Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
I’d hoped I’d get my car back today, but I’d heard nothing from the police, and neither had my lawyer. On one hand, no news was good news, but on the other… Well, it wasn’t always good news, was it?
I needed to do something. I hadn’t slept well again last night, and despite the exhaustion that was slowly creeping over my body, I had the urge to be productive.
The ceramics club last night had given us a starting point. Well, four starting points, if I wanted to be technical about it. I didn’t know any of these people. Alan and Stephanie’s names rang a bell, but only because I’d read about them in the articles that had been published about his shady business practices.
Ash had texted me everyone’s full names last night so we wouldn’t forget them. The last thing we wanted to do was alert anyone to our sleuthing activities, and I had the sneaking suspicion that Gwen, Viv, Barb, and Betty would try to get involved if we did.
They were much better as the gossipmongers on the peripheral of it all.
That was probably where I’d be best, too.
I was going to start with some research. We had Guy Quinn, one of the leaders of the committee in charge of selling off the old secondary school land. If he’d butted heads with Tierney, then chances were, he was fully on-side with the caravan park company.
Because that was what Fox Point needed.
Another holiday park.
The two thousand that already existed around here weren’t enough, clearly.
Michael Swann was known to everyone in and around Fox Point. Swann Farm was on the outskirts of town, and the Swanns owned a ton of land, including a successful petting zoo that was open from April through October. From what I remembered Grandpa telling me, they were stinking rich until the markets crashed in 2008 and they had to sell off a portion of their land. I could only assume that was what they’d had issues over.
Alan Sumpter was Declan’s business partner at Tierney Construction Ltd. If it was true that he wanted out because of the legal issues the company was facing, then I couldn’t blame him. Not getting his fair share of what he was owed was definitely a strike against him.
And Stephanie Tierney.
Not to be stereotypical, but statistically, the romantic partner was the most likely one to be at fault. They clearly didn’t have a happy marriage—Gwen said they were divorcing, and it was shaping up to be a huge battle over their assets. She definitely stood to gain a hell of a lot more with Declan dead if he was trying to fight what she was owed, but I didn’t want to typecast her as a bitter estranged wife without knowing more.
That sounded like the kind of thing the Fox Point police would do. Home in on someone just because it seemed like it was the right thing, proof or no proof.
No. I wasn’t bitter. Not at all.
Ahem.
Alan and Stephanie had the clearest immediate motives, so I was going to start at the bottom: with Guy Quinn and Michael Swann. I knew the police would look at Alan and Stephanie first, if they ever gave up on me, and Ash had already said she might be able to bribe information out of Noah.
Unlikely, but not impossible, she’d said.
I also knew the least about Guy and Michael, so I started with a basic Google search.
I typed in Guy’s full name and only got one hit, so I added in the old secondary school’s name and tried again, this time getting tons of hits.
Bingo.
OLD SCHOOL LAND IN HIGH DEMAND
When the old secondary school closed nine years ago and students were moved to the new site closer to town, residents of Fox Point wondered what would become of the huge space it occupied.
After many years of discussion, the Fox Point Council’s planning department formed a committee to oversee the sale and development of the land. Companies and individuals were invited to visit and submit their plans for the space, and they were warned that plans favoured would be ones that served the local community.
Eighteen months ago, three applicants were told they’d made it to the final round of consideration: Declan Tierney and Alan Sumpter, owners of Tierney Construction Ltd; Whitmarsh Holiday Park Group; and Charles de Lorenzo, an independent bidder.
Despite having the most popular bid amongst the locals, Mr de Lorenzo withdrew from the running within weeks. It was suspected that Declan Tierney, most famous for constructing new-build estates with numerous issues, had paid him a large sum to back off. Both de Lorenzo and Tierney deny such claims, with the latter threatening legal action against those who continued to claim it as fact.
The committee assigned to the development have yet failed to reach a decision, being split almost exactly in half.