“I’ll bet it wasn’t the only snide comment she made about Diana, was it?” Charly asked Midge.
“No. It’s not worth repeating. Greta made it clear she didn’t like Diana. There’s also no doubt in my mind that Greta’s got something going on with Dave Winick. Her dislike for Diana could be about a rivalry over Dave.”
“Okay, so our question raised at lunch still stands. Was Diana’s murder about money or men? Is Dave Winick a boy toy, the love of her life, or what?” Neely asked. “She denied being able to lug Diana’s dead body into the water, but did she appear to be angry enough to want her dead?”
9 Money and Men
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s about money and men. Greta’s got a cougar side, but she’s also a businesswoman. She made a point of telling me how ‘connected’ Dave is, and what ‘an asset’ he is as a business associate. When I asked what kind of an asset he was, she played coy at first, but then told me not to be so naïve. ‘No one gets a deal done around here unless they’re in tight with the powers that be at Big Blue.’ My hunch is the predator in her is more interested in making a killer deal than a romantic conquest.”
“Cougars have big, sharp claws,” Neely said. “If Diana got in the way of the man and the deal—look out!”
“My mind raced along the same track,” Midge responded. “Greta must have sensed it and cut straight to the chase. ‘In case you’re imagining I had anything to do with Diana Durand’s death, forget it. My bad back wouldn’t let me haul that cow down to the water even if I’d been angry enough to kill her. I’m old, remember?’” Midge spoke Greta’s words using a huffy tone that fit Greta to a T.
“Wow! The word is out about how Diana ended up at Blue Haven, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Around here, anyway. I told you this place thrives on gossip, especially if motor mouths like Alyssa Gardener and Greta Bishop are in on it. Rosemary does a pretty good job of circulating hot news, too,” Charly commented.
“Did Greta say anything about why Dave was taking pictures of our cottages?” I asked.
“Greta claimed she was in a hurry when they finished their golf game and he offered to return the cart. In her words, ‘So what if he looked around on his way to the cart drop 0ff?’ She didn’t seem surprised or creeped out about his surveillance the way we were. Maybe Deputy Devers isn’t the only one hoping our community will go into receivership.”
“A vulture waiting to pick over the bones of our dead community instead of a Peeping Tom or a strangler, huh?” Neely asked.
“That’s still creepy,” Marty added.
“It could be dead on, though.” Then I realized what I’d said. “Sorry, that wasn’t the best choice of words under the circumstances, was it?” I paused and started over.
“What I’m trying to say is that I found an interesting news item about ‘Big Blue’ that buzzed around on social media. Apparently, it’s no secret that ‘Big Blue’ aims to become even bigger. They want to open timeshares and expand into vacation condos and residential property.”
“That’s not a surprise,” Midge said. “They’ve been squawking about that for years. There was lots of excitement about it until real estate prices tumbled.”
“Well, what caught my eye was a mention by a local blogger that we’re in the ‘path of progress’ and slated to become Blue Haven Seaview Cottages. The corporate office trounced the idea, publicly, but I also went through the minutes of the Financial Committee’s meetings. About six months ago, someone floated the idea to the committee members and riled everyone up because it was a real lowball offer. I don’t see any formal paperwork on file, so the discussion must have occurred off the record.”
“Greta didn’t say a word about it. I was more interested in the reason she was ogling Dave Winnick in that photo, so I didn’t press her about business deals with the guy. The discussion was closed so fast it doesn’t matter much anyway, does it?”
“I don’t even remember hearing a word about it. Not even through the rumor mill around here,” Charly added. “That doesn’t mean whoever wanted to make a deal has given up. If it was Dave Winick or someone else at Blue Haven, Diana could have caught wind of it and that’s what she thought Edgar would be willing buy from her.”
“Whatever information Diana wanted to sell to Edgar, I doubt she got it in a legit way, don’t you?” Neely asked.
