The Dead-End Job Mysteries Box Set 2

by Elaine Viets

  Thank you, Nora E. Saunders, Saunders & Taylor Insurance, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, and Dr. Robin Waldron. Dina Willner and mystery writer Marcia Talley supplied technical advice.

  Novel writing is a team effort, and I have help from the best: senior editor Sandra Harding and the ever-helpful Elizabeth Bistrow at New American Library; my agent, David Hendin; and my reporter husband, Don Crinklaw, who valiantly rattles cages in Fort Lauderdale in between reading my novels. Thanks to Dick Richmond, my friend and former newspaper editor.

  Some friends let me borrow their names. Valerie Cannata was transformed into an investigative TV reporter. Nancie Hays let me turn her into a lawyer. Nan Siemer and her bichon, Benji, are all grown-up now, and Nan has her own consulting company, Breakers, in Alexandria, Virginia. The real Margery Flax is much younger but just as crafty as the fictional Margery. Both love purple, but the real Margery wishes she could smoke. Joan Right is not a Riggs Beach server, but a generous woman who made a donation at a charity auction to have her name in this novel.

  Karen Grace and I spent many hours discussing who really blackmailed Helen and her sister. I didn’t have a clue when I first wrote that scene until Karen explained it to me.

  Thank you, Alan Portman, Molly Zuckerman Portman, Doris Ann Norris, Kay Gordy, Jack Klobnak, Robert Levine, Janet Smith, Jinny Gender and Mary Alice Gorman.

  Private investigator William Simon gave invaluable information. So did Detective R. C. White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired), and Rick McMahan, ATF special agent.

  Thank you to the sources who can’t be named.

  Anne Watts, assistant director of the Boynton Beach City Library, lent me her six-toed cat, Thumbs, for this series. Once again, I am grateful to all the librarians who helped with this book, especially the staff of the St. Louis Public Library, the St. Louis County Library, and the Broward County Library. Librarians are the original search engines.

  I can’t forget super-saleswoman Carole Wantz, who could sell a Chevy to a Ford dealer.

  I’m grateful to the booksellers who recommend my novels to their customers.

  Helen still works those dead-end jobs, but now that she and Phil have their own private eye agency, she takes them to solve cases. Board Stiff required my own in-depth research. I took stand-up paddleboard lessons and landed in about nine feet of water. Mario St. Cyr of Paddlesandboards.com said I fell very gracefully.

  Thank you to the Femmes Fatales & Freres. I rely on your encouragement and advice, and appreciate the help of my blog sister, mystery writer Hank Phillippi Ryan, who knows all about being a star TV reporter. Read our blog at femmesfatales.typepad.com.

  Questions or comments? E-mail me at eviets@aol.com.

  CHAPTER 1

  “They’re trying to kill me,” Sunny Jim Sundusky said. “They nearly succeeded in March, but I’m one tough buzzard. I survived. They almost got me in April, but I escaped again.”

  Helen Hawthorne and her husband, Phil Sagemont, sat across from Sunny Jim in their black-and-chrome chairs in the Coronado Investigations office. Sunny Jim sat in the yellow client chair, looking anything but sunny. Sun-dried was more like it, Helen thought as she studied him.

  His face was red leather. His blond hair was dyed and flash-fried in a crinkly permanent. But he did look tough.

  “They’re gonna keep coming after me until they stop me for good,” he said. “That’s why I wanna hire you two. I hear you’re the best private eyes in South Florida.”

  “We were lucky to get good publicity,” Helen said.

  “That wasn’t luck,” Phil said. “That was good detecting.”

  “That’s what I need,” Sunny Jim said. “Detecting. I want you to stop them before they stop me—permanently.” He stabbed his chest with a brown callused hand, right in the smiling sun on his yellow SUNNY JIM’S STAND-UP PADDLEBOARD RENTAL T-shirt. His arms and legs were roped with muscle and his chest was a solid slab.

  Helen had seen enough steroid hardbodies to know that Jim had built that beef the old-fashioned way. She thought he was attractive in a dated disco style, except he was too young to have caught the seventies disco fever. She guessed his age on the shady side of thirty-five.

  “So you gonna save my business or not?” Jim’s eyes were hidden behind expensive shades—Floridians rarely had naked eyes—but his chin jutted in a challenge.

