Death Rides the Surf

by Nora charles

  “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.”

  Twenty-nine

  About halfway through their research at the Gazette, Marlene realized that she could have found these blood-selling butchers in the phone book. And how could they be sure that the killer hadn’t just bought a pork loin in Winn-Dixie or Publix and collected the blood drippings before roasting it? Kate, who obviously had more important work to do, hadn’t wanted Katharine along. So she’d appointed Marlene as the designated babysitter.

  Jeff Stein had given them a private office and a computer, where Katharine had researched and then given Marlene the numbers to call. So far, one butcher had gone out of business, the second had already spoken to the police and demanded to know why Marlene was calling, and the third was being interviewed by Nick Carbone who’d taken the phone and asked Marlene what the hell she was up to.

  Royally ticked off, Marlene called a halt to their search. “We can get the rest of these numbers from information.” She took off her headphone and placed it on the desk. “Enough, already. I say we go back to Ocean Vista and find Mary Frances.”

  Katharine laughed. “Nana has outfoxed us, hasn’t she?” She stood and stretched. “Okay, let’s thank Jeff and get out of here. Maybe we’ll have better luck with the dancing nun.”

  On the way home, Marlene debated about confronting Katharine but decided to let it go. Maybe she didn’t want to know which secret the girl knew; maybe it had nothing to do with Charlie. And Katharine might not know anything; Katharine might have outfoxed Marlene.

  They arrived at the pool in time for the eleven-thirty water aerobics dance class. Mary Frances stood in the shallow end of the pool leading six ladies and Joe Sajak in a wet version of the twist. Chubby Checker’s voice boomed from a portable radio perched on the ledge.

  Marlene jumped right in, causing quite a splash.

  If she hadn’t been burdened by her conscience—or lack thereof—and the babysitting job, Marlene the mermaid would have been really happy. She preferred water to land anytime. She even preferred sex in a waterbed. If she had to exercise, this was the only way to go.

  “As we did last summer,” the women sang along with Chubby, but Joe Sajak looked sullen, his mouth, for a change, clamped shut.

  To think she’d chased after that jerk. But hell, what man hadn’t she chased after?

>   “Breathe deeply,” Mary Frances said. “Tighten those abs. Work those upper arms.” She nodded at Marlene. “You’re late. Double-time twists for you!”

  Marlene could understand how some people would risk the gas chamber to remove irritants like Mary Frances from their lives.

  Marlene held her head up, firming her neck muscles as she faced the sun. A bonus for working out in the pool was tanning as you tightened. The midday’s rays were strong. Mad dogs and Englishmen, Marlene chuckled to herself and turned her left cheek to the sun. They used to exercise at eight thirty, but Marlene had found that barbaric, often missing a session. Since Mary Frances’s tango class now started at eight, she’d moved the water aerobics to eleven thirty. More civilized, but a hell of a lot hotter.

  Did Roberto attend the eight o’clock tango class? Mary Frances had said he’d be her partner in this year’s Broward County Tango Championship and most of the dancers, who’d competed year after year in that contest, had been the dancing nun’s classmates. Roberto couldn’t be getting much sleep, going surfing at midnight and then driving up from Miami for an eight o’clock class.

  Maybe she’d spring for lunch in the posthurricane, redecorated Ocean Vista dining room. Mary Frances might be more cooperative after a Scarlett O’Hara or two.

  “Jumping jacks!” Mary Frances yelled. She must have been hell on wheels in her nun’s habit, bossing around all those convent school girls, and she hadn’t lost her touch. She said jump and the old ladies asked how high? Gallons of water splashed over the sides of the pool as the class tried to please their teacher and surpass their personal best.

  What annoyed Marlene most was that Mary Frances always looked so damn good. Even barking out orders, she glowed. Her naturally fair skin rosy, but not burned, her red curls swinging as she moved, and her green eyes seeming to twinkle in time to “Hard Day’s Night” as she jumped higher than any of her students.

  Joe Sajak left the pool before the Kegel exercises targeted at women only began. Male anatomy didn’t require strengthening the vagina muscles. Marlene wondered why she bothered. Would she ever have sex again? Well, one lived in hope, right? She listened up as Mary Frances gave an audiovisual demonstration.

  Tiffani, who always drew a smiley face over the last i on her name tag and wore microminis, waited on them. If possible, Tiffani was even perkier than Mary Frances. All this cutesy charm might make Marlene lose her appetite. Katharine’s quiet negativity seemed like a social asset about now. Her grandniece—albeit by her second marriage to Charlie’s twin brother, Kevin, but Marlene had always loved the child as if she were a blood relative—seemed to have turned sulking into an art form.

  “I’m so sorry, Ms. Friedman. We’ve lost our liquor license.” Tiffani delivered the line as if it were good news.

  “How? Did it blow away in the hurricane?” Marlene needed a drink. And, though somewhat less urgently, she’d wanted to ply Mary Frances with Scarlett O’Haras.

  Tiffani laughed. “No, ma’am, it expired. I know you served as condo president; maybe the new board isn’t as efficient as you were.”

  “You got that right,” Marlene said.

  “I can offer you ladies wine or beer.”

  “Champagne?” Marlene sounded hopeful.

  “Sure, I’ll put a bottle of Moët on ice right now.” The waitress turned toward the kitchen.

  “Make it two, Tiffani,” Marlene called after her as Katharine groaned.

  They’d voted to stay in their bathing suits and dine poolside at a table under an umbrella. Though she’d accepted Marlene’s luncheon invitation, Mary Frances had explained that she had another engagement at three and she’d need time to shower and wash her hair before leaving Ocean Vista at two forty-five.

  The former nun raised her flute. “To our hostess.” She sipped the champagne with less enthusiasm than Marlene had hoped for.

