“I heard about Nigel’s passing,” Tate said. “Who’s in charge now?”
“His son, Hamilton.”
“Hamilton...don’t think I ever met him. I didn’t know the Hoopers had any children.”
“He left town a couple of years before you were born. He was estranged from his father, left town thirty years ago, when he was only eighteen. Word is, he was gay, and his father couldn’t accept it. When he left, his family never spoke of him again. He went out to Hollywood, apparently tried to make it in acting and failed, worked as a bartender. He’d kept in touch with his mother, and when Nigel died, she begged him to come back to town and take over the store. He’s only been back in town a few weeks. She can’t do much on her own these days; she’s got Alzheimer’s.”
Loch nodded toward a lean, handsome man who looked much younger than his forty-eight years with wavy hair and the distinct Hooper bump in his nose. For Hamilton to look that young, Tate was willing to bet he’d had some work done on his face. Typical for an actor from California, Tate imagined.
“What’s your impression of him?” Tate asked, watching Hamilton flirt with a pretty brunette in a tank top and jeans. “Gay, is he? Seems kind of like a lady’s man to me.”
“He’s both. From what I’m hearing, he’s plenty friendly with both men and women. He likes attention. He’s not really taking too well to running the jewelry store. Doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
At Tate’s questioning glance, he added, “He’s a suspect like everybody else. He doesn’t have any significant criminal record, a couple of arrests for public solicitation, about twenty years ago. The Hoopers have insisted that we search their homes to verify that the tiara isn’t there. That doesn’t really mean anything, of course. They’d have to be complete fools to hide something like that in their own home. Nigel’s widow says she was home alone since seven p.m. The neighbors are pretty sure that’s true. Also, when I talked to her today, it’s pretty clear that her dementia’s getting more and more advanced. Hamilton says that he was home last night as well, with a young man, whom he declines to name given the fact that this is a small town and not everybody’s open-minded here. He’s not living with his mother. He’s renting a house over on Meadowlark Lane.”
“What about the Sinclairs?” Tate asked with distaste. The Sinclairs, a wealthy and powerful pack from a county north of theirs, weren’t particularly popular in Blue Moon County, or in Tate’s county, either. Tate currently had even more reason than usual to dislike them. He’d been fighting a running battle to keep one of the Sinclair boys, a notorious high school Lothario, away from his eighteen-year-old sister, Megan.
The Sinclairs had been angling for years to get Loch to propose to a member of their pack, Portia Sinclair, because it would result in a powerful political alliance. The Sinclair family was wealthy, and Loch’s family was popular. Portia had taken to the idea wholeheartedly; she had been so infatuated with Loch that she’d moved to Blue Moon Junction and gotten a job at the sheriff’s department to be closer to him.
Tate knew that when Loch had rejected Portia and instead proposed to Ginger, relations between the two families had chilled to sub-Arctic levels.
Loch grimaced. “They’re on my list. That’s political dynamite, of course. When I asked Quincy to give me a list of where all of their family had been, he and Aurora both blew their tops and threatened to sue, threatened all kinds of things. I stood my ground, and Quincy backed down the way he always does. Honestly, I wish I didn’t have to invite them to the wedding.”
“You didn’t have to.” Tate’s lip curled in contempt.
Loch shook his head. “You know how it is with an Alpha’s wedding. I invited the Alpha of every pack in Florida, and their immediate family, to the wedding and the after-party. If I left out only the Sinclairs, it would practically be a declaration of war.”
The after-party was being held in a meadow outside of town. Hundreds of tents had already been pitched. There were a half-dozen bands, there would be roast boar and deer and pig every night, and thousands of shifters would be partying like it was 1999.
Tate nodded. “So, when was the last time that anyone saw the tiara?”