Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 01 - Peril in Paradise (10 page)

Needless to say, my parents didn’t let me come here
all that often and, when I did, they’d spend months
“working the Florida taint” out of me.

But now I was here-permanently living in paradise.
Sort of. I did have the slight problem of working for a
chain-smoking, hatchet-faced editor and being a suspect in a murder investigation. But this is a fallen world
afterall. Who’s expecting perfection?

I parked Rusty and, before I could shut off the engine, Aunt Lily appeared on the porch.

“Mallie, I’ve been trying to call you for two days,”
she exclaimed. A pair of Yorkshire terriers positioned
themselves on either side of her and barked their own
greeting. We also had something else in common: our
love of canine companions.

I climbed out of my truck and took the steps two at a time. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have an answering machine
yet. I only got a phone hook up two weeks ago” I
hugged her, savoring the warm feel of her strong, supple
arms. All of a sudden, though, they felt a little thinner to
me and I pulled back to get a good look at her. Thick,
gray hair worn in a braid and fierce blue eyes. Faded
freckles, now merged into the lines around her eyes. A
wide, smiling mouth. It was all comfortingly familiar.

But her face did seem a little drawn compared to a
couple of weeks ago when I last saw her, the lines a little deeper. A twinge of guilt nagged at me. I hoped I
wasn’t the cause of those deep worry lines on her forehead.

“So what do you expect?” she asked, as though
divining my thoughts. “I’m seventy-eight years old and
worried sick about my favorite great niece.”

“You don’t look a day over sixty.”

“Pfffft” She waved a hand. “Flattery will get you
everywhere” The dogs kept up their yapping. “Biscuits, Gravy, shut up”

They instantly quieted down.

“I guess I don’t need to ask whether or not you heard
about Jack Hillman’s murder,” I said.

“Dreadful man.” Her mouth tightened into a thin
line. “I remember the last time he gave a talk at my
quilter’s group-right before the Mango Festival. He
went on and on about how the island was becoming too
commercial, that developers were ruining the Mounds, that the `real’ Florida was passing away. Hah. Like that’s
such a bad thing. I’ll give him `real Florida.’ I remember
when it took a whole day to walk to Mango Bay and we
had to wear bee veils the entire way because of the mosquitoes. Those vile creatures were so big you could put a
saddle on ‘em and ride ‘em. Bad roads, hurricanes, oppressive heat. You can have the `good old days.”’ She
threw up her hands in disgust.

Did I mention that my aunt also possessed the “motor
mouth gene”? In fact, I probably inherited it from her.

“Actually I’ve been doing some digging and I found out that he wasn’t a complete jerk after all. Did you
know that he sponsored a kid with Big Brothers/Big
Sisters? An island boy who’s in Miami now.”

“I’d heard about him-Todd something or other.”
She didn’t look impressed. “I guess everyone has a soft
side.”

“Anybody you know might’ve had a motive to kill
Hillman?”

She cast an ironic glance in my direction. “The real
question is who didn’t have a motive for killing him.
Maybe you ought to start from there and eliminate all the
people who couldn’t possibly have committed murder”

I sighed. “That would be a pretty short list just you
and me.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“You, too?”

“After ticking off my quilter friends? You’d better
believe it, Carrot” A beeping sound went off inside her house. “Oh, just a minute, my cornbread is done. Did
you have lunch yet?”

“Nope” I smiled at Aunt Lily’s nickname. She
christened me “Carrot” when I was a kid-for obvious
reasons-and she was the only one I’d let call me that.

“Well, settle yourself down and I’ll rustle us up something. I know how you like your food.” She winked at
me and went into the house. Biscuits and Gravy stayed
on the porch, occupied with the complex task of unraveling a ball of white cotton yarn Aunt Lily had left out as
a playtoy.

I slid into one of the high-backed wooden rockers,
listening to quiet chirping of two scrub jays that perched
on my aunt’s birdfeeder. They took their fill and then
flew off.

