by Kal Smagh
"So how did you end up in California?"
"My father had a business trip, and my mother and I joined him for a vacation while the Beatles were away on their summer tour in the States."
"When was this?"
"August of 1964. At the Hollywood Bowl."
"All sunny days and palm trees and beaches?"
"And several shenanigans."
"What kind?"
"Thievery. Robbery."
He leaned in, "oh, I don’t know if I can wait a few weeks to hear this! How about I order us some lunch?"
"I agree. You are free to start paying your father's debt."
Rolling his eyes, he pulled a black cellular phone from his jacket pocket, "And you can continue."
"Expect I will order the most expensive entree on the entire menu."
"Really?"
"You can count on me to speak the truth."
The End
Don't go yet! Read on for an excerpt of the next installment in the
COZY BEATLES MYSTERY SERIES
1964: THE BEVERLY HILLS BEATLES BURGLARY
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An Excerpt from...
The Beverly Hills Beatles Burglary
PROLOGUE
Daily Mirror Supplement Online
Starr Increases Reward For Unsung Hero
Sir Richard Starkey, the Beatle more widely known by his stage name, Ringo Starr, has added his thoughts, and another $500,000 of his own money, to the desire of his former Beatles band mate and friend Sir Paul McCartney to find the mysteriously hidden Helen Spencer. The two surviving members of the 1960s supergroup have both been reticent to share their reasons why they’re seeking Ms. Spencer.
Starr said at a recent promotion for his traveling show Ringo’s All Starrs, “Helen was a bedrock supporter as I first joined the band...always ready to jump in and work. Her mother was a little looney so she must have grown up needing to take charge. Whatever it was that made her who she was, it benefited the Beatles greatly.”
When asked what she had contributed that made her so sought out even after all these years, Ringo replied, “She was always good for a laugh. She was over her head with the media and the fans and helping in the fan club. And the problems. I can’t tell you how many times I figured she was done for, or Brian was going to fire her. But we loved her too much to let her go. She brought peace and love to us.”
He was asked why her name had never come up before, and how they had lost contact.
“She’s never really left my thoughts, truthfully. I still think of her even if I may not have spoken of it. Next you’re going to ask me where I think she is. Well, I haven't the foggiest. So, the reward, you know. We’ve tried other things to find her. No luck. She was always so smart it’s not surprising. But we have something for her from long ago. A gift.”
When asked what the gift was Ringo did not share further, adding only, “That’s between the Beatles and Helen. Paul and I agreed not to say publicly.”
Beatles fans are speculating wildly, some of the guesses being memorabilia like John Lennon’s signature glasses or one of George Harrison’s famous guitars.
“No, it’s nothing like that. Those things belong to the families, anyway. Not ours to give. No, it’s from all four of us. That’s all I’ll share.”
When asked if he supported Ms. Spencer’s right to privacy, Sir Starkey said, “Yes I do. Believe me, if anyone supports a person’s privacy it's going to be Paul and I. But this is important and long overdue.”
Where are you, Helen Spencer?
The Beatles want to know, and so does the world!
Chapter 1: Florida, USA
Hello again, my name is Helen Spencer.
In my seventies I am settled peacefully in my Florida home these days, and my life is in control, happily in control. Usually, I wake up in the morning and I have a cup of tea, and prepare a single piece of toast done on one side; it calms me to use a roasting fork and hold my bread to the stove’s orange flame, facing the fire. It’s in my British roots to face the fire.
But I have a problem. There is a man asking questions of me about things from long ago, when I worked for the Beatles in Liverpool and London. He’s succeeded in getting me to tell him about robberies and chases and my time with the Beatles. I’ve shared things I never would have dared speak about. And I don’t know his motives yet.
It’s unsettling.
When not catching a rerun of one of the Boys’ movies on the television, A Hard Day’s Night, or Help, or even Yellow Submarine, I watch game shows like The Price Is Right. So much enthusiasm, and a matter of luck! A metaphor for my life. My other old favorite movie was To Catch A Thief by Alfred Hitchcock. Takes one to know one. And I’ve met several. Been accused many times too.
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Across from me in my sunroom in the midday light sat Inspector Tuffle of Scotland Yard. He’d ventured a long way to speak with me, both about his father and about the Beatles. I was still not comfortable about his asking so many questions. It gave me an uneasy feeling, like his intent was to catch me in a lie. His smooth skin and wide forehead made him look intellectual and authoritarian. I had met many like him in my years.
He wouldn’t catch me. I was not going to let it happen.
