Who Killed Joe Italiano?

by Al Lamanda

Overview

On a much needed vacation with his daughter Regan and close friend Oz, in Puerto Rico, John Bekker, the reluctant private investigator from the Nero Award winning mystery novel With 6 You Get Wally finds his vacation cut short when on a hot night he can’t sleep and takes some fresh air on the balcony of his hotel room.

Bekker’s hotel is directly across the street from famed Luquillo Beach. The ocean is invisible in the dark, but street lights illuminate the sidewalks. A man is calmly smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk, seemingly minding his own business. After a few minutes, a second man joins the smoker. They speak for a few seconds and then walk down to the beach and into total darkness.

The following morning, Bekker is surprised to see dozens of police officers on the beach. A newspaper story details the murder of one of Puerto Rico’s most famous and beloved businessmen and philanthropist, a man they call Joe Italiano. Bekker decides to speak with the detective in charge of the investigation, Gerardo Escalante, and tell him what he witnessed from his hotel room balcony.

Bekker decides to stay in Puerto Rico and help Escalante with the investigation. He meets the governor who sheds some light on Joe Italiano’s political ambitions. Joe Italiano believed that Puerto Rico should achieve statehood and was a vocal member of an organization with the same goal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948338202
Publisher:	Encircle Publications, LLC
Publication date:	11/20/2018
Series:	A John Bekker Mystery
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.56(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

I usually avoid clichés as much as possible. For a while there, most of them went out of fashion when English underwent a dramatic transformation in the sixties and seventies. New words and phrases came to light; old standbys faded away.

Today, many of those old standbys have made a comeback, thanks in part to talking-heads on cable news. Most of the cable news reporters aren't true journalists in the Edward R. Murrow sense of the word, so they resort to clichés to score their points.

The one that drives me batty the most is commonly used by reporters, news anchors, talk show hosts and sadly, by most politicians. You've heard the phrase a thousand times, so often that it probably doesn't register anymore. It's at the end of theday, and when this cliché is used to score a point, it probably means the person using it hasn't got a clue about the particular point they're trying to make. Sadly, almost every politician and newscaster I see on the news today uses this phrase on a regular basis. Even the sports world is not immune to this particular cliché, and I hear it all the time during a ballgame.

However, sometimes a cliché will actually fit a certain situation or set of circumstances.

A few minutes past three in the morning, I came out on the balcony of my fourth-floor hotel room to listen to the ocean at Luquillo Beach. After a particularly nasty case where I was forced to take a physical beating to save the life of a little girl, I jumped into several insurance fraud cases that took ninety days or more to complete.

My daughter Regan decided I needed a vacation and she took it upon herself to book ten days in sunny Puerto Rico, where the January temperatures reach the mid-eighties and even ninety. She reserved five days at a beach resort called the Ocean View, and the placed lived up to its name.

Four floors, forty rooms in a horseshoe shape, and every room had a balcony that faced the ocean. Tonight was our last night at the beach. Regan had us booked for another five days at a resort on the other side of the island near Old San Juan.

So far, we had visited the rain forest, zip-lined through the trees, swam in the beach every day, took a helicopter ride, and ate a lot of Puerto Rican food in genuine neighborhood restaurants.

From my balcony, I could see the strip of sidewalk across the street where the beach was located. There were street lamps every hundred feet, but while they illuminated the sidewalks, the sand and beach was invisible in the dark, moonless night.

I could hear the waves crashing, though. And the musical sound of a tiny frog native only to Puerto Rico, the coqui frog. It produces a two-syllable song that sounds like co-key and when hundreds of them are together, it's loud and goes on all night.

I listened to them for a while and thought about the cigarette I craved, but couldn't have. My daughter has grown a cigarette detector and if she even gets a hint of smoke on me anywhere, she goes ballistic, so I go without.

While I waited for the nicotine urge to pass, a man emerged from the shadows, crossed the street and stood near a street lamp. He was a tall man, maybe in his mid-thirties, dressed in a long-sleeve shirt dark in color, with matching slacks. I thought it odd that on a night where the temperature was around seventy-five degrees with at least eighty percent humidity that he wore long sleeves.

