Murder on Edwards Bay (The Maude Rogers Crime Novels Book 2) Read online

  Murder on Edwards Bay

  A Maude Rogers Crime Novel

  Linda L. Dunlap

  Copyright © 2014 by Linda L. Dunlap

  All rights reserved

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, scanned, sold, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  Murder on Edwards Bay is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously or are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  As ever, to Larry Dunlap, thank you for loving me first and Maude second.

  To my collaborator, Billie Simpson; thanks for being my friend.

  Carla Dunlap, you are a rock.

  To my daughters, Amanda Corbett and Charlotte Dunlap Munoz, your patience with Word and other computer questions has often saved the day and my sanity.

  To my beta reader, Sheila Turner, thank you for your insight.

  To Cyndi Rudd, bright and beautiful wordsmith, thank you for putting it together to make jumbled words into an enovel.

  Linda

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Monday November 23

  The early morning hours had been disappointing. Sodden skies and a cold easterly wind brought dampness that chilled the two lovers who walked along the beach near Edwards Paradise, the resort on Edwards Bay. At about eleven o’clock the skies had begun clearing, leaving thin white clouds, blue sky, and the warmth of the sun to dry the moisture from the air.

  The old timers at the resort told the couple, “Don’t get too comfortable; a cold front is due in soon.”

  After the gloomy weather had come and gone, the two decided a small rowboat, a bottle of wine, and a picnic from the resort kitchen would be heavenly out on the bay. According to people who knew her, Jenny had hoped to finally fulfill a long-time dream of dragging her toes in the water, while lying in a slow moving boat. A city girl who seldom got anywhere near the water could still fantasize.

  The man who owned the rowboat recalled, “The girl had seemed really happy, eager to try her hand at rowing, and her partner was friendly, nodding and winking.” He also said that Aaron had paid the daily rate with his credit card, but didn’t know how long he would keep the boat.

  At five in the afternoon, Elmore Gandy the owner of Gandy’s Boat Rentals had begun to get anxious. The couple hadn’t returned from their rowing journey on the bay, and the sun was going to be setting in less than an hour. He was anxious for two reasons. He wanted his boat back and he wanted to go home. It never crossed his mind that something had gone wrong, he figured the two lovers had beached the boat for a little privacy and lost track of time.

  Elmore, called Sandy because of his hair color, had lived around the bay in one place or another for forty years, and the boat business belonged to him and his daddy.

  Old man Gandy had started renting boats as far back as 1925; in fact, some of the boats were just that old, because Sandy and his dad both took good care of them, with regular inside-outside cleanings, and patching holes that the rocks and oyster shells knocked in them. Of course all the boats weren’t that old, but a couple of them went really far back. Usually during November, Sandy would bring all the boats in out of the bay for the winter, scraping and painting, getting ready for the spring when people went out to enjoy the water. A twist of fate had changed his schedule making the boat still available to the young couple.

  Gandy’s place was the only one around for renting a boat. Located next to the public boat docks on Edwards Bay, the business stocked bottled water and snacks and sold decent grilled sandwiches and French fried potatoes from the small store kitchen. The young couple had chosen a red boat fading to red-brown, with oarlocks, two oars, and a small gas motor good for fishing or other forms of recreation requiring location changes on the lake.

  Aaron Dennis and Jenny Marx hadn’t returned by six o’clock, and daylight was waning; there was no sign of a boat on the lake’s horizon, forcing Sandy to call the sheriff to come with the county boat and spot light. The sheriff and one of his deputies showed up, and after Sandy pointed out the direction the young people had gone, he went inside his house to supper. His wife had just about given up on him by that time, so he figured he’d best hurry, or make her even unhappier. He left his store and the docks for an hour while Sheriff Jack was out searching the deep-water bay.

  1:00 P.M. Monday November 23

  The small rowboat was easy to control in the cool breeze that blew across the bay. The small motor could be used later when it was time to get serious about returning to the resort, but in the meantime, both Aaron and Jenny tried their hands at rowing. True to her wish, at one time Jenny had both feet over the side of the boat, her toes ruffling the surface of the water. A local man fishing for catfish with cut bait had anchored his boat close to the north shore, and saw the young couple idling away the afternoon. Later when that same fellow heard some woman detective was asking questions, he came forward and told what he had seen.

  For a man with no experience with rowing a real boat, Aaron had the small craft skimming the water each time he dipped his shoulder, its speed increasing as the curve of the bay placed the south wind against the back of the boat. The fisherman said that the boat fairly flew across the water.

  Along the rocky shoreline ahead of them Aaron looked for places to dock the boat for a picnic, and probably regretted his rowing choice of the north side of the bay. The shore ahead of him was barren with low cliffs jutting out into rough salt water at the end, leaving few if any places for landing the small craft. He had looked over his shoulder toward the south shore, saw the convenience of the beach near the resort, but refused to cross the bay again, back the way they had come. Instead he turned the boat around and rowed in a westward direction, scanning the north shoreline again for a water approach to land.

