Rip Tide (A Ripple Effect Cozy Mystery, Book 2) (25 page)

Regina had been silent like I had, still brooding about the dressing-down she'd received from her father, I'd guess. She looked as if the bartender had slipped a mickey in her peach margarita and I had to nudge her to bring her out of her stupor. She recovered quickly and replied, "For one thing, Milo, I thought you surely knew about it, and I was angry you hadn't discussed it with me. This morning was the first I'd heard about it, too. And I didn't have time to say anything about it earlier today. You got home ten minutes before we had to leave to arrive here by five."

"I'm sorry, Reg. I was kept in the dark about our blossoming financial woes. Cooper never said much to me about the bills and payments. I knew very little about the money side of the business. That was Coop's wheelhouse and I trusted him. Foolishly, of course, but I didn't realize it at the time. I was more of the hands-on partner. Cooper was rarely on site, unless I needed a helping hand to get a project finished. Just like I needed on Saturday morning, but I assumed Coop was with Uncle Charlie."

As Milo spoke, our waitress was passing out plates of delectable-looking food. The aroma had my stomach growling. We spent the next forty minutes lingering over our supper. Milo looked drained and emotional, so I was relieved when Rip chose not to continue the conversation after we'd finished our meals. Instead he hugged Regina, and put his arm around Milo as he said, "Let's talk tomorrow, son. We'll drop by after breakfast. Keep your head up, Milo. We're here for you and Regina and will do whatever it takes to help."

As I got in the truck and fastened my seatbelt, I wondered how much "whatever it takes" was going to cost us. Not only in money, but in blood, sweat, and tears, as well.

Chapter 15

I got up with the chickens the following morning. After a cup of coffee, I walked over to the campground pool to swim a few laps and get some much-needed exercise. While I'd been over-working my brain, I'd been under-working my body. I left a note next to the coffeemaker so Rip wouldn't be concerned at my absence when he crawled out of bed. I knew he'd tossed and turned half the night and was, at last, dead asleep when I quietly slipped out from under the covers. Under normal circumstances, Rip beat me up nearly every day. (And that's something you want to be careful saying lest you get your husband arrested for spousal abuse.)

After an hour of water aerobics and laps, I returned to the Chartreuse Caboose to find Rip reading the
Corpus Christi Times
. He had walked to the campground office and bought one from the paper machine out front. He glanced up at me, and said, "This article I just read says despite the best efforts of the investigating team, no perpetrator has been arrested in the murder case of the fifty-two year-old Rockport construction worker. It goes on to say the DNA report on some skin found under the victim's fingernail came back matching that of the victim's. My guess, Claypool probably scratched a mosquito bite or something."

"Does the article say if they found any useful trace evidence at all?" I asked.

"No, what little trace evidence they'd been able to recover was all attributed to Claypool, so the results were of no benefit to the case, according to Sheriff Peabody. Then the article states the only suspect under investigation at this time was the victim's business partner, but so far they'd been unable to discover any non-circumstantial evidence against him. Didn't mention Milo's name, but everyone in town knows who they're referring to. Real subtle, huh?"

Rip's aggravation with the media was apparent, and I wasn't happy with them either. The evening news the night before had also indicated Milo was the main suspect. The reporters obviously had no credible information to share, so they threw Milo under the bus, probably in order to appease the public with some kind of update and make their assignment newsworthy. If the evidence against Milo was as overwhelming as the media had been implying, he'd already be under arrest for first-degree murder."

"That's not fair! It's just plain wrong to drag someone's character through the mud when there's no concrete evidence to prove they're guilty of the crime. They should have to wait until they have substantial proof against a suspect before they can denigrate him in newspaper articles and television broadcasts," I said indignantly. "It's no different than when some kid accuses a teacher of some form of abuse; physical, verbal, sexual or otherwise. The media never seems to take into account the child might have just wanted to get back at the teacher for giving their pathetic book report a failing grade. The poor teacher's life is turned upside down and his integrity and character are irreparably destroyed before his innocence can be verified."

"Calm down, sweetheart. I totally agree with you, but I'm not awake enough yet to be up in arms about it, or anything else," Rip said. He pulled out the chair across from where he'd been sitting at the kitchen table and urged me to take a seat while he poured me a glass of orange juice. He must have instinctively known I had far exceeded my morning quota of caffeine. Perhaps the only clues he needed were my bugged-out eyes, flailing arms, and the incensed exclamations erupting from my mouth during my rant against the media.

We sipped on our juice as we exchanged sections of the newspaper. I read an article about the diminishing amount of oysters being harvested in Aransas Bay. The oystermen were only averaging fifteen to twenty bags full per commercial boat. The article stated the season was November first to April thirtieth coast-wide in Texas. "Aransas Bay, once a plentiful source of oysters, has been over-harvested for so long, the beds are about gone. A poor oyster harvest isn't only tough on me, it's hard on the local economy too," a local boat owner named Philip Bean was quoted as saying.

There was a black and white photo of the oysterman but the sun was behind him, silhouetting Mr. Bean's body and making his features hard to distinguish. More of his statements were included in the article. "I've been working my crew hard, trying to dredge up enough oysters to keep the operation running. But between the fuel and the help, I'm barely breaking even this season. I'm about to the point of begging a few adventuresome tourists to go out with me just for the experience of harvesting oysters."

