Terror on the Beach (15 page)

“Simon and Freddy have
filled me in and now I understand,” the artist said. “I wondered why anyone, if they were going to steal some of my paintings, they would take my seascapes. My best work is my portraits.

“Those paintings I did for my little granddaughter when I took her and my dau
ghter on vacation on Sanibel Island in Florida. My granddaughter loves the ocean and I did them for her as part of my inheritance to her.

“I was hoping they would be worth something after I died. I did all those paintings in the two week period we were there.
They’re not worth much right now, and that’s why I was so surprised when someone broke into my studio and took them instead of something more valuable.”

I parked off the highway in front of the cabin where I had been just a few hours before.
When we got out, Simon and Freddy went around on the beach side of the cabin. Kevin Payne and I walked up on the front porch and I knocked.

No one was home.
We ended up walking around the cabin looking into windows. All four of us walked down on the beach and stood close to the water looking up and down the beach.

He didn’t show up
and it was getting toward ten p.m. “Why don’t we split up and walk along the beach looking for him?” Simon said. “Freddy and I can go south and you and Kevin can go north.”

We walked a good part of the night and never found him.
I needed to go get some sleep and Kevin said he wanted to call it a night but Freddy and Simon wanted to keep looking.

I took the artist back to Lily’s and went home once again hoping I could get a little sleep.
I took a shower and crawled under the covers naked. I liked to sleep nude but it always seemed to bother Sarah so I kept a pair of pajamas at her place for when I slept over there.

I laid awake thinking about Sarah for only a little while before I fell asleep.
By nine a.m. the next morning I was still undisturbed and I got up and made coffee, got dressed, and headed for the office.

Neither Simon nor Freddy were there when I got in.
There wasn’t much going on. They must have been out all night and were now sleeping. I wasn’t strict about the hours my deputies kept as long as they got the job done.

I waited until ten
a.m. and called the bed and breakfast. Lily answered the phone, “He’s sitting there in the dining room having breakfast, sheriff. That man is so full of shit, I swear. You need to talk to him?”

“Yeah, thanks, Lily.”

The first words out of his mouth were, “Did you find the imposter?”

“Not yet.
He was probably watching the cabin and waiting for Simon and Freddy to go home. I haven’t talked to them yet. They’re probably still asleep. You want to pay him a surprise visit with me?”

“Whenever you say, sheriff.”

We pulled up in front of the fake artist’s cabin at around then thirty a.m. and walked up on the porch. My knock was loud enough to wake up the dead. He came to the door rubbing his eyes but when he saw the real Kevin Payne he started to run.

I pulled my gun.
“Freeze or I’ll shoot, you son-of-a-bitch.”

He stopped and I pulled my handcuffs
off my belt and cuffed him. I locked him in the back seat and we got in the front and headed for the jail.

I called both Simon and Freddy knowing they would care more about this than the sleep.
They came right over.

I sent George over to get a warrant from the judge and then put the prisoner in the interrogation room.
We watched him for awhile in the one-way mirror and he showed no emotions. He sat there looking straight ahead and I got the feeling he was familiar with this whole routine.

We decided to go in two at a time and I let Freddy go with me while Simon watched.
Freddy wanted to question this guy real bad and I thought it only fair since he had spent endless nights on the beach trying to catch him.

Freddy sat across from the prisoner and I leaned against the door in case he tried to run again.

“I am obliged to tell you we will be taping this session,” Freddy said.

“What are you talking ab
out? Am I under arrest? If so I want a lawyer present.”

“We’re hoping you’ll cooperate and give us the information we need from you without bringing in a lawyer.
If you want a lawyer, then I’ll need to read you your rights and you will be under arrest. If you want to waive your rights for now and cooperate then we can just sit here and talk.”

The prisoner looked like a trapped animal all of a sudden, “I won’t talk to you.
I know my rights. I want a lawyer.”

Just then George came in whispered to me that he had gotten the search warrant and had the paintings in the hall.
I nodded and he left. I motioned to Freddy and we both left to make the prisoner wait some more.

We watched him as he sat staring stra
ight ahead. The real Kevin Payne had been waiting in my office and I went to talk to him.

“Mr. Payne
, have you seen that man we picked up before today? I didn’t want to ask you while he was present.”

“I believe he was a man I hired once to do my yard.
He said he was just passing through and needed some work.”

“When was this?”

“It must have been about a year ago. My paintings disappeared shortly after that. I’m not sure exactly when they disappeared because I might not have noticed at first.

“It was probably less than a month after he worked for me that my little granddaughter came to visit and wanted to see her paintings.
I had stored them in the attic and we went up together. But we couldn’t find them. I called the police immediately.”

“Okay, thanks Mr. Payne
. We have enough for an arrest at least. It doesn’t matter whether you can identify him or not. He had the paintings in his possession and was posing as you. What name did he give you?”

“He said his name was Bucky Koffer.”

I nodded, “What do you want to do, sir. You can’t take the paintings with you right now. We’ll need you to testify if this goes to trial. You going to stay in town or do you want go on home and come back for the trial?”

“I would like to stay her
e for a little while and paint. This is one of the prettiest spots I’ve seen. I have nothing pressing in Atlanta.

