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    Murder Under Way: Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #14
    Murder Under Way: Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #14
    Murder Under Way: Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #14
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    Murder Under Way: Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #14

    By Gene Grossman

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    About this ebook

    Of all the different types of mysteries, the 'locked room' type seems to be the most baffling.

    Author Gene Grossman tackled the genre head-on in his "The Magician's Legacy," number 7 in the Peter Sharp Legal Mysteries, and here in number 14 of the series he attempts to present it in another form - a boat at sea.

    In this case, the victim is alone on his boat, half way between Catalina Island and Marina del Rey California when he makes a distress call to the Coast Guard.

    After his first few words are spoken, a gunshot is heard and the transmission ends.

    An investigation reveals that he was alone on the boat at the time and that local radar units in the Coast Guard station and nearby Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) show absolutely no other boats in the vicinity of the victim's at the time of the gunshot.

    The authorities rule the death a suicide, but Peter Sharp's legal ward Suzi, an adorable little 13-year-old computer whiz, feels in her heart that it's murder. She knew the victim, because he was one of Peter Sharp's boat neighbors in the marina.

    If you're a true mystery fan, you'll enjoy trying to match wits with a 13-year-old and see if you can beat her to finally solving this 'locked-boat' mystery case.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMagic Lamp Press
    Release dateFeb 9, 2010
    ISBN9781452305509
    Murder Under Way: Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #14
    Author

    Gene Grossman

    GENE GROSSMAN was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in the North side neighborhood of Albany Park, where he attended Hibbard Elementary and Von Steuben High School.He pursued majors in psychology, chemistry and mathematics at Wright Junior College, Roosevelt University and Illinois Institute of Technology - all the while working his way through high school and college by playing piano in clubs on Chicago's then-famous "Rush Street."After moving to Southern California, he worked his way through law school playing piano in night clubs and appeared as a musician in seven major motion pictures.While slowly building his law practice, Gene purchased a truckload of movie equipment he rented out to film production companies and then started his own production company which over the years produced more than 50 educational programs on subjects ranting from Boating and Celestial Navigation, to legal subjects (Depositions, Bankruptcy, etc.) Sign Language Instruction and many more.Always having been interested in boating, getting divorced prompted him to buy and move onto a 45-foot Chris Craft motor yacht in Marina del Rey California,.Years later, while serving as navigator on a yacht delivery from the U.S. to Tortola, Gene wrote his first book, "Celestial Navigation for Dummies" (before the popular series of 'Dummies' books was created). He used his own production equipment to shoot a video on the subject Celestial Navigation - "Sextant Use and the Sun Noon Shot" and unintentionally started the nautical video industry in this country.Over the next few years he followed that first title up with more than 50 other educational DVD titles, all displayed on his production company's website at www.MagicLampDVDs.com.Having moved on from doing scripts for his video productions, Gene turned to writing fiction, and now spends most of his time in the marina on his new boat, where he created the 15-book series of 'Peter Sharp Legal Mysteries,' all now available both in print and as eBooks at Smashwords via www.LegalMystery.comIn addition to the 15 Peter Sharp novels, Gene compiled a group of fiction and non-fiction titles that he has either written or edited for others, plus some classic stories: the publishing company he formed (www.MagicLampPress.com) now has more than 60 books in print.The Peter Sharp Legal Mystery Series#1: Single Jeopardy#2: ...By Reason of Sanity#3: A Class Action#4: Conspiracy of Innocence#5: ...Until Proven Innocent#6: The Common Law#7: The Magician's Legacy#8: The Reluctant Jurist#9: The Final Case#10: An Element of Peril#11: A Good Alibi#12: Legally Dead#13: How to Rob a Bank#14: Murder Under Way#15: The Sherlock Holmes CaperThe Suzi B. Mystery Series (a spin-off)#1: ...Sorry, Wrong Number#2: Movie Magic#3: Two Perfect Crimes#4: He's the Guy#5: The Magic BulletsAll 20 of Gene's mysteries are described in detail in a free eBook: The Mystery Books of Gene Grossman: Summaries with the Author's Comments.

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      Book preview

      Murder Under Way - Gene Grossman

      Murder Under Way

      Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #14

      www.LegalMystery.com

      Smashwords Edition 1.1 – April, 2010

      ©MMX Gene Grossman - All rights reserved

      *****

      The complete Peter Sharp Legal Mystery Series, now available

      in both print and eBook formats at www.LegalMystery.com

      [soon to also be available as audiobooks]

      A brief summary of each is set forth at the end of this book

      #1: Single Jeopardy

      #2: …By Reason of Sanity

      #3: A Class Action

      #4: Conspiracy of Innocence

      #5: …Until Proven Innocent

      #6: The Common Law

      #7: The Magician’s Legacy

      #8: The Reluctant Jurist

      #9: The Final Case

      #10: An Element of Peril

      #11: A Good Alibi

      #12: Legally Dead

      #13: How to Rob a Bank

      #14: Murder Under Way

      #15: The Sherlock Holmes Caper

      *****

      INTRODUCTION

      If this is the first Peter Sharp Legal Mystery you’re reading, it might help you to know a little background information about the characters.

      Peter Sharp’s wife asked him to leave their home when she decided to downsize the household she owned, due to a conflict of their respective philosophies concerning legal representation: Peter is a private attorney specializing in defending the poor, unfortunate people ‘wrongfully’ accused of crimes. On the other hand, his now ex-wife Myra, is the elected District Attorney of Los Angeles County… the people who Peter contends operate the only successful ‘railroad’ in the country. Peter ultimately wound up living on a dilapidated old boat in their back yard, until moving it to a slip in Marina del Rey, where he discovered his former classmate Melvin Braunstein was a boat neighbor who soon became his employer, using Peter to do certain legal chores for his small law firm.

