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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Before we left the Mayor’s office I added something else to our list of demands. “There is one other thing that could be done,” I said, “if those people really want to stay in that house, then they can pay Miss Peterson $500,000 for the house, in cash, tomorrow by 4pm. But the contents of the house will be kept by Miss Peterson since they hold great sentimental value to her. If the contents have been moved to storage, they can let us know and we will deal with them at our expense.
Also, if Miss Peterson’s family have gone missing or have been killed, then your police department should be tirelessly investigating. If those people are not out by 6pm today, well, we will just have to remove them ourselves.” “Look you,” said the Mayor, “you obey the law or you will find yourself enjoying the inside of one of our cells down at the police station!” I leaned on his desk and looked right at him. “And you will be in that cell with me Mayor,” I said smiling, “along with your friend here.
I’m quite sure the state police would be interested in knowing where you get all that money each month.” We then left them and went back to the hotel for lunch. “I hope you’re not pushing them too hard Steve,” said Ivy, “if it was me, I would likely hire someone to deal with you.” “Well, by now they should know how many people are in our organization,” I told her, “so that should slow down any thinking along those lines.
But, just in case, from now on, whenever we leave our room, we hold hands at all times. And if I’m not close by, make sure you hold hands with Sky or any of the other ghosts.” “I know they can’t be killed by a sniper,” she said, “but what about my loving boyfriend?” “I’ll be fine,” I said, “when it comes to bullets, they can’t do a thing to me, just like the ghosts.” She then looked at Sky. “Yes, that’s true,” she confirmed smiling.
Meanwhile, a hastily arranged meeting was taking place at the mayor’s office with him, the counselor, the police chief, Mrs. Winslow and the nightclub owner. “Obviously we can’t just ignore these people,” said the mayor, “but we can’t really stop them either. They have us beat.” “Well, we can’t let them have the house,” said Mrs. Winslow, “we have already converted it to our headquarters.” “And most of the contents were taken out to the local garbage dump,” said the counselor, “except that nice antique furniture, we each claimed some of that.”
“Gather all the furniture and put it in storage,” said Scott, the nightclub owner, “at least Miss Peterson will get that back, though I’m sure she was more concerned with some of the small items, like photos.” “What about the bodies?” asked Don, the counselor. “Where’s the Curator?” asked Mrs. Winslow, “He did the work, find out what he did with the bodies, then arrest him and hand him over to these people. Better to lose him than to lose our whole operation.” “Hmm, that just might work,” said Scott.
“There’s one little problem,” said the chief, “I told the Curator to take a vacation after the job and not to tell us where he went.” Everyone else groaned at hearing that news. “But he will be back in a week,” continued the chief, “we just need to stall these people for a while.” “No!” said Mrs. Winslow, “We don’t want these people staying here for another week. They will tear this town apart looking for Miss Peterson’s family.” “I agree with Terry, um, Mrs. Winslow,” said the mayor, “see if you can find out where the Curator might have gone.”
Now, back to us. “Do you really think those people will be out of my house by 6pm?” asked Ivy. “Uh, no, not really,” I said, “but we can easily throw them out.” “What if they meet us at the door with shotguns?” asked Ivy. “That’s why the ghosts will go first,” I said smiling. Just then Hannah called with some more information for us. Jazzy had given her a possible lead to check on and it led her to a group in New York City that calls itself, simply, “The City Club”.
They handle a large amount of drugs, sex trafficking, guns, gambling and money laundering. They apparently have 3 such towns that take care of different aspects of The City Club’s business. This town seems to be the one that handles their financial matters, so that at any time there would be millions of dollars stored in this town. Now I understand why they want Ivy’s family house, a very unassuming place to use for handling all this money, just in case any state or federal authorities decide to come snooping around.
All the more reason for getting that house back, and quickly. Around mid afternoon the police chief showed up at the hotel, disturbing my nap, and told us that the people in the house had rented a storage unit for the furniture. Unfortunately, they had thrown out all the smaller items in the house and there would be no way to retrieve those things now. I could see that really hit Ivy hard. He also told us about a man called the Curator who was wanted in connection with several murders but so far he has not been found.
“Mainly because you haven’t been looking for him,” I suggested, “or perhaps you told him to leave the town for a while. I don’t trust you chief, or any of your friends. But thank you for finding the furniture for us. By the way, those people only have 3 hours left to get out of the house.” “Look, I don’t want any trouble from you or your friends,” he said emphatically. “I don’t cause trouble,” I said, “unless others start it. If that happens, then I roar like a lion and crush everyone in my way.”
We arrived at the house just before 6pm and were met by a lawyer saying that the people in the house would not be leaving and he said it would be better for us to leave or the police would be called. I said it would be wise for him to stand aside or his oversized stomach might get sore. He looked somewhat puzzled, but he did get out of the way. Ivy stayed in the car while Sky, Angel, Dawn, Milena and myself went up to the door. As we walked the roar of motorcycles could be heard coming down the street…
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
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.
Steve`s Country 