The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries)

by Martin Brown

  As anxious as Michael was to return to the business of blackmail, he set his intention to be Mill Valley’s undeclared master photographer. The night of the opening, Holly Cross, then a senior at Tam High School, met Michael for the first time. Nearly twenty years later, when Michael came to meet Rob Timmons for the first time, Holly remembered still the night of that exhibit. She said little during their meeting, but once he left, she rushed into Rob’s office.

  “Oh, my God, Michael Marks wants to be a community volunteer for the Standard; that’s wonderful.”

  “Well, he sure has a wonderful portfolio,” Rob said, pleased with the offer. “Running small community newspapers, you never know who is going to walk through your door.”

  Michael decided to allow himself the holiday season, concluding with New Year’s Day 1990, before getting back to the business of extortion. Once he did, victims came easier and fell faster than ever before.

  The local orthodontist, Dr. Weber, was a good place to start. Michael had long ago observed that in his peculiar line of work, the vain were inevitably the most easily ensnared. Weber was thirty-seven and considered himself something of a rock star among orthodontists. What surprised Michael was not the affair Weber was carrying on with his twenty-nine year-old hygienist, but the relationship he was having with a patient who was the wife of a relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. Sometime after giving her the, “smile she had always wanted,” the two began a passionate affair.

  Weber rented a home along Stinson Beach at a discounted rate for the off-season, and the two of them snuck away on weekends when her ballplayer husband left for Arizona to join his team at spring training. The photos he caught were quite artful, and completely terrifying to Weber, who panicked at the thought of her husband, who had the arms and the chest of a major leaguer, scattering his perfect smile all over the floor of his office. Not to mention the misery the doctor’s wife, who doubled as his office manager, would create for him as well.

  Posing as a patient in search of a better smile, Michael struck a deal for $750 per month with no end date. As he learned in the case of both Fancher and Fred, there really was never a need for an end date. If, for example, Dr. Weber’s wife became wise to his philandering ways, or the ballplayer’s wife chose another lover, or both scenarios occurred, these secrets would lose their value. As long as they needed their secrets kept, his clients would find the means to keep paying. Whether that’s for one year or twenty.

  Michael set a goal of catching two targets per year. Two months after he had reached a payment agreement with Dr. Weber, he moved on to a middle-age rock star named Alan Dickman, known to his fans as Al D. His home was nearby on Hazel Avenue, and it was easily observed from an undeveloped lot that sat just above it off Rose Avenue.

  Walt had put him on the scent by sharing his curiosity that Al D. might have a penchant for particularly young girls. It took just a few days of following Al D. from place to place to verify that he was, indeed, involved with a girl forty years his junior. Specifically, a seventeen year-old Tam High School senior named Tory Charles.

  Michael particularly enjoyed his pursuit of Al D., who was a popular figure in town, mostly because a few Saturday nights a year, when he wasn’t on tour, he would entertain at Mill Valley’s well known nightspot for live music, the Sweetwater Café. There he met up with other celebrated locals such as Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, and Joan Baez.

  Michael had little interest in whether Tory was Al D.’s first and only minor or one in a string of under aged women. One night, he brought to the Sweetwater his favorite photo of the two making love and sharing lines of cocaine.

  After explaining he was a, “really big fan,” Michael slid a well-focused image of Tory sitting nude on the lap of Al D., who was also naked. Handing him a Sharpie, Michael gushed, “I was wondering if you’d like to sign this for me. It’s my favorite photo of you with one of your fans.”

  With no one close by at the moment, Al D. put on his reading glasses and was not at all pleased with what he saw. He tore the photo into four parts, and under his breath asked, “Where did you get this?”

  “I told you, I’m a big fan and I follow you around. Now this girl you’re with, Tory Charles, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but she’s a seventeen year-old high school student, and in addition to photos of the two of you having sex together, I have a couple of great photos of the two of you sharing a few lines of cocaine. I mean, wow, sex with a minor and providing drugs to a minor; shit, if this stuff gets out, your only gigs for the next fifteen or twenty years will probably be up in Folsom prison.”

  Al D., similar to many of Michael’s victims, turned red as a beet. After a series of threats involving bodily harm, killing his family, and so on, Michael suggested that they meet to work out the terms of a deal.

  Al D. was a highly successful transaction. He retained Michael as a personal photographer for twelve hundred and fifty dollars per month. When Al told him that was a lot of money, Michael casually suggested Al D. look at the savings he could obtain by simply cutting back on his cocaine habit. “Best of all,” Michael added, “you’ve turned a career-ending disaster into a legitimate tax write-off.”

  Every now and then, Michael would follow Al D. just out of prurient interest. To his surprise, just three months after dropping Tory, Al took up with another underage girl. Michael thought about ensnaring him a second time, but quickly abandoned the idea. Michael’s father, Caleb, a man well accustomed to turning away from a fight, often reminded his sons of the advice his father frequently gave him, “Quit while you’re ahead.” Al D.’s checks continued to land every month in his post office box; it was time for him to move on to other targets.

