Death Rides the Surf (11 page)

“So Mary Frances
is sleeping with the enemy?” Marlene asked, reminding Kate of her own earlier thought about dating the enemy.

She’d heard just the slightest touch of envy in her former sister-in-law’s voice and measured her response. “I don’t think Mary Frances is sleeping with anyone. She’s a virgin, remember?”

“It’s not like being a Floridian, Kate. Or a New Yorker. You don’t have to pack. Virginity is a state you can move out of by simply dropping your drawers or your morals. I think our former nun was ready to rock and roll and Roberto was there to dance with her.” Marlene’s tone brooked no argument.

They were sitting at the pool, savoring the soft rays of the late-afternoon sun and catching each other up on their adventures. Katharine, perhaps sensing that the two old girlfriends needed some time alone, had taken Ballou for a long walk. Kate had figured Katharine needed some time alone, too.

Jennifer, saying she had to do some work, had retired to Kate’s guest room, where no doubt she was on her cell phone buying and selling oil futures in Istanbul or Timbuktu.

They’d all agreed to have dinner at Dinah’s at seven. The restaurant, a true early-bird establishment, closed at nine thirty. Tomorrow was All Saints’ Day and Kate wanted to go to church in the morning. She hoped Katharine would come with her.

“Mary Frances has had crushes before,” Kate said. “And to my knowledge, she hasn’t made a move, literally or metaphorically, to consummate them. What worries me is that she’s in a tango contest and hanging out socially with a man who might be a drug smuggler and a murderer.”

“She must know Roberto’s a suspect. She picked him up at jail, didn’t she? And in his car.” Marlene slid off the chaise and into the pool. “Most men don’t let women drive their cars unless they’re getting something in return. Especially long black Cadillacs. I’ll bet some Miami matron bought him that pimpmobile. You think Mary Frances knows he’s a gigolo?”

Kate heard a rustling sound and looked up to see Joe Sajak, dressed as Robin Hood, and not too bad in tights, standing in front of her. “Where’s Mary Frances? She promised to go trick-or-treating with me.”

“Am I her appointment secretary?” Kate asked, sounding as mean as she felt. “I think she’s with her new friend, Raggedy Andy.”

“When that part-time lifeguard, Claude, was posting the
NO SWIMMING
and
SHARK ALERT
signs this morning, he told me that Mary Frances’s new friend sells himself to older women. Did you know that?” Joe wagged his right index finger at her.

Kate smiled. “Maybe Mary Frances was the highest bidder.” She stood and walked to the edge of the pool, brushing past him. He was almost in her face. “Happy Halloween, Joe.” Though she hadn’t planned to get her hair wet, she jumped in, splattering his costume and wilting the feather in his cap.

Fifty years ago, Marlene had been on the Olympic swim team. Kate, who did a sidestroke version of the dog paddle, didn’t even try to keep up with her former sister-in-law. She swam for a while, and then lay on her back, her face warmed by the sun, glad she’d applied SPF 40 sunblock.

In a few minutes Marlene, who’d been doing laps, joined her.

“You got rid of Joe, I see.”

They both laughed. She and Marlene often didn’t need words. They seemed to read each other’s minds, sense when one was hurting, feel the same response to people and their problems.

“Tell me about the skull,” Kate said. “Will he live?”

Marlene shook her head. “I sure hope so.” Her blonde hair had come out of its twist and was plastered to her scalp. Kate figured she’d be wearing a turban tonight. “You know I’m not into the occult.”

They both laughed again.

“Okay, so I’m a little superstitious.” Marlene pushed a strand of hair off her nose. “But I hope I didn’t do any real damage. I ran out of there so fast, I’m not sure. And Florita’s going to be mad as hell if she knows I found her sound effects.”

“Was there a rug?”

“Nope, a marble floor.”

Kate groaned.

“But there were Turkish carpets all over the place. I’m sure there was one in front of the skull’s shrine.”

Kate hoped Marlene was right.

“Poor Grace Rowling. I liked her.” Marlene climbed out of the pool. “You think she was murdered, right?”

Kate watched her step. She wasn’t nearly as agile as her much heavier sister-in-law. “That would be my guess,” she said, as Marlene gave her a hand and helped her over the edge.

When Kate came
into her apartment, a towel wrapped around her head and bundled in her white ankle-length terry cloth robe, she was surprised to see Jennifer dressed in a smart black pantsuit, her suitcase and computer bag at her feet.

