THE PHANTOM PHOTOGRAPHER
Book 3- Murder in Marin Mysteries
Signal Press
eBook ISBN: 978-1-942052-58-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-942052-59-3
Distributed via Ingram Spark/Baker & Taylor
CHAPTER ONE
Uphill from Louise Fitzsimmons’ Mill Valley home, the shooter had quietly created a comfortable nest. While enjoying the crisp air of a brisk early morning in a heavily wooded canyon surrounded by the bracing scent of pines, the marksman had found the perfect spot to commit a murder.
A Mauser M98 rifle equipped with a scope was the assassin’s weapon of choice. A relaxed manner, an adequately sited target, and a steady squeeze of the trigger were equally essential to achieving the shooter’s desired result.
This would have to be a kill shot: one high-velocity bullet placed in the back of the target’s head. For the experienced shooter, this was a simple act: taking one life and hopefully saving another.
The rifle’s retort sent a sharp crack that echoed along the curves and ridges of the canyon. For those awake, it instantly caught their attention. A sudden bang, followed by a discomforting silence.
“Was that a gunshot?” A few people asked whomever they were near or thought in silence. But the quiet following that sudden sharp crack eased their concerns. Most dismissed the unusual sound as a brief moment that signified nothing.
It was Friday, the last work and school day of the week would begin in less than two hours. Whether showering to get ready for the day or trying to rouse children to get dressed for school and then come to the kitchen for a rushed breakfast, everyone aware of the unexpected sound was too busy to give much thought to what was likely some idiot shooting at a squirrel, or a bird. Perhaps, it was nothing more than one of the affluent town’s vintage automobiles backfiring.
The rifle had a registration that led nowhere. Far better to leave it for the police to find in the hours after the murder than to risk being spotted by a neighbor carrying a rifle, or equally troubling, a gun tucked inside a case. The deed was done to perfection. Now was the time to leave creating little if any suspicion.
*****
When Louise Fitzsimmons’ alarm woke her one hour later, she wondered if sometime earlier she had heard a bang followed by a thump. This had to be a fragment of an earlier, and now, forgotten dream. Sleepily she walked in aging slippers into her kitchen and poured water into a small coffeemaker.
Shortly past nine, she was dressed and ready to leave for a two-day stay at her friend’s home in Santa Cruz, the widow Fitzsimmons looked outside and was pleased to see her tenant’s vehicle parked on the deck’s carport.
Like most of the homes built into the side of one of Mill Valley’s steep canyons, her house stood on a deck that was a combination of wood and metal supports that descended twenty feet or more into cement anchors secured into the hillside. To a visitor, it might appear to be a precarious arrangement, but her home had survived, as had her neighbors’ homes, through heavy winter rains, high winds, and the occasional earthquake.
Louise walked along a narrow portion of the deck that led from her front door to her guest unit where she rang the doorbell. There was no response. She was surprised, but not concerned. Her tenant, Michael Marks, was most often awake an hour or more before her, but rarely left for his job at Walt’s Camera Shop until shortly before its daily opening time of ten o’clock. Perhaps today, as he did on occasion, he walked the mile plus down to his job on Miller Avenue.
Goodwill had scheduled a pickup for nine on Saturday morning to pick up her donation of two-floor lamps and a wingback chair. Louise wanted to leave the key to her place so the few items could be carried away. Louise went back to her unit, placed her spare front door key in an envelope with a note attached to the front and used her passkey to enter Michael’s rental unit planning to leave it under the lamp that sat on a small table near the entryway.
Over many years, Michael had rented her in-law suite the two had grown close. He would do small favors for her, and she, in turn, for him. They exchanged generous and thoughtful gifts at Christmas and each other’s birthdays. She gave him modest rent increases, and he always paid the monthly rent in cash on the first day of every month. They both lived separate lives, but they were there for each other when needed.
For a second time, she rang Michael’s front doorbell, then knocked twice, and finally entered using her master key. Immediately, Louise smelled coffee that had been brewed, evidence that her tenant had not spent the night out. Then she noticed the door to the outside patio was slightly ajar. He must be enjoying the fresh air out on the sundeck and didn’t hear my knock or the doorbell, she thought.
She froze in place for a moment when she saw what she assumed were legs splayed across the deck. A cold chill went through her slight, aging frame.
Oh, my God!
For many years, she had feared, given Michael’s obesity, that one day he would be felled by a heart attack. Might this have been that day?
With two more hesitant steps forward, Louise saw the pool of dark red blood that covered a portion of the rental unit’s sundeck. At that very moment, Mrs. Fitzsimmon’s scream became the second unexpected sound shattering the peace of the canyon that morning.
CHAPTER TWO
Five minutes later Louise was still shaking when a Mill Valley patrol car pulled onto the parking deck adjacent to the Fitzsimmon’s home. Louise walked out and fell sobbing into the arms of Lieutenant Sarah Lauerman.
“Why would he do something like this? He seemed so happy?” She asked. Louise had known Sarah since she was age ten selling Girl Scout Cookies door to door. Sarah slowly walked Louise back into her home. She stayed with her until she was calm enough to allow her to step out and see the scene next door for herself. Stopping at the doorway leading out to the porch, Sarah could already see that the victim had suffered a massive and fatal head wound. Not wanting to disturb what might be a possible crime scene, she immediately requested that dispatch place two calls, one to the sheriff’s department and the other to the county’s medical examiner.
