The Phantom Photographer: Murder in Marin Mystery - Book 3 (Murder in Marin Mysteries) (29 page)

Holly, having intercepted both Caleb and Christopher, was busy drilling down, hoping to learn anything that might be of use.
 

“I appreciate what you said about Michael,” Caleb began. “He was a good boy, although I think he was deeply hurt by his mother’s desertion.”

Holly, in spite of having admitted to Caleb that Michael had mentioned the story of Barbara’s desertion on more than one occasion, urged Caleb to share his view of the family’s fracture.

Caleb talked of missed opportunities. “Nothing in our lives was the same after Barbara left. I was a broken man; even Michael and his younger brother Christopher grew apart. We had what I thought was a pretty happy home, but it all went away.”
 

Wow, Holly thought, this guy has been chewing on this for better than forty years.
 

Christopher, tanned, still youthful in appearance, and betrayed only by the gray hairs that covered his sideburns and wrapped around his ears, was standing just a couple of feet away. He struck a pose of detached indifference, while attempting to hear everything being said. Holly wasn’t buying his feigned disinterest. So, she looked over to Christopher and said, “I’m sorry about your brother. You must miss him, huh?”
 

“We were not particularly close.”

“Are you single, like your brother was?”

Christopher was tempted to ask what business was this of the short woman with the bright smile, but her manner appeared too innocent for him to push back so hard. Instead, he played along.
 

“Like Michael, I never married; we Marks men aren’t all that lucky in love.”

“I don’t see how that can be,” Holly said, as Caleb drifted away toward the buffet table. “You’re both bright and handsome. He had a different body shape…”

“You mean fat?”

“Let’s say stocky,” Holly said with a flirtatious smile.
 

“Did you enjoy working with him?”

“I did; he was always upbeat and he certainly loved his work. I guess you didn’t get to spend much time with him?”

“We lived separate lives. I stayed in Fresno where we both grew up. He moved up to Marin just after finishing college.”

“What line of work did you go into?”

“I got my dad’s love of numbers. I went into investment consulting. Financial analysis, that sort of thing.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“I do, actually. Everyone wants to understand how to make their money work better…to help create a more secure future.”

“I suppose,” Holly said, her eyes beginning to glaze over. Nothing bored her like the topic of money and investing. At this point in her life, she had convinced herself that she would never have a good relationship with money, and therefore, people who worked in finance held no interest for her.
 

“Well,” Holly said, anxious to move on to more interesting guests, “If I ever have any money, I’ll be sure to look you up.”

Joanne Hill approached Rob to thank him for the wonderful words he said about Michael.
 

“Do you know anything about the investigation into Michael’s murder?” she asked with a bright smile.
 

“I’m a friend of the lead investigator in the case, Eddie Austin, why?” Rob asked, being his ever cautious self.
 

“Well, Michael and I knew each other…we dated over a period of two years. I visited his home frequently. Let’s just say, spending the night, I came to realize that Michael kept a lot of cash in the house. I was tempted to ask why that was, but I decided not to. I’d be happy to talk to your friend about what I saw. I don’t know if that will help.”

“It might.”
 

“That cash was the first thing I thought of when I heard he had been killed. I’ll rest easier knowing I told someone about it.”

At the other end of the room, Ted discussed Michael’s murder with Walt, who enjoyed a plate of tuna salad, egg salad, and bean salad, while he explained that the popular photographer’s murder was all anyone in town could talk about.
 

“Ted, you know I have a nose for news…”

“You mean gossip,” Ted responded in his teasing fashion.

“Call it whatever you want; you know there are times when empty gossip turns into hard news.”

“Agreed…”

“Well, it seems the most popular theory about Michael is that he must have been into something bad. Some people are insisting that this was a mob hit.”

“A mob hit! In Mill Valley? You have to be kidding!”

“I think that’s pretty far-fetched, but just about everyone would like to know where his money came from.”

“I never knew that was such a popular topic,” Ted said, hoping the lie he had just told was not too obvious. He dreaded the thought that Walt would come to think of him as a fellow trader in the currency of local gossip.
 

“In fact, Al D., you know the retired rocker who lives in Blithedale Canyon? I ran into him Saturday night at the Sweetwater, and he says that he wasn’t the least bit surprised that Michael was shot.”

“How so?”

“Well, he was a little tipsy; he loves those Long Island Iced Teas, you know.”

“And…”

“He says to me in that raspy voice of his, ‘That boy of yours, you know the chubby one with the camera around his neck all the time? He was some piece of work.’ So I ask him what he meant by that, and he says, ‘He was shaking people down.’”

