Murder Most Fermented

by Christine E. Blum

  With that he disappeared. Not quite as magical as Marisol but he was gone all the same. Bardot sniffed the chair he had been in and gave me a questioning look.

  Just then my computer monitor came back to life meaning that one of my queries had come back with some information. I went back to my desk to take a look. Bardot went outside to nap in the lounge chair.

  When I sat down, I saw that the return was for the Abigail Rose search. I’d set up some pretty strict parameters for this. Mostly I was interested in Abigail’s relatives, last known addresses, that sort of thing. I clicked on the link to Intelius, a good website resource for people searches, background checks, and such. The page that loaded offered three matches:

  Christopher B. Rose, Bronxville, NY

  Burton E. Macgregor, Palm Coast, FL

  Michael P. Abernathy, San Francisco, CA

  Could it be? I followed the links for the Abernathy listing. The site teases you just enough to tell you it has what you are looking for, but stops short of turning over that info until you choose one of their plans and request a report. For about three dollars I’d hoped I would find something I could use.

  Boy, did I.

  About two minutes later I received the report via email. I opened it and scrolled down through a litany of caveats, source references, and birth records. It seems that Michael, now deceased, was the grandson of one Abigail Rose of Mar Vista, CA. He never married and had one sibling, Charles, who had died in his late twenties.

  Charles had to have been Malcolm’s father. Making Abigail his great-grandmother!

  Chapter 8

  Wow.

  Suddenly I didn’t want to be in my office anymore, especially since Malcolm knew that I was here alone. Why was he hiding his identity?

  I needed to clear my mind and not jump to conclusions. I decided that Bardot and I would take a late afternoon stroll.

  To try and stay out of Marisol’s line of sight, we avoided going past her house and went the other way around the block. We watched kids in uniforms arrive home from school. There were housekeepers and day nurses hiking a path up the hill to catch the bus. And the gardeners were on their last lawn for the day. Since this was a less common path for us, Bardot was taking extra time with the smells and messages left by other dogs. This was like coming upon a Facebook page for a name from the past and wanting to see every picture, read every post, and analyze all their friends. Only in dog language.

  The walk was definitely helping. If I could tie Abigail to Malcolm that quickly, surely the cops had as well. And they could access real estate records instantly, so I was sure that they knew about Malcolm inheriting her estate. Something obvious must have ruled him out as a suspect or Augie would have told me. Still, it wouldn’t explain why he was lying to all of us.

  Wait! What about all the obvious things that rule me out, like I hadn’t known that she was gone before finding her grave, I could have no motive whatsoever for wanting her dead, and I’d never set foot on the hill gardens until a week ago?

  In the process of thinking through all this, I realized that I was arguing with myself out loud and could feel my face and eyes contort into an Angry Birds embodiment. I resolved to call Augie when I got home, calmed down, and started thinking of more pleasant things.

  The sea breeze had started to roll in and I was pondering which bottle of wine to decant when we returned. Was it a Chilean red night? Or more of a Napa Sauvignon type of evening? I was so lost in my oenophile reverie that I nearly ran into a man standing on the sidewalk.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said and noticed that I was speaking to the one and only Bobby Snyder, Esq.

  “Entirely my fault,” he quickly corrected. “I just met the nicest family and was still focused on helping them, so I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  Bardot looked up from her “Facebook page” and did a full sniff workup on the man.

  Seeing him close up made him no less slimy. Even the straw derby that you might see a gentleman sporting while punting on the Thames didn’t soften his snake oil salesman demeanor.

  “I guess we were both distracted,” I said, trying to slip past him and put some distance between us.

  “What a wonderful dog,” he said, crouching down to pet Bardot and therefore yanking my leash arm backward while my body was in full forward motion. I gave Bardot a sneer, but she was not budging. She greeted him with part suspicion and part sneer. I’d have to compliment her good taste with a treat later.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Bobby Snyder, Esq.; though I really must drop the suffix, a bit pretentious, don’t you think? Do you own one of these marvelous homes around here?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  I didn’t want to divulge any personal information, but I did want to hear his sales pitch. He was practically salivating at having found a new prospect, and with his extra-long neck and curved upper back, he looked like a hungry hyena. The pencil mustache wasn’t doing him any favors either.

  “I have been visiting with the good people in this neighborhood and offering my services in procuring additional value and income from the very same homes they reside in. How long have you lived here, Miss—?”

  “A little over a year. So what services do you provide?”

  “Well, I have a booklet of information I’d be happy to walk you through. Shall we rejoin to your house?”

  “Here is fine, I really don’t have much time so if you could, just give me the Cliff Notes version.”

  “I see, perhaps I could drop by at a more convenient time?”

  He was really getting eerily persistent in wanting my address. Bardot sensed this and tried to pull me away.

  “I’m afraid not,” I said, and we started to walk on.

  “You do know that oil has been detected almost directly under the sidewalk that you are standing on?”

  That stopped me.

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “Do you know that with the purchase of your home you also bought the mineral rights?”

  “I would have to check, are you able to provide proof that there is oil under here?”