  Katharine didn’t lift her glass. Not drinking? Or just not toasting her grandaunt?

  “I’m so sorry about Jon Michael,” Mary Frances said to Katharine. “I know he was a friend of yours and that you’d met in Acapulco.”

  Mary Frances had hit just the right tone, Marlene thought: sympathetic, but not cloying or nosy. She hoped she’d do as well when questioning Mary Frances.

  “Did you talk to Jon Michael about me? You’re one of Florita’s clients, right?” Katharine sounded vulnerable.

  Mary Frances reached over and patted Katharine’s arm. “Yes, I am, but I didn’t know Jon Michael was her grandson until she arrived at our pre-Halloween beach party with him.” The former nun stared at her fingernails, and then removed her hand from Katharine’s arm. “To tell you the truth, Katharine, at first I’d thought all the surfers were, well, disreputable.”

  “And meeting Jon Michael changed your mind?” Katharine asked, sounding dubious.

  Mary Frances flushed, her sun-kissed skin blotched, then the glow returned. “No, meeting Roberto Romero changed my mind.”

  Marlene could almost hear Kate saying, “Wait, Marlene. Say nothing, just wait.”

  “Why?” Katharine asked. Exactly the question that Katharine’s Auntie Marlene would have asked Mary Frances. Maybe there was something worthwhile about Kate’s creative listening process.

  “Roberto is so sensitive and so refined.” Mary Frances shook her head, the red curls bouncing. “I don’t know why he hangs around with those other young men, especially Claude Jensen. As I told Kate the other day, Claude is not only crude, but he has a family history of violence. Now I’m sure Claude’s an evil man. A dangerous man.”

  Again, Marlene bit her tongue and drained her champagne flute, waiting for Katharine’s response.

  “And you know that Claude was in Acapulco when Amanda Rowling disappeared.” Well, that wasn’t where Marlene would have gone, but Katharine might have opened up another box of unanswered questions.

  Mary Frances nodded. “And I believe he was the blond who left the bar with Amanda that night.”

  Tiffani arrived, bearing three lobster salads. Though the presentation was divine, the waitress’s timing sucked. Marlene felt like part of the scenery yet, for once in her life, she was more interested in listening than talking, or even eating. To make herself useful, she refilled all three flutes.

  “Delicious,” Mary Frances said, and then took another bite. “The new chef is a wonder, isn’t he?”

  Oh God, they were losing Mary Frances to the food; she was focusing on the lobster sald, not the boardsmen.

  Katharine glanced over at Marlene. Did the girl need reinforcement? Was it Marlene’s turn to pry?

  “Roberto and I both think Claude murdered Jon Michael and that he probably murdered Amanda Rowling.” Mary Frances took yet another bite of salad. The woman was infuriating. “Do you want to know why?”

  Joe Sajak, showered and changed, appeared out of nowhere. “May I join you lovely ladies?”

  Marlene decided she’d have to kill him.

  Thirty

  “Where the hell is your daughter-in-law?” Nick barked in Kate’s ear as she approached Federal Highway, heading for the Neptune Boulevard Bridge and then home. Damnation. She shouldn’t have answered her cell phone.

  Still shaky and needing comfort, Kate had wanted to tell Marlene and Katharine that Claude Jensen was a violent young man who indeed had been on the beach Sunday night. She’d driven straight from Claude’s apartment to the Gazette. Jeff said Kate had missed them, that Marlene had seemed somewhat put off by her assignment, and she and Katharine had left.

  Kate may have missed Marlene and Katharine, but she couldn’t escape from Nick Carbone.

  “Jennifer’s voice mail says she’s out of the country.”

  Nick’s fury fueled Kate’s own. “You didn’t tell her she couldn’t leave, did you?”

  “Well,” Nick growled, “I didn’t know then that Jennifer had gone back to Pier Sixty-six and saw Grace again later Monday.”

  Kate gasped, involuntarily to be sure, but there it was, out
there for Nick to hear.

  “And the medical examiner says Grace Rowling died from stab wounds inflicted between nine and midnight.”

  “Oh,” Kate said. Jennifer had just become a prime suspect in two murders. If Grace had been stabbed between, say, nine to ten, Jennifer could have killed her before meeting Katharine later. And Jennifer had been on the beach on Sunday night, too.

  “I need your son’s phone number at the firehouse,” Nick said. “He may know where I can reach his wife.”

  Kate checked her cell phone’s index and gave Nick Kevin’s number.

  “Thanks.” Nick sounded a bit less angry.

  “But you can’t believe…” Kate was talking to a dead line. Nick had hung up.

  Kate made an illegal U-turn on Federal Highway, generating several loud beeps and a few curses. She needed to talk to Florita Flannigan. She had to find proof that Claude Jensen had killed Jon Michael and Grace Rowling and that both murders were somehow connected to Amanda’s disappearance in Acapulco. Claude and Jon Michael had been close for years. Florita had to know how cruel her grandson’s friend was.

  She’d explain to Katharine later, even go back with the girl to see Florita later today, but Kate had to do something right now to clear her daughter-in-law. She’d never realized how much she cared about Jennifer.

  Kate stopped at St. Raphael’s on Neptune Boulevard and Dixie Highway to get a mass card; this was, after all, a condolence call. Her next stop was a deli near the church where she bought sandwiches, fruit, and cookies. If she broke bread with Florita, she might get more cooperation.

  As she pulled into Golden Glow’s driveway, Kate left a message on Marlene’s voice mail saying she was running late. For once she was glad that Marlene hadn’t answered her cell phone and she didn’t even try to reach Katharine.

  Florita opened the door on the first chime. Had she been watching out the window?