Pedoverts

By C. D. Moulton

Bottleneck - A woman is murdered. CD investigates to learn there is a ring of kiddie porn operating in the park. CD has to go to Europe in disguise.
Death Walks Beside Me - A sad man going into the comarca. Anyone he gets close to is murdered. Why? What does Landrow, a name the medicine woman came up with, have to do with it? What do Vince's childhood friends have to do with it?
Dead Drunk - a local man is murdered. The Indios on the island said that would make a lot of parents happy. Clint learns a lot about the difference the way the Indios and Latino/black/white cultures think.
Flowers for the Grave - a young woman is murdered. Investigation finds she was a nymphomaniac. Everyone liked her. Why would she be murdered? What was in her past that someone was trying to hide?

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. D. Moulton
• Release date: Aug 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201085377

Book preview

Prologue

Please pass the gumbo. Boy, Mom! Is this ever good! Scotty, my six year old son said.

You already ate enough for three people! CD (Not Carlysle Devon, Cedric David. No juniors in this branch of the family!), my seven year old son replied. It's a good thing Mom cooks so much!

And it's a good thing you brats like this sort of thing so much! The way you eat could even break CD! Lou (My housekeeper and very good friend) replied. Alma (That's my knockout wife) has that touch with food.

Mommy says we shouldn't touch our food. Except for sandwiches. And fried chicken. And rolls, and like that, Bonnie, my five year old daughter (That's the last one! Honest!) put in. Paulo's takin' all the rice!

I am not, either! Paulo (Lou's seven year old son) cried. There's a whole big bowl of it!

Shut up and eat! Now! All of you! Jim Barrow, my boatman and close friend put in. If you want to go with me to get shrimp you won't start arguing here! I'm not gonna listen to that crap all afternoon!

That introduces everyone but Paulo Sanchez, Lou's husband, and the father of Paulo II and Young Alma (5 yrs) and me, CD Grimes, detective and beach bum. We were enjoying a big pot of Alma's crab gumbo, after which Alma and I had planned to spend the rest of the day potting my seedlings of Lc. Vandeletta Dave's X Lc. Peggy Huffman Dave's into five inch clay pots.

That's an orchid cross. We raise them. I have greenhouses, both here in my Englewood place and down at the Bonita Springs place. That cross is a medium dark lavender crossed on a smaller white with intense splashes on the petal tips and lip. It also has a slight picotee (The Peggy Huffman). The Dave the clones are named after is a friend who raises orchids and writes those Maita SF books. It's his cross.

Jim would take the kids out to the flats to get shrimp. The freezer was getting low.

(People are always begging me for Alma's recipes, so the gumbo is just stuff we grow in our garden. Okra, tomatoes, and onions, diced large, and cooked together with Cajun spices, add crab meat (Or shrimp) and serve over rice. We like to cook some bellpepper with the okra etc. A little celery is OK if its tender.)

Dave called just after lunch to say he was going down to St. Martins Island for some meeting or other, so we wouldn't see him for two weeks, then Cal and Wilma Jones, close family friends (Cal is a Florida Highway Patrolman), stopped by. Wilma, Lou, and Alma would go shopping later for some new baby stuff. Wilma was expecting their second in less than a month. Cal was working the Daytona Beach area for a few weeks, so Wilma would be staying with us for the nonce. Their daughter would stay with Wilma's parents in Orlando until the baby was born.

It was, in other words, a typical day for us. These people, friends and employees, were all members of a sort of extended family. I'd known all of them since my first trip to Florida.

JK, a young man who works for Crane International Sarasota (I own (inherited) all those Crane Conglomerate things) called to ask if I'd please input instructions for the new electronics section so the big muck-mucks in the company would maybe stop obstructing him – like all he had to do was argue with accountants.

JK's eighteen or nineteen, and is a computer genius. He can use the computers to find out anything, about anybody, anywhere in the world. We don't know what he's doing, and don't want to. I'd promised him we'd make a special section for him. I thought it was going right along.

I told JK to patch me to Tony (Tony Jacobi, my main man at Crane. He actually runs the place).

Yeah, CD? Problem? Tony greeted.

Why are you big muck-mucks obstructing JK's lab?

I didn't know we were. Why didn't he come to me?

Because he's JK. He doesn't fool around with underlings. That's a waste of time!

He laughed, and asked me to hang on a minute, then I was on a conference line with him and the accounting department. I knew perfectly well JK was staying patched in, so I said, JK, tell me what the problem is. We'll settle this, right now.

Er, they keep telling me there's no space to put my lab. I have to have things if I need them where they're right there.

