Dead Parrot
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Description
Dead Parrot
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
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(or The Fugitive Faker in the Freezer)
Curious Beach Mystery Series Book 2
Trapper Westing
BLUE BONOBO BOOKS
Dead Parrot
A Curious Beach Mystery
By Trapper Westing
Published by Blue Bonobo Books
© 2019 Trapper Westing
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
trapper@curiousbeach.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Neither the author nor the publisher claims responsibility for adverse effects resulting from the use of any information found within this book.
Dedicated to Monty Python,
the incomparable comedy troupe
that I begrudgingly resisted plagiarizing in this book.
DEAD PARROT
After eluding the FBI for decades, finally The Parrot is dead... or is he?
When Stella and Charlie find a dead body in the apartment next to the detective agency, the FBI is so happy to have one of their most wanted fugitives on ice (literally) that they don’t care too much how he got that way.
The local law enforcement says to leave it alone, but Stella suspects that things are not what they seem. If the body they found in that freezer is The Parrot, who put him there? If it isn’t The Parrot… well, that’s a whole different set of questions that need answers. And Stella Fox never gives up the hunt until the puzzle is solved.
Welcome to Curious Beach, a quaint seaside village overflowing with quirky characters and bizarre murders.
Note: Curious Beach Mysteries can be enjoyed in any order, but there are benefits to reading them in sequence.
Dead Parrot
Chapter 1
“I guess you could say he’s…” Charlie narrowed his eyes and looked over his shoulder, but Stella was already out the door. He chased her, and Duke the big yellow dog chased him. “No. No, no, no. Where are you going? You can’t report this.”
“Of course, I’m reporting it,” Stella said. She climbed up the air conditioning unit on the side of the brick building, then boosted herself off a high window and onto the roof. Charlie had never even considered doing that. “Why wouldn’t I report it?”
He looked at the air conditioner and at Stella on the roof, and opted not to even try to follow her up there. Duke sat on the grass beside him. He wasn’t going to try it either.
“Because there’s a dead body next door to my detective agency,” Charlie said. “In the same building.”
“So what?” Stella pulled her phone from the hip pocket of her torn-up jeans.
“So it’s a duplex,” Charlie said. “And that makes two big reasons.”
“I’m listening.” A light breeze caught her loose flannel shirt and made it wave in a way that looked a little too much like a cape.
“For one, how does it make me look, as a private detective, to have a dead body just on the opposite side of a wall from me, and not even know about it?”
“What does that even have to do with anything?”
“I should have, I don’t know, seen the clues or something,” Charlie said.
“You’re not psychic.”
“No, but I’m also not observant.”
“That’s true,” she said. “At least Duke was observant. It was his barking and sniffing that made us investigate. So the dog is the real detective. What’s the second thing?”
“You didn’t have to agree with me.”
“Okay. What’s the second thing?”
“What second thing?”
“You said there are two big reasons not to report it to McGregor,” she said. “What’s the second reason?”
“Oh,” he said. “Then there are three reasons.”
“One is you’re a bad detective,” she said. “What are the other two?”
“Two is it makes me look like I killed someone and hid their body in the apartment next door.”
“If you killed someone and then you reported it, why?”
“What?”
“Why would you report a body,” she asked, “if you killed the body and tried to hide the body?”
“Good point.” He thought a minute. “That’s just how a criminal would think. Like if I report the body, then maybe I won’t be a suspect from making the body. That’s just murder 101, Stella. Rookie thinking. Amateur hour.”
“What’s the third thing?”
“I forgot.”
“The third thing is I said ‘McGregor’,” Stella said. “And Detective McGregor hates you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what it was. I remember now.”
“I’m going to call him.”
“Fine,” he said. “But what I was going to say in there was, ‘I guess you could say he’s frozen stiff’.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Chapter 2
Three Days Earlier
Heads turned when the bright red 1984 Ferrari 308 GTS crawled down Main Street in Curious Beach. Hadn’t these beach yokels ever seen a cherry red slice of Americana before?
Billy Lurl looked over at his girlfriend, Paige, who was happily flying her hand out the window like an airplane. They weren’t going fast enough for her flat hand to stay airborne, but she didn’t know that. He was the same age as her, pretty much, and he didn’t go to college like she did, but he knew enough about aerodynamics to know that much.
Here and there, people moved up and down the sidewalks, from shop to shop. The speed limit was twenty. He was going closer to ten, just giving the locals a chance to get a load of him and the Ferrari. They had never seen anything like it before.
