Chapter 5

 

“Cyrus, be careful,” Cindy said as Detective Sergeant Cyrus Fleming handed her a five. She opened the cash register, put the five in the appropriate slot, and then handed him back the change without counting.

“It’s okay, just a couple of surf punks fighting. It’s probably over drugs,” Cyrus said as he counted his money, “Besides, Max will be with me if anybody decides to get physical.”

Cindy nodded in response and leaned across the bakery counter. Putting her elbows down on the top and her round, chubby cheeked face in her hands, she said, “I am not worried about you in a fair fight. I’m sure you could handle yourself just fine, especially with those big arms, but these loadies will stab you in the back if you aren’t careful.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“Yea, I was married to one…” She straightened up, and then ran a small hand through her curly black hair, “… until some guy he ripped off showed up at my door with a gun.”

“A gun, wow, what’d you do?”

“Hah, at first I was a little scared, and then I thought about my baby lying in the crib in the next room. The idea of this jerk waving a loaded gun around my kid got me real mad. Funny thing was this skinny junkie was shakin’ more than I was. I snatched the gun out of his hand and stuck the barrel in his mouth. When I pulled back the hammer he wet his pants.”

“If you killed this guy don’t confess it to me, I like you.”

“You do?” Cindy’s face turned red and Cyrus grinned. She slapped her small cleaning tower on the counter and shook her head, “Stop teasing, especially since I really do like you.”

“You do, and why is that? I know-it’s because I like your pastries.”

“No, it’s because I got a thing for blondes, especially tall ones like you.”

“Kind of a superficial reason for liking someone, don’t you think.”

“Cyrus, I said I liked you; I didn’t say I wanted to get married.”

They both laughed aloud. Cyrus stopped laughing and said, “Well did you kill him or not?”

“Who?” She paused, put her finger to her lips, and then continued, “No, no, I eased back the hammer and he ran like the wind. When my old man came back he found all his clothes and stuff spread out on the front lawn. That was the last I saw of him, good riddance-”

The chirp of a squad car siren stopped her short.  “That’ll be Max,” Cyrus said and then he whispered a curse and dumped his coffee, Danish, and a copy of The Messenger into the trash can. As he went out through the open arched doorway, he heard Cindy cry out, “Don’t worry about the Danish, Cyrus, the next one is on the house.”

Once he was outside, he shielded his eyes from the bright California midmorning sun. It was early October, and the thick blankets of fog which usually blocked it out were gone. The bakery’s outside patio tables were empty and directly in front of him, sitting in a squad car, was his square-jawed, muscle-toned partner, Max Stern. “What’s going on, Cyrus?”

Cyrus opened the car door, slid into the passenger side seat, and slammed the door shut. “Sally got a call from someone about a couple of surfers down at Rincon Beach scraping.”

“Rincon? But that’s out of our jurisdiction.”

“Rudy says to take it anyway. County’s got their hands full with a possible triple homicide out on one of the oil rigs and a double homicide in El Capitan.”

“I read about the murder in El Capitan. Some slug killed a married couple in their sleep while the kids watched. But the oil rig incident is different. That happened last week. Paper said it was an accident.”

“County thinks it’s a homicide”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. That’s all Rudy told me,” Cyrus said, “It must be a nasty way to die. They lower those guys onto the helipad riding on a pugh.”

“A pugh, what’s that?”

“It’s a large flat metal disk that has cables attached to it and teepee shaped chained netting. It’s hooked to a main cable on the chopper. The oil crew stands on the flat disk and hangs onto the chained netting while they’re transported from a boat to the oil platform.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s actually safer than having the chopper land on a small platform like Irene. That is as long as the chopper doesn’t drop them.”

“How do you know all that?”

“I read it in The Messenger. I like that column about all the unique jobs, what’s it called?”

Maxed nodded his head, “Occupations around Town, I think.”

“Yeah that’s it.”

