Board Stiff: A Dead-End Job Mystery (3 page)

A
t seven a.m., the sea was silver silk under a pearl gray sky. Helen was so entranced, she stood up on her board and started paddling without thinking about it. She breathed in the water’s warm, salty scent and watched the seabirds wheel overhead.

A pelican dove headfirst into the water, startling Helen. The lumbering brown bird became a sleek killing machine when it was hunting. Her board rocked, but Helen kept her balance and paddled farther away from the beach.

Phil doesn’t know what he’s missing, she thought with the fervor of a newly converted early riser. Yesterday she’d slept late without any qualms. Today she wondered how she’d managed to miss such early morning beauty.

Helen could almost believe she was the only person out here. Sunny Jim was quietly working around his beach trailer. She could see Riggs Pier off to the right, bristling with fishing rods, red warning buoys and danger signs. She paddled hard to keep away from the pier’s treacherous rip current.

Her arms and thighs still ached from yesterday’s paddleboard session, but she ignored that discomfort. The sun was now rising in a golden haze, surrounded by whipped cream clouds. A breeze softly brushed her hair away from her face.

After some fifty minutes, the spell was broken by the chunk and roar of the beach cleaner. The tractor-pulled machine raked the wet sand to remove cans, cigarette butts and other trash left by yesterday’s beachgoers.

Now Helen’s legs felt slightly wobbly and the sun started burning her skin. Time to turn back.

“You’ve been out on the water for a full hour,” Sunny Jim said when she dropped off her board. “You’re turning into a pro. Proud of you.”

Helen was proud of herself. She popped on her cover-up, then stopped for breakfast at Cy’s on the Pier restaurant. The long, low wood building was painted a cool sea green.

Every table was packed, but a young couple stood up just as she arrived and Helen scored a choice outside booth on the pier. A honey blond server in a green polo shirt filled her coffee cup. Her name tag read JOAN. The fortyish server had a tired beauty. Even at eight in the morning, Joan looked like she needed a night’s sleep. Her white shorts and sneakers set off her slender tanned legs.

Sunny Jim wanted Helen to get to know Cy’s staff, but Joan was so busy, Helen didn’t try to talk to her. Joan quickly delivered her scrambled eggs and toast and kept refilling Helen’s coffee cup.

Helen decided the food was okay, but the view was sensational. She watched the deadly waves swirl around the pilings. Successful anglers dragged carriers filled with 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. “I can’t refund your money.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “I want to relax. I’m tired and hungover.”

Hungover? Helen thought. The man looked like he binged on bottled water.

“You go have fun, honeybunch,” he said. “Don’t let me spoil your good time.” His voice was slick with insincerity.

“You promised,” Ceci said, and gave a little-girl pout.

“I know I did,” he said, “but I’m not up to it today. You can use the exercise, Chubbette.” He swatted her on the bottom.

Helen would have flattened Phil if he had said that, but Ceci looked at her husband like a whipped dog. “I did put on a couple of pounds,” she said.

Show some spine, woman, Helen wanted to say.

“A couple? More like forty,” Daniel said.

“I’ve been trying to lose it,” she said, “but it won’t come off.”

“Not the way you ate last night,” Daniel said.

Jeez, Helen thought. Let the woman enjoy her vacation.

“That’s why I want to go stand-up paddleboarding this morning. It will get rid of the spare tire around my middle.”

“Not unless you paddle to Cuba,” Daniel said.

Helen was relieved when Sunny Jim interrupted the insult fest. “I’m not sure you should go out this morning, Ceci,” he said. “It’s high tide and there’s a west wind blowing against you. I don’t think you’re experienced enough to handle a paddleboard in those conditions.”

“It’s an
ocean
breeze,” Ceci said. “And the water’s not that deep. Look at those people out there at the no-swimming markers. The water’s only up to their armpits. It’s not that deep.”

“You can drown in a bathtub,” Jim said.

“And I could get hit by a car in the parking lot,” Ceci said. “If you won’t rent me a board, I’ll call your competition—what’s his name?”

“Bill’s Boards,” Daniel said.

“Bill will deliver a board to me right here,” she said. “Are you going to rent me a board or not?”

At the mention of his hated rival, Jim caved. He pointed to the pier and said, “You can’t go within five hundred feet of the pilings. See where those mint green shower stands are?”

“Where the two boys are washing sand off their feet?” Ceci asked.

“That’s it,” Jim said. “The no-swimming signs are posted beside them, and you can see the red warning buoys. Don’t go past them or you’ll get in a wicked rip current. Stay away from it, or you could get pulled under.”

Ceci nodded.