  He spotted it then. A small winding waterway wide enough for the boat lay just ahead. That was fine with Aaron. A little privacy was what he had wanted; he and Jenny were going to have a picnic.

  Abandoning his rowing, Aaron used the pull start on the boat motor to fire the engine, the propeller turning easily in the deep blue of the bay. The low water of the inlet was muddy and shallow, but just deep enough for the small motor to propel the boat forward. The faster movement helped to shoo away the mosquitoes that swarmed from the marsh grass along the bank. It was easier to navigate the narrow water way before the tide came in and filled it to overflowing. Several hundred yards further down there was no longer any rear sighting of the bay once the boat was docked against the bank.

  The boat easily docked there, pushing the oysters deeper into the mud, the grinding noise of wood on shell an unmistakable sound in the oyster gatherer’s hidey hole. Aaron had to jump out of the boat and up to the marshy bank, digging his feet in, looking for places to step, his water shoes
making impressions that the tide would later wash away. The landing was three feet higher than the water in the inlet but nothing he couldn’t manage. Jenny had grabbed hold of the boat’s tie rope, searched the bank for an appropriate clump of tall weeds, and placed the loop around a group of saltwater reeds near the edge.

  The coverlet used to wrap the picnic basket in the boat made a fine resting spot under the small tree. Jenny pulled off her shoes again, enjoying the sun on her bare feet while resting her head on Aaron’s arm. A smile of happiness crossed her face. A boat motor on the bay whined in the background as she dozed on the pallet under the tree, alee of the wind. The sound of wood against shell should have alerted the couple that another boat was docking near them, but they were oblivious to danger and it went unnoticed.

  The grass was still crisp from drying in the heat of the Gulf summer, and their footsteps crunched with each step as the occupants of the new boat made their way quickly to Aaron and Jenny. Their faces uncovered in the afternoon sun, the two approached the man first, appreciating that he was napping and therefore less difficult to overpower. The girl was easy, her strength no concern to the men. They knew the couple’s body sizes, knew that Aaron went to the gym every day, and had planned for the contingency; he might be difficult to contain.

  Aaron awoke, startled by a hand over his nose and mouth, his breath coming in gasps through compressed nostrils.

  “You, I know you! What are you doing? What do you want?” he spoke against the hand, his words garbled. The man held him against the ground, the pressure of his bodyweight an immense anchor keeping him from Jenny, the pistol in the man’s hand leveled at Aaron’s head.

  “Keep still, lover boy. Enjoy the time you have left. A man like you should have known to be careful, to watch what was behind him.”

  The hand released his nose and mouth allowing Aaron to take a deep breath. The shock was dissipating as the horror of truth began to take over, the panic from fear starting low in his abdomen.

  “Jenny? Where is Jenny? Please don’t hurt her.”

  The guttural laughter that came from the other side of the pallet was chilling, “Whoa now, little girl! Hold still, papa’s going to ride you.”

  “Jenny, Jenny, I’m sorry.” Aaron screamed as the big man began to strip her shirt. “It’s my fault.”

  “Let me go!” Jenny had cried, her senses overcome by confusion and fear.

  “I don’t think so. You’re an extra perk. I haven’t had a pretty thing like you in a long time, and you see, I’ve been real good lately,” the man had said, his large hands busy with her body.

  “Hurry up you two,” a third voice spoke from farther away, “Get the job done. I want to get away from these bugs.”

  The brute suddenly turned from Jenny and moved quickly to assist his partner, administering a fast and hard blow to Aaron who had begun bucking and fighting against the man sitting on his chest. Taking advantage of her assailant’s inattention, Jenny jumped up, and began running semi-naked away from the marsh bank and the water.

  “Go get her,” the third voice said tiredly. “Come on, will you.”

  The sounds of running feet close behind Jenny almost paralyzed her with fear, but she kept on struggling to outpace the man, the pain in her bare feet on the crisp marsh grass crippling her forward movement. She screamed for help over and over knowing it wasn’t coming. It was too late. He had already grabbed her blonde ponytail, and flung her onto the damp ground, panting from his exertions.

  “You’re really a wild one, going to feel real good breaking you in!” The big man had hurt her when he fell upon her on the marshy ground. The sharp grass and weeds were an unpleasant bed beneath her, but he made himself comfortable pulling her pants off, then using them to protect his knees as he lowered his cargo shorts. Spreading her legs with his body, the big man held Jenny down by her hair. “She kept trying to get away”, the man said later.

  Jenny sobbed and fought the man as best she could; the physical pain was overwhelming, but the pain in her heart so much worse. She knew the violation of her body was only a prelude to what was to come. The man was unmasked, with no fear of being recognized. Jenny was a smart girl who had known at that moment that she was going to die. “Aaron, help me,” she had screamed shrilly as the big man violently abused her body, over and over in the process of taking her life.

  The man holding Aaron down had beaten him in the face and on the head with the butt of the gun.