“I’m flying back tonight, Kate. Thank God, Delta had a cancellation in first class. I have to see a client in Bangkok.”

“What about Katharine?”

Her granddaughter stuck her head out of the kitchen. “I’m not going anywhere, Nana. Remember I promised Florita Flannigan I’d be at Jon Michael’s funeral.”

Kate wondered if her granddaughter would be willing to go home after the funeral, go back to NYU, pick up the pieces, and move on. This wasn’t the time to ask those questions. Mother and daughter must have had a talk. Kate decided she wouldn’t comment other than to say, “Katharine, you’re welcome to stay, darling.”

“Well, I’m out of here. I have to be at the airport so darn early and I have to return the rental car.” Jennifer turned to Katharine. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you in New York next week. Don’t upset your father. Come home by Saturday.”

Katharine kissed her mother’s cheek, but, unlike with Florita Flannigan, she promised her mother nothing.

Not everyone celebrated
Halloween. There wasn’t a streamer or a jack-o’-lantern in sight, but Dinah’s had a good crowd. Only Katharine was under sixty. Or so Kate thought.

A smiling Myrtle came over and greeted them. “Your granddaughter’s so pretty, Kate; she must break all the boys’ hearts.” Kate wished she could give her favorite waitress a gentle kick in the shin.

Katharine just laughed and said, “Right.” Kate felt proud of Katharine, knowing how hurt she was.

“Remember how we were talking about Granny Meyers the other day?” Myrtle asked, pointing to the door. “She and her grandson just came in. And it’s not even Fish-fry Friday.” Myrtle waved toward the couple. “I’m telling you, I never saw a more loving grandson.”

Marlene tried to hide behind her menu. A turban covered her hair and she had her back to the door. Still Kate wondered how this scene would play out.

Katharine started. “I know that woman, Nana.”

“From where, darling?” Kate asked.

“Acapulco. She used to surf with Claude Jensen. She hung out with him all the time. I always thought they were an odd couple.”

“Do you want to say hello to the Meyers?” Myrtle asked.

“No,” Marlene barked. “We’re ready to order. I’ve had my fill of odd couples for today.”

Grace Rowling’s death
was the lead story on the eleven o’clock news. Kate seldom went to bed without her news fix. Her interest—what Charlie had called her
passion
for current events—was not a recently acquired taste, or a time filler, as it seemed to be for so many retired people, who’d turned watching the news into a “job.”

Kate had thrived on newspapers and newscasts ever since the early fifties when she’d discovered Dorothy Kilgallen’s column in the
Journal-American
and Edward R. Murrow’s
See It Now
program on CBS television.

Since the Kennedy win at the 1960 Democratic Convention, her network of choice had been NBC. She’d gotten hooked on Huntley and Brinkley, and Kate was not a channel hopper.

So, though wiped out, she’d propped up her pillows and turned on the television.

The blonde anchorwoman was reporting from Pier Sixty-six.

“Grace Rowling, mother of missing teenager Amanda Rowling who’d disappeared in Acapulco last August, was found dead in the bathroom of her Pier Sixty-six hotel room this morning. In an exclusive to NBC News, the maid who discovered the body, Maria Lopez, tells us Mrs. Rowling was lying in the bathtub covered in blood, but she didn’t see a weapon in the bathroom.”

A picture of Grace and Amanda, two pretty women, smiling in happier times flashed on the screen. Sadness and empathy, reinforcing how unfair life could be, swept through Kate. Her eyes filled with tears.

The anchorwoman continued. “Though the cause of death has not been given, both the Fort Lauderdale and Palmetto Beach police departments are investigating Mrs. Rowling’s death as a homicide, which may be connected to the death of a surfer, Jon Michael Tyler. The surfer is one of three young men who have been under an umbrella of suspicion in the disappearance of Mrs. Rowling’s daughter, Amanda. Tyler was the victim of a shark attack that, according to police sources, is also being investigated as a possible homicide. Tyler’s body was fished out of the Atlantic near the Neptune Boulevard Pier on Monday evening. Detective Nick Carbone of Palmetto Beach’s homicide department had no comment.”

Kate turned off the television and, too wound up to sleep, grabbed the yellow pad and pen that she kept on her nightstand and started plotting her next moves.

Jon Michael had been murdered on Sunday night, less than two days before his twenty-first birthday. Did that have any significance? Had someone, maybe some twisted soul, not wanted Jon Michael to reach legal age?

