Digging Too Deep (9 page)

The last ferry left at midnight, and Whittaker had to hustle his considerable bulk to catch it. He was the sole passenger. Newport Beach rolled up its sidewalks early in the off-season, and the harbor was deserted. No other boat traffic was in sight as the pilot steered across the channel. Within minutes he was pulling into the dock and snapping the ferry’s wide metal bar onto two stanchions to secure it. The pilot said a quick goodnight to the fare collector and hurried off.

“Fog rolling in, sir,” Todd said to Whittaker as they debarked onto the dock.

“Do you remember me from earlier this evening, Todd? I gave you three quarters, a nickel and two dimes. One of the dimes was, well, kind of new. I saw you looking at it. Maybe you kept it for yourself. It was very shiny. Anyway, I need it back, kid. Now.”

“Jeez, I’ve collected a lot of coins since then. What was so special about it?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Sentimental value, that’s all.”

Whittaker watched Todd’s eyes narrow.

“Exactly how much value?”

“Nothing. It’s just a dime, that’s all.”

Stupid kid, thought Whittaker. How dare he threaten me with extortion. Damned if I’m going to pay through the nose to get it back. “Look, here’s five bucks. Now give me the coin.”

“I don’t have it on me. The bag of fares I took in earlier when you were here is locked up.” He waved a hand toward the small wooden building near the dock that served as an office. “I have to total my takings. I need time to do that at the end of the day. If I find the coin, I’ll keep it for you. You could come back in half an hour. Maybe you can figure out what it’s really worth to you by then.”

Todd smirked, turned his back on the professor and sauntered off toward the office. Before entering, the youth turned around and shouted, “Hey, you! Old man! Fatty! When you come back, bring plenty of money!”

As the door closed behind Todd Whittaker felt the familiar flash of hot rage sweep through him. Arrogant, insulting kid. With the words still ringing in his ears, Whittaker’s anger increased. First that Tosca woman and now this.

After his head cleared and his emotions were under control, the professor left the seafront and hurried down Parker Street, passing the covered florist stand and the trendy ceramic gallery. He didn’t stop until he’d turned the corner and found his car. Whittaker drove home and, once inside the garage, sat to think for a few minutes. It’s my aegina. It’s mine! That ignorant kid is treating this like some scumbag blackmail affair
.
It’s probably in the boy’s dirty hand and being dropped into a filthy jeans pocket, he thought.

Sure, plenty of other coins in his collection were worth much more, but Todd’s attempt to make a few bucks off the aegina stuck in the professor’s craw.

With a grunt, he exited the Jaguar and went to the back of the car. He opened the trunk, removed the tire iron and slammed the trunk lid closed. He threw the tire iron onto the passenger seat, got back into the driver’s side and drove out of the garage, parking once more within three blocks of the ferry office.

“It’s mine,” he repeated as he got out of the car, “and if he’s not there, if he’s left, I’ll just break in and get it unless he’s taken it with him.”

Before leaving the car door slightly ajar in case he had to beat a hasty retreat, the professor switched off the vehicle’s roof light and made his way to the ferry office as quickly and softly as his corpulence would allow.

Bands of pale light shone through the broken strips of venetian blinds that covered the windows at the back of the shack. Whittaker could see the boy inside counting money into a brown bank deposit bag. A few minutes later the light was extinguished. Todd opened the office door, wheeling a bicycle. Tied with a bungee cord to the rear bike carrier was the bank bag. Seeing the professor, he stopped just outside the door frame and said, “Hey, I’ve got your coin here. It’s not a dime, you know? Looks old. Must be worth a few hundred, right?”

Whittaker approached Todd and swung the tire iron. The weapon cracked against the boy’s head. He crumpled to the ground, hitting the concrete boardwalk. The bicycle fell back into the office, the bank bag escaping its tether and bursting open. Hundreds of nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar bills spewed onto the floor, the coins rolling in all directions.