I knew what he was saying, if nobody else did.

What kind of problem with space? Tony, we have more space than we can keep track of!

If I might say so here, Mr. Grimes, what Mr., uh, JK wants isn't cost efficient, a voice said.

That's Claussen, head of accounting, Tony interjected. Claussen, what the hell are you talking about? No one ever said anything about cost efficiency where that lab's concerned.

JK wants more than six million dollars worth of equipment put into a space for his personal use! Claussen cried. He hasn't submitted a prospectus or a projection of return ratio! I can't commission any such thing! I didn't consider this as a serious proposal!

I ordered to build the lab and equip it! Tony snapped. "You were never instructed to do any projections. We make the equipment he needs, and have most of it on hand."

Just a minute, Tony, I said. "I think I can settle this.

"Mr. Claussen, first item is that I said to build the lab and equip it. That's the end of any argument.

"Second, it should certainly be understood, by now, by anyone with any connection whatever with Crane that I'm worth I-don't-know how many billion dollars, and am making several million a day for going fishing, or growing orchids, or for just laying around. That money serves no purpose. I quite literally can't give it away as fast as it comes in.

"Third, I want to ask you a couple of questions. I know the answers. They're for your edification.

How much has Crane cleared to date on the CraneLok System?

Er, CraneLok? Uh, let's bring up the.... Uh, the screen shows about thirty one million six.

Exactly. And how much do you imagine the Crane InterSystem AutoControl Program is saving us over all our companies, excluding all sales of the program and the free use of it by government?

Incalculable! Over time, billions. Tens of billions!

"JK designed both those programs. So! Do you think maybe we could afford a little lab for him? Would it be just too cost-inefficient to spend less than, say, ten million dollars for research that's proved to return that ratio?

Bear in mind that JK's produced one hell of a lot of other things. Those two happen to come to mind, at the moment.

Er, I'll see the section is built! Immediately! I had no idea! I would have....

There's one item you left out, CD, Tony interjected. "When CD Grimes says to spend a few million or billion on anything he says to spend it on, there are to be no questions! You, or even I, are not privy to CD's security clearances. This project might well entail top international security. We don't know, and aren't permitted to know.

Do I make myself clear?

You never told me Mr. Grimes ordered this project! Claussen accused. "If I'd known it was from him, there wouldn't have been any questions! You know that!"

There was a short silence while Tony went over events in his mind. He would remember, clearly, every small detail.

You're right! he finally admitted. I sent it  as a memo from my own desk. I accept full responsibility for it. Just get that comp-lab built as fast as you can. Put it in section A-four.

But A-four has the, er, the device for the, er, the fighter plane thing! Claussen said.

Move that to D-nine, I suggested. Russia isn't a threat anymore, and they'll cancel that kind of abject stupidity. (A light flashed on the phone base.)

Uh, CD, you have an emergency call ... uh, JK said.

"You monitor CD's home phone!?" Tony yelled.

"It's online with us!" JK cried, defensively.

I laughed and said I had to go. I punched the special line.

CD? This is Len, Len Stewart, Sheriff, said. "I just got a call from someone named Sean McMullin, from Bonita. He said he couldn't get through to you. He gets a busy signal. He said to tell you Mac found another body.

Another? How many has he found?

Just one, Len. That one in the bay last year. Thanks. I'll call him. Is he home?

He's in your greenhouse, waiting for your call. He went over there to see if you were home. Catch you later.

I punched the Bonita Springs autocall button. Sean answered, almost immediately: CD? Maybe you'd better get down here for this. It's Mrs. Bellows, the woman from the community center building. There's a rope tied around her neck.

You people in that park love strangulation, don't you? Is she at the pool house, too?

No. Pop found the body in those mangroves across from our dock. We don't know why she'd be in this canal.

Did you call the sheriff?

Lorna (his wife) did. I tried to get you.

I'll get there as fast as I can. You, Mac, and Lorna study everything about the place she was found. Study the body, if you have the stomach for it.

I hung up and yelled out to Alma that I was off on a murder case. She shrugged, and sighed. She's used to it.

"It’s Mrs. Bellows, from the mobile home park. Sean and Lorna found the body – or Mac did.

Why would she be in the water? What happened? No one would want to kill her, I’m sure. What I mean, Mrs. Bellows doesn’t ... she’s liked by everyone.

I was grabbing some things as I chattered.

"She ran the community center, didn’t she? I have to agree. No one would hurt her. She was never a threat to anyone. She didn’t  gossip.