“You mean blackmail?” Ted said, raising his voice.

“Keep it down, Ted. You don’t know what kind of people might be here. Yeah, blackmail, I figure the guy is crazy, drunk, or both, but it would explain how you could have a lot of extra money all the time and wind up taking a bullet to the head.”

“You think Al might have been one of Michael’s victims?”

“Well, Al likes to play the field, and he did seem very pleased that Michael was no longer with us…”

Fred Winters was about to leave, but when he caught Holly’s eye, he simply could not resist taking another swipe at Michael’s reputation.

“I just want to tell you,” he began with an angry look in his eyes, “I respect how you and your colleagues felt about Michael, but in truth, he was anything but a good guy.”

“Why is that?” Holly asked innocently.
 

“Well, like a lot of people in the news business, you only know a small part of the story.”

“And the rest is…”
 

“Michael was an extortionist. He shook me down for a nice little payment every month to keep my mouth shut. I told this to your buddy over there,” Fred said, as he pointed toward Rob.
 

“Well, did Michael keep his mouth shut?”
 

“Yes, my money bought his silence.”

“Wow, thanks for telling me. I wonder if there were others he targeted.”
 

“Well, there was this guy who was big in the Novato Chamber, Marv Reagan; he spent years paying Michael. For all I know, he might have been sending him checks up until he read in the
IJ
that someone shot Michael dead.”
 

“How many years do you think that would be?”
 

“Well, it goes back to when Michael lived in Novato, more than twenty-five years. I guess he figured it was a lot cheaper than getting his butt kicked by his wife.”

“I guess she’s pretty scary, huh?”

“Well, she’s been one of Marin’s top divorce attorneys for many years; I guess for Marv that was scary enough.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

Early the following morning, Eddie, bringing coffee and pastries up to
The Standard
’s Sausalito offices, sat down with Sylvia, Holly, Rob, and Ted to hear what they had learned. All of them, working on tight deadlines for various stories, scattered after the reception, but took the time that evening to write detailed notes on their separate conversations.

“I think we can begin by agreeing that Michael was running a blackmail business on the side,” Holly began. “In fact, let me correct myself. I suspect his side business was working at Walt’s Cameras. His real profession and his main source of income must have been extortion.”
 

“At this point, I don’t think there is any doubt about that,” Ted said, as he looked around the table to see everyone nod in agreement.

“Holly,” Eddie said, “take us through that aspect of what you learned.”

“Sure, it was simple. Fred Winters, the guy who Barbara Marks left her husband for, made a point of telling me that he was the target of one of Michael’s stings. He wouldn’t say how much he had paid Michael to not tell his mom he was cheating, but I assume it added up to quite a bit. If he hadn’t broken up with her over another affair, I suppose those payments to Michael would have kept rolling in.”

“Equally amazing to me,” Rob added, “Winters told me much the same.”

“You think Winters is a suspect?” Sylvia asked. “Sounds like a pretty angry guy.”

“Well, he certainly gets his name on my list,” Eddie responded. “But it’s kind of unlikely that a guy is going to blow off steam like that when he’s the killer. But you never know; it certainly takes all types. If any of us set a fire, we’d run like hell. But then there are those rare cases where arsonists like to stay and watch the havoc they have caused.”

“I can go you one better,” Holly said excitedly. “Winters said he knew of another victim in Novato; the guy’s name is Marv Reagan. He thinks that he was paying Michael for twenty-five years or longer.”

“Wow,” Eddie said, as he shook his head. “I’m starting to think your suspicion is correct; this was likely Michael’s real career, and that’s not good if you’re hoping for a quick solution to his murder.”

“Why is that, Eddie?” Sylvia asked.
 

“Well, put the squeeze on three people and you’ve got three suspects with a motive to kill their blackmailer; make it thirty and you’ve got quite the cast of suspects. Equally troubling is we may never know if he had five or fifty victims. We stumbled across the whole extortion angle when I interviewed Juliette Parker.”

“Eddie, can’t you get a court order to go after the contents of his mailbox?”

“We could. I want to learn more before we go that route. First off, was it a PO Box inside a post office or was it one of several private places that offer mail drop collection for clients? If it’s an actual postal box, we have to step up to a federal level; if it’s a mail service location, it can be handled through the county court system. I suspect I can pay a visit to Fred Winters; he should at least have an address he used during the time he was caught in Michael’s web.”