The Homicide Magnet Read online

  Grandma Bertha Solving Murders

  “The Homicide Magnet”

  by Matt Ferraz

  Edited by Jane Hammett

  Cover art and design by Nicole Spence

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  To Missi

  For your kind support

  “Old age is like everything else... To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.”

  Gene Kelly

  Heart-Shaped Murder

  1

  “You can’t touch me now, Captain Awesome!” said the eight-armed purple man with a third eye on his forehead. “Not even your power can defeat the great Dr Cruel!”

  Stu didn’t dare to blink as he watched his favourite superhero being trapped in a chain of blue metal forged by the screams of a thousand victims of the satanic Dr Cruel.

  Todd watched his son, sipping a cup of coffee while waiting for the phone to ring. He was grateful to find his son distracted by the silly cartoon. At least that kept him away from the phone if Grandma Bertha called.

  The phone rang. Stu jumped from the couch and ran to answer it. “Grandma, Grandma!” he said, completely forgetting the peril in which Captain Awesome found himself. “When are you coming back?”

  “Stu, my boy!” said the voice on the other end of the line. “I miss you so, so much! I wish you had come on this holiday with me. This place is amazing!”

  “Grandma!” said Stu again, pulling the phone closer when his dad tried to take it away from him. “Captain Awesome is in trouble! I think Dr Cruel got him this time!”

  “What did he use this time?” asked Grandma Bertha, in a concerned voice. “Was it the Phantasm Ray?”

  Stu shook his head, as if Grandma Bertha could see him. “No, no. He’s using the Death Chains.”

  “The blue ones or the green ones?”

  “The blue ones!”

  Grandma Bertha sighed in relief. “Don’t worry, my boy!” she said. “Those chains are only going to hold Captain Awesome while he keeps fighting them. The more he struggles, the tighter they get. But Captain Awesome will soon realize that and he’ll get out of this situation with a smile on his face. Trust me.”

  “Dr Cruel isn’t gonna win?” asked Stu.

  “Dr Cruel never wins,” she reassured him. “Is that your dad’s voice I can hear?”

  Stu nodded again. His dad was trying to persuade him to get off the phone. “Grandma, when are you coming back?”

  “Oh, darling, I still have a lot of places to visit!” she said. “Me and the doggies think of you every day! I’m going to bring you a lot of presents. But I need to speak to your dad now.”

  Stu sighed. “Okay. Talk to you later, Grandma.”

  “Bye, darling! Go and take a nice nap.”

  Stu passed the phone to his dad.

  “Mum, are you all right?” his dad asked.

  “Hello, Todd!” said Grandma Bertha. “I’m perfectly fine, how are you?”

  “Mum, when I picked up the paper this morning I didn’t expect to see your face!”

  Grandma Bertha giggled. “I appeared in the photo? Did I look good?”

  Todd lowered his voice so Stu couldn’t hear him from the living room. “Mum, the paper says they found a dead man on the beach in front of your resort.”

  “Yes, yes, they did! His skull was bashed in.” She added, with some pride, “I was one of the first ones to get there.”

  “Mum, this is serious!” he said. “Have the police found out anything else about who did it?”

  “No, and I don’t think they will any time soon. You see, the poor man was hit on the head with a heavy object and thrown in the sea. The current took him to that part of the beach, and he was still alive when he washed up, because he walked a few feet before falling on the sand.”

  It sounded intriguing – and that was no good. Todd was hoping for a simple solution, something that didn’t require much investigation, especially by Grandma Bertha.

  She continued speaking. “I’ve talked to some people, and apparently he could have been thrown from a number of places and the current would have taken him there. But the last anyone saw of the poor devil was when he went into his room. The fishermen—”

  “Fishermen?” repeated Todd. “How many people have you talked to about this?”

  “About twenty,” said Grandma Bertha.

  “Mum, you… you could get in trouble.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” said Grandma Bertha. “I didn’t get into any trouble when they found Joyce Chapman’s body behind our house. And I even found out who the killer was!”

  Todd wanted to remind her how much trouble she had caused – to herself and to the rest of the family – but there was something more important he had to say. “Mum, please, I beg you, don’t get involved in this. Don’t try—”

  “To solve the murder?”

  Todd cleared his throat. “You know what I mean. Don’t nose around. Let the police do their job.”

  “Sure,” said Grandma Bertha. “I was just having some fun. Did I tell you about the victim?”

  “No,” Todd whispered.

  “His name was Paul Robard,” she said. “A wealthy man – made a lot of money owning a gift company. Do you know those stores where things look like they’re something, but they’re actually something else? A telephone that’s actually a clock, a toaster that’s actually a lamp…”

  “I know what you mean,” said Todd.

  “Well, his grandfather was the man who invented that concept,” said Grandma Bertha. “This Paul had a son named William, who’s also at the resort. A teenager, nice-looking boy, has been in tears ever since we found his dad’s body.”

