Check out these books by Susie Black as they are our Friday Reads book recs #cozymystery #yacozymystery #womensfiction #fridayreads #newrelease
- N. N. Light
- 8 hours ago
- 21 min read
Hello. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Susie Black. I am a multi-award-winning author of cozy mysteries. I’ve been asked to explain why readers should read my books. Readers should read my books because they can trust me to keep the promises I make to them. So, what can readers expect from my featured books? You can expect to be entertained by a believable, irreverent, sarcastic cast, and descriptive narrations of the worlds I’ve created. Count on your funny bones to be tickled by snappy dialogue, witty banter with hilarious one-liners peppered throughout the dialogue, and a well-plotted, fast-paced mystery with twists and turns that will keep you guessing till the very end.
Title: Death by Dreidel (NEW RELEASE)
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb:
Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik attends an industry Hanukkah party to honor Rapido Swimwear CEO Leni Waxman as the Mount Cedars Hospital Woman of the Year. The guest of honor collapses and dies in the middle of the event. An autopsy confirms that Leni expired as a result of poisoning by coming in contact with a purposely contaminated dreidel. There is no shortage of suspects—Leni had no problem destroying anyone who threatened her top-dog swimwear industry position. When Holly’s business partner is wrongly arrested for Leni’s murder, the irreverent sales exec can’t mind her own beeswax. The wise-cracking snoop sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster and nothing turns out how Holly thinks it will as she takes on a ruthless killer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
A sheen of perspiration coated Leni’s forehead and dotted her upper lip as she ran her fingers through her hair. Leni drew in rapid, heavy breaths as though she couldn’t get enough air. She closed her eyes, massaged her temples, and staggered like a dizzy drunken sailor for a half-dozen steps.
Then she tried to hand Buddy an envelope containing a one-hundred-dollar gift certificate to Bainbridge Department Stores. It didn’t go well. Her olive complexion took on a pale, translucent tone. She picked up the envelope with a shaky hand but dropped it on the dais. A deep red blush of embarrassment rose from her neck to her hairline. Her twitching fingers failed to pick the envelope up. Leni gave him a grateful look and congratulated Buddy with a wan smile when he took pity on her and picked the envelope off the dais.
I leaned over to Queenie and pointed to Leni. “Take a gander at Leni. Something’s wrong with her.”
Queenie followed my index finger with her eyes. “Yeah, she’s white as a ghost and perspiring.”
Mira waved around the room. “Because of the size of the crowd, the air conditioning has been on all night. It’s not the least bit stuffy in here.”
Gary snapped, “Maybe the old broad is nervous.”
Buddy took his seat and pointed to Leni. “No question about it. Something is wrong with that woman.”
Mira shrugged. “Or perhaps the emotion of sharing the loss of her sister took its toll and she’s not feeling well.”
Gary clucked his tongue. “Don’t let her fool you with her sad story about her sister. I wouldn’t be surprised if she made the whole thing up to add some dramatic context to her acceptance speech. Leni Waxman has a heart of stone and only ice water runs in her veins. She is incapable of loving anybody but herself.” Gary rolled his eyes. “She’s probably going through menopause and having one helluva hot flash.”
Seeming to rally after taking several restorative gulps of water, Leni tottered on unsteady feet over to a large glass-topped table piled high with door prizes. She pointed to the stack and said in a remarkably normal voice, “Okay, folks the last thing on our party agenda is the auction of these wonderful door prizes donated by all you generous vendors. Dig down deep in your pockets and let’s see some high bids. The proceeds are going to buy a library of books for the daycare center in the new hospital wing.”
She leaned over to pick up the first item, but it slipped through her fingers. Leni bolted straight up and stumbled as she clutched her midsection and let out a blood-curdling scream. She gagged and vomited down the front of her dress. Leni fell forward and collapsed onto the table. The stunned crowd went as silent as a cemetery when the glass top shattered and the door prizes scattered across the ballroom floor.
Hadassah Waxman jumped up and screamed, “Oh My God, No!” Morty and Barry rushed to Leni, but Doctor Levinson pushed them away. Levinson yelled, “Somebody call nine-one-one!” Then he sprang into action. He carefully pulled Leni out of the glass shards and laid her stiff-as-a-board body on her back. He held his palm over her mouth. She wasn’t breathing. He pressed his thumb first on the inside of her wrist and then on the bottom of her throat, but detected no pulse. He put his ear to Leni’s chest but didn’t hear a heartbeat. He commenced CPR, but she failed to respond.
