Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 03 - Murder in the Mangroves (17 page)

“Gina was a very special young woman,” I said in a gentle
voice as I finally turned the last page.

“R” Her head sagged against her chest.

“I’ll write the best story I can about her life. I promise you
that”

“Gracias. She would’ve liked that.” She took in a deep
breath and rose to her feet. “Feel free to look around. I’m going
back to the restaurant” With slow, halting steps, she headed for
the door.

I slid off the bed, clutching the scrapbook against my chest.

Moving around the room, I noticed all the girly items on
the dresser: fancy perfume bottles, silver comb and brush, tiny
china figurines. Pretty and delicate.

Then, something else caught my eye. Amid the feminine
ornaments was a small white box, with a syringe on top.

“Mama Maria, what’s this?” I pointed at the box.

She was almost out of the room but turned back. “That was
Gina’s testing kit. She was a diabetic.”

Oh.

ow bad was the diabetes? Did she have it long?” I picked
up the insulin tester and the syringe and looked them over.
That’s why the needle was next to Gina’s body. She must’ve
been giving herself an insulin shot.

“Since she was a teenager. It came on very sudden, very
fast. She almost went into a coma before we could get her to
the hospital. But they saved her. Once she got back on her feet,
the doctor told her how to check her sugar levels and give herself a shot when she needed it.”

“That must’ve been a pretty hard adjustment to make for
someone her age”

Mama Maria shook her head with a tiny smile. “Not for
Gina. She saw it as just another challenge. It didn’t slow her
down one bit.”

“Did a lot of people know about it?”

“Only family and a few close friends. She said she didn’t
want people to pity her.”

“But it was serious?”

“Enough to kill her? Si.” A tear slid down one side of her face. “She could get very sick, very fast, if she didn’t time her
two shots-morning and evening.”

“Yet Rivas said-“

“Stupid talk,” she muttered with a frown. “Gina was never
well. She wouldn’t let the disease slow her down, but it always
was there, waiting to strike her down. I told her to take things
easy, not push herself so hard, but she was stubborn, headstrong.
Then, the whole Mango Queen contest stressed her out-she
was up all night when she got crowned. And I knew, once she
became the Mango Queen, it was just the beginning-she’d
have to do things like that stupid trail thing. I think it took her
to the limit.”

“She seemed pretty lively during the hike,” I pointed out.

“Gina put on a brave front. She was not well.” Tears started
welling up again in Mama Maria’s eyes. She shook her head
and left the room.

I stared down at the monitor and syringe, my thoughts in a
jumble. This revelation put a whole new spin on Gina’s death.
Was it possible that Aunt Lily and Rivas had let their grief
overshadow the very real possibility that Gina’s disease had
killed her? And why hadn’t either of them mentioned it?
Wouldn’t they have known?

There was one person in particular I needed to share this
knowledge with: Detective Nick Billie. With our new relationship based on openness and honesty, I had to get this information to him pronto.

I placed the monitor and syringe in my large canvas bag and
exited, allowing myself only one backward glance. The room
still seemed to have a sense of Gina’s presence. Palpable. Real.
And sad.

With a sigh, I moved down the hallway, letting my glance
trail down the wall of framed pictures-some in color, some
black and white. All different sizes and shapes, they appeared to capture the history of the Fernandez family on Coral Island.

All of a sudden, I stopped. A familiar face stared at me from
an old, yellowed photograph. Sure, she was much younger, but
there was no mistaking the red hair and freckles: my Great-Aunt
Lily. She stood positioned between a Latino man and a young
girl who appeared to be about twelve years old. Was that Mama
Maria? But who was the man? Maria’s father? And why was
Aunt Lily in the picture? The photograph emanated an atmosphere of … intimacy, almost like that of a family.

Odd.

I glanced down the hall. Mama Maria was already out of
sight, Rivas nowhere to be found. I lifted the frame off the
wall and slipped it into my bag. Okay, this is totally illegal.
But I needed to show it to Aunt Lily and find out exactly what
her connection was with Mama Maria.

Making my way back to the restaurant, I spotted Cole, who
was nodding sympathetically as Everett was pointing at the
corns on his left foot.

Poor Cole.

“I’ve tried everything I can to clear ‘em up, but they won’t
go away. I’m ready to wave a dead chicken over my feet and
chant some kind of voodoo spell,” Everett grumbled. “My
foot aches all the time.”

“Try emu oil,” Cole suggested. “The stuff works like a miracle. It cured me when I had a pulled muscle.”

Everett’s bushy gray eyebrows arched upward. “Thanks,
sonny. I’ll get myself some of that moo oil.”

“No, emu oil. E-M-U.”

“Come on, Cole.” I tapped him on the shoulder. “We need
to go-I have to talk to Detective Billie.”

“What about lunch?” Cole murmured as he wrote emu oil on
a napkin and gave it to Everett. “I already ordered tacos for us”

“Maybe we can eat them on the road. I’ve got to see our island’s chief deputy about something urgent”

“Watch her, sonny. She’s always up to some kind of mischief. Almost got herself killed a couple of times-she just
doesn’t know when to back off.”

“So I’ve heard.” Cole fastened his blue eyes on me, curiosity and amusement mingled in their depths. “At least life is
never dull with a redhead.”

“Aw, you’d be better off with a cat-like I have,” Everett responded in a disgusted tone. “No fuss. No sissy scenes. And
you can get ‘em declawed.”

Cole grinned. “I think there’s a lot to be said for human female claws.”