It had to be some kind of accident, I suppose, but you’d think she would be careful around the water, living there for thirty years or so.

You’d think.

Chapter one

I was at Mac's place a few minutes less than an hour later. Lt. Samuel Lukens, who handled homicide for the sheriff there, along with his deputy, Dan Ford, were talking to the coroner, who had put Mrs. Bellows' body on a gurney to check it over.

Sean said he'd called you, Dan said. "We don't have much on this one. No one we've talked to could think of any reason anyone would want to kill her.

Mac found her, right over there where the ribbon's tied up around the mangroves. Tide's going out, now, but we don't know which way she washed. We couldn't see anything, other than what's right there. He pointed to where Doc was checking the body. I went over for a look before talking with anyone else.

Hi, CD! Think maybe you can solve this one pretty fast? Doc asked. I want to start my first real vacation in more than three years next Monday.

What you got? I asked. He waved at the gurney.

She was dressed in bright green shorts, with a print blouse. Sort of standard for the area, this time of year. There was a black ½" polypropylene rope twisted behind her neck and tied with a lock-slip knot. I didn't see any other marks on the exposed parts of the body. Doc reported there weren't any he'd found, yet, but all he'd done was the onscene cursory. He showed me some Polaroids of the scene. Nothing there. He estimated she'd been dead more than six hours. We'd know more after the autopsy.

Lorna McMullins, Mac, Sean, and Selma Wentworth, who also worked at the park's community center with Mrs. Bellows, were sitting on a picnic table, under a banyan tree, so I went over. We greeted each other, then I asked what happened.

What you see is all you get, Mac answered. I was going out at the tide change. I saw that puke green, and went over. There she was.

Hmm. This is Thursday. Wasn't she supposed to be at the center today?

I'm working Thursdays and Sundays so she can take those two days off, Selma said. Lorna called. I came right over.

She's dressed like she does at the center, Lorna added. She has on lipstick and earrings, so she wasn't just sitting around at home.

Any idea why she's way out here in this particular canal?

She rides her bicycle every day, Selma replied. I drove by her trailer on the way over. The bike's not on her carport. She didn't have a car. She didn't drive. She rode the bike, or a few of us would take her anywhere she wanted to go.

So she was probably visiting someone. Any ideas? Someone in this section?

She visited Connie, sometimes. She lives up that way, about six lots, Sean answered. "Connie Peters. You know her.

"She and Helen Keene were friends. Helen and Steve are up at the end.

"If she drifted out with the tide, then back in, she could have been dumped in the side canal. Bill and Betty Kocsis live up that one. Jim Tooney's place is on past them, and Dave and Sylvia Weitz are on up farther.

"Those are the only ones you know that she was very friendly with, right along here, except for Tooney, who I mentioned because he's a jackass SOB.

"She was friendly with Hank Norcross, in that old trailer, over there. The green and white double wide.

She also stopped at Tom and Mary's place, sometimes. Tom and Mary Dekins, in the old yellow one, second lot up on that side. She visited Cart and Joanne Carter in number thirty seven. Tom and Mary are in thirty nine.

She stopped here sometimes, too, Lorna explained. "She told us all the news about everybody in the park – like who was sick or who had relatives visiting and who was going off on vacation. Not gossip. She didn't gossip.

We all sort of watch out for each other. When we'd visit back home in Tennessee, she'd tell them all, so they'd keep an eye out, keep our mail for us, and pick up the Bonita Banner, and so on. If newspapers start collecting around your place, the wrong people can see no one's there. We do the same things for the close ones, whenever they're away.

Nobody around here would hurt the old broad, Mac insisted. We all liked her. She was always lookin' out for everybody. I mean, hell! She didn't even make people mad when she'd sort of hint their places were starting to look like garbage dumps. We'd just clean up.

You're about her age, aren't you?

He grinned. Like I said, the old broad.

Maybe somebody took offense because she told them to clean up their place?

And killed her? Selma asked. "She was acting sorta funny, later yesterday afternoon. We both work most Wednesdays, because the bridge club meets early, and there's the garden club at two, then there's bingo at night, until eleven.

She works eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, and I come in around three, and stay until we close the place, at eleven thirty. Bingo usually runs me over until after twelve, but I can't remember if she was home when I drove by, after we closed last night. I don't think I even looked.

How do you mean, she was acting funny?

"She was sort of preoccupied. She was a little snappish, which was really out of character for her. I figured maybe her arthritis was acting up. She made some remarks about people at the luncheon.

"Some religious group had a covered dish luncheon. She said they were all a bunch of fanatics, and she wished they wouldn't let those religious groups have meetings at the center. I think someone made a remark about her wearing shorts.