A short while later, Aunt Lily reappeared with a tray
holding two enormous fruit salads and a generous helping of warm cornbread. She set it on a wicker table between the two rockers and handed me a glass of iced
tea-Southern sweet, of course.

“Nothing like a sweet tea on a hot day,” she commented as she took a long, deep drink.

“Can’t argue with you there” I joined her and took a
swig of my iced tea. Then I broke off a chunk of the
cornbread and chewed it slowly. “De-lish”

She smiled, flipping her long braid over her
shoulder. “Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch”

“Never.” I leaned my head back. “How did you find
out about the murder?”

“Wanda Sue told Emily Watson-she works at
Whiteside’s on the day shift.” Aunt Lily arched her
brows in delicate emphasis. “From there the story
worked its way toward the Island Center where I heard
it from the Jordan sisters-you know the two blonds
with identical peace sign tattoos on their ankles? Anyway, I overheard them talking at the Island Hardware
S tore.”

I hadn’t met the Jordan sisters yet, but I’d be looking
for those tattooed ankles.

“All they had were the barest of details. So fill
me in.”

I took another swallow of my iced tea for fortification. “Let’s just say I’m working on a news story for the
Observer about Hillman’s murder, and I’m between a
rock and a hard place when it comes to Anita and Detective Billie.”

“And what hard place would that be?” She smiled
suggestively.

“Aunt Lily-behave.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that our friendly
island chief deputy is one good-looking man-tall,
dark, and handsome, to use a cliche”

“I’ve noticed.” I popped a juicy piece of mango into
my mouth. “Not my kind of guy-too uptight. As attractive as Detective Billie is, he’s all business when it
comes to dishing out information about Hillman’s murder. And Anita is just hard headed about the newspaper
doing its own investigation.” I sighed and shook my head. “I’ve got to find a way to write my stories without
pushing him to the point that he throws me in jail.”

Aunt Lily was quiet for a few moments as she stared
off toward two large weeping willow trees that arched
over the driveway. Their branches actually touched as if
they were reaching out to each other. “I’ve usually found
when I’m being pulled in two directions the best thing
to do is keep up a good front and just go my own way”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, find your own path. What do you want
to do?”

I paused, trying to find the words to voice what I’d
been too afraid even to think. “I want to know what happened. It’s stupid. I’ve been at the paper only a month,
and I’m totally inexperienced when it comes to this kind
of investigative journalism. But it … intrigues me.”

“Okay then.” She tapped her chin meditatively.
“Work on the articles Anita assigns, say nothing to
Nick Billie, and glean as much information as you can
to piece together the truth of what happened that night.”

“The whole truth? Is that possible?”

“Maybe-I might be able to help.”

“Oh, thank you, Aunt Lily.”

“But we’ll need a little assistance.” She drained the
last of her iced tea and dabbed at her mouth with the
linen napkin. “It’s time to bring in Sam.”

“Who’s Sam?”

“My handyman” She pronounced the last word as
though it was a royal title-perhaps not a monarch, but at least a duke or earl. The Duke of Mango Bay? I
swallowed a nervous laugh.

“We might need more than a guy who can fix clogged
drains,” I said.

“Sam’s our man. He’s in and out of everybody’s
house on the island, and he hears more in one day than
you’ll be able to gather in a week of snooping.” She
gave me a quick, reassuring smile. “Don’t fret, Carrot.
I’ll go give him a call” She exited the porch.

I picked up my fork, trying to squelch the doubts and
guilt that suddenly assailed me. This was serious
business and I couldn’t tell Aunt Lily the whole truth: I
was a suspect in Hillman’s murder-and part of my
desperation about writing the news story is that I was
trying to stay out of jail. Ugh. The very word made me
cringe.

I stabbed at another piece of mango, but when I
popped it into my mouth, it felt like a cold lump that I
could barely get down my throat.

