Moratorium

by Chuck Sampson

They embraced and rolled over together in the green, mushy, ice plant next to the sidewalk. After several minutes of savoring the moment, she looked at her watch, “We better get down to the beach or we won’t have time to have lunch at Parmenelis.”

  Once she sat up, Dana said, “So what is this plan you have for stopping Mike from being a crazy man?”

  “I’m going to give him what he wants. I think he’s frightened of me,” she said. She stood up, walked over to the sidewalk, and stood beside the bench.

  “Well that’s good, what are you-” The wind picked up again and he would have had to shout his question to her, so he put it away for later. Besides, there was no point in spoiling the moment with talk about her brother.

  “Ready for a walk?” she said and started back toward the car.

  “Where are you going? The beach is that way.” He said pointing toward the walkway entrance.

  “I’ve left the beach blanket, towels, and my book in the car.”

  After she applied the suntan oil to Dana and vice versa, they climbed down the wooden stairway leading to the beach etched into a steep, high, hill. Dana steadied her as they descended.

  White foam from the choppy sea sprayed on to the shore and spread clumps of green kelp along the cool sand. As the chilly, salty, onshore breeze picked up strength, he could barely hear the sharp, incessant, bark of a small dog. He glanced northward, toward the end of the beach that met the service road, and noticed the furry source of the barking jumping up and down nervously at what appeared to him to be a large, black, bag washed up on the shore. When he returned his attention to Kelsey, she was pointing toward the mysterious object.

  “Maybe it’s a beached seal?” Kelsey said. Dana reached into his backpack and retrieved his windbreaker. She jumped when he draped it across her shoulder,

  “I’m sorry, Kelsey I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw you shivering and I thought you might need a hoodie.”

  “Thanks,” Kelsey adjusted the fit of her jacket across her shoulders. “I was just looking at the dog up at the north end of the beach. I wonder what he is barking at… maybe a beached seal?”

  “A sick sea animal is unusual for this time of year. We usually don’t get red-tide until summer, but with these devil winds blowing every day for the past week, who knows? Besides, it may not be sick; it could have been bitten by a shark.” Dana replied.

  They trotted toward the unusual scene. When they were a few feet away, the dog scampered off. Dana’s gaze momentarily followed the rat-sized canine to what he assumed was its owner. A young woman lay sleeping on a towel, nearly invisible, close to the steep slopes that dropped down to the sand from the parking lot a hundred or so feet above. She wore a bright red bikini. Gusts of wind scattered her short, brown, curly hair back and forth across her forehead. Her skin, like smoothed out caramel, glimmered in morning sunlight. He turned to point her out to Kelsey, but before he could, she interrupted him with a shout,

  “It’s not a seal, it’s a person! A surfer has drowned!”

  She rushed toward the limp body and fell down on her knees beside where it lay face down in the sand. She turned the body’s curly, black haired head around to see the swollen, bluish-grey face of her brother, Mike. She gasped as though she couldn’t breathe and looked upward toward Dana with cracked, crimson eyes.

  Dana knelt down beside her. He felt Mike’s wrist for a pulse, nothing. Kelsey hugged her brother’s lifeless body to her bosom and rocked it; tears streamed down her face. The sound of the pain in her sobbing voice sent shivers down his back. He put his arm around Kelsey and with his free hand felt around in his rucksack for his cell phone.

  As he fumbled through his things, he noticed the girl on the towel close to the cliffs wake up. She scooped up the small dog, gathered up her towel and cooler, and headed toward the path leading to the parking lot at a full run. She probably doesn’t want to get involved. He forgot about her as soon as she left.

  Dana held Kelsey while she held her brother’s corpse for a few minutes more. Then he got her to gently return Mike’s body back down. They both stood up and embraced one another. Kelsey buried her face into Dana’s chest and cried.

  Dana finally found his cell phone, dialed 911, and reported the discovery of Mike’s body. It was then that a troubling thought came to him. What did Kelsey mean when she said she had fixed things between Mike and me?

