A Body on Fitzgerald's Bluff

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “It’s okay, girl,” I whispered, reaching down to pat her. That set her tail wagging again and put a big doggy smile back on her face.

  Midge donned a wicked grin. Then she arched an eyebrow, devilishly, and her brown eyes sparkled. The smile lit up her face ringed by hair that looks like gold-tinged cotton candy. Tormenting the local Sheriff’s deputy is one of her favorite pastimes. I’d already witnessed her in action several times. Deputy Devers was no doubt protesting her use of the nickname she has for him. It drives him nuts.

  “Why do you call him Deputy Dervish?” I’d asked shortly after I moved in and witnessed my first round of the ongoing sparring match between Midge and the deputy.

  “You’ll find out soon enough. He’s a dirt devil, whirling like a dervish, and stirring up trouble wherever he goes. Ask anyone in Duneville Downs. They’ll tell you what a pompous, snot-nosed, no good, troublemaker he is. Not to mention he’s ageist, sexist, and every other ‘ist’ ever invented.” That had been Neely Conrad speaking. Neely is short for Cornelia Conrad.

  “Now tell us what you really think. Come on! Don’t hold back,” Midge had said, hoping Neely would continue her rant. Then Midge had offered input of her own about the deputy. “The good thing about all the ‘ists’ is that it makes him easy to fool. The daffy old dame routine works every time. If you get in a fix, just stand there looking helpless and confused and he’ll let it go with a ‘Women!’ or a ‘Save me from screwy old broads!’ statement.”

  I hadn’t seen the plump, bespectacled Neely yet today. That isn’t too surprising given that she’s a self-proclaimed night owl. “Nothing good happens before noon,” she’d said when Midge and a couple other women in the Walkers Club had tried to get her to join them for their morning walks.

  An occupant of the Christie Cottage, Neely, loves to read about murder and mayhem into the wee hours of the night. She’s not a dog owner, either. Domino would never let me sleep in even if I had stayed up half the night to finish a book.

  When Midge spoke again, I hoped it meant she was ready to end the torment and get on with the business at hand. Dirty business, I presume. It’s not likely the young, attractive woman we’d found had died from natural causes.

  “Look Deputy, I didn’t call you to argue. We’ve got a dead body on our hands.” She paused. “No, it’s not one of us,” Midge said a moment later, rolling her eyes. Then she abruptly quit speaking, put a hand on her hip, and tapped her foot. “Yes, I’m sure. This one’s lying behind a bluff down below the Fitzgerald Cottage. A good-looking blonde. Young, too.” Midge turned to look at me as she listened to the voice on the other end.

  “How do we know what killed her? That’s why we called the police!” The deputy must have finally gotten the message. “Uh-huh. Sure. We’re in the Clubhouse.” With that, she hung up the phone and reported to us.

  “We’ve been warned not to go anywhere. Dudley D0-Wrong is on his way.” Deputy Dervish obviously isn’t Midge’s only misnomer for the local lawman. I haven’t witnessed her lampoon the name of Canadian Mountie Dudley Do-Right to irritate the deputy, but I can imagine steam coming out of his ears like a cartoon character! “It won’t be long since he was out on the highway arranging to have an abandoned vehicle towed.”

  Midge had barely finished updating us when Neely stumbled into the Clubhouse. It appeared as if she’d thrown on a jacket over her pajamas. She wore slippers and her hair needed to be combed. She scanned the room, looking at each of us before spotting Charly. Even with glasses, Neely’s distance vision isn’t great.

  “Charly, what’s going on?” She asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to the phone in time when you called.”

  “Not even the second time,” Charly said interrupting her. “I take it you did get my voicemail message.”

  “Yes. I got here as soon as I could. What’s this about finding a body?”

  “What?” A woman cried out after bursting through the doors. Another resident I recognized strode into the Clubhouse moving quickly on a collision course with Neely. It’s as if she hit an invisible force field when she heard the word “body,” coming up short before running over Neely. Then she looked Neely up and down, zeroing in on her fluffy bedroom slippers with a look of disgust. “What body? Not here in our community, right? Greta’s got an open house scheduled for today!”

