Board Stiff: A Dead-End Job Mystery

Dead-End Job Mystery Series

Shop till You Drop

Murder Between the Covers

Dying to Call You

Just Murdered

Murder Unleashed

Murder with Reservations

Clubbed to Death

Killer Cuts

Half-Price Homicide

Pumped for Murder

Final Sail

Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Series

Dying in Style

High Heels Are Murder

Accessory to Murder

Murder with All the Trimmings

The Fashion Hound Murders

An Uplifting Murder

Death on a Platter

Murder Is a Piece of Cake

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Elaine Viets, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

LIBRARY
OF
CONGRESS
CATALOGING
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IN
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PUBLICATION
DATA
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Viets, Elaine, 1950–

Board stiff: a dead-end job mystery/Elaine Viets.

pages cm.

1. Hawthorne, Helen (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

2. Women detectives—Fiction. 3. Local government—

Corrupt practices—Florida—Fiction. 4. Florida—Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3572.I325B63 2013

813’.54—dc23 2013001051

ISBN 978-1-101-61404-4

PUBLISHER
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S
NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Riggs Beach is a mythical Florida town, but the cutthroat competition for tourist dollars is real.

Florida lifeguards are exceptional professionals. Ocean-rescue guards are trained paramedics and amazing athletes. Thank you, Lieutenant Jim McCrady, Fort Lauderdale Ocean Rescue, as well as Ben Hutchinson and Christine Jackson for your help with the rescue scenes. Any mistakes are mine.

Thank you, Nora E. Saunders, Saunders & Taylor Insurance, Inc., Fort Lauderdale, and Dr. Robin Waldron. Dina Willner and mystery writer Marcia Talley supplied technical advice.

Novel writing is a team effort, and I have help from the best: senior editor Sandra Harding and the ever-helpful Elizabeth Bistrow at New American Library; my agent, David Hendin; and my reporter husband, Don Crinklaw, who valiantly rattles cages in Fort Lauderdale in between reading my novels. Thanks to Dick Richmond, my friend and former newspaper editor.

Some friends let me borrow their names. Valerie Cannata was transformed into an investigative TV reporter. Nancie Hays let me turn her into a lawyer. Nan Siemer and her bichon, Benji, are all grown-up now, and Nan has her own consulting company, Breakers, in Alexandria, Virginia. The real Margery Flax is much younger but just as crafty as the fictional Margery. Both love purple, but the real Margery wishes she could smoke. Joan Right is not a Riggs Beach server, but a generous woman who made a donation at a charity auction to have her name in this novel.

Karen Grace and I spent many hours discussing who really blackmailed Helen and her sister. I didn’t have a clue when I first wrote that scene until Karen explained it to me.

Thank you, Alan Portman, Molly Zuckerman Portman, Doris Ann Norris, Kay Gordy, Jack Klobnak, Robert Levine, Janet Smith, Jinny Gender and Mary Alice Gorman.

Private investigator William Simon gave invaluable information. So did Detective R. C. White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired), and Rick McMahan, ATF special agent.

Thank you to the sources who can’t be named.

Anne Watts, assistant director of the Boynton Beach City Library, lent me her six-toed cat, Thumbs, for this series. Once again, I am grateful to all the librarians who helped with this book, especially the staff of the St. Louis Public Library, the St. Louis County Library, and the Broward County Library. Librarians are the original search engines.

I can’t forget super-saleswoman Carole Wantz, who could sell a Chevy to a Ford dealer.

I’m grateful to the booksellers who recommend my novels to their customers.

Helen still works those dead-end jobs, but now that she and Phil have their own private eye agency, she takes them to solve cases.
Board Stiff
required my own in-depth research. I took stand-up paddleboard lessons and landed in about nine feet of water. Mario St. Cyr of Paddlesandboards.com said I fell very gracefully.

Thank you to the Femmes Fatales & Freres. I rely on your encouragement and advice, and appreciate the help of my blog sister, mystery writer Hank Phillippi Ryan, who knows all about being a star TV reporter. Read our blog at http://www.femmesfatales.typepad .com/.

Questions or comments? E-mail me at [email protected].

“T
hey’re trying to kill me,” Sunny Jim Sundusky said. “They nearly succeeded in March, but I’m one tough buzzard. I survived. They almost got me in April, but I escaped again.”

Helen Hawthorne and her husband, Phil Sagemont, sat across from Sunny Jim in their black-and-chrome chairs in the Coronado Investigations office. Sunny Jim sat in the yellow client chair, looking anything but sunny. Sun-dried was more like it, Helen thought as she studied him.

His face was red leather. His blond hair was dyed and flash-fried in a crinkly permanent. But he did look tough.

“They’re gonna keep coming after me until they stop me for good,” he said. “That’s why I wanna hire you two. I hear you’re the best private eyes in South Florida.”

