|
When aggressive panhandlers threaten the tourist trade in Surf City, fear and frustration grip the seaside resort town. The culture clash leads to fiery rioting on Beach Street, and a series of grisly murders. Hotheads cry, "Vigilantes!" Cooler heads insist a serial killer is on the loose. All are left to wonder who the next victim will be.
"It's going to be a long, hot summer, Carl."
They had spent Sunday afternoon on the beach, she
trim, tanned, and stunning in her bikini; he, at first
pallid, now broiled in outdated shorts and worn sneakers. They were enjoying tall, cold glasses of iced tea on the rooftop deck of the Chowder Bar at the end of the municipal wharf, watching the lowering sun lose its ferocity as it arched toward the horizon. The first chill breeze of the evening ruffled her hair, and she pulled her terry cloth beach jacket tightly around her. Off the coast a gray bank of fog moved ever closer. Carl zipped his windbreaker to the neck, not really minding the chill. He didn't like heat. This was his time of day, when a breeze came up and the fog carried in the fresh, clean smell of the sea. But he knew she wasn't talking weather; she was talking murder. It brought him back to the reality of her. Valerie Stearns was a cop, a good cop, and she was talking business.
"It's a tough case, alright," he agreed.
"The Guardian isn't making it any easier," she said.
"You mean the banner?" He spread the paper out on the table between them to reveal the heavy, black type across the top of the page: SERIAL KILLER STALKS SC.
"Exactly," she said. "The Surf City police didn't say that, Larry Hammond did."
"Larry Hammond, and everybody else in town who's ever read a word about a series of unexplained murders linked by a common thread. That spells serial killer, and you and every other cop in town knows it."
"But we didn't say it."
Top of Page
"You won't confirm that Cliff Maxwell is a suspect, but our police reporter says you've had him in more than once for questioning. Why not call suspects suspects? Why not call serial murders serial murders?" he asked. "I'll tell you why – Ernie Hunter."
"You shouldn't blame Ernie," she said. "It so happens he's right, but for the wrong reasons."
"What's your reason?" he asked.
"To keep the lid on. Why spread panic? Why give the nut any more publicity that he's already got? Publicity just turns a killer on, feeds his ego."
"That doesn't mean that a free press should be the killer's next victim. And what makes you think it's a he?"
"Bludgeoning, strangulation – that's not a woman's way to kill."
"Poisoning is," he pointed out.
"That assumes all three murders are linked. I'm not sure they are."
In the water off the edge of the wharf a pod of sea lions interrupted them with loud banking and antics that drew a crowd of tourists. Carl finished his drink and shivered.
"Let's get out of here," he said. "I've got to get some pants on before I freeze."
They might be at loggerheads over the murders, but he was attracted to her nevertheless. He was glad he'd asked her out. There was a certain rapport between them, a mutual respect. They were about the same age, give or take a half dozen years, and they'd both been around the block more than once. They were professionals, too, people who had given up a lot of personal life to devote themselves to their work. It seemed only natural that they would enjoy each other's company, and a Sunday afternoon at the beach was a harmless way to test the water. As he drove her home he considered her last remark.
Top of Page
"What makes you think the murders might not be linked?" he asked.
"Queenie was different," she said. "Smoky Joe and Sadie were derelicts, easy targets for a killer intent on running up a score, but not willing to take a chance on being caught. Smoky Joe was killed in the shadows under the bridge, Sadie in the dark of an abandoned building. Queenie was stricken in broad daylight on a public street. She didn't live under a bridge; she didn't sleep in abandoned buildings. She was a regular at the city shelter. She and her daughter were familiar to the people at St. Martin's. They described her as a devoted mother, a young woman down on her luck. She wasn't a derelict; she had a future, if only she could get a break. The priest at St. Martin's—Chatworth—said she recently asked him about a free day care center. He even got the vestry to go to work on the idea. With free day care Queenie, and dozens of others like her, might have gotten a job, gotten back on their feet. No, Queenie's case is different."
"But who would want to poison her, why, and how?"
"So far I can only answer the last part of your question, and it really doesn't make much sense."
"How was she poisoned?"
"Mushrooms," said Valerie. "The coroner found traces of poisonous mushrooms in her stomach."
"Hosmer's food program," Carl guessed immediately.
"That occurred to us, and we're looking into it. But if that were the case, why was she the only victim? It's just another reason to treat Queenie's case separately. I don't think it's likely that her death is linked to the others."
"Any I.D. on her yet?"
"No fingerprints on file. We x-rayed her teeth. For what it's worth, she had good teeth. It didn't tell us a thing."
"It tells you she came from a good background, a home where dental hygiene was practiced, where diet was proper," Carl observed.
"You should have been a cop," Val said. "Now we've harrowed it down to only a few million households in California." |
