Mike Befeler Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery Series E-Book Box Set: Retirement Homes Are Murder, Living with Your Kids Is Murder, Senior Moments Are Murder, Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder

by Mike Befeler

  Meyer sighed. “I’ve been reminiscing—remembering the good times with my dear departed wife Martha. Why don’t you select something romantic?”

  “A tough old retired judge and lawyer like you?”

  “We all have our soft undersides, just like you, Paul.”

  “Are you accusing me of being all bluster?”

  “No, but you’re much more than the crusty exterior you project. How many codgers would bother to read to their friend over the phone?”

  “I like the way you said friend. I only wish I remembered you more without the assistance of my journal and Marion.”

  “You and Marion will have to come back to Hawaii and visit me one of these days.”

  “After our Alaskan cruise, I’ll add that to our social agenda.”

  “You do that. Now, as you always say to me, are we going to yak or hear a story?”

  “Okay. Okay. You want something romantic . . . hmm.” I scanned the table of contents. “Here’s one titled ‘The Romance of a Busy Broker.’ That sounds almost as good as The Romance of a Bored Care-Home Detainee.”

  “Or The Romance of a Forgetful Scofflaw.”

  “Touché.” I thumbed through and found the beginning of the story. “Make yourself comfortable. I don’t want this to put too much pressure on your aging heart.”

  “I think I can manage.”

  I proceeded to read the story of Harvey Maxwell, the frenetic broker who charges around transacting stock deals. He’s informed he plans to replace Miss Leslie the stenographer but things are so frantic that he orders her to continue. After being consumed with his work, Harvey has a free moment and discovers he’s in love with Miss Leslie and proposes marriage to her. She gently informs him that they were married the night before.

  “I can identify with that guy,” I said after putting the book down.

  “You’re right, Paul. He has as bad a memory as you.”

  “Damn straight. If it weren’t for my journal, I’d wake up every morning unaware of being married to Marion.”

  “Well, not every morning, Paul. I assume there is still enough romance in your life that occasionally your wires receive that extra spark to keep them connected.”

  “True. Once in a while I’m fortunate enough to experience that benefit of marital bliss.”

  “I’ll let you return to your wife. I appreciate you taking the time to read to me.”

  We signed off, and I once again thanked my lucky stars for Marion’s open-mindedness in accepting me. Could I have put up with me if I were in her place? It would be pretty tough being around an old coot whose memory reset every day. That would require inordinate patience to reeducate someone morning after morning.

  And how did I thank her? By getting bollixed up in a series of murders. Marion deserved better than that. I had to clear up the whole art-dealer mess so our lives could return to some semblance of order. I’d keep doing what I could to resolve this strange sequence of events.

  I checked my watch and saw I had some time to catch a bite to eat before meeting Pitman. I ate a banana and some blueberry yogurt and had just wiped my mouth when I heard a knock on the door.

  “Come on in,” I shouted.

  The door opened and Austin stood there with a handful of paper. “Jennifer sent this to me for you.”

  “Excellent.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Are you studying money laundering?”

  “Yeah. I think one or more art dealers here in Venice may have a money-laundering scheme going on.”

  His eyes widened. “Cool. Can I help?”

  “Sure. Come on in and let’s review these together.”

  We sat down at the table and both read through the stack of sheets.

  “Seems like a lot of examples of money laundering through art dealers,” I said.

  Austin pointed to one article. “The main thing is to keep the cash transactions under ten thousand dollars. This says the Patriot Act now requires art dealers to report cash transactions larger than that.”

  “But as long as they stay below that limit everything could work fine. So the Venice crooks would have to move lots of paintings at just under ten thousand dollars.” I thought back to what I had read in my journal. “And that seems to be the approximate asking price of Muddy Murphy works. How convenient.”