He stood quietly for a few minutes and then pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one with a match. The distance from my balcony to the sidewalk was about three hundred feet and even though he stood under the street lamp, it was too far away and too dark to make out his face.

He smoked until the cigarette was spent, then he stepped on it with his right shoe. When he moved to extinguish the cigarette, light from the streetlamp reflected off his shoe and I could see they were leather loafers.

He stood there for a while longer, just minding his own business.

I should have returned to bed for I planned to be up at five to go running along the beach, which I had done every morning since we arrived. I started in front of our hotel and ran along the beach for thirty minutes until I reached the center of Luquillo, then turned around and ran back. After some pushups, situps and planks held for five minutes at a pop, I was ready for breakfast and met Oz and Regan on the balcony dining room.

I decided to quit watching him and return to bed when he moved suddenly to his left as another man approached from the hotel side of the street, crossed over and came to a stop.

They were separated by about a yard. In the dark, the second man appeared as tall, wore a white shirt designed for the heat, and casual slacks.

Then they turned and walked down to the beach and vanished in the darkness.

After a few seconds, I saw a match ignite and a second cigarette being lit. They were almost nose-to-nose at this point.

The match extinguished and they faded into darkness.

And at that moment, an old cliché ran through my mind, that nothing good ever happens at three in the morning.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds, listened to the wave's crash and coqui frogs sing their song, and almost tasted the man's cigarette. When I opened my eyes, all that was left to do was go to bed.

CHAPTER 2

I woke up again around five-fifteen and after a quick trip to the bathroom; I slipped on my shorts and tee shirt. There is a little, two-cup coffee maker in the room and I brewed two cups, and took one to the balcony.

Along with the glorious Puerto Rican sunrise, I was greeted by two ambulances, four police cars and a small crowd of onlookers held back by several uniformed officers.

The stretch of beach in front of the hotel was used mostly by surfers. The waves were too high and too rough for the casual swimmer and every morning someone came around to flag the water. Most days the flags were red and only the die-hard surfers dared venture out into the waves.

My first thought, as I sat in a chair and sipped coffee in the shade, was that a surfer had an accident and drowned. Mixed in with the on-lookers were several surfers that stood out because of their black body suits.

One of their own died for their cause. A drowning accident on a wave-swept beach happens all the time, even back home where the waves are relatively calm.

So when I left my room and went downstairs for my run, I dismissed it as a simple mishap, an accident common to surfers.

At least that's what I wanted it to be.

Wanting doesn't make it so.

I had to run on the sidewalk for the first hundred yards and then switched over to the sand. I ran close to the waves and their booming noise served as background music. After thirty minutes or so, I arrived at the center of Luquillo Beach. Barely six in the morning, the long stretch of white sand was deserted except for a few guys fishing off a rocky point and a flock of gulls searching for leftover scraps from yesterday.

I stopped for a few minutes to admire the new day and the ocean, then turned around and ran back to the hotel.

About thirty minutes later, I stopped short of the area where the ambulances had been, but were now gone. Most of the crowd had left, except for several police officers, including one in plain clothes that were still milling about.

The plain clothes had the look of detective about him. Most detectives I've met in my lifetime had a look about them, mostly in the eyes, that reeked of curiosity. To be a good detective, a person needed curiosity above and beyond all else. I had that look myself and, to some extent, probably still do.

While I did pushups and planks in the sand, I debated the cause. Should I approach the detective or go about my business and meet Regan and Oz for breakfast?

The detective made the decision for me when he spoke loudly in Spanish and then entered a dark sedan and drove away.

* * *

I met Regan and Oz for breakfast on the balcony at the allotted time of seven thirty.

"What's going on across the street?" Regan asked as we took a table. "There's police wandering around the beach."

"I think a surfer might have drowned," I said. "I saw ambulances earlier when I went for a run."

"Oh no," Regan said.

"It happens, honey," I said. "It's pretty rough waters out there. Most days it's red flags for high waves and strong currents."

"I know," Regan said. "I've seen them."

