by Mary Bowers
“He lives right across the street from Maida’s house, and he may be eccentric, but he’s also territorial. He was watching the street that day when I came around the corner and saw the ambulance in front of Maida’s house. Well, I suppose all the neighbors were looking out their windows then, but he was the only one who made it his business to order me to get over to your house and take care of you.”
“He did?”
“He was worried about you. He must like you.”
“He’s never shown any sign of it before.”
“He’s probably got hidden depths. Don’t we all? Anyway, thanks, Florence. You’ve been a big help.”
“I have?”
By this time, Bob had recognized my voice and come out of the back room. “Hi Taylor,” he said. I waved to him and he said, “‘Bye, Taylor,” with a grin.
As the door was falling shut behind me, I heard him say to Florence, “She’s always a ball of fire, isn’t she?”
I was on fire all right. I walked straight back to the pier and looked around for the successful fisherman from less than 30 minutes before.
When I found him, I walked straight up to him and said, “What’s your favorite fishing lure?”
“What’s that, ma’am?” he said, looking at me and blinking.
* * *
After a few seconds and a lot more blinks, he recognized me from a fundraiser I’d held on the Cadbury House grounds. Once I’d gotten plugged into his mind as the dog lady, he was my old pal, and was more than happy to answer my question. His answer just wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
“I don’t use lures off the pier,” he told me. “I use live bait. See?”
I took a quick glance and then looked away, but that didn’t bother him. I think it reinforced his opinion of me as a nice little landlubber lady, and now that we were pals, he seemed amused by it.
“But if you did use the other kind,” I said, “what would you use? You know, the pretty ones.”
“Oh, I’ve got those,” he said with a smile and a shrug. “Want to see?”
“If it’s no trouble.”
“Nah. I’ve got nothing on the line now.”
He went ahead and showed me his fishing tackle, going off on lengthy, loving descriptions of just exactly which kind of fish you used each lure for, at which time of day and season and depending on how churned-up the ocean was that day. This was for salties and that was for freshies, and on and on he went.
It was a dissertation that would have been valuable if I’d ever wanted to go fishing, but I wasn’t after that kind of fish. Still, after coming upon him so abruptly, I didn’t feel I could just turn on my heel and walk away when I had what I wanted, so I nodded and tried to look interested and didn’t pay much attention. He was a good guy, and his name was Denny.
Denny was more than willing to satisfy my curiosity about lures without asking why I wanted to know. After a while, he managed to veer off into the story of how he’d adopted a mixed-up-mess, (his terminology, not mine) from Orphans, and Christina, his Yorkie-Poo-Griffon was the light of his life. I remembered Christina, and the bloodline had been a wild guess, based on her strange combination of features, but she was as sweet as a sugar cube. I was thrilled she’d found a human who really appreciated her. Based on the endless cellphone pictures he showed me of the scruffy little dog doing adorable things, he loved her like his own child.
When we finally parted, I shook Denny’s hard, smelly hand, and then impulsively moved in for a hug. His clothing also smelled like fish, but who cares. After that I went back to the landward end of the pier and went straight into the bait shop.
Denny’s favorite fishing lure was a crawly-looking thing called a Shrimpy-Bit, and its platinum color went nicely with the Purple Smacker and the Goldrush, so I bought all three. The combination made me think of Easter, but what I was really hoping was that Jerry would find them attractive. They were going to be my offering, and I already had my line of patter figured out.
* * *
“Do you know what to do with these things?” I asked, trying to look innocently obtuse when Jerry answered his door. “Florence says you’re a fisherman, and I don’t know the first thing about it. Somebody included them in a donation to Girlfriend’s, and they’ve been sitting on the shelf forever. Look, they’re still in their original packaging. I’ve been trying to find somebody to just give them to.” I produced a winning smile. “I’m the kind of person who can’t throw anything away.”
He peered at me owlishly. “Are you asking me to show you what to do with them, or are you giving them to me?”
“Oh, you can have them. I don’t want to go fishing.”
“Why not?” There was an uncomfortable pause while I tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t insult a fisherman. He didn’t really seem to care, though, because the next thing he said was, “How’s Flo doing, after finding the dead body and all?”
“She’s okay. I told her to take some time off, but she wanted to keep working. You know, to keep her mind off things.”
“She’s a decent woman, that Flo,” he said. “Church every Sunday. Not like some around here.”
The conversation had lengthened to the point that it was time to either invite me inside or end it. Instead he stepped outside and let the screen door slam behind him. I was still standing there holding out the silly lures, and he didn’t seem inclined to take them. I began to worry they actually would end up in Girlfriend’s and sit on a shelf forever.
Suddenly, with a snatching motion, he took the lures out of my hand and studied them. “These are brand new. They haven’t sat on the shelf forever anywhere. And no single fisherman is going to use them all. This is a spoon, this is a squid . . . this shrimp lure’s the only one you’d use around here, and you wouldn’t use them around here, because everybody at the pier uses live bait. You just went over and bought them, and you chose them because they look pretty together. What I want to know is why.”