Ten minutes later two paramedics, pushing a stretcher loaded with life-saving gear and accompanied by a pair of LAPD uniforms, rushed into the ballroom. The hushed crowd held their breath as the medical first responders reached Levinson still working desperately to revive Leni. The two pulled resuscitation equipment out and prepared to work on the supine guest of honor. The doctor’s shoulders slumped with defeat. Levinson’s eyes filled and his voice cracked as he waved the two off. “It’s too late. She’s gone.”
Hadassah let out an anguished cry of despair and collapsed to the floor.
Naturally, I burst out laughing.
Buy Links:
Amazon: Amazon.com : Death by Dreidel
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-by-dreidel-susie-black/1147055032?ean=2940184541495
Author Biography:
Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple but now calls sunny Southern California home. Like the protagonist in her Holly Swimsuit Mystery Series, Susie is a successful apparel sales executive. Susie began telling stories as soon as she learned to talk. Now she’s telling all the stories from her garment industry experiences in humorous mysteries.
She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.
Looking for more? Contact Susie at:
Website: www.authorsusieblack.com
E-mail: mysteries_@authorsusieblack.com
Social Media Links:
BlueSky: @hollysusiewrites.bsky.social
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hollysusie1/
Title: The Case of the Croaked Coach
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: The Next Chapter Publishing
Book Blurb:
There wasn’t an honest bone in Buzz Bixby’s body. The Encino High School’s head football coach was an equal-opportunity scoundrel. Bixby cheated and lied his way to the top and screwed anyone and everyone in his wake. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the bastard dead. The question was, who didn’t? Student reporter Hannah White’s interview with the coach is a nonstarter when she discovers varsity football hero Dean Snyder standing over Bixby’s battered corpse holding a bloody trophy. Despite how guilty Dean looks, Hannah is convinced he’s innocent. When Snyder is arrested for Bixby’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing turns out how Hannah thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
Logic said to either run for help or to run for my life, but a combination of fear— if Dean did it, now discovered, would he kill me too— and the curiosity to learn the answer kept my feet frozen to the spot inside the doorframe.
Dean’s body shook like a leaf in a rainstorm as he stared at the bloody trophy in his hand as though he just discovered it. Either Dean was doing an Academy Award-worthy acting job for my benefit or he was even more terrified than I was. Flip a coin.
A reporter has to make snap judgments. Is it the same as trusting your gut?
Dad’s voice whispered inside my head. “Trust your gut.”
I guess the answer to my question is yes…
“Dean,” I spoke his name in the same soothing tone you do to a frightened animal.
He looked up at my voice, surprised to hear his name called. His eyes filled. “It’s not what you think.”
Fairly confident Dean had no plan to smash my head to smithereens with the trophy, I took a few tentative steps into the office.
I dipped my head towards the trophy still in his grasp. “Okay. Then what is it?”
Dean’s voice quivered. “After practice, I came here to talk to the coach.”
“About what?”
“To convince him to give me the starting position.”
The train has already left the station so, in my book, a big waste of time. Just sayin’.
I pursed my lips. “The word around campus is Bixby was a lame duck with no say in anything anymore.”
Dean scowled. “He still had a lot of sway with Coach Bender. Bixby could convince Coach Bender to make the change if he wanted to.”
“Why would he?”
Dean huffed with righteous indignation. “To do the right thing. Because I earned the spot and he knew it.”
For Donna’s sake, I gave it my best shot to believe him. But Dean’s story had more holes than a dozen glazed donuts.
I framed my hands like a movie director. “So, maybe this happened? You met with him. No matter how much you pleaded, Bixby still refused your request. You got angry. You never meant for it to happen, but things went way out of control.” I pointed to the trophy. “You grabbed the trophy off the shelf behind the Coach’s desk and in a fit of rage, you hit him with it on the back of his head.”
Dean yelped, “No! I never got the chance to talk to him.” Dean waved the trophy at Bixby’s torso scrawled across the desk. “I walked into the office and found him slumped over the desk with the back of his head bashed in.”
“How long have you been here?”
Dean scrunched his eyes closed. “Ten minutes. Maybe less. I-I’m not sure.”
“Besides the trophy, you move anything else?”
He shook his head.
“Where was the trophy?”
