Steve’s shorts: The Seaside Caper…
The Seaside Caper
Copyright 2019, Steven M. Moore
Summer evenings, after dinner at one of the beachside cafes, Lillian would go down to the nearest pavilion and read a spy novel, or some other mystery or thriller novel, until it became too dark to read, the hour averaging around 8 p.m. in daylight savings time. Fall and spring she would do the same thing while eating her lunch, a PB&J sandwich with a fiber bar for dessert.
Those were pleasant times of relaxation, especially for a librarian. The pavilion was far enough from water’s edge that even the happy screams of summer beachgoers combined with the sound of crashing waves formed a white noise background that let her know she was alive without distracting her from her reading. With the covered pavilion, she was protected from sun and rain.
That summer day she was at a point in her book where the spy peered around the corner of the old warehouse to see the Stasi agent getting out of his car. A shot was fired.
She jerked because that wasn’t in the book! On the beach, a man who had been sitting in a low chair sunning himself slumped forward, a bright red flower mixing with the sun tan lotion on his hairy back.
That shot came from the road just in back of the pavilion, she thought. She turned and saw a black sedan speeding away, but she managed to snap several photos of it with her smart phone. As the screams from the sun worshippers who had been close to the victim rose above the level of the white noise after seeing their fellow’s demise, she called 9-1-1.
She then marked her place, closed her book, and waited to see how it would all play out.
***
Leo Gamberini had set up his table to interview witnesses in the concession area at the beach, also located in the rear of the pavilion, but to one side. His Panama hat and Hawaiian shirt fit right in at the beach scene. Being a detective in a resort town wasn’t a bad gig, but now he had his first murder case.
He’d taken early retirement to flee all the stress of the NYPD. At first, he even missed the action in the Big Apple, but no longer. Now this happens!
There was no local homicide department, just a police department with a fat, old police chief, one detective, Leo, and four officers in uniforms. The most serious case he ever had until then was a domestic dispute where the wife shot her husband in the butt—he was a nasty drunk and probably deserved it.
“Who’s next?” Leo said to Max Jepson, who was organizing witnesses with Maria Rodriguez.
Max looked at his list. “Lillian Zannis.”
“Our librarian?”
“The same.”
Leo sighed. “My wife is always complaining about how strict she is in enforcing fines.”
“Your wife forgets to take her books back, Leo.”
Leo frowned and nodded. “Let’s get to it then.”
“Hello, Detective Gamberini,” Lillian said as she sat down across the table from him. “You’re looking unhappy. Murder isn’t a pleasant thing. You, of all people, should know that. How’s Alice?”
“She went to Red Bank to do some shopping. School clothes for the grandkids, you know.”
“Yes, almost time for it. My summer reading groups will be gone, swallowed up by an educational system that now teaches kids to hate books.” She placed her smart phone on the table. “I want it back, of course. Have someone copy the pictures.”
“What pictures?”
“The ones of the assassin’s getaway car.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Detective, I’d never kid about something like that. The poor victim was sitting right in front of me on the beach. I saw him slump over, turned, took the pictures, and then called 9-1-1.”
Max, who was sitting off to the side with the remaining witnesses, winked, nodded, and smiled at Leo.
“You knew about Lillian’s pics?” said Leo.
“Nope. She told me to alphabetize the witnesses to put some order in the proceedings. I guess she likes to wait.”
“Not so,” Lillian said with a smile. “I wanted to study the others to see if they looked guilty. But it was a bit chaotic, so alphabetizing them by name at least added some order to the process.”
“Well, thank you, Lillian,” Leo said. “Maybe you solved a murder.”
“You know very well, detective, that a murder isn’t solved until the perp is in handcuffs. By the way, the victim isn’t from around here. I saw him get out of his car. It has New York plates. So does the assassin’s.”
“The victim is from Long Island,” Leo said. “We’ll find out where the murderer is from if you have a clear image of his license plate.”
“I would be looking for a motive too. Who knows? Maybe the victim was a secret agent.”
“Or vice versa. You read too much fiction, Lillian.” Leo waved the phone at Max. “Get these pics copied.”
“Don’t mess with my contacts or playlist,” Lillian told Max.
***
Two days later, Lillian saw Leo at the WaWa when she went for some bread and peanut butter.
“How’s the case going, detective?”
“Slow,” said Leo with a growl. “The assassin’s plates were stolen. Some guy in Queens had reported it.”
“So you only have the make and model of the car. I’ll have to keep my eye out for him. Maybe the assassin’s local. What did the victim do for a living?”
“Accountant for an Atlantic City casino.”
