A Minor Case of Murder Read online

  A Minor Case of Murder

  By Jeff Markowitz

  Published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital

  Copyright 2011 by Jeff Markowitz

  Cover Design by David Dodd

  Cover images courtesy of:

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  Now that I write murder mysteries, I see dead bodies most everywhere that I go. On more than one occasion, I have recounted for my wife Carol the details of her gruesome and untimely demise. Carol listens and smiles and encourages me to write. She is a lover of good murder mysteries and seems to count my stories among the good ones. Carol is not my most objective reader. But I didn't marry her for her objectivity.

  To my lovely wife Carol, I dedicate A Minor Case of Murder.

  Hot Cocoa with Mini-Marshmallows

  It was a raw September afternoon on GodivaBeach, lonely and deserted, the wind whipping in off the water stinging Cassie's face—good weather, she told herself, for burying a friend. The church service in the morning had been small: twenty family and friends sharing their grief, saying goodbye, perhaps half that number continuing on to the cemetery to pay their last respects to the late Harrison T. Dicke.

  Cassie hadn't seen the octogenarian naturist and amateur historian of WhiteSandsBeach in quite some months, but that didn't lessen her sense of loss. Standing at the water's edge, Cassie wanted to laugh, but needed to cry. She told herself it was only the ocean spray moist on her face. Cassie was unprepared for the tap on her shoulder. Jumping at the stranger's touch, she nearly landed in the cold September surf.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

  Cassie examined the stranger closely. He was a good-looking gentleman in his thirties, handsome in a way no longer fashionable, not health-club handsome, not rock-star handsome, but Eisenhower-era handsome, Pillsbury-doughboy handsome, his hair cut by a barber rather than a stylist, his suit purchased at a discount warehouse.

  "You were at Harrison's funeral this morning."

  Cassie was unsure whether the stranger was asking or telling.

  "I'm Andy MacTavish, Harrison's great-grand-nephew … I think."

  Cassie realized she was looking at Harrison as he must have looked some fifty years ago. "I'm Cassie O'Malley."

  "I thought you might be." Andy noticed that Cassie was shivering in the chill September air. "You must be freezing out here. Please, take my coat."

  Cassie, in her slate gray funeral dress, was ill-prepared for the offshore wind. "Thank you. I'd like that."

  "Would you like a hot cocoa?" Andy wondered. "I know a real nice spot in town."

  Cassie thought she knew every restaurant in White Sands Beach, but Andy bypassed the trendy eateries along the water, instead going inland to Cubby's, a luncheonette untouched by time and tide, down to the wall-mounted jukebox at every table, and the music, The Big Bopper, The Chordettes, Patti Page, Bobby Darrin, The Everly Brothers, the "A" side hits mostly familiar, the "B" side tunes unrecognizable. Sitting at a small booth in the back, sipping hot cocoa with mini-marshmallows, listening to the Dell-Vikings—"Come Go with Me"—Cassie and Andy made small talk, picking their way carefully through the minefield of first impressions.

  "I met your uncle when I was researching a story. I had no idea what to expect. No one warned me I was meeting an eighty-year-old nudist, but he truly was a charming gentleman. You know, there's a lot of Harrison in you."

  "Thank you … I guess." And Andy blushed, imagining Cassie imagining him naked under a blue beach umbrella. "Just so you know…I don't share Harrison's…I mean…what I guess I'm trying to say is, I'm not a clothing-optional kind of guy."

  It was Cassie's turn to blush. "I'm sorry…no…when I said you resemble Harrison, I mean…I didn't mean…well, you know what I mean."

  Andy decided it was time to change the subject. "Harrison showed me some of your stories. He loved your stories, the more outlandish the better."

  "Thank you. And you?"

  Andy busied himself with his mini-marshmallows, as though somehow the hot cocoa might reveal the polite response. "I think you are a very talented writer."

  "But?"

  "But," Andy continued, "don't you think that the magazine you write for is just a little bit trashy?"

  Cassie laughed. "I think the magazine is incredibly trashy. But that's its charm."

