The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (24 page)

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 pissed 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…”

“And?”

“Well, I remember wondering at the time if he was trying to impress our teacher, Miss Parker, Juliette Parker.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m not sure; perhaps it was just a girl’s intuition, and I wasn’t the only one. The other girls in class were buzzing about the same thing; we thought he was there because he was interested in her, not really in us. She was a pretty attractive young woman at the time.”

“Not sure if I understand how that might have anything to do with Marks’ murder twenty-five years later.”

“Well, most likely it doesn’t; but there is one more part to that story. A couple of weeks after he came to our class, I and two of the other girls, being nosy, of course, asked Miss Parker if we could see any of the photos Mr. Marks had taken of us. She said she was very disappointed in what he had done and it was a mistake to use him in the first place. Well, you know, Eddie, even young girls have feminine intuition and at recess we wondered if something bad had happened between the two of them. She seemed almost angry at the mention of his name and certainly unhappy to talk about him.”

“Interesting, Sarah. But I’m not sure how that might have any connection to his murder.”

“I know, Eddie, but here’s the thing that got me thinking. Marks spent years photographing every blessed event in this town. He was a real character. Everyone had an opinion about him, but one thing about him everyone agreed upon was he was a great photographer. It strikes me as odd that our teacher would have brought him in to spend an afternoon with her class and then ditched the photos. And then I remembered how we thought she seemed angry. Could his murder somehow be connected to his photography? As best as I know, taking pictures was his entire life. Maybe he took a picture of something he should not have. Perhaps he was into some kinky stuff and was hoping that she would play along. She found out and felt embarrassed that she brought him into the school in the first place. Whatever happened, something made her reverse course in a hurry.

“That’s a valid point.”

“Eddie, are you humoring me?”

“No. Well, maybe a little. But you do have a good point. Any idea if Ms. Parker is still around?”

“I know after Mt. Carmel closed, she transferred over to St. Hilary’s. For all I know she’s still there. It’s many years ago, but she was very young back then. I think it’s a logical place to start.”

Sarah’s suggestion might be a blind alley, but it gave Eddie a starting point on the largely blank page he was currently facing. He would not formally start the investigation until he returned to work on Monday, but he opened his laptop and did a Google search for St. Hilary School Tiburon. In a dropdown box under the heading, “About Us,” he found “Faculty and Staff.” There, he was delighted to see photos, names, and positions. In moments, he found “Juliette Parker, 5th Grade Teacher.” Juliette, no longer the ethereal beauty Michael had discovered all those years earlier through his telephoto lens, had a determined smile that pushed away so many unpleasant memories. Monday, he would approach her after school and introduce himself. He, of course, could walk into the office of the principal, show his badge, and have her summoned, but Eddie liked to tread lightly whenever possible. Why stir a fuss that would lead to days of her colleagues asking possibly uncomfortable questions when chances are she had little if anything to contribute to his investigation?