  “Absolutely, my dear, I’ll show you when we meet. What is your house number?”

  “Is this the best way to reach you?” I asked, waving the flyer he had given me while pointing to the phone number at the top.

  “It is indeed, would tomorrow work?”

  He had now removed his derby and was literally standing with hat in hand. His voice was sounding familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  Bardot was warming up her chops for a guttural growl.

  “I’ll call if I’m interested. Come on, Bardot.”

  I was in a “take no prisoners” mood. When I got home, I left a message for Augie to call me. Then I called Sally.

  * * *

  “Cheers,” said Peggy, happy to be included in this impromptu mini Wine Club. Sally said that she had picked her up on the way over to my house.

  We were all sitting around the end of my pool, dangling our legs in the cool but pleasant water. Bardot had decided to do laps and would periodically check on us to see if any food or toys had been produced. I told them about my day and the discovery of Malcolm’s identity. They’d had no idea.

  “I have a hard time believing that sweet young Malcolm is a killer,” Sally said, holding her glass up to the fading sunlight to note the deep yellow color that told her that this wine had been aged in an oak barrel. “Then again there’s nothing about a caterpillar that says it is going to be a butterfly either.”

  Peggy and I just let that one float.

  “I still have some friends at the Agency,” Peggy said, referring to her brief stint with the CIA, “let me see what they can pull up on Malcolm and his extended family.”

  “While you’re at it, have them check on that oily lawyer, Snyder.” Sally shook her head, trying to cast off the image of him. “That guy gives me the creeps, why are all these real estate vultures suddenly descending on us?�
�

  “That’s it!” I declared.

  They looked at me, waiting for clarification.

  “I thought Bobby Snyder’s voice sounded familiar, and now I remember why. He was one of the people in the yelling fest we overheard outside Howard Platz’s construction site.”

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” Peggy said. “It seems that Rose Avenue is running rampant with people who aren’t exactly who they say they are. We might as well be in Beverly Hills!”

  Chapter 9

  The next morning I had a meeting with my local Coast Guard client at their headquarters in Marina del Rey, the world’s largest man-made small boat harbor.

  The Marina serves multiple audiences. It is a safe harbor for any vessels in distress, it is home to the yachts of the rich and famous and to the early houseboat settlers who would be hard-pressed to make it out past the jetty.

  Along the main channel lies Fisherman’s Village, a waterfront mall, a commercial boat anchorage, and a tourist attraction with live music concerts, restaurant and café dining, harbor and fishing cruises, boat and bicycle rentals, a Catalina island ferry service, and a few souvenir shops.

  And at the westernmost end is the Coast Guard station. Last year I had built an online secured ex-tranet for their internal communications during search and rescue missions. The data was also encrypted and sent to Homeland Security’s internal system. It has worked out well for them and as funding became available, they’ve been adding more features and depth to the website. This kind of project was right in my wheelhouse, and I’ll admit that I was getting used to meeting with cute guys in swim trunks.

  What? Jack? I’m not dead, you know.

  The most senior member of the station was the exception, having opted for sweats instead. When our meeting ended, I didn’t miss an opportunity to ask for a little history lesson. I knew that he had lived here all his life.

  “If you have a minute, Captain, I was wondering what these beach areas were like, say fifty years ago or so.”

  I knew this would get his juices going.

  “It gets stuffy in here, let’s go outside and sit on the cutter, Halsey. I’ll paint you a picture.”

  I followed him out and onto the Coast Guard boat. I’ll admit that I felt more than a little proud as tourists stared and took pictures.

  Now if I could just score one of those sweatshirts. . . .

  “You’d really have to go back seventy or eighty years to get the full story. I’m old, but I’m not ancient, so much of what I tell you is secondhand from my folks. It all started with tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney around 1905. He decided to call the area just south of here ‘Venice’ and set out to turn it into a place with a renaissance of art, culture, and music. He dug canals into the swampland and filled them with gondolas. He built ornate music halls, hotels, and opera houses.”

  “Wow, I knew about the canals but not about turning the whole area into an Italian resort.”

  He nodded.

  “People flocked here from downtown Los Angeles and all the way from Pasadena. Sure, they enjoyed the old world European sites, but that is not what kept them coming back week after week.”

  I watched a sea lion that had decided he’d had enough sun slip back off the dock and into the water. With a flop of the tail, he descended out of sight.

  “There was money to be made,” he continued, “so attractions that could best be described as ‘carnie inspired’ cropped up all along the beach area, much like you see on the boardwalk today. ‘Fun for the whole family,’ the barkers would say. There were carnival rides, you could see Chiquita, the world’s smallest woman, visit a collection of ‘Egyptian’ mummies, and even follow the rumors of headhunting cannibals roaming around.”

  “Today we call those people real estate developers,” I quipped.

  “By the crash in 1929, no one had the money to spend on roller coaster and miniature train rides. And with Prohibition, people had moved their drinking to less public places. People were desperate for money, and it’s said that the first oil was discovered in someone’s side yard. Next thing you knew there were three hundred and forty wells on ten acres, pumping day and night.”