Todd moaned as a pool of blood stained the sidewalk. Setting the tire iron aside Whittaker knelt down and, ignoring the blood that began to soak into the edges of his jacket sleeves, grabbed the boy’s neck with both hands. The professor squeezed for several moments before releasing him. He checked the boy’s pulse and breathing once more. Nothing.Where’s my aegina? In the bank bag? No, it wouldn’t have been mixed it in with all those nickels, dimes and quarters. He’d already looked through the boy’s pockets. Empty. Had the kid been holding it in those grimy hands? He pried open Todd’s fingers and found a 2002 U.S. dime clenched in his right palm. Looks like the stupid kid figured he could fool me with it, take the blackmail money and sell the Greek coin himself. So where is it?

It took several attempts before Whittaker was able to stand up from his kneeling position. Suddenly feeling vulnerable, he looked around. The boardwalk remained deserted, but the distant sound of a car starting up startled him. He knew he had to hide the body. There was no way he could back up his car close enough to the boardwalk to load the body into the trunk, and Todd was too heavy to carry three blocks to the Jaguar. Whittaker saw a small, covered, flat-bottomed rowboat a few yards away, pulled up onto the sand. He knew that owners often left their boats there for days. He dragged the corpse to the boat and left it on the sand while he pushed aside the canvas cover. The professor heaved the corpse up and into the boat and pulled the cover back in place.

The struggle winded him, and he had to rest his bulk against the side of the boat for a few moments. As he did so he noticed a few drops of blood had dripped onto the sand. He saw a pile of seaweed nearby, bent down to pick it up and laid it over the blood.When he straightened up he saw that although the body had fallen onto its back across the boat’s bench seats and was now hidden under the canvas, one of the youth’s legs was hanging over the side and in full sight, its knee bent and the foot almost touching the sand. Whittaker grabbed the errant leg to push it back under the canvas but paused as he heard the familiar muted droning of a Sheriff’s Department harbor patrol boat pierce the quiet of the night.

“Damn!” He ducked down again. Often while composing he would look up from his piano to watch the vessel’s slow progress around the bay as it monitored boat traffic. A few years earlier it had accidentally run over and killed Newport Harbor’s resident black swan, causing quite a controversy, but no one protested enough to have the night patrols cut back.

After the craft cruised by the professor once again tried to push the dangling foot under the rowboat’s cover, failed, and knew he had to leave before the patrol boat reached the other end of the bay and turned around. Whittaker went back to his car. The Jaguar’s clock read 3:14 a.m. He sat inside and waited fifteen minutes before getting out again, allowing the patrol boat time to glide slowly by on its way to make the rounds of the other six islands in the bay. When it was well out of sight Whittaker returned to the ferry office for a more thorough search.

He found the light switch and began looking around the small room. It contained a battered desk, a metal folding chair, a three-tiered file cabinet and a shelf that held four coffee mugs alongside a coffee pot and a can of coffee. Where would a kid hide a coin? Coffee can? Not there. Coffee cups? Sugar bin? Under the tattered grasscloth rug? Against the far wall stood a sturdy steel safe. There was little worth stealing, he saw, and assumed that the safe held only each day’s takings, which were later emptied into the bag and set inside a bank night deposit box. Whittaker inspected the small toilet and opened a second door to a broom closet. The walls were bare of shelves, and linoleum covered the floor. So, he thought, the coin is not in the closet or bathroom or above the door sill. Surely it had to be with the boy, because he’d told Whittaker to come back later with blackmail money.

After half an hour he had to admit the aegina was not in the office as far as he could determine. Neither was it on the kid. Whittaker had searched the boy’s clothes thoroughly. It certainly wouldn’t have been mixed in among those hundreds of other coins in the bank bag. His rage and frustration mounting, he told himself that the kid may have have passed it on to a friend for safekeeping or mistakenly given it to a passenger as change, as he himself had.

He checked his watch. The patrol boat would be in sight again soon. Before leaving the ferry office he found a hand towel in the small bathroom, grabbed it and wiped the surfaces of everything he’d touched including the broom, the dustpan and the bicycle. Taking one final look around, he used the towel on the door handle when he closed it and took the towel with him, along with the tire iron.

Only in the morning did he remember that he hadn’t returned to the small boat to hide the boy’s leg.