  Even if I hadn’t been able to see her, I would have known by the shrill tone of her shrieking voice that it was Alyssa Gardener speaking, half of “The Gardeners.” She and her husband, Alfred, love calling themselves that given the prize-winning orchids they raise in a greenhouse behind the Potter Cottage. That’s not Potter as in Harry Potter, but Beatrix Potter, the beloved writer of Peter Rabbit and other children’s stories. Their “Potter’s Shed,” as they call the greenhouse, is a destination on Greta Bishop’s real estate tours with potential homebuyers.

  Whoever said gardening was a relaxing hobby sure got it wrong in Alyssa’s case. She’s the biggest worrywart I’ve ever met. Even her husband, who prefers to be called Alf, had given up trying to get her to cool it when her hair is on fire. The long-suffering man was at his wife’s side in an instant. Like the tortoise and the hare, Alf was often a few strides behind his more frenetic spouse.

  A panicky harangue might have been in store for us, except that a series of soft gongs sounded. Chef Tony’s breakfast buffet was open. Most days, I prefer making my own breakfast and eating it on the front porch while taking in my view of the Pacific Ocean. It saves money. Chef Tony is a great cook, though, and many 0f the six hundred or so community members enjoy dining in the Dunes Club more often than I do.

  That’s especially true for golfers with an early tee time. The Seaview Cottages Dunes Course is now a public course. Opening the course to the public was a measure taken to cover the costs associated with its upkeep. It also brings townspeople and tourists to the restaurant. Hungry diners had begun streaming in the moment the restaurant opened as if someone had rung an old triangle chow bell outdoors.

  “We’d better go eat, dear, so we don’t keep Greta waiting,” Alf said, speaking in a calm even-handed tone to his wife, Alyssa. “Can someone fill us in on what’s going on?”

  “Come on, amigo, it’s time to eat.” Carl seemed hesitant, but Joe slapped him on the back. “The ladies will catch us up later, won’t you?” Midge opened her mouth to speak, probably with some smart aleck retort about his reference to “the ladies.” She put a lid on it, though, when the Clubhouse door opened again, and a police siren could be heard growing louder by the second.

  “Come on Alyssa, we’ll tell you what’s happened so far,” Carl offered. Alf nodded, and a look of relief spread across his face as Alyssa stepped toward the dining room.

  “Please keep it down, will you?” Alyssa snipped. “All we need in this community is for word to get out that people are dropping dead here.”

  “It’s not one of us,” Carl said. He also said something else that I couldn’t hear, but Alyssa did.

  “A murder?” She asked in a loud, alarmed voice. A foursome of golfers turned and gazed at her.

  “So much for hush-hush,” I muttered as she and the men with her disappeared around the corner and down the corridor to the dining room.

  “Yeah, I’d say we’re all in for more attention like that until this dead body thing gets sorted out,” Neely said as she joined Midge, Marty, and me where we stood near the reception desk. “I probably shouldn’t run around in my pajamas, should I?” She asked.

  “It’s too late to go home and change now. You need to stick around to get the details about what’s going on,” Marty said as the door swung open and Deputy Devers stormed into the lobby. He spotted us and swaggered our way with one hand on his holstered gun as if he might need to draw on us.

  “The cavalry has arrived. Try not to swoon, ladies,” Midge commented in a low voice drenched in sarcasm.

  “Brace yourselves for Deputy Devers’ version of the third degree since you found the body,” Charly a
dded. She gripped Emily tighter as the little dog squirmed.

  Great! I thought as I let out an enormous sigh. More attention is just what I don’t need. I did a quick reality check—something I’d done many times in the past year, trying to keep myself centered in a world spinning out of control around me. I heaved a mighty sigh. At least I’m still alive, unlike the poor dead woman on the bluff.

  2 What Body?

  “Where is it?” Deputy Devers asked.

  “It was right down there!” Midge exclaimed. Several of us scanned the area below from a vantage point up above the rolling dunes. The trail we were on leads from the overlook where our cottages sit, over the roadway via a small pedestrian bridge, and then down, around, and through a network of smaller bluffs and seaside dunes. It ends at the beach and the blue Pacific Ocean.

  “Great! You find a dead body, and then you lose it. Why am I not surprised?” The ever-exasperated deputy took his cap off and wiped his face and then his bald head with a handkerchief. The exertion of walking from the Clubhouse, along the pathways that lead out the gates, and down to the bluffs was getting to him.

