Cozy Mystery: Life's a Beach

M
elanie Brown is
29 years old and getting a bit old for Spring Break. Her friends, Amber and Tina, convince her to give it one last go before they really are too old to let loose for a week. A spring tradition for the girls since college, they book the same house on the beach for the same week, and book their vacations from work at the same time. Determined to give it her all, Melanie begins the drive from her home in Georgia to Daytona, Florida with nostalgia and anticipation. Their last Spring Break!

Recently divorced Melanie is tired, feeling physically ill, and emotionally battered. She decides the trip might be just what she needs after all. She daydreams about days on the beach and nights in the bars with her friends. Finding their house occupied by a corpse wasn’t part of the plan, or the daydreams. The cops dismiss it as a weekend gone wrong but the ladies suspect it's far more. The body isn’t just some unknown stranger, after all, it's
Tina’s fiancé’s ex and her death wasn't suicide.

“
M
elanie
! It’s probably the last year we can do anything like this! One last blowout during Spring Break! We’ll be 30 next year!” My best friend Tina all but shouted through the phone.

I’d tried to call off our annual trip to Daytona this year but Tina and Amber weren’t having it.

“It’s just been a really tough year, Tina. I thought you’d be more focused on planning your wedding anyway.” Tina had only just gotten engaged and I knew what that was like.

Unfortunately, I now also knew what it is like to go through a divorce. After four years of marriage I’d finally kicked my unemployed, soul-sucking husband out and divorced him. It had been a long brutal battle that included fights over everything from our house and dog, both of which I’d paid for, to even the lawnmower. Jace, my now ex, lived in an apartment, which begged the question of where he was even going to store the huge ride-on lawnmower he’d insisted we buy a couple of years ago? He hadn’t even used the thing, preferring to hire a local teenager to keep the lawn mowed.

Pushing the memories, and the anger, to the back of my mind I went back to my phone conversation. Tina was going on about having time for one more blowout with her girls before settling down.

I sighed, listening to her go on about hot days in the sun and warm nights drinking and clubbing. I thought I’d outgrown that kind of night but the more she described it the more I realized nights like that might just be what I needed.

“It’s time to get our buzz on, Melanie, come on! Please?” Tina drew the last word out so long it made me laugh. Then I gave in.

“Alright, Tina. Alright! We’ll go. Same house?” I asked, starting up my laptop to find the house’s website so I could book it for us.

“Well yeah, girl, where else would we stay? A hotel? I don’t think so!” Tina was already yammering on about buying drinks and food, and getting new bathing suits. The house was right on the beach and we usually spent a lot of time on loungers in the surf, developing a nice golden tan before we headed home to finally get over a week’s worth of hangovers.

I saw the house was available on our dates and used my debit card to book it. The other ladies would pay me back. I let Tina ramble on, nothing unusual for her, and started writing out a list of things we’d need to take with us or buy once we got there. We’d been doing this since our first year of college, when we’d all shared a dorm and become instantly inseparable.

I would have to arrange for time off from work but it wouldn’t be difficult. As a junior lawyer at a large firm in Atlanta I was vital to my employer but I wasn’t indispensable. It was a lucrative, if sometimes exhausting, career that I loved. It wasn’t the path I thought I’d be on when I graduated from the university but it’s where I’d ended up.

I eventually hung up the phone when Tina ran out of things to talk about and called Amber. She was just as excited as Tina was about the trip but it was kind of hard to build up the same enthusiasm. My marriage had been rough, filled with things that bordered on emotional abuse and I still felt bruised.

Since the divorce I’d started going to the gym, bought a new wardrobe, and changed my appearance from the frumpy housewife look Jace had demanded I look like. I’d also become certified in Spanish so that I could take on translation work freelance as well. I was growing and developing my skills, but deep down, I still felt like that miserable woman he’d turned me into, afraid of her own shadow without much in the way of self-confidence. That feeling was changing but it was taking a long time.

The days passed and before I knew it I was driving down the highway, some sexy male country singer crooning to me about burning the night away with his passion. I belted out the song as I drove down the highway, not caring who saw me happily singing along with the radio. I wasn’t a bad looking woman, I was often told I was quite pretty.

I was four inches short of being six feet tall, a fact that often relieved my mother. At six foot tall, my mother was a giant and she’d often told me how growing up as such a tall woman had impacted her life. I had my father’s auburn hair, my mother’s hazel eyes, and a distant ancestor’s olive complexion. Both of my parents had been pale creatures but I often turned bronze with only a little sunlight. A little fluffy, as Amber called it, I wasn’t extremely overweight but I wasn’t underweight either. Pretty average in most things, really.

Not like Amber who was tiny and blonde with huge breasts and a tiny waist. Topped off with Amber’s light blue eyes the woman was a true stunner. I could match her in the breast department but the rest of it? Not even close, Amber was a beauty inside and out. Amber worked for a non-profit group fighting domestic abuse and providing shelters to women and children escaping bad relationships. She’d actually done a lot to help me when I finally kicked Jace out, just through our conversations.

Amber was married with two children, and still managed to always look perfectly put together. Her husband, Mark, was keeping their two and four year old for the week and then Amber would go home. Mark would then go on his own vacation and she’d care for their babies until he came home. Then they’d go back to being a unit. I wished my marriage had been that good but it just wasn't meant to be.

I was putting all of that behind me though, Jace anyway, and focusing on my friends. Raven-haired, tiny little Tina with her petite body entered my thoughts as I pushed the others away, her steely grey eyes, a beauty in her own right, the dark to Amber’s light, with her always optimistic smile. Oh this was going to be a wonderful trip.