My breath caught at the implication. Did Cole remember
those playful nights in Orlando? I hadn’t forgotten any of the
details, but, then again, having been without a boyfriend for
a couple of years, those memories had taken on a cinematic
quality.

Just then, the waitress brought our tacos.

“Could you wrap those up to go, please?” I asked.

“Sure thing.” She disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared
minutes later with the tacos. While Cole paid her, I turned to
the old curmudgeon. “It’s been real.”

He grunted.

“See ya around, Everett.” Cole waved at him as we exited
the restaurant.

Once outside, I turned toward Cole in awe. “You’re incredible. How could you get so friendly with that old coot? I can’t
stand him. Every time we run into each other, all we do is
trade insults.”

“You’ve got to see past all the barriers he puts up,” Cole
mused aloud. “He’s not so bad.”

“Everett Jacobs? Hah. Yeats hit the nail on the head when
he said an old man is a `tattered thing.’”

He put an arm around me. “Same old Mallie. Scrapping
with the world.”

I leaned into his shoulder. “Same old Cole. Surfing through
life.”

“Yin and yang, babe.” He dropped a kiss onto my head.
“That’s why we’re so good together.”

We climbed into Rusty, me behind the wheel. “Better open
the windows. You know how temperamental Rusty’s air conditioner can be”

“Sure do” He handed me a taco, then started in on his own.

I shifted into second gear, noting the sauce dribbling onto
my jeans leg. “Darn it.”

“Here, let me” Cole took his napkin and dabbed at the stain.

I flashed him a sidelong smile. “How have I made it this
long without you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should remedy the situation.”

“Cole, I don’t want to be having this discussion while I’m
trying to eat a taco, drive my rust bucket of a car, and write
Gina Fernandez’s obituary.”

“Okay … later, dudette”

But the words had been spoken. They silently echoed in my
mind, creating momentary images of a future that were just
too good to be true. Cole and I as a couple again? Was I ready
for that?

And what about Nick Billie? An image of his smoky eyes
drifted through my mind-sexy and irresistible.

Minutes later, we pulled into the police station parking lot
and finished our tacos. A smallish gray structure, built up about
six feet on cement blocks, the station always gave the appearance of being the calm center of the island. Neatly landscaped, with white latticework around the base, it was also an immaculate oasis of authority. “Do you want to come in?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I want to meet my rival.”

“Detective Billie? I told you, he doesn’t even like me.”
Even though he’d held my hand under the black mangrove
tree.

“Like has nothing to do with it, babe”

“You’re being downright silly,” I muttered as I shouldered
open my door and hopped out. Was I protesting too much?

My steps faltered, and Cole caught my elbow. “Did you trip
on something?”

“Uh … maybe a shell.” I bent my leg and peered at the
bottom of my Birkenstock. “Looks okay. But you never know.
Most of the roads and parking lots on the island are made up
of crushed shells. The kind you see on the beach. Not that you
find too many these days, what with all the tourists and red
tide and … everything.”

He propelled me through the door, whispering, “I must’ve
hit a nerve. Your motormouth just activated.”

Damn. He knew me too well.

“Hi, Rhonda,” I greeted Nick’s superefficient, superattractive, and supernice secretary. “Is Nick in?”

“Sure, just let me buzz him.”

She didn’t have to. His tall, lean figure appeared in the
doorway of his office, arms folded, dark eyebrows raised as he
looked from me to Cole and back again. “I was just about to
call you. The preliminary coroner’s report came in on Gina’s
death”

“That’s why I’m here-Gina. I … uh … picked up some
information about an hour ago that I wanted to share with
you” Nervously, I picked over my words. “We’d gone to Mama
Maria’s for lunch so I could interview her for my story on Gina.
One thing led to another, and-“

“Maybe you ought to come into my office.” That longsuffering note that I knew so well had entered his voice.

“Sure”

He looked at Cole with pointed curiosity.

“Oh, sorry. This is an old … friend, Cole Whitney. He’s
staying at the Twin Palms for a while.”

Awkward pause. Why did I feel so odd introducing him to
Nick?

“Glad to meet you” Cole shook his hand with his easy
Ijust-caught- a-big-wave surfer-guy style. “Mallie has told me
a lot about you”

“None of it good, I’ll bet”

“Untrue. She respects you a lot.”

“Really? You could’ve fooled me. We’ve had our share of
clashes over the last year, and-“

“No need to go into that,” I cut in quickly. Why remind him
of all the trouble I’d caused with his last two murder investigations? I felt uneasy enough right now. “We have a good,
working, professional relationship. Right?”

A flash of humor crossed Nick’s face. “Right.”

Rhonda scanned our little group. “Can I get anyone a cup
of coffee?”

I shook my head.

“Decaf?” Cole asked.

“Nope, only high-test,” Rhonda informed him with a smile.

“Thanks, anyway.” Cole smiled back. “I don’t do caffeine.
The stuff is poison.”

“You’re a friend of Mallie’s?” Nick inquired, disbelief flitting across his face. “Her whole life is caffeine and junk food”

“Not my whole life just my meals,” I said defensively.

Nick shrugged and motioned me toward the inner sanctum. “You’ll have to wait out here, Cole. Official police business.”

“No problem. I don’t mind waiting.” He seated himself on the leather sofa and picked up an old sports magazine. “Take
your time.”

I moved past Nick, and he closed the door behind me, something he rarely did. “Okay, before I tell you anything, what was
the cause of Gina’s death?” I asked.