"I ignore them. There's a swimming pool and shuffleboard and tennis, so why wouldn’t we all wear shorts?"

Everybody signs in at the center, so you'll know who was there yesterday morning, Lorna said. It's too bad none of us saw her in the morning. We'd know if she was already in a mood.

I saw her when we opened the place up, about a quarter to eight or so, Selma said. I always go over to help open since that ... since Bonnie was murdered there.

Bonnie Patrick was strangled at the pool. Mrs. Bellows and Selma found her body when they opened the place. That was the case where I met all these people.

There isn't much else to find, around here, it seems, Sam Lukens said, as he and Dan came to the group on the table. "We have all of your statements. Let me know if you remember anything more.

CD, we've learned we can work with you. I'll let you know if we come up with anything. You can work it from your grand jury marshal angle, and we'll go by the book.

I'm planning to go to the community center to see who was there yesterday. Selma thinks the victim was acting a little out of character in the afternoon.

She said, Sam replied. "We'll check the place, but I think it probably doesn't have anything to do with that place. Trouble is, she seems the least likely kind of victim there is! No one kills her type of person!

I'll get you a copy of Doc's report, if you like. Don't let the brass know.

If there's nothing unusual, I don't need it. All I really want is time of death.

If you're going right over to the community center, I'll ride with you, and you can take me to the station, afterward, Dan said. If there's anything important in the autopsy, Doc'll let Sam know, right away. We'll have a definite time of death by then, if nothing more.

I agreed to that. Sam left. Lorna, Mac, and Sean would come to my place for dinner. Selma would meet us at the center.

Dan and I caught up on local trivialities on the way to the center. Not much was happening in the area to interest homicide, but the problems in the urban parts of the county were getting worse and worse. We agreed that was population pressure, pure and simple. The big push by the politicians to get more people into the county to Expand the tax base was neverending. The fact that there was always a net loss from more population didn't seem to register on the tinhorns. It never has, and never will.

Selma arrived before us, and was telling the people in the place that Mrs. Bellows was dead. Dan and I waited until she came into the desk area. Dan asked for the register for the day before until Selma took over. I asked for the telephone records.

Telephone? Selma asked.

Maybe she was upset about someone who called, not someone who was here.

She said there was a record of all calls, and got the little pile of pink papers. The recorder on the phone, itself, put the time and duration of each call, and whether it was in or out, on a list. There were records of all calls in the pink slips. Nothing there that seemed likely.

People call all the time to ask if someone's here, or if any meetings are scheduled for certain times, Selma explained. "They have to give a week's notice if they want to schedule an activity on a special holiday or that we couldn't expect, otherwise.

The slips are all like this one. Kitty Lorris called to set the date for the seashell collectors' meeting on next Friday at three. Winnie Allen called to ask if Jennie was playing bridge.

I took the slips to look over. Nine incoming, and five out. The out were to the soft drink vendor to order more chocolate for next week, and less cola, an electrician, to report a bad wall socket, the pool maintenance company, to say there was algae in the pool – Why? They'd paid to see that didn't happen.

The next was to the local shoppers' throwaway paper, to give a list of activities to be included in Wednesday's edition. There was a short list of activities attached to that one. The last was to C. Carter, about his briefcase.

Nothing there that I could see. The incoming were the two Selma mentioned, one from Donna King, asking that Mrs. Edna Forbes be told she couldn't make the church gettogether (Damn! Edna and Karl Forbes were two of the most sourly judgmental, obnoxious, overly-pious, sanctimonious people I'd ever met. Anywhere), Ken Barth wanting to know if they'd found his ring (Yes. Come pick it up. PM), Fred Winton asking if Jil and her friends were at the pool (No), C. Carter wanting to know if he'd left his case in the rec room (She'd check), Chicken Tidbits wanting to put a machine in the place (No way!), the Wednesday Shopper (No reason), the Ft. Myers News-Press (No reason), and Mary Dekins, asking if Tom had stopped by.

Why would the Wednesday Shopper call her after she'd called them? Isn’t that a little strange? I asked.

No. Probably wanted the spelling of a name, or something, Selma replied.

The News-Press?

Looking for human interest items on a slow news day. They do that a lot, anymore. Sometimes the local politicians want to meet with the people to explain their latest major screwup, and the papers want to know, so they can cover it.

Want to look at the register? Dan asked, coming into the office from the pool area. I wouldn't know anything if I saw it.

