Read Online The Clam Bake Murder: A Windward Bay Mystery by Samantha Doyle - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Samantha Doyle
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harboring a fugitive, maybe even something worse.
Manuka bounded across the street to greet me, but kept his distance from Gordo, who smelled like the floor of a men’s toilets (or my egg custards, if you believed that one reviewer). At least Mr. Fugitive wiped his boots on the mat as promised. Not wanting my sofa or armchair soiled, I took him into the kitchen and told him to sit on one of the breakfast stools. Made us a pot of coffee. He asked if I could spare a snack, seeing as he hadn’t eaten anything since a hot dog in the afternoon—the cash in his wallet would last him another week or so, he reckoned. I made sure I fed Manuka first, and thought about giving Gordo his leftovers, maybe a little something to chew on from the litter tray as well...
I toasted him a couple of Pop-Tarts instead, gave him a banana. That was my limit for the scumbag who’d tried to turn my cousin into a Stepford wife.
“Okay, your turn,” I told him. “What’s the Elysium deal all about?”
“It’s the investment opportunity of a lifetime. And I mean opportunity with a capital O. Not just for me and my consortium, but for the people of Windward. You’d all benefit from the revenue stream it would introduce. Only your damn Select Committee seems to stonewall anything more original than offering free baggies for dog poop disposal. Folks like that can’t be reasoned with. They took a set against me last time, so I knew I had to try a different strategy, a more, shall we say, indirect one.”
“I’ve seen the brochure. The only way you’re ever getting Del Brady and Melissa Briggs to approve something like that is by major league bribery or blackmail.”
He said nothing.
“So which is it?”
“Irrelevant,” he replied. “Sure, we had to put pressure on them or they’d never have budged. But they still have a choice.”
“You’ve scared the living hell out of them. They won’t even answer their doors to me.”
“Then it’s probably worked. You see, everyone has a dirty little secret or two they don’t want the public to know about. Especially politicians, who’ll do anything to stay in office. I just wish I’d made this move years ago. Windward would be on its feet by now, raking in the big bucks.”
“You mean you’d be raking it in—you and your grubby little gnome convention.”
“Consortium.” He actually had the balls to correct me. The urge to punch him in the face was starting to take over. “But the point is,” he went on, crunching a mouthful of strawberry Pop-Tart, “is that we were all set to get this thing passed. If a certain someone had kept his hands to himself and not forced Alice to confront me that night, everything would have been fine. But she was drunk, and he was desperate for her to tell me the truth about them. I think they both knew I’d found out they were sleeping together, and that I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the deal; so Alice just came right out with it, right there in the living room. Just exploded! I’d never seen her like that. Never. She told me what a sonofabitch I’d been and the reasons why she was going to run off with... him. All the while she was trashing the house, and I had to just stand there and take it. Well, almost—I did swing a baseball bat at the wall in frustration. But I knew everything she was saying was true. I also knew that I loved her. I-I’d just never known how to show it, that’s all.”
“So what happened next?”
“She screamed her piece and then stormed out. And I let her. I figured if the worst that happened was she left me, maybe it was time we both moved on. I had the deal, and she’d done her part in cultivating my image as a sound financial partner.”
“You used her all those years. She was your trophy, your pretty little prop. She dazzled the big cojones while you greased their palms. I don’t think I could possibly hate you any more right now.”
He leaned back on his stool, sensing I was about to hit him.
Manuka bounded across the street to greet me, but kept his distance from Gordo, who smelled like the floor of a men’s toilets (or my egg custards, if you believed that one reviewer). At least Mr. Fugitive wiped his boots on the mat as promised. Not wanting my sofa or armchair soiled, I took him into the kitchen and told him to sit on one of the breakfast stools. Made us a pot of coffee. He asked if I could spare a snack, seeing as he hadn’t eaten anything since a hot dog in the afternoon—the cash in his wallet would last him another week or so, he reckoned. I made sure I fed Manuka first, and thought about giving Gordo his leftovers, maybe a little something to chew on from the litter tray as well...
I toasted him a couple of Pop-Tarts instead, gave him a banana. That was my limit for the scumbag who’d tried to turn my cousin into a Stepford wife.
“Okay, your turn,” I told him. “What’s the Elysium deal all about?”
“It’s the investment opportunity of a lifetime. And I mean opportunity with a capital O. Not just for me and my consortium, but for the people of Windward. You’d all benefit from the revenue stream it would introduce. Only your damn Select Committee seems to stonewall anything more original than offering free baggies for dog poop disposal. Folks like that can’t be reasoned with. They took a set against me last time, so I knew I had to try a different strategy, a more, shall we say, indirect one.”
“I’ve seen the brochure. The only way you’re ever getting Del Brady and Melissa Briggs to approve something like that is by major league bribery or blackmail.”
He said nothing.
“So which is it?”
“Irrelevant,” he replied. “Sure, we had to put pressure on them or they’d never have budged. But they still have a choice.”
“You’ve scared the living hell out of them. They won’t even answer their doors to me.”
“Then it’s probably worked. You see, everyone has a dirty little secret or two they don’t want the public to know about. Especially politicians, who’ll do anything to stay in office. I just wish I’d made this move years ago. Windward would be on its feet by now, raking in the big bucks.”
“You mean you’d be raking it in—you and your grubby little gnome convention.”
“Consortium.” He actually had the balls to correct me. The urge to punch him in the face was starting to take over. “But the point is,” he went on, crunching a mouthful of strawberry Pop-Tart, “is that we were all set to get this thing passed. If a certain someone had kept his hands to himself and not forced Alice to confront me that night, everything would have been fine. But she was drunk, and he was desperate for her to tell me the truth about them. I think they both knew I’d found out they were sleeping together, and that I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the deal; so Alice just came right out with it, right there in the living room. Just exploded! I’d never seen her like that. Never. She told me what a sonofabitch I’d been and the reasons why she was going to run off with... him. All the while she was trashing the house, and I had to just stand there and take it. Well, almost—I did swing a baseball bat at the wall in frustration. But I knew everything she was saying was true. I also knew that I loved her. I-I’d just never known how to show it, that’s all.”
“So what happened next?”
“She screamed her piece and then stormed out. And I let her. I figured if the worst that happened was she left me, maybe it was time we both moved on. I had the deal, and she’d done her part in cultivating my image as a sound financial partner.”
“You used her all those years. She was your trophy, your pretty little prop. She dazzled the big cojones while you greased their palms. I don’t think I could possibly hate you any more right now.”
He leaned back on his stool, sensing I was about to hit him.
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