He smiled at the tour guide in front of the surfing store when the goofy-looking man in a three-piece suit looked up from his crowd of tourists and waved. Just low enough out the window to be out of Paige’s sight, Billy flipped the bird and watched the goofy man’s face droop, sad and confused. Idiot.
He looked at Paige to see if she had noticed. She just smiled at him.
“Put your hair down. I don’t like the ponytail,” he said.
“It will blow around too much,” she said.
“I said put it down,” he said. She did what he told her to do, and her strawberry blond hair whipped around in the breeze.
“I wish you’d let me drive,” she said. “At least let me drive to Mr. Skelton’s house, since it’s my car.”
“Men drive, baby,” he said. “That’s just the way it is. It’s chivalry.”
“You’re my knight in shining armor, are you?” She slapped his leg and then pointed at a shop up ahead. “Pull over up here.
I want to find a gift for Mr. Skelton.”
“A gift?”
“A housewarming gift.”
“I thought you said he’s been living here for a year.” Billy smoothly backed the Ferrari up and straightened it out between two nearly identical Toyota Corollas. Growing up in Greenville, he’d gotten really good at parallel parking. The beach people on the street were probably impressed by how effortless his parking job was.
“Yeah, but I haven’t been to his house yet,” she said.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “But you’re my princess, so whatever you say.”
He jumped out of the car and ran around to the passenger side to open her door.
“My, you really are my prince, aren’t you?” she gushed. People saw that too. And Paige saw a gang of kids approaching. “Ooh, look, my prince.”
“A flower for the lady?” One of the kids offered a rose that looked like it was made out of grass.
“A dozen of these would be a good gift for Mr. Skelton,” Paige said.
“A dozen?” Billy said. A dozen was going to be expensive. He knew how these street hustlers operated. Nothing was free, and nothing was cheap. There was always an angle. But he was her prince. “Anything for my princess.”
The flowers were not cheap. He gave the kid a fifty and told him to keep the change. The gang seemed satisfied with their score. They moved on down the road to harass other suckers.
“I’m going to run into this shop and try to find a vase for them,” Paige said. Before he could say anything, she’d already slipped into the general store.
She was spending too much money. They were taking a week to go on vacation at the beach, and she chose Curious Beach because she knew Mr. Skelton lived here. Instead of mailing the car payment like she normally does, she thought it would be nice to drop by his house and give him the money personally.
She said he wanted to give her the car outright, but she insisted on paying for it. A Ferrari, for free, and she wanted to pay for it. A $100,000 car was getting paid off in $150 installments and for no good reason. Paige was a sweet girl, good-hearted, responsible, but not the sharpest potato chip in the bag.
The kids selling the flowers weren’t far down the road. It didn’t take him long to catch up.
“Hey, buddy,” he called out after them. They all turned around, but he only talked to the tall one. Another boy looked older, but Billy was talking to the biggest. “You sell a lot of them flowers?”
“We do alright. You wanna buy some more?”
“I want to know how much you sell in a day.”
“Usually around fifty or so.”
“Come on, Marcole,” one of the kids said. “Let’s go sell someplace else.”
Marcole wasn’t intimidated. It looked like he was going to stand his ground so Billy knew it. That was just fine. Billy took a step closer.
“Tell you what,” he whispered. “I’m going to take my right hand and black your eye with it. In exchange for that, you’re going to hand me whatever cash you got in your pocket.”
The kids laughed.
“I don’t think so, mister,” Marcole said. “I don’t think you’re bad enough.”
“And you’re all going to keep quiet about it,” Billy said. “If you don’t keep quiet about it, I’m going to hurt you. Do you have families? Don’t answer that. I can find out on my own. You want to know what I’ll do to your mommies and your sisters? Nah, we’ll let that be a surprise.”
Billy looked around. Nobody was paying any attention to them.
“Look, I don’t know who you…” Marcole started.
He barely got the words out before Billy’s right fist jabbed him in the face. He staggered back, tripped on the sidewalk and fell to the ground.
Billy held a finger up to his lips. They didn’t make a sound as he reached into Marcole’s pocket and took out a carefully folded bundle of bills. There was probably $200. That would be enough to make Paige’s car payment and maybe take her out for ice cream.
“Remember our promise,” Billy said.
“Somebody’s jacking your car,” one of the smaller kids said.
He said it like he wasn’t fazed by anything that just happened. He hoped that didn’t mean he wasn’t scared enough to keep quiet. That concern spent some time working through Billy’s brain, and it took a few seconds for the words the kid said to process. He turned to find that, indeed, a couple of men were climbing into the Ferrari like they had a right to it.
Billy left the kids behind and ran down the sidewalk to the car.