  “No wonder,” said Todd, just to say something.

  “Yeah!” continued Grandma Bertha. “I was walking the doggies yesterday when I saw him sitting on the bench, staring at the ocean. I sat by his side and asked what he was going to do.”

  “‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Everything seems so useless now.’ I asked him if he was close to his father and he said yes. ‘He was my best friend. Mum was sent to an asylum when I was five, and he was all I had. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.’”

  Grandma Bertha was silent for a moment. Todd couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “I invited William to tea today, but he said he couldn’t. I think he has a meeting with a girl, a scrawny little thing named Winifred Compson he met here.”

  “You should let him do what he wants to do,” said Todd. “He’s just had a big loss, and now might not be the best time for him to make new friends.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Grandma Bertha. And then, as if she had just remembered, “Want to know something funny? People recognized me.”

  Oh, Lord! The words passed through Todd’s mind, but he didn’t say them. There was only one thing people would recognize Grandma Bertha for: solving the murder of Joyce Chapman, the young woman who had been found dead behind her house less than six months ago.

  “There are a lot of kids in this resort, Todd. They are so clever these days,” she said. “Someone remembered the old lady who had solved that murder, and they’ve put me on social media! They even came up with a nickname for me. Do you want to hear it?”

  He didn’t, but there was no way of escaping it,
considering how proud of the nickname Grandma Bertha seemed to be. “What is it, Mum?” he finally asked.

  “The Homicide Magnet!” she said, with a laugh. “Isn’t it super?”

  2

  Sitting on the big heart-shaped rock that stood at the least visited portion of the bay, Winifred Compson had a beautiful view in front of her. The sea reflected the cloudless sky like a mirror, forming a beautiful contrast with the white sand of the beach. The crowds were mostly on the other side of the bay – one reason why she preferred that part of the beach.

  Winifred was taller than most people her age. She was a fifteen years old girl with thin blonde hair and bright green eyes in a pale face. When she smiled, which rarely happened, her upper teeth formed a straight line. It was hard to determine her age just by looking at her. But she was definitely young enough to fall in love with someone she had only known for a week.

  Winifred didn’t look at the sky or at the sea. Her bright green eyes were focused on the screen of her smartphone, on the message her mother had sent her the previous night. She had been up all night trying to make sense of her mum’s words. That morning, when she woke up, the news about William’s father had spread all over the resort.

  Winifred closed the message and looked at the time. William was late – as usual. He hadn’t been on time for any of their dates. It was one of the little things she hated about him. They were starting to accumulate, and she wondered if it would take long before they outnumbered the things she loved.

  “May I join you?” His voice came from behind her. Winifred smiled before turning around. William stood there, in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans, big sunglasses on his face. He was a big guy – not fat, but definitely large, around the same age as her. He had curly light brown hair, a long face and a patch of facial hair that wasn’t long enough to be called a beard.

  “Sure,” said Winifred, as William climbed up the rock and sat by her side. “Thank you for meeting me.”

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “I’m going away.”

  “Away?” she said. “I thought we were—”

  He held up his hand. “Freddie,” he said, “I know what we planned. But that wasn’t going to work, not in a million years. I… I feel bad now. Knowing I was going to abandon my father, everything we had.”

  She slammed her fist against the rock. “I was going to give up a lot too, don’t you realize?” she said. “My mum is old, and I was going to leave her for you. For you!”

  “Please, Freddie,” he said, removing his glasses. His eyes were red-rimmed. “It would never have worked. We were fooling ourselves. How long would it take for us to spend all of our money? Then we would have had to go back home. Now I can’t even—”

  “Yes, you can!” she said. “Don’t you see, Willy? You are the heir to your father’s fortune. We don’t even have to run away any more! We can have a proper wedding, move to your place, even bring my mum to live with us—”

  “Freddie, stop!” he shouted.

  She went quiet, and started to cry.

  “This is over. We have no future together. I have to go home, bury my father and start thinking like an adult. I’m alone now, and I need to learn how to take care of myself.”

  “You don’t have to be alone,” she said. “I will be by your side, always. Anything you want to—”

  “Please don’t!”

  “Anything at all! I would do anything for you! I would kill for you!” Winifred looked away. “I should have known. I thought you were different. I figured that someone who only kisses a girl once then decides to save the rest for after the wedding would be… Oh, who am I kidding? You’re all the same. You’re just one more man to add to my list of men that have dumped me.”

  Tears trickled down his cheeks, but his voice was firm. “I’m mad, Freddie,” he said. “At night I close my eyes and see things floating around. I’m going crazy, just like my mother did. Dad tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen. Now I don’t have him, and I don’t have anyone else...”

  She grabbed his chin and tried to kiss him on the lips. “Stay with me!” she said. “We can fight this together!”

  “I don’t have time for this, Freddie,” he said, pulling away from her. “I’m going through hell.” He got up and jumped from the rock down onto the sand. Then he fell sideways to the ground, yelling, “Freddie, help!”