Max popped on the single, portable, emergency light and stuck it on the car roof. He pushed the accelerator to the floor and made a quick u-turn. He brushed his dark brown hair out of his eyes, found the toggle switch on the center console, and flicked on the siren to clear the lanes ahead. A few moments later, when the traffic cleared, Cyrus pointed to the siren control and said, “Turn off the stupid siren, will you?”

“Sure, Cyrus.” Max narrowed his blue eyes, shrugged his thick shoulders and turned off the horn.

“All right, sorry, I didn’t get my usual coffee and Danish this morning.”

“Too bad, Anderson’s has the good stuff. I hope you hadn’t already ordered.”

Cyrus looked at Max with face of a hurt dog.

Max nodded, grinned, and then said, “Too bad, who waited on you, Cindy?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh nothing, did she tell you one of her fantastic stories?”

Cyrus smiled, then he said, “Oh yes, she’s good at telling tall tales. I don’t mind. She believes them too, you can tell. She’s a tough one to figure out; I think she was telling the truth this time.”

“That’d be a first. So why didn’t you bring your pastry with you?”

“You know why.”

“Oh right, like we’re going to run into them this morning, what are the chances?”

“I can’t take the chance, Max. How would it look if one of Rudy’s cohorts or one of the patrolmen from the Ventura Police bowling team saw me stuffing my face while riding in a squad car?”

“Yeah you’d be off the team faster than a layoff rumor.”

Max glanced over at Cyrus with grin and then he said, “Maybe you ought to try and cut back a little on the pastries. You know, I go running every morning down by the State Street pier-”

“Good for you, Max, I need for one of us to be in shape. That’s what makes us a good team.” He put a big hand on Max’s shoulder and grinned back.

“How’s that?” Max said.

“I do the brain work and you do the leg work.” He straightened up in his seat. “Where are you going, the station?”

“That’s what Rudy told me to do, bring you back to the station.”

“No, no, turn around and head for Rincon. I’ll call Rudy.” Cyrus pulled out his cell and poked out Rudy’s number on the keypad. He talked with him for a while and hung up. The rookie made a U-turn at the next intersection. He took the south 101 onramp on State Street and got on the freeway.

“I am sure Rudy’s hoping we can get a homicide case to stick this time,” Max said.

 “What? Oh yeah, the Nichols case was pretty embarrassing. We better hope these surf punks aren’t celebrities, otherwise the only way we’ll be able to get a conviction is if we import the jury from Texas.”

“Yeah, finding twelve people in Santa Barbara who won’t fall for psychobabble lies from high priced, celebrity lawyers won’t be easy.”

Cyrus nodded. “Call in an eleven thirty and a nine oh one hotel. Have him meet us at the beach. Did she say which side they were on?”

“North side, by the restrooms and picnic benches. So Cyrus, if you’re calling in Thad you must be thinking we got a murder to investigate.”

“Who says you aren’t ready to be promoted to detective? Rudy told me the eyewitness called in again. She said one of the surfers was still down and not moving. My guess is after this long a time, he’s not breathing either. ”

Max snorted. Cyrus let Max put on the siren again to clear the lane ahead of them. Five minutes later they arrived at Rincon Beach and pulled into the north side parking lot, next to Dana’s Mustang. Max got out first and walked over to the sidewalk and stood in front of the car. “Typical surfer ride, faded pretty badly, like it has spent a lot of days baking at the beach, still in good shape for a ’66.” He called in a ten fifteen check on the license plate-SRFGEEK. “Dana Mathers is the registered owner and he has no outstanding warrants. Funny, this is the only other car in the north side parking lot.”

“Not that unusual, Max,” Cyrus said, “Rincon beach is always deserted this time of year. School is in session, surf is probably flat-which is why no one’s ditching school to be here-and the Moms with young kids don’t like the rip current. They go to Carpentaria.”

Max shrugged his shoulders.

“Did you note any other cars parked in the south parking lot when we drove by?”

“I thought I spotted a green Mini Cooper with the top down. You want me to check?”

“Not now, we’ll inspect the car when we come back, if it’s still here. Let’s go.”