I stayed at Aunt Lily’s for another hour, waiting to see
if this all-knowing, all-snooping handyman, Sam, would
return her call. He didn’t. She told me not to worry, that
he would get back to her within the day. In the meantime, she called three quilters, one notably named Sally
Burton, who drove the lone island taxi and was apparently privy to every tidbit of information that moved on
the island. All of them agreed to put out an all-points
bulletin to track down Sam.

I have to say, my spirits revived a little at the considerable number of draftees my great aunt was able to summon in sixty minutes. Maybe I wasn’t really alone like I
thought. People who didn’t even know me volunteered
their services.

I hugged her in gratitude, gave Biscuits and Gravy a
quick pet, and drove back to the Observer office.

Luckily, Anita sat ensconced in her office, reading afternoon news briefs from the AP, and Sandy was occupied on the telephone with one of the island marinas
that wanted to buy advertising space for an upcoming
fishing tournament.

Hooray. I could actually have time to myself to finish
my story.

I laid claim to the computer and brought up my nearly
finished story on Hillman’s murder. Reading through it, I
gave myself a mental pat on the back. It wasn’t half bad.
Of course, Anita would hack it to smithereens, but my
writing seemed to be improving. To my untrained eye.

After two more hours, I polished it off and set a hard
copy on Anita’s desk. I made another copy and faxed it
over to Chrissy at the Starfish Lodge for our critique
session tomorrow morning. Hooray, again. I’d actually
made my Friday deadline.

“How does it feel to have written your first hard news
story?” Anita asked.

“Okay.” My eyes riveted on the inch-long ash hanging from the cigarette between her lips. “I didn’t get the
chance to add the new info I found about Hillman’s
`good deeds.’ I need to verify the sources”

“Spoken like a true reporter.” Her cigarette bobbed,
causing the ash to dangle precariously. “Save it for the
next story-this murder spells out at least a three-week
series.”

Great. “Have you heard anything about Hillman sponsoring a Little Brother named Todd Griffith?”

“Nope. And I’m not sure I believe it. Make certain
you double check the sources”

“Maybe Hillman had a soft side for kids.”

“And I’m going to become a trapeze artist for the
Ringling circus.” She laughed as she finally tapped her
cigarette in the shriveled potted plant next to her desk.
“This story is just the beginning. You’ll be ready for the
Detroit Free Press by the time I’m done with you.”

“As long as I stay out of jail.” Or Soft Haven-that
was the mental institution located about twenty miles
away on the mainland. I’d been tempted ever since I took
the reporting job at the Observer to see if my predecessor
ended up there. No one would tell me what happened to
her, except that she left to pick up lunch at the island
Dairy Queen one day and never came back. I feared the
worst-she went berserk in the drive-thru after finding
out her cheeseburger was minus lettuce, pickle, and
mustard-but I didn’t have the nerve to find out for sure.

“You’re not still worried about Detective Billie, are
you?”

“No … well, maybe a little.”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“Thanks”

Anita held up the hard copy of my news story. “And
this too” She winked.

I ducked out before she could get started on her usual
editorial slice and dice.

Most of all, I needed to put Hillman’s murder out of
my mind, for a little while at least.

I waved to Sandy who was gathering up her iPod and
magazines. “Have a good weekend”

“You too” I exited before Anita could nab me. I was
outta there. Freedom.

I drove toward the Twin Palms RV Resort, noticing
the clouds gathered off to the west of Mango Bay.
They weren’t the usual puffy white concoctions that
drifted in from the Gulf of Mexico during the evening. These clouds appeared like bloated gray balloons, dark and threatening. And not moving. Just
lingering off in the distance. An uneasy twinge pulled
at my tummy.

As I pulled into my spot next to the Airstream, I noticed my honeymooning neighbors were still no where
to be seen, although two swimsuits were now clothespinned to their awning: a metallic gold string bikini and
a pair of matching gold satin men’s swim trunks. Sexy.
Provocative. Hot. At least they were still alive and apparently had enough physical energy left over from their
connubial exertions to swim.