Panorama Beach Mysteries: A Breath Away From Dying

By J. Steven York

THE SECOND "PANORAMA BEACH" MYSTERY!

Deputy "Mustang" Sawtell knows there's something wrong with the scene when he responds to a prowler call at the Aquarama aquarium and underwater-show, and finds a dead mermaid laying on the shore of the Mermaid Grotto.

But he's dismissed from the case by a treacherous superior officer, who bungles the investigation and rules her death an accident.

So when Sheriff "Big" Bass asks him to take a secretive, off-duty, second look at the case, he's eager to please despite the danger. But there are deep secrets, cut-throat business, old-flames, and hidden agendas waiting for him, and before Mustang knows which way the tide is running, he'll be in hot water -- face-to-face with a killer!

Welcome to Panorama Beach, Florida, 1967, where the sand is white as sugar, the attractions are larger-than-life, and the money is all dirty and rolling in like a storm tide! Deputy "Mustang" Sawtell is the new badge in town, and he just wants to do the right thing.

But he's fallen under the wing of his dangerous and morally compromised boss, Sherriff "Big" Bass, who calls himself "the best devil money can buy."

Big Bass will tell you that he may be a little bad, but anybody who replaces him will be even worse. Mustang would really like to believe that -- because otherwise, this good-old-boy may have just booked himself on a rocket-ride to hell!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tsunami Ridge Publishing
• Release date: Feb 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465923448

J. Steven York

Steven J. York is a science fiction and fantasy writer. He has been published in many magazines and anthologies. He has also worked as a technical writer for computer games. He lives on the Oregon coast with his wife Christina F. York, where he continues to work on both original and tie-in fiction.

Book preview

Panorama Beach Mysteries:

A Breath Away From Dying

J. Steven York

Published by Tsunami Ridge Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 J. Steven York

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

Dedicated to the three mystery writers I sleep with, Christy, Chris, and Christy (okay, one lady, three names!) for her unending love and support.

For Colleen, who bleeds red pixels all over my manuscript.

And to my brother, Tim, who still loves the beaches I have long-since left behind for another ocean.

The Panorama Beach Mysteries

by J. Steven York

The Best Devil Money Can Buy

A Breath Away From Dying

The Beat of Angel's Wings

(coming 2012)

By The Rockets Red Glare

(Tentative Title, coming 2012)

Ebooks from Tsunami Ridge Publishing

Panorama Beach Mysteries:

A Breath Away From Dying

J. Steven York

Table of Contents

Cover

Front Matter

Dedication

Contents

A Breath Away from Dying

A Note From The Author

Map of Panorama Beach

Also by J. Steven York

About the Author

I crept past the bigger-than-life concrete mermaid that guarded the entrance to the Aquarama Sea Theater and Dolphin Show, my hand just naturally sliding down to the hilt of my .45, my fingers lingering near the snap on my holster.

Kathy, the dispatcher, had reported an anonymous ‘prowler’ call, and there had been no answer when she'd called the Aquarama back. There was only one car in the lot. It could have been the prowler's, or it could be an employee on the job early, though if so, I had to wonder why they didn't answer the phone. Maybe somebody there wouldn't let them. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe their phone-answering days were over.

Or maybe nobody was there at all. It was only 8:00 A.M., and shows normally didn't start till eleven.

But somebody would probably be there before that to open, and maybe to give the fish their breakfast.

Behind me, traffic streamed by, headed east on the Beach Highway—tourists eager for escape from summer heat and grim news of race riots and Vietnam.

The front entrance looked undisturbed, but I'd been working out of the Panorama Beach, Florida sheriff's station long enough to know my way around some of the beach attractions. I knew the Aquarama had an employee entrance around the right side, a loading dock on the back of the building, and a couple of service doors on the side.

I'd checked the dock and the side door from the car, and they looked undisturbed. But the employee door was screened from both the highway and the driveways, and to my recollection had a tempered glass window in it, making it a more reasonable place to break in.