  “You need to get out from behind the wheel of your patrol car more often if you want to keep up with us active adults.” Midge’s comment drew a grunt from Deputy Devers who, consciously or not, had put his hand back on the holstered gun at his side.

  I couldn’t see a body anywhere as we moved on down the trail that led around another mound of dunes. I checked behind each hillock as we wound our way past it, thinking maybe in our shock and confusion, our memories were failing us. Even when we passed Fitzgerald’s Bluff, we didn’t see a body and kept moving.

  A little farther down in front of us, the path widened revealing a view of the beach and foamy waves sliding ashore. That’s when I spotted tracks in the sand as if something had been dragged toward the water. I stopped and held both arms outstretched realizing that if we kept moving, we’d tread on those marks, but there must have been footprints earlier. I couldn’t see any now. The rising tide or a deliberate attempt to erase them left no obvious prints in the sand.

  I pointed them out to my companions and explained what I thought they were. Domino tugged on her leash trying to take me back to a spot we’d just passed. I gave in and backtracked to the hillock we all referred to as Fitzgerald’s Bluff which is where I would have sworn we’d seen that body earlier. I checked again. It wasn’t there now. Deputy Devers was still farther up the trail and on his satellite phone bellowing.

  “Cancel the call you put into the County. We’re not going to need anyone out here at ‘See-nothing Cottages’ after all. There’s no body.” He paused, apparently listening to the dispatcher. “What do you mean ‘another one?’ I’m telling you there’s not one here. Divert the crime lab guys to Blue Haven.”

  “That must be where our body went,” Charly said loud enough for Deputy Devers to hear. Emily yipped excitedly as if in agreement.

  Neely stood next to me shaking one foot trying to get the sand out of her slipper. When that didn’t work, she grabbed my arm to steady herself, bent down, and took that slipper off. Sand streamed from it as she turned it upside down.

  “It’s not your body,” the deputy snapped responding to Charly’s comment.

  “We had it first,” Midge said, smirking as she spoke. She winked at me, signaling she was well aware of the fact that her statement would irk the deputy. “Is it a young blonde woman? If it is, it’s our body. If not, your dispatcher’s right and you have another one on your hands.”

  “I don’t have to share that information with you. All I know is that it’s the body of a woman.”

  “Then, Midge is right, and it’s ours. That makes more sense than the possibility that we’re dealing with two dead women this early in the morning,” Marty argued. “I’ll bet those folks at Blue Haven aren’t happy, are they? You should have gotten here sooner. This is a much better location for a crime scene than on the beach in Snootyville.”

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure this is still a crime scene,” I said as Neely gasped and gave up trying to keep her bare foot out of the sand. When she put it down, she let go of my arm. Then she used the slipper still in her hand to point out an area behind the bluff.

  “Deputy Devers, you’d better get the County to send investigators out this way, too,” I added. A woman’s shoe lay in the sand, half-hidden by a clump of wispy grass. Then I went on alert. There were more items beyond that shoe. Domino reacted to my tension with a woof.

  “What is it?” Marty asked.

  “Our dead blonde’s belongings,” I said. “See? That looks to me like a woman’s canvas tote with leather straps. Someone’s dumped its contents on the sand.”

  “Your vision beats mine. I’m lucky I could see that shoe. Everything beyond that point is a blur.” Neely glanced sideways at me, crinkling up her nose as she checked out my glasses. “Maybe your cheaters are better than my prescription lenses.” I gulped. Was it that obvious I was wearing cheap, drugstore reading glasses? I quickly refocused the conversation.

  “Body or no body, Deputy, something bad happened here,” I remarked.

  “Do you think it was a robbery?” Charly asked.

  “That’s a canvas Gucci sneaker and a Marc Jacobs tote—a grand, easy, lying there in the sand. She could have had some money on her,” Marty said as she scrutinized the objects.

  “A grand? As in a thousand dollars?” I asked. That would cover three—no, almost four of the car payments I still owe on my hatchback! I felt a tad dizzy at the thought that someone might spend that kind of money on shoes and a handbag.

  “Yep! The compact and lipstick are pricey, too, I bet. She could have had jewelry worth stealing, as well as cash and credit cards. I don’t remember seeing any jewelry on her, do you?”

