Page 47 of Sharing Forever in Hope Creek (Hope Creek #2)

The residents of Hope Creek generally met at the pub each Saturday evening to catch up with each other, but that night—Friday—was the second successive night they’d come together.

The night before they’d gathered to see what assistance they could provide, tonight they’d come to celebrate Jack’s release and confirm the news stories about why the charges were dropped.

‘Okay, everyone. Thanks for turning up again tonight,’ Mitch told them.

‘He’s called another meeting so he can sell more beer,’ old Bill said. ‘You never had this many meetings when I was the publican here!’

Everyone laughed.

‘I think it’s costing him more than he’s making,’ Bob Lynch said. ‘Is there going to be another free bar tonight, Mitch?’

Jack stepped forward. ‘There will be, but it won’t be on Mitch this time, it’ll be on me.’

That statement was met by claps and cheers.

‘I asked you all here so I could thank you for the support you’ve shown me,’ Jack told them.

‘I was born in Brisbane, which some Aussies say is like a big country town, but we know that it’s a big city.

’ He shook his head. ‘I’d heard about community spirit but I didn’t understand what that meant until I met Callie and the Richardsons and listened to what Mitch had to say when he was singing the praises of living here.

‘Today …’ He stopped for a moment and looked at Callie, then he had to wipe the moisture from his eyes before he continued. ‘Today I asked Callie to be my wife.’

‘And I said yes!’ Callie shouted exuberantly from where she stood at his side.

There was a lot more clapping, peppered with shouts of ‘Congratulations’.

‘We’re going ahead with purchasing the vineyard once all the legal loose ends are tied up from Andrew Thompson’s estate, and we’re going to make our home here at the vineyard in Hope Creek.’

‘Yay!’ someone called out amid more cheers and claps.

‘That will keep Callie close to home and will mean that Hope Creek becomes my new home too,’ Jack told them.

Callie added, ‘It will also mean the vineyard keeps producing great wine and we continue to employ locals first and foremost so that you can supplement your income from your farms when times get tough.’

More jubilation followed Callie’s declaration.

Jack nodded to Mitch who then announced, ‘Even though it’s been all over the news, I’m going to call on Gary now to step forward and fill you in on the events of the last twenty-four hours since you met and provided evidence.’

Callie decided that Gary quite enjoyed the spotlight because he not only relayed the most recent events, but he went right back to Marcus Covington’s reason for disliking Jack and how he’d framed Jack.

Gary didn’t know how the police had received a tip-off that Covington had been involved, and that his girlfriend should be convinced to give evidence.

Callie’s secret was still safe.

‘So whoever it was who tipped off the police saved the day,’ someone surmised from the back of the room.

‘That gave us the big lead to look at Covington,’ Gary agreed, ‘but it was your witness statements placing him in Hope Creek—and Kade’s evidence of him emerging from the cottage—that threw weight behind the thinking he could be responsible.’

‘Isn’t that still all circumstantial evidence though?’ Liz asked.

‘Wait for it,’ Gary told them. ‘There are two drumroll moments …’

Callie could feel the collective holding of breath.

‘First … the forensic team had already dusted the cottage for prints, but once Jack’s lawyer told them to look into Marcus Covington, they were able to match a couple of partial prints to his.’

‘Fantastic!’ was only one of the expletives that carried amid all the sounds of astonishment.

‘So, Kade, take a bow,’ Gary said, ‘because you were the one who pointed the detectives in the direction of the cottage.’

Kade literally took a bow and everyone laughed.

‘If we had a spotlight here,’ Gary continued, ‘I’d be asking for it to be directed to the president of our Country Women’s Association because Margaret Richardson is also a real angel of the hour.’

Margaret’s hand flew to her chest and her cheeks coloured as she realised every eye was trained upon her. ‘Me? I don’t understand. What did I do?’

‘You made me a great corned beef sandwich when Gary and Rick here wouldn’t let me have breakfast before they hauled me off to the police station,’ Jack joked.

‘Hey! No hard feelings, Jack.’ Gary laughed as he put his hands up in the air in mock surrender.

‘No hard feelings,’ Jack confirmed.

‘Is that it?’ Mavis’s nose was scrunched up in disappointment. ‘I thought you were serious about Margaret helping.’

‘I was serious,’ Gary said. ‘Margaret, do you remember when Detectives Fahey and Marr arrived at the homestead and had a warrant to search Jack’s hire car?’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Do you remember how wet the ground was?’