Dean pointed to the carpet under the coach’s desk. “On the floor next to the coach’s desk. I tripped over it when I stood next to him.”
“What on Earth ever made you pick it up?”
Dean shrugged.
“So, other than pick up the trophy for some idiotic reason, did you do anything else?”
He made a sour face.
I peppered him with questions. “Call 911? Try to help him? Check his pulse? Perform CPR? Anything?”
Dean hung his head. “No.”
My jaw dropped. “What the heck is the matter with you?”
He bunched his shoulders.
“If you’d at least called 911 he had a chance of being saved.”
He pointed the trophy at the corpse. “Is he dead?”
It’s not as though I’m an expert on the subject. The only dead body I’ve ever seen in person was Cindy Butler’s Grandma Ethel’s at the old lady’s funeral last June.
Dean bent over to examine the coach’s crumpled body. “I’ve never been around a dead body before. How do you tell?”
Good gravy. The back of the guy’s head is smashed in like roadkill. How much more proof do you need?
I rolled my eyes. “Well, since he hasn’t so much as twitched since I got here, I’d say it’s a safe bet the next game Bixby coaches is gonna be played in the stadium located at the Great Beyond.”
I used my shirt sleeve to pick up the phone receiver.
Dean gulped. “Who are you calling?”
Is this guy for real?
“Donofrio’s Pizzeria. Dead bodies give me the munchies.” I smacked his forehead with the heel of my hand. “For crying out loud, Dean! Who do you think I’m calling? The police!” I tsked, “Something anyone with a brain does the minute Bixby’s body is discovered.”
Dean whined as cranky as a toddler who needed a nap. “Why? No one knows we’re here. Can’t we just leave and let somebody else call the cops?”
I gritted my teeth. “Because it is against the law to leave the scene of a crime.”
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Title: Death by Jelly Beans
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb:
Mermaid Swimwear President Holly Schlivnik discovers the Bainbridge Department Store Easter Bunny slumped over dead and obnoxious swimwear buyer Sue Ellen Magee is arrested for the crime. Despite her differences with the nasty buyer, Holly is convinced the Queen of Mean didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But the trail has more twists than a pretzel and more turns than a rollercoaster. And nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge. “Brings a whole new meaning to the rabbit died.”
Excerpt:
I dragged my eyes over to the throne. The Easter Bunny sat slumped over with his chin resting on his chest and his body listing to the right. Good grief. A double-whammy. Not only did he dip into the jellybeans again after being warned not to, but he fell asleep on the job in a booze-infused slumber.
Why should I give a flying fig about the jerk who bowled me over without an apology, let alone helping me up? Yet a stab of unexpected pity pierced my heart. I checked the time. Still a few minutes before my command performance. Maybe rouse the poor guy and give him a chance to concoct another story Sue Ellen might buy unless the security cameras sealed his fate.
I laid my messenger bag on the library table next to the throne and gently shook the rabbit’s left shoulder. Nothing doing. I shook him again. This time a bit harder. I put my lips next to his ears and implored him. “Pedro, wake up.” Zilch. Geesh, how much booze did the guy chug? Or maybe booze isn’t the culprit. Perhaps the guy had a late night before or he is just one helluva sound sleeper? Oddly, he wasn’t snoring, but I attributed it to his neck bent down and his head dangling over his body.
I shook him again and got nothing for my trouble. His chest wasn’t rising and falling. Good gravy. Was the guy breathing? I passed my hand over the costume's mouth opening, but one so small I couldn’t tell. I clasped a paw to check for a pulse, but the heavy gauge costume fabric was too thick to detect one.
I checked my watch. No more time to crap around trying to help this idiot or I’d be late for my meeting. Despite my efforts to rouse him, the guy hadn’t so much as twitched. Annoyance coupled with dread tied my stomach in knots. I panned the department. No one was around except the rabbit and me.
The Goddess short-changed me in the height department but compensated by blessing me with a deep voice and a strong set of pipes. I put my lips next to his ear and shouted loud enough to wake the dead. “PEDRO, WAKE UP!”
I grabbed the rabbit by the shoulder and shook him with all my might. The guy didn’t move an inch. I grasped his arm tightly and yanked it hard trying to right him. Good grief. The bunny was stiff as a board. I might as well try bending a steel beam.
