Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 01 - Peril in Paradise (6 page)

His lips thinned with irritation and he ignored my
hair. Damn.

“This isn’t a game, Ms. Monroe and you’re not
working at Disney World any longer.”

“You checked up on me? My work history?” I asked,
incredulous.

“Of course. Standard procedure” He held up the
manila folder and, for the first time, I noted that my
name was written on the tab. Mallie Monroe. Typed, no
less.

I flinched inside at the thought of my life being an
open book to anyone who happened to pick up that
file-especially Detective Billie. “I thought the police
were supposed to cooperate with the media.”

“We are, but when the media contact is the person
who found the body, it makes things a little trickyeven though your alibi at Capt’n Harry’s panned out”

“You already checked that too?”

He nodded. “I’ll issue a press release when the time
is right.” His voice was firm, final. “But this murder investigation is just starting, and I can’t let anything or
anyone interfere with doing my job.”

“But I’ve helped you by telling everything I remember that happened on the day Hillman died,” I reminded
him. “The least you could do is fill me in on what you
know.”

“No deal.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Are you always
this rigid?”

“I’d call it professional.”

“How about unyielding?”

“Competent?” he offered.

“Stubborn,” I came back.

Surprisingly, he laughed-a warm and full-hearted
sound that came up from his throat like bubbling, rich oil
from deep in the earth. “You’re rather tenacious yourself,
Mallie.”

“About some things-like keeping my job,” I said,
dropping my hands to his desk, palms down. “If you’ve
got a file on me, then you know I’ve had a problem settling
into something permanent. My last job … uh … didn’t
exactly work out. Before I came to Orlando I was a substitute teacher in Atlanta. Before that, a dog trainer in
Asheville. Before that well, I don’t remember.” Actually,
I did remember. I’d been working as a singing waitress at
the King’s Table Medieval Dinner Club. Unfortunately, I got fired after tripping and spilling a flagon of mead on a
customer. I could only hope Detective Billie didn’t have
that little gem in his file on me.

“It seems like you’ve been working your way south,”
he said.

“You could say that. My great-aunt got me this job on
the Observer, and I really want to keep it. I’m thirty-one
years old and all I have to my name is an antique
Airstream trailer and a teacup poodle.” I met his glance
squarely. “I need to show Anita that I can do this job …
so how about giving me a helping hand? Besides, the paper could actually assist you catch the murdererinvolve the entire community. Like those TV programs
where they end up catching the criminal because viewers
call in with information.”

“You can get a real head of steam going when you
want to”

“That’s me-the Mallie Express” I leaned forward
even further. “What about the Sunshine Law? Isn’t this
information public record?”

“Not in an ongoing investigation.”

I shot him a pleading glance.

“All right. I understand that we can help each other
here, but I have to be careful not to step outside of police procedure” He picked up his ballpoint pen and
clicked it half a dozen times while a little muscle worked
in his jaw. “I can share only facts that won’t compromise my case.”

“Thanks” I exhaled in relief as I pulled out my official reporter’s notepad and riffled around in my bag
for a pen. I held it poised, ready for action.

Still, he hesitated.

“Come on, let’s start with the actual murder. I know
Hillman was knifed. I saw the wound in his chest.” I
swallowed hard at the memory.

“All I can tell you is that Hillman was killed somewhere between five and seven P.M. The murderer
must’ve been someone he knew because there was no
sign of a forced entry. Also, it wasn’t a robbery because nothing seems to be missing.”

I was writing as fast as my fingers could move.
“Murder weapon?”

He shook his head. “Can’t say”

“Suspects?”

“A whole island.”

“Who is going to be questioned-“

“That’s all I can say right now. As the investigation
proceeds, I’ll give out information on a need-to-know
basis.” His phone rang and he took the call. After a few
short, clipped sentences, he hung up. “Gotta go”

“Is it something pertaining to the murder case?”

He stood up, but said nothing.

“Okay, I get the message” I tossed the notepad and
pen in my canvas bag and heaved it over my right shoulder. “I’ll be in touch”

As I made for the door, he said, “Wait a minute. I had
something else I wanted to ask you.”

I halted and turned my head in his direction.

“Is your hair naturally that color?”

“Yeah.” I grinned. “I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

“I didn’t.”

A tiny glow lit inside me as I left his office. I might
not have an ally in Detective Billie, but at least he
wasn’t an enemy.

The glow lasted all the way back to the Observer
office where I found Anita absent-gone to lunch-and
Sandy at her desk devouring a low-carb, low-cal meal
supplement bar. She was just hanging up from yet another call trying to persuade the Coral Island Shrimp
House to buy advertising. From the look on her face,
the pitch had been less than successful.

“You had a call,” Sandy said between bites.

She handed me the message and I saw a familiar
name: Chrissy Anders. I phoned her immediately and
she told me the writer’s group was convening at the
Starfish Lodge, the island’s only hotel.

I made it there in record time-not just because I
wanted to talk to the writers, but I hadn’t eaten anything
in my rush to finish the bike path story this morning. The rumbling in my stomach was a distinct sign that I
needed sustenance.

The Starfish Lodge had opened about a month before
I arrived on Coral Island. It was located on the south
end of the island on an isolated patch of land surrounded
by mangroves on one side and Coral Island Sound on
the other. A long building with a flat roof, it had only
eight rooms, but all of them faced the Sound and were
furnished with antiques. The Lodge also had a small
restaurant with heart of pine floors and a coral rock
fireplace with running waterfalls on either side. The
building wasn’t new. Anita told me it had been built at
the turn of the century as one of those experimental
utopian communities where everyone was supposed to
live in harmony with nature and each other.