      Unfortunately, Melvin died in a plane crash, leaving Peter to inherit the small, failing law practice, an office manager (Melvin’s twelve-year old Chinese step-daughter Suzi, a computer genius) and Bernie, her huge St. Bernard.

      In accordance with Melvin’s Will, the court appointed Peter as Suzi’s legal guardian, and through a series of misfortunes that miraculously worked out, the they wound up living beautiful 50-foot Grand Banks trawler-yacht, from which they operate the small law firm.

      When Peter isn’t swilling Patrón Margaritas at one of the marina’s local watering holes, he’s usually involved in some losing legal case that little Suzi will inevitably solve, leaving Peter with the impression that he’s actually as good as he thinks he is.

      When Suzi isn’t busy scheming up some plan to get Peter and Myra back together again, she’s using her amazing computer skills (and several valuable law enforcement programs she ‘appropriated’ from Myra’s home computer) to aid local police agencies with their computer problems.

      All the local cops eat lunch at a Szechwan restaurant around the corner from the marina, where Suzi’s uncle is the owner; she occasionally acts as cashier.

      Your mission – if you decide to accept it – is to match wits with this 12-year-old girl and see if you can figure out a solution to each case before she does… and not being mis-led by theories and arguments proposed by all of the adults surrounding her (police, investigators, attorneys, prosecutors, etc.)

      *****

      Chapter I

      LYC (the Lahaina Yacht Club) isn’t much to look at. From the outside 835 north Front Street in Lahaina just appears to be another double-sized balconied storefront business with a window facing the street for its retail store, where they sell Yacht Club chotskies like hats, tee-shirts and other goodies that have been silk-screened or embroidered with the club’s famous Whale emblem.

      The only other thing you might notice from the street is a small sign indicating Members Only, and once inside, if you’re a member, you can eat, drink, and associate with cruising sailors from all over the world who either belong or are using the club’s reciprocal privileges granted to members of other yacht clubs.

      My ex-wife and I honeymooned here some years back, and we were fortunate enough to run into a ‘local’ that I went to law school with. After moving to Hawaii shortly after graduation he became a member of the Club and nominated me for membership. My Mrs. never cared much for boating, so I kept the membership active and try to get here at least once a year to unwind. So here I am, sitting here on the club’s extended deck out over the Pacific Ocean watching a cruise ship pass by, while trying to embalm myself with a large, blended, topless (no salt on the glass rim), margarita.

      *****

      Cruising sailors are an interesting group of people, and sitting around here at the club and schmoozing with them is a lot of fun because every one of them has great stories to tell. You can’t drive to Hawaii, so everyone who’s here on the island now had to come by either plane or boat – and for boaters, that means an ocean crossing - the type of event that always gives rise to tales of adventure, mishaps, surprises, discoveries and plenty of other stuff that makes for compelling conversations.

      The world may be a pretty big place, but something like a small island yacht club can compress it down to something a lot smaller, so everyone here seems to know that I’m a well-know criminal defense attorney from the mainland. The surprising thing about my reputation this month is that it really has nothing to do with me: it’s about a author dock-neighbor of mine back in Marina del Rey California whose latest five books are in the club’s lending library, and in today’s economy they’ve become quite popular. The titles are

      Foreclosure Investing,

      Deposition Preparation,

      27 Secrets to Success

      Publish & Perish and

      Income Tax: do we have to Pay it?

      His name is Ed Sinclair and he owns two boats on my dock: a large, comfortable 60-foot Hatteras that he lives on, and a small 28-foot Wellcraft cabin cruiser that he uses to harbor cruise or hop over to Catalina Island on.

      A few years ago he visited Maui and asked me to sponsor him for membership, so he’s also one of the club’s celebrated personalities. His autographed picture hangs on the wall right next to where mine should also be… but isn’t.

      There was an article about him in the New York Times recently, and he’s made a few ‘author’ appearances on the television talk shows. The club’s management is aware of his budding popularity, so being a friend and neighbor of his, I’ve become a minor celebrity here, just by being Ed’s sponsor. I try to turn the conversations away from Ed, because like most authors, he’s not a very interesting person. Unfortunately, my efforts at changing the subject from him to me usually fail, and I wind up taking down a lot of names and addresses all over the world of members expecting to arrange for an autographed picture of Ed sent to them.

      Now I know how some prominent judges must have felt when attending a cocktail party in their honor I was invited to once: almost everyone there was either a judge or attorney, but when they all learned that the husband of one of the attending female attorneys was a plumbing contractor, most of the crowd immediately abandoned the honored judges and circled around the plumber, asking for his card and asking questions about some drip or leak they were having in their residence.

      So here I am, a famous criminal defense attorney, and all these people want to talk about is some nerdy author who writes books that can put you to sleep faster than a lecture on celestial navigation. What a world we live in. I’ve only got about four days to spend here on the island, and on the first night here, during one of many conversations about my author-neighbor Ed, I told the crowd that the last time I spoke to him was way back during summer, before he left on a 4-month book-signing promotional tour for his books.

      My plane trip here was a couple of days before Ed returned from his promotional tour, so I haven’t had a chance to talk to him since his return. I do remember him mentioning that when he got back he would be preparing his small boat for a trip:

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