Page 64 of Murder on the Boardwalk

“Oh, brother,” Brogan grumbled. “You’re talking like his court appearance might never happen.”

“It probably won’t unless we get more evidence,” Brent admitted.

“Which could take months,” Lucien realized.

Brent glanced around the table. “Don’t look so down. Don’t dwell on the negative. There’s always a chance the lab will find DNA on Gidget’s remains that would send him to prison for the rest of his life. If Marshall is our guy, maybe we’ll get lucky with the exhumation. Think positive.”

“You don’t really believe that’ll happen, do you?” Lucien concluded. “What’s the probability of that happening?”

“Like I said. No negative vibes. We’ll hope for the best. Look how fast they turned around the DNA results on Russell Miller.”

“But his DNA was probably in military records,” Birk surmised.

Brent shook his head. “That’s not how the lab confirmed his ID. They used a hit they got in a genealogy database.”

Brogan sat up straighter. “Miller has relatives still living?”

“A slew of cousins, nieces, and nephews. But his baby brother is the one who uploaded the Miller DNA into a genealogy website before he passed on. After that, his daughter followed up in NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and begged the Army to verify that her uncle had gone missing from the hospital in Portland, Maine. It all clicked into place after getting verification from the military and local law enforcement. I’m saying that you never know what may break open the Gidget case.”

“Where do we go from here?” Lucien wanted to know. “This thing with Tazzie changing her story is a problem.”

“Talk to Richie Plunkett again. Find out definitively where he was that night. Was he with Tazzie or not? Was he with someone else who could verify his alibi? Same with Marshall. Check to see if anyone remembers seeing Tazzie with Dennis Marshall. And if so, how long were they together? We need to tighten up everybody’s timeframe. Try to lock them into committing to the time they left home and arrived back. I don’t care if they were out all night or watched a movie. I want to know where they were exactly. And I want someone to back up that information.”

“You’re asking the impossible,” Beckett said. “Look, don’t you think it’s odd that these local kids haven’t admitted to bumping into Gidget on or near the beach? Plunkett insists he was working construction and didn’t have time to hang out and surf until nighttime. So what? He could have easily run into her then. But no, he says. Dennis Marshall denies ever seeing her. After all, he lived in Santa Cruz but hung out here to be near the easier chicks. Enter Tazzie Crossland, who first said she was with Richie and now says she was with Dennis. Gidget was murdered on the weekend. Plunkett wasn’t working then. Marshall was probably hanging around here that weekend like he did all the other times before this happened. Tazzie certainly had access. Any one of these three should be your main suspect. There’s no way these kids didn’t interact with Gidget at least once during the entire week she was here. Why, then, do they deny ever seeing her?”

“He has a point,” Lucien stressed. “Wally said surfers are territorial. They would recognize an out-of-towner immediately. Why don’t these three remember a teenager who appeared out of the blue and began hanging around town? It sounds implausible. At the very least, fishy. And none of them show the slightest interest knowing a murder occurred on their turf.”

“That’s true of Tazzie,” Brogan confirmed. “When I talked to her, she was more focused onnotsaying the wrong thing. She acted nervous anyway. But when I pushed her about specifics, she was ready to stop talking. And there’s that phone call she made before I drove off. I watched her call someone immediately after the interview.”

Lucien nodded. “Plunkett definitely acted nervous. He even said he wanted me out of there. Marshall made it three for three. I think they’re hiding something.”

Brent scrubbed his hands down his face in frustration. “Then get me some solid proof. I don’t care how you do it.”

Birk’s eyebrow popped up. “Really? How often do you hear that from the chief of police?”

“Within the law, of course,” Brent clarified. “But all of you have a reputation for getting results. That’s why I came to Lucien. Show me some results. That’s all I’m saying.”

Lucien looked at Brogan. “We do what we’ve done before. We set a trap. If anyone here feels uncomfortable doing that, let me know now. We won’t judge.”

“I’m in,” Kelly said.

“Me too,” Jade tossed out.

“What’s the plan?” Beckett asked. “Because maybe we should ask the officers to step out. The least they know, the better.”

“It’s my damn conference room,” Brent pointed out. He stuck out a finger toward Colt and Eastlyn. “You don’t need to be a part of this. Go.”

Colt traded looks with Eastlyn. “No way. We’re all ears.”

“Satisfied?” Brent said to Beckett.

“Yup.” He shifted in his chair to look at Lucien. “What did you have in mind?”

“We already know Marshall tried to derail the investigation, right? We use it to our advantage.”

Birk leaned forward. “Okay. How do we do that?”

“We enlist this Sam Brownlee to turn on his boss, appeal to his ethical side.”

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