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

by Martin Brown

  Over the many years Michael had rented her in-law suite, they had grown close and comfortable with each other. He would do small favors for her, and she, in turn, for him. They exchanged generous and thoughtful gifts on Christmas and birthdays. She gave him small rental increases, and he always paid in cash and on the first of the month. They both mostly kept to their separate lives, but they were there for each other when needed.

  For a second time, she rang the bell, knocked twice, and then, using her passkey, entered. Immediately, she smelled coffee that had been recently brewed, evidence that Michael had not spent the night out. Then she noticed the door to his outside patio was open. A cold chill suddenly went through her small aging frame. She froze in place for a moment when she saw what she assumed were Michael’s legs splayed across the deck. Oh, my God, she thought. She had feared, given his ever-expanding waist, that one day he would be felled by a heart attack. Might this have been that day?

  With just two more hesitant steps forward, she saw the pool of dark red blood that covered a good part of the deck. Her scream was the second unexpected sound to shatter the peace of the canyon that morning.

  Breathlessly, she ran back to her home, never stopping to close Michael’s front door. Once inside, she collapsed into an aging wingback chair, trying to gather herself before picking up the phone to call the police. She rubbed her hand over the center of her chest, hoping that she was not suffering the heart attack that she just feared had felled her friend.

  “Oh, my Lord, I don’t know what has happened,” she told the 911 service that routed her call to Mill Valley dispatch. “I think it might be a suicide. I just can’t believe it; I can’t believe it!”

  Mrs. Fitzsimmons was still badly shaken when two police cars pulled up in front of her home. She walked out and nearly fell sobbing into the arms of the first officer as he reached out to her.

  “Why would he do something like this? He seemed so happy,” she asked both of them.

  The second officer, Lt. Sarah Lauerman, walked into Michael’s home. Stopping at the doorway leading out to the porch, she could see that the victim had suffered a massive and obviously fatal head wound. Not wanting to disturb what was a possible crime scene, she immediately requested that dispatch place two calls, one to the Marin County Sheriff’s department and the other to the medical examiner.

  Ten minutes later Lauerman, and fellow officer Jimmy Keyes, were still attempting to calm Mrs. Fitzsimmons, when detective Eddie Austin, one of only two experienced homicide investigators in the entire county, arrived.

  Eddie stepped inside and introduced himself to the grieving landlady and nodded in greeting to the two officers, both of whom he had met previously. Pulling Lauerman aside and stepping out on to the front deck he asked, “Is the victim a relative?”

  “Apparently not. But she has known him for over twenty-five years. His name is Michael Marks; everyone in town knew him.”

  “I know him too. My buddy over in Sausalito, Rob Timmons, publishes the Standard community newspapers; he’s provided photos for the Mill Valley paper for years, but I’m sure you know that. I only met him two or three times. Quirky kind of character.”

  “He was like the town’s unofficial photographer for as long as I can remember. Jeez I was a student in the fifth grade over at the old Mt. Carmel Church School when Marks came in to take pictures of us for some project we were doing.”

  “Well, I better go take a look.”

  “Eddie, I just wanted to tell you,” Sarah said, putting her hand around his arm, “it’s a real mess over there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, let’s just say I didn’t want to get close enough to feel for a pulse.”

  “That bad?”

  “From what I can tell, between what appears to be brain matter and a bucket’s worth of blood, whatever killed Mr. Marks happened in a hurry.”

  “You think he put a gun to his head?”

  “If he did, it was no small caliber gun. And if it was a shotgun he used on himself, it somehow vanished, because there is no weapon that I saw out there.”

  “You ask the landlady if she saw or heard anything?”

  “Not a thing, she told us. She woke up around eight and went over to Marks’ place shortly before nine. She had plans to head down to Santa Cruz for a couple of nights; she wanted to leave him her key.”

  “And she heard nothing?” Well, she would have heard a shotgun go off twenty feet from where she was sleeping. Is she deaf?”