“We were lucky to get good publicity,” Helen said.

“That wasn’t luck,” Phil said. “That was good detecting.”

“That’s what I need,” Sunny Jim said. “Detecting. I want you to stop them before they stop me—permanently.” He stabbed his chest with a brown callused hand, right in the smiling sun on his yellow SUNNY
JIM
’
S
STAND
-
UP
PADDLEBOARD
RENTAL T-shirt. His arms and legs were roped with muscle and his chest was a solid slab.

Helen had seen enough steroid hardbodies to know that Jim had built that beef the old-fashioned way. She thought he was attractive in a dated disco style, except he was too young to have caught the seventies disco fever. She guessed his age on the shady side of thirty-five.

“So you gonna save my business or not?” Jim’s eyes were hidden behind expensive shades—Floridians rarely had naked eyes—but his chin jutted in a challenge.

Helen tried to pick up a cue from Phil, but he stayed poker-faced. “Tell us a little about your business,” he said.

“Like I said, I own a stand-up paddleboard rental company,” Jim said. “I got two locations in Riggs Beach.”

“The beach town just south of Fort Lauderdale,” Helen said.

“Right,” Jim said, and smiled for the first time. “There’s Lauderdale, then Dania, Hollywood, Hallandale and Riggs Beach. You ever been to Riggs Beach?” He shifted in his chair and Helen tried not to stare at the little golden hairs on his long, tanned legs.

“I walk along that beach sometimes,” she said. “Nice fishing pier.”

“That’s where I rent my boards,” Sunny Jim said. “Near the base of the pier. Riggs Pier is owned by the city.”

“Good fishing off that pier,” Phil said.

“Primo,” Sunny Jim said. “There’s a reef just past the pier. Saw a loggerhead turtle there when I was diving.”

“You were telling us about your business,” Phil said.

“There’s a little restaurant and bait shop on the beach end of the pier, run by Cyrus Reed Horton. The restaurant is called Cy’s on the Pier. Locals joke that Cy fries up whatever bait he doesn’t sell, but the food’s not half-bad.

“Cy owns some real estate along Riggs Beach, including a T-shirt shop and a fancy boutique. He’s got the parking lot by the pier, too. That place is a gold mine. Tourists are begging to park there.

“I keep a trailer—like a lawn service trailer—at the foot of the pier and rent my paddleboards, but you gotta be good to go out on the ocean. I also give lessons at Riggs Lake about two blocks away: one hour of personal instruction and a half hour of practice for a hundred bucks. The water is quieter and calmer on the lake. It’s a good place to learn. You ever do stand-up paddleboarding?”

“No,” Helen said. “I’ve seen guys paddling along on those big surfboard-like things on the Intracoastal Waterway. I gather those are paddleboards.”

“They are. Stand-up paddleboarding is the hot new sport. Everybody wants a piece of the action, and I’ve got the best spot in the city. That’s why they’re after me.”

“Who is?” Phil asked.

“The two people who want the lease on my spot,” Jim said, as if it were obvious.

“And they are?” Phil asked.

“Bill’s Boards. I’ve caught him poaching on my territory. He was giving lessons right next to my space on Riggs Lake. Even set up a sign like he belonged there. His lessons are cheaper, but he doesn’t have to pay the city to rent the land or buy the license or carry liability insurance like I do. He can afford to undercut me.”

“How come Bill doesn’t have to follow the rules?” Helen asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Jim said. “Bill’s Boards parked its trailer next to mine here on the beach and started renting their boards. He was just an employee, not the owner, and I chased him off the first time. But Bill stands there and defies me. He refuses to leave. I called the cops and they shrugged and said it wasn’t their problem.

“Now if I don’t open up early and drag my boards out on the beach so Bill’s Boards can’t park there, he tries to set up his business again. I’m out there at six a.m., though most of my customers don’t show up until after nine in the morning.”

“Sounds stressful,” Helen said.

“Stress! Hell, it’s cutthroat. He’ll do anything to put me out of business. Even stole Randy, my best employee.”

“How’d he do that?” Phil asked.

“Offered Randy more money,” Sunny Jim said. “I can’t afford to pay him eleven dollars an hour. Not when I’m stuck with all the costs of being a legitimate businessman.”

“Did you complain to Riggs Beach?” Helen asked.

“Hah! Rigged Beach is more like it,” Jim said. “I’ve made more than two hundred complaints to the police, the beach patrol and Riggs Lake park rangers. The city commission won’t do a blessed thing.

“I finally went to a meeting and complained. Put on a suit in Florida. One commissioner said it would cost too much to enforce the rules. Cost too much! What about the fees the city is missing? What about following the rules?

