Sand City Murders

by MK Alexander

  “Bicycle? Or by telephone, I suppose. Sometimes Melissa would give her a ride.”

  “How long did she work at the paper?”

  “For as long as I can remember…”

  “Next of kin?”

  “Wasn’t that on her employment form?” Eleanor asked flatly.

  “Did she talk about her family at all?”

  “She talked about her mother from time to time.”

  “Do you know where she is, her mom?”

  “No sorry, Richard.”

  Detective Durbin also talked with Melissa, though I didn’t hear that conversation. I took my turn comforting Eleanor. He took me aside just after they left, led me outside Willard’s and lit up a cigarette.

  “Patrick, talk to me.”

  “About what?”

  “Your co-worker, Lucinda.”

  “I barely knew her.”

  “Eleanor said she’s been working at the Chronicle for as long as she can remember.”

  “That’s a weird thing to say…” I paused. “I think it’s only been a couple of months.”

  “Really?”

  “What did Melissa tell you?”

  “Same thing. Why would Eleanor say otherwise?”

  “She’s old, she’s upset— and we’re under the gun right now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our big summer issue is coming out next week. It’s a lot of pressure.”

  “I can’t figure this one…” Durbin leaned against the wall. “She’s like a missing persons case, only she’s not missing. Her social doesn’t even match up. It’s bogus.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The social security number. It’s not hers.”

  “That’s a red flag.”

  “Yeah, it belongs to somebody else, a dead person.”

  “Who?”

  “Helen Moriches… died like thirty years ago or something.”

  “From Sand City?”

  “What?”

  “Was she from Sand City?”

  “Hmm. I didn’t check…” He gave me a look. “You’d make a pretty good cop, Jardel…” Durbin said and managed a half smile. “And you’re right, maybe I should find out more about this Helen Moriches.”

  I think Durbin just paid me a compliment and I was a bit surprised.

  “I ran Lucinda’s cell. All her calls? Either to people in the office, Eleanor, Melissa, Pagor, Jason, or businesses in town… and every single one of them advertises in your paper.” He snubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. “Sad really, no family, no friends, no relatives. Looks like she just moved here about two months ago. We can’t even find next of kin.”

  I had nothing to add.

  “Bring your laptop?” he asked.

  I nodded, reached into my satchel and handed it over.

  “Thanks, I’ll get it back to you in a couple days, okay?”

  “A couple of days?”

  “Alright, maybe tomorrow… Hey, have you heard from Inspector Fynn?”

  “No.”

  “It’s like he freaking disappeared off the map or something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Patrick, I need a favor,” Durbin said awkwardly.

  “Sure.”

  “Listen, with Lucinda here, we’re up to five freaking murders. People are whispering serial killer. I’m thinking the whole season’s gonna go down the crapper…”

  “And you’ll take the blame, won’t you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I don’t know… like a press release or something. A way to spin this so it doesn’t seem so bad to the tourists.”

  I sighed and considered Durbin’s request. “Wow, that’s a tall order…”

  “No ideas?”

  “How about the truth?” I asked.

  “That’s not going to fly. The truth is, I don’t even have a goddamn suspect.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  Later, I managed to call my mom in Florida. I got a weird recording though: the number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and dial again. I did just that with no result. That can’t be good, I thought. Hopefully, the card I had mailed would make it on time.

  ***

  Monday morning was difficult. I couldn’t help but think that Lucinda’s murder combined with the kennel killings might prove to be a fatal blow to the Sand City tourist season, and the Chronicle as well. I got to the office early. Melissa acting on Eleanor’s behalf had texted everyone on staff, requesting their presence at 9:00 a.m. For once I was not ten minutes late. Everyone was already camped in the editorial office when Eleanor came in, wearing her matching seersucker skirt and blazer. Without a word, she walked behind her desk and sat down. We all looked on expectantly and silently.

