Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 03 - Murder in the Mangroves (12 page)

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 dock 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.