*****
When Detective Eddie Austin of the Marin County Sheriff’s Department arrived, ten minutes later, he introduced himself to the grieving landlady and nodded a greeting to Sarah, whom he had met previously.
“Mrs. Fitzsimmons, I need to borrow Lieutenant Lauerman for a moment, would you excuse us?”
“Oh yes, of course, I’m just so upset. I can’t stop shaking.”
“That’s perfectly understandable Mrs. Fitzsimmons,” Eddie said calmly as he patted her back gently.
Leading Sarah out onto the home’s front deck he asked, “Is the victim a relative?”
“No. But she has known him for over twenty-five years. His name is Michael Marks; I think everyone in town knows him.”
“Marks? Wow! I know him too. He’s the big, heavyset guy who provides; I should say provided, photos of Mill Valley for several years to my buddy Rob Timmons, who publishes The Standard. I met him two or three times at local events. Always had that big camera hanging around his neck. Quirky kind of character.”
“He's been the town’s unofficial photographer for as long as I can remember. I was a student in the fourth grade over at the old Mt. Carmel Church School when Marks came in to take pictures of us for some project we were doing. I don’t remember the project but I sure remember Marks, he was a real character.”
“I better go take a look.”
“Eddie, I just wanted to tell you,” Sarah said as she reached out and placed her hand around his arm to pull him in closer, “it’s a real mess over there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t want to get close enough to feel for a pulse.”
“That bad?”
“From what I can tell, between what appears to be bone and brain matter and a bucket’s worth of blood, whatever killed Michael Marks happened in a hurry.”
“You think he put a gun to his head?”
“If he did, it was no small caliber gun. And if it was a shotgun he used on himself, it vanished, because there is no weapon that I saw out there. Not that I was trying very hard to get a good look if you know what I mean.”
“You ask Mrs. Fitzsimmons if she heard anything?”
“She thought she heard a bang before awakening, but she has no real idea what time that might have occurred. She says her alarm went off at eight-thirty and she went over to Marks’ place less than an hour later. She had made plans to head down to Santa Cruz for a couple of nights to visit a friend; she wanted to leave him a key to her place for a pickup that's been scheduled for tomorrow.”
“It’s a safe guess that this happened between seven and eight-thirty this morning. Likely one or more of the neighbors heard something, even if they saw nothing.
“Eddie, besides not wanting to disturb a likely crime scene, after what little I did see out there, I was afraid I might not sleep for a month if I got a closer look.”
“I understand, Sarah. Don’t worry; your secret is safe with me. Other than the rare occasion when a car plunges off one of the roads along Mount Tam, working in Marin doesn’t prepare you for events of extreme violence.”
*****
Eddie’s first thought as he stepped out onto the deck was Sarah had not exaggerated in the least.
“What is this? Baghdad by the bay?” a familiar voice said from behind him.
Eddie turned to see his friend, Max Brownstein, the county’s medical examiner.
“Max, what are you doing here? You don’t normally leave the office.”
“I was on my way back to San Rafael from San Francisco after an early morning meeting of regional medical examiners, when the call about this shooting came in. It sounded intriguing, so I thought I would take a look.”
Max unbuttoned his suit jacket and placed his hands on his hips. “My God Eddie, look at this mess, clean up on aisle five.”
Always astounded by Max’s macabre sense of humor, Eddie smiled and said, “It certainly isn’t your usual Marin County murder scene.”
“You mean the one where the philandering husband gets banged over the head with an iron skillet?”
“Exactly.”
Max said, “Well, you’re right about that,” as he ambled around the body and then along the perimeter of the deck, careful not to step into a congealed puddle of blood that extended out in a scattered pattern.
“The victim had no idea what hit him,” Eddie said shaking his head in wonder.
“I just heard a story at this morning’s conference about a group of construction workers at a building site for a new high-rise in Manhattan. One of the crane’s balance weights broke free and came falling out of the sky. One very unlucky worker took a direct hit. BOOM,” Max said in a low roar as he slapped one of his hands down on the other. “Just like a fly, you would swat while it was walking across your kitchen table.”
Max paused and bent over Michael’s body, casually examining what he could only assume was massive damage to the victim’s skull. A ceramic coffee mug, broken into a half dozen pieces, was scattered near the body leaving a different pattern of stains.
“Whack,” Max said, looking up at Eddie. “Your victim never saw it coming. Just out here enjoying an early morning cup of coffee and some fresh air. Life can end in a moment.”
“Except rather than having a concrete block falling out of the sky, I think this fellow took a direct hit from a rifle shot to the back of the head. Probably from a shooter positioned right up there,” Eddie said, pointing to a wooded area that was on an undeveloped side lot of a home along Rose Avenue.
“Agreed. We’ve got signs of an exit wound from the forehead,” Max said looking discouraged. "But given the thin spindles on the deck’s railing, I guess whatever was left of the bullet when it exited the victim’s skull, is somewhere out there. You can have a couple of your deputies search, but good luck finding anything in all the debris these redwoods drop year round.”
“Agreed. We’ll take a look with metal detectors, but I’m not expecting that we’ll find any bullet fragments down there. Perhaps we’ll have some luck using a metal detector. We might get lucky, however, and find a shell casing up canyon just below Rose.”
“We both have our jobs to do. I’ve got some people coming down to tag and bag the victim. I’ll have more specifics for you when we get the victim cleaned and get a close look at the entry and exit wounds. Jeez, what an awful way to start your day.”
“Do you mean for the victim or us Max?”
“All of the above.”
(c) 2018 Martin Brown. All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the publisher, Signal Press ([email protected])