Splendor Bay
Copyright 2001 by LB Cobb. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER TWO
Saturday, May 26, 9:00 AM
I snapped a quick dozen shots of Silent Wallie before
three carloads of state police barreled onto the beach, followed a few
minutes later by two cars of FBI special agents. What with the uniformed
state guys and Brooks-Brothered Feds assisting the locals in kicking sand
at Moreno, it was clear my volunteer services were excess to the event. I
left the other guys to play murder investigation and climbed the stairs to
Sally's house. No one seemed to notice my leaving.
I showered, shaved, and changed into clothes that I kept
at Sally's in case she wanted to dine out where shoes and shirt were
required for service. I found a button-down shirt left over from my
suit-wearing days, a clean pair of jeans, and a pair of tassel loafers.
Socks were too formal for my planned activities. Having gotten myself
presentable for snooping around Splendor Bay, I fixed an omelet, took it
and a beer out to the deck, and watched the entertainment below through
Sally's binoculars.
An hour passed while small groups of cops conferred with
one another, milled about, conferred with other one-anothers. Lab guys
showed up looking for something to collect. The governor and a few sprigs
of seaweed were it. Two carloads of state cops loaded up, squealed onto
the pavement, ran a red light to make the turn onto Cliff Road, and headed
up the ridge in the general direction of Promontory Point. Then the rescue
squad loaded the sun-ripening governor into the meat wagon for his trip to
the county morgue in the basement of Brewer's funeral home in downtown
Splendor Bay.
I felt a momentary pang of regret seeing those diamond
studs drive away. They could have paid my tab at Fred's, a couple of
months rent, and bought Baby some new brake shoes, with enough change left
over for a day at the pony track. However, just knowing Moreno was now
waiting his turn for the coroner's carving table tempered my regret
immensely.
As soon as the recently departed governor departed the
beach, the remaining state cops and the Feds took off in the same
direction the first two cars had taken up the cliff. I briefly wondered
what sort of cop convention was going on at Promontory Point today, then I
turned my attention back to Gomez and Tiny, who had been left on the beach
looking as if they had been told by their big brothers that they were too
little to play cops and robbers.
The whole show was over in less than two hours. By then,
it had turned into a dazzling morning. So resplendent a morning that even
with the lingering pain in my head, I felt like exercising my inquisitive
nature. I rejoined Tiny and Gomez on the beach to see what the official
story was before I went snooping in town for gossip.
The only new information I picked up was that Moreno
wasn't the only dead dude. His limo driver had been found in a burned-out
crash just beyond Promontory Point, the reason the big cops had sped away
in that direction. The crash site was outside the city limits and SBPD's
jurisdiction, the reason Tiny and Gomez had been left behind, or so Tiny
said.
Tiny readily confirmed my initial observation -- Moreno's
cause of death wasn't immediately apparent. No gunshot wounds, no blows to
the head, no slashed throat, no stab wounds, just dead and already stiff.
That left a host of natural and unnatural causes of death for the coroner
to choose from.
Gomez put his money on the safe bet -- drowning -- since
the beach patrol had pumped a little sea foam out of Moreno before calling
SBPD. Why he had gone for a swim in a tux wasn't a significant issue in
Gomez's mind. Tiny picked the heart-attack-stroke-aneurysm category
because of Moreno's age -- fifty-eight -- betting it occurred while Wallie
was getting a little nooky on the beach. I placed my bet on drug-overdose
because I preferred to think the worst of Wallie, and I didn't want to
think about who the nookee might have been. Besides, this section of beach
had its share of transactions which might lead to drug overdoses as
thrilling as Viagra.
According to Tiny, the FBI was sending in an expert to
assist the county coroner in analyzing Moreno's innards. The lab work
would be expedited. Inquiring minds wanted to know. In the meantime, there
were the matters of a state funeral and a successor to pick. And possibly
a murderer to find.
The list of potential suspects was too long to go down the
whodunit road, so we examined our political science knowledge and placed
our bets. Tiny and I last had civics in high school, and Gomez had skipped
that course, so our knowledge wasn't extensive. But we all agreed it would
be the Vice President and then the Speaker of the House if Moreno had been
President of the United States. Tiny and I remembered when Reagan was shot
and knew for sure it wasn't Alexander Haig. Gomez was too young to
remember Reagan or Haig, so he was easily convinced. None of us had any
idea what happens in state government when you don't have a vice-governor,
although we tried to remember what they called the job in Texas when Bush
II resigned to be president.
Gomez put his money on the state controller since,
according to Gomez, looking after the money is the most important job.