“Ah, the plot thickens. Maybe he was going to squeal about improprieties taken by the casino’s owner.”
“We’re checking on the owner. I interviewed him. He wasn’t cooperative.” Leo smiled at her. “Stay out of it, Lillian. Let us handle the case.”
“Okay. I’ll just be a cheerleader.”
***
Of all the games at the casino, Lillian liked roulette best. But she left the table and her modest winning streak to follow the casino owner. His driver took him to a large mansion with its own beach, a green black lawn sloping down to it. She figured he was renting it. She’d known the previous owner. When he passed on, the family didn’t want the house, preferring to rent it out instead. She’d already checked—the money the casino owner paid in rent each month was a lot more than she’d won at roulette.
She parked her car a few blocks away, more inland, and walked to the mansion. What are you doing, Lillian? she asked herself. She already knew the answer: she wanted to solve a crime and arrest its perpetrator. Or, she could just say she was helping her police department that didn’t have enough able bodies to track down a killer.
In the shade of a scrawny tree at the corner of the property and just outside the iron fence, she spied on the casino owner with her binoculars. She saw him close the upstairs curtains; the house became dark. Time for action!
The main entrance had a kiosk where a fat security guard had fallen asleep after his boss drove in. She ducked under the bar across the entrance and hastened around the house to the back on the beach side. There was no moon, so she’d have to admit defeat if all back doors were locked. She could pick a lock, but she needed light to do it.
But a door was open, and it was a way into a study. She eyed the shadowy, leather-covered tomes on the bookshelves. Probably just for appearances. She didn’t think the casino owner was much of a reader.
The desk didn’t have much of anything on it or in it, although she determined that mostly by touch because she couldn’t see well. A solid oak filing cabinet looked more promising. Only one drawer had anything in it, though; it was full of architectural drawings. An expansion or remodeling of the casino?
She decided to check the cabinet below the bookshelves. In one drawer was a file with “Jackson” on the identifying tab. She opened it. The first page of the file was an eight-by-eleven photo of the beach victim. A bulls-eye had been inked on to the photo. Why would this be left in an unlocked drawer?
She guessed that the casino owner had either forgotten to get rid of that incriminating evidence, or he felt secure in his rented mansion. The “or” wasn’t necessarily exclusive—she’d taken a logic course at Monmouth University—but the evidence implied the casino owner was both arrogant and careless.
She took her smart phone out of her purse and sent Gamberini a text message. She was about to leave when the door through which she’d entered opened. The security guard had her covered her with a gun.
***
“Meddling old hag,” the casino owner said as Lillian tested the tightness of the zip ties. “How’d you track me down.”
She shrugged. “The detective said you weren’t very cooperative. I decided to see why. I suppose your accountant was going to squeal on you for cooking the books in some way.”
“Whatta we gonna do with her, boss?” said the guard with a growl.
“I think a little boating accident is in order. Is Dennis’s speedboat still docked at the pier?”
“Yep.”
“We’ll make it look like a defective engine and torch the boat and this hag with it. I’ll buy Dennis a new one.”
“Seems like a waste of a good boat. Why not just kill her and bury her somewhere?”
“Because the boat is right outside. Carrying her or her body around could be more dangerous. Did you check her phone?”
“I ain’t no techie. Think she called the cops?”
“All the more reason to act fast with the boat. Make an old-fashioned Molotov with a five-minute fuse. We’ll put her in the boat and send it out to sea.”
Of course, Lillian heard that plan, and she was already scheming about how to foil it.
***
They had to untie her to make it realistic, so the old security guard gave her a head tap. She pretended to sink into unconsciousness, but her thick, white hair and the old guard’s feebleness combined to prevent that. As the boat headed out to sea, she watched the fuse and dived off just before the explosion.
She then swam to shore and walked around the mansion to meet Leo, who had arrived with two officers.
“I knew they wanted to kill me,” she told the detective.
“You’re lucky they didn’t,” Leo said with a growl. “I told you to stay out of this, Lillian.”
“You need a warrant to break and enter,” Lillian said. “I don’t. Maybe I should become a PI.”
“Wouldn’t recommend it, ma’am,” said an officer. “With a warrant, we don’t commit a crime. You just did.”
“Mitigating circumstances. Let’s see what the judge says. Murder trumps breaking and entering any day in my book.”
Leo winked at her. “I’m sure he’ll be lenient with you, especially if he has back-due books. With these two, not so much. And we will get that warrant now so we can explore the casino’s records.”
“Don’t ask me to help with that. Sounds like hard work. I’m just a librarian.”
***
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