The Case of the Yellow Flower Tattoo: The Fairlington Lavender Detective Series

By S. N. Bronstein

For private detective Fairlington Lavender a missing persons case is routine, especially in the unrestrained, neon subculture of South Miami Beach. The Case of the Yellow Flower Tattoo was everything but routine.
In 2009 Lavender is contacted by Betsy Rodney, a retired New England school teacher who, along with her retired twin brother Richard, lives in a well ordered, predictable, and sheltered world of their own creation that resembles a 1950s lifestyle.
This strange and peaceful existence is shattered when Richard disappears without a trace.
In his attempt to locate Richard Rodney, Lavender dives into the nefarious world of South Beach nightlife and finds himself face to face with the Russian Mafia. The connection between Richard and the underworld confounds Lavender until he discovers a Russian girl named Yana who proves to be the link between the mob and Richards disappearance.
Lavender digs deep; deeper than he should, in order to locate Richard and his mysterious new friend. His investigation techniques utilize 21st century technology along with 1940s era deception, subterfuge, and muscle.
The Case of the Yellow Flower Tattoo takes the reader on a trip to South Beach and reveals the shadowy side of this city. Its classic Fairlington Lavender at his best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496969279

S. N. Bronstein

S. N. Bronstein is the author of the Fairlington Lavender Detective Series, a collection of crime stories based on the adventures of a Miami Beach private investigator. In addition to The Case of the Yellow Flower Tattoo, his published works in the series include The Case of the Miami Philanthropist, The Case of the Miami Blackmailer, and The Case of the Miami Vigilante. He is also the author of two children’s books, Private Eye Cats: Book One: The Case of the Neighborhood Burglars and Private Eye Cats: Book Two: The Case of the Kidnapped Dog. The author presently resides in Florida with his wife, Dawn, and cat, Nugget, and devotes his time to fiction writing.

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© 2015 S. N. Bronstein. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   02/10/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6928-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6927-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902022

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

About The Author

For Dawn and Nugget who, as always,

sat patiently and endured as I wrote this story

CHAPTER ONE

Richard Rodney was, in all of my experience as a private investigator, the most unlikely focus of an inquiry. He was fifty two years old, 5'10", overweight, white-haired, and balding. He dressed like it was still the 1970’s. His white shirt and thin black tie, baggy grey pants that were complimented by cuffs, and rubber soled black loafers gave him the appearance of a high school guidance counselor who forgot to keep up with changes in style over the years.

Rodney was born and raised in Revere, Massachusetts, and maintained the aloofness characteristic of some New Englanders that is so often criticized by people from other parts of the country. In his social interactions he tried very hard to put forward a semblance of cordiality, but those he met sensed his discomfort with this feigned attempt.

He was socially comfortable only with his immediate family. This included his former wife, who was two years his junior, a grown son working in Hartford, Connecticut as a school teacher, and a twin sister Betsy. His few acquaintances from childhood and college never maintained a lasting relationships with him, and as an adult he went about his business viewed as a distant, unemotional, boring guy.

Rodney was a conventional, conservative, law-abiding citizen who consciously never harbored any propensity toward illegal or deviant behavior. His academic performance at Suffolk University was superior. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in Accounting, and earned a 3.9 overall GPA. While certainly not the most popular guy on campus, he was able to get along fairly well with his peers both in and outside of class. While close to no one, he had a smile and handshake for everyone. After graduating from college at age twenty one, he obtained a job at a major insurance company in Revere as an accountant.

He immediately returned to school to get a graduate degree and a CPA license. He continued to work at the same job for thirty years, and Richard Rodney retired in 2008 at the age of fifty one. He had been retired for about one year, and was living in Miami Beach at a condominium on Collins Avenue and 51st Street with his sister Betsy when I received a call from her.

In 2009 I returned to Miami Beach to reestablish my practice as a private investigator. For about three years prior to that, I had been working full time in Washington D.C. for an old friend. He had a large, successful firm specializing in background investigations of prospective employees applying for jobs with private companies awarded government contracts. The salary I commanded was substantial, and the work was routine rather than dangerous. The D.C. area is a dynamic venue to live and work in. However, I was getting bored with the mundane nature of the cases I was working, and I hated the cold, snowy winters there. After living my entire life in Miami Beach, the contrast was significant and I had a hard time adjusting to it.

My boss in D.C., Tim Lagone, was good about allowing me to periodically return to Miami to work cases that came my way. When I moved to Washington I kept my condominium in Sunny Isles Beach, paid rent to maintain my office on Arthur Godfrey Road in mid-town Miami Beach, and my cell phone was activated with a ‘305’ area code to allow perspective clients in South Florida to contact me without knowing I was outside of the area. Psychologically the condo, office, and phone were anchors for me that somehow kept me connected with my hometown. I was never willing to sever these bonds.