  “Thank you for coming in this morning… and so promptly,” Eleanor began and looked around the room. “Recent events, and I must say, very tragic events have cast a shadow on our lives, everyone’s lives, here at the paper, and here in Sand City.” She paused to light a cigarette. “I’ve been here a very long time, nearly my whole life, and I for one cannot remember anything so distressing. It’s unprecedented.” She glanced around from person to person. “So… the question which comes to mind is, what’s next? What do we do? How do we proceed?”

  Everyone understood not to say anything. Eleanor continued, “This spate of murders has called everything into question. There are doubts about the upcoming summer season… I’m sure you have heard bookings are already down this year. This affects us, and the community as a whole… Our advertisers are extremely skittish, and this last point raises doubts about whether the Chronicle will, or should continue.”

  I expected a few murmurs at least, but everyone remained mute.

  “You may have also heard the rumors that I’ve decided to sell the paper,” Eleanor went on. “It’s true that I’ve had some discussions with potential buyers. Mr Chamblis for one, and the Fairhaven Times have shown some interest. Even Melissa and her husband Julian—once he’s back on his feet— are also candidates with the proviso that they can obtain financing.”

  All eyes darted in Melissa’s direction. She returned her perfect smile.

  “That being said, I have decided not to take any action on this until after Labor Day.” Eleanor paused. “I’ve decided that we must carry on one way or another… for the sake of Lucinda of course, and for the sake of our community at large.”

  It sure seemed like Eleanor had finished but no one said anything. I jumped into the silence: “I can’t speak for everyone here… but I’m pretty sure we’re all feeling devastated right now. It’s like we’re all in shock— and for me, all of this hasn’t really sunk in.” I looked around the room. “It’s hard to know how we can just get on with our normal lives after this… it almost seems meaningless in a way… But, and this is important, we owe our greatest debt to Eleanor.” I gave her a small smile. “If our editor-and-chief is not going to call it quits, then I say, well, I’ve got your back.”

  “Thank you, Patrick,” Eleanor said almost in a whisper. She looked a little choked up. Joey and Pagor both came over and slapped me on the back. Miriam was nodding her head. Frank seemed oblivious as usual, though this morning he was scratching his left leg furiously. Jason looked on sullenly. Amy said nothing, which was probably a good thing.

  “Alright then, people,” Eleanor said in a more normal tone of voice. “We have our work cut out for us. For practicality’s sake, I’ve decided to push up the Summer Preview Issue by a week. So we’re now looking to publish on May thirty-first. Mel and Don have already volunteered some extra duty to cover for our loss, and we should all hope and pray that Detective Durbin can apprehend this, this brutal killer sooner rather than later. In that regard, please offer him any assistance possible— that goes for Joey and Patrick especially.” Eleanor looked around the room a final time. “As a small tribute to poor Lucinda, and to the courageous girls at the kennel, I’m going
to ask you all to take the day…” She paused. “Tomorrow, we’ll start again, bright and early. Thank you all.”

  Despite our marching orders for taking the day, everyone seemed to linger nonetheless. Amy was first to finally leave, then Miriam floated off, once Eleanor had disappeared. I saw Jason hobble out to his car as well, and with a decidedly guilty expression on his otherwise glum face. Frank Gannon was at his cubicle still scratching.

  “Frank, what’s up with the leg?”

  “Oh, I got eaten alive the other night.”

  “Bugs?”

  “I guess.” He lifted his cuff to reveal a calf wrapped in an ace bandage.

  “You try calamine?”

  “I tried everything, still itches like crazy… well, see you later.”

  Melissa stopped by my desk on her way out. “The Chronicle better stay open till Labor Day,” she said to me alone, and rather callously, I thought. What she meant was, if Eleanor had a chance in hell of selling the paper to Chamblis or anyone else, it would have to stay open. A newspaper that closed down and started up again wasn’t worth squat.

  “Hey Mel, what did Eleanor mean about your husband getting back on his feet? Is he okay?”

  “Oh, he’s fine, just pulled a hamstring on the golf course...”

