We checked into the hotel and while the girls got settled in to their rooms, I went directly to Ivy’s room and knocked on the door. Sky looked through the door and smiled at me, then let me in. “You really should open the door first,” I told Sky, “you might scare one of the workers sticking your head through the door like that.” “I knew it was you,” she said, “so there was no problem.” “But there might have been one of the hotel maids with me,” I said again. “You better not bring any maid in here with you darling,” said Ivy smiling.

“Ah, there you are my sweet,” I said. We then hugged and kissed just in case there was a camera in here. “We haven’t found any cameras,” said Ivy. “There must be at least one and probably two,” I said. Sky looked at me and took Azura into the bathroom. Sure enough, there was a camera in there, in the shower, tucked neatly into the shower tap. “Glad I didn’t shower yet,” said Ivy. I gave a tube of caulking to Sky and she promptly covered the camera. “There’s the other camera,” I said, “right in the mouth of that lion on the headboard.” Sky filled that spot also.

Meanwhile, “first we lose the sound, now we lose the cameras,” said a woman, “how did they figure we were watching them?” “I did a check on that Steve McCann,” said a man, “he’s the leader of an organization in Europe, all women, about 200 of them. Apparently he is very wealthy and is suspected of criminal involvement, but the police have not been able to get clear evidence against him. He is also good friends, apparently, with the leader of a criminal organization in Canada that has an estimated membership of around 500.” “That’s great news,” she said, “so what is he doing in the room with Ms. Peterson?”

“Obviously they must know each other,” said the man. “That was quite obvious,” she said, “that isn’t really what I meant. Why is he showing up right now? She must have called him and that is what I don’t like. I’m going home for the night, keep monitoring that thing and see if the sound returns at least. And have one of the maids put in a new listening device in the morning.” “Shall do Mrs. Winslow,” he said. Now, back to us again. The night went by quickly and in the morning Dawn, along with the remainder of her team, and Misty, with her team, arrived just in time for breakfast.

Sky’s team also arrived, but they are staying at the other hotel in town. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a restaurant, so they came to ours for breakfast. After breakfast our first stop was the local cemetery where Cristy discovered that Ivy’s parents and brother were buried, some 10 years ago! It was supposed to have been a gang related shooting, but Ivy told us her parents were not involved in anything criminal at any time. Besides, they were still alive just a week ago.

We arrived at the cemetery and some of the Black Wolves were already busy, Tim was using the backhoe we rented to dig up the graves which were clearly marked with grave stones. Shortly after we joined them, the cemetery caretaker came driving in quickly and came to a screeching stop just inches from me. “You can’t do that,” he yelled, “it’s against the law to dig up graves!” I didn’t even look at him, I just held up papers in front of his face. He took them to read. “Well, they do look in order I guess,” he said slowly.

I snapped them back from his hands. “Of course they are in order,” I said, still not looking at him, “if my girlfriend’s family are not in those graves, you could find yourself spending time in a state prison.” “What?!” he exclaimed, “It’s not my fault if someone buries the wrong people or marks the graves wrong.” “According to your contract, of which I have a copy,” I began, “it is your job to ensure that the right remains go into the correct graves, and stay there.” That’s when I finally looked directly at him. “Well, yeah, I guess it is,” he said, “but they were buried before I began working here.”

“Those are fresh graves,” I said, “not ten year old graves like it says on those gravestones. My girlfriend’s family were alive just a week ago. If it is her family’s bodies in those graves, then you could be arrested as an accessory to murder. If it is not her family, then you can still be arrested with tampering with graves and moving bodies without the express permission of Miss Peterson. Either way you will end up in prison.” His mouth was open at this point and he obviously didn’t know what to say.

The first casket was empty, the second had a man, but it wasn’t Ivy’s father or brother, the third had a woman, but not Ivy’s mother. The two people were recently killed, however, shot in the forehead. I told Tim to cover them up again. “Okay, where are my girlfriend’s family?” I asked. “Look, I don’t know anything,” he said “so stop asking me.” I shrugged, then the girls and I left for our next stop, the mayor’s office. Before we left I took the man’s phone and tossed it in the hole as Tim pushed a bunch of dirt back in.

We then left and the man was standing by his truck as he noticed the flat tires he had, all four of them. Sky had been busy! “I’m sorry sir, but the mayor is in an important meeting right now,” said the secretary, “so he won’t be able to see you until tomorrow.” She looked up at me and smiled. We just walked around her desk and into the mayor’s office. One of the counselors was with the mayor and they were laughing until we walked in. “This is private,” said the mayor gruffly. “Yes, it is,” I told him, “just you two and us.”

I then dropped a piece of paper on his desk with an address on it. “And what is this supposed to mean?” he asked. “That is the address of a house that my girlfriend owns here in your not so nice town.” I said, “Her parents owned it, but they were reported to have died, so the house and contents were left to Miss Peterson, their only daughter. She was at the house yesterday and found people living there, illegally, and told her to leave. They claimed to have lived there for 10 years, which is impossible since that was during the time my girlfriend was still living at home.”

“So what has this got to do with me?” he said, “You will have to go to court and try to have them removed, if she has legal claim to the house.” “Mayor, there are some strange things happening in this town,” I said, “that house belongs to Miss Peterson, and you know it. Your mayor’s salary isn’t very much, yet you deposit $10,000 each month into your bank account, on top of your salary.

This counselor here does a bit better, depositing $13,000 each month. The same goes for your police chief. However, your bank accounts are not here, but at a bank in London. Now, I want those people out of my girlfriend’s house, today, by 6pm and everything that belonged to my girlfriend’s parents had better still be in that house…”

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.