Chapter 5

 

Every hour and day that passed without solving this case made me more determined. Henry had to have come to see me so that I could find Skye’s killer, which meant that whoever killed her might have killed Henry too. Jake had to be thinking the same thing. The cases had to be connected, even if it just meant that one of Skye’s relatives had bumped him off. I just couldn’t believe there had been no witnesses to the crime. Sure, it was early in the morning, but someone had to have been around the beach at the time. And, if Henry was coming to meet me, then why was he on the beach and not walking down the sidewalk toward my office? I supposed he just wanted the beautiful view.

Someone had to have been trailing him and used the perfect opportunity of an empty beach early in the morning to shoot him. There had to be places around here that had surveillance. Possibly they’d caught the killer on camera.

I walked over to my car and tossed in my bag. I thought I would go out to the boardwalk and see if I could spot any cameras. When I reached the area, I saw a lot of people walking around. It would be hard to pick out someone on a video. Though it would help that it had been early morning.

After searching down the boardwalk, I discovered a souvenir shop that had a camera outside mounted right in the direction where I thought that Henry would have walked on his way to my office.

I doubted the camera had captured the murder because it was too far away, but it definitely might have seen someone following him. Now I just hoped that they would let me see the footage. I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull off the fake flash of a nonexistent badge trick. That would probably only work so many times before it blew up in my face. So Dorothy and I headed down the boardwalk to speak with someone at the shop. Fingers crossed that this would pan out. I really needed a break because it seemed as if this case was going nowhere. The time I’d tried to get info from Jake, his new partner had been there to stop him talking.

After we entered it took a while for Dorothy and me to spot an employee. A younger woman was behind the counter staring at her fingernails.

“Excuse me, is there a manager I can speak with?” I asked.

After a couple seconds she looked up at me. “What’s this about?”

Her sarcastic tone rubbed me the wrong way. Was that any way to treat a customer?

“Surveillance video,” I said.

She smirked as if she had no idea what I was talking about. This was going nowhere. 

“It’s in regards to a murder and I need to see the surveillance video right away.”

Her eyes widened. “I can’t help you with that.”

“That’s why I need to speak with the manager,” I said.

She pointed out a middle-aged man toward the back of the store. “You can talk to him.”

Dorothy had wandered off across the store. She was busy looking at a T-shirt, so I just left her there while I headed to the back to talk to the manager.

He looked up as I walked toward him. “May I help you?”

I didn’t do the wallet trick like last time, but I immediately gave him my name. I figured I would just be completely honest and see what he had to say.

“I’m a private investigator researching a recent murder and I wondered if I could get a look at your video surveillance. It wouldn’t take me long.”

“I don’t want to get involved in anything like that,” he said.

To be honest, I hadn’t expected that answer. Involved? What, did he think that if he gave me the video the killer would come after him? How would the murderer even know? Unless I caught the person and they went to jail just because of video surveillance. I supposed that could happen, but it was unlikely in my opinion.

Dorothy moved closer to where I stood talking to the man, but she wasn’t acting as if she knew me. She was just browsing the rack of clothing next to us. That was odd. What was she up to?

“Excuse me. I have to get back to work.” The man resumed folding a shirt.

He wasn’t friendly at all. What had I ever done to him? Dorothy she gave me a wink. In one fluid motion she collapsed to the floor. I knew what she was doing and she had saved the day.

“Oh, man, is she all right?” The guy ran over to Dorothy.

While he was distracted with that, I ran to the back and into the office. It was a long shot, but I had to give it a try. If she could keep him busy for a while until I came back out, then she’d know that her services were no longer needed.

I rushed into the office. A laptop was on top of the desk. If the video was anywhere, it would be on the laptop. I opened it up and hoped that there wasn’t a password. Unfortunately, there was. That meant that I had to try to figure it out. I typed in one, two, three, four, five, and six. No, that didn’t work. I entered the name of the shop. This was getting me nowhere. Several more attempts and I figured I’d have to give up. I’d try one more time. Checking out my surroundings, I spotted a poster on the wall. A scene of the beach with a surfer. This was a long shot, but what other ideas did I have? I typed in the words from the poster, Catch a wave. Bingo. I was in. How had I even figured that out? I didn’t know, but I was thanking my lucky stars.

Right away, I clicked on the link that would open up the video. I found the date back to the time of the murder. If I’d waited another day the footage would have been deleted since it looked as if it only went back a few days. I’d come in at just the right time.

A noise made me pause. The doorknob rattled. My adrenaline spiked and my heart pounded harder. Someone was coming. It would all be over for me if I got caught in here. They would probably call the police. Jake would show up and I would have a lot of explaining to do.