Homicide Detective Wally Parnell and two other officers from the Major Crime Scene Unit showed up at the ferry office at six thirty-six a.m. The first uniforms to arrive, fifteen minutes earlier, had already strung yellow tape around the area, cutting off access from both sides of the seafront walkway. The ferries were ordered to stop running until the crime scene was cleared.

On the beach the rowboat was being inspected by forensics, dusted for prints, and photographed. Measurements had been taken. A preliminary sketch of the scene was made; when the officer got back to the station he’d make a more detailed drawing.

A police helicopter droned overhead and a television news chopper circled the area. Two reporters stood at the yellow tape line among a small group of onlookers, waiting for Parnell to talk with them. He’d already given the media the bare facts he was allowed to disclose, but they knew Parnell would not publicize the name of the murder victim until the next of kin had been notified. A newspaper photographer took dozens of pictures of the rowboat, the ferry office and the patch of blood on the walkway.

After the coroner, the first person allowed to touch the body, handed over the contents of Todd’s pockets to a detective, he pronounced the corpse ready to be transported to the morgue. The police photographer packed up his equipment and left. Only two officers, still holding back the press, and Parnell remained. At his side was Jim Salocco, owner of the ferry company.

“Detective, you don’t need a warrant to go inside. I own this building, and you’re welcome to inspect it.”

“Thanks, Mr. Salocco, but I’d rather wait for an official warrant. We need to do this by the book. You might change your mind once we’re in there and find something. That’s happened to us before. Besides, as far as we know, there’s never been a murder on Isabel Island, and we’ve already received a few angry phone calls from residents.”

Salocco nodded his head. “Not surprising. The people who live right on the waterfront are wealthy. As you know, the prices of these houses start at five million. They won’t like the thought of a murder on their doorstep.”

Parnell sighed. “That’s why we have to make sure we catch whoever struck the poor kid down as fast as possible. I hope it isn’t an owner of one of the fancy yachts tied up here.” The two men looked down the length of the island. The smallest berthed vessel was a thirty-five-foot sailboat.

He turned his attention to the rowboat, asking Salocco, “Do you know who it belongs to? And how about those other three pulled up on the sand?”

“No. I have no idea. Can’t help you there. I guess they all belong to the homeowners. A few of them leave their small rowboats and dinghies on the sand all the time.”

The detective thanked him and went to tell the two cops to start knocking on doors for possible witnesses and to ask about ownership of the rowboat. He knew it was doubtful anyone had heard or seen anything. According to the medical examiner the crime apparently occurred between midnight and three a.m., at which time the detective figured most of the residents would have been sleeping. The Harbor Patrol had been of no help. They reported they’d neither seen nor heard anything out of the ordinary during their routine nightly inspection of the bay.

“Anything more you can tell us, detective?” asked one of the reporters.

“Not yet. We’ll know the cause of death soon, and you can stop by the station for our initial report. It won’t tell you much, though. The crime occurred in the early hours of the morning, and right now we have no witnesses.”

Finally the press left. The police packed up their gear, the yellow tape was taken down, and Parnell ordered his men back to the station. The helicopters had long since departed, and as the police got into their squad cars and drove away, the residents who remained went silently back to their homes.

The following day Detective Parnell sat opposite J.J. and Tosca at their dining table, finding a space for his notebook between a teapot and two cups and saucers. Nice cozy cottage, he thought, looking around. The daughter was obviously still a bit shook up, but her mother seemed to be handling the situation just fine.

He tugged at his tie. A clean-shaven man of forty-four with a receding hairline, he disliked having to wear a suit. Too bad the Newport Beach police chief believed his detectives should present a professional appearance to Isabel Island’s next-door millionaires who were a dime a dozen, even in the failing economy.

“Thank you for coming to the station yesterday, Mrs. Trevant, and giving us your fingerprints and statement,” said Parnell. “I need to clear up a few more details, if you don’t mind. Tell me again how you came to be at the scene of the crime.”

“That poor young man. It’s such a tragedy. All right, all right, officer. Calm down. I’m getting to it. As I told you before I was taking my usual early morning walk around the entire perimeter of the island which, I’m told, is three miles if you also count the Little Island.”