Death of a Hot Chick (17 page)

Kaye made it in twelve minutes. As I opened
the car door, I said, “Okay, I give up. What’s so important?”

“
Two past owners of your boat are
dead. Do you know what that means?”

“
Oh.” That someone was killing
Snapdragon
owners? Could that be
possible? “No. Not true. No one wants me dead.”

“
You never know. In any event, I
believe we must make a concerted and focused effort to find the
killer. We’ll gather evidence today. I have a few ideas. We’ll get
all interested parties together and meet tomorrow
night.”

“
Tomorrow night is my
class.”

“
Class?”

“
Remember? I’m studying to take the
Coast Guard test so I can get my captain’s license
renewed.”

“
You already know all that. Skip it
this time.”

“
It’s the final class. The final
review. Any last minute hints for taking the test. You think I
should skip that?”

“
Why didn’t you say so?” Kaye asked.
“Okay, we meet tonight. That won’t give us much time to research.
But, maybe it’s better this way. We’ll discuss the way we want to
go. I’ll invite Teddy, maybe Doug will come too.”

“
We are not in grade school with our
Lime Street Detective Agency. Get real, will you?”

“
Okay, not Doug. Maybe Teddy. And
Nicole’s cousin. After Nicole split up with her boyfriend, she
moved in with her. She might know something vital.”

“
Nicole had a cousin?”

“
Yes. Although her cousin was a few
years older, they grew up like sisters, according to Nicole. They
were nothing alike, actually. They didn’t share surnames. Her
cousin is a Swent. Finley Swent.”

“
Finley Swent?”

“
Probably no one you know. Or, maybe
you do. I believe she has something to do with boats.” Kaye raised
her eyebrows when I shook my head. “So, you don’t know
her.”

“
Yes, I know her. Remember, I have
something to do with boats too.”

“
Obviously too much to do with boats.
At least right now. We have to get you off that boat. Someone is
killing its former owners. Pack up and come with me.”

“
Snapdragon
isn’t an ‘it.’ And I’m not going to leave her.”

Kaye didn’t realize I’d decided to be
responsible and finally get over the funk Al’s disappearance, not
to mention his death, left me in. And, I suddenly realized that was
true. I replaced my scowl with a big grin. “I have to stop
depending on you for everything, Kaye. I’ll be all right.”

“
I can’t talk any sense into
you?”

“
Hey, when I was single I certainly
took care of myself. I can still do it.”

“
It’s just....” Kaye shrugged. “Yes,
I’m sure you can,” she said, with a lot more confidence than I
felt.

Chapter 13

I’d just dumped my cleaning supplies into a
bucket when my cell phone, the twenty-first century umbilical cord,
chirped.

It was Kaye. She said, “Finley will stop by
to pick you up after seven. We meet here at seven-thirty.” She
clicked off before I could answer.

Finley had changed since our days as
friendly rivals for jobs at the helm. Before, she’d been more into
pizza with a lot less beer. Why hadn’t Nicole gone to her for help
with her boat? Maybe she had gone to her—for the thirty dollars she
intended bringing to me. Very likely. Finley and I had borrowed
from each other constantly. But, was Finley still the same?

Slim was on the two-masted sailboat where
I’d already spent two days. “Yeah, come on up,” he told me. “Got
enough work here for a month, maybe more.”

“
I thought you might be gone for lunch
already.” I climbed up the ladder and stepped over the guard rail.
I’d worn Dad’s old sailor cap I’d appropriated long ago. It kept
the sun off my head, and I’d smeared on enough sun block to last
the afternoon. Had to be in the high eighties. “Still working on
the outside?”

Slim nodded. “After a while we’ll do an
inside job, less you get too hot before that.”

I joined him with my own rags. Preserving
weathered teak was all about sanding it smooth, then rubbing oil
into the wood and rubbing excess oil off. If you had a large smooth
expanse, a motorized sander with the added fluffy, polishing cover
was the ticket. But on top of a sailboat, around ports, hatches,
and hand rails, that wouldn’t work. Sand an area, apply teak oil,
wipe over the wood, then rub, and rub some more. All work I’d done
a thousand times before. I’d learned from Slim so I knew what he
expected.

