5 Highball Exit

Authors: Phyllis Smallman

PRAISE FOR THE SHERRI TRAVIS MYSTERIES

“A series that gives the reader a casual style and storytelling with staying power. The pacing is that of a southern drawl, with a core of beer, bars and bad behavior.”

—The Hamilton Spectator

“The Sherri Travis Mysteries started out well and have gotten better . . . the writing keeps getting tighter, and Smallman knows how to crank up the reader’s tension. One can’t help wanting more and anticipating the next book in this entertaining and fast-paced series.”

—National Post

“Smallman, winner of the Unhanged Arthur Ellis for her first Travis novel, is at the top of her game.”

—The Globe and Mail

“Phyllis Smallman is a gifted writer, and has a strong and captivating protagonist in Sherri Travis. Sherri is an engaging figure whose combination of single-minded determination, absolute candor and underlying sense of values utterly beguiles the reader. A fascinating read.”

—The Sherbrooke Record

“A murder-mystery crossed with chick-lit, this book is a lot of fun.”

—Her Free Reads Blog

“High tension, wonderful descriptions of the Florida countryside and a very real, heartbreaking theme of man’s inhumanity toward man . . . a must read.”

—Mystery & Me Blog

“Wonderful mysteries.”

—Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com

“Snappy dialog, rapid pacing and characters you’d love to meet in a beach bar.”

—Winnipeg Free Press

HIGHBALL EXIT

ALSO BY PHYLLIS SMALLMAN

Sherri Travis Mysteries

Margarita Nights

Sex in a Sidecar

A Brewski for the Old Man

Champagne for Buzzards

Sherri Travis Short Mysteries

Bitty And The Naked Ladies

Jack Daniels And Tea

HIGHBALL EXIT

PHYLLIS
SMALLMAN

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca.

Phyllis Smallman Publishing
www.phyllissmallman.com

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Smallman, Phyllis

Highball exit / Phyllis Smallman.

(A Sherri Travis mystery)

ISBN 978-1-927129-79-1 [print]

ISBN 978-0-987803-36-8 [eBook]

I. Title. II. Series: Smallman, Phyllis. Sherri Travis mystery.

PS8637.M36H54 2012 C813’.6 C2012-904826-7

Proofreader: Lenore Hietkamp

Cover and interior design: Tania Craan

Author photo: Linda Matteson-Reynolds

eBook development:
WildElement.ca

Contents

For Elle Wild
~ with much love and gratitude ~

CHAPTER 1

It was Sunday morning and I was out on the lanai of my borrowed beach house, sprawled in a canvas lawn chair, the Sunday
Herald
discarded at my feet. The bright Florida sun was giving me a headache. I couldn’t find the energy to go inside the air-conditioned house or even move into its shade. I’d surrendered to lethargy and given up on everything but breathing.

The September air was heavy with humidity. At ten o’clock in the morning, the temperature already hovered around ninety, with a forecast for worse to come. Overhead small white clouds, eager to be gone, rushed across the sky, leaving nothing behind but the drought that wouldn’t end.

Elvis flew in with wings extended, neck out and long legs dangling, and came to a running stop. He stepped delicately onto the listing concrete squares and stood there with his head twitching right, then left, and then back again.

“What, do you want . . . applause?”

He cranked his neck around and gave me the evil eye. “I’m no tourist. I knew you could do it.” Elvis tilted his head to the side.

“Go away you moocher. I’m the only one getting a handout today.”

He lifted a stick leg and paused before he set it gingerly down and inched closer.

“There isn’t a scrap in that fridge.”

He cocked his head, one yellow eye considering me as his fine white feathers quivered in the light breeze.

“If there was a hotdog in there I’d eat it myself.” Elvis was the only egret in all Florida who preferred hotdogs to fish. He couldn’t abide those disgusting things no matter how hungry he was.

“Get lost, freak.”

Elvis decided I was suffering from a serious lack of charity and lifted off with a squawk of protest to fly north across the sand dunes, back towards Jacaranda, looking for someone more generous than me.

This tiny aqua bungalow, on the beach in Jacaranda, was built closer to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico than the new laws allowed. Sand dunes and beach grasses were the only things I could see from the patio. It didn’t matter, all the other beach houses were empty until the season started. I was alone in paradise, solitary and miserable.

Even the chartreuse gecko darting in and out of the clay pots full of dead flowers couldn’t lift my mood. My business . . . no, my life, the Sunset Bar and Grill, was running on borrowed money and the fumes of my dying dreams.