  The anger fled from Winifred’s face, to be replaced by concern. She jumped off the rock – more carefully than he had.

  William’s face was filled with pain, and his right leg was bent in a strange position.

  “Willy, are you okay?”

  “I think I broke my leg,” he said. “I landed on a rock.”

  She could see the rock he was talking about. It was partly covered in sand, and clearly William hadn’t been able to see it when he had jumped. “What do you want me to do?” she asked him.

  “Call an ambulance,” he said.

  Winifred nodded and climbed the heart-shaped rock to get her mobile phone. Something in the distance caught her eye. “That old lady!” she said. “The one with the dogs. She’s just down the beach. Maybe she can help.”

  Before William could say anything, Winifred got off the rock and ran in the old lady’s direction. Grandma Bertha smiled when she saw the girl. She was wearing an old-fashioned pink swimsuit, holding the leashes of her three dogs – two mutts and a dachshund – in her left hand, and a can of beer in the right. “Hello, Winifred!” she said. “I thought it was you.”

  “Lady, I need your help,” Winifred said. “William is back there on the sand. I think he’s broken his leg.”

  “Oh, dear!” said Grandma Bertha. “Have you called the paramedics?”

  “No, I… I didn’t know what to…”

  “Calm down, precious,” said Grandma Bertha. “It’s going to be all right. I see you have a phone there. You call an ambulance, tell them where you are, and I’ll go and talk to William.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “He’s by the rock, right? That big one.”

  Winifred nodded.

  “Okay, call for help and then join us.”

  Grandma Bertha rushed towards the rock, thinking of how unlucky that poor lad was. A couple of days earlier, his father had been found dead not far from here. Now…

  “Oh, jeez!” said Grandma Bertha when she reached the rock.

  William Robard’s leg was broken. There was no question about that.

  He was also dead.

  His face looked like a big blue balloon, and there were bruises around his neck. Grandma Bertha looked around. There were three big dunes of sand nearby. The killer could be behind any of them, running away before someone discovered the body.

  If only I was young and could run, thought Grandma Bertha, I could solve this right here and now. But she had other things to worry about. For example, that poor girl, who would soon come back to find the boy she was clearly in love with dead on the sand.

  “Oh my God!”

  Grandma Bertha heard her voice and realized it was too late. Winifred stood behind her, phone in hand, her mouth wide open.

  “Please, my precious,” said Grandma Bertha, holding Winifred in her arms, “don’t look at him. Please don’t look at him.”

  “Is he…” was all Winifred could say. “Is he?”

  “I’m afraid he is, dear,” said Grandma Bertha. The dogs sat quietly by her side. “Did you call for help?”

  “Willy… Willy…”

  “Please, darling,” said Grandma Bertha again. “This is very important. Have you called for help?”

  Winifred covered her face with her palms. “Yes, I’ve called an ambulance!” she said.

  “You need to call the police now.”

  This was too much for Winifred. The world spun around and she fell, unconscious, to the ground. Grandma Bertha sat down and checked her before taking her phone and calling the police.

  3

  The first thing W
inifred noticed when she opened her eyes was that the room was a mess. There were dresses, skirts and shoes all over the place, as well as pieces of fruit and empty food containers. The second thing she noticed was that there was a dog sitting on her lap, trying to lick her lips.

  “Mustafar, behave yourself!” said Grandma Bertha, walking into the room with a big plastic cup in her hand. “So sorry, treasure. My doggies are too friendly sometimes.”

  Winifred opened her mouth, then shut it again. There were many questions she wanted to ask, but the image of William, lying on the beach, his face blue, kept coming to her mind. She couldn’t speak. “Is he really…”

  “I’m afraid so, babes,” said Grandma Bertha, pulling up a chair to sit by her side. “It’s awful, I know. First his dad, now him!”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Don’t you remember?” asked Grandma Bertha. “Oh, sure, you were in shock. They came by and secured the area. The killer could have been anywhere by then. You were screaming and shouting, making no sense. Something about Lisbon. Have you ever been to Lisbon?”

  Winifred shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about that – at least, not then. “Was it the same person?” she asked. “Who killed them both, I mean?”

  “Oh, it’s hard to tell,” answered Grandma Bertha. “The police are still at the hotel, asking questions. I asked them to give you a couple of hours to relax. We still have some time. Here, drink this.” She handed the plastic cup to Winifred.

  “What is it?” the girl asked.

  “A Coke float,” answered Grandma Bertha, giving her a straw. “It’s vanilla ice cream and coke. Tasty, and with lots of sugar to calm you down.”

  “Thanks,” said Winifred, tasting it. “It’s good. I’m sorry, your name is…”

  “Grandma Bertha. Of course, that’s not my real name, but everyone calls me that. I’m like everyone’s grandma by this point. Do you want some popcorn? I can make some.”

  Winifred gave her a shy smile. “No, thanks. I’m still shocked.”