They started down the wooden steps on the south end leading to the beach. “What a rotten way to start the day, investigating a fight between a couple of drugged up surf bums,” Cyrus muttered as  he stepped slowly down the rickety stair. Physical exertion always made Cyrus cranky.

 Max stood on the steps above, “Isn’t Mathers that famous surfing champion from Ventura?”

“Yes, well at least he used to be. All the girls were crazy over this guy a few years ago, before he injured his back.  But since his accident, he’s quit competing, gone to school, and toned down his image a lot. He now works for Chevron.”

“How do you know so much about everyone? You’ve only been here a few years.”

“I only know what I read in the papers.”

“Kind of ironic, I guess, now the respectable version of Mathers may end up a murder suspect.”   

“Yes, it’s like I always say, you can take the surf out of the surf bum, but you can’t take the bum out of the surf bum.”

“That wasn’t funny. In fact I am not sure if it even made sense.”

“All surfers are bums. They’re either hooked on booze or drugs or the adrenalin rush from surfing, and incapable of self control.” Cyrus huffed back, his breath shortened from each step he took.

  Max passed by Cyrus on the pathway alongside the stairs. He got to the bottom at least twenty steps ahead of Cyrus, who was holding his hand to his chest and taking deep breaths.

“Someone’s down at the northern most end of the beach, in front of the causeway.” Max pointed toward Kelsey and Dana. “And by the edge of the cliff wall is the large piece of driftwood where the witness said the perp hid the bat. I’ll search for it there.”

After what seemed like forever to Cyrus, he reached the place on the beach where Kelsey and Dana stood, next to her brother’s corpse, lying face down in the water. He pulled out his wallet and showed them his badge. Dana nodded. Cyrus stood motionless, and stared at the couple without saying a word. He wheezed several times in an effort to catch his breath and glanced over at the Mike’s body. The victim appeared to be a thin man with wiry, black, hair, and medium height, much shorter than the blonde haired man standing in front of him. He would guess his height to be about six foot three, at least. For a moment, he gazed at Kelsey, whose head lay on Dana’s chest, tears streamed down her face.

 “Is she all right?” Cyrus asked, finally.

“No, she’s upset.” Dana pointed at the corpse with a quick motion, “Her brother, Mike Tanner drowned.”

 “My name is Detective Fleming, Cyrus Fleming; and what are your names?”

“I’m Dana Mathers and this is Kelsey Tanner.”

“You related to Jack Tanner, the oilman?”

Kelsey stopped crying and wiped her eyes. “I am his daughter.”

Cyrus knelt down next to the body and examined his head. He felt a large patch of the corpse’s black hair in the back of his skull congealed together from dried blood. Surfers often break their heads on rocks out here, not often enough to suit me, he said to himself. If we hadn’t got the call from our witness, this would have probably been declared an accident. He hasn’t been dead too long, maybe an hour judging by the amount of rigor in his body and the spots on the whites of his eyes. Thad will be able to determine the exact time. Cyrus stood back up with a grunt and brushed the sand from his knees. Looking at Dana and Kelsey he said, “We got a call about a big fight on this beach between two surfers. Have either of you seen anyone fighting?”

“No, we’ve only arrived here about ten minutes ago. Kelsey spotted Mike’s body.”

“A moment ago you said Mike drowned. What makes you so certain?”

“Well, we assumed that was what happened. He is wearing his wet suit. We thought he had smashed his head on some rocks and then drowned.”

Cyrus stared at him as though he were a doctor examining a patient.

“Yes, funny thing about your conclusion, this is the north side of Rincon, nothing here but soft sandy beach-no rocks. Could you please hold out at your hands?”

Dana reluctantly extended his hands for inspection.

“Why do you want to check my hands?”

 “To determine whether or not you’re lying. Well, your ring finger knuckle is swollen, and it also appears the smallest knuckle has been scraped on something because it is scabbed over.”

“I hurt my hand this morning changing the rear tire on my car.”

 “What do you know about what happened here?”

“Nothing. Kelsey was here with me when I arrived; she will tell you. When we got here, he was already dead.”