Oz looked at me as he sipped coffee.

"What?" I asked.

"You didn't happen to go poking that big cop nose where it don't belong?" he said. "Cause we be on vacation."

Oz spoke in soft, truncated sentences and often used slang, but his Morgan Freeman like voice made it sound like Shakespeare.

"No, I didn't, and I don't have a big ..." I said.

"We checking out right after we eat," Oz said.

"I know that."

"I'm driving to Old San Juan," Oz said. "You make me car sick."

"How do I make you ...?" I said.

"I think what Oz is trying to say is that sometimes you drive like a cop and it makes him dizzy," Regan said. "Me, too. Sometimes."

"Fine. Oz drives," I said.

"They packing up," Oz said.

I looked across the street and the last of the uniformed police were driving away.

"No crime scene tape, no uniforms left behind to guard the area for forensics, it must have been what I thought, an accident," I said.

Oz looked at me some more. He's around seventy-two or -three years-old with coffee-colored skin, graying hair and beard, and soft brown eyes that always have a hint of a twinkle in them.

"Good to know," he said. "If we all be packed, we leave right after breakfast."

We were on the road by nine. Oz drove west on Route 3 that basically, a few twists and turns aside, took us straight to Old San Juan. Traffic was heavy with commuters going to work and tourists.

Our resort hotel was located a mile or so from Old San Juan and overlooked the beach. Fifteen stories, pristine white with two pools, a spa and a gym, the resort was much more modern that the neighborhood we just left.

Regan booked us into three rooms on the twelfth floor, each with a balcony. The ocean view from my room was spectacular. Oz wanted to take a nap before lunch and Regan and I agreed to meet at the larger of the two pools.

Fully dressed with heels, she lays claim to five-foot-three inches tall and appears a little bird of a thing. I suspect she's closer to five-foot-one in bare feet, but it's a point I don't argue.

She has fine features, light brown hair that appears golden in sunlight and intelligent brown eyes.

What's remarkable to me is that in her bikini bathing suit, she has all the curves of a grown woman, which, at nineteen she qualified for. She settled poolside where she read a tour book of the island while I swam a few laps.

Before we left home, my old friend and new lady friend, Sheriff Jane Morgan took Regan to get her nails and hair done. The result was shiny red nails and blondish highlights in her shoulder-length hair.

"Old San Juan seems pretty cool, Dad," Regan said when I emerged from the pool. "Lots of shops, an old fort and tons of places to eat."

"Jewelry stores?" I asked as I took a Chaise lounge chair.

"Something for Jane?"

"Thinking about it."

"Engagement ring?"

"Too soon for that, honey," I said.

"Why? You've known each other since before I was born," Regan said. "And you're not getting any younger. Look at all the grey hairs on your chest and some on your head."

"Grey hair is better than no hair I always say."

"Earrings then," Regan said. "A woman always appreciates earrings."

"That's about what I was thinking," I said. "Maybe you can model a pair for me?"

"Let me look in the book," Regan said.

She studied the book for a bit while I closed my eyes and tried hard not to think about the incident at the beach.

"Dad?" she said after a while.

I opened my eyes.

"Yes?"

"Have you noticed how tired Oz seems these days?"

"Oz is seventy-one or -two now, honey," I said. "It's normal for people of that age to catnap during the day."

"If something happened to him, I couldn't deal with that."

"Don't confuse Oz's need for a nap with something being wrong," I said. "I have the feeling in a few years I'll be doing the same."

"I doubt that."

"He should be awake and ready by now, where should we go for lunch?"

"El Morro," Regan said.

* * *

El Morro is a fort built in 1539 by the Spanish to protect Old San Juan from seaborne invaders. It's a massive structure with six levels, old cannons and watchtowers and even a dungeon for prisoners.

It was hot, close to eighty degrees, and Regan wore shorts and a white tank top. Oz wore summer slacks with this god-awful shirt I picked up for him when I was in Hawaii. I settled for slacks and a Polo shirt.

From El Morro, we walked around downtown Old San Juan until we settled on a restaurant for a late lunch.