  Austin left, and I sauntered down to the beach. I had some time to kill before meeting Pitman, so I found a nice smooth spot on the sand and plunked my old body down. The heat from the day’s sun felt good so I took off my shoes and socks and wriggled my toes into the warm sand.

  I craned my neck up to view the blue sky and listened to the surf crashing into the breakwater. The aroma of hot dogs, hamburgers and popcorn wafted past my twitching nose. A retired geriatric like me should be enjoying the sun and beach and not worrying about art dealers and murderers. What cesspool had I fallen into?

  I couldn’t even escape to a Pacific island. Detective Quintana would be on me like one of those dogs that sticks its nose in your crotch. I felt trapped.

  It was ironic me living near the ocean. I hated expanses of water. If I waded in over my ankles, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. So I guess a Pacific island was out as well. I’d have to adjust to my newlywed pad in Venice and leave it at that.

  My ruminations were interrupted by a tap on my back.

  I turned around to see a guy in a dirty beard and ratty clothes.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said, pointing a grimy finger at me.

  “Me?” I put my hand to my chest.

  “Yeah. You were interested in Muddy Murphy.”

  “I am. I hate to be impolite, but with my short-term memory loss I don’t recognize you.”

  “I’m Harley Marcraft. We’ve spoken several times.’

  The name clicked. “Now it’s coming back to me. You have an update for me on Muddy?”

  He dropped down on the sand beside me.

  “Sure do. Good old Muddy.” He shook his head. “We all miss him.”

  “So what’s the news?”

  “I learned something last night. One of the other guys mentioned what Muddy had said to him before he died.”

  Now he had my attention. “What’s that?”

  “Muddy had some plans.”

  “Plans? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “Yeah. Muddy had something else up his sleeve, even though he usually wore sleeveless shirts.” Harley chuckled. “Muddy apparently had his own agenda.”

  He paused and looked out toward the ocean. It was obvious he wanted me to encourage him.

  “I’ll bite. What do you think he was up to?”

  “Muddy was a painter, so he had experience with chemicals such as turpentine, thinner and linseed oil. He hinted to my buddy that a painter could concoct a device that would make an arsonist proud.”

  “Yeah. Some of those painting materials are highly flammable. So what?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but Muddy might have been planning to do some damage.”

  “You mean set a fire?”

  “Precisely. He still had money squirreled away and could walk into an art-supply store to buy the materials he needed. Then when he wanted . . . varoom, a big blaze.”

  “That seems pretty bizarre. Did your buddy find out why he would do this?”

  “No, but I can speculate.”

  Again he paused and smoothed the sand with one hand while looking up at the sky.

  I wondered if he was searching for a seagull, but then figured out he just wanted me to egg him on. “Okay, take a shot at it.”

  “He hated art dealers. Enough said.”

  “So you think he may have decided to break into one of the dealer’s galleries or warehouses and start a fire?”

  “He may have intended to burn up some of his own paintings that the dealers had in storage. He hated that they were taking advantage of him.”

  I thought for a moment. “That would be a hell of a way to get back at them. Obviously he never carr
ied out such a scheme.”

  “No, but he may have been getting ready to. Muddy could be very determined. I once saw him sit on a bench for six hours to prove a point. When he set his mind to something, it was hard to sway him otherwise.”

  “And if one of the art dealers got wind of it, maybe he decided to take preventative measures against Muddy.”

  “It could have contributed to Muddy’s demise.” Harley flicked away a sand flea.

  “It all makes sense in an absurd kind of way. One of the art dealers could have killed Muddy to prevent the loss of paintings as well as to move along the appreciation in value. Two benefits from one murder.”

  “That could have been what happened to Muddy. The poor bastard never had a chance.” Harley wiped his brow with the back of his left hand.

  “I wouldn’t like someone burning down my place, but I wouldn’t resort to murder to prevent it,” I said. “I wonder if the police know of this.”

  “Probably not. They’re so closely tied to the moneyed interests that they never check out what’s really going on.”

