office. I hoped he’d had luck tracking down Kurt. Based on my conversation with Genevieve, it sounded like we might want to track down Barnaby Johnson, Clark Havilyn, Ted Newberry, and Robert Jones, even though payments to Evagrius Industries were the only link the men had to the three current victims. I supposed the killer could be using men who attended the wild party week as the pool from which to draw victims, and given the notes left in the clams that seemed to be the best fit, but my intuition told me there might be more going on than we were currently aware of.

“Any luck with Kurt?” I asked Colt when I arrived at his office.

“No. I called all the bars where I’ve been called in to pick Kurt up over the past few months, and he isn’t at any of them. I also tried his cell phone again, but he didn’t pick up.”

“And his wife still hasn’t returned your call?”

“No. Not yet. How’d you do?”

“I eliminated most of the possible links I had in my mind, but I do have four more names. Barnaby Johnson, Clark Havilyn, Ted Newberry, and Robert Jones are all making payments to Evagrius Industries. They don’t all attend the same church, so I didn’t pick up a link there, and Genevieve couldn’t find a link between any of the four men to the proposed development south of town. I’m not sure if the payments to Evagrius Industries should place them on the list of possible victims, but I figure it won’t hurt to talk to the men. I keep thinking that the payments these men are making to the company are part of some sort of blackmail scheme.”

“If the company is luring men to these party weeks and then blackmailing them, why weren’t all seven men from Noah’s church blackmailed?”

I shrugged. “Maybe they only go after men of affluence. Oliver, Henry, and Stan were in a totally different income class than Travis, Don, Lance, and Kurt. Plus, it sounds like all Lance did was sleep. That’s not the sort of thing you’d blackmail someone for doing. And while Don wasn’t supposed to eat all that food, overeating isn’t the sort of thing to ruin a marriage or chase away customers like Stan with his infidelity and Oliver with his gambling problem. The only one of the remaining four who really seemed to get into any trouble was Kurt. I guess we can ask him if Evagrius Industries contacted him after that week. I suppose he might have been but chose not to pay up. Either that or he made the payments in such a manner that Genevieve couldn’t find them in her initial search.”

Colt stood, staring at the clock on the wall. It looked as if he was watching the second hand while he tried to make up his mind about something. “Given the fact that our killer might be out there stalking victim number four, I feel like I should be doing more than I am. Tracking down every possible victim we can think of so they can be warned is worthwhile but time-consuming. We aren’t even sure at this point how the killer is choosing his victims. We have a couple theories, and I will admit the theories we’ve come up with do hold water, but for all we know, all we’ve accomplished by warning potential victims is a temporary reprieve while the killer selects a new victim.”

“I get what you’re saying. The only way to stop this guy is to catch this guy. The question is, how do we do that?”

Colt seemed to come to a decision. “I know that none of the bodies were found in the victims’ homes and, according to the guys from the county who initially searched the homes, there was no sign that the killer had ever been there or that the actual killing took place within the home, but I feel like there might be something they missed. I’m going to head over to the home of each of the three victims we currently have and look around.”

“Will anyone be there?” I wondered.

“Oliver’s wife is still on her cruise, so I expect the house to be unoccupied except for the live-in maid. I spoke to her yesterday and will call and let her know that I’ll be by to take a second look today. Henry is single, so I expect his home will be uninhabited, but I know the next-door neighbor has a key, so I’ll call and arrange to have him meet me and let me in. And Stan’s wife seems to be out of town, which means his residence will most likely be unoccupied as well. I don’t have a key, so I guess I’ll see what I can do when I get there.”

“I’ll go with you,” I offered. “Two sets of eyes are better than one.”

     

Chapter 11

Colt managed to get ahold of Oliver’s maid, who was happy to let him in, so we headed toward Oliver’s home first. His huge estate, perched right on the sea, gave evidence to how well he’d done for himself throughout his career. I didn’t have all the specifics but based on what I’d heard from others, Oliver had been an aggressive investor who not only made a lot of money for himself but for his clients as well. The fact