  "I see." Actually, he didn't. Andy hit E2 on the jukebox and lapsed into silence. He sipped his cocoa, and, looking over the rim of his mug, allowed himself to consider the woman across the table. Andy reminded himself that a woman in her thirties, in our youth-oriented culture, is supposedly past her prime; but if she were, Andy decided, past her prime, Cassie was more impressive than most people's prime. She was of an age when women believed they were supposed to cut their hair, but Andy noted with satisfaction that Cassie looked great with her dirty-blond hair falling halfway down her back.

  Cassie's taste in music ran toward the giants of jazz—Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie—and her taste in men…well, it had been so long, Cassie told herself, she could hardly remember. But sitting in the booth at Cubby's sipping hot cocoa with Andy MacTavish, listening to Dion and the Belmonts on the jukebox, she began to consider the possibilities. And when Andy asked if it would be okay to call her, Cassie said yes, and, for a change, she meant yes.

  After her lunch with Andy MacTavish, Cassie decided to spend the chilly afternoon on the boardwalk. The boardwalk, like the town itself, was an extraordinary mixture of Victorian charm and carnival schlock, tearooms abutting tattoo parlors, ateliers tucked in alongside arcades. Cassie noticed a brand new storefront—Om Depot—a neon eyeball in the window—Madame Alexina, Spiritualist—and she decided to go in. Her editor had been pressing her for a new story idea, so she wouldn't be going in for any personal reason, she told herself, certainly not to learn about Andy MacTavish.

  Madame Alexina, with her bright red bouffant hair and slight orange moustache, dressed in lime green polyester bowling shirt and pink capri pants, greeted Cassie warmly at the door. "Ah, my first customer. Please come in. Don't mind the mess—I'm still unpacking."

  "That's all right. I can come back later."

  Madame Alexina fixed her gaze on Cassie, her eyes like hazel tractor beams locked on Cassie's soul. "Ah, you met a man today."

  Cassie took a seat and waited, while Madame Alexina searched for her crystal ball among the partially unpacked paranormal paraphernalia. Madame Alexina dumped the remaining boxes on the floor, revealing a veritable landfill of the sacred and the profane.

  A worry stone. The I Ching. Hippie dog tags ("War is not healthy for children and other living things"). The Tibetan Book of the Dead. An iron cross. A rabbit's foot. Tickets from a Bruce Springsteen concert in Indianapolis. A Life magazine photograph of John F. Kennedy. A Mad magazine drawing of George W. Bush. The Sayings of Chairman Mao. The prophecies of Nostradamus. The wit and wisdom of Baba Booey. Zig-Zag rolling pa
pers. Trail mix. Trojans. (Trojans?) Double-stuffed Oreo cookies. A Frisbee. A boomerang. Her unfinished collection of Zen limericks ("There was a Bodhisattva Kannon/Who was known for the men that she'd blown/With her eleven heads perched in ten different beds/She still had a mouth left to moan"). Two parking tickets. Three plantains. Four dried ancho peppers. Five golden rings. A balsa wood airplane. The New Testament. Support hose. An Ozzy Osbourne bobble-head doll. Her favorite fortune cookie ("Please disregard all previous fortune"). A gold tooth. A silver dollar. Her bronzed baby shoes. A stuffed rat. A rubber spider. Plastic vomit. The Lord of the Rings DVD. A black light. A blues harmonica. An autographed copy of Steal This Book. A ceramic cow. Chinese handcuffs. A Swiss Army knife. A French tickler. A Belgian waffle. A Led Zeppelin CD. Diet pills. Depilatory. A can of Sterno. A box of Red Zinger. A Louisville Slugger.

  But no crystal ball.

  "Damn, I was sure I had it in there. Wait, I've got an idea." And Madame Alexina bounded over to the closet, returning with her bowling bag. "I'll improvise."

  Cassie imagined her editor's reaction when she turned in the story of the psychic kegler (or was it the kegling psychic?).

