Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 03 - Murder in the Mangroves Page 8

  “Then you’d better stay away from Nick. Because he’s just the kind of man to shake you to the core”

  “This discussion is all academic.” I tossed my jacket into my gym bag, holding my nose while I unzipped. I’d bought the bag in my favorite used-clothing store on the island, Secondhand Rose, and in spite of many, many washings, it still smelled like a pile-driver’s lunchbox on a sweltering day. “Nick’s not really boyfriend material anyway.”

  “Don’t be too sure. I’ve never seen him get so hot and bothered over a woman” He grinned.

  The implication sent waves of excitement through me. But they were quickly followed by tides of caution. Sparring verbally or physically with Nick was one thing, but anything deeper scared the hell out of me.

  I heaved the gym bag over my shoulder. “Maybe it’s best Nick and I keep things on a professional level. I’m a reporter, after all. Getting to know Nick on a personal level could be a … a conflict of interest.”

  “Coward.”

  “That’s my middle name. Mallie C. Monroe”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” His eyes seemed to twinkle. “You might want more than a man like Cole can offer you. You’ve changed since you came to Coral Island.”

  My mind raced back to scenes of seeing my first dead body last summer, rescuing a young boy, comforting a woman who’d lost her husband, facing down not one, but two murderersand finding another dead body this morning.

  “Yeah, my first year working at the Observer has been eventful, to say the least.”

  “Nick Billie might be your next trial by fire.”

  “I think I’d rather walk over live coals,” I murmured as I strolled past him.

  He followed, then closed the door and locked it behind him. “You won’t have to do the `fire walk’ until you test for your black belt.”

  “What?” I stopped in my tracks.

  “Just kidding.”

  “Whew.” I brushed my fingers across my forehead.

  “No-worse. You’ll have to break a concrete block.”

  “That’s a piece of cake compared to getting caught in Nick Billie’s ‘thorns.’” I climbed into Rusty and rolled the window down. About three-quarters of the way, it stuck, and the handle jammed. Typical. Rusty got temperamental after dark. Pulling on the neck of my Frozen Flamingo tee, I fanned myself.

  Sam remained stationed outside my window. “Be careful asking around about Gina Fernandez. Her fiance’s family has a lot of money and power,” he warned. “Everyone knew they didn’t like the idea of her becoming their daughter-in-law. Brett was being groomed for a political career, and having a wife who was the granddaughter of a migrant worker wouldn’t have helped.”

  “That’s sort of what Aunt Lily said.”

  “Lily’s spent a lifetime on this island and knows everybody’s secrets-and then some. I’d trust her instincts about everything. Life, death, and … love.”

  I peered at him closely. Did Sam’s attachment to Aunt Lily go beyond friendship? Her husband, Uncle Rich, had died in World War II, and she’d been a grieving widow ever since. At least that was the story passed around my family. Was there more to it than that?

  “Sam, are you suggesting that Aunt Lily is-“

  “I’m not saying anything other than she’s a very wise, compassionate woman” Sam’s face shuttered into silence.

  But there was more. I could feel the unspoken words between us.

  He tapped my door twice and stepped back. “If the Palmers had something to do with Gina’s death, they’ll be protected by their wealth. And they won’t hesitate to get rid of anyone who might bring them down. Be careful.” He gave a little wave and disappeared into the night.

  I understood. If I found incriminating evidence linking the Palmers to Gina’s death, they’d come after me.

  I fanned myself a second time, but not because of the heat.

  y the time I left Tae Kwon Do class, the day’s events began to catch up with me. My whole body sagged with fatigue behind the wheel, and my face burned from the sun-lashing it had received that morning.

  My Airstream beckoned. Home.

  As I headed back to the Twin Palms RV Resort, unpleasant images of the day flitted through my mind like a flashback in a movie: Gina’s body under the black mangrove tree, Aunt Lily’s tearful face, Mama Maria smashing crystal with gutwrenching grief, Rivas’ anger, and then … Nick Billie shirtless after Tae Kwon Do.

  Oops … not so negative.

  At least that image caused a shot of high-octane energy to course through me. Not to mention some tingling in my stillsalty toes.