  Helen tried to pick up a cue from Phil, but he stayed poker-faced. “Tell us a little about your business,” he said.

  “Like I said, I own a stand-up paddleboard rental company,” Jim said. “I got two locations in Riggs Beach.”

  “The beach town just south of Fort Lauderdale,” Helen said. She was hazy about the beach towns between Lauderdale and Miami.

  “Right,” Jim said, and smiled for the first time. “There’s Lauderdale, then Dania, Hollywood, Hallandale and Riggs Beach. You ever been to Riggs Beach?” He shifted in his chair and Helen tried not to stare at the little golden hairs on his long, tanned legs.

  “I walk along that beach sometimes,” she said. “Nice fishing pier.”

  “That’s where I rent my boards,” Sunny Jim said. “Near the base of the pier. Riggs Pier is owned by the city.”

  “Good fishing off that pier,” Phil said.

  “Primo,” Sunny Jim said. “There’s a reef just past the pier. Saw a loggerhead turtle there when I was diving.”

  “You were telling us about your business,” Phil said.

  “There’s a little restaurant and bait shop on the beach end of the pier, run by Cyrus Reed Horton. The restaurant is called Cy’s on the Pier. Locals joke that Cy fries up whatever bait he doesn’t sell, but the food’s not half-bad.

  “Cy owns some real estate along Riggs Beach, including a T-shirt shop and a fancy boutique. He’s got the parking lot by the pier, too. That place is a gold mine. Tourists are begging to park there.

  “I keep a trailer—like a lawn service trailer—at the foot of the pier and rent my paddleboards, but you gotta be good to go out on the ocean. I also give lessons at Riggs Lake about two blocks away: one hour of personal instruction and a half hour of practice for a hundred bucks. The water is quieter and calmer on the lake. It’s a good place to learn. You ever do stand-up paddleboarding?”

  “No,” Helen said. “I’ve seen guys paddling along on those big surfboard-like things on the Intracoastal Waterway. I gather those are paddleboards.”

  “They are. Stand-up paddleboarding is the hot new sport. Everybody wants a piece of the action, and I’ve got the best spot in the city. That’s why they’re after me.”

  “Who is?” Phil asked.

  “The two people who want the lease on my spot,” Jim said, as if it were obvious.

  “And they are?” Phil asked.

  “Bill’s Boards. I’ve caught him poaching on my territory. He was giving lessons right next to my space on Riggs Lake. Even set up a sign like he belonged there. His lessons are cheaper, but he doesn’t have to pay the city to rent the land or buy the license or carry liability insurance like I do. He can afford to undercut me.”

  “How come Bill doesn’t have to follow the rules?” Helen asked.

  “I’m getting to that,” Jim said. “Bill’s Boards parked its trailer next to mine here on the beach and started renting their boards. He was just an employee, not the owner, and I chased him off the first time. But Bill stands there and defies me. He refuses to leave. I called the cops and they shrugged and said it wasn’t their problem.

  “Now if I don’t open up early and drag my boards out on the beach so Bill’s Boards can’t park there, he tries to set up his business again. I’m out there at six a.m., though most of my customers don’t show up until after nine in the morning.”

  “Sounds stressful,” Helen said.

  “Stress! Hell, it’s cutthroat. He’ll do anything to put me out of business. Even stole Randy, my best employee.”

  “How’d he do that?” Phil asked.

  “Offered Randy more money,” Sunny J
im said. “I can’t afford to pay him eleven dollars an hour. Not when I’m stuck with all the costs of being a legitimate businessman.”

  “Did you complain to Riggs Beach?” Helen asked.

  “Hah! Rigged Beach is more like it,” Jim said. “I’ve made more than two hundred complaints to the police, the beach patrol and Riggs Lake park rangers. The city commission won’t do a blessed thing.

  “I finally went to a meeting and complained. Put on a suit in Florida. One commissioner said it would cost too much to enforce the rules. Cost too much! What about the fees the city is missing? What about following the rules?

  “The commissioners said they wanted proof that my competitors are poaching. I even stood behind a palm tree and took photos, but the commission said that still wasn’t proof unless I caught ’em when the money was changing hands. I was never cynical about government, but after that meeting, I saw that same commissioner say hi to his good buddy Bill. Slapped him on the back and they left together. In public. No wonder the police won’t arrest him when he poaches on my territory. That was February.