Tiny picked the head guy of the state senate, whatever that job is called,
because making the laws sounded like an important job to a peace officer.
And I put my money on the attorney general. I knew her. We agreed a
special election was in order.
"Well, it sounds like you have everything under
control," I said, intending to climb the stairs back to Sally's place
to see if I could summon the courage to test Baby's brakes down Cliff
Road, or the larger question, whether I could make it down Cliff Road
without winding up in the same condition as Moreno's limo driver. In
addition to buying Baby some new shoes, I thought I might poke around to
see if anyone had anything to say on the subject of Moreno's passing,
starting at Oma's Kitchen, one of the few places where you can get any
chitchat from anybody.
"Wait up a minute," Tiny said as he headed over
to the cruiser. "I need to call in."
"Yeah, sure." I turned to take in the bay view
and a deep breath of sea air while Tiny did his calling-in. I fully
expected Tiny to suggest a cup of coffee at Oma's so we could play one of
our little games of guess the perpetrator, a passable substitute for a
game of checkers with Old Man McPeters.
I was reciting the verse from John Keats' Endymion to
myself -- Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds along the pebbled
shore of memory -- one of the few verses I know, when Gomez strolled over
to visit.
"You can tell me," I said. "What was the
governor doing when he got himself killed?"
"I can't tell you anything, Fragile Dick."
Gomez wanted me to beg. "Just a tiny bit of
speculation," I whined. "Something I can trade for lunch at
Oma's."
"I might as well tell you," he said.
The thing I liked most about Gomez is you didn't have to
beat information out of him. Usually, you didn't even have to buy him a
drink.
"It's this way, Fragile Dick. We've got
nothing."
"I owe you one."
"Nothing but speculation," Gomez expounded in
response to my expression of gratitude. "You know his reputation. The
governor was out tom-catting last night."
"So I've heard," I said. Sally Solana, my most
recent ex-friend and the current state attorney general, was a Moreno
staffer until she had enough on him to convince him to give her a real
job. From time to time, Sally shared with me some of the sordid facts she
picked up in her work, Moreno's habits included.
"Nobody thought anything about his outing from the
Mansion until he didn't show up for his seven a.m. staff meeting. Then
they started looking for him."
"Really?"
"There's a car that trails Moreno's limo," Gomez
continued, "manned by two sharpshooters state cops. The limo driver's
also a state cop, which gives the governor three body guards with him at
all times. For some reason, that didn't happen last night. Seems this
backup car had mechanical trouble. By the time they switched vehicles, the
governor was out of sight. Cramer is grilling the two cops now."
"Which two?" I asked.
"Last names was all I got," Gomez said.
"Block and Sartin. Bet their heads are going to --"
"Bill, the Chief wants you to give a statement,"
Tiny yelled, interrupting Gomez just as he was getting to the good part.
I'd heard something recently about Stan Cramer, head of
the state police. But with my still pounding head, I couldn't remember
what, something Sally had insisted on sharing while I watched a ball game
on TV. I'd filed it away in the gray matter, so I'd be ready for one of
her you're-not-listening-to-me pop quizzes. The question was, what
category? Work stuff? State secrets stuff? Can you believe cops stuff? It
would come to me.
"Bill, you hear me?" Tiny yelled again.
"Why me?" I yelled back. "I didn't see
anything until I saw you guys down here destroying evidence. I can give
him that statement over the car radio if he wants."
"Don't get smart with me, Bill," Tiny growled.
"One of these days, you're going to push me too far."
Tiny Sanders outweighed me by a hundred pounds, and he was
almost a head taller than my six-three. That didn't scare me. Tiny was too
good-natured to scare anyone. He was like having a big teddy bear for a
cop. If you could keep him from grinning, his size did a darn good job of
scaring the tourists into good driving habits. The rest of us liked him
too well to misbehave much.
Tiny was one of only two guys I had gone through school
with who never called me Fragile Dick. Fred McPeters, of Fred's Fine
Seafood Bar and Grill and Fred's Fine Liquors, was the other. Which, to my
way of thinking, proved Tiny loved me like a brother like Fred did. Tiny
ought to. I was the one who explained the facts of life when we were eight
and got him his first date in high school. If Mary Louise hadn't seen the
potential in him back then, Tiny probably never would have married. Heck,
if Mary Louise hadn't seen the potential in him, he never would have had
sex. He was just that aggressive.
"Don't shout at me, Tiny. I'm a little under the
weather." I rubbed my head where it hurt the worst, between the eyes.
"Damn it, Bill. When are you going to get your act
together? You had more going for you than any of us. Look how you've
turned out."