  But it lasted only briefly, and another wave of fatigue descended over me like a heavy blanket.

  I pressed down the pedal to get to Rusty’s maximum speed of 55 mph. Come on, baby, get me back to my Airstream. The sooner I got back to Mango Bay, the sooner I could drop into bed and forget about everything that had happened to me today-the good and the bad.

  Within ten minutes, I pulled into the spot next to my trailer, anticipating the quiet of the RV park. I slid out of Rusty and stumbled toward my Airstream. Then it hit me: a blast of the Rolling Stones’ song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Jeez. I pivoted on my heel and advanced toward the ramshackle RV next door, my eyes narrowed, ready for a battle.

  I banged on the corroded aluminum siding of the tenement on wheels and shouted: “Quiet time is after ten o’clock! Turn down the music, or I’ll call Wanda Sue!”

  Laughter emanated from within, but the volume lowered a few notches.

  “Idiots,” I muttered under my breath as I made for my Airstream. I vowed to talk to Wanda Sue, owner/manager of the Twin Palms, tomorrow about expelling them from the site. She took any violations of the park’s rules very seriously indeed. And if those infractions were reported by the few of us who lived here year-round, the perpetrators would be toast.

  I opened the door and was greeted by the loving paws of Kong. He must’ve sensed my ready-to-drop tiredness because he took only a brief walk to do his business, and in no time flat, we were stretched out in bed, side by side, drifting off to sleep. My last conscious thought was of Gina…. It seemed so unfair for her life to end just at the point when she had everything: a wealthy fiance, a good job, and the Mango Queen title.

  Poor Gina….

  The soft ring of my phone awakened me early the next morning. I groaned, ducked under the pillow, and curled it around my ears. Oh, no. I couldn’t take my mother this morning. Or, worse, Anita.

  But the phone wouldn’t stop-and I’d turned off my answering machine last night. Damn.

  I reached out and picked up the receiver, slipping it under the pillow toward my ear. “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “Hel-LO?”

  I heard breathing on the other end, but no one spoke.

  “Look, if this is an obscene phone call, forget it. I heard every kind of nasty language going when I was a ticket-taker for short-tempered parents at Disney World.”

  More breathing.

  I gave an exasperated sigh and slammed the receiver down. Lifting one end of the pillow, I checked my alarm clock. Sixthirty A.M. No way. I pounded the mattress and tried to will myself back to sleep. I counted sheep. I counted palm trees. I counted mangos.

  Nothing worked.

  Wide awake, I threw back the covers and sat up, stroking Kong. Who the hell would call me so early? My number was unlisted, but that didn’t mean much these days. People had a hundred illicit ways to find out your phone number. I shrugged. Probably just a wrong number.

  Still, a sense of caution tugged at the back of my mind. Whoever had called me had hung on the line, breathing and saying nothing just so I’d know someone was there.

  “Whaddya think, Kong? What kind of creep would get up this early just to do some heavy breathing?”

  His brown button eyes gazed up at me with no answer, but the rapid wag of his tail told me it was time for a walk. I hooked the leash onto his collar, threw on a T-shirt and
shorts, and cautiously stepped out of my Airstream, gazing out over the horizon.

  Mercifully, it was quiet.

  The sun rose, a golden ball in a sapphire-tinted sky, casting shimmering lights on the Gulf of Mexico. I turned my face toward the light, and, gradually, warm waves radiated down, with only a slight breeze coming in off the Gulf. A new dawn, a new day.

  Kong and I strolled toward the beach, with my tugging him as we drew near the surf.

  “Hey, Mallie, you’re up early,” Wanda Sue said as she approached, carrying a large green plastic bag and one of those sticks with a prong at the end to spear trash without bending over.

  In spite of the early hour, she sported her usual carefully coiffed beehive and flamboyant attire: sleeveless, tropical-print top and pink spandex shorts. Classy.

  As I approached, she poked at a Styrofoam cup and tossed it into the trash bag.

  “Don’t you hate it when people treat the beach like their own person garbage can? I swear, it makes me hopping mad as a jackrabbit. I’m gonna put out a notice to everyone in the park that if they get caught littering, they’re outta here faster than you can say `Who shot Jimmy?”’