  “Once I turned up the heat, the sabotage started. In March, two of my paddleboards were stolen and twelve paddles were trashed. Someone broke into my trailer at the height of spring break, the busiest time of the year, so I didn’t have enough boards or paddles for rentals. By the time my insurance claim was settled, spring break was over and so was the demand.

  “That cost me thousands in equipment and even more in lost business. But they weren’t counting on me having insurance. See, that’s where the extra cost comes in, but it saved my bacon.

  “I had video cameras on my beach trailer, and the cameras caught two men on tape. One man is the same size and height as Randy Henshall, my old employee, but he and his accomplice are wearing dive suits and masks, so you can’t see their faces.”

  “And even though Randy was a good employee,” Helen asked, “you think he’d break into your trailer to ruin your business?”

  “Yes, I do,” Jim said and stuck out his chin defiantly. “He left me for money. I think he’d break into my trailer for money, too. But I can’t prove that. He knew about the cameras, didn’t he? And he disguised himself.”

  “Not sure that means anything,” Phil said. “Many businesses use security cameras. What did the police say?”

  “They took a report and that’s about it.” Jim’s face showed his disgust. “Riggs Beach police aren’t interested in tracking down the thieves. They called it a spring break prank and said the stolen boards were probably strapped to a car roof and heading up north.”

  “The break-in was in March,” Phil said. “What happened next?”

  “I started getting tons of calls for reservations and lessons. I was fully booked every day of the week. Thought I was in fat city. Except half of the callers never showed for their lessons or board rentals. After four days of twiddling my thumbs, I changed my policy. Now if you want a lesson or you want to rent a board, you gotta give me a credit card. And I run the card while you’re on the phone. Nipped that in the bud.”

  “Who made the false reservations?” Helen asked. “Men? Women?”

  “Both,” Jim said. “They all sounded young, but then most of my business is people under thirty.”

  “Anybody else you can think of who’d want to cause you trouble?” Phil asked.

  “Well, like I said, there’s Cy,” Jim said. “He wants my beach spot, too, so he can expand his parking lot. He’s like this with the city commissioners.” He held up two fingers, stuck together.

  “But I give Cy some credit. He told me up front. That other bird went behind my back. Only my lease with the city is keeping me on Riggs Beach, and the renewal is coming up for a vote in June.”

  “So what do you want Coronado Investigations to do?” Phil said.

  “Catch ’em!” he said. “Catch them when they’re sabotaging me. I’m still looking for a new employee since I lost Randy. I can’t find a good one. I’ll pay you seven seventy-five an hour, Phil, to work the pier location. That’s in addition to your regular fee. You can keep the money.”

  “Thanks,” Phil said. Jim missed the slight note of sarcasm, but Helen didn’t.

  “Minimum wage in Florida is seven dollars and sixty-five cents, so I’m overpaying you.

  “And I want your lady to work for me, too.”

  “You want two people to suddenly start working at your ocean paddleboard location?” Helen asked. “Won’t that look suspicious?”

  “You’re a smart girl,” Sunny Jim said. “But I got a better job for you. I want you to sit on the beach with a video camera. Like a tourist. You can document my competitors stealing my business. Make sure you get them exchanging the money. Nobody will think anything of it. Tourists video everything—even palm trees doing nothing but standing there. I want Helen to get to know some of the staff at Cy’s restaurant and his two shops. Cy’s a tightwad and he has enemies. Some of his employees are angry enough that they’ll talk about Cy or whatever else they see here in Riggs Beach.”

  “My cover can be that I’m a Fort Lauderdale salesclerk on a staycation,” Helen said. “I’ve got some days off and I’m too broke to go anywhere for a real vacation.”

  “So are you going to be Phil’s wife while he’s working for me?” Sunny Jim asked.

  “It’s better if we don’t even know each other for this job,” Helen said. “I’ll have to take off my wedding ring.”

  “And put on a bikini,” Jim said. “A fine-looking lady like you belongs in a bikini, you know what I mean?”

  Helen didn’t like his smirk.

  “You know that Ms. Hawthorne is my partner—and my wife,” Phil said.