‘Oh yes. I felt dreadful.’ She looked around the room, pulling an apologetic face.

‘I’m normally so careful. Here we are on tank water and I’d gone inside when I heard the thump from Callie collapsing, and I hadn’t turned the tap off properly.

There were puddles everywhere. The whole ground was soaked. ’

‘Well, we’re actually thanking you because that water created mud,’ Gary said.

‘Marcus Covington stepped into that mud when he came in the middle of the night to leave the shirt he’d worn while he’d killed Andrew Thompson—Jack’s shirt—in Jack’s car where we’d find it.

He got mud on his shoes and forensics have been able to identify the soil sample as coming from the side of your home, so they know conclusively that he was there. ’

‘Oh my!’ Margaret beamed at Jack when he hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

‘He had no reason to be at the homestead, so that evidence is compelling.’

‘Wow!’ Bob Lynch’s voice carried over the other comments of incredulity.

‘That, coupled with the partial prints placing Covington at the cottage, has helped force his confession,’ Rick explained.

Gary cleared his throat and muttered, ‘Although, there was a bit of extra weight applied to persuade him to cooperate.’

Liz wasn’t going to let him get away with that aside. ‘Which was?’

‘Well …’ Although Gary shifted on his feet, he was clearly proud of the work the police force had done and he was loving relaying every detail of the investigation to the community.

‘Initially Covington was denying everything and refused to cooperate. Then, Detective Fahey pointed out that it was Covington’s interference that brought the whole Ponzi scheme crashing down.

If he hadn’t sent that text to Jack, nobody would’ve been any the wiser—well, not at this point, anyway.

She told Covington that the crime bosses would have a mark on his back.

He’s been to prison before so she didn’t need to spell out to him what that would mean. ’

‘But the scheme would’ve crashed down anyway when Jack bought the vineyard, because he certainly wouldn’t have participated in it,’ Morgan reasoned.

‘We don’t think the crime family would ever have allowed Jack to buy it,’ Rick said. ‘We think they had a buyer lined up who was going to perpetuate the scam.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘This is all too complicated for me. I’m glad you police officers know what you’re doing.’

Gary continued. ‘Long story short, Detective Fahey presented Covington with the evidence they had and she promised him she’d do her best to get him into a prison where he’d be more secure from the reaches of the crime family, and then he confessed.

‘He admitted to his hatred of Jack and said when he saw Jack at the vineyard and found out from Thompson that Jack was interested in buying the place, he came up with his elaborate scheme. It was just as some of you had pieced together.’ Gary looked at Mitch and Morgan because they had both developed amazingly accurate ideas of how things had happened.

‘He sent the message knowing Jack would confront Thompson directly, and he was certain Jack would see Thompson at the first opportunity—on the Monday. Of course, he hadn’t figured that Jack would be overheard telling Thompson off, so that played nicely into his hands. ’

Jack squeezed Callie’s hand. ‘Last time I confront a criminal directly.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she replied.

‘Covington called Thompson and told him he had the money he owed him and that he’d meet him later in the winery,’ Gary continued.

‘As you know, he’d already got the tyre jack and the shirt.

So, he lay in wait for Thompson to leave the office and he slipped in and planted the letter in the drawer that implicated Jack in the Ponzi scheme.

Then he doubled back to the cellar room, ambushed Thompson and hit him over the head, then disposed of the tyre jack and came here to stash the shirt. ’

‘Case closed,’ Rick said with satisfaction as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ Margaret surmised.

‘One thing I’m not clear on,’ Jack said.

‘I know Marcus sent the text and why, but if he wasn’t involved in the Ponzi scheme at all, how did he know about Mark Ainsley being one of the investors and being dissatisfied about the length of time it had taken to get his money released?

That was the information he sent to me anonymously. ’

‘Pure chance,’ Gary said. ‘Apparently Covington bumped into Ainsley at a hotel in Melbourne one night and Ainsley was voicing uncertainties about the wine investment business Thompson was running. Covington suspected what was going on and he initially tried to blackmail Thompson, saying that he’d blow the whole thing apart if Thompson didn’t let him off the loan.

But Thompson wasn’t having a bar of it and told Covington that if he didn’t pay by the end of the month, he’d be telling the crime boss he worked for that Covington had been making threats. ’

‘Any idea which crime organisation is behind the whole operation being run out of the vineyard?’ Connor asked.