“He’s right detective.” Kelsey said, stepping away slowly from Dana’s embrace.

“Have you two been together all morning?”

“No, I picked Kelsey up at around 9:00am.”

Cyrus nodded and took out his notepad. While he was writing, the SB County Coroner, Thaddeus Colbert, walked past the three of them silently. From the corner of his eye, Cyrus watched as Thad knelt down next to Mike’s body. Cyrus had always got along well with Thad. He was a young, short, thin, mostly bald, bug-eyed man. He had a small, round, head and fine, doll like facial features. Carrying a large, black, old fashioned doctor’s bag, he appeared intimidating, even for a man of his diminutive statue. He wore an immaculate flat-green trench coat and black, spit-shined dress shoes. Taking out a handful of cotton swabs and a syringe, Colbert looked up at Kelsey and narrowed his eyes. “You may not want to watch,” he said, “I have to be a little disrespectful to the deceased to do my job, sorry.”

Kelsey turned away. Two tall, thin, EMTs walked past her carrying a stretcher. They stopped when they got to Thad and put it down a few feet from Mike’s corpse.

Cyrus ceased writing in his notepad. “Can you tell if he had been taking any drugs?”

“My brother never took drugs!” Kelsey shouted.

Dana stared at Cyrus with narrowed eyes.

Thad nodded his head and was about to speak when Max called out from behind the large, tree-trunk sized, driftwood where he had been searching, “Found it, Cyrus.” He held up a blue, wooden, souvenir baseball bat with a black handle and a barely visible LA Dodgers logo. 

Max put the wooden club into a large, clear, plastic bag and brought over to Cyrus. Carefully examining the club’s length, he found small splotches of blood along the handle and at the end was an outline of a big spot of blood. They didn’t do a very thorough job cleaning off the blood, he said to himself.  They didn’t even use bleach. I thought by now everyone knew about using bleach to get rid of blood traces, thanks to all those goofy forensic science shows on TV. The person who did this was definitely frightened and in a big hurry. Looks like something a drugged up  surf bum would do. Detective Fleming turned to Dana and held the bat up to him and said, “You ever seen this bat before?”

“I have one in my car I keep under my seat for protection.”

“Protection from whom?”

“Well, no one in particular. I used to live a few blocks south of Stanley Road just off of Ventura Avenue. It’s a pretty rough neighborhood.”

“Oh yes, right, that is a dangerous area, lots of gangs … surfers too.” responded Cyrus. “We have a problem here, Dana. An eyewitness called our dispatcher and said she saw a tall, blonde-haired, man fighting with another shorter, dark-haired man on this beach. She also said the blonde haired man was swinging a blue, black-handled bat at the other man. Now when we arrive, we find a tall, blonde-haired, man, that being you, with scraped and swollen knuckles, standing over the corpse of a dark-haired fellow.  And we find a black handled souvenir bat with blood on it hidden in the sand behind some driftwood. When did you and Kelsey get here?”

“I told you before; we’ve been here about ten minutes at the most.”

“You’re sure you’ve been here ten minutes?”

“Ten minutes.”

Cyrus looked over toward Kelsey for confirmation and noticed she was watching Colbert extract fluids from her brother’s eye. After a moment, she groaned and passed out. Dana caught her before she dropped to the ground. Cyrus motioned to Max, “Take this young lady to the ambulance and get her medical attention.”

Max gently took Kelsey from Dana and with the help of the EMTs, placed her on the stretcher and started for the stairway at the south end of the beach.

“You stay with me, Dana” Cyrus put out his large hand and stopped him, “Let’s go to where your car is parked. I want you to show me the baseball bat under the seat.” Cyrus motioned Dana to go northward, in the opposite direction of where the E.T.s were taking Kelsey. It was a more direct, though seldom used, route that led back up to the parking lot. Dana picked up his small backpack and followed Cyrus through the sand. They carefully walked around Mike’s corpse, bagged and tagged and surrounded by yellow police tape. One of Thad’s men circled the area taking pictures.