He was even quieter today than usual. To
fill the stillness, I asked, “So where has this sailboat been to
get this neglected? Do you know?”

“
Ain’t neglected. She just kept on
a’going. See that solar thing? She’s nice and shiny because she
needed shiny.”

Slim seldom answered questions straight on,
except in his own way. He started humming something that vaguely
sounded like, “If I Had a Hammer.” I sanded and rubbed, accompanied
by Slim’s low, droning voice.

Ten minutes later, Slim’s voice broke
through my thoughts. “Bet you dollars to donuts, that guy ain’t
dead.”

“
What guy?”

“
The feller what had your
boat.”

“
Oh, you mean Chester Foltz. Is it
already on the news about his car burning up?”

“
Ain’t no way he’s gonna burn himself
up.”

“
Oh.” I sat back, waiting. Slim knew
something, but he wasn’t telling. At least not right
now.

“
You ate your lunch already?” he
asked.

I nodded, even though lunch had only been
one apple.

“
Well, I’m going myself.” Slim trotted
down the ladder after glancing around, furtively, I thought. Then I
saw Teddy headed our way.

Aha, this was the “tomorrow,” Teddy
mentioned before. “Your ‘girl friend’ is here,” I said.

“
Yeah.” He cackled. “Guess I didn’t
get going fast enough to keep no secrets.”

“
Hey, she’s my girl friend,
too.”

“
She’s got a nose for news, that
little gal. And she ain’t shy about bringing eats to listen to me
yammer.”

Teddy called as she neared. “Hey, I brought
lunch for both of you. Cold lemonade and hot barbeques. Apple
turnovers for dessert. No ice cream today. Too hot. It’d melt all
over the place.”

No way I would miss a free meal. I clambered
down the ladder. “How did you know I was here?”

“
Guessed. Plus, I stopped by your
marina and Lizzie told me you’d gone to work.” Teddy opened her bag
and pulled out a large thermos.

Slim dumped rags out of a bucket, turned it
over, and sat on top. “You got this over at that new place? I ain’t
tried them yet.”

“
Nope. Got it at the
Breakwater.”

“
That’s mighty high class.”

The conversational ball bounce back and
forth as Teddy successfully soothed any hurt feelings from
yesterday while I looked for a place to park my own fanny. Finally,
I wedged my behind on the bottom step of the ladder and grabbed a
tumbler of lemonade. “So what’s the occasion here?”

No one paid any attention to me. Teddy
handed Slim an oozing bun. “Guess you heard there was no body in
that burning car.”

“
Didn’t hear, but don’t surprise me
one little bit. Chester, he knows about burning.”

“
That right?” Teddy leaned forward in
reporter mode.

“
Yeah. He’s ole Pop’s burn-baby.
’Course, he’s outta practice since Pop ain’t been around. He ain’t
getting no jobs from nobody else.”

“
Burn-baby. I like that. That your
call, or somebody else’s?”

“
Don’t rightly know about
that.”

I grabbed a barbeque and started eating. I’d
never heard of a burn-baby. I listened as Teddy said, “I take it
that means he set fires on order. What kind of things has Chester
burned?”

“
Guess a house or two. Tried burning a
cow once, I heard. Didn’t work. Ole cow kicked him right outta the
barn.”

“
He actually burned houses down?
Anyone die in the fires?”

“
Don’t think so. You see, he just
lights little fires. Warnings, you know? Like on porches, or such.
Tree maybe. Heard he tried a car port once. ’Course, you don’t know
what’s for sure about any of the stuff you hear.”

I took a long drink of lemonade. It sure hit
the spot.

Teddy refilled both of our plastic cups.
“You think Pop will come back to Smith Harbor when he gets
out?”

Slim chewed and swallowed before he
answered. “You bet.”

Teddy asked more questions. Slim kept eating
and talking, all about boaters, gossip, and Bayside Marina’s future
plans of trying to buy up City Marina. Where did he hear all that
stuff? Finally, Slim ran down and Teddy said, “Have you heard that
about the marinas, Cyd?”