“There’s another reason you should avoid that pier,” Jim said. “Folks are fishing off it. You could get a hook stuck in you. And don’t go out past the orange no-swimming markers. Are you a good swimmer?”

“Yes,” Ceci said.

“She’ll be fine. Fat floats better than muscle.” Daniel insulted his wife with a smile.

Ceci’s face clouded briefly. Phil was frowning, too. Or was that the sun?

“Can you remember all that?” Jim asked.

“Yes,” Ceci said. She squared her shoulders and said, “I’m ready.”

“Here’s a life vest,” Jim said.

Ceci buckled it on and her husband gave a jackass bray. “You look like a freakin’ pumpkin in that orange vest,” he said.

“She looks nice and safe,” Phil said.

Ceci unbuckled the vest and handed it to Jim. “Thanks, but it will throw off my balance. You didn’t make me wear one yesterday.”

“You don’t have to wear one in a swimming area, but you do have to keep it on your board,” Jim said. “That’s a Coast Guard rule. If you go outside that swimming area I showed you, you have to wear the jacket.” Phil grabbed Ceci’s board by the handle and carried it toward the water. Jim followed with the paddle and the life jacket.

“Bye, honey,” Ceci said. “Enjoy your rest on the beach.”

“So long. All that talk about St. Louis beer made me thirsty,” Daniel said. “Think I’ll get me a burger with extra onions and an ice-cold beer. Best cure for a hangover.”

Helen wondered if Daniel knew—or cared—how cruel he was to his dieting wife. She shifted her camcorder back toward Sunny Jim’s, watching the trailer. No one approached. Ten minutes later, Phil and Jim were back.

“Ceci fell off the board twice, but she seems fine now that she’s up,” Phil told Jim.

“She has more confidence when her husband isn’t around,” Jim said.

“Who wouldn’t?” Phil said. “Where is he?”

Daniel was draped on a green lounge, chomping a cheeseburger. A cold beer sweated by his side.

I hope that food turns into lard that sticks on you forever, Helen thought. It will go well with your fat head.

She could see Ceci’s paddleboard moving steadily out on the water. Ceci was getting as far away from her husband as she could.

Helen shifted her camcorder back to the castle builders. Father and son were carefully picking shells from the bucket and embedding them along the castle’s walls and towers.

Sunny Jim had a sudden rush of customers. Two giggling women in bikinis wanted boards. “We’re taking a mental health day,” the tall brunette in the skimpy yellow suit said.

“Because we’re crazy!” her friend in pink said.

Behind them were two young men with charming Aussie accents. They were carrying their boards to the ocean when someone cried from the pier, “A dolphin! A dolphin!”

Helen saw a pair of dolphins playing near the far end of the pier. Anglers tossed the dolphins bait and fresh-caught fish.

“Here, Flipper!” someone said. The restaurant customers and servers ran out to see the dolphins. Helen saw a red-suited figure paddle toward the pier.

“No, Ceci!” Jim yelled.

Was she trying to get a better look at the dolphins? Was she strong enough to paddle against the wind?

The lifeguard blew her whistle, then called on her bullhorn, “Turn away from the pier, ma’am. Turn away from the pier.”

“Turn back! Ceci, don’t go there,” Jim screamed and waved, but she didn’t seem to hear. Her yellow paddleboard was heading straight toward the pier.

Now even her husband had abandoned his food. “Honeybunch, no!” Daniel shouted. “Go back.”

The wind blew sand in Helen’s eyes and a sandwich wrapper skimmed along the sand. The west wind had picked up. This was no soft ocean breeze. Helen wasn’t sure if Ceci tried to turn back or simply lost her balance. But she definitely saw Ceci lurch, then tumble off the paddleboard.

She did not get back on.

“R
escue Tower Three! Rescue Tower Three!” the female lifeguard shouted into her radio, then jumped on her ATV and headed toward the pier.

The lifeguard in the tower south of hers took up the call on his radio: “Rescue Tower Four. One victim near the pier.” The second guard had short, dark hair and a slender, wiry strength.

Now both guards were roaring toward the pier. Ceci’s yellow paddleboard bumped against the pier pilings, but Helen saw no sign of her—not even a glimpse of her red suit in the swirling water.

“Watch the shop, Phil,” Sunny Jim said. “I’m going to save her.” He hauled a paddleboard off the rack and sprinted for the water. Ceci’s husband, Daniel, grabbed another board and paddle and ran after him. “Where’s my wife?” he screamed at Jim. “I don’t see her.”

“We’ll paddle out together and look for her,” Jim said, hopping on his board with a practiced move. Daniel tried the same maneuver and fell into the water.