I sat back and thought about this article for a few minutes. My mind wasn't nearly as sharp as it'd been fifteen to twenty years ago. Or, more honestly, even fifteen or twenty days ago; my memory seemed a tad bit fuzzier with each and every revolution of the sun. But I knew the name Philip sounded familiar. I thought perhaps Rip might have a lot more brain cells left than I did, so I asked, "Honey, do you remember the name Milo gave us for that third fishing buddy of his and Cooper's? Wasn't it Philip?"

"What third fishing buddy?"

"Never mind." So much for Rip having an overabundance of brain cells to throw around. Granted, we both were holding on to a corpse at the time Milo was talking about this friend of his. Still, the name Philip rang a bell with me. I recalled Milo telling us that he and Cooper had a friend who bought a spear-gun at the same sporting expo as they had. They called this man Pinto, as in pinto
beans
, and Philip's last name was indeed Bean, according to the article I'd just read. And now I realized that when Milo said Pinto didn't have time to fish this time of year because he was "out in his boat working from daybreak to dusk," he almost certainly was saying Pinto was a commercial oyster harvester.

What are the odds this Philip Bean is the third of
the three stooges? For that matter, what are the odds this so-called friend of Milo and Cooper's called Pinto was
involved in Cooper Claypool's murder
? I wondered.
And was this fellow in the newspaper article serious when he said he'd like tourists to help him in exchange for the experience of harvesting oysters?

Suddenly there was nothing I wanted to do more than experience firsthand the art of harvesting oysters!

* * *

Needless to say, Rip was less enthusiastic than I about the opportunity to learn how oyster boats operated. When I explained my reasoning, he rolled his eyes and asked, "Have you lost what few marbles you had left? There's an impressive fleet of oyster and shrimp boats moored in Fulton Marina. It's beyond me how you came to the conclusion that the Philip Bean in that newspaper article is the third friend the boys called Pinto. Have you been into the cooking sherry again, sweetheart? Sniffing the crazy glue? I'm serious, Rapella. You're grasping at straws now."

"What?" I couldn't believe Rip had said that after all the leads I had uncovered in our private investigation of Claypool's death. He acted as if he thought I'd become a Loony Tune; Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. He quickly endorsed that impression with, "I'm afraid you're losing it, sister."

The fact Rip had the habit of calling any man who was younger than him "boy" usually tickled my funny bone, but none of my bones were laughing this time. And whenever he referred to me as "sister," I knew he was annoyed. But it didn't shut me up this time because I was now more annoyed at him than he was at me.

"Listen, buster. You may think I'm being ridiculous, but I think it's worth looking in to. The detectives have made no breakthroughs in their investigation. Sometimes checking out a hunch pays off, you know. Remember that case you had involving the elderly woman working as a greeter at Wal-Mart? She was so old and frail the store manager should have held a mirror under her nose every hour or so just to make sure she was still alive. And do you remember what your gut told you? You had a hunch she was behind the rash of thefts. Sure enough, she was caught shoplifting jewelry on her breaks and hiding the loot in her under—"

Rip cut me off with an offensive expletive. He then said, "Mrs. Primrose's kleptomania is hardly on the same level as this murder case. We haven't got the luxury or time to chase down every wild goose in the county. I'm going to the station today to discuss the potential suspects we've tracked down and see if they've been given thorough-enough scrutinizing. I might have to tear down walls to get in to see Detective Reeves again, but I'm going to give it my best shot."

"Okay, fine. But not before I drop a dime on my new son-in-law," I replied, resentfully. I reached for the cell phone and found Milo's name on the contact list. He picked up on the fourth ring as I was thinking about the voice mail message I might have to leave.

"Quick question, Milo," I said, pleasantly after greeting him. "By any chance, is Philip Bean the friend you referred to on Sunday as Pinto?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask?"

Before I responded, I turned and nodded at Rip with a smug smile I couldn't resist. Then I asked Milo, "Do you know if he's been interviewed by the homicide detectives?"

"Yeah, he called me from the police station yesterday morning. He'd been totally shocked at the news of Coop's murder. Pinto said he heard about it from a fisherman when he was delivering some table shrimp to a bait stand in Rockport Harbor. Did you know you can buy table shrimp to cook at some of—?"

"I'm interested in any motive Pinto might have had to kill your friend, not boiling shrimp for supper. Please stay on point, Milo."

"Yeah, okay. So he drove straight to the police station to see if there was anything he could do to help out with the investigation. The detectives interviewed Pinto, of course. But he was cleared right away and Detective Reeves took down his cell number in case they needed to contact him later," Milo replied. "Which, as far as I know, they haven't."

"Rip and I were just discussing how often a premonition turns out to be right on target. So, what's your gut feeling about Pinto? Could he be putting on a front? Any chance he had a 'pissed-off bone' to pick with Cooper and lied about it to the detectives?"

"Nah. He thought the world of Coop. We met Philip at the same bait shop I was just talking about, only a short time after he moved here from Galveston about four or five years ago. He supplies a number of stands with shrimp, mullet, crabs, and even sea lice, to sell as bait. He told me once he makes more money supplying bait stands than he does harvesting oysters."

Milo was straying off topic again, but this explained to me why neither Rip nor I had ever heard of Philip Bean before. Being an officer of the law here for so many years, there were very few Rockport residents Rip wasn't at least somewhat familiar with. But Philip Bean had relocated here after we'd already left the area to become full-time RVers. He most likely wouldn't realize we were Milo's in-laws. Not recognizing Rip as the former sheriff of this county would be to our advantage, too, if we got the opportunity to speak with the oysterman. "Where might we locate Mr. Bean to speak with him?"