He yanked the driver out and threw him to the sidewalk. He was about to pummel the guy when a couple of things happened. One was that he remembered he was in the middle of this beach town on a date with the sweet, innocent Paige Hiffernon. The other was that he recognized the guy. He recognized the other one too.
“Clyde?” Billy said.
“Billy?” Clyde said.
“What are you doing here?” Billy offered him a hand and helped him to his feet.
“Is this your car? We didn’t know.”
“It’s fine. No harm done.”
“If we knowed it was yours, we wouldn’t have messed with it,” Smoothie was still in the passenger seat.
“Then get out of my car,” Billy said. “Before I take you out.”
“Sorry, Billy.” Smoothie climbed out of the car and carefully closed the door. He polished the handle with his t-shirt.
“I asked what you’re doing here,” Billy said.
“We live here,” Clyde said. “Well, close by here. Up in Badson north of here, and I got a place here for temporary.”
“I thought you were both living with Smoothie’s mama in Greenville.”
“She passed, Billy.” Clyde lowered his eyes in reverence.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Billy told Smoothie. “She was a good woman. A real good woman.”
“Thanks, Billy,” Smoothie said. “She was fond of you.”
“I know she was,” Billy said. “You two get out of here. I don’t want to be seen with you.”
“You should come drink with us at Blue’s,” Clyde said. “Are you on a job? You should come get a drink with us.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m on,” Billy said. “I said get out of here. I’ll be here a day or two. Don’t let me see you again. You understand?”
“Alright,” Clyde said. “If you need anything, give us a call.”
“It was good seeing you, Billy,” Smoothie said.
The two walked away just as Paige exited the general store.
“Who were you talking to?” She had the grass flowers in a pretty yellow vase.
“A couple of bums asking for money.” He watched Clyde and Smoothie climb into a pickup truck with some writing on the side. He could make out the word “Landscaping” on it and a cartoon alligator pushing a lawn mower. After he saw the alligator, he could read that the name started with a G. Maybe Gator something.
“Did you give them any?”
“Of course, I did.” Billy said. “Big-hearted Billy. Always happy to help out the less-fortunate.”
“I got a good one.” Paige kissed him on the cheek, and then slid into the Ferrari’s passenger seat. Billy closed the door.
“That yellow vase sure looks pretty with those green flowers,” he said.
* * *
Billy pulled the car up Mr. Skelton’s driveway. It was gravel. The neighbors’ driveways were paved, but this one wasn’t. It was noticing the driveways that led him to also notice that none of the houses on this street were particularly impressive.
When they started the trip early this morning, they’d gone a bit out of their way to drive down the coast on A1A, beach front avenue. Whenever he thought about A1A, he couldn’t stop his mind from adding “beach front avenue” to the end of it, like in that old Vanilla Ice song. It was beach front, technically, but most of the time you couldn’t see the beach. You could sometimes catch a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean
between hotels and hedges.
The other side of the road was nothing but one mansion after another, every one of them looking like somewhere Pablo Estevez or the Queen of Sheba would be comfortable. Palaces like that probably cost way up in the millions. He couldn’t think of one single possible career path a person could go off on that would lead to one of those kinds of houses.
Well, he could think of some, but not one that was legal. It was a long time ago, he figured that out. He didn’t need to drive past these castles to get wise to it, but the reminder was as welcome as it was timely. What he had figured out was that the only way to be somebody in America is to climb over all the idiots too dumb to stop you. He had friends who had spent time in prison. What Marco Chavez told him was prisons are full of poor folks who broke the law. Marco had been in twice for burglary. The first time was for a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter he took from the grocery store to feed his girlfriend and their kid. The second time was a job he did with a crew he had met in prison. He asked Marco Chavez where they kept all the rich people who break the law. Marco didn’t know, but Billy had the answer now. They’re filling up those mansions on A1A, beach front avenue.
When Billy agreed to drive down here with Paige, he was misled.
She bought the Ferrari off this Mr. Skelton, and you would think a man who has a car worth that much is a man with wealth built up. Beyond that, you would also think a man willing to hand the keys to a pretty young lady for free — even if she wouldn’t take it for free, he was willing to give it to her that way — that man had to be one of two things: gullible as a dumb puppy or filthy, stinking rich. Billy had been hoping it was both. Pulling into that gravel driveway, he wasn’t so sure. Close to the beach like it was, Skelton’s plain old house might have been worth a little more, but back in Greenville, that same house would have sold for less than the price of the Ferrari. Somebody filthy rich would have been living larger. No, now he was sure Mr. Skelton was nothing but gullible.