Even before I had eyes on the door, I saw broken glass on the sidewalk, little jewels of tempered glass, sparkling against the concrete. Then I heard something echoing from inside the building, like distant laughter.

Any hesitation on the weapon melted away. I unsnapped and drew my Colt revolver, feeling its comfortable weight in my hand. Again, that eerie laughter echoed from inside. I stepped around the corner to see the door standing open, the wire-reinforced glass in the top smashed out with some heavy object.

I stepped inside, cringing a little as broken glass crunched under my feet.

Ahead was a long, cinder-block corridor with multiple doors. The place smelled of salt-water and reeked a little of fish. Daylight streamed through the door on my left, which probably opened onto the lobby or the ticket counter just inside the front door. I spotted a bank of light switches and flipped them all, but nothing happened. Either I had the wrong switches or something was wrong with the power. I could see more gloom than windows ahead, and it was sheer luck and habit that I had a flashlight on my belt that time of the morning.

Flicking the flashlight on, I moved carefully down the hall, checking each door as I passed. I found several offices, storage areas, an employee locker-room, and closets. All appeared empty. Near the end of the hall was a much larger and better-appointed office. The sign on the door read MANAGER. In the back of the office I could see two small windows, one each on the back and left-hand walls, with subdued daylight coming through each. The light shimmered, and I realized I was probably looking into one of the big show-tanks that formed the middle of the building.

As I leaned closer, a large, dark shape surged at me, and some primal fear sent me reeling backwards against the open door. It was a wonder I didn't fire off a shot at the window just on reflex.

It took me a minute to figure out the oddly-shaped, smiling face that was looking at me through the thick glass. A dolphin.

The dolphin stared at me for a moment, before turning and shooting away with a flick of its powerful tail. Through the wall, from above me, and echoing down the hall, I could hear more laughter, accompanied by clicking and a horn-like chattering. I realized the sounds that had so much alarmed me weren't human at all. They came from the dolphin tanks. That didn't mean the prowler had left, but I was relieved anyway.

I slipped back out into the hall, and found myself at a dead-end except for a concrete stairway doubling back to my right. On the end wall was a circuit-breaker panel with the door open. Something didn't look right. I snapped on the master breaker, and the lights flickered on in the hallway.

I climbed the stairs and found a landing at the top with two doors. The one to my right opened into a large, dark room. I flipped on a light switch and found a utilitarian locker-room, or maybe dressing room, or maybe both. There were military-surplus steel lockers, benches, chairs, dressing tables with lighted mirrors. In one corner, a couple of worn vinyl couches formed an L-shaped seating area around a coffee table. To my right, a six-foot-widemetal tube emerged from the floor, with an open hatch on top and a ladder leading down into its depths. Water sloshed a foot or so below the rim.

Finding nobody there, I tried the other door and found it opened onto the roof of the building, into what appeared to be a public area. A sign pointing to the right indicated the dolphin tank, and I could hear splashing and animal-chattering from that direction. A sign pointing to the left read MERMAID GROTTO, and something in my gut suggested that I follow it. The walkway curved around, and the walls transitioned from plain concrete to sculpted, artificial rock. I emerged next to what seemed to be a pool perhaps thirty feet front-to-back and seventy or so feet wide, surrounded by flat, sculpted boulders and rock walls. The top was open to the powder-blue morning sky, and a brisk breeze whipped in from the nearby Gulf, the gusts whistling in the artificial crags above me.

The public walkway worked its way around three sides of the artificial grotto, and a low wall separated the walk from the shore of the little pool. The far shore of the pool was larger and flattened out into a painted concrete slab that served as a kind of stage. That's when I saw the tail.

At first I thought that someone had killed one of the dolphins, but the tail didn't look right. I put my gun down long enough to vault over the little wall, and carefully worked my way around the pool.

The tail was long, shimmering blue, the end of it flared out neatly on the slab. She lay on her back, arms outspread, painted-rubber seashells covering her generous breasts, long, blonde hair neatly under her head, glassy eyes as empty as the sky they stared into. I knelt down next to the mermaid and put my hand against her neck, looking for a pulse, but her skin was cold and