Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 02 - Island Intrigue (15 page)

I hightailed it over to my Airstream and let myself
in before Pop Pop could ask for further details about
the fabricated gas leak. Kong barked his usual enthusiastic greeting, and I scooped him up into my arms.
As he licked my face something silly, I cranked up the
heat and sat down to think.

Two hours later, I’d completed a quick recap of murder suspects.

Take Fowler. He certainly seemed to have the motive
and capability to murder Tom. I made a mental note to
find out if he had an alibi for the night Tom was killed.

Frank King. If he were having an affair with Sally
Jo, it was possible he wanted Tom out of the waypermanently.

I wrote down Sally Jo’s name next to his. A dissatisfied and estranged wife, she could’ve been in on Frank’s
plot to get rid of her husband.

Could one of them be “Salty Surfer,” who’d sent me
the threatening, albeit poorly written, e-mail? Unfortunately, there was a block on the IP address, and I couldn’t
trace it back to the writer. Salty but smart.

I paused, then slowly wrote another name. Kevin. I
found it hard to believe that he could’ve killed his own
father, but … I couldn’t let myself go there.

First chance, I needed to talk to Kevin. It was very
possible that he’d heard something on the boat that
would provide clues to the murderer’s identity. Then I
needed to fill in Nick Billie on everything that had
happened.

Right now, I had only one clue: the fancy handmade
fly that Madame Geri found on the boat.

I retrieved the deceiver from my canvas bag and examined it more carefully. Beautiful chartreuse and white
feathers fanned out from the tiny, fish-shaped form attached to the hook, the eyes black, the scales blue and
silver. Obviously it had been crafted with loving care.
Whoever had fashioned this fly had combined the love of
fishing with art.

A deceiver. Had someone left it behind in haste? Was
it the kind of object “Salty Surfer” would make?

I brushed my fingers along the feathers. They felt real.
A fishing fly made with real feathers? Now that probably
was distinctive.

Kong jumped down and scampered toward the front
door. He looked at me with expectant eyes.

“All right. But we’re heading toward the beach. I
need some sea air.”

He slumped into a sitting position and covered his
eyes with his front paws.

After slipping into my Windbreaker, I grabbed his leash and fastened it around his collar. We emerged
from the warmth of the Airstream into the damp cold. I
hunched my shoulders and flipped up the hood of my
jacket.

“Brrrr.” A chilly breeze came in off the Gulf, and the
sky had turned charcoal gray, readying us for another
night of freezing temperatures. Jeez, I need to move to
Florida. Oh, wait. I am in Florida. It just felt as cold as
winter in the Midwest.

Not surprisingly, it took less than two minutes to clear
my head. As Kong and I hurried back to the Airstream,
I saw Wanda Sue knocking on my door.

Kong barked excitedly at the sight of my landlady.

She turned around and waved. Wearing a red leather
coat over green velour pants, she looked like a walking
traffic signal. Stop or go, Wanda Sue liked her bright
colors.

“Mallie, I wanted to ask you a favor,” she began.

“Come in where it’s warm” I opened the door and
motioned for her to follow me.

Once inside, she settled on my old plaid sofa. Kong
parked himself next to her feet and occupied himself
with nibbling on the hem of her pants.

“Kong, stop that.” I snapped my fingers.

“It’s all right. These old pants are ready for a charity
bin as it is.” She stroked Kong’s ears. He growled in
response.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Okay, I guess. It’s Sally Jo who’s having the hard time of it.” She smoothed a stray hair behind her ear
with a shaky hand. “Would you mind going on over to
her place again for a little while? Just for some moral
support? I need to stay here ‘cause Pop Pop said someone reported a gas leak. We gotta check every site, just
to play it safe, and that could take a couple of hours”

“Oh?” I averted my head.

“It’s all them dimwit snowbirds. They always think
they’re smelling gas leaks. They’re like chickens with
their heads cut off when it comes to propane”

“Yeah, they can be real alarmists” I swung my attention back to Wanda Sue with a guilty grimace. “I’d be
happy to go over to Sally Jo’s” It was the least I could do
after tying up Wanda Sue’s geriatric handyman, I added
to myself.