  “Who’s Jimmy?”

  Wanda Sue laughed. “It’s just an expression, honey. Sometimes I forget you’re not from around here.”

  “So it’s a generic Jimmy?”

  “Huh?” Her overplucked eyebrows arched upward.

  “Never mind.” I picked up a dented soda can and handed it to her. “I’m glad I ran into you. Those yahoos in the site next to me were blasting rock music last night after quiet time.”

  She sighed and tossed the can into the trash bag. “You’re not the first person to complain. I asked Pop Pop to talk to them today.”

  Oh, boy. Pop Pop Welch lived on the property in a fivehundred-square-foot cottage that looked as if a strong puff of wind could blow it away. Since Pop Pop was on the high side of seventy, that pretty much described his frail physical state too. He was supposed to be in charge of security, among his other duties, but he usually took out his hearing aids at night, so I didn’t put a lot of faith in his ability to take on nighttime marauders, much less my noisy neighbors.

  “Maybe you need to lay down the law to them, Wanda Sue” I reeled out Kong’s leash, and he scampered away from the water. “I had to beat on the side of their trailer last night and threaten to call you to get any kind of response”

  She stiffened. “Did they come out?”

  “No. Just laughed their fool heads off. But they did turn down the volume.”

  Visibly, she relaxed again. “Don’t you worry none, honey. I’ll take care of the situation. They’re not gonna be here all that long-maybe only a few days”

  My eyes narrowed. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “No, of course not. I’d never hide anything important from you.” She blinked her spiky, mascara-laden lashes but didn’t quite meet my gaze. “Not after all you’ve done for me, what with saving my grandson’s life.”

  “All I did was help Detective Billie find him.” My thoughts harked back to last fall, when I had accompanied Nick on a rescue mission to find Wanda Sue’s grandson. We found him all right-along with his father’s dead body. I shuddered inwardly and tried to clear those thoughts from my mind. “What are friends for?”

  “Well, I’ll never forget it. You’re in my BFF book, Mallie Monroe. And you know what that means.”

  I smiled weakly. “Discount coupons at the island Subway?”

  “You betcha.” She patted me on the shoulder. “I’ve got a drawer full of coups for a free six-inch sub.”

  “Thanks” An old motor-court building at the island center had recently been renovated into a Subway. In no time flat, it had become the island hub. Personally, I liked my fast food greasy and full of fat, so I rarely frequented its hallowed portals. “Did you hear about Gina Fernandez?”

  “Sure did.” Wanda Sue’s face turned grim. “I got the news this morning at the Island Hardware from Old Man Brisbee. It made me sadder than get-out, honey. My goodness … our Mango Queen. She was a lovely gal too. Poor Mama Maria must be plumb out of her mind with grief. I’ll have to go over to her restaurant later and pay my respects”

  “I’m sure she’d appreciate that,” I said as Kong finally ran out of leash and began to trot back. “I guess you also heard that I found the … uh … body.”

  “Yeah, that’s gone around the island like a brush fire.” Her mouth pursed. “But I don’t for one single minute believe what some people are saying about you-“

  “What’s that?”

  She hesitated.

  “Come on, Wanda Sue, give it to me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

  “Some people-and I’m not giving any names, mind youthink you’re a bad omen”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just because I was the one who saw Gina’s body first?”

  “Mallie” She leveled a long, serious glance in my direction. “This is the third time you’ve found a dead person on Coral Island…

  “Wait a minute. The second time, when it was Kevin’s dad, Nick Billie was with me. So, technically, that one doesn’t count”

  “I’m afraid that’s not how people see it.”

  “What do you mean?” I spread my hands in helpless appeal. “Everyone is going to avoid me like the proverbial plague now?”

  “Can’t say, honey. You’re gonna need to talk to an expert on this kind of thing. Someone who’s got a lot more experience than me.”

  “Who? An exorcist?” I couldn’t resist the sarcasm creeping into my voice. I’d tried hard to be part of the quirky Coral Island community, and, for the first time in my life, I had a place where I seemed to belong. A stable job-sort of. A permanent home-kind of. A circle of friends-maybe.