  I went for another cup of coffee and came back to my desk to find Pagor in the editorial office. He sat in Frank’s vacated cubicle, one foot in a cast and up on an adjacent chair. He was very quiet at first and his suit seemed especially rumpled.

  “Sorry to hear about your mom,” I said.

  “My mom?” he asked loudly.

  “I heard she was ill.”

  “No… never better,” he boomed. “Well, maybe a touch of hay fever this time of year. Terrible allergies…”

  “What’s with the cast?”

  Donald laughed a bit nervously. “A jet-ski accident. I sprained my ankle…”

  Really? I had a hard time imagining Pagor on a jet-ski, and an even harder time conjuring up the series of events that could actually lead to such an injury. Donald hoisted himself from the chair. I noticed his walking stick.

  “Wow, that’s a cool cane.”

  “This? It was my grandfather’s,” he bellowed. A smile came to his spongy face. “He used to wallop my father across the head with it, when he was just a lad,” Pagor laughed just as loudly as he spoke. He held it out for me to examine. It looked like an antique with a heavy brass head, well, not a head, but a molded bear claw. I suddenly felt sorry for Pagor’s dad.

  “Here’s the really neat part,” Donald said, though not quite in a yell. He twisted the top and partially unsheathed a blade that was hidden in the shaft. He gave me a gleeful smile. Weird.

  I scanned the morning edition of the Fairhaven Times. Nothing on Lucinda’s murder. I guess that’s not too surprising considering how well Durbin and Leaning get along. They had run a piece on the kennel killings for their Sunday edition, but it ended up below the fold, and certainly lacked any empathy for the girls and the canines both. Strictly police blotter reporting. Instead they went in big for the Sand City School scandal.

  Thanks to Joey’s reluctance, the unpaid leave story was not reported by us. Sordid as it was, two middle school teachers had been accused of impropriety in the locker room after hours. They were summarily dismissed without pay pending an investigation. It was all completely unsubstantiated garbage for now. The one witness was questionable, Mr Kurt Mars, a longtime custodian at the school, and the two teachers in question had exemplary records up to the present. The Times ran with the story anyway, Leaning’s angle amounted to innuendo bordering on hysteria. I thought it was downright irresponsible, a shoddy job. He quoted a bunch of indignant parents and silly kids, trying to string together the idea that the entire community had experienced some collective moral outrage that was… well, pretty much nonexistent.

  It all took a backseat to the real tragedies of the past couple of days and it almost made the Times look unfeeling, insensitive to say the least. It only served to further ostracize them from Sand City. What did they really care? They’re from Fairhaven... I decided to update the website and scoop the Times on Lucinda’s murder, not that it mattered much to Eleanor. I wrote up the facts as I knew them and added the headline: Murdered Girl Found In Long Neck Marsh.

  Even though it was a day off, my inbox was completely full. I ran down next week’s issue on my notebook. First, I looked over Joey’s coverage of the Brand Wars. That was Chamblis Enterprises’ plan to redevelop the shopping plaza into a food court. Their hope was to attract every major brand in the country from fast food to gourmet coffee. The economics behind this idea was a tough sell however. Corporate types just looked at the numbers, and while they were great for the summer season, they were non-existent for the winter months— that is, crazy busy or crazy slow. To the suits though, overhead, staffing and stock were not seasonal questions at all. They were constants. One great quarter and three terrible quarters was bad math. Chamblis tried to make the case that anchor brands would entice people to drive here from Oldham, Garysville and Eastport all year round. Nobody was buying this idea.

  The was quite a ruckus at the meeting and it took a totally unexpected turn. Surprisingly, the locals, down to a person were all for redevelopment. That caught Michael Burton Dean by surprise. But they petitioned for lease inclusions, and would sue as a group against lease exclusions. It ended up as a corporate showdown. Like Yang Lei, who found his fluency in English, versus the Colonel, or Spiro’s Gyros versus cute little Wendy, and a pizza guy who didn’t seem to be Italian at all. I was totally down with a Jamaican restaurant as well.