  I’d have to bring this up with Detective Quintana the next time he showed up to accuse me of something. Maybe he’d then spend more time pursuing the real killer than bugging me.

  Harley jumped up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch some more paddle tennis.”

  I slowly raised myself up. It was time to mosey over to the graffiti wall and find my art consultant. Once there, I spotted two teenagers working together to make large purple and black letters and a man with wild red hair who was spraying paint in crisp geometric shapes.

  “Pitman,” I shouted.

  He turned and waved. “Give me a minute to finish.” He constructed a purple octagon, orange triangle and red pentagon, then stepped back to admire his work. “There.” He dropped the spray cans in the sand and turned toward me.

  “I don’t get this,” I said. “How can you spend time painting on this wall when someone else will cover it up again and you’ll have to start all over?”

  Pitman waved his hands in the air and turned a color to match his hair. “You brush your teeth again every day, take your clothes on and off every day, eat meals over and over, go to sleep again. This is life! This is existence!”

  “Yeah. Yeah. To me this is crapola but don’t work yourself up. I don’t want you having a conniption before we go to the gallery open house tonight.”

  “Speaking of which, I have some information for you.” He looked like the cat that had eaten a canary convention. “Let’s sit down.”

  He strutted over to a cement wall and plunked himself down. I followed.

  Pitman moved his right hand in a big circle. “These art dealers are connected like spokes in a wheel, like stars in the milky way, like grains of sand in the beach . . .”

  “All right, Pitman. Contain yourself to the subject at hand.”

  “You’ll never guess what I found out!”

  “Brock and/or Theobault are involved in a money-laundering scheme,” I replied.

  Chapter 17

  Pitman’s mouth dropped open. “How’d you know the art dealers were involved in money laundering?”

  “I put the pieces together. They stayed financially solvent when others folded. They have some sort of arrangement with dealers in other cities in Southern California. I read in my journal that you told me that dealers didn’t work together as a rule. I had been given the advice to follow the money. Just a lucky guess.”

  He pouted.

  “Hey, don’t let me spoil your surprise. Tell me what you found out.”

  He perked up. “Well, I can’t prove anything, but I did discover that both Brock and Theobault regularly sell paintings to an art dealer in Long Beach. Not little piddling transactions but big-ticket deals of, say, five to ten thousand dollars.”

  “So large amounts of cash flow from Long Beach to Venice.”

  “Correct.”

  “And the Beverly Hills connection?”

  Pitman tweaked his chin. “Nothing specific there yet. But I suspect there may be transactions taking place between Beverly Hills and Long Beach.”

  “Masking the receiver from the source.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I suppose they could keep a set of books but actually transfer a lot more cash under the table.” I thought for a moment. “Or they could move paintings as a means to mask the movement of cash.” I waved my hands like Pitman had done. “Your spokes of the wheel.”

  He scratched his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Long Beach buys a painting from Venice for say, six thousand dollars, transferring cash to Venice. Venice ships the painting to Long Beach. Long Beach sells the same painting to Beverly Hills for eight thousand dollars. Beverly Hills sells the painting to a scam artist for just under ten thousand dollars. The scam artist moves the dirty money to the source. Long Beach and Beverly Hills receive compensation along the way and Venice ends up with the majority of the proceeds.”

  Now Pitman’s eyes lit up. “Now I get it. Everybody in the chain makes out.”

  “Yeah. This scheme works if ever they’re audited.”

  “It certainly supports why I never trusted art dealers. So who do you suspect? Theobault or Brock?”

  “It could be one or both of those guys,” I said. “I did have one piece of evidence fall in place which points to Theobault. You remember me showing you a picture of a guy with bushy eyebrows who had been following me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Turns out he works for Theobault.”

  “Wow.” Pitman’s eyes grew as large as coasters.

  “We need to keep after these slimeballs.”

  “Let me see what else I can uncover this afternoon,” Pitman said.