It’s not often I have to dig myself out of a lie, because I usually don’t tell them. I’m a bad liar and I know it, so I just don’t do it. Usually.
I prepared myself with a deep breath and said, “I’m worried there’s going to be another murder, Jerry. Another person dead, and yet another life ruined. I want to stop that, and to do that, I need information, even if it’s only of the negative kind. I was hoping I could get you to talk to me, and I didn’t know how else to do it.”
He looked hard into my eyes, then gave a curt nod.
“Now I know you’re not a gossip,” I said, rushing to keep him on board. “But you keep an eye on what’s happening on your own street. I’m going to tell you something now that I shouldn’t be telling you, and I hope you’ll keep it to yourself. When Maida’s body was found, she was dressed in lingerie. The fancy kind. Like she was expecting company.”
“I already told the cops I didn’t see any men going over to that woman’s house. She probably had a boyfriend – that kind always does, even when their husband’s not cold in the grave yet – but whoever he was, they must have been getting together at his place because he wasn’t coming here.”
“That’s exactly what I think, Jerry.”
He hesitated. “But she was found in her own bed.”
“Right. How that happened I haven’t completely worked out yet, but I’ve got the beginnings of an idea. What I’m trying to figure out now is why their rendezvous had to happen at such a strange time. And was it only that night? Maybe he was coming over at the hour before dawn every time.”
“And you think I know?”
“Do you sleep soundly, Jerry?”
“Like a rock.”
Darn. I was hoping that like many of the elderly, he was an insomniac.
“I thought you might have been looking out your window one time, when he came over. Maybe you know something and you don’t realize it. Have you ever seen a car parked by the curb in front of her house that didn’t belong there? Either a car or a truck or a van?”
“No. You’re right, I’m no gossip, but I keep an eye on things. I’m neighborhood watch. I write down license plates. I gave them to that detective with the creepy eyes. He’ll check them out.”
“Oh, good. You never saw a silver Audi in front of her house?”
“No. Only her daughter’s pick-up. But her daughter did bring a man over with her one time. Not early in the morning. Sometime in the afternoon.”
“An older man? Tall? Kind of looks like John Brown the abolitionist?”
“No. Middle-aged. Soft. Like he never did a lick of hard work in his life. Blond hair. Khaki pants and a blue shirt.”
Either Jesse or Adam. Even if I’d seen him myself, from across the street I wouldn’t have been able to tell which.
But why would Carmen have brought Jesse Mantrell to see her mother? At a stretch, he might have gone there by himself, if summoned, but I couldn’t picture it. Include Carmen and I just didn’t believe it.
So Carmen brought Adam for a visit. Why? Unless they were working on Maida together to try to make her change her mind about giving Adam the commission to sell the last works of Grant Rosewood.
But – and my heart sank when I remembered this – Maida already seemed to be changing her mind about that, all by herself. It suggested something downright diabolical to me.
“Okay, thanks, Jerry. Keep the lures, and let that be a lesson to me.” He cracked a sudden smile, and it changed his whole persona. “You’ve given me something to think about.”
The wattage on the smile went down, and he gazed at me very steadily. “You go ahead and think about anything you want, lady, but be careful who you talk to. You’re a meddler and you’re nosey, but Florence likes you, so you must be all right. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“Excellent advice,” I told him. “I’m calling the cops now.”
“Right. Let them do the dirty work.”
“You bet. But first . . . .”
* * *
Adam wasn’t home. I should have known, of course. At that time of day, he’d still be at the gallery.
From what I remembered, somebody had said his house was also on Palmetto, but I didn’t know which one was his. I asked Jerry if he knew, and of course he did, but he was very leery about telling me.
“Why you want to know? Still asking questions that are none of your business?”
I told him I just had one quick question on my mind, and he finally told me. In fact, he just pointed. Adam’s house was on the other side of the street, across the intersection and four doors down.
“You got some fishing lures for him, too?” Jerry asked as a parting shot.
I grinned, waved, and turned away.
Adam’s house was another cinderblock Florida bungalow, with a sunroom tacked on at the back. Still, being an art dealer, he was bound to do special things with the interior. Just in case, I went up onto the porch and rang the doorbell. I could hear the bell ringing inside the house, almost echoing, and when I peeked in one of the glass side-panels to the front door, I could see nothing but moving boxes inside. The floor was tiled, and there was no furniture spread out to absorb the sound of the doorbell. It both sounded and looked lonely in there.
I shook my head. Yes, the man had a business to set up, but in the meantime he had neglected his own house to the point where he was still living out of boxes. It indicated a deep depression, even a clinical depression, one that I wasn’t qualified to call by name. Something dark was shrouding Adam’s mind, all these months after Grant’s suicide, and you didn’t need a degree in psychology to see evidence of it, looking through the windows of his house.
I settled myself and walked away briskly. I hadn’t given up yet. On Locust Street, I went to the display window at Artwerks, but Adam was again with a customer, and two other people were browsing around. Adam happened to glance out the window and see me, and I gave him a thumbs-up. While he was busy with customers, of course, I wouldn’t bother him in the gallery.
