Pier Pressure (11 page)

The editor usually hides the bad news on page nine or ten, but Margaux's death made front page headlines above the fold. WIFE OF CIVIC LEADER FOUND DEAD. I scanned more specific details that filled the rest of two columns. Then I returned to the start and read each line carefully. My name leaped out as the finder of the body in the first two paragraphs, then the rest of the article gave a partial bio of Margaux's life in Greece, Key West, and New York City. The article left the murder/suicide question unresolved. Nor did it mention the gun found in her hand being registered in my name.

“Article bring you more business,” Gram said. “Tourists come to peek at you. Be good advertising.”

“Gram! Get real! A woman lies dead, a woman important to this island. It's no time to think of business and advertising. Whether or not people liked her, Margaux Ashford ranked as a community leader?”

“She a bitch.” Gram shrugged. “Good riddance. One other person agree.”

“Who?” I stepped toward her. Did she have information I wasn't aware of?

“The person who shoot her. That person agree with me.”

I sighed as I scanned the article again. The police had mentioned the possibility of suicide although no suicide note had yet been found. Did the police think Margaux stole my gun and then shot herself with it? Fat chance. The paper also mentioned the possibility of homicide, saying the case was still under investigation. I snapped on my desk radio and tuned to the local station so I'd be sure to hear any further announcements concerning the Ashford death. As I cleared my throat, I beckoned Gram to come closer.

“Gram, the Ashfords and I think someone murdered Margaux. We're going to do some investigating on our own to see if we can find the killer in case the police try to say suicide.”

“Why you care? Why you try investigate?” Gram scowled and shook her finger at me. “Stay out of this, Keely. Bad business. Distance yourself.”

“I can't stay out of it. Can't you see I'm already in it? I need to find the killer in order to protect myself. Punt and Jass will be investigating, too, and I hope you'll be willing to help us. You want the guilty person found and brought to justice, don't you?”

“Me help?” Gram gave a palms-up gesture. “Know nothing about this death. No way can help.”

“Of course there's a way. An important way. You can listen. You're a sponge when it comes to listening.”

“No like being called a sponge.”

“Tap into the conversations of the people who drop into your shop for coffee. Listen to common street talk and tell us what people are saying about Margaux's death.”

“Me think some say good riddance.”

“Some people might discuss where they were last Saturday night when the shooting happened or perhaps where their friends were. If you hear anything that sounds the least bit important, tell me. If I'm not around, call Jass or Punt. Promise me that.”

“Okay. Promise.”

“Jass, Punt, and I have a list of suspects.” I gave her the names, omitting Nikko and Jude. Gram would tend to protect Nikko because he's our good friend, and knowing Jude might be involved would scare her to death. I didn't want her to think I lived in danger from Jude—again.

“Here come your first appointment. Bottle blonde.” Gram nodded toward the door and slipped outside without speaking to Shandy as Shandy entered my office.

Shandy frequently comes to me for a reflexology treatment, saying the treatments relieve her headaches. I often remind her that foot reflexology sometimes relieves only the symptoms, rather than the cause.

Gram's right. Shandy bleaches her hair, but in Key West bleached hair isn't worth a comment. It fits in with the patina of the island. It blends with the beach sand, and it goes well with the pink hibiscus blossom Shandy wears tucked behind her left ear. The hibiscus's a holdover from her job where the manager orders all waitresses to wear pink blossoms to match The Wharf's
decor.

“Good morning, Shandy. Great day, right?”

Shandy ducked her head in that shy way she had, and she spoke in a whispery little-girl voice that drove me crazy. I guessed the barflies at The Wharf
liked it. She told me once that every night she makes megabucks in tips.

“Yeah,” she said at last. “The tourists think it's a great day.” Shandy sat on the patron's bench at the side of the lounge chair. “They're out in full force even this early in the morning. I had to park clear over on Whitehead Street. Counted twenty parking slots all filled before I found an empty.”

