The Turtle Mound Murder (12 page)

“Hey, you all right? I didn’t mean to
startle you,” a male voice said.

Crouched on all fours, I forced my face
skyward. It was the guy from the bar at The Riverview, our next
door neighbor. I let out a long sigh and sat back in the sand. My
heart was still racing. “I’ll be okay,” I mumbled.

He squatted beside me. “We met at the bar
the other night, right?”

I nodded. My pulse was finally beginning to
slow.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked, looking
around.

Penny Sue answered. “What does it look like?
We’re reburying these turtle eggs.”

The man stood to face Penny Sue. “Al
Maroni,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m staying in the condo next
to yours.”

Her demeanor changed instantly. Penny Sue
brushed her hand on her shorts and smiled demurely. She took his
hand and answered in her sultry, Southern voice, “Penny Sue Parker.
These are my friends Leigh Stratton,” she motioned at me, still
sitting in the sand, “and Ruthie Nichols.” She swept her arm in a
wide arc at the rest of the crowd, “And this is Gerty, Robert and
the Turtle Patrol. Vicious vandals destroyed this nest. We’re
trying to save the poor little critters.”

“Can I help?” Al asked.

“That’s very kind.” Penny Sue knelt in the
sand. “Scoop up the egg with sand under it, so you don’t touch it.
See.” She plunged her hand into the sand and carefully lifted an
egg which she placed in the nest.

Al nodded and did as instructed. With his
help, we finished in less than five minutes. Robert thanked us for
our assistance, and the patrol headed up the beach. Al said goodbye
and jogged off in the other direction.

“Nice guy,” Penny Sue mumbled, watching his
trim form retreat into the distance.

“Yeah, I just hope this isn’t an omen for
the rest of the day,” Ruthie said when we got back to the deck.

“Why?” Penny Sue countered. “He’s good
looking and nice.”

“I didn’t mean Al—I meant screams and
disasters,” Ruthie said.

“I for one have had about all the excitement
I can stand. Much more and I’ll have to take up smoking.” I nodded
at Penny Sue who’d just blown out a long drag of her cigarette.

Ruthie frowned. “It’s almost like we’re
cursed. There’s a dark, heavy feeling around this condo. Negative
vibes.”

Penny Sue flicked her ash and took another
long pull. “That’s your department, sugar. Can’t you do an exorcism
or something?”

Ruthie’s brows knitted. “I’d need a smudge
stick.”

“An eyeliner? I think I have a brown one by
Chanel.”

“Not an eyeliner—incense. It’s a Native
American tradition for purifying places. Sage removes negative
energy, and cedar attracts positive.”

“We need a barrel of both. Check the
kitchen, Leigh. Maybe there’s some sage in the spice rack. Would
that work?”

“Yes, though it would be good to have the
cedar, too. I’ve seen combinations of cedar, sage, and sweetgrass;
we probably could have gotten some at Cassadaga. A shame we didn’t
think of this earlier.”

I returned to report that oregano was the
only spice in the kitchen and it looked dried up.

“Naa,” Penny Sue said. “That would probably
only work for Italians. We don’t have to go all the way to
Cassadaga, I think there’s a New Age incense and candle shop on
Flagler Avenue. I saw it on the way to Lyndon’s for lunch. We’ll
try there first, it’s only a few miles away.”

The rest of the morning was a blur of
piddling stuff. Ruthie said it had something to do with Mercury,
Mars, Uranus, and gravitational fields like the Moon’s effects on
tides. The explanation was too deep for me so early in the morning.
The discussion was definitely one which required a drink, or two,
to make sense.

A call from Deborah, my next door neighbor
in Atlanta, was the first manifestation of the mischievous
planetary alignment. We’d been friends for years and had always
made a point of keeping each other informed of our respective
whereabouts, in case of an emergency. Everyone that mattered knew
to call Deborah if they needed to find me. And that’s what my
daughter, Ann, had done when she couldn’t reach me and I didn’t
return her phone calls.

“Sorry to bother you so early,” Deborah led
off. “Ann just called sounding pretty upset. She said she’d been
trying to reach you for days. I told her you were vacationing with
your old sorority sisters and gave her the phone number down there,
but you may want to give her a call.”