“Hey! Can I get some help here?” A beefy man slammed his fist down on the trailer’s plywood desk, and the iPad and laptop jumped. “I said I want to rent a board. I’m trying to give you some business.” He waved his credit card.

“Not now,” Phil said. “There’s a rescue going on. A woman is in danger. You’ll be in the way.”

“Not going nowhere near there,” Mr. Beefy said. “Take my card and let me rent a board.”

Helen saw Phil block the entrance to the paddleboard trailer. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “You’ll have to come back later.”

“I don’t have to do nothing,” Mr. Beefy said, with what sounded like a Western drawl. “I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

“Good,” Phil said.

Helen stashed her camcorder in her beach bag and ran over to Sunny Jim’s trailer. “Glad to see that guy go,” she said. “What a twit. I can’t see Ceci. Can the lifeguards get to her in time?”

“Kim’s fast,” Phil said. “Look. She’s at the pier already—less than a minute after she spotted Ceci in trouble. The Tower Four guard, Garcia, is already helping her.”

“You know their names?” Helen asked.

“It’s my job,” Phil said.

“I saw you talking to Kim,” Helen said, then wished she hadn’t. It sounded like an accusation.

Phil flushed. “She kind of brushed me off,” he said. “Said she had to work.”

Kim jumped off her ATV and ran toward the water with long, strong strides, carrying an orange tube. Garcia hauled what looked like an orange surfboard with straps and cutouts off his ATV.

“What’s Kim got?” Helen asked.

“A rescue tube,” Phil said. “Garcia has a rescue board.”

Daniel was still trying to get on his paddleboard to reach his wife. Jim floated nearby, angling his paddle like a kickstand. He had better balance than Ceci or Daniel and stayed on his board despite the wind.

“Those two should leave Ceci’s rescue to the lifeguards,” Helen said.

That must have been what Kim thought. “Please go back, sir,” the lifeguard said.

“I have to save Ceci,” Daniel said. He seemed to be crying. “I have to help.” He reached for Kim’s arm.

She pushed past him and waded into the water. “Please move away so we can save her,” she said. “We’re paramedics.”

“She’s my wife,” Daniel said. “Let me do something, please! I’ll call 911.”

“Already did that. Go back on the beach, sir. Please.”

“Let’s see if we can help Jim get Daniel out of the way,” Phil said. “He’s losing it.”

Helen tossed her beach bag into the paddleboard trailer and Phil slammed the door shut. She’d abandoned the pretense that she and Phil were undercover. She figured no one would notice in the confusion.

The frantic activity had attracted a crowd. Swimmers and sunbathers swarmed past the pier restaurant servers and ran out on the deck, shoving each other away from the rails for a better look. Others clustered at the water’s edge. Everyone seemed to be taking photos.

Helen and Phil elbowed their way through the crowd. Jim and Daniel were both out of the water, their boards abandoned on the sand. They paced back and forth at the water’s edge. Jim’s hair stuck out like an electrified Brillo pad, and his face was white under his tan. Daniel was wringing his hands and making excuses. “I should have listened to you,” he said. “She wasn’t ready to go out. I should have gone out with her. She should have never been alone on the water.”

Now Helen could see the two lifeguards about a third of the way down the pier, trying to pull Ceci’s body out of the roiling water. The water was nearly up to their chests, maybe three and a half feet deep. Both lifeguards were younger and fitter than Jim and Daniel, but they still struggled to keep from being carried away in the swirling current. It looked like they were trying to stand up in a washing machine.

They’d lifted Ceci’s body off the bottom, but she was still facedown, her brown hair spread out like seaweed on the water.

Helen shivered in the hot sun. “Oh, no,” she said. “No, no, no.”

“What?” Phil asked.

“I think Ceci’s dead,” Helen said.

“It’s too early to give up hope,” Phil said. “You’d be surprised what lifeguards can do.”

“Ceci!” Daniel screamed when he saw his wife. He started out toward her, splashing water everywhere. Jim and Phil held him back by the arms.

“Stay here, dude,” Jim said. “The guards know what they’re doing.”

On the pier, people shouted confusing suggestions: “You both should get on her right side,” one screamed. “Take her head by the hair,” another shouted. “Flip her over and drag her out by her feet,” a third said. Others snapped cameras and cell phones like demented paparazzi.

Helen saw Kim snap the rescue tube onto Garcia’s rescue board, while Daniel struggled to break free of Phil and Jim’s grasp.

“She’s my wife,” he said. “Let me do something, please!”