Tomorrow morning, after church and a spot of tea, she’d fob Katharine off on Marlene and pay a solo visit to Claude Jensen.

Charlie always said watch out for the amoral. Sociopaths come in all sizes, all ages, all races, and both genders. They’re often charming like Ted Bundy or brilliant like Hannibal Lecter, or seemingly innocent like the well-mannered little girl with blonde pigtails who’d killed her smarter classmate and the suspicious handyman in
The Bad Seed
. On Broadway, the “perfect” child had survived, undetected, to kill again. They’d softened the ending for the movie version.

When she’d filled a page on her yellow pad, she turned off the light and closed her eyes. The pillowcase smelled like Bounce, proving “unscented fabric softener” was an oxymoron. Her heart felt as if it might leap out of her skin, and visions of ax murderers danced through her head. At twelve thirty she gave up, turned the light back on, and started on the next page.

So many questions on her list, but as Kate edited what she’d written she grew calmer. Unanswered questions, like unanswered prayers, offered an opportunity to learn. And Kate had a lot to learn.

The questions in random order on the first page addressed most of her concerns:

Kate’s second page was shorter and even more random, with quirkier questions:

Wednesday morning, November 1

St. John’s in
Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, constructed of brick and mortar and complete with a courtyard and a school, reminded Kate of a real church, a northern church. More than she could say about those pastel-colored, modern-when-built-in-the-seventies-but-now-showing-their-age, prayer-with-an-ocean-view churches dotting the South Florida coastline along A1A.

She sat at nine o’clock mass, contemplating the dead. She’d filled in the names of those she wanted remembered on her All Souls’ Day envelope and then, having more souls to request prayers for than the ten spaces provided, she started on a second envelope. It was telling that she’d reached an age where she felt closer to more dead people than to live ones.

Though All Souls’ Day was celebrated—maybe observed was a better word—on November 2, All Saints’ Day, November 1, was the last day to fill in the spaces on the envelopes. Kate had followed this ritual for decades. She wondered if anyone would request prayers for her.

Katharine was off lighting a candle for her grandfather, whose name topped Kate’s list. Maybe Katharine would become keeper of the flame for her grandmother, too.

The priest was giving an uplifting if rather long homily. South Florida clergy seemed to believe their older parishioners had nothing to do. Kate had plenty to do this holy day morning, including finding a way to dump Katharine with Marlene while she tracked down a killer. She stopped listening to Father Dunne and started planning. But by the time she gave the sign of peace to her pew mates and to those in front and behind her, Kate still didn’t have a strategy.

Einstein Bros. Bagels,
located in a strip mall on Federal Highway in Palmetto Beach, made bagels that almost tasted as if they’d been baked in New York. Not quite, but almost. Marlene would be meeting them there.

Jeff Stein, the young editor of the
Palmetto Beach Gazette
, waved to Kate and she introduced him to Katharine, thinking it was too bad he was married. Kate had written a few obituaries and an occasional feature story for Jeff over the last few months and he’d been trying to hire her part-time. He joined them, reminding Kate that the offer was open. “Not much money, but you’ll get a byline.”

As Kate bit into her cinnamon raisin bagel, Marlene, almost on time, walked into Einstein’s, and the strategy that had eluded her in church now flashed through her mind, clean and clear. “Hey, Marlene, grab a bagel. I have an assignment for you and Katharine.”

Without much persuasion, Katharine and Marlene agreed to go with Jeff to the
Gazette
office and research the butcher shops that sold pig’s blood. Jeff, maybe smelling an exclusive, said he’d be delighted to have them there.

“But Nana, I didn’t get to see Florita Flannigan yesterday. I’d like to drop by there this afternoon.”

Katharine knew nothing about Marlene’s disastrous visit to Florita’s yesterday and Kate wasn’t about to discuss it now. “Fine. You and I will visit Florita this afternoon, but this morning we need to divide and conquer.” Kate sounded like a drill sergeant. “I’m off to talk to Claude Jensen. After you and Marlene finish your research at the
Gazette
, please go talk to Mary Frances; find out what she knows about Roberto.”

“What do you need to know about him?” Katharine asked.

Kate sighed. It was obvious that Katharine hadn’t inherited either Charlie’s or Kate’s gift of natural nosiness. “Everything. Start with where he lives. Or why Mary Frances picked him up at the police station. Find out if Mary Frances knows when and how he arrived here from Cuba. Oh, and see what you can find out about his lady friend in Miami. Aunt Marlene will know what to ask.”