Soon, they came to the foot of the sandy beach cliff and a grey, wooden stairway that led up to the parking lot and Dana’s car. Cyrus started up the steep set of steps with a grunt of displeasure. He had not anticipated having to be so active this early in the morning. This stairway is even steeper than the one on the south side, he complained to himself. By the time they reached the top, Cyrus was wheezing and coughing like a junked out diesel. He paused for a moment and caught his breath as Dana climbed up the stairs; he was already several paces ahead of him. He noted that although Dana was moving up the stairs quickly, his gait was unnatural and he had to use the handrail to lift up his left leg at each step.

By the time they crossed the small field of rubbery, green, ice plant that lay between the cliff’s edge and the sidewalk in front of the parking lot, Cyrus had recovered enough to talk,

“You have a fine, classic car. I had one like it when I was your age. It was a navy blue convertible with a white top. Unfortunately for me, I am old enough to have bought mine when it was relatively new.”

“This car is actually not a classic anymore,” Dana replied, “It’s an antique.”

Cyrus, standing near the front of the Mustang, gave him a weak smile. He didn’t like sarcasm except when he used it. While Dana opened its door and felt around under the seat for his souvenir bat, Cyrus stood on the sidewalk in front of the car. After several minutes of searching under all the seats, Dana walked to the back   and opened the trunk. Stepping down from the sidewalk, Cyrus went around behind him. Dana pushed aside a small, red tool box and a sports bag full of towels, surfboard wax, and a wetsuit from one side of the trunk to the other. He lifted the cover to the spare tire. As Dana hunted around for the bat, Cyrus noted that the spare was in good shape. There was no blood on the lug wrench either. It was possible, barely possible, he could have had the spare repaired and the tire changed and made it back to the beach.  He figured he was lying about the spare too. He thought about having Max check it out, but it probably didn’t matter. There was enough evidence already.

Dana glanced back at Cyrus and shrugged his shoulders. “I must have left it at home, the bat is not here.”

Cyrus walked over to the trunk of the car and stood next to Dana, who was still searching through the contents of the interior, as if he were hoping the bat would suddenly appear. Pulling out a small notebook and pen, Cyrus leaned his backside against the rear of the car and jotted down a few notes. When he had finished, he motioned for Dana to stand back from the car. Then he reached up and closed the trunk.

He went back to his spot on the side of the Mustang, “And what is your relationship to Kelsey?”

“We’re engaged.”

Cyrus paused from his writing. Sounds like the surf star needs money, he said to himself. He put away his notebook and continued, “Tell me, Dana, how’s the pay at Chevron these day?”

“That’s none of your business. But I do ok.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said as he patted the fender of the Mustang, “I guess you do.”

“Well, I am no millionaire; I’ve only been with company about two years.”

“Getting hitched to Jack Tanner’s daughter will make you a millionaire. So how did you manage to meet Kelsey Tanner? Not exactly the kind of girl you usually run with, is it?”

“Go to hell. It’s none of your business how I met Kelsey Tanner.”

“Settle down. You’re right I was out of line.” Cyrus took out his pen and notebook, “When was the last time you saw Mike alive?”

“Yesterday morning, I think.”

Cyrus detected a fearful glimmer in his eyes. He’s hiding something, he said to himself.

“Where?” The volume of Cyrus’s voice increased slightly.

“At Surfer’s Park, in Ventura”

“Anybody else around?”

“Half of Ventura, the surf was great, everybody was going out.”

“What time?”

“I am not sure, early, probably seven or so.”

“So what did Mike think of you being engaged to his sister?”

 “He didn’t know we were engaged, I just proposed to her about twenty minutes ago.”

“Well did he like the idea of you going out with his sister?”

Dana said nothing and broke eye contact with him.

“Did you get into an argument with him, maybe over Kelsey?”

“Yeah, he started showing off in front of some of our friends. He called me a cripple and said I should be dating other cripples, not his sister.”

“That would have made me angry. I would have hit him for saying that myself. Is that how you scraped your knuckles?”