I let go of his shoulder and the rabbit slid off the throne. He crashed headfirst into the library table. My messenger bag and the jellybean jar bounced off the table and fell onto the cement floor. My messenger bag survived the ordeal, but the jellybean jar broke into a zillion pieces. Jellybeans scattered all over the place. The bunny bounced twice and flopped unceremoniously face-down into a pile of jellybeans.
The concept of shouting loud enough to wake the dead? Trust me, it’s a pile of hot hooey. I didn’t need an MD after my name to make this diagnosis. Pedro Conejo was as dead as the proverbial doornail. When the first responders arrive they’ll close the swimwear department for who knows how long. This ought to put a nice crimp into the Easter promotion. And who gets to break the good news to Sue Ellen? None other than yours truly.
She’s not gonna be a happy camper. Naturally, I burst out laughing.
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Title: Death by Cutting Table
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb:
There wasn’t an honest bone in Mermaid Swimwear CEO Butch Oldham’s body. He was an equal-opportunity scoundrel who screwed anyone and everyone in his wake. So, the question wasn’t who wanted the bastard dead. The question was, who didn’t? After Mermaid Swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik finds colleague Queenie Levine standing over Oldham’s bloody corpse nailed to a fabric cutting table with a big honkin’ pair of cutting shears plunged deep into his chest, the cops soon find Queenie’s hidden blood-soaked sweater, discover her stormy relationship with the victim, and her public threats to make Butch pay for destroying Mermaid by stealing it blind. When Queenie is arrested for Butch’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to flesh out the real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a slinky, and nothing turns out how Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
I cracked open the forward door and stuck my head out. I scoped a one-eighty around the dock. The street lights were on as were the lights at the top of the gangplank. A half-dozen apartments were also lit. A single light shined inside a cabin cruiser two boats from mine. My boat seemed to be the only thing in the marina with no power.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been the only one with no power. When I first bought the boat, I learned the hard way not to let the coffee maker, microwave oven, and television run at the same time or the circuits overload. But in the middle of the night with no appliances running or an electrical storm to cause a power outage? The blood froze in my veins. The answer isn’t inside the boat. I hoisted myself over the forward deck onto the dock with my heart in my throat.
A faint hint of smoke wafted from the breaker box and power outlet as I reached the end of the dock. I yanked the damaged plug out of the outlet and threw it in the water. I blasted the dock power outlet and breaker box with the fire extinguisher and pulled the other end of the power cord out of my boat power outlet. Eight minutes after my nine-one-one call, the cavalry arrived in force and all hell broke loose.
****
The psychedelic light shows of the emergency vehicles flashing strobe bubbles created an eerie specter as they bounced off the walls of the apartment buildings across from the marina. While the firemen examined the breaker box, two LA County Deputy Sheriffs kept my dock neighbors at a distance from my houseboat now swathed with yellow crime scene tape.
After the Deputy Sheriffs arrived, Antonio, the security guard, called the Dockmaster to bring her up to speed. Twenty minutes later, Dock Mistress Audrey Camarillo showed up at my slip to consult with me and the first responders.
A fireman squatted in front of the breaker box and electric outlet. “See this?” Siggie sidled over next to the fireman and the nosy parker hound rested his head on the guy’s shoulder for a closer look. The fireman laughed and gave my curious canine a howdy-do scratch behind the ears.
The fireman pointed to the marine power cable connected from the outlet to my boat. The interior guts of the marine cable are covered by a protective rubber encasement. The cable was slit open, exposing the wiring inside mid-cable to the prongs of the tampered plug. Several strips of aluminum foil anchored in place by a fistful of pennies laid on the dock adjacent to the breaker box.
The fireman said, “Whoever did this is no amateur. They knew exactly what they were doing. If they hadn’t been interrupted, they would’ve jammed the pennies in the breakers and wrapped the breakers with the aluminum foil. The breaker would’ve blown and ignited a fire. With the rubber-coated power cable serving as a connector, the fiberglass boat would’ve burned to a crisp in a matter of minutes.” He stroked his gloved hand across Siggie’s head. “It’s a darned good thing Ms. Schlivnik’s dog scared them off.” He turned a one-eighty around the basin. “With all the gasoline-powered motors, they came within a hair of blowing up the dock and burning this entire basin to ashes.” The fireman shoved his helmet to the crown of his head and whistled through a gap in his front teeth. “Somebody wanted Ms. Schlivnik dead. They came mighty close to succeeding.”
The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department detective turned to me and asked, “Any idea who is responsible?”