  Michael’s life fell into a predictable pattern with certain extraordinary exceptions. There was, for example, a series of long-term girlfriends, but at some point, as was the case with Joanne Hill, a woman would reach in at a time when they shared a romantic moment and ask the question Michael refused to answer, “Don’t you think it’s time that we take this relationship to the next level?” Michael heard these seemingly innocent words as the sirens’ song warning that another relationship had reached its expiration date. He could not resist his interest in the opposite sex, but fear of his mother’s betrayal spoiled any thought of a long term commitment.

  Many years later, Walt announced he was toying with the idea of selling his shop.

  “Who would buy it?” Michael asked.

  “I was hoping you would.”

  Still a bachelor, with a long relationship with the city’s librarian, Walt shared his hope to escape the daily grind of owning a retail business and running off one day soon with his lady friend to Costa Rica.

  “I can’t afford to buy this business. Where did you get the idea that I could?”

  “You seem like a sport around town from what I hear. Going from one fancy restaurant to another, flashing your cash and buying people drinks.”

  “That’s just money I got from a rich uncle who died and left me fifty thousand. I’ve already spent most of it.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Believe what?”

  “That you’d spend that much money.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m still the dumb kid who walked in here looking for a job.”

  Of course, this was all a fabrication on Michael’s part. Working at the camera shop had continued to be his best source of information. But, actually buying a camera shop in the age of digital photography, he viewed as impractical. On the Internet, cameras and equipment were sold every day for lower prices than Walt could match and make his monthly operating costs. And, of course, profit margins for the sale of film were becoming less meaningful with each passing month.

  Enthusiasts who swore for years that they could never allow themselves to forget the world of negatives, print paper, and developing chemicals, steadily abandoned the old techniques as the digital tsunami pushed past history out of its way.

&n
bsp; There was no bright future for this old camera shop; a reality Walt, Michael thought, would be wise to finally accept. In fact, Michael was pleased and surprised to find that Milton, now well past retirement age, was still running his shop up in Novato. Just keeping the doors open selling retail cameras and supplies was an accomplishment in itself.

  Meanwhile, the new millennium had proven to be a boon to Michael’s actual business. Certainly, there were successful wealthy people when he’d arrived in Mill Valley, but now the remaining traces of a bohemian hideaway had, like those in Sausalito and elsewhere in Marin, all but vanished. Musicians, craftspeople, and fine artists were chased north up the coast toward Mendocino and Humboldt counties. Mill Valley had become the home of high tech wizards, top attorneys, noted physicians and surgeons, and hedge fund managers. Many of these highly successful individuals provided a remarkable lift to Michael’s core business. Extortion demands that once ranged between four and eight hundred dollars, moved upward until they averaged fifteen-hundred-dollar monthly payments. Regardless of backgrounds and biographies, sexual proclivities remained unchanged.

  Because it made him feel like he was part of something more admirable than his peculiar business, Michael endeavored to remain in close contact with the people he called his “colleagues,” Ted Dondero and Holly Cross. Rob, between four weekly editions and a family, had little free time; but Holly and Ted, one single and thirty-something, the other a retired widower, often had extra time on their hands, which the childless bachelor was always happy to help fill.

  Once a month, Holly and Michael met at their favorite place for burgers and fries, Marin Joe’s, which was less than a mile north of Mill Valley off of an access road alongside of Highway 101. Holly, ever curious, used any occasion in which they were together to inquire about Michael’s business interests. From what he had told her previously, it was apparent that his being well settled financially had little connection to any member of his family. She had heard the sad tale of his father and brother in the years after his mother’s sudden disappearance. Certainly there was no family fortune being shared among the Marks.

  Holly wasn’t shy about digging deeper, grandparents, uncles, aunts; but she uncovered no obvious connection that afforded Michael the life he led. As he had done on other occasions, Michael, because it amused him to do so, concocted a story about one of the Bay Area’s technology companies that he had some connection with, holding certain proprietary rights for which he received royalties. But within twenty-four hours, Holly had spent the needed time researching the crumbs of information Michael had shared during their time together, and once again came up empty.

  Soon after one of their rendezvous, Holly would raise the topic with Rob during one of their long workdays.

  “I really like Michael, but there is something about him that doesn’t make sense,” Holly began.

  “I’m not saying this to change the subject, but why should you give a damn? He’s not exactly your type.”

  “What is my type, Rob?”

  “How the hell should I know? But I’m pretty certain it’s not Michael.”

  “I wouldn’t say that; I’m thirtyish, single, and broke every month after I pay my rent. Perhaps it’s time I broaden my horizons. It would be nice to have a man around, even if he didn’t look like Channing Tatum. Do you know I came home the other night and there was a family of spiders running across the floor of my bedroom? Michael’s not exactly my type, but he’s smart, has money, and probably knows more about killing spiders than I do. And for me, those are all good qualities.”

  Ted’s fascination with Michael, although he denied having any, was motivated by the same curiosity nearly everyone shared: How was Michael able to afford his lifestyle? It must be an inheritance, Ted reasoned. But eventually, he would abandon that thought and embrace another. He had a relaxed ease with money that Ted only observed among those who had more than enough resources to live a very comfortable life in a very expensive part of the world.