“No, I told you, I was changing a tire this morning on the way over to Kelsey’s.”

“How did you get it repaired so quickly? The spare in your trunk is in perfect condition.”

“Oh yeah, I made a mistake, I changed the tire yesterday morning.”

 “You hurt your knuckles on Mike’s chin didn’t you?”

“No, I told you, we exchanged some harsh words.”

“Did you threaten him?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Did you threaten to kill him?”

“No, I mean, I said we had some words. I was just angry, I didn’t mean it.”

“You threatened him?”

 Dana nodded his head, “But I didn’t kill Mike. I just told him to mind his own business.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I pushed him.”

“I thought you just had words? Are you lying again? How hard did push him? Did you knock him down?”

“Yeah, I pushed him and he went down. He wasn’t hurt and I didn’t lie; I didn’t hit him with my fist, not once.”

“Knocking someone down is having more than words. What did he do after you pushed him?”

“He got up and took a few swings at me. He missed. Then he lunged at me. I grabbed his hands and held him down for a few moments until Rogue and Gnome broke us apart.”

“What are their real names?”

“Rick Starling, he’s a Ventura County Sheriff, and Roger Martinez, he’s a lawyer.”

“Did the sheriff witness the fight?” Cyrus continued as he wrote down the names Dana had given him.

“Am I under arrest? I want a lawyer. I don’t have to answer anymore questions, do I?”

 “No you don’t have to answer any more questions until we get to the police station and you have a lawyer present. I am placing you under arrest for suspicion of the murder of Mike Tanner. Let’s go.” Cyrus said taking Dana by the arm firmly.

“All right,” Dana rubbed the sweat from his face.  “At least let me change into my pants and shirt.”

 “You have your clothes?”

“They’re over there, in my backpack.” He pointed to the bag lying on the sidewalk.

Cyrus nodded, let go of Dana’s arm, and after studying the shape of Dana’s scar for a moment or two, said, “That’s a pretty bad scar you got on your back; how did you get it?”

“I fell off my surfboard.”

Cyrus walked with Dana over to the men’s room and waited while he changed back into his street clothes. After he dressed, Cyrus read him his rights; he decided not to cuff him. One of the privileges of being a Detective Sergeant was that one did not always have to follow department policy. He wanted to see if Dana would try to escape. Instead of running, Dana looked Cyrus square in the eyes.

“I didn’t kill Mike.” He said calmly.

“You are not being charged with murder-yet. I am taking you in for questioning.”

Cyrus led him to his squad car. The coroner and Max walked up to Cyrus while he was helping Dana get into the back seat. Colbert spoke first.

“He wasn’t drowned. His lungs are normal. There are no signs of stress associated with asphyxiation. Diatoms in his lungs don’t match the environment.”

Cyrus cast Thad a blank look and held out his hands.

“Please translate that into English.” Cyrus retrieved his small notepad and a pen to write down Thad’s response.

“Diatoms are a type of algae. We check to see if the algae in the water match the algae in the victim’s body.”

“If they don’t match?”

“It means he was dead before he hit the water. Apparently he died from a blow to the back of the head with a blunt instrument, like a baseball bat. There are several large spots of blood-clotted sand on the beach near the victim.”

“What was the time of death?”

“From the amount of rigor in the body I’d say the time of death was about two hours ago, around eight or eight thirty this morning. I took fluid samples from the back of the eyes. That’s what I was doing when the young lady passed out. It’s a new, accurate method. We’ll analyze the samples in the lab to confirm it. I’ll let you know more details after the autopsy.”

“Thanks Colbert.” Cyrus closed his notebook and put his pen in his pocket. He raised his hand to his forehead and called out,

“One more thing, Thad.”

“Yes”

“The name of the victim’s father is Jack Tanner.”

“I heard of him. He owns TANOCO, right?

“Right, get someone to send a couple of men over to his place to let him know what’s happened?”

“As soon as I get back to the station.”