I smiled at Shandy's compulsion for counting things. Once I watched her buy a bottle of aspirin, shake them into a dish, and count them to be sure there were a hundred as advertised. People who know her merely smile at her strange quirk. I think she knows this. It may be what makes her so shy. She told me once that she realizes counting's a strange habit, but she can't help doing it. I've known her for months, but even around me she ducks her head and looks at the ground when she speaks. She reminds me of one of the miniature Key deer up on Big Pine, on the alert and ready to run for cover if danger threatens.

“Lucky I had six quarters in my purse. I dropped them all into the meter. An hour and a half should give me enough time for a cappuccino when we're through here.”

Did she intend to avoid talking about Margaux's death? I wondered if she knew the contents of Margaux's will. Would Otto have told her of the bequests? Maybe he wouldn't know the details himself until the lawyers read the will aloud to those who inherited. I suppressed a sigh. For all I knew Shandy might already be planning how to help Otto spend his new wealth.

While Shandy removed her sandals, I walked to the back of my apartment and filled the portable footbath with warm water and lemon-scented soap. That footbath has saved me mega grief. Most people'd be shocked if they had to touch some of the feet I've seen—calloused, misshapen, and just plain smelly. But Shandy had great feet, small, dainty, and always well manicured. I wondered if she did the manicure herself. She knew my office routine and she relaxed and wiggled her toes as I snapped on the footbath. We both inhaled the citrus scent while the water swished gently around her feet.

“Feels wonderful, Keely.”

I had hoped Shandy would talk about Margaux's death, but since she hadn't, I decided to bring it up myself. Snapping the footbath off, I dried her feet with a fluffy towel and watched her pad to the lounger. When the chair mechanism lifted her feet to my working level, I gave her a pillow to raise her head so we could look at each other as we talked.

Moistening my hands with lavender-scented lotion, I began gently massaging her left foot. I felt her relax, but when I concentrated pressure on her toes, she let out a small gasp.

“Hurt?” I asked.

“Yes. What're you doing?”

“Breaking up those crystalline and calcium deposits so blood can circulate to the nerve endings in your sinuses and the pituitary gland. Those're places where lots of headaches begin.” I felt her relax again as more crystals began to break up. While she lay relaxed I massaged the sides of her feet in a way that could relieve arm and shoulder problems, sciatic pain. Those areas, too, could cause headaches.

“Have you seen the paper this morning?” I asked.

“Hasn't everyone?” She sighed then tensed again as I returned to work more forcefully on her toes. “Don't expect me to be overwhelmed with grief, Keely. That woman left Otto a broken man with a shattered heart. She thought of nobody but herself and her svelte body, her fine clothes.”

“I'm sure you've helped Otto's heart to mend.” I massaged the inside of her foot, then applied a bit of pressure to her arch. She winced, but she didn't draw away from my touch.

“I've tried to help Otto, but the shrink has him on so many pills we can hardly keep track of them. Our kitchen table looks like a pharmacy. Pill bottles everywhere. Sheets of paper warning of so many side effects we have to use a magnifying glass to read all the small print. We hate the expense of it! Otto shells out big bucks for a bottle of pills, tries one, and when it gives him the runs, a sleepless night, or an upset stomach, he quits it. Won't swallow another. We flush them down. Same as flushing money.”

“Surely some of the pills help him,” I said.

“When one pill starts working, another one stops. So then the doc changes both prescriptions and we start working again from square one. I'm totally sick of the whole scene.”

“That must be discouraging. I hope my treatments are being of some help to him.”

“He thinks they are. That's the big thing—what he thinks. I worry about him, Keely. He won't tell me where he was at the time of Margaux's death. Don't you think that's strange?”

Eleven

SHANDY'S WORDS about Otto's secrecy snapped my mind to full attention and I probed for more information.

“Maybe he's on so much medication he can't recall details. I can remember where I was, clearly enough. I'd stayed at home reading and watching TV. That doesn't give me an alibi though, not in the eyes of the police. No corroborating witnesses.”

“Guess you should have had someone in bed with you.” Shandy chuckled and I put a little extra pressure on her big toe.

“No fair! No fair!” She laughed and pulled her foot from my grip.