Neither Marlene nor Katharine looked happy about spending the morning together. What had caused the strain between them? Kate decided she just didn’t have time to worry about that now. “I’ll meet you back at Ocean Vista at one.” She almost shooed them off.

Kate, who’d gotten the address from the Palmetto Beach phone book under a listing for Claude Jensen Jr., drove due west and then turned right into a run-down rental complex with a sign reading
SHADY SHORES
. Since the development had no trees, only scrubby bushes, and was more than ten miles from the beach, its name was a major misnomer.

Remnants of a broken gate led to three two-story apartment buildings with peeling gray paint and brown lawns. A boy walking his dog pointed to Claude’s building at the northwest end of the property. Any farther west and he’d be living on I-95.

She climbed the outside stairs to a catwalk and looked for number 213. She wasn’t surprised when the apartment turned out to be the last unit on the northwest. Claude’s rear window must abut the highway.

The door opened to her first tap. A sleepy-looking Claude, wearing only dingy white cutoff shorts, blinked in the bright sunshine. “What do you want?”

“May I please come in?” Kate smiled, hoping she appeared grandmotherly and benign. “I need to talk to you.”

“Why?” He scratched his chest. The “yes, ma’am” and other small courtesies he’d exhibited on the beach had vanished.

“I have a few questions about Jon Michael.” She decided to go for the jugular. “It would be in your best interest to speak to me before the police question you.”

“I already talked to the cops.” He sneered at her.

“But you didn’t tell them that you were on the beach Sunday night, did you?” She’d taken her best shot. If he hadn’t been on the beach he’d slam the door in her face.

“Come in,” he said. Kate was gratified to hear just a tinge of fear in his voice.

The small living room flowed into an eat-in kitchen area. Clutter filled the couch, the recliner, the kitchen table and chairs, and most of the floor. A narrow, relatively open pathway led to what Kate guessed was the bedroom. Its window would be the one abutting I-95. Based on the rest of the apartment, Kate figured the lack of a view didn’t matter. The junk would be too high for anyone to see out of the window anyway.

Ants paraded across a kitchen countertop, maneuvering around obstacles that would repel a less determined army. Unwashed dishes, greasy frying pans, and a sponge that probably hosted the bubonic plague were not impediments. These ants had a mission and no mere man’s debris could deter them.

A squeamish Kate steeled herself. She didn’t know which she found more offensive: the apartment or the man who lived in it.

Thank God he hadn’t asked her to sit down. They stood in the narrow aisle face-to-face like gunslingers in an old western.

“Who says I was on the beach?” His breath smelled like stale booze and he hadn’t shaved; the blond stubble on his chin and cheeks was sparse, downy like a boy’s in puberty. The elastic in his shorts was frayed. Kate hoped it held.

“I say so, Claude. I saw you there,” she lied, meeting his eyes, but not knowing how to hide her shaky hands. She jammed them into the pockets of her khakis.

“That don’t prove I did anything.” The glaze left his pale eyes, maybe signaling that he had an idea. “Sure I was there; I was showing Jon Michael some moves. Sweet moves. And I was telling him how I might be getting a job teaching at a new surfing school down in Davie.”

“My balcony has an excellent view of the beach, and I stay up late. I never saw you surf with Roberto and Jon Michael on any of their earlier midnight rides.” Kate’s right hand clenched in her pocket. When had the pig’s blood been planted in the wire cage? It must have been shortly before Jon Michael had taken his last ride. One of three remaining boardsmen had to be guilty. Who else would have known about the wire cage under Jon Michael’s surfboard? Or about a plastic bag that could be punctured to leak the blood? In the end, it always boiled down to motive, means, and opportunity. Kate felt besieged by mixed emotions: fear of Claude and joy that Katharine
probably
hadn’t been aware of the cage. “Why did you lie to the police, Claude?”

“Are you stupid, bitch? I have a trial coming up for a DWI. I’ve served time. And my father’s in jail for killing a girl.” He started toward her. Kate screamed, spun around, and twisted the doorknob. She was still screaming as she hit the catwalk. An old man, two apartments away, opened his door just as Claude caught up with her, grabbing her shoulder.

“Morning, Claude. Nice day, ain’t it?” The man winked at Kate. “I have my cell phone here.” He opened his left hand to reveal a tiny phone, cradled in his palm. “It’s programmed for 911.”