Now Kim waded to Ceci’s right side, pushed the closest arm under the water and reached for the other. Garcia, the second lifeguard, helped her turn Ceci. At last she was faceup, her head cradled in Kim’s brown arm, her body floating in a straight line.

“Her face is out of the water,” Daniel cried. “Brilliant!”

The crowd cheered.

Helen didn’t see anything to cheer about. Ceci’s head lolled against the lifeguard’s shoulder. Her mouth hung open. She didn’t gasp or sputter. Her arms and legs were lifeless. Her lips were nearly blue and she had a jagged gash on her forehead, but it wasn’t bleeding.

“This is bad,” Helen whispered.

“It doesn’t look good,” Phil said, “but the lifeguards will work on Ceci when they get her on the beach.”

Garcia slid the rescue board under Ceci’s body, while Kim held her face out of the water. Kim took the front of the board, Garcia took the back, and they hauled it toward the shore.

The water was shallow now, only about two feet deep. Spectators crowded closer, watching with avid eyes, as if Ceci’s drowning had been staged for their entertainment.

“Please move,” Kim said to them, with a polite tone Helen didn’t think the ghouls deserved.

In less than three minutes, they were back on the beach. The rescue board had skids and moved easily across the sand. Ceci was still rubbery and slack jawed. One pink-nailed hand flopped over the side. Helen watched closely but didn’t see Ceci’s chest move.

Garcia ran to the red ATV and came back with a thermal blanket and a small plastic suitcase.

“Back off so we can resuscitate this woman. Move, please,” Kim said to the crowd. Sand Castle Daddy gathered up his son’s bucket and toys and carried the boy away. Others were not as courteous.

“Please back off,” Kim said, her voice harder. “Clear the beach. Now.”

The sharp command got through. The gaggle of men and women shuffled back, never stopping their obscene staring.

Kim opened a pouch around her waist and snapped on blue protective latex gloves. Garcia wrapped the blanket around Ceci. Kim placed two hands in the center of her chest and pushed down hard, twice.

“Ow,” said a scrawny tattooed guy with a cigarette butt dangling from his mouth. “Right on the boobs. That’s gotta hurt.”

Daniel turned on Mr. Tattoo, his voice soft with menace. “That’s my wife, asshole,” he said. “Get out. Get out or I’ll kick your ass up between your shoulder blades. This isn’t a show, losers. My wife is in danger. Beat it.”

A large woman in a World’s Best Grandma T-shirt looked ashamed and left. The rest of the crowd slunk farther back. Mr. Tattoo tossed his cigarette butt in the sand but stayed. The crowd had a scruffy, feral look, like a coyote pack.

Kim continued the chest compressions, but Helen didn’t see any sign of life.

Garcia had opened the small suitcase and snapped on his gloves. “The AED is ready,” he said.

“What’s an AED and why is Garcia attaching those wires to Ceci’s chest?” Helen asked.

“That’s an automated external defibrillator,” Phil said. “It’s supposed to help restart her heart.”

“But Kim is still pressing on Ceci’s chest while Garcia uses the AED,” Helen said.

“They’re doing the right thing,” Phil said. “She’s still out cold. Combining an AED with chest compressions and rescue breaths is the best treatment for someone who isn’t breathing.”

“She’s still not breathing,” Helen said.

“Come on, Ceci,” Phil said quietly. “Breathe, dammit.”

But Ceci didn’t move. Her skin was gray under the pink sunburn. Her wet brown hair was a flat cap.

Helen heard a siren now, then another howl as Daniel wailed, “Honeybunch, wake up. Please.”

Ceci could have been a wax doll.

An EMS ambulance slammed to a stop in front of Sunny Jim’s trailer. Four muscular paramedics bounded out, spoke briefly to the lifeguards, then rushed Ceci onto a wheeled stretcher without removing the blanket or the rescue board. The paramedics worked briefly on Ceci. Helen thought they were attaching an oxygen mask, but it was hard to tell.

Seconds later, they hustled her into the ambulance, still trying to revive her.

“Ceci!” Daniel cried. “That’s my wife. Where are you taking her?”

“Riggs Beach General,” a ponytailed woman paramedic shouted as she slammed the ambulance door.

“Where’s that?” Daniel said.

“I’ll drive you,” Sunny Jim said. “Phil, get the boards and lock up. Then meet me at the hospital.” He tossed Phil a set of keys.

“Will do,” Phil said, running toward the trailer.

The ambulance rolled off in a blur of flashing lights and sirens. The feral crowd melted away and left Helen alone on the trampled sand.

A huge wave washed up and wiped out the sand castle, caving in the crenulated towers and taking back its seashells.