Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 01 - Peril in Paradise (12 page)

Sam’s hands wrapped around his coffee cup. He was
of medium height, with a stocky build-kinda like a
bulldog. But his hands were those of a poet with long
fingers and slender palms. “If you want to know why
Hillman was murdered, you need to find out what he
was hiding from the world.”

“Like his sponsoring a Little Brother?”

“Yes.”

“But why would he hide something like that?
Wouldn’t he want people to know that he had a soft
side?”

“Not necessarily. Everyone has something in his past
that he wouldn’t want other people to know”

“Even you?”

“Especially me”

I stared at Sam for a few moments and found nothing
but gentle contemplation in his gray eyes.

“Dig deep enough, and you’ll find out why he was murdered. Just be careful. Whoever killed him could be
a model citizen also hiding something.”

“Light and dark?”

“Of course … we’re all a mixture of the divine and
the diabolical.”

Even me? Mixed-up Mallie? Was I hiding part of
myself? I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know the answer
to that question.

S am stayed for a little while longer-enough time for
me to have nibbled on yet another donut and finished
off my coffee. He promised to get back with me before
the weekend was over.

Then, he drove off in his ancient Volvo-a 240 which
hasn’t been in production for over twenty years. It had
that lumbering turtle-like quality Volvo used to have
before they decided to get competitive with upscale import vehicles. Solid. Dependable. With a backseat full
of power tools.

He’d given me a lot to think about … more than I
usually thought about anything. And I wasn’t certain I
was ready to change from Mixed-up Mallie to DeepThinking Mallie. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I had it in me.

I walked Kong, showered, and put on my favorite blue jean sundress. It had spaghetti straps and ended
just above the knee. Perfect for the Florida heat. Even
better, it had good vibes because I wore the dress on the
day I quit working at Disney World.

As I climbed into Rusty, I reached for my new
sunblock with SPF forty-five, but realized my sunburned, peeling nose might not need it after all. The
clouds had moved in from the west and now covered the
sky like a slate-colored blanket of dust and grime.
Churning up shadows and waiting to empty its pouches
of rain.

Brushing the damp curls from my forehead, I rolled
down the window of my truck. It might not be sunny,
but it sure as heck was humid-maybe even more so
than when the sunlight dried everything out.

I drove to the Starfish Lodge and parked right in
front of one of the big windows, just in time to see
Everett and Bradley deep in conversation right outside
the Lodge’s entrance. Everett was gesturing wildly with
his hands, then threw them up and stalked off. Bradley
watched him leave and followed soon after.

Hardly surprising.

As I entered the Lodge, I spotted the group at their
usual table. The dining room contained only one other
couple-a middle-aged man and his wife wearing those
STUPID and I’M WITH STUPID T-shirts. Enough said.

Mercifully, quiet reigned in the dining room this
morning.

“Mallie, come on over,” Chrissy exclaimed. She wore a camouflage-print tank dress and was seated next to
George.

“How is everyone today?” I asked.

“Betty and I are doing pretty good” Burt refilled his
margarita glass. My eyes widened at the sight of the
half-empty pitcher this early in the morning.

“It’s non-alcoholic, honey,” Betty said to me, handing her empty glass to her husband.

“I’m okay … I guess, considering I’m still in s …
shock over Jack’s death,” George said, with just a
trace of a stammer. His hair was brushed back, so I got
a good look at his face. Not bad, I thought. Clear hazel
eyes in a sensitive, finely chiseled face. His mouth was
drawn in a tight line, though, as if suppressing strong
emotion.

“How about you, Chrissy?” I said.

“Hanging in there.” She sighed. “We all still miss
Jack.”

Yeah, and pigs fly, I wanted to say.

“Our critiquing isn’t nearly as good as it was when
Jack gave us direction,” she continued.

Before I could respond, a waitress appeared and
placed a glass of water in front of me, inquiring if I
wanted breakfast. I shook my head. After already
downing three mouthwatering, vein-clogging donuts, I
decided to stick with the water.

I dropped my canvas bag on the floor with a distinct
thud. “I thought all of you were upset over how he
verbally assaulted your work-I know I was”

“Yeah, but we learned from it.” Chrissy twisted a lock
of her long, blond hair around her index finger. “I’m not
saying that Jack couldn’t get outta line at times, but I really was growing as a writer. And if I want to eventually
publish from my blog, I need to write the best poetry
that I can”

“Uh-huh,” Burt and Betty echoed their agreement.

“I think more positive feedback is a better way of
critiquing.” I sat down next to George. A strong, muskyscented aftershave emanated from him. The kind that
was supposed to make you think of piney woods on an
autumn day, but really conjured up images of dried tree
bark and rotten leaves. I inched my chair away from him.

“But Jack obviously helped you,” Chrissy said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She held up the copy of my article that I’d faxed over
to the Lodge last night. “We thought this piece was
loads better than your last one.”

“Absolutely,” Burt chimed in.

“It’s a g … great improvement,” George added.

“Really?” I glanced around the table in surprise.
Everyone nodded. “Maybe it’s the subject matter. A
murder makes a much more interesting story than a disputed bike path”

“True, but it’s not just that.” Burt took the story from
Chrissy and paged through it. “The sentences are much
crisper … no passive voice. Lots of human interest.
Your voice is coming through”

Betty lifted the story from her husband’s grasp. “I particularly liked the section about Jack’s life. You get a
feel for who he was. It made you want to know him.”

I listened in dazed delight as they went on complimenting my story. I probably should’ve stopped them
when the words, “Pulitzer Prize,” began to be bandied
about, but hey, it isn’t everyday that a girl gets to hear
something like that.

“So you see, Jack did help you to become a better
writer in only one session,” Chrissy wound up the
group’s effusive panegyrics.