I motioned to the gate above the gangplank. “That’s a security gate. You need a key to get into the basins. Every tenant has a key to the gate and their key works on every gate in the marina. I’m not saying boaters don’t let outsiders in, because we all do. But this time of night, I doubt if a boater is still out and if someone was, they certainly wouldn’t let a stranger in.”
Audrey shrank back in horror. “You’re saying one of our tenants is responsible?”
I nodded. “Yeah, and I’ve got a pretty good idea which one. She was aboard her boat last night.”
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Title: Rag Lady
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb:
Recent college graduate Holly Schlivnik dreams of being a writer, but fate has other plans. A family crisis throws her into an improbable situation and her life will never be the same. Determined to make her own luck when things don’t happen according to plan, the irrepressible young woman takes a sledgehammer to the glass ceiling and shatters it to smithereens. The wise-cracking, irreverent transplanted Californian takes you on a raucous, rollicking rollercoaster ride of her hysterical adventures as a ladies’ apparel sales rep traveling in the deep South as she ends up finding herself along the way.
Excerpt:
Nana blinked her owlish eyes and shrugged. “That’s it?”
Gape-mouthed, I speared her with an incredulous glare. “Yeah, that’s it. Isn’t it enough? Nana, the secretarial pool for God’s sake! I wanna be a writer, not a secretary.”
Nana grinned. “So, you expected to start at the top?”
Duh. Yeah, Nana. Ok, so, I didn’t say it out loud. Of course, Nana came equipped with the grandmother radar thing and figured out I said it to myself.
Nana dipped her head. “You ought to be grateful to the man for giving you a dose of how the real world works. If you’re going make it through life intact, you’d better grow a thicker skin. You wanna be a writer? So, write. Do you want my advice? You better figure out how much you want to be a writer and be sure it’s important enough to fight for. And if not, find something else to believe in, or you’ll live an empty life.”
I sputtered with the cadence of a car engine missing a sparkplug. “I guess you missed the day they taught Jewish Grandmother nurturing.”
She pointed to my chair and laughed. “You sit in that chair and ask me a question, I tell you what I think, not what I think you want to hear.” She waved a hand of dismissal. “You didn’t get the job you wanted. Boo hoo. Amazing. The world didn’t end. Things happen for a reason. The right thing will come along, and you’ll know it. Sit back and let life happen.”
She smiled and reached for the coffee pot. “For right now, have another cup of coffee.”
So, I took Nana’s advice and downed another cup of coffee… or four or five hundred. I waited almost two weeks for life to happen. Since I was used to working hard instead of hardly working, and patience has never been one of my strong suits, sitting on my tush waiting for the proverbial light bulb to go on began to piss me off.
The days blurred together and time dragged so painfully slow that it almost ground to a standstill. I vibrated with the impatient energy reserved for the young. I was raring to get going if I only had a clue where to go. Waiting for this epiphany crap didn’t work for me. I’d have to give Nana the bad news. I gave it a shot, but her brilliant game plan flopped. Then I needed to get off my ass before my brain turned to complete mush and come up with a more viable plan B. I’d soon find out how right my wise nana turned out to be.”
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Title: Death by Surfboard
Author: Susie Black
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb:
No one is more stunned than Mermaid Swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik when a fisherman hooks her unscrupulous colleague’s battered corpse attached to a surfboard and hauls it onto the Washington Street Pier. The coroner ruled that while Jack Tyne drowned, he “had help dying,” and Holly’s boss is wrongly arrested for the crime. To save the big cheese from a life behind bars, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur detective dons her sleuthing hat to find Jack’s real killer. But the trail has more twists and turns than a pretzel, and nothing turns out the way Holly thinks it will as she tangles with a clever killer hellbent on revenge.
Excerpt:
The old man rested his fishing rod against the battered tackle box next to the railing and took a big slurp of coffee. As he picked up his fishing pole and took another restorative gulp of java, a strong yank on the rod almost pulled Pop out of the chair. Siggie barked when Pop cursed out loud as the old guy spilled hot coffee on the front of his T-shirt. The rod practically bent in half as Pop set the coffee cup under the chair and used his free hand to try to regain control of the line. The old man’s voice shook. “I hope whatever I caught doesn’t snap the old rod in two. I’d hate having to replace it.” Pop’s false teeth clacked as he smiled at the memory.” I’ve fished with this rod since the time I wore short pants. They don’t make ‘em this sturdy anymore.”