  “An exhibitionist? Don’t be silly, honey. Not that we don’t have some of them people on the island. You know, there was talk of a nudist colony here, but … oh, I’m getting off the subject.” She tapped her forehead, presumably to knock her thoughts back on track. “You need to see Madame Geri. She’ll know what to do”

  I groaned inwardly. Madame Geri was the island’s freelance psychic who wrote a weekly astrology column for the Observer and, in my opinion, was one of the great all-time con artists. Not that she didn’t come forth with a semi-accurate prediction now and again, but who couldn’t with comments like, “You’ll have a conflict this week” or “Be careful when driving.” Heck, even I could “predict” that.

  Last year, Anita had insisted I allow Madame Geri to tag along during the murder investigation of Kevin Crawford’s father. I’d put up with her constant craziness and her beadyeyed bird companion, Marley, for almost a week. Granted, she did distract the murderer trying to stab me with a paint knife, but that barely made up for those interminable days of her New Age nuttiness.

  Unfortunately, everyone on the island thought she was a sage somewhere between an Old Testament prophet and a modern-day shaman-or sha-woman, in this case.

  “What can Madame Geri do?”

  “She’ll cleanse your aura”

  “Huh?”

  “Trust me, it won’t hurt one bit. I’ve had it done myself lots of times-especially when I was feeling blue after my husband died. I just couldn’t imagine running the Twin Palms without him. It was a dark time, let me tell you, honey. So I went to Madame Geri. She contacted her guide in the spirit world, and he told me that my dead hubby was just fine and dandy up there in heaven. That made me feel loads better. Then she cleansed my aura by running hot stones up and down my body till all the negative energy was gone. Ahhhhh, just talking about it makes me want to get a refresher. It might help the arthritis in my back.”

  During this long diatribe, my mouth had dropped open. “You aren’t serious about this aura thing.”

  “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. Anyway, I’ve got to get my butt to work. Bernice is running things now, and she might d
ock my pay if I’m late. See ya” I pulled in Kong’s leash, and we hotfooted out of there before Wanda Sue could come up with any more lame suggestions for improving my personal life.

  I showered, dressed in my jeans and the Feast with Me at the Frozen Flamingo tee, kissed Kong, and took off for the Observer Of course, I made a quick stop for my usual extraglazed Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee, downing them in my truck so as not to tempt Sandy to fall off the diet wagon any further.

  As I entered the Observer office, yet again a strange odor assailed my senses. I sniffed. It wasn’t bait this time. I sniffed again. It seemed more … earthy. I glanced at Sandy, who was downing the last bite of a gooey pastry. Her fiance, Jimmy, perched near her, holding her hand. She wore a new T-shirt with the riveting image of a sawed-down palm tree and the logo Steve’s Stupendous Stump Removal.

  My eyes traveled over to the side of her desk. I gasped, one hand moving to cover my nose. The source of today’s pungent smell revealed itself: a large stump, complete with dirt-encrusted roots. It sat on the floor atop old copies of the newspaper.

  “Bernice’s latest advertiser dropped it off early this morning.” Sandy closed her eyes and leaned her head against Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “Steve Kimmel, the `stump man’?” I stepped around the offensive object.

  She raised her head. “You know him?”

  I nodded. “He took out a couple of dead hibiscus bushes for Wanda Sue after the cold spell last fall. He … uh … seemed nice enough.” What else could I say? We were working in an office with a stump.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can take this,” Sandy moaned. “Sure, it doesn’t even begin to compare with Gina’s death yesterday, but I’m freaking out”

  “No, you’re not, sweetheart” Jimmy squeezed her hand. A fresh-faced young man with a broad, beefy physique, he was also unfailingly chipper. It was hard to believe that he couldn’t help Sandy deal with anything that Bernice could dish out. It was even harder to believe that he was Madame Geri’s son. How that phony psychic could have produced such a nice, normal boy was beyond me.

  “Remember, Bernice’s running the newspaper is only temporary. Once Anita returns, things will get back to normal.” Relatively speaking, I added to myself. Who would’ve thought I’d be looking forward to seeing Anita? The woman who called me “kiddo” and smacked gum in my face. “Speaking of the devil-I mean, Anita-I talked with her yesterday.”