“No matter how she got her hands on secret or sensitive information, someone might have objected to her offering to sell it. Her sugar daddy may not have been the only person she approached with information to peddle,” I suggested.
“That could have been asking for trouble,” Midge added. “If word got out earlier than the dealmakers wanted, it could have raised enough interest to create a little competition and drive the price up.”
“Or given us time to mobilize to protect our property, depending on what kind of angle Winick and his pals were working on,” Neely added. “They must have something tricky up their sleeves to be at it again. I wish Edgar had been a little more curious about her offer. We don’t even know for sure that’s what she was peddling to him.”
“None of that seems worth killing her over, does it?” I asked.
“It does if the angle Winick was working was an illegal one. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d go to jail without putting up a fight.”
“From what my friend, Donna Wolz, told me, getting herself mixed up in all sorts of trouble wasn’t anything new. Rumor has it that Diana left the Bay Area when her agent’s wife found out he was managing more than her musical career.”
“Some people can’t learn, can they? Having an affair with Dave Winick is almost as dumb as taking up with a married man. It wasn’t smart on his part either, although the more junior member of a duo like that usually ends up with the short end of the stick when the music stops.”
Charly sure had that part right. The Pastry Palace was a large enterprise before the Great Recession tanked it. A surprising amount of hanky-panky went on over the years, much of it involving an errant nephew of the company’s founder. The nephew stayed put, but the women with whom he’d become involved moved on—one way or another.
“To make matters worse, Diana blabbed about her affairs. That didn’t go over well with her coworkers. No one wanted to say a bad word about their jobs or the company when a colleague might intentionally or accidentally share it with one of the bosses as ‘pillow talk.’”
“Edgar said there was more than one man in her life after they broke up. Did your friend come up with any other names?” Neely asked.
“Most of Donna’s information comes from the shop managers, not the staff. The managers all know Dave Winick by sight and by name given his prominence as Director of Development for Blue Haven Resort Properties. Donna didn’t mention any other men by name. The manager of the shop where Diana worked complained about the antagonism Diana stirred up. Diana was undependable—showed up late and missed shifts altogether. That upset her coworkers who had to cover for her. Especially when Dave paid Diana’s supervisor a visit and told her to lighten up after she took Diana to task and wrote her up for missing her shift without calling in.”
“Why am I not surprised? That explains why she didn’t get fired,” Midge commented.
“That guy has big time, boundary issues—maybe even legal boundaries,” Charly said, shaking her head. “Dumb, too. Not only does he get romantically involved with a subordinate, but then intervenes on her behalf. That’s a recipe for disaster if love turns into loathing. Diana could have used that if she’d decided to file charges against him for sexual harassment.”
“That’s an interesting idea. Diana needed money, maybe she was threatening to charge Winick or to report their affair to his bosses unless he paid her off,” Neely suggested.
“Or maybe that’s the information she wanted to sell to Edgar. If Big Blue’s planning to make a grab for our cottages, a sexual harassment scandal involving a top exec might slow things down. It could even kill
the deal if it instigated enough trouble for the partners to lose confidence in each other. Maybe she thought Edgar would be willing to pay to be able to stop having his home sold out from under him.”
“I hear you, Midge,” Charly said, shrugging. “At this point, Neely’s right that we don’t have any proof there’s a deal in the works. And we don’t even know if Diana Durand and Dave Winick had a bad break-up that might have angered her enough to turn on him. Apparently, she didn’t fling a drink on him or act out when he showed up at that holiday dinner with Greta Bishop.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Did your friend say anything about if and when the affair between Durand and Winick ended?”
“No. Either she didn’t have the details, or she wasn’t willing to share them with me. Donna did give me the name of the person she believes was the anonymous coworker who had nasty things to say to the press about Diana.” Marty paused to check what must have been a note she made on her phone. “Her name is Andrea Stoeckel—everyone calls her Andi.”
“She doesn’t appear to have any misgivings about dishing the dirt about Diana, does she?” I asked.