"I turned out just fine," I said. "I'm a
has-been, not a never-was. I'm on sabbatical from life. Early retirement,
if you will."
"Sure. I bet Davy is real proud of his daddy these
days. Now, wait for me in the cruiser. I need to talk to Gomez."
"I don't mind listening to you talk to Gomez," I
said, deflated, rightly chastised by Tiny's remark. I looked away to my
favorite view of the bay. Tiny had hit me where it hurt. My son was the
only good thing I had produced in my entire life. I hoped Davy would
forgive me for taking time off from being an adult.
"I don't have time for your crap today," Tiny
said in a tone that almost made me think he didn't love me anymore. That
bothered me, too. I was running out of people who cared.
"Get in the cruiser, Bill," he ordered, throwing
me the keys. "Listen to the radio or something."
I got in the front seat, shotgun side, put the key in the
ignition and turned it far enough to get the radio playing. Then I pushed
buttons until I found the local station that played Peter, Paul and Mary,
and other fine musical artists from my youth. I turned the radio off when
I heard their plea for money to support the arts. That is, their plea for
money to support the odd-ball tastes of people like me who can't handle
new-age rock and roll and need to get over it and the station workers, a
group of long-haired, tongue-lip-ear-eyebrow-nipple pierced graduate
students who ran the station out of their camper most sunny weekends. I
was afraid that if I gave them any money they'd use it to pierce as yet
unrevealed parts of their anatomies. As much as I love "Puff," I
didn't want that on my conscience.
With nothing else to do, I lowered the windows to catch
the breeze, hoping to overhear Tiny and Gomez, and lowered my seat back as
far as I could with the cage in place to pretend I was taking a nap and
wasn't interested in their conversation. Surf noises prevented much
snooping.
Before I got bored enough to push the button for the
siren, the Center City Channel 12 Eyewitness News van arrived. Out jumped
their babe reporter, Pam Somebody, and a cameraman with a long greasy
ponytail. That's one thing you can say for being an out-of-the-way seaside
town. By the time the TV news folk show up, there's little but the weather
to report.
As Pam leaped around the news van gazelle-like, her high
heels stuck in the sand. But nothing could keep Wonder Reporter Pam from
her story. She slipped out of the shoes and vaulted the rest of the
distance in her stocking feet.
"Officer? Officer? What happened here this
morning?" Pam shouted. "We've learned that a body, reported to
be Governor Moreno, was discovered on the beach. What can you tell our
viewers?"
"No comment," Tiny commented loudly. He pulled
Gomez by the arm to the cruiser and pushed him into the back seat. Tiny
went around the car, slid in behind the wheel, and cranked the engine.
Being a helpful person, I pushed the siren button.
Pam was quick. She stuck her head, microphone-holding
right arm, and torso into the open window, draping her plasticized boobs
across me as she aimed the microphone for Tiny's tonsils.
"Please, Officer, the citizens are entitled to know
what the police are doing about this situation," she shouted, making
my ears ring. "Are the state police and FBI involved? Who's in charge
of the investigation?"
"No comment," Tiny muttered.
I decided to help Tiny. Since Pam was draped across me
anyway, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her on her collagen-injected,
red-tattooed lips.
She broke away sputtering.
While she was still confused, I pushed her out the window
and pushed the button to raise it.
"Now's your chance, Tiny," I said, blowing a
kiss at Pam who stood there with an open mouth, apparently in shock that
lips had a purpose other than as an outlet for loud sounds. "It
always takes women a while to get over my kisses."
"You better hope she doesn't file assault charges on
you," Tiny said as he put the Chevy in gear and pulled around the
Channel 12 van, not once losing traction in the sand.
I reached in my right pocket and moved the twenty over to
the left pocket, promising myself I'd pay up on the rest of the bet when I
got some cash.
Read Chapter 3
Splendor Bay is available for immediate download:
Adobe Ebook
Microsoft Reader Ebook
Search
for best price Softcover!
Search for best
price Hardcover!
SPLENDOR BAY is now available as a free audio book for
Texans with disabilities who are registered to receive the Texas State
Library's Talking Book Program library service. Order catalog
number CT 6629 through your local library.
SPLENDOR BAY by
LB COBB
LCCN 2001118509
Search
for Best Price: ISBN 0970622414, Trade Softcover
Search
for Best Price: ISBN 0970622422, Library Hardcover
"The
commonplace becomes extraordinary due to the identities and emotional
intensity of the characters... SPLENDOR BAY is a fast paced suspense story
sure to appeal to lovers of the genre. But it's a mystery of the heart as
well" -- Midwest Book Review