Regan dug out her tour book and scanned through it as we ate on a terrace that overlooked a large garden.

"There's a park a few blocks from here I'd like to see," she said. "And a bunch of jewelry stores not far from there."

Parque de las Palomas, the Park of the Pigeons, lived up to its name. It's a small, cement park overlooking the bay where, the moment you enter, a thousand pigeons pounce on you in search of food from their cubbyholes in the wall. Regan purchased a bag of food from a vendor and a hundred or more pigeons climbed atop her arms, shoulders and head for a taste.

Oz and I used our cell phones to take pictures and I grabbed a nice shot of Oz with a stray feeder perched on his head.

A few blocks from the park we came to a long street with six or seven large jewelry stores. We hunted and pecked our way through them until we found a store that carried the perfect pair of earrings that set me back five hundred dollars.

"Somebody be happy when we get home," Oz said.

Back to the hotel Regan treated herself to a treatment at the spa while Oz and I longed poolside.

As we sipped ice-cold lemonade, I said, "Regan is concerned about your napping. She thinks something is wrong."

"Something is," Oz said. "It called old age and if you had the sense of a goat, you be napping, too."

"Well, don't nap now because that handsome woman across the pool is eying you with particular interest," I said.

The woman in question was around sixty and looked very much like Eartha Kitt did when she was that age.

"She reminds me of Eartha Kitt," I said.

"Which Eartha Kitt, the gorgeous singer of the forties or the one play Cat Woman on the old Batman show in the sixties?" Oz asked.

"One and the same," I said. "She looks like she wants to talk to you."

"I got no time for female persuasion," Oz said.

"You have nothing but ... I don't even know what that means," I said.

"Mean mind your own business," Oz said.

The woman flagged a passing poolside bartender and said a few words to him. He gave her his pad and pen and she scribbled a note.

A moment later the bartender delivered the note to Oz.

"What's it say?" I asked.

"Says to mind you own business and shut up," Oz said.

"If I didn't know better, I would say you're afraid to talk to the lady," I said.

"At my age, I'm afraid to pee in the dark for fear I mistake the sink for the toilet."

"At least you won't miss," I said. "What's the note say?"

"Say am I free for dinner," Oz said. "And I'm not. Regan want to ..."

"Regan will be fine in the company of her old man," I said. "Go over there and tell her yes."

"I haven't had dinner with a woman since my wife died," Oz said.

"Twenty years is long enough, don't you think?" I said.

"What we talk about?" Oz asked. "The weather?"

"Simple," I said. "Ask her about herself and let her do all the talking. Just sit there, nod and look wise."

"If she asks about me, I tell her what?"

"The truth," I said. "She looks like the kind of woman that can handle the truth."

Oz looked at me. "If you say you need me on that wall, I slap you."

"Go, or I'll go for you," I said.

"Cause you just so suave with women," Oz said.

"Go or I'll ... nobody uses the word suave," I said.

Oz stood up. "Suave sound better than asshole," he said. "Which you is," he said and crossed the pool.

* * *

"Where's Oz?" Regan asked when we met in the lobby around seven.

"Oz is engaged for dinner with a lady he met at the pool," I said.

My daughter appeared mildly shocked.

"A woman? Oz? What do you know about her?"

"She looks like Eartha Kitt," I said.

"Who?"

"She was a ..."

"You left him alone with a strange woman he just met?"

"Oz is a grown man," I said. "I think he can handle dinner with a woman. Speaking of dinner, where do you want to go?"

"The Kioskos at Luquillo," Regan said. "We were ten minutes away and haven't even been there yet."

I handed Regan the keys to the rental. "You drive," I said. "I don't want to make you car sick and ruin your appetite."

She snatched the keys from my hand. "Don't be a wiseass, Dad. Nobody likes a wiseass."

Regan drove the rental east on Route Three to Luquillo Beach where the Kioskos is located. The kioskos is a long strip mall of restaurants, sixty in all, that is located just a few hundred feet from the beach.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Who Killed Joe Italiano?"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Al Lamanda.
Excerpted by permission of Encircle Publications, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---