Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 02 - Island Intrigue (4 page)

“Good idea.” She eyed the painter for a few seconds,
and her mouth tightened, causing the multitude of vertical smoker’s lines to deepen. I couldn’t tell whether she
was smiling or grimacing. “What do you think of our decorating job? Benton decided to pump some money into
fixing up our office, so I jumped on it before he changed
his mind. Of course the only thing that really counts is
putting out a good paper.”

“True, but the place does look kinda grungy. And
bluish green is a nice color,” I pointed out.

“I guess-if you’re into that kind of crap. The smell
alone is enough to make me gag.”

I blinked in amazement. Was it possible that her sense
of smell was still intact after daily sessions of breathing
in nothing but heavy-duty, lung-scarring tobacco smoke?

“Write that Town Hall story-and the Autumn Festival piece you’re covering today. I’ll need to check ‘em
both over before Friday’s deadline.” She cleared her
throat. “This damn gum isn’t doing anything-I’d walk
across a beach of broken seashells for a cigarette right
now.”

A tiny pang of sympathy nagged at me. “Maybe you
could try the nicotine patch”

She muttered an expletive and retreated into her office, slamming shut the door.

I raised my eyes to the ceiling and groaned to Sandy,
“I’m sorry about her cigarette cravings, but I can’t believe
she still wants to edit every line of my stories.” I thumped
my large canvas bag onto the desk. Two pens and a can of
Diet Coke rolled out. I shoved them back into the black
hole that passed for my purse. “I’ve been working here
almost six months, and I think I can write a simple story
without her second-guessing everything I’ve done”

“Anita is a Capricorn, ruled by Saturn.” A smile tipped
the corners of Sandy’s bow-shaped mouth. “She likes
control and order…. You have to let her do her thing, or
she’ll feel like she’s losing her sense of authority.”

“Do you know her rising sign?” the painter piped up.

We both turned in his direction.

“Huh?” I couldn’t imagine anything “rising” out of
Anita except curses and mutterings.

“My mom is Madame Geri-short for Geraldine.”
He placed a hand across his heart and, in a quaint, oldfashioned gesture, gave a slight bow.

“Our newspaper astrologer?” I asked.

“Yep. And I gotta tell you, she knows her stuff. Really awesome. She taught me a lot about the planets and
how they influence people.”

Sandy’s features kindled in sudden interest. “I love
Madame Geri’s column. I mean, she isn’t just your average, run-of-the-mill astrologer. She … she’s clairvoyant.”

I listened to the two of them praising Madame Geri for
a few minutes, wondering if they were talking about the
same person whose column rarely said anything more
specific than Avoid arguments today and you’ll feel much
happier. Who couldn’t predict that?

“If I could get the date and time of Anita’s birth, do
you think Madame Geri could do her chart?” Sandy
asked, her voice rising in excitement.

“Sure,” he said.

“But, Sandy-” I began.

“No ‘but’s about it. Listen, Mallie, if we can find out
what makes Anita tick, it could make things work a lot
smoother around here,” Sandy pointed out.

“I don’t think-“

“It could even help you find a way to get your articles
written without her breathing down your neck.”

She had me there. “I … I guess there’s nothing wrong
with just checking out her birth date.”

“I’ll get right on it-after my diet bar.” Sandy pulled
out a six-inch bar with the words LOW CALORIE blazoned across the silver foil.

“Are you dieting?” the painter asked.

Sandy chomped a large bite out of her bar and nodded.

“Me too” He gestured toward his potbelly. A youngish
guy probably in his midtwenties, he had the beefy good
looks of a guy who ate his frosted cereal flakes every
morning rather than checking to see if his planets were
aligned.

As they conversed about the merits of their present diet for a few minutes, I rooted around in my desk drawer
for my Official Reporter’s Notepad. Once I found it, I
tossed it into my canvas bag along with the new addition
to my journalist’s arsenal: an iPod. I thought it gave me a
certain panache to whip it out when I was conducting interviews. As long as I remembered to hit Record and
then Save.