  Chapter 5

  “Cyrus, be careful,” Cindy said as Detective Sergeant Cyrus Fleming handed her a five. She opened the cash register, put the five in the appropriate slot, and then handed him back the change without counting.

  “It’s okay, just a couple of surf punks fighting. It’s probably over drugs,” Cyrus said as he counted his money, “Besides, Max will be with me if anybody decides to get physical.”

  Cindy nodded in response and leaned across the bakery counter. Putting her elbows down on the top and her round, chubby cheeked face in her hands, she said, “I am not worried about you in a fair fight. I’m sure you could handle yourself just fine, especially with those big arms, but these loadies will stab you in the back if you aren’t careful.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “Yea, I was married to one…” She straightened up, and then ran a small hand through her curly black hair, “… until some guy he ripped off showed up at my door with a gun.”

  “A gun, wow, what’d you do?”

  “Hah, at first I was a little scared, and then I thought about my baby lying in the crib in the next room. The idea of this jerk waving a loaded gun around my kid got me real mad. Funny thing was this skinny junkie was shakin’ more than I was. I snatched the gun out of his hand and stuck the barrel in his mouth. When I pulled back the hammer he wet his pants.”

  “If you killed this guy don’t confess it to me, I like you.”

  “You do?” Cindy’s face turned red and Cyrus grinned. She slapped her small cleaning tower on the counter and shook her head, “Stop teasing, especially since I really do like you.”

  “You do, and why is that? I know-it’s because I like your pastries.”

  “No, it’s because I got a thing for blondes, especially tall ones like you.”

  “Kind of a superficial reason for liking someone, don’t you think.”

  “Cyrus, I said I liked you; I didn’t say I wanted to get married.”

  They both laughed aloud. Cyrus stopped laughing and said, “Well did you kill him or not?”

  “Who?” She paused, put her finger to her lips, and then continued, “No, no, I eased back the hammer and he ran like the wind. When my old man came back he found all his clothes and stuff spread out on the front lawn. That was the last I saw of him, good riddance-”

  The chirp of a squad car siren stopped her short. “That’ll be Max,” Cyrus said and then he whispered a curse and dumped his coffee, Danish, and a copy of The Messenger into the trash can. As he went out through the open arched doorway, he heard Cindy cry out, “Don’t worry about the Danish, Cyrus, the next one is on the house.”

  Once he was outside, he shielded his eyes from the bright California midmorning sun. It was early October, and the thick blankets of fog which usually blocked it out were gone. The bakery’s outside patio tables were empty and directly in front of him, sitting in a squad car, was his square-jawed, muscle-toned partner, Max Stern. “What’s going on, Cyrus?”

  Cyrus opened the car door, slid into the passenger side seat, and slammed the door shut. “Sally got a call from someone about a couple of surfers down at Rincon Beach scraping.”

  “Rincon? But that’s out of our jurisdiction.”

  “Rudy says to take it anyway. County’s got their hands full with a possible triple homicide out on one of the oil rigs and a double homicide in El Capitan.”

  “I read about the murder in El Capitan. Some slug killed a married couple in their sleep while the kids watched. But the oil rig incident is different. That happened last week. Paper said it was an accident.”

>   “County thinks it’s a homicide”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know. That’s all Rudy told me,” Cyrus said, “It must be a nasty way to die. They lower those guys onto the helipad riding on a pugh.”

  “A pugh, what’s that?”

  “It’s a large flat metal disk that has cables attached to it and teepee shaped chained netting. It’s hooked to a main cable on the chopper. The oil crew stands on the flat disk and hangs onto the chained netting while they’re transported from a boat to the oil platform.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It’s actually safer than having the chopper land on a small platform like Irene. That is as long as the chopper doesn’t drop them.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “I read it in The Messenger. I like that column about all the unique jobs, what’s it called?”

  Maxed nodded his head, “Occupations around Town, I think.”

  “Yeah that’s it.”

  Max popped on the single, portable, emergency light and stuck it on the car roof. He pushed the accelerator to the floor and made a quick u-turn. He brushed his dark brown hair out of his eyes, found the toggle switch on the center console, and flicked on the siren to clear the lanes ahead. A few moments later, when the traffic cleared, Cyrus pointed to the siren control and said, “Turn off the stupid siren, will you?”