Amber and I lived close enough that we saw each other at least once a week or so, with me often travelling out of Atlanta to visit with her, but Tina had wandered down to Florida with her man. We hadn’t seen her in three months and Amber and I were both anxious to see our girl. Changing lanes one final time I took the exit that would lead to the beach house with a grin on my face. It was time to let it all go for a few days and relax!

I
felt
the warm sunlight on my face and let my head fall back as I stepped out of the car. I could smell the salt in the water, hear the roar of the waves stirred up by a strong wind now blowing my hair around my head, and hear the seagulls screeching at each other. Florida was just so fresh and this time of year brought the scent of orange blossoms with it. The scent was very faint but I knew what it was.

Closing the car door I walked to the house, stooping down on the covered porch that spanned the front of the coquina covered structure, to pull the key from under a small statue of Ponce de Leon. Not a very good way of letting your guests in but in all of the years we’d been coming to the house we’d never heard about any problems.

I stepped into the house and immediately felt like retching. Something was rotting in the house and it must have either been in the dark hallway with me or else it was huge. Burying my nose in the crook of my elbow I started walking through the house, trying to spot what was causing the smell. If I could get it out perhaps I could get rid of the smell.

I wandered downstairs but didn’t find anything. I looked up the dark wood stairs to the second floor. There was only bedrooms and a bathroom up there. I’d hoped that the smell was coming from downstairs, in the kitchen, where nightmares might not exist. I stopped on the bottom step, too afraid of what I might find upstairs to go any further.

I didn’t know how long it had been since the house had been rented, or what could be up there but I decided before going any further that I was a paying customer, I wasn’t paying to remove dead things from the place. And whatever was up there, I had a feeling it was something I didn’t want to find anyway.

Walking back outside I was glad Amber and Tina hadn’t shown up yet. Taking out my phone I called the property manager, asking him to meet me at the house. He was there in ten minutes, a well-groomed fellow in a pastel shirt and khaki shorts with a million dollar grin on his face.

“Let’s see if we can take care of this and get you settled in. I’m going to refund tonight’s fee, just as an apology Melanie. You’ve been staying with us for a long time, we’d hate to lose you as a customer!” He walked away and I heard him talking with the cleaning agency on his phone as he walked into the house.

I heard a shout of disgust as he went through the front door. Apparently he hadn’t understood just how bad it was. I was still trying to get the smell out of my nose. It lingered though, making my tummy wobble each time I inhaled.

Another shout a few minutes later, followed by the sounds of pounding feet let me know the property manager had found the source. The look of terror on his face as he flew out of the front door let me know that stopping my inspection when I had was a smart move.

“Oh my God. Call the police.” He managed to get the words out before he fainted dead away.

I looked down at the man in astonishment. Behind that emotion was fear of what was upstairs, and a total blanking of what was happening. I watched my hands pull the man up from the hot pavement of the driveway and I heard my own voice as I asked for the police. I gave the man some water I had in the car and sat on the steps with him, the front door closed, in a state of numbness. He didn’t have to tell me, I knew there was a dead person upstairs. What else could cause such a reaction?

Hours later, after the property manager and I were both questioned and released, I listened to his call to the cleaning agency. Tina and Amber were sitting beside of us on the porch as the body of a brutally murdered woman was carried out on a stretcher. I tried to focus on his conversation rather than the poor woman being wheeled away in a body bag. I’d heard details about what had happened to her from police as they walked in and out of the house but I wanted to forget those words.

“Ah, good evening, Mrs. Landry, how are you? Oh, that’s good to hear. Is the Dalton Lane house ready? Oh that’s excellent, great. Look, I won’t be needing your services anymore Mrs. Landry, your cleaners seem to have left a body in the Ballantine Lane house and, well, that’s just unacceptable.”

I felt a bubble of hysterical laughter trying to force its way up out of my throat but I tamped down on it.

“Oh, I know your cleaners didn’t leave a body because I know they never cleaned it. The house was vacated two weeks ago and it’s full of trash and a murdered lady. Now I have clients that need somewhere to sleep and a murder to deal with. I hope you provide a better service to your other clients but you won’t be getting any more business from me.”

I swear if his thumb tapping on the screen could have been his hand putting the phone down, that small press to end the call would have been a slamming receiver that made the body of the telephone ring. Sometimes I really did miss the good old days of the old kind of telephone. I think the property manager missed it just now as well.

“Right, ladies, if you haven’t totally given up on us now, we have another house for you. It’s usually more expensive but in this situation, well, we aren’t going to worry over pennies. If you can follow me I’ll take you there.” He waited for our acknowledgment then we all got into our cars and followed him to a far ritzier house, with lots of glass for walls and a private pool, despite being only a few yards from the beach.

The house was beautiful and we were all too exhausted at that point to worry over anything besides ordering some food and breaking out a bottle of wine Amber had brought. We settled down with some barbecue and a glass of red wine each. We sat in the eating area outside, shaded by palm trees and lit with tiki torches.

“You didn’t take very long to get to the house this afternoon, Tina. I thought you wouldn’t be here until later tonight.” I said, sitting back as I took my final bite of food, washing it down with my wine.

“Oh, I’ve been in town for a couple of days now, Mel. Look at the ring! I’ve been dying to show it to you all day but, well, that poor woman and everything.” She held out her hand, wiggling the third finger so that the rock would sparkle in the torch light.

“Wow!” Amber and I both exclaimed. I’m not the carat measuring kind of person but that diamond in the middle was at least a quarter inch rectangle surrounded by emeralds.

“Are you marrying the Sultan of Brunei?” Amber shot out, eyeing the ring with awe.

“No, but he’s good to me.” Tina said with a pleased smile as she swiped at her nose.

“He’s very good to you.” I said with admiration as I wondered how a man that didn’t even have a job could afford such a ring.