Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 02 - Island Intrigue (22 page)

“Nearby. Actually, close enough to feel the cold snap.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s been downright miserable.” I seized
on the opportunity to bad-mouth the island. “You might
want to rethink your itinerary. I heard that the temperature might dip even lower.”

“It’s okay. We brought our winter coats with us” She sniffed in a determined manner. “We’re looking forward to seeing you”

“Me too,” I managed to eke out.

Strains of rock music drifted out of the Wanderlodge
and distracted me for a moment. Not the hard-driving,
punk stuff but the more soft-rock songs of … Christina
Aguilera. That’s it! I snapped my fingers. Christina and
Jordan Bratman-the guy she married in a fantasy wedding in the Napa Valley. They were my neighbors. Unbelievably cool.

“We’ll call you. Ta-ta” She hung up, and my attention turned back to the phone.

I stared at the receiver for a few seconds, trying to
make sense of the conversation. Oh, joy. Could it be?
Was Coral Island big enough to share with my parents?

The bigger question, though, was, was I sharing
space at the Twin Palms RV Resort with a famous pop
singer? Only one woman could answer that question:
Wanda Sue.

In no time flat, I had walked Kong, showered, and
dressed and was heading through the doors of the Twin
Palms reception building. It was built in a large octagonal shape, supported by wood pillars with a split-log
roof. A check-in desk stood to one side. The rest of the
place was taken up with shelves that stocked various
RV necessities, such as biodegradable toilet paper and
sewer hoses.

“Mallie, honey, you’re up early!” Wanda Sue exclaimed from behind the check-in desk. She was wearing
her “church clothes”-a familiar ensemble that included
a bright lime green flowered dress, green high heels, and
a little hat perched on top of her head. Today she’d added
another festive touch-a pair of dangly earrings in the
shape of tiny gold Florida ‘gators. Cute.

“I’ve got a good reason-I figured out who’s in the
Wanderlodge.” I strolled up to her, leaned down, and
whispered, “Christina Aguilera and her hubby.”

Wanda Sue burst into laughter. “Oh, honey. You’re so
cold, your legs are gonna freeze right up to your butt”

My bubble burst, and I slumped into a chair. Wrong
again. “I give up. Here I am on a murder case again,
and I can’t even figure out who’s living next door to me.
I’m some kind of bum investigative reporter.”

“Whaddya mean? Detective Billie arrested Jake
Fowler, and it’s all because of you”

“Jake?” I jerked upright. “What? When? Why?” At
least I remembered my journalist’s questions.

“It happened like this: I was discussing Frank’s attempted murder over coffee with the clerk at the Circle
K, when who should stroll up but Old Man Brisbee? He
told us Nick arrested Jake late last night on account of
finding Jake’s fishing net wrapped around Frank’s head.
All the island guys tag their nets with their names, so
they knew it was his.”

“Wait a minute.” I held a hand up. My motormouth
might get stuck in high gear, but Wanda Sue could get a good head of steam going herself, rolling right along like
a runaway train. “Let me get this straight. Jake Fowler
was arrested for trying to kill Frank King?”

She nodded.

“Anything on the grapevine about Tom’s murderer?”

“Nothing ‘bout that yet, but if he attacked Frank,
don’t you think he’s probably Tom’s killer? I heard tell
you had Frank closing in on the murderer’s identityJake probably knew that and wanted to stop him.”

“Possibly.” Doubt rose up in my mind like a noxious
fume. What about the deceiver? Jake couldn’t have made
something that intricate. “Have you heard how Frank’s
doing?”

“They took him to the county hospital on the mainland. He’s holding his own. Looks like he’ll live.” She
gave a coy smile. “Sally Jo called me. She drove into
town this morning and checked on him.”

Okay. “Was he conscious yet?”

“Nope. He’s all wired up to those machines.”

I grabbed my canvas bag. “I’d better check in at the
paper and see if Anita wants me to try to get a quick
blurb about all of this into the upcoming edition.”

“You’re becoming a regular Woodstein and Bernward” Wanda Sue patted my hands. “Things are looking up for Kevin now-thanks to Madame Geri and
you. Now we can help the boy start to heal from all this
mess.”

“I didn’t do that much” I cleared my throat awkwardly. Madame Geri had done even less. Still, it wasn’t every day that a girl got compared with Wanda Sue’s
mangled version of the Washington Post journalists who
broke Watergate.