  “Sure, Cyrus.” Max narrowed his blue eyes, shrugged his thick shoulders and turned off the horn.

  “All right, sorry, I didn’t get my usual coffee and Danish this morning.”

  “Too bad, Anderson’s has the good stuff. I hope you hadn’t already ordered.”

  Cyrus looked at Max with face of a hurt dog.

  Max nodded, grinned, and then said, “Too bad, who waited on you, Cindy?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Oh nothing, did she tell you one of her fantastic stories?”

  Cyrus smiled, then he said, “Oh yes, she’s good at telling tall tales. I don’t mind. She believes them too, you can tell. She’s a tough one to figure out; I think she was telling the truth this time.”

  “That’d be a first. So why didn’t you bring your pastry with you?”

  “You know why.”

  “Oh right, like we’re going to run into them this morning, what are the chances?”

  “I can’t take the chance, Max. How would it look if one of Rudy’s cohorts or one of the patrolmen from the Ventura Police bowling team saw me stuffing my face while riding in a squad car?”

  “Yeah you’d be off the team faster than a layoff rumor.”

  Max glanced over at Cyrus with grin and then he said, “Maybe you ought to try and cut back a little on the pastries. You know, I go running every morning down by the State Street pier-”

  “Good for you, Max, I need for one of us to be in shape. That’s what makes us a good team.” He put a big hand on Max’s shoulder and grinned back.

  “How’s that?” Max said.

  “I do the brain work and you do the leg work.” He straightened up in his seat. “Where are you going, the station?”

  “That’s what Rudy told me to do, bring you back to the station.”

  “No, no, turn around and head for Rincon. I’ll call Rudy.” Cyrus pulled out his cell and poked out Rudy’s number on the keypad. He talked with him for a while and hung up. The rookie made a U-turn at the next intersection. He took the south 101 onramp on State Street and got on the freeway.

  “I am sure Rudy’s hoping we can get a homicide case to stick this time,” Max said.

  “What? Oh yeah, the Nichols case was pretty embarrassing. We better hope these surf punks aren’t celebrities, otherwise the only way we’ll be able to get a conviction is if we import the jury from Texas.”

  “Yeah, finding twelve people in Santa Barbara who won’t fall for psychobabble lies from high priced, celebrity lawyers won’t be easy.”

  Cyrus nodded. “Call in an eleven thirty and a nine oh one hotel. Have him meet us at the beach. Did she say which side they were on?”

  “North side, by the restrooms and picnic benches. So Cyrus, if you’re calling in Thad you must be thinking we got a murder to investigate.”

  “Who says you aren’t ready to be promoted to detective? Rudy told me the eyewitness called in again. She said one of the surfers was still down and not moving. My guess is after this long a time, he’s not breathing either. ”

  Max snorted. Cyrus let Max put on the siren again to clear the lane ahead of them. Five minutes later they arrived at Rincon Beach and pulled into the north side parking lot, next to Dana’s Mustang. Max got out first and walked over to the sidewalk and stood in front of the car. “Typical surfer ride, faded pretty badly, like it has spent a lot of days baking at the beach, still in good shape for a ’66.” He called in a ten fifteen check on the license plate-SRFGEEK. “Dana Mathers is the registered owner and he has no outstanding warrants. Funny, this is the only other car in the north side parking lot.”

  “Not that unusual, Max,” Cyrus said, “Rincon beach is always deserted this time of year. School is in session, surf is probably flat-which is why no one’s ditching school to be here-and the Moms with young kids don’t like the rip current. They go to Carpentaria.”

  Max shrugged his shoulders.

  “Did you note any other cars parked in the south parking lot when we drove by?”

  “I thought I spotted a green Mini Cooper with the top down. You want me to check?”

  “Not now, we’ll inspect the car when we come back, if it’s still here. Let’s go.”