“I guess you’re right,” I admitted. Maybe they were
right, but I still didn’t wholeheartedly agree with Jack’s
methods.

“Here’s to Jack” Burt held up his margarita glass.

We all raised our glasses. “To Jack,” we echoed.

After our toast, Burt and Betty passed around a short story they’d been working on: a western about two
men, a woman, and a horse. I wasn’t sure if the men
were fighting over the woman or the horse, but the
descriptions of the desert were rather pretty. We critiqued them for about twenty minutes, then decided to
take a break. When Chrissy excused herself, I waited a
discreet interval and then followed her into the
women’s restroom. Actually, the sign on the door said
GULLS and the men’s room, not to be outdone, sported a
BUOYS plaque. The Starfish Lodge took its nautical decor seriously.

When I entered, my fellow gull was fluffing her long
blond hair in the mirror.

“Just needed to wash my hands,” I said, moving toward the sink.

Chrissy smiled. She finished with her hair and began
to trace the lines of her mouth with a tinted, all-natural
lip pencil. Then she applied her coordinating lipstickone of those not-tested-on-animals brands that you buy
in expensive health food stores.

I glanced at my own pale, uncolored lips. I would’ve
produced my lipstick, but it was a three-fifty cheapie
full of unhealthy artificial dyes, and I didn’t want to
hear a lecture.

“Chrissy, if you don’t mind my asking, what was
your relationship with Jack?”

She paused ever so slightly in her lip ministrations.
“Off the record?”

I nodded.

“Kiss and cuddle. Great while it lasted, but neither
of us thought it would lead to anything permanent. I’m
a vegan-he ate meat at every meal” She shuddered
visibly. “Besides, that hard-bitten, hard-nosed, in-yourface writer routine got a little old, you know what I
mean?”

“You bet.” I took the opportunity to jump in. “But
there was more to him than all that macho stuff. While
I was doing research on Jack’s life, I found out he belonged to Big Brothers/Big Sisters and donated big
time to the Island Museum”

She tossed the lip pencil and lipstick into her purse. “I don’t know anything about the museum, but the thing
with the kids doesn’t surprise me. He liked ‘em.”

“He did?”

“Oh, yeah. I know it’s hard to believe, but he told me
he wanted to start a creative writing camp for kidsjust couldn’t afford to do it until next summer.”

“But I thought his books sold well.”

“They did, but he hadn’t published anything new except a couple of short stories in four or five years.”

I locked eyes with her in the mirror. “You mean Jack
was experiencing … writer’s block?”

“He liked to call it a `creative pothole,’ but it was
writer’s block all right. I don’t know what caused itmaybe all that meat-but he hadn’t been able to come
up with a new book idea since Men on Death Row.”

“That could also explain why he was doing the
Writers’ Institutes-to make money.”

“He had a lot of expenses-the sailboat, the sporty
car, the upkeep on his house. It all added up.”

“Was he still getting royalties on previous books?”

“I’m not sure. If he did, it wasn’t very much.” She
gave her hair another fluff and slipped the purse strap
over her shoulder.

“One last thing, what do you know about Burt and
Betty aside from their penchant for margaritas?”

“Not much. They’ve got a small ranch outside Tucumcari, and they’ve just about finished their collection
of short stories. Burt likes horses, Betty likes to cook. They don’t have any kids, but he has an elderly mother
who’s in a nursing home in Albuquerque.”

My eyes widened in respect. “I’d say you’ve gleaned
quite a bit about them”

“I listen-that’s the key. Most people talk so much,
they never take the time to really listen to what others
have to say.”

Ouch. Put me in that category with my motor mouth.
But I was learning to put my engine in idle-at least
some of the time.

“I also have the feeling that they attended one of
Jack’s Institutes before.”

“Why’s that?”

“Just the way they seemed to know his working
patterns-they clued George and me in on them right at
the beginning. Burt also taped the critique sessions,
which I thought was odd. He said it was so he could
play it back and learn even more, but I didn’t buy that.
He was taping for another reason”

“Such as?” I prompted.

“I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t trust Jack. Or
maybe they were a bit paranoid. Writers can be like that
sometimes.”

“Even George?”

A dreamy smile appeared on her face. “No, he’s a
prince.”

Shy, stuttering George? My, he had made some major headway with her in a short time. Maybe that was all part of his plan. Get Hillman out of the way and
move in on Chrissy.

She took one last look in the mirror and gave me a
wink. Then she breezed out.

I stood there a few minutes, contemplating what
she’d said. She and Hillman had been close-no surprise there. And no motive to kill him-unless it was
revenge at having had to see him bare-chested in the
hottub. Reason enough, but not a real motive.

I was more interested in her revelation that Hillman
had financial problems. It opened up a whole world of
possibilities. He might’ve been engaged in illegal activities, such as drug smuggling or goodness knows what.
The ten thousand islands were only two hours away and
that area was a nest for all kinds of nasty shenanigans,
from Florida panther poaching to gun running.

And where did Burt and Betty fit in? If they didn’t
trust Jack, why did they take another Writers’ Institute
with him? That didn’t add up. Unless they attended just
for an excuse to guzzle down the margaritas.

And George? Was he a “prince” or a jealous murderer? Had he wanted Chrissy bad enough that he was
willing to get rid of Hillman-permanently?

The questions hammered at my brain as I tried to
piece together the puzzle. But no answers presented
themselves. I splashed a little water on my face and, for
good measure, fluffed up my own hair. I might not possess Chrissy’s gleaming golden tresses, but my red curls weren’t too shabby. I dabbed more sunblock on
my peeling nose and slathered an extra layer on my
freckled arms. I’d never have that healthy glow like
Chrissy, but at least I could prevent my skin from looking like a boiled lobster.