Murder at Jade Cove (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Book 2) (5 page)

“Well, sweetheart, knowing
you, I’m sure you’ll have the answers to all of those question in a few days. I
like your rationale for what you do. I think you told me once that you’re not
prying, you’re simply gathering information.”

Kelly wadded up the
dishtowel she had in her hand and threw it at him. “Careful, Sheriff Mike, next
time it could be a knife and even though you weren’t very pleased with me, you
know I helped you solve Amber’s murder.”

“So you did, Kelly, so you
did. And I’m really happy that you promised me that you would never get
involved in any of my cases again, right?” he asked with a stern look on his
face.

“That’s right,” she said,
mentally crossing her fingers. “I promised, didn’t I?”

Kelly looked out from the kitchen of
Kelly’s Koffee Shop and said, “Roxie, looks like we’ve got a bit of a lull in the
action here at the moment. I’m going to make a bank run. I won’t be gone long.”

“No problem, Kelly. Seems
like a good time to go. See you in a few minutes.”

Kelly walked the two
blocks to the First Federal Bank. As she was reaching to open the door, it was
suddenly pushed open from the inside and she was thrown a couple of steps back.
Two people rushed out the door. It was Marcy Black and a man Kelly couldn’t identify.
She overheard him say, “Don’t worry, Marcy. Brandon and I will make sure you
have enough money to live on.” The man continued to talk, but his words were
lost as they hurried over to a late model silver-colored car. Kelly watched as
the man opened the door for Marcy and then got in the car and rapidly drove
away.

Wonder who that is. I
thought I knew everyone for miles around.

She opened the door of the
bank again and walked over to Patti, the teller. “Kelly, I saw what happened.
They almost knocked you down. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I recognized
Marcy Black, but I can’t place the man that was with her. They both seemed
pretty angry.”

“Yeah, I probably
shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve never seen anything like it. Mrs. Black had a
key to a safe deposit box and wanted to open it up. I checked and she was
authorized to do that. She wanted the man who was with her to come into the
vault with us, so I had him sign the entry log we keep where the names of
everyone who enters the vault are recorded. We both put our keys in and opened
the box. She started to look in it, but the man, his name is Gabe Lewis,
according to the entry log, pushed her aside, grabbed what looked like a will,
and quickly read it. He almost threw it at Mrs. Black and said, ‘He cut you out
of his will. Everything goes to Brandon.’”

“Wow! How did she take
it?”

“Not well, she was
furious. He told Mrs. Black to stay calm and they’d talk about it later, then
they left, taking the will with them. Kelly, I really shouldn’t have told you
any of this. Please don’t tell anyone else what I just said.”

“Not to worry. I promise I
won’t tell anyone,” she said, mentally crossing her fingers and thinking that
Mike needed to know about this. It seemed to Kelly that it could be very
important to his investigation.

“Here’s my deposit, Patti.
I better get back to the coffee shop before Roxie decides to quit because I
left her alone,” she said, handing the teller a leather pouch containing the
receipts from the coffee shop for the last couple of days. Patti handed the
deposit slip to her and Kelly hurried back to the coffee shop.

*****

“Looks like you handled everything
just fine, Roxie,” Kelly said. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Oh, by the
way, Doc called and said he wanted to talk to you when he comes in at noon
today.”

“Any idea what’s up with
him? That’s kind of unusual.”

“Nope, that’s all he said.
I told him I’d give you the message when you got back from the bank.”

“Okay, I’ll keep an eye
out for him.”

Promptly at noon, just as
he did every Monday through Friday, Doc opened the coffee shop door and walked
in. Rebel stood up and walked over to him, hoping for a filet mignon treat, or
at the very least, an ear scratch.

“Sorry, boy, don’t have
any treats with me, but I can scratch those ears for a minute,” Doc said,
bending down while Rebel’s wagging tail became a blur.

“Hi, Doc,” Kelly said as
she walked over to him. “Understand you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yeah. Mind if we go in
the storeroom for a couple of minutes? I’d just as soon our talk was a little
more private than out here where everyone can hear us.”

“Sure, follow me.”

She closed the storeroom
door. “Doc, this is totally unlike you. What’s up?”

“Well, I just had a
conversation with Bonnie Davis. She came to see me because she’d heard I was
working with people who were having problems with substance abuse. Evidently
her husband drinks a couple of six packs of beer every night.”

“Wait a minute, Doc,
should you be telling me this? To my knowledge she’s not dead and you said the
only reason you could tell me about Jeff Black was because he was dead. Don’t
you have an ethical obligation to someone you’re counseling?”

“That’s true, Kelly, but
Bonnie told me this in the waiting room of the clinic. We weren’t in my office
and a room full of people also heard her tell me.”

“Okay, Doc. Just didn’t
want you to get in trouble for telling me something you shouldn’t.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.
We both know I’ve had enough trouble with at least one State Medical Board. I
sure don’t want any more problems in that area. As a counselor, I feel that
what people tell me is privileged information and I would never breach a
confidence, but this was not one of those times.”

“Okay, what did she say?”

“We talked about her
husband and then she said she’d been away from home a lot in the last few
months, trying to put a stop to the hotel and spa that Jeff Black was going to
build on his property out at Jade Cove. She said it would damage the
environment and nothing that big should be built that close to the ocean and
the steep cliff at Jade Cove. Then she started talking about the spotted owls
and how several had been seen in the Jade Cove area. She was jumping all over
the place, from one topic to another, but everything she talked about was
related to the environment. She told me the spotted owl was on the endangered
species list and that its habitat would be harmed if anything like the hotel
and spa were built on the Black’s property. She actually worked herself up to
what I would almost consider a frenzy. She’s really passionate about it. I
wanted to talk to you and see if you know her. That’s my first experience being
around her.”