“
No, Wes isn’t a big talker,” I said
and reached for one of the apple turnovers.

“
Ain’t nobody a big talker,” Slim
said. “But I got my ways.”

“
And you always have the straight
dope.” Teddy pulled the last turnover out of the bag and handed it
to Slim. She said, “Cyd, Lizzie is really looking after you. She
was right there the moment I stepped on your boat to rap on the
door. She’s pretty sharp.”

“
She was watching over my
boat?”

Teddy nodded. “She had some interesting
comments about Nicole. More than she told me yesterday,
actually.”

I had heard some of Lizzie’s comments about
super-snooty Nicole. Super-snoopy Lizzie could came up with a lot
of unusual stuff.

“
She’s your biggest fan, I’d say. She
told me all about how you found Nicole’s body and how she brought a
flashlight and held it so you could see.”

“
All that lemonade gone?” Slim
asked.

“
She did?” I didn’t remember that part
at all. Was that night such a blur?

“
Yep, lemonade all gone.” Teddy pulled
out her tiny recorder and told me, “I think so. Let me check.” She
pushed buttons, ran quickly through a garble of words, stopped and
backed up. “This is what she said.”

She held the recorder so I could hear just
as she’d done the day before. First I heard Teddy, then Lizzie’s
voice.

“
So you brought a
flashlight?”

“
That’s right. We looked in the cart
and it didn’t look like much. A bunch of blankets or something.
Cyd, she put her hand down and jerks it back and says how it’s all
wet. Then she moved the cart a bit, and we saw her face. Terrible.
I get nightmares, you know. Just terrible. Especially when I sleep
like the dead. Some day I’ll be the dead one, you mark my
words.”

Teddy clicked off the recorder. “Then she
showed me where the cart had been.”

I shook my head. That wasn’t the way I
remembered it. Lizzie didn’t show up until later. Was I wrong,
completely out of it? Or, was Lizzie really there when I discovered
the body?

“
I had the flashlight,” I
muttered.

“
You had the flashlight?”

“
That’s for sure. Maybe I don’t
remember. Maybe I don’t want to remember. But Lizzie’s right.
Except for the flashlight, that’s how it all happened. Maybe she
was there, watching. But, honest, Teddy, I didn’t see her until
later.”

No, Lizzie hadn’t been there. She hadn’t
seen me, or she certainly would have popped up before the cops
arrived. That’s the way Lizzie operated—checking out anything that
was different. Snooping. “She probably just heard me tell the cops
so often. Over and over.” But, it wasn’t at all like Lizzie to be
confused. Except, her stories did seem to change and improve with
age.

~
~

We were an odd group. The school marm, the
giant, and the boat bum. Kaye, Finley, and me. We settled in at
Kaye’s house. She was only half of her family. Her hubby, Hans, was
off teaching in Namibia during the southern hemisphere’s winter,
while Kaye taught during the northern hemisphere’s winter. A
long-distance marriage, but it seemed to work. Their joint incomes
paid for the two-story home, lawn service, and exotic African
touches like the polished, wooden table between us, laden with a
platter of home-made cookies and tall glasses of iced tea.

Kaye said, “I called Teddy, but she had
something out of town to research. However, I think, between the
three of us, we can figure this out logically. We each knew a
different part of Nicole. First, let’s go with our gut reactions.
Who killed her?”

Like a Nero Wolf mystery solution, I thought
as I bit into a cocoanut blossom. I had known Nicole the shortest
time, so how could I come up with a solution? But I knew one thing.
“Chester killed her,” I said.

“
No, it was her father,” Kaye
said.

“
My vote is for Brandon Bates,” Finley
said. “And since I knew Nicole all her life, I’m right.”

“
Good point,” Kaye said. “However, we
each knew different sides of Nicole, which is why we’ve come up
with different answers. So, if we share our information, we’re
bound to agree on one killer.”

“
Agreement isn’t proof,” I said,
surprising myself by speaking up. When the other two looked at me,
I shrugged. “Killers aren’t logical. So, if we go with logic, what
do we have?”