  My ears perked up at this. “So you could be sunbathing on the beach and almost directly behind you up was coming a bubbling crude?”

  “Exactly. But greed depleted the oil by the 1940s and everyone pulled out, leaving terribly polluted swampland. That was when this area was cleaned up and began to become residential. Eventually the Marina was built.”

  “Do you think that there is still oil under the ground around here?”

  He chuckled. “Are you thinking that you might be sitting on a fortune under your home, Halsey?”

  “Not at all, but we’ve had a shady sounding lawyer knocking on doors in the neighborhood, offering to secure mineral rights for our properties.”

  “You’re too smart for that. But I will tell you that from time to time over the years rumors crop up of someone finding a trace or so. And of course offshore drilling still goes on up and down this coastline.”

  He pointed out past the break wall, and I could just make out an oil rig on the horizon.

  “Time for our patrol, Cap,” said a petty officer from the dock.

  “What do you say, Halsey, care to go out on a mission?”

  “You won’t have to ask me twice,” I eagerly replied.

  Just when they were getting set to unmoor, my cell phone went off and I saw that it was Marisol. She’s a pain in the butt; however, she really doesn’t like talking on the phone, so I figured that it must be important.

  “What?” I asked, almost hoping that she just had a gossip tidbit that she was dying to tell me.

  “Your house was broken into, I called the cops, you better come home.”

  BARDOT!

  * * *

  I raced up my front steps two at a time.

  “Where is she?” I screamed when I entered the house. My eyes wouldn’t register anything else until I could spot my dog.

  “Right here,” I heard Marisol say. “Why’d you lock her in the bathroom?”

  “I didn’t lock her—Oh, Bardot, are you okay, honey?”

  I petted her and hugged and kissed her where she was sitting, with her leash on at Marisol’s feet. On cue, she rolled on her back, showed the world her crown jewels, and waited for tummy rubs.

  “Well, at least she doesn’t appear to be hurt or traumatized,” I said.

  “You think?” Marisol was enjoying looking down at me.

  It was at that point while sitting on the floor that I started to register what had happened. The wicker basket next to one of the sofas that I keep current magazines in had been turned over and it looked like all the periodicals had been fanned through. Cabinets, side tables, anything with drawers or shelves had been ransacked.

  “It looks like a cyclone came through here. Are the other rooms like this?” I asked Marisol.

  “Wouldn’t know, Augie told me to wait at the door and not touch anything until he gets here.”

  I gave her a hard stare.

  “Pretty much,” she finally replied. “Are you the one who keeps a pile of clothes at the foot of her bed or did the robber pull them out of your closet and put them there?”

  “I hate you.”

  Suddenly Bardot was on her feet and I feared that the burglar had returned to the scene of the crime.

  “Why am I not surprised?” came a voice from behind my back.

  Bardot’s tail went into mach one rotation with delight.

  “You made good time, Augie,” Marisol said to him. “Did you take side streets? Because at this time of day school’s letting out and traffic is a mess.”

  Thank you, Air 7 traffic reporter.

  “What seems to have happened?” Augie asked, entering my house with a couple of uniforms.

  “You’re the detective, detect!” I commanded.

  “Check for forced entry,” Augie told his guys. “Was this door unlocked and open w
hen you came in, Marisol?”

  “No, I used the extra key she’d given me. I had to make sure that Bardie was okay.”

  One: I rue the day I gave her a key. Two: I hate it when she calls my dog “Bardie.”

  Augie walked around the living room, surveying the damage. He checked some of the magazines on the floor, certainly to make more of a personal judgment on me rather than the perp.

  “Crime scene will be here shortly to collect evidence. What can you tell me is missing, Halsey?”

  “I really haven’t had a chance to look, the obvious things, TVs, the little bit of silver I have, and any big items of value appear to still be here.”

  “No forced entry from any of the windows in the rooms around the house, Augie.” One of the cops informed him.

  “What about this back building?” Augie asked me, looking through the glass facing the patio.

  “That’s my office, and whenever I leave I turn on the alarm, it’s wired to the police. If anyone had tried to break in, I would have gotten a call.”

  Augie nodded and shifted his focus to the big glass doors facing the backyard and pool. He put on a pair of latex gloves and walked over to them.

  Crap.

  When he tested the door it opened easily.

  “There doesn’t appear to be a key for these it only locks on the inside. Marisol, did you open the back doors when you got in here?”

  “No, Augie, you told me not to touch anything and I didn’t.”

  And I have a bridge that I’m trying to unload....

  Augie looked at me.

  “I, um, I don’t always lock those doors if I’m leaving Bardot home, figured that she would be the best deterrent.”

  I looked at her and she was on her back again, playing a game of catch with the extra length of leash that Marisol was holding.

  “We’ll need to wait for the evidence, but it seems likely that someone came by, tried the doors and windows, and when the perp found one open, he came in looking for valuables. He was probably stopped short by Marisol before he could really steal anything.”

  She beamed.

  “So you think that this is random?” I asked.