Now I had to find a place to hide. There was a closet across the room, but it was too far and I knew I wouldn’t get there in time. The only thing I could do now was crawl under the desk. If someone looked under there and saw me I would have no way to explain. I fell to the floor and scurried under the desk, scrunching my body up in a way that I’d never thought possible. But when the adrenaline kicked in I could do a lot of things I’d never thought possible.

I held my breath, hoping that the person wouldn’t hear me under there. I watched as the person walked into the room. All I saw from under the desk was a pair of legs. Based on the flip-flops and painted toenails, it was a woman, probably the one from behind the counter. After I had mentioned the word murder to her, if she saw me under the desk, she really would freak out and call the police.

I waited and watched as she walked around the room. What was she doing in there? Get what you need and get out. My legs were hurting and I was pretty sure my butt was falling asleep. After a few more seconds she walked out of the room. I scurried out from under the desk and across the dirty floor. It took me a second to get my legs unfolded. Now I had to move quickly before she came back.

What I saw on the video was a bit of a shock to me. Well, maybe not so much a shock. I’d kind of suspected it anyway. Of course, this was no definitive proof, but it was definitely leading me in the right direction.

Penelope was the person on the video following Henry. This had taken place a short time before he was murdered. That put her at the scene of the crime and in my opinion she had a motive. What more would the police need in order to make an arrest?

I watched the video a bit longer. Penelope stopped. She talked with a man. He was mostly out of the screen, but I noticed his large hands as he took something she handed him. I took in as much of the man’s appearance as I could get from the limited video. He was wearing black flip-flops. I couldn’t gauge his height, but I figured he was over six foot tall.     

Now I had to convince the manager to show the police the video. I supposed if I told Jake, they could get a warrant and collect the video that way. Or perhaps the guy would be more willing to work with the police than just some random private investigator. Either way, I had what I needed now.

A sneaky idea crossed my mind. I had to move quickly. Time was running out. Dorothy could only stay out there pretending to be sick for so long before they would call an ambulance. I had my cell phone. I could take video of the video. I didn’t know how that would turn out, but cameras on phones were amazing nowadays, so it was worth a shot. I grabbed the laptop, opened it again and got to the right section. I videoed the section with Penelope.

Now all that was left was finding a way to tell Jake that I had gotten this video. I’d worry about that when the time came. I closed the laptop, shoved my phone back into my pocket, and hurried over to the door. I eased it open and peeked out to make sure that no one was coming. I slipped out of the room. Thank goodness I had gotten out of there. Sure enough, Dorothy was still over on the floor, and the guy was hovering over her. She was waving his hand away.

“Are you sure I can’t call you an ambulance?” he asked. “I really think I should.”

I eased around him and headed toward the door, giving Dorothy a nod to let her know that it was safe to get up. My gaze shifted to the guy and he made eye contact with me. He looked down to Dorothy. The realization hit him. He was definitely suspicious, but he didn’t come right out and accuse us… yet.

Dorothy sprang up from the floor as if she was on the Olympic gymnast team. The manager stumbled backward a couple of steps. He was in shock that Dorothy had moved that easily. She hurried in my direction.

“Hey, what do you two think you’re doing? Are you stealing something?” the guy yelled.

When I looked back he was coming after us. I’d had a feeling that he was onto us, but I’d never thought he would think we were stealing something. He was running toward me as if I was in a football game and I was about to be tackled. I didn’t even have the ball. Okay, technically the video was the ball, but he didn’t know that. It was on my phone.

“Get away from me,” I yelled. “I’ll sue you.”

Dorothy chuckled, as if it was funny.

“Dorothy, is this funny to you?” I asked as we ran for the door.

“It’s mildly humorous,” she yelled and she ran.

How could she be so spry at that age? I hoped that I was half as good at her age. Heck, I was only half as good now at my age. Thank goodness we made it to the door without the guy being able to tackle me. The only thing that saved us was the rack of T-shirts I shoved in front of him in our wake.

Of course everyone was staring at us. We had created a huge commotion. Dorothy and I burst out onto the sidewalk, running toward the parking area. The guy was still yelling for us to stop, as if that was really going to happen. Checking over my shoulder I realized that he had given up. Apparently we were better runners than him. He was totally out of shape. He might think about getting a treadmill. I mean, for heaven’s sake, he was worse than me, and I’d thought I was bad.

“I think we can stop running now.” I stopped, placing my hands on my knees and bending over, trying to catch my breath.

Dorothy was standing there, barely showing any signs of exertion.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what, dear?”

“Not be exhausted after running like that,” I said.

“That?” she asked with a wave of her hand. “Oh, I take these vitamins in the morning. You should really look into them. They’re great.”

Dorothy was going to live to be a hundred and ten.

“Did you get what you needed?” she asked.

I nodded. “I got it. I recorded it on my phone, and you’re never going to believe who was following Henry.”

“Penelope,” Dorothy said.