Free The Surfside Caper by Louis Trimble

down and got her into his arms. He straightened up, holding her as if she might be made of balsa wood, light and fragile.
    He said grudgingly, “I could use some help getting her to bed. I need somebody to hold a flashlight. We’ll have to go through the woods.”
    He sounded almost normal, like one man discussing a problem with another man. But I knew it wouldn’t last. He would hate me harder than ever once this was over.
    Hate me a lot harder. Because I had seen what a man like Tibbetts wouldn’t want anyone to see. He was in love with Annette. A sick, doglike love.
    I got a flashlight. We started out. It was a long swing through the woods. We crossed Dolphin’s path and entered the forest. We followed a long tongue of timber that went around the edge of the golf course and worked its way back to touch the rear of the main building just short of the outside door to Annette’s apartment.
    We hiked a good mile and a half. I was wet with moisture, dirty from clinging leaves and redwood needles. And I was puffing from carrying no more load than a flashlight. Tibbetts wasn’t even breathing hard. Yet he carried Annette all the way in his arms, holding her with the same gentle care he had used at my cottage.
    We stopped short of her door. The service alley ran in here from the south. It was dark and quiet. Only the faintest noises from the bar and lounge filtered into the blackness.
    Tibbetts said, “My passkey’s in my left pocket.”
    I found the key and unlocked her door. I stood aside while he carried her into the living room of her apartment. I shut the door and found the light switch.
    He carried her on into the bedroom and laid her gently on the bed. He straightened up and walked to the bath. He came back with a bottle of milky liquid and a glass.
    I watched him pour some of the liquid into the glass. He said, “Hold her head, will you.”
    I held her head up. He squeezed open her mouth and dribbled some of the liquid down her throat. He set the glass down and stroked her throat muscles, helping her swallow.
    He repeated the process until half a glassful of liquid was inside her.
    He said, “I can take it from here.”
    I didn’t take the hint. I stayed by the bed. I said, “What gives with Annette? Why the boozing? How long has it been going on?”
    He had his back to me. He kept it that way. He said “Some other time, Flynn. I’m busy right now.”
    I said, “I’m busy too. I’ve got a problem to solve. And I think she’s part of it. So is the display she put on tonight.”
    Her eyelids fluttered. Tibbetts said viciously, “Get out of here, Flynn. I don’t want her to know anyone but me saw her like this.”
    I said, “I’ll get out after you give me a few answers. Not before.”
    He was wiping sweat from Annette’s forehead with a clean handkerchief. He didn’t answer me for a good two minutes. Then he said, “It was this way when I came here.”
    “When was that?”
    “Just after Lofgren died,” Tibbetts said. “I worked for her father in his hotel in San Francisco. She asked me to come, to help out. I did.”
    I wondered how long he had been in love with her. How long he had known he didn’t have a chance. I said, “Was she that way before she married Nils?”
    A long pause answered my question. His “yes” was superfluous.
    I said, “When did it start? What’s behind it?”
    “What the hell difference does it make?” he demanded. “Your job is Dolphin.”
    I said, “It might make a lot of difference. She could have known Dolphin before she married Nils. The problem she has now could have started a long time before she ever heard of Nils Lofgren or the Surfside Lodge.”
    I wasn’t just fishing blind. I was putting together the little things; the way she had acted in her office earlier; the way she had acted and talked in my cottage; some of what Milo Craybaugh had said; the way she had gone riding with Dolphin.”
    He said, “Everybody in San Francisco heard of Dolphin.”
    I