  “No,” I responded.

  “I don’t either,” Midge added. “So maybe this was the scene of a robbery gone wrong although it’s an odd place for a mugging to occur.”

  “If it was a drug deal, a secluded location in the middle of the night or at dawn, might be perfect. It could have turned into a robbery if she had a bunch of money on her. If the drug dealer decided to rob her, and she put up a fight, things could have gotten out of hand fast enough,” Charly suggested.

  “Is there a wallet?” Neely asked as she took a step forward and bent a little from the waist to get a closer look. I reached out and stopped her before she could take another step.

  “Don’t touch anything!” Deputy Devers shouted, shoving us aside as he charged down the trail to take over.

  “Oh, please,” Marty said chiding the deputy. “This stuff has already been lying around for hours exposed to the elements. I’ll bet there were lots of footprints before the wind and sand covered them up, instead of just a couple in there where it’s sheltered.” Marty pointed at what did indeed appear to be footprints.

  “Miriam’s right,” Neely offered. “This is still a crime scene. We shouldn’t touch or take anything.” Neely spoke to Devers next with an urgent tone in her voice.

  “Marty’s also got a good point about the deteriorating conditions out here in the open. You’d better tell those guys with the county that they’ve got a second crime scene to investigate as soon as possible on Fitzgerald’s Bluff.”

  “Will you quit calling it that! This isn’t Fitzgerald’s Bluff. The only bluff I’m concerned about is that you busybodies with too much time on your hands are playing a silly game.”

  “Why would we do that?” Midge asked with the phoniest expression of wide-eyed innocence I’d ever seen. She followed with several slow owl-like blinks.

  I dropped my chin to my chest hoping to compose myself. A grin wouldn’t get Midge to stop or the deputy to move this misadventure along. All I needed was to tick off the local constabulary and get him interested enough to run a background check on me. He wouldn’t find much, but my real birthdate and current marital status might be all he’d need to get me into hot water with the Seaview Cottages Hom
eowner Association.

  “How do I know why any of you Seaview Shantytown squatters do what you do?” Midge’s mouth popped open. The deputy’s comment got to me, too. On one of his previous visits to our community, he’d ranted about how much he yearned to be the one to serve the papers on us when the Seaview Cottages community was put into receivership.

  “Good grief!” I exclaimed. “There’s one way to find out if this is a prank. Get somebody out here that has some investigative skills to see if there’s identification in that tote. Or maybe there’s some other information that can be used to link these items to the dead woman they’ve found at Blue Haven.” Deputy Devers’ eyes narrowed as he stared at me.

  So much for staying on his good side if he has one, I thought. I gave Domino a little tug to keep her close to my side, wishing we’d chosen another route to the beach for her morning walk. A knot formed in my stomach as the deputy continued to stare at me. Then Neely spoke in an annoyed tone.

  “No resident of Seaview Cottages is going to pay a thousand dollars to pull a prank on you or anyone else. Marty was a buyer for high-end department stores for decades before she retired. If she says the shoes and tote cost a thousand dollars, she knows what she’s saying.” The deputy was about to say something else, but Charly interrupted him.

  “You’d better listen to Miriam, Devers. Get somebody out here while there’s still evidence to collect. The summer visitors are arriving in droves, and the guides at the Blue Haven Bluejackets Summer Camp sometimes use this path to take their campers to the beach. Mark my words, this stuff won’t stay put much longer.” Charly was wagging her finger at the deputy as she urged him to act.

  “Yeah, this is no game,” Marty added. “If any of us had that kind of cash to throw around, we’d put it toward paying off our special assessment for the year.”

  The knot in my stomach twisted at Marty’s mention of a special assessment. I own the Hemingway Cottage outright, but homes in the Seaview Cottages community come with taxes plus monthly homeowner’s fees. Another of the surprises I’d discovered once I’d gone through all the paperwork pertaining to my cottage was a notice Pete had received last year. Property owners were now required to pay an extra few thousand dollars in annual special assessments to cover necessary renovations and repairs to common areas that required more funds than the law allowed management to withdraw from the community’s reserves. If this dalliance on the dunes didn’t end soon, my head was going to explode.