Board Stiff: A Dead-End Job Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

their morning catch past Helen’s booth. Hopeful fish hunters loaded with equipment and coolers paid their five-dollar fee at the pier gate. Helen felt slightly queasy when she saw them buying bait from the back of the restaurant. At eight forty-seven, Helen got her check, left a twenty-dollar bill, and received a grateful smile from Joan the server for her generous tip.
    Back on the beach Helen rented another green lounge, smoothed on more sunscreen, then checked the time and date stamp on her camcorder and started videoing. This morning, she saw no sign of Jim’s competitor or the possible pilferers, Randy and his friend.
    Phil arrived for work at nine. Helen wanted to tell him about her extraordinary morning on the water, but they were working undercover. She couldn’t acknowledge him again until they left Riggs Beach.
    She swung her camcorder toward a thirtysomething father with an elaborate tribal tattoo on his back. A blond boy of about four clutched one hand and held a blue plastic pail and shovel in the other. Father and son settled near the water’s edge and started a sand castle.
    They were deep into their project when a tanned, wrinkled, gray-haired woman came dancing along the hard-packed sand. She waved to the father and son and shouted, “Isn’t it great to be alive?”
    Her enthusiasm made Helen smile.
    The smile vanished when she swung her camera farther down the beach and saw Phil chatting with the stunning dark-skinned lifeguard. The guard laughed and tossed her mane of dark hair. Phil grinned at her like he’d been hit on the head with a coconut.
    He’s not your ex, Helen told herself. He’s never given you any reason to doubt him. Just because you married a hound once doesn’t mean you’ve picked another.
    A shrill squeal made Helen shift her camcorder toward a teen girl being dunked by a boy. The giggling girl launched herself at the boy and they fell into the ocean together, laughing and splashing.
    The father-son castle builders had made progress. Their castle was now three feet tall with two bucket-sized crenulated towers. The boy was earnestly digging a moat.
    Helen heard a whistle blast, and the mahogany lifeguard shouted into a bullhorn at a swimming man, “You’ve gone too far! Come back! Now!”
    The swimmer returned. So did Phil. He strolled back toward Sunny Jim’s rental stand.
    “Hey, there, Daniel and Ceci,” Jim said, waving at a couple in swimsuits. “Glad you made it. I have your boards ready.”
    Helen’s viewfinder gave her a close-up of the St. Louisans. Plump, pretty Ceci’s bouncy brown curls were wilting in the Florida humidity. Helen guessed her age at thirty, but the fat padding her arms and stomach aged her. Ceci’s matronly one-piece red suit clashed with her painful pink sunburn.
    Her husband had a chiseled chin and lean, hard muscles. Helen couldn’t imagine Ceci cuddling that rock-hard chest, even when it wasn’t slippery with sunscreen. He wasn’t sunburned like Ceci. Daniel was as bronzed as an oven-roasted turkey.
    “Phil, this is Daniel and Ceci from St. Louis,” Jim said.
    “I’ve been there,” Phil said. “Great city. What part?”
    “We live in Kirkwood,” Daniel said. “It’s a suburb.”
    “I was in Webster Groves,” Phil said. “That’s next door, right? Lots of beautiful big houses.”
    “With big ugly utility bills,” Daniel said.
    “At least you can console yourself with good beer,” Phil said.
    “Plenty of beer, but no beaches,” Ceci said. “I can’t wait to get out on that ocean. This is our last full day here in Florida and it couldn’t be more perfect. Can I leave my beach bag in your trailer?”
    “Sure, we’ll watch it,” Phil said.
    “I need you both to sign these waivers,” Sunny Jim said. He took the bag, while Phil pulled a paddleboard and paddle off the trailer. He started to remove another, longer board, but Daniel said, “Not me. I’m not going out.”
    “You’ve already paid for it,” Jim said.