The Investigators, Inc. The Widow’s Case. Chapter 5. Swann and Cameras.

After filling the guys in on what has happened today, Melody called with information that I had requested about Blake Swann. Apparently he is a small time developer that basically buys cheap land and then hires contractors to build whatever he is looking to build at the time. Sometimes that is apartment buildings, or stores, small strip malls, houses large and small, restaurants and other things. Except for one little problem, most of the time he buys this cheap land it is never any good for larger projects so he hires contractors to build houses which he then sells for less than it cost him to build.

All this adds up to him having gone bankrupt 3 times and then starting over after moving to another part of the country. He is presently $500,000 in debt, which is not so bad, but that doesn’t include the money he has spent already on the land here, which is $200,000, plus the large house he has built for himself which cost him $800,000. When he moved here he had $1,500 in his bank account. How did he get all this money when he came here? Was he able to talk a bank into loaning him that kind of money?

However, he does own a cottage on the lake. That’s what Melody said at first anyway. Now, there are cottages on this lake and there are what people call cottages, and there is a big difference between the two. One is a typical cottage where a family comes to spend the summer. The other is a massive mansion where people come to spend one weekend a year. Swann owns one of those massive places, debt free. He also owns one of the largest boats on the lake, a yacht really, plus two smaller yachts which are still big.

Interestingly he hasn’t used any of this to secure loans and Melody couldn’t find any loans for him anywhere. He doesn’t have money, but he still spends large sums, so he must get it from somewhere. That means he is getting it from illegal means somewhere, but so far they haven’t discovered where he gets it. Perhaps he is not the main person in all of this, someone else might be, someone who likes to remain unknown.

Swann does have “friends”, so they are going to check on them next and Akila is going to try and hack into his phone or computer, or both. I wonder if those 4 men are here to watch Swann for that unknown man. And what is Swann’s connection to this gang? Melody had some information about the gang too, including the current leader. They are connected with a gang in the city and the top people of that gang are often in a particular nightclub owned by a man named Herbert Williams.

Swann is also a frequent visitor to that nightclub whenever he is in the city. The next morning after breakfast, Cristy called to tell us more. Akila was able to hack into the computer at the nightclub. She found a lot of information about the dealings between Swann and Williams. Although the nightclub is quite successful, the money it brings in is nothing compared to what is actually made by Williams. Plus he and Swann are partners with a 50/50 deal between them.

So, they both make $3 million, plus the money from the club. I sent photos of those four men to Melody last night and Cristy said they have no news on them yet, but she will let me know right away when they do. I rather think those men were sent to watch Swann which means that someone doesn’t trust him. Perhaps his partner? But why would he want to keep an eye on Swann? We went back over to Elenore’s next to see how things were going.

A ghost showed up again which was kind of odd, we found all the cameras in the house. “Obviously we missed some,” said Jazzy. “I second that thought,” said Misty. “You were in charge of that,” I reminded Misty. She stood there blinking at me. “There’s no way we missed any cameras,” she said confidently, “it must have been a real ghost.” “Misty, there are no ghosts,” I reminded her again. “Then what are they, chipmunks?!” she exclaimed. That got me and I started to laugh, and laugh.

Sky came over to Misty and put her finger on Misty’s arm while she watched. “AAAA!” said Misty as she jumped off the floor. “That wasn’t nice, Steve is the one laughing,” said Misty frowning. “You made the joke,” said Sky. Now I was laughing even more. Elenore saw the ghost in her bedroom and the girls, plus cats, have been searching her room since breakfast but have found nothing. “I’ll go look,” said Misty and she took Storm with her.

“Tiia, Tracker, Sir Night, go and help them please,” I said and off they ran. Kitty noticed someone running away from the house, so she looked out the window just as the guy jumped in a waiting car and it drove off. She told me about it and then went to the door and there was a package on the steps. “Take it away from the house, quickly!” I said. She grabbed it and Sky went with her out to the street. I asked Elenore if she was expecting anything, but she said no, so I called to the girls to destroy the package.

However, Sky had taken one of our scanners with her and checked the package and Azura sniffed it meowing there was no bomb inside. So, they opened it and there was an envelope inside with my name on it, however, they opened it anyway just in case there was something poisonous inside. It was a drawing of a man with a raven on his head and my name on the picture. They brought it in to me but I didn’t know what it meant, neither did anyone else.

So, for now I won’t worry about it, however, I will try to be more careful. Misty and the cats came back after finding more cameras. Kitty said they all went out for dinner last night and were gone for nearly 2 hours. Hmm, that would have given someone lots of time to put more cameras in here, so the girls and cats then began another thorough search of the house, but they didn’t find anything else. “That smoke detector is different,” said Friskie.

Sky jumped up and brought it down for us to look at. Sure enough there was a camera hidden in it, so then she checked the others and all had been changed with ones that had cameras. I called Cristy and asked about these cameras, so she asked me about them and it wasn’t long before she had an answer for me. The cameras were being controlled by a computer at Swann’s house. Well, well, it’s time we started to play this game too, and we will begin tonight, or sooner. “Let’s go pay a visit to Mr. Swann,” I said to Sky…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.