“Are you kidding? You put yourself on the line for
my grandson, and I’ll never forget it.” She gave my
hands an extra squeeze. “I owe ya, honey.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to pay me back by telling
me who’s in that huge RV next door?”

She slapped her thighs and laughed. “You’re one stubborn woman, Mallie Monroe. But that’s okay. So am I”

“Two peas in a pod . . ” I joined in her laughter,
which lasted all the way out to Rusty. I turned my face
up toward the sky. It might’ve been my imagination, but
some of the dark clouds were beginning to clear. And
the wind had abated. It was turning out to be a good
day, even though I wasn’t sure about Jake’s guilt on either crime. The deceiver niggled at me. But at least Kevin
would be in the clear-that was the best news.

Humming, I climbed into Rusty and cranked up the
engine. It made a clicking sound. I tried again. Same
sound. My battery was dead. Typical.

So the clouds weren’t completely gone.

After waiting an hour for Pop Pop Welch to shuffle the
short distance from his cottage to my truck, and another
forty minutes for him to jump my battery, Rusty and I finally limped along to the Observer office.

When I arrived, I noticed that the parking lot was
empty. Yippee. I had beaten Anita to the office. Okay, it was Sunday, but news was Anita’s religion. Maybe she
hadn’t heard about Frank’s attempted murder yet, and
I’d actually be able to scoop her for a change.

I let myself into the office, cranked up the heater, and
ambled over to my rickety desk. On top was a sheet of
paper with an angular scrawl: I was here an hour ago.
Tried to call you at home, but no answer. Forget the fishing tournament story. I need a short piece on the events
at Frank King’s bait store and Take Fowler’s arrest by
Monday morning. Chop-chop, Anita.

I crumpled the paper. Did that woman ever sleep?
More to the point, did she ever think I needed a break?

Cursing, I flipped on my computer and got to work.

In a couple of hours I’d hammered out a fairly decent
rough draft. I read it over a couple of times. Not bad.
Not bad at all. I e-mailed it to Anita. Of course, she would
change the opening, cut down on the adverbs, shorten my
sentences, and eliminate at least a hundred words. But,
hey, she would’ve slashed and trashed Hemingway if
he’d been working for her.

I tried calling Detective Billie to get a quote about
Jake’s arrest, but all I got was the part-time deputy who
filled in on the rare occasions Nick was out of the office.

I’d have to check with him tomorrow.

Closing up shop, I drove back to Mango Bay and spent
the rest of the afternoon reading about deceivers. Hohum. By evening, I was hungry, cold, and totally bored.
It was all I could do to microwave a frozen chicken piccata dinner and crawl into bed. My heater was chugging out only pitiful attempts at warmth that evening, so I
cranked up the electric blanket. Snuggling with Kong
was the only thing my fried brain could handle. My eyes
closed before my head hit the pillow.

The next morning, I promised myself that I would finish researching the fishing fly at work. That deceiver
was somehow at the center of Tom’s murder and Frank’s
attempted murder. Maybe I was becoming psychic from
hanging around Madame Geri. At any rate, Jake’s arrest
wasn’t the end of the murder investigation-I was sure
of it. I was also sure that my heater in the Airstream was
on its last leg. I called Pop Pop Welch to come over and
take a look at it. He promised he’d get to it first thing
after his oatmeal and Geritol.

After a fast shower and hair fluff, I took Kong for a
quick walk, picked up the books on fishing flies, and
drove off into the cold morning. Stopping at the Circle
K for my usual morning fare-black coffee and two
donuts-I mentally ticked off what I had to do that day.
First item of the morning after I got to work: Call the
island cop for a quote about Jake’s arrest.

I parked in front of the Observer and strolled in,
books in hand, drinking my coffee.

“Mallie, I heard about the events at Frank King’s bait
shop. Unbelievable.” Sandy’s open face was lit with excitement.

“Then I guess Anita told you Detective Billie arrested Jake” I did a double take. Sandy was standing by the file cabinets wearing a pair of tight-fitting Levis.
“Hey, girl, you’re wearing jeans!”

She grinned and twirled around. “Can you believe it?
I finally fit into a size ten”

I scanned her. “No price tags?”

“Nope. With Jimmy’s help, I’ll stay this thin.” She
closed the file drawer and moved toward her desk.

“Congrats” I dropped the stack of books on top of
my desk with a loud thump.

She picked up The Comprehensive History of Fishing Flies and grimaced. “This looks boring.”