  It was Kevin Marchand from the Historical Society that drove the final nail in the coffin: self-illuminated signs, read neon and alike, were strictly forbidden according to code. That’s something lawyer Dean did not know in advance and he should have. Every brand would need a variance if they wanted to sport their usual glowing logo. Ah, the dreaded variance. I was sorry to have taken myself out of the fray. It sounded like an interesting night.

  Evan’s report on the Baxter Estates expansion was also on my desk. I had to read it twice. It was just too hard to believe the first time. As far as I could tell, Chamblis was doing this right, more than right: The Woodlands Luxury Estates… too good to be true: two-acre zoning, solar paneled south facing roofs, biological waste water treatment, eco-friendly, recycled runoff… full sensor egress traffic lights, and only a point five percent reduction of actual trees. Hmm… I was completely surprised by this and decided to confirm with Evan at some later date, when I could track him down.

  The Saint Alban’s court ruling was postponed yet again. I double-checked the e-courts site just to be sure and crossed it off my list. Only a few items were left in my basket: A new chef at Governor’s Inn... Wait, didn’t we run that already? I had to check the back issues. With a name like Pierre Escobar, it was pretty much guaranteed that you’d become a chef... Lobster Pot re-opens with new menu... Not sure that’s worth a headline.

  When I came back with a third cup of coffee, I spotted Joey in his cubicle. It looked to me like he was moping a little.

  “Joey, great work on the Brand Wars thing. I just finished looking it over.”

  “Thanks,” he replied and glanced over at me.

  “Um, why are you reading the Fairhaven Times’ Police Blotter?”

  “I don’t know really… but I just ran across this… third one down.”

  I read: Police report break in, 66 Sunnyside Lane, Eastport. “So?”

  “Just a weird coincidence… that’s where Marvin the milkman lives.”

  “Marvin who?”

  “The milkman… didn’t you read my story?”

  “Oh yeah, I really liked that piece.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Still, what’s the coincidence here?”

  “Look at the date… it was Friday night, same as the kennel.”

  “Hmm… that is a little weird. What was this guy like
?”

  “He was a hard nut to crack. Just sat there in his living room with his arms folded. He thought the whole idea of a story was silly,” Joey said. “We sat there awhile and eventually he started talking. I just listened.”

  “Nice… you got a copy of that?”

  I scanned the story again: I’m up at the crack of dawn literally. Few people get to see the sun come up over the ocean. I can tell you, it’s a beautiful sight. I never get tired of it. I read further, Well, I probably shouldn’t name names, but... Doc Samuels and Albert, his dog, they’re up there every morning. You can set your watch by it. Lots of folks walking their dogs. Joggers too. You’d be surprised who’s up at that hour. Hector Diaz, now there’s an early riser— and Shirley Girl of course…

  “What does he mean when he says up there?” I asked Joey.

  “Um… Oakview Terrace, up near the bike path.”

  “Really?” I paused to think. “Can you follow up with this guy? See what was stolen from his house?”

  Joey grinned. “Sure I can.”

  PART THREE

  chapter 26

  jumping jetties

  I hadn’t see Inspector Fynn for several days, three days actually. It was pretty much the crack of dawn on Tuesday when I got a call on my land line. He was in Fairhaven and needed a ride. I picked him up about an hour later at the bus station of all places, and I have to say, he looked slightly worse for wear. Fynn was dressed in the same clothes from Friday night when I had last seen him, or not, in Partners. Not quite so impeccable; his clothes were caked in mud, and his shirt was stained by something red.

  “Are you okay?” was my first question.

  He lowered himself into the Saab wearily. “It was a somewhat difficult journey,” he muttered almost under his breath. He looked at me. “What’s wrong, Patrick? You seem rather somber this morning.”

  “Nobody does that, not in the real world.”

  “What?”

  “Disappears into thin air. I saw you.”

  “Nonsense, it was a trick of the light, an illusion…” He smiled at me.

  “Please don’t say that. I saw you blink out of existence.”