I kept telling myself that everything would go back to normal when the long line of cars with out of state license plates started arriving. The winter before, the tourist trade had been down, leaving me pirouetting on the edge of bankruptcy, and now I’d reached a crisis point. The Sunset needed an infusion of cash or it wouldn’t survive.

If I could just last until after Thanksgiving, two more months, I stood a chance of keeping the bank from stepping in. But this nasty, nasty little voice in my head kept saying, “And what if the tourists don’t come? What if this is the new normal . . . the new state of things?” God, I hate that little voice. It keeps insisting on pointing out truths I’m quite capable of avoiding.

I tried to think of someone to tap for money, considered all my options, and discovered there weren’t any. When you grow up in a trailer park on the edge of a swamp, you just don’t make the right social connections to stave off insolvency.

It was time to make a new plan and decide what I was going to do when it all went down the tubes. I’d read every line in the Help Wanted section of the
Herald
, but nobody wanted bartenders, my only marketable skill.

So there I sat identifying the expendable—which server I’d let go and what supplier I could string out a little longer—when I heard a car pull in on the crushed-shell driveway. Glad to be distracted from my wretchedness, I went inside to see who my visitor was.

A police car was parked outside the kitchen window.

CHAPTER 2

The back door of the cruiser opened. A swollen ankle in a white sneaker appeared below the door. A few seconds later the second foot followed. It took a little more time for the stout figure to pull herself to her feet.

I gripped the edge of the sink and stared at her as my world went tilt. Everything outside looked so bright and ordinary, but I knew the truth. Elderly ladies don’t come visiting in police cars.

Aunt Kay was overweight, maybe even obese. Two black raisin eyes peered out of her rice pudding face while her salt and pepper hair sprang up from her head in an uncontrolled tangle of steel wool. Holding onto the top of the door with both hands, she stepped around it, slamming it behind her without ever taking her eyes off the kitchen window.

She was dressed in cropped beige pants and a square-cut orange flowered blouse, an outfit that did nothing to enhance her appearance. But looks had never been the important thing about Aunt Kay. She had something far rarer than beauty; she was easy to love.

Frozen in front of the window, I watched her uneven gait as she made her way to the house. My brain was doing a quick survey of potential disasters and came up with too many possibilities to make speculation worthwhile.

When she reached the carport and disappeared from my sight, I rushed to the kitchen door. I stepped out onto the small stoop, holding the screen door open with my butt, and waited as she pulled herself up the rickety wooden steps on knees that no longer bent.

Aunt Kay stopped at the top, gave me a weak smile, and turned to wave at the police car. The cop saluted and reversed out onto Beach Road.

“What are you doing here?” I reached out and kissed her smooth cheek and hugged her, smelling the familiar odor of rose-scented talc. The fragrance brought back feelings of comfort and safety. Aunt Kay had been my afterschool caregiver through most of grade school, and my weekend minder while my mother worked and Tully Jenkins, my mostly absent father, was either in disgrace or hauling oranges north.

I liked going to Aunt Kay’s house. It was close to my best friend Marley Hemming’s house and there was always a jumble of kids to play with. Later, when I was too old to need watching and an abusive man moved in with my mother, Aunt Kay’s was my safe place to hide from his hands. She never turned me away or pushed me to tell her what was bothering me. She just accepted that I needed to be there.

“What’s happened?” I was desperate to hear the worst now, needed to know the full extent of the nameless horror about to crash into me. “Why is a cop delivering you to my door? Why are you here?”

I tried to hug her again but Aunt Kay shook me off. “Oh for goodness’ sake, Sherri, give me a minute.”

I held the door while she went inside, dropped her bag on the table, took a deep breath, and then let the air out all in a rush. “I wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else.”

I waited, my mind chasing shadows. Someone had to be dead. My first thought was Clay. But he was up north at Cedar Key and Aunt Kay barely knew him.

It couldn’t be Marley. She was out at the ranch with Tully and if either of them were dead the other would have called. But what if they were both dead?

I reached out to touch Aunt Kay’s arm. It felt chilled and damp, like her blood had gone cold. “Just tell me.”

“It’s Holly.”

“Holly Mitchell?” I said the name just to be sure I had the right person . . . that I’d heard correctly.

Aunt Kay nodded. “She’s dead.”

“She can’t be! Holly’s too young.” Silly thing to say—being twenty-one is no protection from death. “Was it an accident?”

Aunt Kay looked away and her lip quivered.