“So, a stolen guitar?” he asked. “Please start again.” He looked at me with steely, skeptical eyes.
“In Los Angeles I was in charge of George Harrison’s guitar, and it was stolen from me.”
“You’re kidding.” His face showed his disbelief that I, a small, mousy old woman had ever been close to the Beatles.
“It's the truth.”
“When?”
“1964. August.”
Inspector Tuffle studied me, a quizzical look on his face, “So...California? With the Beatles?”
“That’s right.” I shifted in my seat, “Don’t look so surprised.”
“What songs were theirs? Have I heard them?”
I suppressed my shock, he was so naive, offering, “I Want To Hold Your Hand?”
He nodded, “Of course.”
“Can't Buy Me Love?”
“Yes, I think so.”
He wasn’t so sure on that one. I could see uncertainty in his eyes.
“A Hard Day’s Night? Ticket to Ride? She Loves You?”
“Rock and roll music?”
I nodded, feeling a smile crease my face,“If you mean the type of music, then yes. If you mean the name of the song,” I chided, “Then the answer is also yes.”
“Really?” He blinked his eyes rapidly, not sure if what he was hearing was accurate. Or possible.
“Yes. I assure you.”
He cleared his throat, then said, “I Should Have Known Better?”
I nodded again, “Yes.”
I suddenly felt a chill over my shoulders as a realization sunk in about Inspector Tuffle. That obscure song he’d chosen to mention confused me. Shocked me. Was his naivety a ruse? He’d acted like he didn’t know the names of the most popular songs, the famous ones, then tossed this one into the mix.
It was one he’d only know if he’d studied up on the Beatles, saw the Hard Day’s Night movie, listened to it’s soundtrack. He was an Inspector, after all.
There was no way he was as naive as he’d seemed.
There was more to his being here than met the eye.
I said again, this time in a wary whisper, “Yes.” I should have known better. I sensed he was here for more than he let on.
I should have known better...than to let this man into my home. Than to open up about my memories of John, Paul, George and Ringo. He was playing naive. He most certainly wasn’t as ill-informed as he wanted me to think.
He smiled at me, brushing off my discomfort it seemed. Back into his charade he said, “It’s just...what on earth were you doing in Los Angeles after being a mail room girl in Liverpool?”
Ah. There it was. He didn’t think my family had means? Poor Liverpudlians without a wa
y to rub two pence together.
“It was like this,” I started, “we’d never actually been on holiday before. It wasn’t a vacation for my father at all. He spent every day at his work and Mother and I were forced to spend a lot of time together. Even though the thought of it pained me.”
“Your father worked, and you and your mother tagged along?” He nodded once, “Makes sense. Where did you stay?”
I shifted in my seat again. It made me uncomfortable to speak about it, given our modest family, but I may as well tell it like it was. “The Beverly Hills Hotel.”
As expected, the name registered on his face. Of course, now he would swing his thoughts the other way, thinking we were closet snobs with money. We weren’t. Far from it.
“What did you say your father did for a living?”
“I didn’t. He was an engineer.”
He smirked, “So, the nerdy, pocket protector, math whiz kind?”
It was true. My father wore black plastic glasses and under his receding black hairline and behind his middle-aged paunch, he was forever digging into the newspaper and not only reading the articles but examining them. He weighed matters in his mind, mumbling as he read the stories, and was usually so deep in concentration he rarely looked up. My mother on the other hand was as flighty as they came, with flaming and unruly red hair and a lively gift for gab. She was obsessed with the Queen and royal family and all things traditional, but possessed only a light dose of common sense. How they ever met and decided to marry was beyond me. They didn’t seem to have the basics in common and I often wondered about their ability to communicate because it sure seemed like they came from different planets: my father from Vulcan, my mother from Planet X.
“What kind of engineer?”
“I didn’t even know at the time. I came to know it later.”
“Was it a secret?”
“Most definitely. Even from my mother.”
His interest piqued, he probed, “Still a secret?”
“Not today. Now it's famous. At least partly.”
“So, what kind?”
I changed the subject, “The Beatles played at the Hollywood Bowl on August 23rd, 1964. Me and my family just happened to be in Los Angeles at the time. It was a lot of fun being in so much sun and sand and under blue skies for a change. Until a problem almost changed my life.”
He stopped nodding, raising his eyebrows, “Changed your life? What was it?”
“At the time I was accused of stealing George’s guitar and a lot of other things. It was awful and it almost affected the whole of their tour of America.”