“I’m driving over to the elementary school now.” I
threw a couple of extra pens into my bag, since I still primarily took hard-copy notes. “Let me know if anyone
calls.”

“Will do,” Sandy said absently. Elbows propped on
the desk, she was still absorbed in her conversation with
the cute painter.

I grabbed my bag, zipped my cheap blue Windbreaker right up to my chin, and ran out to my truck. As
I pulled out of the parking lot, I glanced over at the
small police station that stood alone across the road.
A neatly landscaped, one-story, wood-frame building, it
looked like Detective Billie-sleek and remote. I imagined his sitting at his desk, methodically sifting through
paperwork. That little vertical line between his eyes
would appear as he frowned in concentration. He might
even shove his dark, straight hair back from his forehead
with an impatient hand-

A horn honked.

“Get a move on, missy. We don’t have all day!” a
gray-haired man with a beard shouted from the car behind me.

“Oh, jeez, it’s Everett Hall,” I said aloud. The island
curmudgeon. He saved my life a few months ago but
somehow negated that by always making a habit of being cranky to the point of downright obnoxious in my
presence. Coot. I flicked my turn signal and pulled out
onto Cypress Road. He turned the other way before I
could make a rude hand gesture.

Within a few minutes I stood in the main office of the
Coral Island Elementary School. A bustling place, it was
the preferred school for most of the island kids. A few
people from the ritzy Sea Belle Isle Point area drove their
children into private schools in town, but most Coral Islanders preferred that their kids attend the island school.
Painted a hot shade of mango, the one-story, stuccoed
building hummed with energy and warmth.

“Hi, Trisha,” I said to the receptionist. She flashed a
wide smile in my direction. With her shoulder-length,
nut brown hair and open features, she looked little older
than most of the kids.

“Hi yourself” She handed me a steaming cup of
coffee. “Cold enough for you?”

“I’ll say” I sipped it gratefully. The heat spread
through my body. I sighed in contentment.

“Sorry all the donuts are gone”

“Shoot” She’d learned all my weaknesses from the
many times I’d come here to do stories.

“I think I’ve got a couple of oatmeal cookies in my
purse”

“Forget it. `A rose by any other name…’”

“Huh?”

“Shakespeare said it in his play, Romeo and
Juliet … uh … never mind.” Sometimes my degree in
comparative literature would rear its ugly head, and I’d
feel compelled to make a literary allusion. Usually no
one responded, except with diffidence. Today, you were
lucky if people knew that Dickens wasn’t some kind of
hip-hop band on MySpace. “I’m here to cover the Autumn Festival.”

“Great. The kids are in the gym wearing overalls and
doing a jump rope marathon.”

“Oh, joy.”

Tricia had me sign in and handed me a hall pass.
“Remember, don’t use the kids’ restroom. Adults are
supposed to use the one designated for teachers”

I rolled my eyes. Last time I visited, I made the mistake of using the little girls’ restroom. A couple of kids
ratted on me, and the repercussions of that faux pas reverberated all the way back to Anita, who gave me a
stern lecture about conducting myself with proper journalistic decorum at all times and in all places. Heck, I
was only trying to use the toilet.

“Do you know Wanda Sue’s grandson, Kevin?” I
asked.

“Yeah, Kevin Crawford. Nice kid. Has a buzz cut and
braces”

“Sounds adorable” I shifted my heavy canvas bag
from one shoulder to the other. “What’s the story with
his parents?”

“Not much. Father is barely eking out a living as a
fisherman, but that’s pretty much every other guy on
this island. He and Sally Jo, Kevin’s mother, were having domestic problems, and he moved out”

“I heard from Wanda Sue that they were getting back
together.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She put her elbows on the
desk and propped up her chin with her hands. “Why are
you asking?”

“Wanda Sue told me last night that Kevin’s dad was
supposed to pick him up from school and take him over
to Sally Jo’s house, but he never showed up”

“Oh, yeah, I remember now. Sally Jo called around
four o’clock and asked if Kevin’s dad had picked him
up. I checked with Kevin’s teacher, and she said yes”

“What’s her name?” I pulled out my Official Reporter’s Notepad.

