Literally Murder (A Black Cat Bookshop Mystery) (3 page)

Proving her point, she shut off her car’s engine, as if prepared to wait.

The cabbie gave his head a disgusted shake.

“Snowbirds,” he spat, referring to the hordes of (mostly elderly) people from Canada and the Northeast—most particularly, New York and New Jersey—who made annual pilgrimages to Florida for the winter months before returning home again in the spring. “They can’t drive, and they sure don’t tip.” He turned back to Darla. “This is what you got to look forward to in sunny South Florida. And, word to the wise,
chica
: Don’t go near a restaurant around four-thirty in the afternoon. Those crazy snowbirds, they’ll stomp their walkers over their own grandkids to make the early bird dinner special.”

With that parting advice, he hopped back into his cab and pulled off in a cloud of exhaust, leaving the unseen elderly driver waving bony arms to dispel the fumes while shouting a few pithy curse words after him.

Wincing, Darla looked around, praying that either Jake or her mother would show up before any further drama ensued. Said prayers were promptly answered, as the terminal’s automatic glass doors slid open again, and she saw Jake stride out, followed by a skycap wheeling a cart with their bags.

“Hey, kid, why are you sitting there? How come you’re not in the car?”

“What do you mean?” Darla replied. “I’m still waiting for your mother.” She looked toward the loading area in confusion. Then, as realization dawned, she focused back on the green Mini Cooper.

The old woman driving it had popped up from the convertible’s front seat like a prairie dog checking out the surrounding. She waved her arms again, and her spiky hennaed hair fluttered like a cockatoo’s crest in the sudden draft of a passing limo. Bright red lips spread in a thin grin, she called, “Jacqueline,
bambolina mia
, come give your old mama a kiss!”

THREE

“YOU SAID SHE HAD RED HAIR,” NATALIA MARTELLI SHRIEKED
to her daughter over the sounds of interstate traffic. Glancing in the rearview mirror at Darla, she yanked a handful of her own cropped scarlet mane, and added, “That’s not red hair.
This
is red hair.”

“Both hands on the wheel, Ma!” Jake yelled back as the Mini Cooper swerved precariously close to the next lane, currently occupied by a semi. “You kill me in a car wreck, and I swear I’ll come back to haunt you!”

“Eh, I’m a wonderful driver,” the old woman protested, though to Darla’s relief she returned her arthritic hands to the ten-and-two position on the wheel. “I’m the only one in the condo association who hasn’t gotten a ticket yet this year.”

“That’s nothing to brag about, Ma. It’s not even spring yet!”

While the two Martellis bickered, Darla shut her eyes and hugged the cat carrier on her knees more tightly. The one benefit of being crammed into the low backseat of the Mini between two oversized suitcases was the feeling of having additional protection in the event that the little convertible went flying off the highway. On the other hand, it was going to take Jake, her mother, and probably a crowbar to pry her out of the car again once they stopped . . . assuming they made their destination in one piece.

Hamlet gave a questioning meow, and Darla returned it with a reassuring little cluck. Lucky for him, the feline had no idea of the peril he was in. A whiff of his calming spray might have helped her endure the ride with similar aplomb. Too bad that she’d zipped the little spray bottle into her carry-on, now in the trunk behind her. Instead, she was going to have to go the Zen route and breathe deeply while conjuring peaceful images in her head.

Several verdant meadow visualizations and many deep breaths later, the vehicle began to slow. Darla cautiously opened her eyes again. She saw in relief that they were exiting the freeway, not that she was prepared to let her guard down yet. Didn’t the old truism hold that most accidents happen ten miles from one’s house—or, in Darla’s case, hotel?

“You and Hamlet okay back there?” Mrs. Martelli called over her shoulder.

The old woman’s initial introduction to the feline had taken place as they’d loaded the luggage into the Mini. Hamlet had managed not to hiss or growl, seemingly accepting Mrs. Martelli as extended family, being Jake’s mother. In return, Mrs. Martelli had made the appropriate noises of approval while also confiding to Darla that she wasn’t a cat person per se, but did the cat-show thing as a lark.

In the scheme of things, Darla deemed that encounter a great success.

Now she nodded. “Hamlet is snoozing, and my heartbeat’s almost back to normal. No offense, Mrs. Martelli,” she hurriedly added, catching the old woman’s glance in the mirror.

The latter grinned again. This time, Darla saw the unmistakable resemblance between Jake and her mother despite their almost comical height difference. Both had the same strong features and heavy-lidded dark eyes, and both women had more than a hint of wickedness in their smiles.