“Tell me about it. I could hardly keep my eyes open.
But that fly is the key to who murdered Tom and stabbed
Frank…:’

“You don’t think Jake did it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Any other possibilities?”

“Too many” I clicked on the computer I shared with
Sandy. “Before I call Nick for a quote, I’m going to check
some online sources about building flies.” I couldn’t finish the story, or accept Jake’s guilt yet, until I knew who
had made that deceiver.

Before I realized it, I’d spent an hour looking at
Web sites. The amount of information was staggering,
but I located one of the Lefty Kreh’s disciples: Lou
Tabor. I found his e-mail address and sent him a message to see if he knew of anyone in this area who might
build flies.

Just then, Jimmy breezed in with Madame Geri and
Marley. Oh, boy.

“We’ve got a surprise for all of you,” Jimmy announced as he went over and kissed Sandy on the cheek.

“You’re gonna finish painting this dump of an office?” Anita emerged from her cubicle, a copy of my
news story in hand.

Jimmy laughed. “Better than that”

“I finished Anita’s astrological chart” Madame Geri
held up a legal pad with all kinds of odd markings on it.
“I almost missed the most important part: Her rising
sign is Gemini-the twins.”

“Huh?” Anita grunted.

“We found what you were missing in your life: your
sister.”

In walked an identical version of Anita. Same stringy
hair, same wrinkled face, same dowdy clothes. But there
was one exception: She was stout rather than reed-thin.
Oh, my. Double jeopardy.

Anita gasped. “Bernice”

Bernice frowned. “Anita.”

“Nothing like a family reunion to create good karma”
Madame Geri surveyed the scene with an expression of
self-satisfaction.

I stood frozen in a horrified daze. There couldn’t be
two Sanders women on the planet. That simply wasn’t
possible. Was it?

“Last I heard, you were in the Panhandle,” Anita said.

“I was…. Then I went to Miami to run a couple of fishing charters. But taking out potbellied tourists who
are too squeamish to bait their own hooks is a real grind.
Not to mention moronic, big-city executives who want
to tell you how to run your own boat,” Bernice scoffed.
“I finally had enough and threw one overboard. Andwould you believe it?-that jerk-face actually tried to
sue me”

I could see that people skills were not strong points
with either Anita or her sister. Must be genetic.

“Right about that time, your friend Geri called and
told me to come to Coral Island and check out the commercial fishing,” she finished.

“She’s not my friend.” Anita flicked a stern glance in
the psychic’s direction, then focused her attention back
on her plus-sized twin. “I thought you might’ve showed
up to pay me back that two hundred and fifty dollars
you owe me.”

Bernice’s eyes narrowed. “That car deal was fair and
square. How could I have known the brakes would go
out after you bought it from me? But, since you’re working in such a dump, I can see that you need money. Here”
She reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a crinkled dollar bill. “Consider this a down payment. I give
you another one every week until the debt is paid.”

“Dock rat” Anita ignored the money.

“Shriveled up old hag” Bernice threw it to the floor.

“Nice to see you, sis.” Anita smiled. “I hope you drop
dead before you get your fishing business going.”

“No such luck, dearie” Bernice smiled back. “I plan to stay here a long, long time just to irritate you.” She
waltzed out the front door with a flourish.

Anita threw up her hands and howled, “I need a cigarette!” Then she stalked back into her office, but not
before telling me that the draft of my news story that I’d
e-mailed her yesterday was trash.

“It’s not finished,” I said. But she’d closed the door.

“Nothing like reuniting two sisters,” Madame Geri
pronounced in a upbeat tone. “It’s so touching.”

“Touching? I thought they were going to start a fist
fight at any moment” I covered my eyes with my palms.
“Now I have two Anitas on my hands. Thanks a lot,
Madame Geri. My situation just got worse”

“You never know. They might grow on each otherand you,” Sandy offered in a hopeful voice.

I dropped my hands and gave her a look of disbelief.
“Get real.”

“I heard about Jake Fowler’s arrest,” Madame Geri
said. “They’ve got the wrong man. The spirits told me
this morning.”

Huh? Were we finally both on the same psychic
wavelength? In spite of myself, excitement kindled inside me. “I never believed that Kevin was capable of
killing his own father, and I’m not totally convinced that
Jake did it, because of the deceiver. But I’m running out
of leads. Frank King was the likeliest suspect; then he
got himself almost killed. And that rules out Sally Jo. I
can’t see her murdering her husband so she can be with Frank-and then turning around and trying to kill him
too. That leaves Jake…