  Madame Alexina began by gently caressing the ball, alternately stroking and tickling it, the foreplay to fortune telling. She explained to Cassie, "I've got to awaken her desires before the bowling ball will surrender her ebony defenses."

  As Cassie watched, the bowling ball did seem to be losing some of its blackness. More precisely, it seemed to Cassie as if the ball were composed of a translucent shell containing an inky interior. Madame Alexina began to tease the bowling ball, tracing little circles around the finger holes. The shell was becoming steadily more translucent, the interior less dark, more liquid. Hesitantly, Madame Alexina slid her fingertips ever so slightly into the holes and, emboldened by the lack of resistance, began to probe ever more deeply and vigorously.

  Sitting there, Cassie felt like a peeping Tom. She was fascinated, aroused, embarrassed and silently writing the first paragraph even as she watched. ("Woman has sex with bowling bowl. And sees the future!")

  As Madame Alexina's pace quickened and her fingers grew more confident, the inky depths grew ever weaker, until, in a moment, the bowling ball surrendered itself—transparent, exposed, and vulnerable. She stared intently into the depths of the crystal-clear bowling ball, all the while rocking and quietly chanting. "Now we can begin," she announced, her words muffled in the eerie silence of the now-fetid storefront…

  "You met a man today, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "And you want to know if he's the man, right?"

  Cassie was not ready to admit that—not to Madame Alexina, not to herself. "Let's just say I'm curious."

  Cassie spent the next half-hour chatting with Madame Alexina about love and death, about Andy MacTavish, but also about her late husband Rob, gone nearly fifteen years, and Harrison T. Dicke, interred just that morning.

  At the mention of the morning's funeral, Madame Alexina again consulted her bowling ball. She chose not to tell her first customer that she saw many more funerals in Cassie's future.

  The Developer's Daughter

  Driving home to Doah in her rebuilt '67 Ford Mustang, the election just two months away, interspersed with small handmade signs promoting various local businesses—"Live Bait," "Authentic BBQ," "Small Appliance Repair"—Cassie couldn't help but notice the mass of political signage decorating the countryside. Nationally, interest was focused on the off-year elections and control of Congress. New Jersey was focused on a hotly contested campaign for governor. But in the Pine Barrens, the issues were more local and the contests more personal. And in Doah, the campaign that had captured the hearts and minds of the citizenry was Cheyenne Harbrough's independent campaign to unseat Mayor "Big Jim" Donovan.

  Cassie was proud of her good friend and one-time Princeton roommate. When Cheyenne kicked off her campaign, no one, not even Cheyenne herself, believed she would unseat the popular mayor. But Cheyenne wanted to force the town to address the issue of development, an issue which sharply divided Doah, provoking otherwise rational officials to fisticuffs. The daughter of a controversial developer, Cheyenne was an articulate advocate for responsible development. Still, as the daughter of a developer, herself a part-owner of Harbrough and Daughters, the conventional wisdom was that Doah would never elect a developer as mayor.

  For many in Doah, a rural town of pygmy pines and cranberry bogs, there are few epithets used with more disgust than "developer." And yet "developer" was only one of the derogatory labels that had been attached to Cheyenne Harbrough. For Cheyenne was not only a "developer," she was also a "homewrecker," it being well-known in Doah that Cheyenne lured married men to violate their sacred vows.

  When Cassie got home to her condo in Doah, the answering machine was blinking hello. She was curious about the messages, but first, Cassie needed to get out of the funeral clothes. Ten minutes later, dressed comfortably in her black Princeton sweatpants with orange lettering and her Jameson t-shirt, a first shot of Irish whiskey already warming her and a second waiting patiently by her side, Cassie was ready to check the message.

  "Hi, Cassie. It's me. Cheyenne. Don't forget, tonight's the mayoral debate. Shit, I'm scared. Remind me why I did this, okay? Anyway, call me."

  Cassie dialed Cheyenne's apartment. "I'd like to speak to Mayor Harbrough, please."

  "Hi, Cassie. I'm so glad you called."

  "You're gonna do great tonight, Chey."

  "I wish I felt that way. Right now, I'm pretty nervous."