“Beverly Jennings.”

I scribbled down her name. “Any other helpful info
on the boy?”

“Nope. Except that it’s pretty common for an island
fisherman to take his kid out of school for a couple of
days and go on a boating trip.”

“You think that’s what happened? In this weather?”

“Dunno”

“Okay, thanks. See ya” I flipped the notepad shut
and exited the office. Walking in the direction of the
gym, I wondered briefly if Wanda Sue had sent me on a
wild goose chase. I told myself I had to cover the festival for the paper anyway, but I secretly still wanted to prove
myself to Anita as a real reporter.

It wouldn’t be the first time. Some people had a nose
for news. A sixth sense for headlines. Whereas I had an
instinct for the inane. I thought every half-baked story
that came in my direction might be “the big one”-the
article that would finally get Anita off my back. Fat
chance. After the murder case last summer, the best headline I’d been able to write was about the island streaker,
a guy who liked to run around naked while he did his
laundry. Nothing too earthshaking there, just a man who
liked to wash his clothes au naturel.

I shoved my Official Reporter’s Notepad back into my
canvas bag. In this case, I hoped it would be one of those
nothing stories, and Kevin would show up at Sally Jo’s
later today, safe and sound.

I headed for the gym.

The cacophony of children’s voices drew me toward
the the gym. As I entered the large room with its high
ceiling and shiny wood floors, I stopped in my tracks
and blinked twice, not sure if I was ready to take the
plunge.

Probably about a hundred overall-clad boys and girls
bobbed up and down as they spun neon-colored jump
ropes over their heads. Another twenty or so kids appeared to be keeping tallies of each other’s jumps, and
a few older girls lounged off to one side with water bottles and lemonade pitchers. All of the laughing, talking,
and jumping generated enough heat to warm every RV
park south of Orlando. And then some.

I had to admit it was a pretty ingenious way to help
kids work off their surplus energy.

Scanning the room for any sign of an adult, I spied
a tall, twentyish blond woman standing near the water
and lemonade stand. Even from a distance I noticed her
shining fall of light hair. It looked like spun gold, beautifully cut and colored-obviously the work of an expert
stylist. My interest was sparked-not because I wanted
to dye my red curls but because I desperately needed my
mane trimmed and didn’t completely trust Trixie, the island’s lone beauty parlor operator and part-time electrician. I never knew if I’d come out with a good cut or the
urge to rewire a ceiling fan. Or maybe both.

I weaved my way through the jumpers, careful not to
be hit by a rogue rope.

“Whew, I didn’t think I’d make it through there alive!”
I exclaimed as I emerged on the other side of the gym.

“I know what you mean…. It’s a jungle” The blond
smiled. She wore a red wool jumper with a white
blouse, opaque tights, and flat black Mary Janes. Had
to be the teacher. My glance narrowed as an emblem on
the jumper caught my eye. Uh-oh. A Mickey Mouse
was embroidered on the left side. I shuddered. My
short, undistinguished tenure at Disney World had left
me with a permanent aversion to the tittering mouse
and anyone singing “It’s a Small World” Nevertheless,
I had to admit that I still sported a watch with a tiny
Mickey in the center whose white-gloved hands kept
time. I was nothing if not inconsistent.

“I’m Mallie Monroe from the Observer,” I said.

“What?” She cupped an ear.

I motioned my head toward an unoccupied corner
of the gym. She followed me there. I introduced myself
again, explained why I was there, and we shook hands.

“Tell me about the Autumn Festival.” I reached for
my notepad again, realizing that I’d get bupkes on the
iPod with this din in the background.

“This is just one of our planned events. We call it the
Island Jumpers-isn’t that just adorable?” Her face lit
up with excitement. “Kids from kindergarten to fifth
grade bring their jump ropes, and they work in teams to
raise money for the school. Merchants from the island
sponsor them. Last year we made almost three thousand dollars so we could buy some new computers for
the library. There’s nothing like teamwork. That’s what
the kids learn. That and love make the world go ‘round.”