I looked it over. Nothing stood out, but I'd missed a little detail in the Bonnie Patrick case that made it take a lot longer than necessary, so I checked it over again.

C. Carter came over just before she left, and again later. What did he want?

He left his briefcase, or something, the night before, and Anna Bellows gave it to him, the first trip, Selma said. If I remember, he thought something had dropped out of it, and wanted to look around, in case it was here.

Did he find it? Dan asked.

No, not that I know of, Selma replied. Dan raised an eyebrow at me.

Pretty thin.

What? Selma asked.

Mrs. B. found the case, found something inside, and took it. C. Carter can't let whatever it was fall into other hands, so he comes back after he gets the case to retrieve it, it's not here, he contacts Mrs. B., who tells him she found it, and wants some answers, he invites her over where he kills her to shut her up, Dan said. It's farfetched, but I've seen worse.

Yeah. Wasn't Bonnie killed because of something even further out of reality? Selma asked. I can't see Cart killing anyone. He's sort of a mousey type. He might poison someone, I guess. You know, a sort of woman's method of getting rid of an enemy.

The register lists everyone at the meeting on that added page there, Dan suggested. "You might recognize a name or two. It's not likely any of them killed her – I know. She was the devil's own tool, with her painted face and lips and shorts. You told Forbes you had him pegged for murdering Bonnie Patrick because of some such nonsense.

"You wouldn't believe what he put me through over that bit – until Sam said that was very interesting, but he was going to have to put the two of them in the squad car in handcuffs and take them down to the office to question them if they didn't stop changing the subject. She pulled a fainting act. He answered the questions.

You gonna tell them they're suspects again?

Why not? Selma said, with a wicked little grin. "They are!"

I'll have to inform them that their whole little group are major suspects, because their remarks about her wearing shorts were overheard. They'll know the devil's out to get them through me, the one who throws drunken orgies.

Drunken orgies? Did they really say that? Selma asked. "I didn't see any orgies – damn it! – and only a couple of people got even a little drunk. You didn't let anyone drive, and it was New Years Eve!"

If you even smell the stuff, you're a drunkard, and damned to eternal hell, Dan preached, in a TV evangelist voice. Anything else strike you?

This Tom Dekins came over in the afternoon? I asked Selma. Sean said he lived next to Carter. What did he want?

He said he came in to check something in the men's changing room. I think it was the lights, or something.

Didn't you call in an electrician to fix the wall sockets? Dan asked, looking at his list.

Maybe that was it, Selma said.

Did Tom Dekins usually look out for that kind of thing here?

Well, no. He didn't even come around here, much. Maybe Anna asked him to check the sockets in there.

Hank Norcross worked for the electric company for years, Dan argued. Mrs. Bellows knew him. Wouldn't she have him check any electrical problems?

Well, she usually did. Why all the concern about Tom Dekins?

"It was out of character for him to come here. We have to determine why he did come, at all. He wasn't an electrician, but he supposedly came to check out electrical problems?

"You see, Mrs. Bellows was sort of snappish, yesterday afternoon, and that wasn't like her usual self. Now she's dead. Anyone else who did anything not in character gets our full attention. We want to know just why Mrs. Bellows acted snappish, and we want to know why Mr. Dekins came here to check an electrical problem."

Forbes and his group may have had something to do with the way Anna was acting. They made the remarks.

We're going to check everyone in that little group, thoroughly, but I don't expect too much, there, Dan said. To make snide little cutting remarks about others is right in character for the type.

I want to know more about that briefcase. I want to know where Mrs. Bellows went last night, and I want to know where her bicycle is now. If that bike is sitting in somebody's carport, or behind their shed, or something, somebody has one hell of an explanation to come up with!

I have four cruisers combing the park for that bike, right now, Dan said. "As soon as Miss Wentworth mentioned it wasn't where it was supposed to be, I sent them out.

I wish they hadn't used that black poly cord on her.

What do you mean? Selma asked.

Do you have any of it around here?

There's a roll of it in the storeroom – I see. Everybody has a few feet of it around, somewhere. Obvious – if you think about it!

Half the places here are on canals, Dan said. You won't find a boat, a dock, or anything else, without pieces of it all over the place. We have that missing bicycle, and the fact she was a little snappish yesterday to go on. That's not much!

"I'm going over to the shopper to find who she talked with and about what, then into the News-Press. Maybe she let a word slip, or something on the order.

"I'll start talking with those people from that church group before I leave the park, just to eliminate them, then it's on to C. Carter, Tom Dekins, Hank Norcross, and the rest out there by those two canals.

As you said, what we have to go on isn't much.

"Drop me