  “No, I asked her if she had a hearing issue and she said no.”

  “Eddie, besides not wanting to disturb a crime scene, after what little I did see, I was afraid I might not sleep for a month if I got any closer.”

  “I understand, Sarah; don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Other than the rare occasion when a car goes off a cliff, working here doesn’t help to prepare you for anything like this. Mill Valley isn’t exactly a war zone.”

  Oh, shit, Eddie thought; Sarah had not exaggerated. Probably, however, not that much for her to disturb; unless the bullet had exited the front of the victim’s skull and was laying somewhere near the scattered spray of bone and brain matter.

  “What the fuck is this? Baghdad by the bay?” someone said from behind.

  Eddie turned to see Max Brownstein, Marin County’s medical examiner, standing behind him.

  “Max, what are you doing here? You don’t normally leave the office.”

  “I was on my way back to San Rafael after an early breakfast conference in San Francisco, when the call came in. It sounded intriguing, so I thought I would take a look. My God, clean up on aisle five.”

  Always astounded by Max’s macabre sense of humor, Eddie added, “Well, it certainly isn’t your usual run of the mill murder scene.”

  “You’re right about that,” Max said, as he walked slowly around the body and then carefully along the perimeter of the deck.

  “I’d guess he had no idea what happened.”

  “Good guess, Eddie. I just read this story about a group of construction workers on the ground at a building site for a new high-rise in Manhattan. One of the crane’s balance weights broke free and came falling out of the sky. Some hapless bastard took a direct hit. BOOM! Like a fly walking across a kitchen table; no idea what hit him.”

  Max paused and bent over Michael’s body, examining what he could of the massive head wound. A ceramic coffee mug was near his body, broken into a half dozen pieces.

  “Whack,” Max said, looking up at Eddie as he smacked one hand onto the other. “Yep, never saw it coming. Probably just out here enjoying a morning cup of coffee and some fresh air.”

  “Except rather than having a concrete block fall out of the sky, I’m thinking our friend here took a direct hit from a rifle shot to the back of the head. Probably from a shooter up about there,” Max said, pointing up the hill to a wooded area that sat behind a home at the end of Rose Avenue.

  “Agreed. We’ve got signs of an exit would from the forehead, but given the thin spindles on the deck’s railing, my guess is that whatever was left of the bullet is out in this wooded area below us.”

  “Good luck finding any of that down there.”

  “We probably have a better chance of finding a shell casing up on the hillside.”

  “You’re right, Eddie; well, we both have our work cut out for us. We’ve got some people coming down to bag and tag the poor bastard. Jeez, what an awful way to start your day.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Approximately two hours after the police were first called, Michael’s body was removed from where it had fallen, and a search began of the most likely spot from which the shot had been fired.

  Mrs. Fitzsimmons called to cancel her two-night getaway to Santa Cruz. So thoroughly overwrought was she by the whole situation that a neighbor invited her to spend the night just two doors down from her home. Most of the evening was taken up with her exhausted sobs and her endlessly repeated question, “How
could this happen to such a nice man?”

  Max instructed his staff to photograph every possible angle and then clear all relevant evidence, and finally wash down the deck. “No one should have to see something like this,” he told his staff.

  Eddie spent most of his day at the murder scene. Why this had happened was a mystery; how it happened was not. Eddie had four Mill Valley officers going door to door to inquire about hearing a gunshot, sometime between six and eight that morning.

  By the time three area residents had given similar stories, Eddie was able to confirm that the fatal shot was fired at approximately seven twenty-five.

  Eddie went with two deputies to the door of the home he thought was the most likely in the area from where the shot was fired. Its owners, listed in the county’s records as a couple in their late sixties, were reportedly out of town on a wine tour of Bordeaux, France.