“Thank you so much, Mallie.” A ghost of a smile
spread across her heavily made-up face. “You’ve been
such a good friend to me and Sally Jo through all of
this. I don’t know what I can do to repay you”

“I’m paying you back for giving me a chance to get
on my feet when I first moved here. I haven’t forgotten
how you let me stay a month rent free till I got my first
paycheck”

“That was nothing, honey. You’ve been a sweet pea
in a pod.”

“Thanks” I couldn’t help an inward smile. No matter
what, Wanda Sue kept up the steady stream of country
cliches.

“I … I .. ” Wanda Sue began crying. Kong gazed up at her and whimpered. After sharing many years of
my flaky life, he’s always been particularly sensitive
to tearful women. I grabbed Kong and hugged Wanda
Sue. While both of them bawled in my arms, I prayed
that Pop Pop had one of his notorious memory blackouts and would forget that I was the dimwit who’d reported the gas leak. All because I couldn’t resist nosing
around my neighbors’ RV.

All thoughts of Pop Pop, the gas leak, and my mysterious neighbors dissolved as I tried to console my landlady and pooch.

Darkness had fallen by the time I pulled up in front
of Sally Jo’s trailer. It had taken me almost an hour to
calm Wanda Sue and Kong down enough so that I could
leave them. Eventually Pop Pop picked up Wanda Sue
in his golf cart. Luckily, he’d appeared to have forgotten my part in the gas leak incident, and we all joined in
on blaming the dimwit tourists.

Wearing a T-shirt, two sweaters, and the Windbreaker,
I was fortified against the cold as I headed for Sally Jo’s
front door. After ringing the bell, I hopped from one foot
to the other to keep the circulation going in my legs.

“Why, Mallie, what a nice surprise,” Sally Jo drawled
as she swung open the door. “Come on in, honey.”

I didn’t need another invitation.

“This cold snap could freeze the tail off a Florida
bobcat” With a shiver, she closed the door.

I guessed losing a tail was similar to humans’ freezing their buns off, but I wasn’t quite sure. As I unzipped my
Windbreaker, I noticed that Sally Jo looked much better
today. Her eyes were still red-rimmed, but the dull, flat
expression had cleared. She’d donned a pair of jeans
with a white leather fringed top and even wore a little
makeup and lipstick. Much better. In fact, she looked
incredibly good for having just lost her husband two
days earlier.

A man cleared his throat.

I swung my head in the direction of the pink sectional sofa. Sitting on one end was a guy possibly in his
late twenties. Nice looking in a bland sort of waybrown hair, brown eyes, and a deeply tanned face.

“Uh … this is Frank King. He stopped by to pay his
respects” Sally Jo’s hands fluttered around her face as
if she didn’t know quite what to do with them. “He’s an
old friend.”

“Hi, I’m Mallie Monroe.”

He rose from the sofa and moved toward me. As he
smiled and stretched out his hand, I saw a cautious look
flash in his eyes. A brief surge … then it was gone. But
I’d seen it.

Was he the reason for Sally Jo’s transformation? The
makeup and leather fringe weren’t for my visit, that’s
for sure.

“Sally Jo and I are old high school buddies,” he said
in a low voice. Suddenly I saw what Sally Jo might find
attractive. First of all, he was tall and lean, without an
ounce of fat. But besides the hunky build, he had a way of fastening his attention on you as if you were the most
special, the most important thing the world. That was a
potent attraction for any woman.

“How nice that you could come over in her time of
need,” I murmured. It sounded like a line from a funeral home commercial, but it was the best I could do.
My mind was racing ahead with a dozen unanswered
questions.

The phone rang in the kitchen.

“Let me get that. You two just set a spell… .” Sally
Jo looked as if she wanted to say something else, but
the phone’s insistent ringing flustered her. “I’ll be right
back”

Frank and I passed a few awkward, silent moments,
then we both started talking at once.

