Matty had just poured a cup of tea and sat down, when her cellphone rang.
She check the caller ID.
"I'll be damned."
She accepted the call.
"You must be psychic."
Nina laughed.
"Well hello to you too, Matty."
"I was just about to call you. I just sat down with a cup of tea."
"You? Tea?" Nina laughed.
"Well, you gotta mix it up, girl."
Matty sipped her tea.
"So what's up?"
"Nick told me all about the shit that went down earlier this week. I tried calling you every day, but the calls went straight to voice mail. Nick told me to leave you guys alone until things got straightened out."
"I'm sorry about that, love, but it has been a real shit-storm here for the last week. We have seen more police here in the last week than I have seen in my entire life. And we are still in the middle of all this, with no end in sight."
"So how are you doing, sweetie? Nick told me that two men broke into your house?"
Matty laughed slightly.
"Well, lets just say they came in, uninvited. One got a little rough with me, but Nanny Dove looked after him."
Nina laughed.
"Nick says the guy is under watch at the local nut house."
"I know," Matty gasped, putting her hand on her chest.
"He claimed to have seen a ghost."
"What?" Nina shrieked.
"A ghost in Tuckamore Bay? So Nanny Dove gave him the screws?"
Matty looked over at her grandmother, who was in her rocking chair.
"Yea. She is my hero, for sure."
"Tells Nina, I says hi."
"Nanny Dove says hi."
"Blow her a kiss for me."
Matty did so and went back to her conversation.
"Everything is pretty much back to normal, except for Henry. We are all still a little worried about him."
"Well Nick says he is doing okay. He says he will let him come home this weekend, if things continue as they are."
"Yea, they are setting up one of those hospital beds in his bedroom today, I believe. Harriette and Mable will look after him."
"Well I just hope he recovers from this."
"I am sure he will be okay."
Matty sipped her tea.
"I don't mean to change the subject here, love, but I need your help."
"Of course, if I can. What do you need?"
"Do you have any contacts in the Premiers office?"
"Not in the Premier's office directly, but the Deputy Premier's assistant is an old friend of mine. It might be a roundabout way to get to the Premier, but it still might work.
Why do you need to get hold of the Premier?
Anything to do with Parsons?"
"Yea. I need to talk to Premier Best. According to Simon Hirst, he has been in contact with the Premier ever since he learned that Tuckamore Bay was slated for relocation. The original documents that he presented to us were from the Premier's office, but since Calvin Parsons has been involved, I have a distinct feeling that there is some underhanded shit going on here."
"You don't think Best was involved in this, do you?"
Matty took a deep breath.
"I don't know for sure. He may have been an unwilling participant, in the beginning, even to a point where he innocently agreed to sell the Bay to Hirst, not knowing the whole truth behind Hirst's intention and certainly not knowing that Calvin Parsons was involved. I believe that Hirst's involvement in all of this is just a smokescreen, created by Parsons. I think it is Parsons and a group of his investors that are the ones really interested in the Bay.
I think they are just using Hirst's as the patsy and once they have the Bay, they were planning to push him out of the picture."
Nina went silent for a second.
"That makes sense.
Parsons could not show any interest in the Bay, because of conflict of interest, considering his position in the government. So, until he was sure Tuckamore Bay was his, he had to stay out of the picture.
That is why he switched all correspondence to outside emails and burner phones."
Matty laughed.
"But we are hoping that Hirst was not so smart.
He wants this all kept quiet."
"How the fuck is that going to happen?"
"Well, we haven't officially pressed any charges against Hirst, just the idiots he brought with him. Hirst is willing to negotiate with us, to keep this thing out of the news, because it would destroy his reputation."
Nina laughed.
"All it would take is a single post from someone in the Bay, Matty and it could go viral. Then it wouldn't matter if you pressed charges or not."
"No," Matty assured her.
"We have control of the Bay. My husband has control of the cell towers here and he can shut down the signal, whenever he wants. Its one of the quirks of owning the village, but that will never happen. You know how tight this village is."
"So what happens if you drop all the charges against Hirst?"
"Oh he is going to pay, big time. I have a proposal drawn up. I just have to run it by Bill, before I present it to Hirst's lawyer. There is a huge compensation to be paid, plus we get everything he has on Tuckamore Bay."
"But if you drop charges against Hirst, won't that make it harder to get to Parsons?"
"No. We have a ton of documentation that we have compiled on our own, including information that Frank Pittman has accumulated. With what we hope we get from Hirst, we will have enough incriminating evidence to get to Parsons."
"But won't Parsons still be able to drag Hirst into this?"
Matty laughed.
"That is not our problem is it. We are banking on the fact that Hirst will be so intent on clearing his own name, that he won't be expecting Parsons to drag him back."
"But won't Hirst's lawyer be smart enough to see the possible future ramifications of what he is doing or what you and the Bay could still do?"
"His lawyer is a fucking moron. Of course, there is a chance that Hirst might come to his senses and that is why we have to keep the pressure on him and get this proposal agreed by him. There is no where in the agreement that exempts him from future prosecution through another source. It just guarantees that we will not directly charge him with any offences incurred from the October 5th incident in the Bay.
And that is all."
Matty laughed.
"Outside of that.
Well.
That's his fucking problem. Right now we have his balls in a vice and we need to squeeze as soon as possible."
"So why do you need to see the Premier?"
"I want to try and get the Premier here, so that we can talk with him privately and present our findings to him. Premier Best seems to be a good man and he is honestly trying to do what is best for the province. We don't want him to be dragged through the mud because of this."
"But how do you expect to get him out there?"
"We just accepted a huge contract from the Newfoundland Tourism Department, to do all kinds of fabrication work in Gros Morne Park. And we have another contract with the United Church. Since Best is UC, I think we can get him here under the pretence of witnessing the UC contract and signing the Tourism contract. It would make for good publicity.
We will set up with him to spend the day and night here in the Bay. We will set up some kind of celebration and have a traditional Newfie jiggs dinner or lobster boil or something.
That night, Bill and I will meet with him privately and show him what we have."
"Wow."
Nina let out a long sigh.
"It all sounds a little risky to me, Matty. So much can go wrong."
"That's why we have to act fast, Nina. That's why I need to get to the Premier."
"Okay, Matty.
Let me make some calls. I can't promise anything today, but I will do my best."
"That's all I can ask Nina. And thank you so much."
"Hey, love. Tuckamore Bay is my home too, now. And Colin can't wait to come back out there. He loves the place and it is so good for him there."
"Well hopefully we will see you in a week or so."
"Might be a couple weeks, love. We are trying to fast track this thing so we can move. Nick says the Bay needs him there, even if we have to stay in the motel for a month or so.
We just want to get there."
"Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. Bill has hired another crew to work on your place. He wants you guys here too."
Nina let out a little shriek.
"Thats amazing, Matty. Thank you."
"Get me a call with the Premier and that will be the best thank you that you could get me."
"I'll get right on it, boss."
"Thank you Nina. Talk soon."
Matty ended the call.
"Youse bes troubled, Matty. I senses mistrust."
Matty took a deep breath.
"Just a feeling, Nanny. I hope I am wrong."
"You tinks Nina mite not bes ..."
Matty cut her grandmother off.
"No. No. Not at all, but I am beginning to believe that I cannot trust many others."