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Logan stood up. “Listening to people complain is terrible enough without having to deal with it for forty years. I’ll let you know what I find in Ms. Lockhart’s house. I have some free time this afternoon so I can start right away. I’ll drag Kinsey along with me. The kids have a birthday party to attend. It’s free babysitting for three hours.”
Kinsey pumped her fist in the air. “It’s the little things that parents appreciate the most. Free babysitting is a perk you don’t get every day, but you learn to take advantage of it.”
“Free babysitting,” Brogan muttered with a grin. “Who knew? We’ll be home all evening if you need to text us about anything interesting.”
“Will do,” Logan promised. “Good luck with the investigation.”
“Thanks. We’ll probably need it.” Before turning to go, she thought of something else. “Any chance you’ve ever heard of a surfer called Zephyr?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar,” Logan said. “Wally Pierce would know. He’s been surfing around these parts since he was old enough to walk.”
“Then I guess it looks like Wally’s next on the list.”
3
Brogan met Lucien on the stairway as she exited the loft. He headed up to the second level while she headed down. “Did you find anything?”
Lucien patted a backpack containing his haul. “Maps. Photos. And an old census of everyone living here from 1970 to 1980. How about you? Any luck?”
“Oh, yeah.” She caught him up on Lockhart’s will and who received the inheritance. “Both Kinsey and Logan were very helpful with all of it, especially since they offered to go through the house without tipping off the neighbors.”
“Not a bad plan,” Lucien said as he opened the truck door for Brogan. “Anything else?”
She told him about Megan Donnelly and the man who killed her. “Logan insists he’s not our guy. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least look Knudsen up on the Internet. Logan’s done a lot of research on this guy and says Knudsen was a kid in boarding school back east in August 1978.”
“Wow. I didn’t even know Logan had a sister. Why have I never heard about this serial killer before today?”
“Good question. The town obviously doesn’t like to dwell on what happened. Look, I think we should ask Wally about Zephyr. So far, everyone we’ve spoken to doesn’t know who we’re talking about. We don’t need to bring Scott into the mix. But there are a lot of newcomers who live here like us. We need someone who’s been around a while. Wally has lived here his entire life.”
“Like Brent, who lives in the house that used to belong to his grandmother.”
“Which means Ethan might hold valuable information, too. Ethan worked in the area around Pelican Pointe when he was a deputy. I read that on his book jacket cover. Anyway, he might recognize the nickname.”
“Our list grows ever longer. It’s only Day One.”
“Before we’re done, we’ll probably need to speak to everyone in town.”
Lucien drove down Ocean Street and took a right onto Beach. He pulled into Wally’s Pump N Go, the only gas station in town. Wally, a mechanic by trade, serviced and repaired almost any make or model vehicle. An assortment of cars lined the parking lot on the auto repair side.
While Wally worked on engines, his wife, Lilly, ran the office and kept the books. It was a family business handed down from father to son.
Lilly was busy hanging Halloween decorations. The office looked like an explosion of orange and black pumpkins and witches. “Hey, how’s it going? Car trouble?”
“No, not this time,” Lucien replied. “We need to talk to Wally if it’s convenient.”
“Sure. Why don’t you wait here? I’ll go get him. He’s working on Marley’s International Harvester. That usually means he’s immersed in every detail as he puts the engine back together.”
“That’s why we didn’t want to poke our heads into the garage and bother him,” Brogan explained.
Lilly waved a hand. “He’s used to it. People stop by all the time and interrupt his work. He could talk cars for hours with a lamppost. That’s my Wally.”
She stuck her head into the garage and hollered, “Wally, Lucien and Brogan need a word.”
“Be there in a sec,” Wally yelled back.
A minute later, the forty-something man with dark hair entered the office, wiping his hands on a rag. “What can I do for you?”
“We know you’re the best surfer in town,” Lucien began.