  “I meant no disrespect,” Jim said. “It’s hard not to admire a woman like Ms. Hawthorne. Tell you what. I’ll even throw in free paddleboard lessons for you both after work. As my personal apology.

  “How about if you start tomorrow at six with me, Phil? Ms. Hawthorne, you don’t have to go to work until nine. What do you say, huh?”

  “You can call me Helen,” she said. “Apology accepted.”

  I’m getting paid to sleep late and sit on the beach, she thought. Finally, a dead-end job I can enjoy. Phil gave her a slight nod, his signal that he wanted this client.

  “It’s a deal,” she said.

  CHAPTER 2

  Helen slathered coconut sunscreen on her arms and breathed in the soft, salty ocean air. A light breeze pulled at her big-brimmed straw hat.

  Her short, gauzy caftan covered her black-and-white two-piece suit but showed off her long, tanned legs. She kicked off her black sandals and wiggled her toes in the warm, damp sand.

  Riggs Beach was starting to come to life that morning. Weedy teens rode their boogie boards into the waves while coltish girls squealed and flirted with them. One scrawny boy boldly backstroked past the NO SWIMMING markers. A dark-skinned lifeguard blew her whistle and shouted at him to return.

  Helen heard cheers from the nearby beach volleyball court. A muscular woman in a purple bikini was playing against a goateed dude in red shorts. The beer-chugging spectators were cheering for Ms. Purple—or her skimpy suit, which shifted with every lunge.

  Red Dude has a definite disadvantage, Helen thought. He’s watching her chest bounce instead of the volleyball. No wonder he’s losing. The breakfast beers didn’t bother her. This was Florida.

  On Riggs Pier, a cluster of anglers tried their luck at the far end near the reef, coolers waiting to hold their catch.

  Helen set her rented lounge at an angle so she could see the ocean and Sunny Jim’s trailer. The yellow windowless trailer was wide open. Inside was a homemade plywood fold-down desk for an iPad and a laptop. The sand in front was shaded by a yellow canopy that said SUNNY JIM’S STAND-UP PADDLEBOARDING—RENTALS—LESSONS.

  Parked next to the trailer was a metal rack with eight yellow paddleboards, black paddles stacked on top.

  Helen saw Phil lounging under the canopy in a lawn chair, a co
ld bottle of water in the cup holder. The bottle was sweating. Phil was not. He was watching the volleyball game.

  Helen settled back into her padded lime green lounge. Green should be the official color of Riggs Beach, she decided. She was glad she could write off the ten-dollar chair—and the equally steep pier parking lot fee—as expenses.

  Now, this is how to live, she thought. The whoosh of the waves was soothing and Helen felt her eyes closing.

  Whoa! she reminded herself. You’re supposed to be working. She pulled the camcorder out of her beach bag, checked the time and date stamp, and started videoing the beach.

  Helen zoomed in on a young man playing a mournful version of “Guantanamera” on a guitar to two beach bunnies under a palm tree. His long brown hair and pink lips gave him a romantic prettiness, like an old-time cavalier. But his red thong didn’t have enough material for a cavalier’s cuff. Mr. Romantic finished his guitar solo and the two young women applauded. He stood up, bent to take a bow, and Helen saw his hairy bottom.

  She winced. Mooned in daylight. Helen wanted to run over with a tube of hair remover and say, “Use this! Keep Florida beautiful.”

  Helen abruptly swung the camera away, toward the sound of an argument. A fleshy topless woman was screaming in French at the curvy brown lifeguard in a modest red suit. The lifeguard handed the topless woman a towel and pointed toward the street. The sturdy woman flipped the lifeguard the bird, a gesture understood in any language. She left without covering herself, her bare breasts swinging defiantly.

  Helen turned her camera to a family playing by the shore. A brown-haired mother watched her toddler squeal and chase the waves. The chubby-cheeked baby had a duck’s fluff of blond hair.

  Helen was so charmed by the Madonna with her water baby, she forgot she was supposed to be watching Sunny Jim’s. She aimed her camcorder toward the trailer and found her husband talking and laughing with the brown-skinned lifeguard. Her muscular body, carved out of mahogany, gleamed with sunscreen, a slippery surface for any man. Phil didn’t wear his ring for this assignment, either, and he sure wasn’t acting married.