I had worked three significant cases in Florida that stand out in my mind prior to getting involved with the Richard Rodney case.

In May of 2008 I was able to gather sufficient evidence to obtain a murder conviction against one of the most politically powerful philanthropists in Miami-Dade County. The police were unable to move this case forward because of pressure to bury the entire investigation. Those constraints were placed on them by local politicians and their handpicked appointees in key positions of authority. Being an outsider to the system, I was able to overcome the roadblocks and see justice done.

In March of 2009 I tracked and located a fugitive who had murdered a prostitute in Miami Beach. I took this case pro-bono because the victim was killed as a result of helping me clear up a blackmail case. Although the police, DEA, and U.S. Marshals Office were on this guy’s trail, and undoubtedly would have caught up with him in time, for me it became imperative to be the one who took him down. I did; and it gave me a great deal of satisfaction. Following this case I relocated back to Miami Beach full-time.

From May of 2009 through July of 2009 I was involved in one of the most interesting cases of my career. A chance encounter at the county jail resulted in my establishing a relationship with a man charged with nine murders in the Miami area. Although he was labeled a ‘serial killer’ by the media and the police, he insisted he was not anything of the sort. This man, Michael Jerome, gave me a hand written diary detailing his entire journey from law abiding citizen to murderer. I spent three months learning all there was to know about serial killers and vigilantes, guided by the knowledgeable hand of a psychiatrist who I befriended. I spent this entire time in a role reversal from cop to student of criminology, and loved every minute of it. In the end, the doctor and I arrived at the conclusion that Jerome was a ‘vigilante’ driven by clinical mental illness.

Now, in September of 2009, I was back in the detective business on Miami Beach. The only thing I really lacked was clients. The land line at my office as well as my cell phone were gathering dust. I had a substantial retirement following thirty five years as a cop, and I had been able to put away a comfortable sum of cash after almost ten years as a PI. Money was not the issue. I was hungry to get back into some kind of action.

On Wednesday, September 9th, 2009, when Betsy Rodney called my office at 11:30 am, I was hoping it wasn’t another wrong number.

I let the phone ring a couple of times. Better they think I was too busy to answer right away. It did take me a few seconds to fold up and put away the morning racing form I was studying at the time.

Hello, you’re talking to Fairlington Lavender.

Mr. Lavender, I would like to speak to you personally about helping me. I need a private detective.

To whom am I speaking?

My name is Betsy Rodney, and I have a serious matter that needs your attention. My brother is missing. He’s fifty two years old and he’s missing. We live together here on Collins Avenue, and I haven’t seen him for five days.

I pondered what I had just heard from this prospective client. The customary question that’s always asked next is whether or not the cops were notified. I skipped that inquiry. I figured if she was calling me for help, for some reason the cops were out of the loop thus far. If she did have the police involved in the case, I would find this out soon enough.

Its best practice in missing persons’ cases to visit the residence of the subject prior to putting anything in motion. There are numerous pieces of evidence that have to be examined in order to facilitate a complete picture of who it is you will be searching for.

It’s important to examine pictures of the subject, any videos he or she was recorded in, do a physical search of the subject’s living quarters, look over personal address books, check any mail addressed to the person, read old bills and receipts left around the house, and seek out any other clues that could be of relevance to the case. These days, unlike in the past, the subject’s PC hard drive had to be opened and examined by someone who knew what they were doing. Facebook, Linkedin, emails; they all could lead to something substantial. The more you discover about a person, their family history, their friends and acquaintances, and their most recent contacts, the easier your job will be.

For these reasons I advised Betsy Rodney that I felt it was best that I meet her at their condo to discuss the details of her brother’s disappearance. I could have invited her to my office for the initial interview, but I would still need to work my way through the residence. I decided to save time by meeting her there.

My office is located across the street from the Forge Restaurant, an ‘A- List’ destination known worldwide for its ambiance, fine dining, and potential for meeting the rich and famous. Arthur Godfrey Road, also known as 41st Street, is a business district about two miles long. It runs east and west through the heart of Miami Beach and is surrounded on all sides by residential neighborhoods consisting mostly of estates and smaller houses built during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Many have been renovated and modernized, but most have been maintained in their original Art Deco style.

The business district is a mixture of new office buildings and older structures housing various types of businesses. Old fashioned barber shops, tiny walk-up offices, Temples, jewelry stores, and other edifices are interspersed with post-modern architecture styled commercial buildings and doctor’s offices.

The palatial chamber I call an office is on the second floor of an old building that was originally squeezed in between a barber shop and a small, one story business. The entrance still has the original door and gate attached, and the narrow hallway leads to a