  Ted and Michael enjoyed a lunch at the Balboa Café once a month, and Michael always insisted on paying. As a senior on a fixed pension, Ted was only too happy to oblige, in spite of his half-hearted protestations that they should, “split the bill!”

  Despite telling others to mind their own business, like Holly, he gently prodded Michael. Ever the student of human behavior, and fully understanding their curiosity, Michael fed both Holly and Ted a steady diet of misinformation.

  In all the years Michael had spent in Mill Valley, he had heard most of these questions before. Still, as Ted persistently tried to suggest, “The nature of your seemingly carefree life makes you the proverbial nail sticking up out of the porch. There are always going to be people running around with hammers,” Ted cautioned, “looking to knock your nail back into place.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Michael awoke, as he most often did in recent years, not long after dawn. One of the things he loved most about his life was the early morning view of the canyon from out on his small peaceful deck.

  When he stepped outside, he immediately noticed that like the day of the earthquake, all those many years before, the air was unusually warm and the seemingly ever-present breeze coming off Mt. Tam had stilled.

  There was no other time of day when the canyon was so perfectly peaceful. Birds already busy, crows and hawks patrolling, while small woodland creatures scurried about. This was a brief window of time before the start of all the noises humans make. Voices raised in conversation, televisions, radios, and worse, cars, vans and trucks, often rattling off one canyon wall and then echoing back off of another.

  This was the time that Michael enjoyed considering the great success of his business. He was currently taking in twenty-eight thousand dollars a month, off the books, divided into cash reserves and money he had laundered and then invested in legitimate ventures. Shares in hotels and condominium developments in Mexico and a variety of other opportunities, all of which offered him the promise of a comfortable retirement when he decided to hang up his camera.

  He had gone nearly six months since catching his last mark, a financial advisor who took liberties with the trophy wife of a retired Chevron executive. They met at her husband’s eightieth birthday celebration, she thirty, and her husband’s untrustworthy advisor ten years her senior.

  When Michael confronted the lover, casually laying before him three photos capturing their most revealing moments at the worst possible time, a thousand dollars a month to keep the pictures he had taken between the two of them seemed like a very reasonable proposition. The old man had no issue with her extravagant shopping trips, but he drew a line in the sand regarding fidelity. And for his hard driving financial advisor with the promising future, the retired multi-millionaire would have done his very best not only to see that he was tossed from the reputable firm he was now affiliated with, but that no one, at least in the Bay Area, would ever invite him into a partnership with their firm.

  Through the years, Michael had remained faithful to his work ethic. Know your targets, understand their appetites and indiscretions, and remain faithful to the ideal of taking whatever time needed to get the job done. “Do it right, or don’t do it at all,” Caleb often reminded him.

  In the heavily wooded area behind and above the Fitzsimmons’ home, the shooter had made a comfortable nest. His weapon of choice: a Mauser, M98, a popular hunting rifle equipped with a scope. A calm, relaxed manner, a properly sited target, and a confident squeeze of the trigger were all essential to achieving the right result.

  The rifle’s retort sent a sharp crack that echoed along the curves and ridges of the canyon. For those awake shortly before seven-thirty, it naturally caught their attention. A sudden bang, followed by nothing but silence.

  “Sounded like a gun going off,” a few people said to whomever they were near. But the quiet that followed calmed their concerns, and most dismissed it as an odd moment likely not to be repeated. In any event, a new day was starting, a Friday, the la
st work and school day of the week. Whether they were showering to get ready for work or trying to rouse the kids to get dressed for school and then come to the kitchen for some breakfast, they were far too busy to give much thought to what was most likely some idiot shooting at a bird, or simply a car backfiring.

  As for Mrs. Fitzsimmons, when she awoke just before eight, she wondered if she had sometime earlier heard a bang. Likely a dream she decided, as she sleepily dragged herself to the kitchen and poured water into her single cup coffee maker.

  By this time, the shooter was long gone. The gun, wiped clean, half-heartedly buried under a pile of rotting leaves within inches of where it had been fired. The shooter knew this weapon had a registration that led nowhere. Far better for the police to find it in the hours or days to come than for him to be spotted by one of the residents of Rose Avenue walking back to his car carrying a rifle, or equally problematic, a gun case.

  Just before nine, dressed and ready to leave for a two-day stay at her friend’s home in Santa Cruz, Mrs. Fitzsimmons looked out her front window and was pleased to see Michael’s car parked out on the front deck’s carport. She came out and walked along the narrow portion of the deck that led from her parking area to her guest unit and rang Michael’s doorbell. No response. She was surprised, but not concerned. Michael was nearly always awake before her, but he rarely went out to work this early in the day. But now and then, he did spend the evening out.

  She had two floor lamps and an old couch scheduled for pickup Saturday morning by Goodwill, and she wanted to leave him the key to her place so the pieces could be removed. So, she took her spare front door key, placed it in an envelope with a note attached to the front and took her passkey to enter his place and leave the envelope on his front table.