Saving Tuna Street

by Nancy Nau Sullivan

  Forty-Four —

  One Big Happy Family

  Duncan’s face was an unhealthy shade of red. “Goldarn it, Blanche.” Haasi remained as placid as a deep lake on a calm day. Liza put on a Mona Lisa smile.

  Blanche’s eyes opened wide. “Well, aren’t you glad no one ended up back in the hospital? Except for certain persons.” With that, Blanche diffused the bomb that was Chief Duncan.

  Hank Miles grinned. “I don’t know what got into you girls.”

  “Nothing. It was always there,” said Haasi.

  They all looked at each other, and laughed.

  It turned out that a lot of talking fish went to the tank that night. Sal was not suited to incarceration, so he was more than willing to fess up for better treatment. It was unlikely he would get out of jail for a long time, as with the rest of them. It was a marathon of talking bottom feeders.

  The RICO laws proved to be handy in the several cases spread from Chicago to Florida to Texas. Anyone ordering a hit was as guilty as the one making the hit itself. Sal tried to squiggle out of it, but he had pretty much cooked himself on other charges as well. He had ordered the unloading of the shipment of drugs when the law swooped in. It was all recorded. He claimed to be storing imports on his property, but that went over like a wet leather hassock—about a thousand of which were found packed with cocaine in Sal’s warehouse.

  Dominique Placer was not going anywhere. He recovered from the knife wound—he had a long time ahead to sit and mend. He was put away on many charges, not the least of which was the kidnapping and attempted murder of Blanche. They were still trying to pin the murders of Bob and Sergi on Placer, and all bets were that it would happen. His fingerprints were a match, from van to cigarette wrapper. Blanche identified him as her kidnapper.

  The basis of the development plan on Santa Maria had been to launder the drug money. Running their proceeds through the construction of a mall and mansions was a good way to hide the real business of the drug trade. Fortunately, for Santa Maria, the whole business collapsed with the raid at the High Tide. The land development was permanently on hold.

  I

  Blanche and Haasi sat at the round table on the porch at the cabin. Cappy was in the kitchen finishing gumbo and stuffing grouper, and they had fresh bread that Haasi baked. Blanche went into the kitchen and brought out the Tecate when Jack and Miles came in from the beach. Dinner was almost ready.

  Duncan walked in. “I never seen so much paperwork. I hope the crooks don’t come back because I can’t take this.”

  Cappy picked up his iced tea and raised a glass. “Well, I think this is as good a time as any.”

  Blanche and Haasi both looked at each other.

  “To the sister cousins,” said Cappy.

  Jack grinned. Miles looked confused. But Blanche and Haasi knew exactly what Cappy was talking about. In the past weeks, more than crime had come to light. The good also came out. Haasi revealed what Cappy had thought all along, since Blanche had come to him with the story of the Indian princess on the beach: Haasi was related to Blanche. They both claimed the same great grandmother.

  “Fanny Ella was in love with the Indian chief. She had gone off with him, leaving Maeve with my people. I knew Maeve for many years. She never talked about her mother, but she knew the story.

  “Maeve had a half-sister named Looci, meaning black-haired in Miccosukee. She went to the Withlacoochee River country, north of Tampa, near the springs. Many Miccosukee went there when Tampa started to grow,” said Haasi. “She lived near the river and banyans and palms, moving among the hummocks in the Gulf, until the phosphate mining operations came in and destroyed the area. The dynamite scared the animals and ruined the water. Looci was my grandmother. My mother was Hakla, one who hears. The dynamiting and cracking in the earth killed her, but not before she sent me to the north to study.”

  Blanche had known, or suspected something. She’d felt a bond with Haasi from the day they met on the beach. For hours Haasi sat at Blanche’s bedside in the hospital and made up stories. She talked about the Gull Egg, and Santa Maria, the natives and the Jacks. She kept it up until Blanche woke up. It was their secret.

  Jack and Miles were uncustomarily quiet. Jack got up and gave Haasi a hug. “I guess that means we’re cousins, too, right?”

  “Well, this is sure one big, happy family.” Miles raised his beer, and once again took up his favorite expression, which was a look of intense interest in Blanche.

  The door burst open. The cabin had never been a place for formalities. There had been locks for a time, but now the welcome mat was out. Since the murders had been solved and the development plan had dissipated with the capture of the money-laundering drug runners, the sunny atmosphere had come back to the island.

  Liza hurried through the door. “Yay! You’re here!” yelled Blanche.