  Two more deputies joined Eddie for a search of the backyard. It was the usual thicket of vines, with a few scattered pine trees, dead leaves, pine needles, wildflowers, and dry soil. It wasn’t long before one of his deputies, Bettie Levy, stepped onto the Mauser rifle.

  “Over here,” she cried out.

  Ten minutes later, the rifle was placed in an evidence bag and on its way to the crime lab in San Rafael.

  In Mill Valley, like any of the small towns of Marin County, people who thrive on local gossip can spread news faster than the Internet.

  Sarah Lauerman was in the City Hall office of Ethel Marion, a woman who once babysat her, minutes after leaving the murder scene on Hazel Avenue.

  “Ethel, you won’t believe where I just came from.”

  “Sarah I’m too busy to play games; there’s a council meeting tonight.”

  “Okay. Michael Marks’ place.”

  “What were you doing up there?”

  “He’s dead!”

  “WHAT?”

  Sarah explained the gruesome details, as Ethel gasped repeatedly.

  “Heart Attack? The man ate like every meal was his last.”

  “Nope. He was murdered by a single rifle shot to the back of the head.”

  “My God, nothing like that ever happens around here,” Ethel winced as a cold chill ran up her spine.

  Sarah was not out of her office for more than a moment when Ethel grabbed her phone.

  “Ted,” she began, “Are you sitting down?”

  Ted hung up from his call with Ethel and dialed Holly and Rob.

  Both of them had just completed their last deadline of the week, transmitting the Peninsula Standard, which covered news in the towns of Belvedere and Tiburon, much of which was provided by their friend, community reporter Sylvia Stokes. They were about to head out for an early lunch when the phone rang.

  Rob heard Holly give her usual greeting, the one that made the Standard sound like a busy newsroom instead of couple of inexpensively furnished offices occupied by two full-time employees.

  “Standard newspapers, how may I direct your call?”

  Rob smiled, but then jumped when he heard Holly scream, “What? How? Who?” After a pause, Holly’s voice softened as she said, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe this.”

  After thanking Ted and rushing off the phone, Holly turned around to find Rob standing behind her.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Try me!”

  Holly raced through what she had heard from Ted, as Rob stood there staring at her in shock.

  Rob, in turn, grabbed his phone and texted his oldest and closest friend, Eddie Austin. Like Rob, Eddie was a Sausalito native. The two men had known each other since kindergarten, but became inseparable from the time they both played basketball for Tam High. They served as each other’s best man: Eddie, when Rob married Karin, also a Sausalito native; and Rob, when Eddie married his sweetheart, Sharon, who grew up across Richardson Bay in the idyllic town of Tiburon. The age of Eddie and Sharon’s only child, Aaron, landed right in the middle of the age of Rob and Karin’s seven-year-old boy, Micah, and their five-year-old daughter, Alice.

  Both now nearing forty, Eddie and Rob even had a somewhat similar physical appearance. Portuguese/Irish descent, with dark hair and light colored eyes, both were a few inches over six feet. Rob was thinner and Eddie had broader shoulders and stronger arms. Their biggest difference was in choice of professions: Rob earned a degree in journalism at San Francisco State, while Eddie majored in criminal justice at the same public college.

  The two were real life examples of the expression, “brothers from another mother.” There was absolutely no formality between them. Their wives recognized this from the start, joking that their husbands were, “the most successful couple we know.”

  Rob, using his usual shorthand, wrote Eddie, “WTF, bro, Michael Marks shot? Fuck me!”

  The minute it took Eddie’s text to come seemed like an eternity.

  “I’m on the case right now. Making good progress, but you’re down one good photographer. Deets later at Smitty’s. You’re buying!”

  Fridays at five for drinks at Smitty’s, Sausalito’s old neighborhood dive bar, was a standing date for Rob and Eddie. A tradition Holly happily became part of when she realized a martini was involved.