  They started down the wooden steps on the south end leading to the beach. “What a rotten way to start the day, investigating a fight between a couple of drugged up surf bums,” Cyrus muttered as he stepped slowly down the rickety stair. Physical exertion always made Cyrus cranky.

  Max stood on the steps above, “Isn’t Mathers that famous surfing champion from Ventura?”

  “Yes, well at least he used to be. All the girls were crazy over this guy a few years ago, before he injured his back. But since his accident, he’s quit competing, gone to school, and toned down his image a lot. He now works for Chevron.”

  “How do you know so much about everyone? You’ve only been here a few years.”

  “I only know what I read in the papers.”

  “Kind of ironic, I guess, now the respectable version of Mathers may end up a murder suspect.”

  “Yes, it’s like I always say, you can take the surf out of the surf bum, but you can’t take the bum out of the surf bum.”

  “That wasn’t funny. In fact I am not sure if it even made sense.”

  “All surfers are bums. They’re either hooked on booze or drugs or the adrenalin rush from surfing, and incapable of self control.” Cyrus huffed back, his breath shortened from each step he took.

  Max passed by Cyrus on the pathway alongside the stairs. He got to the bottom at least twenty steps ahead of Cyrus, who was holding his hand to his chest and taking deep breaths.

  “Someone’s down at the northern most end of the beach, in front of the causeway.” Max pointed toward Kelsey and Dana. “And by the edge of the cliff wall is the large piece of driftwood where the witness said the perp hid the bat. I’ll search for it there.”

  After what seemed like forever to Cyrus, he reached the place on the beach where Kelsey and Dana stood, next to her brother’s corpse, lying face down in the water. He pulled out his wallet and showed them his badge. Dana nodded. Cyrus stood motionless, and stared at the couple without saying a word. He wheezed several times in an effort to catch his breath and glanced over at the Mike’s body. The victim appeared to be a thin man with wiry, black, hair, and medium height, much shorter than the blonde haired man standing in front of him. He would guess his height to be about six foot three, at least. For a moment, he gazed at Kelsey, whose head lay on Dana’s chest, tears streamed down her face.

  “Is she all right?” Cyrus asked, finally.

  “No,
she’s upset.” Dana pointed at the corpse with a quick motion, “Her brother, Mike Tanner drowned.”

  “My name is Detective Fleming, Cyrus Fleming; and what are your names?”

  “I’m Dana Mathers and this is Kelsey Tanner.”

  “You related to Jack Tanner, the oilman?”

  Kelsey stopped crying and wiped her eyes. “I am his daughter.”

  Cyrus knelt down next to the body and examined his head. He felt a large patch of the corpse’s black hair in the back of his skull congealed together from dried blood. Surfers often break their heads on rocks out here, not often enough to suit me, he said to himself. If we hadn’t got the call from our witness, this would have probably been declared an accident. He hasn’t been dead too long, maybe an hour judging by the amount of rigor in his body and the spots on the whites of his eyes. Thad will be able to determine the exact time. Cyrus stood back up with a grunt and brushed the sand from his knees. Looking at Dana and Kelsey he said, “We got a call about a big fight on this beach between two surfers. Have either of you seen anyone fighting?”

  “No, we’ve only arrived here about ten minutes ago. Kelsey spotted Mike’s body.”

  “A moment ago you said Mike drowned. What makes you so certain?”

  “Well, we assumed that was what happened. He is wearing his wet suit. We thought he had smashed his head on some rocks and then drowned.”

  Cyrus stared at him as though he were a doctor examining a patient.

  “Yes, funny thing about your conclusion, this is the north side of Rincon, nothing here but soft sandy beach-no rocks. Could you please hold out at your hands?”

  Dana reluctantly extended his hands for inspection.

  “Why do you want to check my hands?”

  “To determine whether or not you’re lying. Well, your ring finger knuckle is swollen, and it also appears the smallest knuckle has been scraped on something because it is scabbed over.”

  “I hurt my hand this morning changing the rear tire on my car.”

  “What do you know about what happened here?”

  “Nothing. Kelsey was here with me when I arrived; she will tell you. When we got here, he was already dead.”