Myrtle Beach Mysteries 3rd Edition

By John Youker

The third edition of Myrtle Beach Mysteries is a collection of six short crime stories set in what is actually North Myrtle Beach, a small city separate from Myrtle Beach itself. The first four stories were originally offered only in the Amazon Kindle format. The fifth story, the Curse of the Jade Buddha, is new to the second edition. The third edition includes an additional story about a missing college student. The stories are based on the exploits of the fictional detective Jim Murray, a retired cop working a second career in what is a retirement/tourist community. These stories are not overly complex or graphic in nature. They hopefully make for an easy read either at the beach or at home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Youker
• Release date: May 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311527431

John Youker

Retired college teacher. Taught chemistry in NY and NC. Also worked on emergency planning and response for hazardous materials accidents.

Book preview

Myrtle Beach Mysteries

3rd Edition

By John Youker

Copyright 2013, 2015, 2020

Myrtle Beach really is a safe place to visit. But with hundreds of thousands of visitors and large numbers of second home owners, bad things do occasionally happen, both to visitors and residents, so normal precautions are always in order. The following stories are purely fictional. Certain locations described do exist, but names and some details have been changed so the Chamber of Commerce won't get upset. No bodies have, to the author's knowledge, been found floating in the lake at the real Ocean Sands, but people do fall off high-rise balconies, and developers have been accused of absconding with buyers' deposits.

So by all means do visit. The Grand Strand has miles of free beaches and more restaurants than you can sample in a year of dining out nearly every night. What with golf for the golfers and shopping for the shoppers you may never want to leave.

Murder at Ocean Sands

From the Casebook of Detective Jim Murray

Detective Jim Murray was soaked with sweat. The temperature was already above 80 and he was a big, Irish man, a stereotypical northeastern city cop now in the South on a second career. Retiring a little too soon, like many others he had found the need to supplement his pension, and the part time detective’s position with the beach police filled the bill.

But now he also needed warrants. The crime scene was still swarming with forensics techs, and he had already received three calls, one from the mayor and two from city councilmen. All of them were prominent realtors in panic over the potential for lost summer rentals. Unfortunately, they were right. A murder at an ocean side resort in late June would not encourage a rush of additional tourists, never mind that the victim was probably a local. Ocean Sands is a 700 condo resort a block back from Ocean Avenue and the houses of millionaire's row. By far it is a second home/vacation rental community, with a few owners in resident. The complex has both town home and apartment-style condos. North Myrtle Beach is still affordable, especially after the real estate crash, depending on your definition of affordability. All millionaires? No, but you would be hard pressed to find a rusty car in the parking lots.

Murray needed to keep his head clear and review the case so far. The victim, 19 year old Crystal Bradferd, lived with her mother in one of the long term leases, a third floor 2 bedroom in building 18, with a view of Seaside Estates across the lake. At 6:30 AM the security guard found her body in the lake and called 911. Officers managed to quickly secure the scene and keep the curious at bay. So far so good. Hopefully the scene was not compromised. Her body was found floating face down against the shoreline away from areas lighted by the street lamps. The victim was wearing a red bikini bottom, but no top. Paramedics had found what appeared to be a ragged stab wound in the victim's chest. Will have to wait for the autopsy to see if that was fatal or if the girl drowned. Officers have done a preliminary search of the area for a knife or other sharp implement. At 7:10 AM the pool service reported a red swimsuit top was at the bottom of the town homes pool. A search of the pool and immediate area revealed blood on the sliding glass door at the back of town home 804, adjacent to the pool. Unfortunately, the lawn sprinklers had turned on as forensics arrived, probably obliterating additional traces of blood, but it now seemed likely that the lake was not the primary crime scene. Warrants were in order for condo 1835 and town home 804.

So far no one had attempted to provide any relevant information to himself or his officers. There were a number of spectators hanging around trying to see what was going on without being chased away. Many were sitting on their golf carts. Murray had had enough of the carts, and he found an officer to walk the entire town homes loop and tell the bystanders to get them out of the street. It seemed that half the owners in the resort had a golf cart, plus they were easily rented for a week.

He really needed to talk to someone besides the pool man and the victim's mother, who had been awakened by the police and thought that her daughter was still asleep in her room. Plus the mother was a wreck and would need to be questioned again later. She allegedly worked at a local gentleman’s club and had not returned home until 4 AM. If it were not for the girl's cell phone found on a poolside table, her identity would still be a mystery. 804 was the obvious place to start, what with blood on the patio door. All the units surrounding the pool had been quickly canvassed, and all who answered their doors had claimed to see and hear nothing.

Town home 804 was one end of a four unit building. They were technically condominiums, built in town home style. The bottom floor of 804 consisted of a garage fronting the street, a foyer behind the garage entered through a door at the end of the building, and a storage room behind the foyer with a sliding patio door at the back. The pool was mere feet from that door. The back room was not supposed to be used as living space because of codes related to potential flooding. The living/dining great room and a kitchen were on the second level, with three bedrooms on the top floor. Screened porches off the living area and master bedroom looked right over the pool. Any impact on the patio door should have been audible to anyone at the rear of the structure in either the living area or master bedroom, even though doors were shut and air conditioners were running. All the glass was hurricane rated so the door could take a substantial blunt impact without breaking.

Murray rang the bell, and soon a forlorn man with thinning gray hair answered. His name was Henry Smith, and he was a retiree from a forensics lab in New York. Before the detective could speak the man said that he had been asleep and heard nothing until the commotion at the