  “Good. You snoop around and then we’ll get together tonight at the open house and compare notes.” I patted him on the back. “We’re getting close to catching these crooks.”

  Pitman charged off like he had a chili pepper up his butt, and I meandered over to the boardwalk to see what the street vendors had to offer. I rejected a henna tattoo, five colors of sandals and fighter-pilot dark glasses but stopped at a table where a skinny man in a white sun hat was selling books on the history of Venice Beach. I picked up a copy and thumbed through it, looking at pictures of early construction, amusement parks on piers and canals of various dimensions.

  “Venice originally was planned to be an art colony,” the man said, tweaking his Van Dyke beard. “Abbott Kinny’s vision was to attract artists from all over the world.”

  “And now we have a graffiti wall and a building with a picture of some old rock star.”

  “A far cry from Kinney’s original thinking. But the street named after him has a thriving art community with galleries and antique stores.”

  “But the canals didn’t quite make it.”

  “No.” He sighed. “There were attempts to keep more but many of the original canals were bulldozed over to make way for real estate. A real shame.”

  I thought about saying that more canals would only lead to more floating bodies but held my tongue. “So tell me. I lived in the Los Angeles area after World War II but never came to Venice. What was it like then?”

  “During the war Venice was a center for entertainment. Many GIs came through for R and R. After that, the place decayed. Then it became a hippie haven in the sixties and is on the upswing now.”

  “But there are a lot of homeless people here.”

  He shrugged. “With the good weather, the beach and lots of tourists, it’s the perfect place to hang out, panhandle and survive inexpensively.”

  “I suppose,” I replied.

  With my history lesson under my belt, I headed back to my place to gather my thoughts before an evening full of art-gallery talk. I felt a growing excitement that I was getting close to solving the art-dealer puzzle. I had established a motive for either Brock or Theobault to knock off Vansworthy and Muddy Murphy. They both were around town when the murde
rs took place so they had access. Now I just needed to figure out which of the slime bags had actually committed the murders.

  Then my euphoria changed as I sensed a tightening in my gut. If the murderer had killed twice, he’d have no qualms doing it again. I was an old fogy and had no training in dealing with criminals. I should turn it over to Detective Quintana and his twitching mustache. No, that wouldn’t work. He never believed me anyway. He’d think I was trying to divert attention away from myself. I’d have to suck it up and see what I could learn tonight, but I would need to be on my toes with the likes of Brock and Theobault to deal with.

  I carefully checked in with Marion regarding my plans. “I read something in my journal that you’re not accompanying me to the reception sponsored by the criminally disposed art dealers.”

  “That’s right, Paul. You’ll be on your own. I promised to join Andrea and George at Austin’s band concert this evening.”

  “Damn. I guess I’ll have to hold my own with the help of Mallory Pitman.”

  “Is he still acting as your art consultant?”

  “Something like that. I’m sorry I’m missing Austin’s concert, but I need to collect all the information I can regarding the slimy art dealers.”

  “The concert is close by and should be over by eight, so you can call Andrea and George if you want a ride home.”

  I explained the money-laundering hypothesis to her and she said, “That sounds possible. But why the murders of Vansworthy and Muddy Murphy?”

  “They must have somehow bollixed up the gears of the well-tuned money machine. Muddy stopped producing and maybe Vansworthy got cold feet and was going to blow the whistle on the whole damn scheme.”

  “And how does that employee of Theobault following you fit in?” Marion asked.

  “I don’t know for sure yet. It does make Theobault seem mighty suspicious.”

  “I suppose so. In any case, you be careful tonight, Paul.” She tilted her head and looked into my eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am, I will. Mallory Pitman can act as my bodyguard.”

  “I’m concerned he’ll do more damage than good in that role.”

  “Well, I can’t be picky. He’s willing to help me. I just need to see if I can turn over a little more evidence to hand to Detective Quintana. Then he can get off my case.”