So I turned and walked over to Girlfriend’s.
Chapter 21 – Blundering Around in the Garden of Love
My head was packed full of ideas as I popped into Girlfriend’s to say I was going home. Florence was having lunch in the back room, and I told her she had a secret admirer in Jerry. My matchmaking always seems to end in nuclear war, but I can’t seem to stifle the urge.
“I’ve been thinking over what you said before, about Jerry caring about me,” she said.
“Maybe you should bring him a casserole sometime.”
Wicked was sitting on the desktop next to Florence, keeping a watchful eye on her potato-leek soup and cheese sandwich. She slipped him a bite of cheddar cheese, and I didn’t bother to tell her again not to feed him table scraps. When you love them, you feed them, and you’re not usually any wiser about it than you are about what you feed yourself.
“I think I like things with Jerry just the way they are,” she told me without looking up. “I’ve lived alone for a long time. I don’t think I want another body knocking around the house, getting in my way and dropping dirty laundry here, there and everywhere.”
I grinned. “And saying, ‘Hey, woman, get yourself busy in the kitchen?’”
“Exactly. Jerry’s a good neighbor and he doesn’t bother anybody. I think that’s the most you can ask of any neighbor.”
“You’re probably right. Also, he’s something of a mind-reader, and you have to watch out for people like that.”
“You didn’t fool him for one minute,” she said.
“Nope. And I’m out twenty dollars for fishing lures. Also, I’m not going to have the heart to eat fish again for a while, if ever.”
“Well, lesson learned,” she said placidly, popping another piece of cheese into Wicked’s mouth.
“Yeah. Well, I’ll be going back home now.”
I hesitated for a moment, thinking I should ask her again if she was sure she wanted to be at work. I already had Jelly Nixon coming in to relieve Bob. While I hesitated, we both lifted our heads as Jelly made her usual noisy entrance through the shop’s front door.
Florence and I listened while Jelly started telling Bob about the cop who pulled her over doing eighty last night in a forty-five zone, and how she talked him out of a ticket, but now she had to meet him for a drink at Captain Jack’s.
“Just don’t go,” Bob said.
“Gotta. He’s got my tag number. Besides, he’s kinda cute, and he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.”
I got up feeling like I was leaving Florence in good hands. Spending the afternoon with Jelly was better than watching the soaps, and only slightly less believable.
* * *
My cellphone rang when I was halfway down A1A, heading for home. The Caller I.D. said it was someone with the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. Darn. I’d wanted to wait until I got home before I called Frane. I was so tempted to just let it go to my message center, but I decided I’d better just get it over with.
I pulled over onto the sand between the dune and the asphalt and put the SUV in park. I don’t like talking to anybody on my cell while I drive, and I absolutely draw the line at homicide detectives.
“I hear you’ve been asking questions around Maida’s neighborhood,” he asked as soon as I picked up the call.
“Well, yeah,” I said hesitantly. “That was quick. Your spies must be everywhere.”
“Everywhere. We never sleep.”
“Did somebody complain?” I asked, thinking of Jerry. He hadn’t seemed angry at the time, but I didn’t know the man. Maybe he’d gone back inside his house and started dialing.
“No. A patrol car went by while you and Jerry Malkovich were standing on his front porch. Didn’t you notice?”
“No. I was concentrating on Jerry. He had me backed up a little.”
“Did he now? I’ve been meaning to call you anyway, and maybe now would be a good time for us to have another little talk. You didn’t say much the other day at Dr. Darby-Deaver’s house, but yo
u said enough to let me know you’ve been thinking things over. I’d like to know why you decided to go visiting on Maida Rosewood’s neighbors today.”
I felt like I’d been bad, and I bit my lip. Then I reminded myself that I was a taxpaying citizen and I’d done nothing except present another taxpayer with some fishing lures. And besides, I hadn’t had lunch yet and I was feeling cranky.
“Where are you now?” I asked him. When he hesitated, I said, “I’m on A1A, halfway between Locust Street and Old Kings Road. Are you anywhere near the Karma Café?”
“Pretty close. Meet you there?”
“Yes. I’m starving, and if you’re not there soon I’m starting without you.”
He chuckled and told me to go ahead and not wait for him. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Well, I’m pulling in now, so I may be finished by the time you get here.”
“Don’t bolt your food, now,” he said, perfectly calm, “but if you do start to choke, just hold on till I get there. I know the Heimlich Maneuver.”
* * *
I got a good table for two by the front window with a full view of the ocean across the street. I was gazing out the window watching Detective Frane park his car when the Rasta-man server put my lunch plate in front of me, gave me a dreamy smile and went off to check on other customers.
Karma Café was a shack that had been put up sometime in the ‘sixties so surfers could run across the road for a snack without having to get dressed. The area was unincorporated, and the builders (a few of the surfers) had gaily flaunted the codes. I figured it survived hurricanes because the walls weren’t solid enough to impede the wind. But it had a million-dollar view of the ocean, the staff was cheerful, and the current owner was particular about the coffee and the few food items she offered.