  Liza set a large cherry pie on the counter and gave Blanche a hug. “I have great news. The state historical society has granted heritage status to Tuna Street, and also to the northern point. No razing or tampering, here or there, now or ever.” She did a little dance and clapped her hands. She had several dance partners on that porch.

  It was an odd announcement for a real estate broker, but Liza was not your average realtor. She cared about preserving island history, and Bob’s legacy. Liza was finishing up for her broker’s license, and then she intended to buy Sunny Sands from Bob’s ex, who was only too glad to be rid of it. Liza’s size sixes were planted firmly in the sand of Santa Maria.

  “I just found out about it, Blanche. You’d put me down as a professional reference at the historical society. The announcement, officially, comes out next month. It wouldn’t have happened, B, if you hadn’t started it, and pushed them.”

  “Oh, Liza!” Blanche looked her old friend in the eye. “Here’s to the pushers.”

  “Now, wait a minute.” Cappy stopped handing out the beers, but they were laughing.

  Blanche took Liza’s arm and steered her toward Haasi. “And I’d like you to meet my sister-cousin, Haasi.” It occurred to Blanche that she didn’t know Haasi’s last name. “Haasi?”

  “Haasi Hakla nee Looci.”

  “Haasi Hakla nee Looci Murninghan,” said Blanche. “More sisters than cousins.”

  “Well. Wow. I couldn’t begin to sort that one out,” said Liza. “But that’s great.”

  Cappy brought out the grouper stuffed with shrimp and set it on the table on the new porch—new lumber, floor, screens and windows, thanks to Amos Wiley. He’d made sure Blanche never knew what hit her.

  Miles opened more beers. They ate and laughed and thanked God for huge favors. Blanche caught the rays of the sunset beyond the pines, the last of the pelicans and gulls cawing good night. It was indeed a good night and a good day coming.

  Miles leaned back in the chair. “I guess we’re just full of surprises today. I’ve got one myself. Duncan has agreed to hire me. I’m out of the DEA business, at least for now. I need some island time.”

  Cappy grinned.

  “What are you grinning about?” Blanche said. “He’ll just be hangin’ around, eating us out of house and home.”

  “Well, that’s fine with me,” he said.

  Blanche looked over at Miles, and smiled. “Ditto.”

  Acknowledgements

  I went back to the setting of my memoir, The Last Cadillac, to write this mystery, Saving Tuna Street, but I changed the name of the setting from Anna Maria Island to Santa Maria Island. I needed license; writers love license, all they can get. Then I took off in this new mystery series with my peripatetic character, Blanche Murninghan, who couldn’t go anywhere without a lot of help:

  Thank you, Marie Corbett, author of the memoir; January, who introduced me to Gillian Kendall, her excellent editor; and to Gretchen Hirsch, an insightful editor who is all about getting down to the bones.

  To my editors at Light Messages Publishing—Thank you to the Turnbulls, Elizabeth and Betty and Wally, for taking on my story
and making it better.

  To my cousin, Charles J. Nau, a lawyer by trade and former English teacher at Notre Dame, thank you for your meticulous and often hilarious (thanks, I needed that) editing. A voracious reader, a discerner of truth, he went with me line by line down Tuna Street on our beloved island.

  Many thanks to my sisters—Elizabeth Nau Montgomery, my first reader, who said I “nailed it” and, with that, gave me the boost I needed. To Patricia Nau Mertz, an inspiration, and Janet Nau Franck, for her unflagging generosity.

  And, especially, to my grandmothers, who will always be with me: Elizabeth Nau Murninghan and Frances Ella Pike McLoughlin—You fill my heart and there you stay.

  About the Author

  Nancy Nau Sullivan began writing wavy lines at age six, thinking it was the beginning of her first novel. It wasn’t. But she didn’t stop writing: letters at first, then eight years of newspaper work in high school and college, in editorial posts at New York magazines, and for newspapers throughout the Midwest.

  Nancy has a master’s in journalism from Marquette University. She grew up outside Chicago but often visited Anna Maria Island, Florida. She returned there with her family and wrote an award-winning memoir The Last Cadillac (Walrus 2016) about the years she cared for her father while the kids were still at home, a harrowing adventure of travel, health issues, adolescent angst, with a hurricane thrown in for good measure.

  The author has gone back to that setting for this first in her mystery series, Saving Tuna Street, creating the fictional Santa Maria Island home of Blanche “Bang” Murninghan. Blanche has feet of sand and will be off to Mexico, Ireland, and other parts for further mayhem in the series. But she always returns to Santa Maria Island.

  Nancy, for the most part, lives in Northwest Indiana.

  Follow Nancy:

  www.nancynausullivan.com

  @NauSullivan.

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