“When did you hear-” I began.

“I’ve read your articles-” he began.

We both stopped abruptly.

“You go first,” he said.

“Thanks” I slipped off my jacket. “So when did you
hear about Tom’s death?”

He dropped down onto the sofa. “Yesterday. The
whole island is talking about it. Poor guy. Rumor has it
he took Kevin fishing and fell overboard after too many
beers” His voice rose at the end in the form of a question. He’s fishing, I realized.

So he hadn’t received the latest update from the gossip grapevine. “That’s the rumor.”

“Everybody will sure miss him.”

I sat down a little distance away from him. “Were
you good friends?”

“Sort of.” He hesitated. “We worked together on the
shrimp boats for about six years. You get to know a
man when you spend weeks at a time cooped up on a
small shrimper.” He rubbed his hands up and down his
jeans-clad thighs, fingers tapping the denim. A nervous
reaction?

“What kind of man was he?” I probed.

“Okay when he was sober. But he liked his beer. And
when he drank, he could get butt-ugly. You know what I
mean? He’d say stuff that could cut you in two. I didn’t
like that side of him. It made me want to-” He broke
off, that cautious look in his eyes again.

“Kill him?”

“No” Frank’s whole face tightened as if my words
had closed around his head like a vise. “Knock some
sense into him.”

I watched as he shifted around on the sofa. Even
more nervous.

“Of course, I’d never hurt him,” Frank continued.
“But I sure didn’t like the way I saw him treating Sally
Jo and Kevin after one of his binges.” His tone turned
to disgust. “He also had women on the side.”

I stiffened. “You mean affairs?”

“He cheated on his wife, and everybody on Coral Island knew it. But this last one was more than a one-night
drunken stand, and Sally Jo knew it.”

“He was seeing someone regularly while they were
separated?”

“Yep. And it was eating up Sally Jo… “

“How did you feel about it?”

Anger flitted across his face. “I think Sally Jo was a
fool to even think of going back with him. I heard he
gave the other woman up, but once he started drinking
again, he’d find another one to replace her down the
road. Men like him don’t change.”

“Maybe so,” I said, trying to take everything in.
“When did you last see him alive?”

“The morning he died. He was at the marina working
on his boat engine. He told me he was going to take
Kevin out fishing that afternoon. I said he was crazy to
even think about it. The water was too rough. But did he
listen? No way.”

“Did you have an argument?”

He frowned. “We had words.”

“Where were you later that night?”

“At the Fish and Bait Shoppe in Paradisio doing inventory.” His mouth thinned into a straight line.

“Did anyone see you there?”

He gave me a direct gaze. “I was closed.”

I made a mental note to ask Pete if he’d noticed that
Frank was still at the marina. “I’ve got something I’d like
you look at” I reached into my cavernous bag for the fishing fly. After rooting around for a few minutes, I realized
that I’d left it back at my Airstream. “Criminy. I forgot it.”

“What?”

“A fishing fly. It’s very elaborate … handmade. Nora
Cresswell told me you were an expert on fishing flies, so
I thought you might know who made it.” I refrained from
telling him where I had found it.

“Bring it by my bait store tomorrow, and I’ll look at
it.” His tone was still cautious.

“I’m making coffee” Sally Jo popped her head into
the room.

“Thanks. Do you mind if I talk to Kevin? Just to say
hi?”

Sally Jo flashed a quick glance in Frank’s direction.
“I guess it would be okay. He’s still all cut up about his
daddy, though, so please try not to upset him.”

“I won’t.”

I made my way down the hallway toward Kevin’s
bedroom. “Kevin?” I knocked on the closed door. “It’s
Miss Mallie.”

“Come in.” His voice was muffled.

I entered. The room was dimly lit by a small lamp on
his computer desk. Looking around, I took in the aquarium in the corner, Superman-themed bedspread on the
twin bed, and model airplane collection on the small
dresser. A typical young boy’s bedroom. He sat on the
floor with a Chronicles of Narnia book in his hands. He
looked so small and alone, my heart went out to him.