“The commissioners said they wanted proof that my competitors are poaching. I even stood behind a palm tree and took photos, but the commission said that still wasn’t proof unless I caught ’em when the money was changing hands. I was never cynical about government, but after that meeting, I saw that same commissioner say hi to his good buddy Bill. Slapped him on the back and they left together. In public. No wonder the police won’t arrest him when he poaches on my territory. That was February.

“Once I turned up the heat, the sabotage started. In March, two of my paddleboards were stolen and twelve paddles were trashed. Someone broke into my trailer at the height of spring break, the busiest time of the year, so I didn’t have enough boards or paddles for rentals. By the time my insurance claim was settled, spring break was over and so was the demand.

“That cost me thousands in equipment and even more in lost business. But they weren’t counting on me having insurance. See, that’s where the extra cost comes in, but it saved my bacon.

“I had video cameras on my beach trailer, and the cameras caught two men on tape. One man is the same size and height as Randy Henshall, my old employee, but he and his accomplice are wearing dive suits and masks, so you can’t see their faces.”

“And even though Randy was a good employee,” Helen asked, “you think he’d break into your trailer to ruin your business?”

“Yes, I do,” Jim said and stuck out his chin defiantly. “He left me for money. I think he’d break into my trailer for money, too. But I can’t prove that. He knew about the cameras, didn’t he? And he disguised himself.”

“Not sure that means anything,” Phil said. “Many businesses use security cameras. What did the police say?”

“They took a report and that’s about it.” Jim’s face showed his disgust. “Riggs Beach police aren’t interested in tracking down the thieves. They called it a spring break prank and said the stolen boards were probably strapped to a car roof and heading up north.”

“The break-in was in March,” Phil said. “What happened next?”

“I started getting tons of calls for reservations and lessons. I was fully booked every day of the week. Thought I was in fat city. Except half of the callers never showed for their lessons or board rentals. After four days of twiddling my thumbs, I changed my policy. Now if you want a lesson or you want to rent a board, you gotta give me a credit card. And I run the card while you’re on the phone. Nipped that in the bud.”

“Who made the false reservations?” Helen asked. “Men? Women?”

“Both,” Jim said. “They all sounded young, but then most of my business is people under thirty.”

“Anybody else you can think of who’d want to cause you trouble?” Phil asked.

“Well, like I said, there’s Cy,” Jim said. “He wants my beach spot, too, so he can expand his parking lot. He’s like this with the city commissioners.” He held up two fingers, stuck together.

“But I give Cy some credit. He told me up front. That other bird went behind my back. Only my lease with the city is keeping me on Riggs Beach, and the renewal is coming up for a vote in June.”

“So what do you want Coronado Investigations to do?” Phil said.

“Catch ’em!” he said. “Catch them when they’re sabotaging me. I’m still looking for a new employee since I lost Randy. I can’t find a good one. I’ll pay you seven seventy-five an hour, Phil, to work the pier location. That’s in addition to your regular fee. You can keep the money.”

“Thanks,” Phil said. Jim missed the slight note of sarcasm, but Helen didn’t.

“Minimum wage in Florida is seven dollars and sixty-five cents, so I’m overpaying you.

“And I want your lady to work for me, too.”

“You want two people to suddenly start working at your ocean paddleboard location?” Helen asked. “Won’t that look suspicious?”

“You’re a smart girl,” Sunny Jim said. “But I got a better job for you. I want you to sit on the beach with a video camera. Like a tourist. You can document my competitors stealing my business. Make sure you get them exchanging the money. Nobody will think anything of it. Tourists video everything—even palm trees doing nothing but standing there. I want Helen to get to know some of the staff at Cy’s restaurant and his two shops. Cy’s a tightwad and he has enemies. Some of his employees are angry enough that they’ll talk about Cy or whatever else they see here in Riggs Beach.”

“My cover can be that I’m a Fort Lauderdale salesclerk on a staycation,” Helen said. “I’ve got some days off and I’m too broke to go anywhere for a real vacation.”

“So are you going to be Phil’s wife while he’s working for me?” Sunny Jim asked.

“It’s better if we don’t even know each other for this job,” Helen said. “I’ll have to take off my wedding ring.”

“And put on a bikini,” Jim said. “A fine-looking lady like you belongs in a bikini, you know what I mean?”

Helen didn’t like his smirk.

“You know that Ms. Hawthorne is my partner—and my wife,” Phil said.

“I meant no disrespect,” Jim said. “It’s hard not to admire a woman like Ms. Hawthorne. Tell you what. I’ll even throw in free paddleboard lessons for you both after work. As my personal apology.

“How about if you start tomorrow at six with me, Phil? Ms. Hawthorne, you don’t have to go to work until nine. What do you say, huh?”

“You can call me Helen,” she said. “Apology accepted.”

I’m getting paid to sleep late and sit on the beach, she thought. Finally, a dead-end job I can enjoy. Phil gave her a slight nod, his signal that he wanted this client.

“It’s a deal,” she said.