The dreaded phone call—I couldn’t put it off
any longer. The kids knew the divorce was imminent, yet it was
still going to be hard to tell them it was final. Eighteen months
of sadness, shame, and regret were all jumbled up in making that
admission. I’d discussed this with one of my therapists, who’d
pointed out that Zack was the one who had ended the marriage. He
had broken the marriage vow, I hadn’t, so I had no reason to feel
ashamed.

But I did. I felt responsible for not making
the marriage work. The nagging doubt that something I’d done or
hadn’t done had driven Zack over the line and deprived the kids of
their happy home remained, no matter how much I tried to convince
myself otherwise. My rational mind knew that wasn’t true—if
anything I’d been far too deferential with Zack. Yet, that female,
old-fashioned, role-conscious, guilt-ridden part of my brain didn’t
buy it and gave me no peace, at least until recently. Truth be
told, the craziness of the last few days had actually been a
relief—

That realization hit me between the eyes.
What was so special about the last few days? Chaos, danger ... my
mind was off myself!

“While I’ve got you,” Deborah went on, “I
think there’s something wrong with your sprinkler system. I haven’t
seen it running, and your lawn is getting awfully brown.”

The sprinkler? It had been running when we
left; in fact, we’d had to dodge water as we loaded the car. What
could have gone wrong? The realtor. “I think I know what happened.
I’ll take care if it. Thanks for calling, Deborah. I owe you
one.”

Ruthie noticed the exasperated look on my
face. “Everything all right?”

“Can we smudge my realtor?”

The call to Ann went better than I expected.
She wasn’t the least bit shaken by the news that the divorce was
final. If anything, she sounded relieved. Figuring I should finish
it all while I had momentum, I dialed Zack, Jr.’s number in Vail,
catching him before he left for work. I eased into the subject on
the pretense of telling him where I was and how I could be reached.
I’d given him the phone number when he took the bull by the
horns.

“Isn’t the divorce final yet?” he asked.

“As a matter of fact, it was. Last
week.”

“So you’re down in Florida celebrating? Good
for you, Mom. Gotta run, or I’ll be late for work. Love you.” He
hung up. I sighed. I had great kids—why didn’t I give them
credit?

The next call was to my realtor. “That young
couple is still on the hook,” she bubbled. “It’s down to your house
and one other. But there’s a small problem. They drove by the house
yesterday and noticed the lawn was awfully brown. Do you think you
could have cinch bugs?”

The positive wave I’d been riding crashed
into a wall. I wanted to reach through the phone and grab her
scrawny neck. At the very least I wanted to jump down her throat
verbally. Fortunately, I remembered Ruthie’s admonition about Mars,
Uranus, and being hasty. I swallowed my initial response (It’s
brown, you fool, because you turned off the sprinkler) and opted
for, “My neighbor called to say the sprinkler wasn’t running. Is it
possible,” butter-melting-in-my-mouth sweet, “someone turned it off
by accident?”

“Oh my, I don’t know how that could have
happened,” she said in a sing-songy voice. “I do recall that Todd,
the husband, was looking at it. I’ll try to check into it
today.”

“Thanks, you do that.”

Todd was looking at it. That was the last
straw. I called Barkley Home Improvement, a Marietta outfit that
had always done the repairs Zack never had time to do. Adam Barkley
was a prince of a guy, a real Southern gentleman. I asked him to
cut out the handprints on the patio and repair the hole. Adam said
he’d get on it right away. Satisfied, I hung up the phone. Whatever
happened, no one was getting my darling children’s little
hands.

The door bell rang as Ruthie emerged from
our bedroom fully dressed. “Mars and Mercury,” she said
portentously.

I checked the clock. It was almost eleven,
and I was still in my sweats. I scurried to the bedroom as Penny
Sue answered the front door. It was Shirley from Party Hearty with
the leftover invitations.

I showered and dressed in record time. I’d
gotten some color on my face, so a little mascara and lipstick was
all the makeup I needed. I pulled my hair back in a headband and
put on a peach-colored, cotton short set. Reef Rider sandals
completed my casual ensemble, as Penny Sue would say.

Though Penny Sue’s concept of casual and my
idea, like most other things, were as different as night and day.
By Penny Sue’s standards I was almost naked. No scarves, hats, or
fancy belts. A gold chain and modest sapphire ring were my only
jewelry. Accessories, accessories, Penny Sue harped at me all the
time. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford those niceties, all that
stuff just bugged me. Superfluous clutter; things to clean, keep up
with, pack, and haul around.