“Nope,” Marty responded. “Maybe we ought to drop by with one of your cakes, sweeten her up, and get the scoop.”
“I’ve been considering something similar. This sounds like a job for mystery shoppers,” I said, explaining what I meant by that and my idea about also trying to track down the scent I’d caught on the breeze near Fitzgerald’s Bluff.
“Hold on!” Marty exclaimed. “I was only kidding about playing detective. If the killer saw us on the bluff that morning, all we need is to turn up at the resort asking questions about Diana. Won’t that invite trouble?”
“Leave that to me,” Neely replied. “I’m a master at the art of disguise. Since you don’t need a posse to rescue you from the hoosegow, Miriam, how about we unleash a gang of old lady detectives on this case, instead?”
“We’ll set a new standard in sleuthing! The G-O-L-D standard with our Gang of Old Lady Detectives on the case. I love it!” Charly exclaimed.
“What about Devers’ warning to stay out of it?”
“Come on, Marty, cops always say that to amateur sleuths and private investigators. Who cares what he says anyway? If Diana Durand’s murderer knows who we are, let’s even the odds by finding out whodunit. We don’t just need mystery shoppers, though. Our GOLD squad needs to be deployed on several fronts. Let me tell you what I found out today, and then I’ll explain what I mean by that.”
10 Scarves, Scones, and Scripts
The next morning, I woke up both anxious and excited about the prospect of our undercover work. I walked Domino and then breezed through my other chores. Marty’s suggestion that we go to the resort bearing gifts made sense to me, so I baked vanilla bean scones. Lots of them!
I’d keep the little boxes of scones tied up with bows as secret weapons. A little sugar might create a buzz if there was a lull in the conversation. Passing ourselves off as women in search of customers for baked goods might also help us get out of a jam if Neely and I got into one.
Baking always settles me down and helps me focus. That worked today, even though once I’d finished packing up the goodies, my mind wandered back to last night’s revelations. Some, as Charly had warned, weren’t very appetizing.
“She was definitely strangled—but not by hand, since there aren’t any fingerprints or bruises like those you’d find on someone killed that way. Nothing abrasive like a chain or rope; something soft like a scarf, maybe.”
“Okay, so that means the police don’t have the scarf or whatever else was used to kill her, right?”
“Right. There was no scarf found behind Fitzgerald’s Bluff or on her body when it washed ashore at Blue Haven. So, her cell phone and the murder weapon are both missing.”
“Maybe a woman owned the scarf she used to kill Diana and took it, so it couldn’t be traced back to her,” Marty suggested.
“It could be, but even if the scarf belonged to Diana, the killer might have taken it to prevent the police from getting any evidence left behind. Or, it could have come off while she was in the water.”
“There was no scarf on her body when Domino and I found her,” I said.
“That’s the way I remember it, too. No scarf. That’s why I could see the bruising on her neck,” Midge confirmed.
“Okay. It was gone before her body went into the water, then. Who knows what other trace evidence was washed away? Diana wasn’t in the water long, as we already know, but the Pacific Ocean is so chilly that it makes body temperature a less reliable way to judge how long she was dead before the killer dragged her into the ocean.”
“A clever strategy for making it harder to finger the perpetrator,” Midge commented.
“Yes, although it must have been early morning since she’d eaten breakfast not too long before she was killed and most of it was still in her stomach.”
“Oh, yuck,” Marty said.
“Let me see if I understand. Diana had breakfast at the crack of dawn—not long before Miriam and Domino found her. Does that mean she was alone or with someone she knew?” Neely asked.
“I’m guessing she was out with someone after a night of drinking. There was alcohol in her bloodstream—not so much that she was drunk, but she’d had more than a couple of drinks.”
“It makes sense that she and a drinking buddy stopped nearby after their night out on the town. There’s a Denny’s that’s open twenty-four/seven—just off the highway. I ate there when Domino and I were on our way into town.”