The old man gripped the fishing rod tightly in two gnarled hands. He leaned back in the chair and braced his feet against the wooden pier rail and prepared to do battle. The seasoned fisherman slowly let out some line to ease the pressure on both him and the fish. Pop pinched his squint and let out a groan from the strain of fighting the monster he’d hooked. He pulled in and released a few lengths of the nylon line several times. “The fish is getting tired.” He laughed a gravelly laugh. “Good thing. I am too. I’m not as young as I used to be. Hooked something huge; a great white shark or Moby Dick’s great, great-grandson.” As he reeled the catch in, the old man glanced at the plastic bucket and snorted. “I’m gonna need a much bigger bucket.”
Despite the cool onshore wind blowing in hard from the ocean, Pop used the sleeve of his windbreaker to swipe at the perspiration pouring from the old man’s scalp line and drenching his face. Exertion colored his neck to the same shade as an eggplant.
As the old man cranked the spinner and slowly hauled the catch in, short, chubby, alabaster-skinned Andy sauntered across the pier. Andy stood next to Pop and mumbled good morning. Andy leaned over the railing to check the catching progress and yelled. “Holy mackerel! Old man, you’ve hooked you a surfer!”
Pop and I gave Andy a pitying you must be crazy or something glance. Pop summoned a burst of energy, hauled the rod over his left shoulder, and gave an enormous tug on the line. My eyes bugged as the battered, wet-suited body of Jack Tyne, still attached by his surf leash to his surfboard, flopped unceremoniously onto the pier. Pop, Andy, and I stared at one another. As long-time pier locals, we’d seen a lot of crazy things, but nothing compared to this. We inched closer to the crumpled body hopelessly entangled in the fishing line for any sign of life. Andy cautiously toed his faded topsider on the left leg of the prone body. “Is the guy dead?”
Nearsighted, the old man squinted into the sun and shrugged. Pop bent closer for a better look. Siggie rested his head on Pop’s arm as the old man studied Jack’s pummeled face. “He reminds me a bit of the guy who surfs every morning. Gets to the beach at the same time as me.”
Andy blinked his confusion. “Which guy?”
Pop said, “The middle-aged guy and the hot blond stacked chick usually wrapped around him on the beach. You’ve seen them around. They’re the ones making out like a couple of horny teenagers or taking photos of one another on their phones. Sometimes she stands next to me and takes pictures of the idiot daredevil surfers coming in through the pier pilings.” Pop jerked his chin at Jack. “Another one of those hotshot morons.”
Andy glanced at Jack’s ravaged face. “No way to tell now. Besides, I was never close enough to see the guy. Did you?”
Pop said, “I mighta, but Mebbe not.” Pop took his cap off and scratched his head. “Hard to remember the brand of cereal I ate for breakfast most days, let alone some surfer and his groupie chick.”
I pointed at Jack. “This guy works at the same company I do.” Pop and Andy looked at me surprised, as though they’d forgotten me right next to them. “And the woman you’re describing is someone who works with us too. Did you see them this morning?”
Pop shook his head no.
Andy’s double chin quivered with the gyrations of a bowl of Jell-O as he jerked it towards the end of the pier. “I didn’t see him, but on my way to the pier, I passed a woman walking east on Washington who might be the chick Pop described.”
Since Jack hadn’t so much as twitched, Pop angled his leathery face closer to Jack’s pasty grayish kisser to see if he was as dead as he looked. Pop leaned in and passed a hand over Jack’s mouth. Pop took a breath, and Siggie barked when the old man jumped back as though he’d been burned by a cattle prod. The sickening stench wafting out from Jack Tyne’s wetsuit could easily fell an entire herd. The old man gagged as his eyes followed a wavy line of caked yellowy vomit haloed around Jack’s blue lips, chin, and the stub of a beard. Pop dragged his eyes past Jack’s ravaged face to the watery streams of greenish-brown crap leaking out of the sleeves and legs of the torn wetsuit. Pop jumped a helluva lot faster than you’d expect a guy his age ought to as the liquidy turds slowly coursed onto the deck of the pier.
Andy looked at the old man and joked. “Whatssamatta? The guy’s breath that bad?”
The old man pointed a crooked index finger at Jack’s pummeled body. “Poor bastard doesn’t have any breath at all. He’s dead as a doornail.”
Naturally, I burst out laughing.
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