I stuffed my lipstick and powder into a blue
leather bag and went into the living room. Penny Sue regarded me as
if I’d just dropped in from outer space. “What?” I asked.

She motioned from the purse to the
sandals.

Mercy me, they didn’t match. “It’s the
beach, Penny Sue. Nobody cares.”

She pinched her nose up in that haughty
I
care
expression.

I stuck my tongue out at her and went to
change purses. I hated giving in, but knew she’d hound me to death
if I didn’t. A small concession for a large return in
peace-of-mind. I changed to a woven straw shoulder bag which earned
a nod of approval from Her Highness, when the doorbell rang again.
Ruthie was right—Mercury, Mars and Uranus were certainly in high
gear today. Now what? I wondered.

It was Federal Express with a large package
for Ruthie. She opened the box on the dining table and stared at
the contents.

“What is it?” Penny Sue and I asked in
unison, peering over her shoulder. The box contained what looked
like a child’s toy water cannon—the pump action kind kids play with
in pools and on the beach. Only this one was gray and made of a
material that was definitely not cheap plastic.

“What is it?” I asked again.

Ruthie opened a neatly folded letter with
the corporate letterhead of Taser Technology, Inc. She read the
letter then let out a loud sigh. “Mr. Wong and Poppa are worried
about our safety,” she said quietly. “I mentioned Rick’s murder to
Mr. Wong. He promised not to tell Poppa, but apparently did. This
is for our protection.”

“We’re supposed to protect ourselves with a
Super Soaker squirt gun, a child’s toy?” Penny Sue said.

“Not a squirt gun—a state-of-the-art liquid
Taser. According to this,” Ruthie thumped the letter, “this thing
is cutting edge technology. Instead of shooting barbed probes on
wires which deliver a shock that knocks attackers on their butts,
this gun uses an electrified saline solution. That means it has
multiple shots, a range of 25 feet and can stun more than one
person. It’s a prototype that isn’t even on the market yet.”

Penny Sue took the letter from Ruthie’s
hands, read it quickly, then handed me the letter and took the gun
from the box. It was about a foot and a half long with a typical
water cannon nozzle, trigger and bulbous reservoir for the fluid.
She hefted it to test its balance. “This is really neat.” Penny
Sue’s eyes shown with excitement. “How did your Dad get his hands
on it?”

“Poppa supplied the start-up capital and was
on the company’s board. He must have called the president to ask
this favor.”

“The letter is signed by the company’s
president,” I confirmed. “He says all you have to do is fill the
reservoir with the enclosed bottle of saline, insert the
rechargeable battery pack, and you’re ready to go. No permit is
required as long as it’s used to protect one’s home.”

“How does it work?” Penny Sue asked.

I consulted the brochure in the bottom of
the box. “This says the gun’s low amperage charge is not enough to
do permanent damage, but does scramble electrical signals from the
brain. An attacker will be partially paralyzed as well as confused
and unbalanced.”

“Neat-o, let’s load it.” Penny Sue reached
for the bottle of electrolyte.

“No,” Ruthie said with uncharacteristic
force. “I have bad feelings about this. We’re in enough trouble
already.”

“Come on, Ruthie, it’s a defensive weapon.”
Penny Sue slapped the battery pack into its slot and started to
unscrew the bottle of electrolyte solution. “Since Woody still has
my gun, I’d feel a lot safer with this around. The good thing about
this gizmo is that it doesn’t kill. Even Woody can’t find fault
with that.”

“I don’t know …” Ruthie mumbled
doubtfully.

“With all that’s happened, I don’t mind
having it,” I said sincerely.

Ruthie studied me, pulling on her ear,
considering. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt,” she allowed slowly, “as
long as we keep it here. We’re not carrying it out with us.”

“Sure,” Penny Sue agreed, siting the Taser
like it was a rifle. “We’d look like fools lugging this big thing
around.”

We put the Taser on the middle shelf of the
linen closet in the hall, gathered our purses, and prepared to
leave. We had just locked the front door when Deputy Moore
arrived.

“Morning, ladies,” he said with a smile that
was movie star quality.