Kat and I returned to our hotel room and decided it was time to assess exactly where we were in our investigation. First, exactly why were we here? Mrs. Anita Sinclair. She was paying us to discover who had been blackmailing her for the past thirty years.
Things had then moved on quickly.
So now we tried to concentrate on a third person. We came to a conclusion that there were two different murderers, as Kat had suggested, and that it was very possible that Chas Baker and Gary Smith killed Nick’s friend from the law firm. We figured perhaps that the third person was the true blackmailer. Maybe he paid Baker a large amount of money every month to retrieve an envelope addressed to the non-existent post office box in Hawaii, and he gave it to Smith who in return gave it somehow to the mystery third person. The more we talked about it, the more feasible it became.
Perhaps the two wanted more money, and possibly the drop-off point was not directly to the head guy of the crime, but was left in some hidden place. Maybe it was a locker at the bus station, or airport, or maybe even a trash container. It happens in the movies. And when the one who dropped it off was out of sight, the blackmailer retrieved it.
We were thinking that perchance the two came together out of curiosity, and hid after dropping the envelope off where they wouldn’t be seen. Then, when the culprit collected the money, the two approached him, demanding more cash. After all, they were the ones taking the greater risk of being arrested. It was like a double blackmail situation that might have caused their deaths.
Maybe the third person agreed and paid more, and over a period of time the two kept demanding more and more payoffs. The third party, whoever it might be, got tired of being threatened so planned a meeting on the Big Island with all three of them, knowing he would be the only who would return.