“You can’t live in a city
this size and not know Bonnie Davis,” Kelly said. Some people think she’s a
real nut case. I don’t think there’s ever been a County Board of Supervisors
meeting or a City Council meeting where she didn’t get up and speak out about
something in the environment that was going to be harmed by whatever was being
proposed. I think she’s the president of something called the Wildlife
Advocates. She travels all around the state and speaks to groups whenever some
proposed development threatens the environment. I’ve heard that her husband
drinks too much and I think there are a lot of people who feel that’s the only
way he can stay married to her.”

“To tell you the truth, I
had the same feeling. I just wanted to pick your brain since you know everyone
around here and see if this is something I may want to avoid getting involved
with.”

“I guess that’s a decision
you’ll have to make on your own. Doc, a thought just occurred to me. Did she
say anything else about Jeff Black?”

“Yes, I was concentrating
more on what she was saying about her husband, but she did make the statement
that she’d been trying to keep Jeff Black from building on his property because
of the spotted owls. She said it was a good thing he was dead, that maybe now
the owls in that area could be saved. Now that I think about it, she’s probably
someone who might have had a reason to kill him.”

There was a knock on the
storeroom door. “Come in,” Kelly said.

“Kelly, I don’t know where
they’re comin’ from, but I need you up front. There are more people here than I
can handle.”

“Be there in a sec,
Roxie,” Kelly said as Roxie closed the door.

“Doc, thanks for telling
me. On second thought, I’d stay away from her if I were you. Her husband’s been
drinking excessively for as long as I can remember, and even if he stopped, it
probably wouldn’t keep her from traveling and speaking out about the
environment. She’s really fanatical about it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her
talk about anything else. I’ll see what else I can find out about her because
based on what you just told me, she very well might be a suspect in the Jeff
Black murder.”

“Kelly, let me give you
some advice. You’d be better off telling Mike and letting him see what he can
find out. Remember, this is his case.”

“You’re right, Doc. I’ll
tell Mike and I promise you I’ll stay out of it,” she said, crossing her
fingers and wondering if this was something she was going to have to explain to
St. Peter when she got to the Pearly Gates or if she could get a pass if she
confessed her habit of telling "white lies” to Father Brown the next time
she went to church.

Kelly locked the coffee shop door and
stood for a moment, looking out at the bay.

It’s so tranquil it’s hard
to believe that two murders have occurred in this little town in a matter of
months. I guess it’s like everything else. No matter how calm and serene it
seems on the surface, there’s always something going on underneath it, just
like the bay. Doesn’t look like anything much even lives in the bay, but dive
down and it’s full of fish, abalone, crabs, kelp, and every other form of
aquatic life.

She and Rebel got in her
minivan and pulled out of the parking lot.
I know I promised Mike I wouldn’t
get involved in the Jeff Black murder case, but this isn’t really getting
involved. I just want to talk to Bonnie about the spotted owls.
She heard a
voice in the back of her head saying, “
Sure you do.”
She ignored it.

She parked her minivan in
front of the Davis’ house. “Stay, boy. I won’t be long,” she said to Rebel who
promptly stood up in the passenger seat, insuring that no one would be entering
the minivan until Kelly returned.

Even though it was
November, someone in the Davis household had carefully tended the plants in the
numerous pots leading up to the front porch. Vivid green ivy grew across the
front of the freshly painted white house. Crisp green and white checkered
curtains were pulled back in the front windows which looked out at the bay. It
was a very warm and inviting home. Kelly knocked on the front door and admired
the colorful wreath of fall leaves which surrounded the peephole.

In a moment the door was
opened by Jack Davis. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Jack, it’s Kelly Conner.
Remember me? You’ve come to my coffee shop several times, but I haven’t seen
you there recently. I stopped by to see if Bonnie was available. I want to ask
her some questions about the spotted owls and I understand she’s an expert on
the subject.

“Sorry, Kelly, I didn’t
recognize you. Please, come in. She’s an expert on the spotted owls, all right.
I’ll get her.”

He returned a few minutes
later followed by a grey-haired woman who wore Birkenstock sandals, a long
flowing skirt, and a heavy knit sweater. Her hair was pulled into a
conservative bun at the nape of her neck. She wore no make-up, not even
lipstick. Looking at her, Kelly was reminded of the hippies who had come through
Cedar Bay on their way to San Francisco in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The
only thing missing from Bonnie’s dated clothing was a tie-dye patterned
T-shirt. There were a few pictures of some hippies on the walls in the coffee
shop along with other pictures of the changes that had occurred in Cedar Bay
over the years. Bonnie looked very much like the people in those photos from
several decades ago. As she looked at her, Kelly thought that Bonnie’s time had
come and gone. There was nothing contemporary about her looks or clothing.

“Hi, Bonnie, I haven’t
seen you for a long time. If you have a minute, I’d like to talk to you.”

“Kelly, it’s good to see
you. I have to leave fairly soon for a meeting in Sunset Bay, but I have a
little time. What can I do for you?”

“Well, a tourist was in
the coffee shop the other day asking if I knew where any nesting sites for
spotted owls were located. Evidently he’s a fairly new member of the Audubon
Society and wanted to take a photograph of one while he was visiting in Oregon
so he could show it to his bird-watching group when he got back to Kansas. I
told him I didn’t know a thing about them. After he left I started thinking
about my conversation with him, and since we get so many tourists at the coffee
shop, I figured I probably should know something about them. I understand
they’re on the endangered species list, but that’s about all I know. I
mentioned to a friend that I was interested in learning more about spotted owls
and he said you were an expert on the subject. I happened to be in the area so
I thought I’d stop by and see if you were home and could spare me a moment.”