“You've got a big mouth,” I teased. “Where were you on Saturday night? I suppose you have a perfect alibi.”

“I reported for work, as usual, but I got off at ten. I suppose I should have hurried home to look in on Otto, but I didn't. Sometimes I get tired of asking him how he feels. I think it tends to make him concentrate on how
bad
he feels. He never remembers to ask me how I feel, but that's not important. Usually I feel fine. Tired, but okay—unless my head aches. Anyway on Saturday the moon and stars lit the night like a fairyland, and I took a long walk on White Street, ending up on the pier.”

“Walking alone, or with somebody?”

“Alone. My alibi's like yours—nobody there to corroborate it, and it'd have been nice to have had someone to walk with. I don't expect to be called on to give an alibi. Do you?”

“One never knows.” I avoided her direct question.

“Well, I suppose you might need an alibi since you found the body. That must have been an excruciating experience.”

“Not one of my faves.” I kept my voice light as I tried not to shudder.

“If anyone asks me for an alibi, all I can tell them's what I saw from the pier.”

“You see something special? See our honorable mayor out skinny-dipping or skate boarding?”

“Nothing that interesting, but I counted those lights I could see on the widow's walk at Ashford Mansion.
I counted them twice to make sure of the number. There're ten, and one of them's green. Did you know that? Seems very strange to me. Why'd there be just one green light? Maybe it's Jass's way of playing up her image as the lady in green—Miss Hibiscus.”

“Guess I've never paid that much attention to the lights.” I'm seldom good at prevaricating. I hoped Shandy believed me, but what did it matter? Everyone knew about the widow's walk lights. Writers had written them up in lots of tourist “must see” brochures. The widow's walk and its lights were hard to miss.

I gave my attention to Shandy's right foot, where I found more crystalline deposits. It didn't surprise me that she suffered from severe headaches, and it made me feel my work was worthwhile when she kept returning for more treatments, telling me she'd been headache-free for a week.

When I finished this treatment, I wiped Shandy's feet with a clean towel, then spent a few moments applying peppermint-scented lotion to her feet before I helped her from the lounger.

“Thanks very much, Keely. One, two, three, four, five.” She counted five ten-dollar bills into my hand then walked the few steps to Gram's place for a cappuccino.

I'd learned nothing of importance. Shandy had no alibi for Saturday, and if Otto had one, he refused to reveal it to his wife. That information intrigued me. Strange, but people on strong medicines sometimes did weird things. On the other hand, maybe Otto was hiding something. Maybe both of them were hiding something.

They both came to my office regularly. I suppose that at some time either of them could accidentally have seen my gun in the desk drawer. Either of them could have sent me to the back of my office or even to Gram's shop on some make-believe errand, and taken the gun in my absence. I hated being suspicious of my customers. My session with Shandy left me feeling shaky and unsure of myself—and of her.

For the next few minutes I did relaxing exercises with my hands. I'd developed a routine of squeezing a soft rubber ball to keep my fingers supple. Right now I needed more than that. I needed to feel my bare feet connect with earth, to feel myself drawing cosmic strength from the planet. Today, my schedule didn't allow for that luxury.

Coffee break time, but I seldom drank coffee until afternoon when I wanted a caffeine lift. I closed my eyes as I relaxed in a cushioned chair behind a privacy screen in my apartment, puzzling over my stolen bike, my horrible nightmare, Punt's flimsy alibi, and most of all thinking about the theft of my gun. Who hated me enough to try to make me look like a murderer? Only Jude, I thought. Only Jude.
I'll see you dead.

I sat lost in my thoughts until I suddenly heard a news announcer break into a music program. I leaped to my feet, hurried to my desk, and turned the volume up as I stood staring at the radio.

“The police are now officially calling Margaux Ashford's death a homicide. The medical examiner and a team of detectives have ascertained that the victim had no powder burns on her hands that would indicate she had fired the gun. The gunshot to her head, delivered by persons unknown, was the sole cause of her death. Detective Curry has asked the public for information concerning anyone or any suspicious activities they may have seen around or near the Ashford home last Saturday night or early Sunday morning.”