Colbert drove off following the ambulance carrying Mike’s corpse out of the parking lot. A large, white, tow truck with a flat bed passed them going the opposite way and pulled up close to Cyrus’ squad car. The driver was wearing a Dodger’s baseball cap and his hair was pulled back into a pony tail. He was tan, and looked to be about twenty-five. He was wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt covered with images of large yellow flowers. He had a passenger with him, the homeless man from the fight. Cyrus noticed Dana wave to him, “Friend of yours?”

“Not really, I met him at the beach yesterday.”

 The homeless man leaned back in his seat and took a swig from his paper bag, then started singing softly, in a high, falsetto voice,

“Bad boy, bad boy, watcha ya gonna do, watcha ya gonna do when they come for you…”

The tow truck driver got out and came around to the other side of the truck where Max and Cyrus were standing.

“Where’s the car?” 

 “The car is over on the south parking lot. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it, it’s the only car in the lot, a green convertible Cooper,” Max said.

“Hold on!” Cyrus yelled over to Max. “What’s the hurry with the car? Have you checked it out?”

“Don’t worry, Cyrus.” He held up a garbage bag and continued, “I have all the things that were in his trunk, right here. I’ll bring them back to the station. The forensics guy said he wanted to take the car in to do some special blood tests. He said he could only do them with the special equipment back at the lab. ”

The driver, stammering and shaking as he spoke, asked Max, “Where am I taking it?”

“Santa Barbara Police impounded vehicle lot; our trucks are all out boosting cars parked illegally on the beach. Do you know where the lot is?”

“Yeah, I used to work for the city.”

The driver climbed quickly back into the truck and drove off. Cyrus closed the back door of the squad car after Dana got in, still un-handcuffed. He got in to the driver’s side of the car and rolled down the window. Looking up, he called out to Max, “I called in another squad car and told them to pick you up. I need you to go to Ventura and see if you can find out about a fight between Dana Mathers and the deceased. Happened yesterday morning, early, about 7:30 am.”

“Sure thing, Cyrus, any ideas where to start?”

“Start with Rick Starling; he’s a Ventura County Sheriff.”

As Cyrus drove out of the parking lot toward the freeway onramp, Dana leaned forward and spoke through the window separating the front seat from the back, “What about Kelsey?”

 “We’ll bring her in for questioning as soon as the doctor at Community Memorial says she is ok.”

“Kelsey will tell you she was with me from eight thirty this morning until now. How was I supposed to kill Mike when I was with her?”

“Maybe you killed him at eight and went back to Ventura to pick her up; it’s only ten minutes from here early in the morning before rush hour. Maybe she was with you when you killed him. She may have wanted Mike dead too. Maybe he tried to pick a fight with you again and you just over reacted, I don’t know, you tell me.”

“You’re crazy. In the first place Kelsey loved Mike and would never hurt him. I don’t know what happened to Mike. I just know all I did this morning was get up and get dressed. I picked up Kelsey at the hospital and drove out here to Rincon. Then we found Kelsey’s brother lying on the beach, dead.”

 “An eyewitness says she can identify the man who was standing over Mike’s corpse holding a blue handled bat. If you aren’t the man we’re after, she’ll tell us.”

“There are at least a hundred tall, blonde haired surfers in Santa Barbara. She’s just mixed up, Detective.”

Cyrus nodded in agreement. But, he said to himself, there aren’t a million blonde haired surfers who know the deceased and have a publicly known grudge against him. And there aren’t a hundred blonde haired surfers who were at the scene of the murder. Most importantly, there aren’t a hundred blonde haired surfers who have a long scar, shaped like a hook that runs from the base of the neck to the middle of their back just like the eyewitness described. And you lied about the last time you saw Mike Tanner. We got our man; Rudy will be happy.

The detective turned on to the freeway ramp and sped up to merge. He didn’t ask Dana another question. To make sure Dana didn’t get off on a technicality, he decided to wait until after he was formally charged and had a lawyer, before he questioned him any further.

When Cyrus checked his review, he saw Dana sitting back in his seat and staring up at the car ceiling.