“None taken, kid. And call me Nattie; everyone else does.”

Nattie drove at a more sedate pace now that they were on the surface streets. Darla began to relax a bit, enjoying the warm breeze and sun on her face. “We’re not in Brooklyn anymore, Hamlet,” she murmured, gaping like the tourist she was.

And it
was
a whole new world, from both Texas and New York: art deco modern office towers and lofty condo buildings, tropical scents intermingling with auto exhaust. Of course, there were numerous fine examples from that same architectural period in New York City, Darla reminded herself, but here the buildings seemed so much more . . . well, deco. It had to be the use of color, she decided.

For, almost as if she had
landed in Munchkinland, she was seeing colors she wasn’t used to seeing—at least, not on homes. Stucco ruled this architectural world in lieu of brick or brownstone, in shades of pink and blue and green and yellow. In fact, so common were these sherbetlike colors that the occasional white structure stuck out like the proverbial opposable digit, as James would have termed it. Overall, the city appeared to be quite a splendid place to take a vacation.

A sense of excitement washed through her like an unexpected ocean wave. Nothing boring about this place. Heck, maybe she should open a second Pettistone’s Fine Books location in South Florida, just to have an excuse to come back on a regular basis.

“Up ahead is the downtown business and historic district, where yer hotel and the convention center are at,” Nattie announced as she slid through a yellow traffic light. “We’re looking for Las Olas Boulevard. That’s where the hotel is, and it’s the street where all the tourists go. You got yer restaurants, yer bars, yer fancy-pantsy shops. Oh, yeah, and there’s the Riverwalk, too.”

“Riverwalk?” Darla echoed in surprise, recalling their hotel’s name, the Waterview. “I thought we were going to be near the ocean.”

“Sure, we keep driving, and we’ll be at Port Everglades in a few minutes, if you want to hop a cruise ship. But this is Florida. You got yer water everywhere you look. The hotel’s on the New River that comes out of the Everglades and dumps into the Atlantic not far from here.”

Darla nodded, feeling a bit let down. With her hazy grasp of Fort Lauderdale geography, she’d assumed their accommodations would be overlooking the Atlantic, with plenty of sand and surf. Instead, it seemed the hotel had a view of some placid stream that meandered through the city.

“Don’t worry, it’s not yer run-of-the-mill river,” Nattie assured her, seeming to sense her disappointment. “It runs fast, and there’s all kinds of eddies and whirlpools in it. And they say that, back in the old days, the water was clear enough you could see sharks swimming up it.”

“Sharks?” Jake interrupted. “Are you sure about that, Ma?”

“Would I lie to you?” Nattie gave her scarlet-crested head a vigorous shake, her expression offended. “Last year, I took a part-time job on one of them river taxis that rides up and down for the tourists. The boat people gave me a mike and this whole big spiel to memorize. I got to talk all about Fort Lauderdale history. Why the stories I learned—”

She broke off and swerved around an immense fallen palm frond that practically blocked the lane. The unexpected lane change drew a horn blast from the lumbering sedan behind them.

“Ah, keep yer pants on,” Nattie muttered. To Darla and Jake, she added, “Them fronds, it’s a full-time job keeping ’em picked up off the street. But it’s the falling coconuts you really gotta watch out for. One hits you on the head, and it’s lights out, permanent-like.”

“Thanks for the warning, Ma,” Jake said with an amused look back at Darla, who reflexively glanced skyward. Having lived in both Dallas and the New York City area, she thought she’d heard of every big-city hazard that could befall one, but killer coconuts wasn’t one of them.

Nor were sharks in the water outside one’s hotel window. And while the old woman hadn’t mentioned anything about alligators, Darla was going to keep an eye peeled for those, too. From what the guidebooks said, you could assume you’d find one in any Florida body of water, no matter how small—and sometimes in people’s swimming pools, too. No way was she going to let herself or Hamlet become gator bait!

When the little convertible halted at a red light, Darla checked out her surroundings while Jake and her mom chatted up front. The street had narrowed, and both car and pedestrian traffic had picked up. She spied, interspersed between the restaurants and bars, several of Nattie’s so-called “fancy-pantsy” shops, many with self-consciously clever names like Stuff (an antique store) and Your Tropical Bird (a women’s chic apparel shop). Others were more to the point, like the enticing-looking Jennie’s Bakery, which Darla vowed to check out during their stay.

“Here we are, the Waterview Hotel,” Nattie said.

