He hesitated.
“It can’t hurt to see if she wants to help.”
“Yeah,” Colt said, sounding tired. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask. I’ll be there in about an hour. I don’t suppose you have leftovers I can scrounge?”
“I’m sure Georgia has something. Just get here when you can. I’ll have something ready for you to eat.”
After I hung up, I called Georgia to see what she might have for Colt to eat and then returned to the deck where Sydney was waiting. “I’m sorry about that. That was my friend, Police Chief Colt Wilder, on the line.” I paused. “Actually, we’re more than friends. We’re dating.” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to explain that, but it somehow seemed important. “He called to let me know he hadn’t returned my previous calls since he’s been swamped with two murders in two days.”
“Wow. Two murders is a lot for this little town.”
I nodded. “They seem to be related.” I took a minute to describe everything I knew about the two deaths. “I don’t suppose you have an idea as to what the killer might be trying to tell us?”
“I’d need to know more to offer an opinion. These things usually turn out to be more complex than they appear on the surface.”
“Yeah. I have a feeling that might turn out to be the case, although both men were involved in local politics to a degree, so that seems to be the link that stands out at this point.”
I shared the background of each of the two victims as well as the theories I’d entertained to date. She asked a few questions but didn’t offer much in terms of a theory of her own. I offered Sydney dessert, but she indicated that she was stuffed and couldn’t eat another bite. We continued to chat about topics of a general nature, such as favorite restaurants in San Francisco and people we thought we both might know, given the fact that she worked in law enforcement, as had my husband. Once Colt arrived, Sydney got up to leave. I suggested she stay, and when Colt agreed with my suggestion, she sat back down and listened to what he had to say.
Chapter 6
After Colt arrived, I went to the inn to get his dinner while he chatted with Sydney, and the two got to know each other. He’d brought photos of the two victims as well as the plastic clams each had held between their hands.
“As you can see, the victims were posed just the same,” Colt said as Sydney looked at the photos. “Both men were lying on their right side with their legs bent at a ninety-degree angle at the hip. The legs were then bent again at the knee, with their arms laid one over the other, making it appear as if the men were asleep.”
“Or praying,” Sydney said.
Colt glanced at the photos again, “Yes. I suppose if they were upright rather than laying down, they would look as if they were praying.”
Sydney picked up a photo of one of the plastic clams. “And each man had one of these between their layered hands?”
He nodded. “This week is Clam Bake week in Holiday Bay, and these clams are all over town. I know the theater company Abby hired to put on the murder mystery this Saturday is planning to use them to distribute clues, and there are a couple of booths at the kiddie carnival in town that will be using these same clams as well.”
“It’s too bad they’re so widely available. If they weren’t, they’d provide a clue in and of themselves. What about whatever was inside the clams? I assume they contained something.”
Colt nodded. “Each had a note with a single word. The note in the clam of the first victim, Oliver Halifax, said greed, and the note in the hand of the second victim, Henry Goodman, said pride.”
Sydney looked at the photos again. She didn’t say anything for a minute, but I could tell she was processing what she saw. “What can you tell me about each of these men?”
Colt took a moment and then answered. “Oliver Halifax was a forty-one-year-old Holiday Bay resident. He was a successful investor who worked from home. He recently ran for and was elected to the town council, and it has been rumored that he cheated in order to stack things in his favor. A lot of the folks who’ve heard about Oliver’s death assume it was the election and his involvement with the council that led to his death.”
“Was the man married?”
Colt nodded. “Married but no children.”
She set Oliver’s photo aside. “Tell me about Henry Goodman.”
“Henry was a thirty-eight-year-old real estate agent. Like Halifax, he was a bit of a workaholic and had done well for himself. He was single and didn’t have any children.”
“Cause of death?”
“Both men were injected with a serum that consisted of a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium. They were killed somewhere other than where they were found. Both men were left in locations associated with Clam Bake week festivities if that helps. Halifax was found on the island where the murder mystery and clam bake is to take place, and Goodman was found in the gazebo in the park where the bands were going to play.”
I jumped in. “I think it might be important to know that Georgia was called by someone she hadn’t previously spoken to who sent her to the island to get photos, and Buck was sent to the gazebo by someone claiming there was an electrical problem.”
“Do you know who called?”
I answered. “A man named Matthew Layton called Georgia about the photos. He said he was with the theater company putting on the murder mystery.”
“And the name of the