  Rob and Holly, who with another long week behind them and only their coverage of the Michael Marks’ murder to discuss, arrived at four forty-five. Holly ordered her usual, a very dry Hangar 1 martini, with two olives, and Rob happily had his drink of choice, a tall cold Guinness, which he had happily in hand when Eddie walked in to the dark, beer besotted environment that had been Smitty’s for as long as any one of them could remember. Eddie gave Rob a pat on the shoulder and Holly a kiss on the cheek.

  “Let me buy you a beer,” Rob said.

  “No, tonight I need something stiffer than that.”

  “Anything you want.”

  “How about a Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks?”

  “Going for the good stuff.”

  “With the day I’ve had, you’re lucky they don’t stock Johnnie Walker Blue.”

  “Pretty awful, huh?” Holly asked.

  “I’ll spare you the gruesome details.”

  “This is just so awful; really, what was it like?”

  “Holly, I know you’re always the first to want know everything, but trust me, this time you don’t. Let’s just say he died quickly. In fact, the ME put it best, ‘He never knew what hit him.’ Someone very much wanted him dead. We’ve already recovered the murder weapon. Military rifle M-98, German made. Good quality weapon; it will get the job done in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  Rob, walking back from the bar with the Johnnie Walker Scotch Eddie had requested, caught the last part of what he had just told Holly. “You don’t think this was a hit for hire?”

  “Possible, although a bit odd. That rifle is more of a hunter’s choice than a professional assassin’s. Pretty weird we’re even thinking in those terms, given the fact this is Mill Valley we’re discussing.”

  Holly winced as she lifted her martini, remembering the last time she had been out for a drink with Michael.

  “It’s a pretty nutty situation,” Eddie said with a mischievous smile. “Of course, you two are used to odd events. Two years ago, your Sausalito social columnist gets whacked, and now a local photographer who provided you with pictures takes a rifle shot to the head. What the hell goes on at that paper anyway?”

  Holly and Rob looked at each other and shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you two this much, if you’re looking for some poor bastard to write a crime column, I’m not your guy.”

  “Coincidences aside,” Rob said, ignoring Eddie’s teasing, “Who the hell would want to kill Michael Marks?”

  “Yeah,” Holly said, signaling the bartender that she was ready for a second martini. “I’m guessing it wasn’t for photos he took of the kids sitting on Santa’s lap, or the runners setting off on the Dipsea Steps. He pi
ssed someone off enough to kill him or have him killed.”

  “Didn’t the neighbors hear anything?” Rob asked.

  “Yes, we interviewed a number of neighbors and they all gave the same description. Most say they heard a single shot, around seven twenty-five this morning, but no one saw anyone suspicious. The older couple, who said they heard nothing, also said they had just gotten up and not yet put in their hearing aids. Most thought it was a car backfiring or some dope shooting at a bird.”

  “Any chance it was a stray bullet?” Holly asked. “I just can’t imagine someone wanting him dead; he was just such a nice guy.”

  “Possible, sure, but I’d say a one out of a thousand chance. If the shooter knew Marks’ habit of coming out on his deck early in the morning, as his landlady told us, to have a cup of coffee and some quiet time before he started his day, he or she was perfectly positioned to fire a single kill shot. If that was not the case, why was the shooter there in the first place? No, this was a hit. If I can figure out the why, I’m a lot closer to finding the who.”

  Why the hell had this happened, was Eddie’s first thought when he awoke shortly after 7:30 the following morning. So much for the idea of sleeping in on a Saturday. He dragged himself to the kitchen for some coffee in the hope it would help reduce the headache from two double scotches the night before. Halfway through his second cup, his cellphone started to ring. The name “Lauerman,” came up on the screen.

  “Sarah?” Eddie said with a bit of surprise in his voice. “You on duty?”

  “No, off until Monday morning. I got up early thinking about Michael Marks.”

  “So did I. Sorry you walked in on that. I know it was a pretty gruesome scene.”

  “No, not that. I mean, I was thinking about Marks and why he came to visit and take pictures of our class all those years ago…”