She pointed beyond the next traffic light toward a ten-story, art deco building that appeared to take up most of the block. While the hotel boasted a demure, sand-colored stone exterior, jaunty turquoise stripes raced skyward along its far corner, and bubble-gum pink awnings shaded its series of street-side entries. As they drew closer, Darla could pick out other typical art deco touches: the “eyebrows” over the windows, rounded corners instead of square, and the stepped upper stories that gave the place a vaguely pyramidal look.
This
was a hotel, she decided in satisfaction.

Nattie echoed Darla’s thoughts. “Yer lucky they put you up here. I stayed here once, and it was great. Pool, sundeck, the whole smash. Good lookin’ bellmen, too,” she added with a wink for her daughter. “Oh, and the convention center where they’re holding the cat show is the next block over. You can walk, no problem.”

With those words, Nattie took the next corner and slid the Mini Cooper up a breezeway-covered drive that led to the hotel’s main door. With the car stopped, the humidity that had been kept at bay by the moving air descended on Darla. Discreetly, she dabbed at the beads of sweat that formed again despite the shade. Not that she really was complaining. Warm and humid definitely trumped cold and snowy.

A balding, middle-aged bellman with a bright grin and dark tan made swift work of unloading their luggage onto a cart. When he went to take Hamlet’s cat carrier, however, Darla smiled and shook her head.

“Sorry, live kitty inside. You’d better let me handle this one.”

The grin remained in place. Apparently, he was used to such requests—at least, this week. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Looks like we’re not the only cat-show people booked at the hotel,” Darla observed to Jake and Nattie.

The old woman nodded, flaming crest bobbing. “This show is a big deal. Lots of folks come from outta town. There’ll be tons of cats staying here.”

She turned to the bellman and handed him her keychain with a dangling zebra-striped stuffed heart the size of Hamlet’s paw. “And don’t let the valet run off with my car,” she declared as she slung a red plaid canvas purse almost as big as she was over one skinny shoulder. “I’m just here dropping off the girls.”

The three of them trooped through a pair of open frosted-glass doors, where Jake paused a moment to grimace at her reflection as she tried to smooth down the nimbus that her curly hair had become, courtesy of the convertible ride. Once inside the hotel lobby, they went in search of the front desk.

The wheels of Hamlet’s carrier whirred loudly against the smooth, pale pink marble floors randomly inlaid with bits of mosaic: a seahorse here, a marlin there. Across the lobby, Darla could see that the doors leading out to the Las Olas Boulevard street front were propped open, as well. The long-ago architects obviously had designed the ground floor with the tropics in mind, for a mild but constant cross breeze kept the ambient temperature inside a good ten degrees cooler than outdoors.

The one thing that made her pause, however, was an odd, echoing buzz of sound that seemed to shimmer through the open floor plan. For a moment, it reminded her of the final minutes of a yoga class she’d once taken, when the class in unison had let loose with an unexpected series of guttural
om
s
.
The combination of voices had filled the room with a vibrating hum, much like what she was hearing now. And then, as she tuned into the lobby’s acoustics a bit better, she realized what she was hearing.

Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow.

“Holy cats, talk about a lot of cats,” Jake muttered as Darla zoomed in on the source of the mournful cries. Near the elevator, a luggage cart held four large animal carriers. An overly tanned middle-aged woman dressed in a sparkly T-shirt and too-short tennis skirt bent over them, seemingly trying to comfort the frightened felines. Darla wasn’t sure how many cats actually were in the carrier, but she counted at least five paws waving pitifully from the carriers. To her relief, Hamlet gave but a single
meow-rumph
in return.

Obviously, he was going to be a real pro at this cat-show thing, she proudly thought.

By now, they’d reached the front desk, behind which stood a handsome, dark-skinned woman wearing a burgundy-colored skirted suit complete with a fancy gold “W” embroidered on the breast pocket of her jacket. Her black hair was slicked back into a smooth bun, which Darla eyed enviously. Darla’s own auburn hair had immediately begun to frizz in the humidity, and she suspected that the minute she unbraided it, she’d be rocking Jake’s same nimbus look. Which looked free-spirited on Jake, but a bit too Orphan Annie on Darla.

“Welcome to the Waterview Hotel,” the desk clerk—Chantal, by her name badge—greeted them, her warm smile only slightly frazzled around the edges. Listening to a cat chorus who knew how many times over probably did that, Darla decided. Eyeing the carrier Darla was wheeling, the desk clerk added, “You must be one of our cat-show guests.”

“Not just any guest,” Nattie answered for her, drawing herself up with an important air. “This here is Hamlet the Karate Kitty. He’s a real celebrity. He’s on YouTube and everything!”

Chantal made the appropriate noises of interest as she input the pertinent information into her computer.