The commune ended when the leader mysteriously
disappeared one night with the group’s savings, and the
building changed hands a dozen times before a developer renovated it last year and turned it into a small hotel. So much for peace, love and brotherhood.

I strolled into the restaurant-Starfish Lounge-and
found the writers huddled around a table near the back
of the room.

As I approached, I could tell from Chrissy’s redrimmed eyes that she’d been crying. Surprisingly, she
threw her arms around me.

“Oh, Mallie, isn’t it just awful? We heard the news
this morning when we showed up at Jack’s house.” She
pulled back and raised a tearstained handkerchief to her face. “The police met us at the door and told us he
was … dead”

“Do you know what happened?” Burt motioned for
me to sit next to him and Betty who were already working on a couple of Bloody Marys. “Rumor has it you
found the body.”

“It’s true” I sat down and plopped my bulky bag near
my feet. Chrissy slid into a chair across the table.

“Was it m … m … murder?” George asked, raking
his long hair back from his face. He displayed no redrimmed eyes. Just an expression tight with strain.

“Apparently.” I noted that Betty shot a furtive glance
in Burt’s direction, but he gave an imperceptible shake
of his head. “I gave my statement this morning to the
police.”

“Do they have any suspects?” Betty took a deep swig
of her Bloody Mary.

“Can’t really say,” I hedged. “My guess is you’ll all
be questioned as to your whereabouts when Jack was
killed.”

“I was watching a video on organic farming” Chrissy
tucked her hair behind her ears. “Though not the whole
time.”

“We drove back here to the Lodge for drinks,” Burt
offered. “Then to our room” Betty nodded in agreement.

Where you both probably passed out, I added silently.

“I took a long b … b … bike ride,” George said.

“Alone?” I prompted.

“Well … yes.” He raked his hair back again.

A waitress wearing a splashy tropical print shirt with
tight jeans appeared at my elbow. I ordered the blueberry pancakes and a yet another cup of coffee.

After she left, I scanned the writers’ group. Their
alibis were lame, and they looked like they knew it.
Chrissy dabbed at her eyes with a shaky hand, Burt and
Betty were preoccupied with their drinks, and George
seemed very intent on cleaning a spot off the white linen
tablecloth. Any of them could’ve murdered Hillman.

“After I left yesterday, did you notice anything odd?”
I asked.

George shook his head, followed by Burt and Betty.
Chrissy, however, lowered the handkerchief and pursed
her mouth.

“Now that you mention it … about twenty minutes
after you left, Jack got out of the hot tub. I stayed in to
catch some afternoon rays and work on one of my new
poems. I was right in the middle of rhyming `the joys
of compost’ with `those who love you the most,’ when I
heard him yelling at his neighbor-this old guy who
has the house right next door. They were really going at
it-and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard them arguing.”

“Could you make out what they said?” I inquired,
trying not to conjecture how compost had anything to
do with love. Or anything else in the romantic department.

“Not really”

“Think hard, Chrissy. It could be very important,” I
pressed her.

“Uh …” She drummed her fingers against her cheek. “Oh, yes, I did hear something.” She straightened in her chair. “The old guy mentioned a land survey that Jack had done a week ago. That’s what the
argument was about. Yeah … I remember now …
Jack told me his neighbor was disputing the property
division between their two lots. Jack had staked out
where he wanted to put up a fence and the neighbor
said it was partially on his lot. The whole thing kinda
mushroomed into this running argument-that’s why
Jack ordered the survey”

“How angry was the neighbor yesterday?” I asked.

She grimaced. “Absolutely livid. I could hear him
yelling for almost half an hour.”

“B … b … but that doesn’t mean that he’d want to
kill Jack,” George pointed out. “I mean, he made me so
angry sometimes, I couldn’t see straight.”

“You never know,” Betty waved her glass. “This
neighbor could’ve gone berserk.”

“That’s always possible,” I agreed, eyeing George.
So he had a temper under all that shy diffidence. Was
he a ticking time bomb that had finally gone off last
night? My musings were interrupted by the waitress
who placed a heaping plate of blueberry pancakes under my nose. I doused them in extra sweet maple syrup
and dug in.

“Isn’t that stuff full of refined sugar?” With obvious
distaste, Chrissy wrinkled her nose at my three large
pancakes swimming in syrup.

Burt picked up the plastic syrup bottle. “Nope.
Worse. See the label? It’s artificially sweetened. That
can’t be good for you”

I was tempted to point out that Bloody Marys
weren’t exactly part of the four healthy food groups,
not to mention contained a high alcohol content, but refrained. Instead, I concentrated on my pancakes and listened. When I was hungry, fortunately my motor mouth
shifted into low gear.

Chrissy clucked her tongue. “I never eat processed
foods or artificial anything.”

“G … g … good for you” George’s eyes kindled in
admiration.

I paused, my fork hovering near my mouth. Was
George infatuated with Chrissy? He was looking at her
as if she were the next best thing to sliced bread. And
he’d been furious when Hillman caused her to breakdown in tears yesterday. Motive for murder? Maybe.

“Aside from Jack’s neighbor, did anyone visit the
house while all of you were still there yesterday?” I
continued eating the pancakes.

“We left shortly after you did,” Burt said. Betty nodded in agreement.

“Me too,” George managed to get out without a
stammer.

Chrissy sighed. “After my poetry session was interrupted, I left. Jack was still arguing with his neighbor,
but no one else showed up”

“How come you’re so interested?” Burt’s tone turned
wary.

Uh-oh. “I’m doing a story on the murder for the Observer,” I replied, all of a sudden feeling like an insect
pinned to the wall by four pairs of razor sharp eyes. “My
editor wants it as the lead story for next week’s edition,
and I’ve got to come through for her. My job is on the
line.”