  “We were going to do this with a little more finesse,” he told Aaron disgustedly. “I should have shot you while you were sleeping.”

  “But why?” Aaron asked through his pain. “Who are you and why are you doing this? Take my wallet. Take the car, it’s at the resort. I’ll give you money. Just go away and leave us alone.”

  “No dice. A job is a job. I already agreed.” The man had said, wielding another blow. He fingered the trigger of the loaded weapon and jammed the barrel against Aaron’s head, firing twice in succession.

  The blood and brains splash of the educated doctor was no worse or better than that of a dock worker, the man said later to his comrades. He knew, because he had killed both in his time.

  The third voice had asked the question. “Is it done?”

  Both men had nodded-ready to travel. “All cleaned up. Let’s go,” the first man said. “Let’s take their boat, it has a motor.”

  Looking back over his handiwork for a minute, the big man had smiled, checked his zipper, and admired the perky pony tail hanging from the scraggly huisache tree.

  “Yep. We’re done here.” He finished, jumping into Gandy’s boat.

  The small dinghy had been aground, tied to a post on the shore near the inlet when the killing crew first found it, believing it to be the boat of an oysterman or fisherman. The original color had faded in the sun and salt water from brown to a streaked tan, but strips of the original color could be seen under the seat in the middle of the boat. The find was the good fortune of the killers, although they had been prepared to push their larger boat through the inlet, or walk the distance if necessary.

  The owner of the old tan boat was an even older man who lived back a ways, in a small shack made from drift wood and other beached lumber he had salvaged from the Gulf. The old man lived alone most of the time, except when his grandson was out of school and came to visit

  The boy’s father had dropped him off from a privately owned helicopter, onto a cleared spot in front of the shack on the day of the murders, but he hadn’t seen the incident. What the boy saw was: three people got off a big boat, hijacked his grandfather’s small boat, then poled and rowed it up the inlet where the oystermen had some of their hidey holes.

  Sometime much later, when the whole story came out at the trial, the boy would tell what he had seen. The information would help to provide evidence that three people took Old Man Billings boat to commit the crimes of rape and murder.

  3:00 P.M. Monday November 23

  The old man, whose name was Theodore Billings; but no one called him Theodore away from his face, seldom used the boat anymore, but after his grandson left, he got really pissed off when he saw that it was gone. He loaded up his rucksack with a few supplies for the evening, and left his place a little after 3:00 P.M., on the hunt toward the Slip. The narrow inlet was the oysterman’s hidey hole, the largest of the waterways leading from Edwards Bay into the marsh grass, dead-ending into a salt water pool full of oyster reefs. He knew how far down the slip went, knew every foot of it, just didn’t know if he could walk it at one time.

  Old Man Billings, what everyone did call him, saw Gandy’s boat near the same spot where his boat was supposed to be, and borrowed it, but didn’t connect it to his own loss.

  He motored Gandy’s boat up the tidal slip, found his boat drifting in the rising water, picked up a few oysters then towed the boat back to where it belonged. He tied the two boats together to the post where the hijackers had helped themselves then went on his way.

  When
Sheriff Jack came with that woman detective, and asked him if anyone had used his boat lately, Old Man Billings remembered being real upset over something, but couldn’t recall what it was about.

  Sheriff Jack told him later that his fingerprints were on Gandy’s boat, but Old man Billings got cranky and said, “I don’t know any reason I would be on Elmore’s beat up row boat when I have a fine one of my own.”

  He also didn’t remember that his grandson had been at the shack and left right after lunch on the day of the murders.

  5:00 P.M. Monday November 23

  Three figures exited their boat at Jackson Park, two boarding a large black SUV, and one driving away, sometime afterward, in a white older model Ford Econoline van. Both drivers were paying close attention to traffic that might be moving on the small jeep trail, leading from the main boat docks at Gandy’s to the park. A larger two lane highway connected with the jeep road and led to Edwards Paradise, eventually meandering to the four lane freeway.

  The trip back to Houston was long and arduous for the van driver, who kept watch in the rear view mirror for the tale-tale blue and red flashers of law enforcement vehicles.

  Each member of the killing crew rethought the incident using a mental checklist of the completed assignment. They were not friends, and knew little of each other, but all had come together earlier in the day at the boat dock in Jackson Park. The large boat had been stolen, and was left to drift at the end; it’s interior and exterior wiped clean of prints. The instructions had been explicit. There was no room for error.

  Driving the van was an old experience for the big man; he had dexterity and quick reflexes not usually accorded to long muscular frames, an anomaly that made him exceedingly dangerous, and a good driver in tight situations. The girl had discovered his quality as she tried to run from him. The smile of pleasure crossing his lips was instantaneous, disappearing as quickly as it came. She had been a fighter, and that was how he preferred his women. Too bad she had to die; it would have been fun to keep her around for a while. But orders were orders. The big man looked once again in the rear view mirror then relaxed, knowing he was too far away to be caught.