“Wow. The Beatles entire tour? 1964. Their first one?”
“First full one. They’d come to New York in February of that same year and after to Washington DC and Miami. This was the first proper tour with cities in the US and Canada both.”
“Where was Los Angeles in that mix?”
“Fifth stop, after Vancouver and before Denver.”
“You were out there without them, just on vacation?”
I sighed. He was checking my story for consistency, asking the same question a different way. “That’s right. Then I was as deeply embedded in their trip as anyone alive at the time.”
“As a mailroom girl?”
“Not this time.”
“No? What capacity?”
“The holder of George Harrison’s Rickenbacker 360-12 guitar. Until a thief took it from me.” My stomach ached at the memory, emerging from the depths within. I needed to eat to settle down.
He leaned forward, his attention captured, “Do tell.”
“First you said you were ordering lunch. I intend for you to make good on your promise to bribe me. Then I’ll tell you.”
“Very well.”
“And I will be ordering expensively. You can be sure of it.”
He smiled, “Of course.” He pulled out his phone and found a place online for delivery. We perused the menu and then ordered. It would be forty five minutes.
He said, “You have just enough time to share.”
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What trouble will Helen get into?
Probably a lot...
Buy
The Beverly Hills Beatles Burglary
on Amazon Kindle
Available in June 2021
Acknowledgement
With love and thanks for the music and comedy of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr...you’ve provided gifts to the world.
Many thanks for their love and support in crafting this fictional story: the 20 Books to 50K Facebook Group; highly skilled readers and expert commenters Kim Lynn, Linda Hope, Marilyn Monahan and Carol Yannarella; for my mom and dad.
Last, for wonderful Loretta, for your encouragement and support and being my lifelong trusted Alpha, and our super sons, Zach and Brian, for knowing more about the Beatles than most.
About The Author
Kal Smagh
A three year writer for his college humor magazine, Kal Smagh is a Beatles enthusiast, and merges both of these passions in crafting fun Beatles stories.
Kal was raised in Colorado and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
About the Series: A Cozy Beatles Mystery
Follow super smart amateur sleuth and Beatles fan club helper Helen Spencer as she solves mysteries for the Beatles...and usually gets in over her head. Whether in Liverpool, London, or the USA, Helen uses her brilliance and persistence to figure problems out and help John, Paul, George and Ringo bring their music to the world...with awkward and hilarious results every step of the way.
A Cozy Beatles Mystery: Larceny in Liverpool
1962...She's smart, and needed a job. They're colossally talented and needed a break. She feels awkward in their fast moving show business world...they're cheeky, confident and popular. It was all working...until the robbery happened.
Mayhem for Her Majesty
Super smart Helen is called in to unravel why the Beatles are bumped...from playing for the Queen Mother...it was supposed to be a relaxing weekend in London...can she figure it out in time to save the Beatles' place in the Royal Variety Show, and help them get their big nationwide break?
The Beverly Hills Beatles Burglary
The Beverly Hills Beatles Burglary... Helen must use all her wits, and her mother, to find who stole George Harrison's new Rickenbacker 12 string...before the Beatles play at the Hollywood Bowl on their first tour of America. Can she do it? Can she survive her mother? Will she come through for the Beatles, or will the show fail, and with it Helen's hopes to keep working for the Beatles?
The Beatle Car Bandits
The Beatle Car Bandits ... Helen moves out of Liverpool as the Beatles move to London...she’s in Uni at Oxford and working on school holidays with the Beatles...where she stumbles across a dastardly plot to steal the Beatles' cars ... one at a time or all at once? She's on the case...and she's got one job to do...to match wits with the mysterious car thieves and foil their plot. Helen's out on her own now...can she still come through for the Beatles, or will their cars, including the most famous one...John's psychedelic Rolls Royce, disappear forever?
A Cozy Beatles Mystery Short Story: Punching Up
Backstage at the Cavern Club, in chilly January 1963, the Beatles reveal an old nemesis to Helen in a highly embellished story told by Paul...and it’s release day for Please Please Me…
A Cozy Beatle Poll
If the Beatles did a television commercial in the 1960s, which would be the most fun to see???
Ringo for Bubble Fun dishwashing detergent
Paul for Magical Mystery Tour - Day Tripper motorcoaches
George for Aston Martin sports cars
John for Snarlin’ Dog pet food
None! Write in your answer!
Please vote
by sending me an email and joining my email list
(you'll get notified when new stories come out and the running total of this poll)
Kal Smagh can be reached at: Author.Kal.Sma
[email protected]