“I think I can talk Lily into letting me stay for awhile,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“I don’t see any reason for you to have to hang around here. Do you want me to get one of my deputies to take you back to Lily’s?”

“No, I think I’ll walk.
I want to explore on foot.”

There were thirteen paintings in all and Simon, my two deputies and I took them into the interrogation room.

He tried to call our bluff, “What are you doing with my paintings?”

“Mr. Koffer, these aren’t your paintings and you know
it. We know who you are. You were identified by the real Kevin Payne and these paintings were stolen from him over a year ago.

“You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law…”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, you’re arresting me?
I want a lawyer. I demand to speak to a lawyer.”

Freddy finished reading him his rights and we locked him up and called the public defender and the DA.

The public defender showed up about a half hour later and he was taken to the cell where Bucky Koffer was. The public defender’s name was Walter Frakes. He was a small nervous acting man with a pencil mustache and he kept twisting the ends and batting his eyes about a hundred miles an hour.

When he came out he said, “I want a bail hearing right away.
I’m going to see the judge right now.”

After he left we all went out to lunch at TJ’s and had the delicious hamburgers.
We laughed and talked and congratulated each other.

CHAPTER 32

We had Bucky in jail for robbery but we still had no evidence tying him to the murders.
We had searched his cabin and found nothing. Not even any blood stains.

Simon ended up bringing in some forensic people from the FBI in Savannah.
My little office just wasn’t equipped for this. They took full vacuum cleaner bags, pieces they cut out of the carpet and some of Bucky’s clothes back to Savannah with them, promising Simon they would put a rush on it.

After they all left I went back to the jail and looked in Bucky’s cell.
He was lying on the cot with his hands behind his head staring at the ceiling.

“Hey, Bucky, they have all kinds of evidence now.
You’re the Beach Front Stabber. Why don’t you think about what you can work out with the DA? She’ll be here in a few minutes and you might not get another chance.”

“Go fuck yourself, sheriff.”

I laughed and walked off. When I got back to my office Brenda called and said both the DA and the public defender were here.

The DA was a tough as nails attorney
and I always wondered what she was doing in Monroe Beach instead of a big New York law firm. She was as tall as I and very fit. She worked out in a gym every day and was a vegetarian.

She looked like a healthy California girl
with blond hair and blue eyes and a deep tan she managed to keep year round. She was wearing a burgundy suit with a pink silk blouse and black high heel pumps.

When she walked in I stood and she shoo
k my hand, “Roselyn Quarters, district attorney,” she said and I could feel muscle strength in her grip.

“I don’t know if you remember me, sheriff, but we actually met at the big Christmas party at the mayor’s house last year.”

“I do remember you.”

She smiled and I saw a dimple I never noticed before which was incongruous with the way she handled a case in court.
She wore her hair very short and I always thought it was to give her a more hardened look but it failed.

I walked her down to Bucky’s cell and when he saw her he jumped up and whistled, “Boy oh boy, I could eat you alive,” he said.

She did not show her dimples when she said, “I heard you already tried to eat one woman alive. I’m Roselyn Quarters, the district attorney.”

“And where is my lawyer?
I won’t talk to you without my lawyer present.”

She turned around without another word and we went back to my office.
She began pacing.

“I was hoping I could get something out of him before the bail hearing this afternoon because the judge on the docket is Judge Farrow and she hates my guts.
She will probably give that scum bag bail just to spite me.”

“Why does she hate you?”

Roselyn laughed, “Remember the Christmas party at the mayor’s?” When I nodded she continued, “Her husband came on to me. Of course I wasn’t interested. I don’t mess around with married men first of all and even if I did I could never be interested in someone like that short fat bald-headed slob.”

I wanted to ge
t a look at this judge so I escorted the prisoner myself. When the judge entered the courtroom I thought she was a man. She was short and overweight to the point of being almost obese. She wore thick glasses that made her look like a frog.

Her hair looked like it needed an oil change.
Her face was pocked from a bad case of acne. She must have had a difficult teen life. No wonder she was jealous of Roselyn.

As
Roselyn predicted, the judge granted bail. No matter how hard Roselyn argued that Bucky was a threat to society, the judge kept saying we only had him on theft and she set the bail at four thousand dollars. He could easily pay the four hundred.

The trial was set f
or three weeks from today and Bucky walked out grinning at us as he walked by. Freddy was waiting outside the courthouse to follow him in case he made bail.

Roselyn
looked mad enough to eat nails. She snapped her briefcase shut and asked me if I wanted to go for a drink. I declined saying I needed to get back to the office and make some calls.

Dr. Anna answered on the first ring as if she had been expecting my call.
“Robert, I was just picking up the phone to call you. Sarah wanted me to tell you that she remembers who Kevin Payne is.

“What happened was I felt like she was ready to be introduced to Beth.
I thought that personality would be the least threatening to her. While she was talking to Sarah…”

“Wait a minute, how does she talk to Beth?”

“Never mind that now, Robert, I’ll explain it to you one day. What’s important is that Beth told Sarah that the artist she brought home with her one night was Bucky.

“When Sarah questioned her telling her she hadn’t seen Bucky in a
couple of years, Beth said no, no he doesn’t call himself Bucky now but Kevin. Robert, I’m afraid she took Bucky home with her once when she was having a blackout.