  "Relax, girlfriend. It's gonna be fun."

  "Yeah. Okay. So tell me what you think, Cassie. I bought a new outfit for the debate. A black skirt, conservative but sexy, and a turquoise blouse. It should look great on camera. So, what I want to know is, is it proper to wear f-me pumps to the debate?"

  "And to think I plan to vote for you, Chey."

  "Yeah, me too. What am I thinking? Anyway, will I see you there tonight? Are you coming to the debate?"

  "I don't think so, Chey. I'm sorry, but I'm kind of exhausted."

  "That's right. I'm sorry. I forgot. How was the funeral?"

  Cassie was stumped. Is there a right answer to How was the funeral? "Okay, I guess." Cassie paused for effect, savoring the next line, anticipating Cheyenne's reaction to what she was about to say. "I met a guy."

  "At the funeral? Shit, Cassie, what is it now, twelve years? All this time I've been trying to set you up, trying to talk you into getting back into the game, and after all this time you go and pick up a guy at the funeral? Details, girl, I want details."

  "It's Harrison's great-grand-nephew…I think. His name's Andy MacTavish."

  "Not the Andy MacTavish!"

  Cassie again was stumped. "I didn't know that there is an Andy MacTavish."

  "Wake up, Cassie. Don't you read Barron's? They say Andy MacTavish is worth millions."

  "You know I don't have a head for business. Anyway, it must be another Andy MacTavish."

  "Cassie, we have to talk. I'll meet you for breakfast. Okay?"

  "Okay, Chey. Nine o'clock at the Eggery. And I'll be watching you tonight. Make sure they get your shoes on camera."

  Cheyenne was nervous walking into the Municipal Building, but the evening started well, she decided, although, in truth, she had only a limited basis for comparison. She was pleased with the power of her footwear selection, recognizing even before she took her seat that sex and politics are nearly identical ambitions. She made a point of seeking out the township manager before the meeting was called to order, leaning in close to the young man, letting her scent linger in his airspace, drawing him into her sphere of influence. She greeted each of the council members warmly, councilmen and councilwomen alike. Cheyenne found the women to be polite, perhaps too polite, and vaguely suspicious. The men…well, Cheyenne knew exactly how the men would react: polite, perhaps too polite, and vaguely aroused, running awkwardly for the cover afforded by their seats behind the large co
uncil desk. She looked for an opportunity to say hello to Big Jim, but the mayor was already working the room, flaunting the trappings of incumbency.

  At the manager's prompt, Mr. Caputo, the self-appointed watchdog and political pundit, moderator of the mayoral debate, outlined the evening's format. Joe Caputo, young and articulate, was known around the MunicipalBuilding as the "Boy Barrister." Mr. Caputo was fiercely neutral, took great pride in the fierceness of his neutrality, and reminded the three mayoral candidates that he would not shy away from asking the tough questions. In her case, Cheyenne assumed that the tough questions would focus on land development and sexual innuendo. Feeling the power of her footwear, Cheyenne was determined that Mr. Caputo would not make sport of her.

  Cheyenne gauged her opponents. Big Jim Donovan looked mayoral, tanned and relaxed, ten pounds thinner for the campaign and sporting a new toupee. He was prepared to run on his record. Only Councilwoman Beverly Becht appeared anxious, squirming in her seat and interrupting, then lapsing into silence. Public comment at the debate was unusually subdued. Big Jim was masterful, turning the chaos of his first term into a testament to participatory government and the triumph of ideals over partisan politics.

  Mr. Caputo was making a point about the debate rules when Ms. Becht interrupted, unable to contain herself any longer. "Excuse me, Mr. Moderator. I realize that I am speaking out of turn, but time does not permit me to delay. We are only a few months away from the holiday season, and with Christmas fast approaching, I am deeply concerned by the decision made by this township not to decorate the MunicipalBuilding this year. I understand that it is on the advice of our attorney who has indicated that the courts have found such displays to be unconstitutional. I do not agree with his legal opinion and I am embarrassed by the cowardice being shown by the township on this issue.