“The truck stop feeds people all night, too,” Midge offered. “I like to have an early breakfast there occasionally and shoot the breeze with some of the truckers passing through. Doward Wilson, the head cook, serves a mean steak omelet. I’ll ask him if Diana had breakfast there.”
“She’d stand out in that place in her designer duds, wouldn’t she?” Marty asked.
“Maybe at Denny’s too. Especially now that her picture has been plastered all over in the media. Why don’t I ask around about her there, too?”
“That would be great, Midge. In fact, that’s what I had in mind when I said we needed to act on several fronts. Here’s another issue to consider. I think the clothes she had on were more beach or resort wear rather than bar-hopping clothes, don’t you? She must have had plans to spend the day at the beach with someone.”
“That would explain the location of the crime scene,” I said. “Maybe her evening of bar-hopping was followed by breakfast with someone who lives here at Seaview Cottages or near the beach, and they went for a stroll after they ate.”
“If she and her bar-hopping pal spent the night together, maybe it’s one of the other men Edgar claims she was seeing. If he lives nearby, she could have changed her clothes at his place before going to breakfast. I’m sure glad Edgar’s nephew gave him an alibi.”
“I hear you, Marty. Edgar’s innocence doesn’t mean there’s not a killer in our community,” Neely suggested. “The summer people have arrived and several of the cottages on the beach are rented now, too. Maybe Diana found herself a new man among the visitors and he turned out to be a psycho.”
“Lots of the summer renters spend time at the Blue Haven Resort, so it’s entirely possible Diana met someone there who’s renting around here for the summer,” Midge added.
“We could check with the people staying in the summer cottages located within walking distance of Fitzgerald’s Bluff. If this wasn’t her first beach date, maybe someone’s seen her around there before.” Charly shrugged after she made that suggestion.
“Preferably with a male companion.”
“That’s presuming her killer was a man, Marty. As you already pointed out, a woman could have been wearing the scarf used to kill her.” Marty nodded in response to Charly’s point.
“Okay, we make the rounds and ask if anyone remembers seeing her with anyone—male or female,” Midge concluded.
“Sure, as long as no
one goes anywhere alone,” Charly had said at that point. She’d issued the warning in such a serious manner that I got butterflies in my stomach, even now, recalling her tone. Another creepy moment from last night sent a little chill through me, too. Marty, the most anxious member of our little group had asked a question directed to no one in particular.
“What about the phone call made by Diana Durand’s ghost?”
“It’s not her ghost. Someone has her missing cell phone,” Neely had replied immediately.
“If her killer took it, why call Edgar?” I’d wondered aloud.
“That doesn’t make any sense to me, either. Maybe Joe had it right and the killer planned to get rid of the body and pretend she’d taken off for Mexico or somewhere else. If that was the intention, why not leave a voicemail or send a text message? I checked with my contact at the police station, and they’ve got a warrant for her phone records and permission to use the GPS device embedded in the phone to track it down. Maybe the phone or the records will clear up the matter of that ghostly call.”
At that point, we’d spent the next few minutes deciding who was going to do what today. Marty planned to go with Midge to check for sightings of Diana Durand at the Denny’s, the truck stop, and a local café in Duneville Downs that opens early because it only serves breakfast and then closes at two.
Neely and I were going to visit the resort this morning. After lunch, the four of us planned to meet up and then split the list Charly promised to get for us identifying the addresses for summer rental properties. Charly bowed out of the legwork to do more digging into Diana Durand and Dave Winick’s backgrounds and another round of follow-up with her police contacts. She was also going to track down the blogger who’d published the claim that there was a deal afoot for Blue Haven to take over our community.
“Domino, how crazy are we to be getting more involved in this trouble? Charly says Hank’s competent, even if Deputy Devers isn’t. Should we just stay out of it?” Domino’s response was to take off for the front door. Seconds later, the doorbell rang.
A Body on Fitzgerald's Bluff Page 9