Licensed to Thrill: Volume 3

by Diane Capri

  The trash barrel pivoted on its left wheel. It turned slightly and the right side rolled downhill on the sloped sidewalk. And stopped. Now both front wheels seemed to be stuck by a block of some kind. Miguel wailed in frustration, but the barrel didn’t move.

  Miguel wanted to make as few of these trips to the dumpster as possible, to finish quickly, make his supervisor proud. But he’d piled the barrel too full. A stupid mistake, he realized too late.

  The barrel was close to the building and seemed wedged into a hole or something now. Miguel couldn’t back up. Nor could he see in front of the barrel to try to go around the blockage.

  Miguel shoved the barrel with all of his strength. Instead of rolling over whatever was blocking its path, the barrel tilted wildly and fell forward, spilling its contents across the sidewalk and into the street.

  Shouting a loud stream of Spanish curses, Miguel jumped back as every foul liquid left over from the parade splashed all over his clothes. He swiped ineffectively at the stinky, gooey mess that now covered his overalls. He was drenched through to his tee-shirt and jeans. He could feel the cold as his shirt stuck to his narrow chest.

  Still cursing, Miguel walked around to the side, righted the barrel and moved it off the pile of garbage that now covered everything within a two-foot radius. Miguel found the shovel that was knocked off the hook on the side of the barrel when it fell and began to toss the garbage back into the trash can, cursing with every stroke.

  On the fourth scoop, his shovel hit something solid on the ground, under the slop the barrel had spewed. The stroke of his shovel against the solid lump jarred his arms sending a sharp pain up to his shoulders. Miguel let out a new and more heartfelt stream of outraged curses.

  He bent down from the waist, trying to see what was causing him such a problem without actually touching the disgusting pile. In the vague light from the street lamps, the big lump looked like another pile of garbage. But Miguel thought not. He could see something bright and colorful on the ground. And this pile, even though his trash barrel had been too full, was too high.

  Miguel had run across two previous drunken revelers on his route tonight. Now, he could see that this lump on the ground was a third pirate. Causing him so much trouble, making him late. His boss would be very angry. “Americanos!” Miguel spat, giving the lump a sharp, rough nudge with the toe of his heavy work boot. The lump didn’t move.

  Miguel removed his glove, reached into his pocket for his flashlight. Re-gloved, he stooped down and swept the garbage off the pirate, pushing aside the slop. When Miguel saw the man’s costume, his impatience and anger returned. These Americanos seemed to have nothing better to do than to party themselves into a stupor while hard-working Latinos cleaned up after them, he complained under his breath.

  “Wake up, señor. Wake up,” Miguel said, shaking the man as roughly as he could, given the disparity in their sizes. The drunk didn’t stir. Miguel almost left him there then, to sleep it off, but something about the man didn’t look right. Miguel bent toward him and shook the pirate again, imploring him to wake up and move along. Just then, the angry supervisor came around the corner.

  “Miguel, where the hell are you? We need that can over here, now!” the supervisor shouted in Spanish. He walked toward Miguel, moving quickly. He stopped just before he tripped over the mound on the sidewalk. The supervisor looked down. “What the—?”

  “He won’t wake up,” Miguel said, a sorrowful expression on his face.

  “The hell he won’t,” the supervisor responded. The supervisor had cleaned up after sixteen parades and he knew how to deal with these drunks. He didn’t care who they were in real life. On his watch, they were a menace.

  The supervisor pushed the pirate hard with his boot. The man’s head lolled over loosely, revealing a grey-blonde ponytail bound at the base of his skull with a limp, wet ribbon. Even in the weak ambient light, they could both see the bloody depression in the man’s skull where it had been resting on the heavy piece of concrete jutting up out of the sidewalk.

  “Miguel, this man is dead,” the supervisor shouted. “Who is this guy?”

  Frightened now, Miguel shook his head and lifted both hands, palms up. “I don’t know. I found him here. I don’t know.”

  When the police officers got to the scene, they checked for identification on the body and found none. Miguel, the supervisor and the rest of the crew were interviewed, but they had no more information to disclose. There had been outrageous revelry that night, but these workers hadn’t been part of it. None of them recognized the dead man.

  The police labeled him “John Doe” and sent him off to the morgue.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Tampa, Florida

  Friday 7:30 p.m.

  January 26, 2001

  WHEN I OPENED THE front door of our flat Friday night, Jim Harper stood in the hallway with a smile on his face big enough to light up the Grand Canyon. He said, “This is my daughter, Willa Carson, and her husband, George,” introducing us to her.

  Then, quickly, before I had time to pretend that my father’s unannounced appearance at our home with a woman of any kind wasn’t as astounding as, say, the arrival of green men from Mars with ray guns, and as if he was presenting the Queen of England, he bowed slightly at the waist and extended his left arm toward George and me, palm out.

  Dad’s voice held reverence and awe when he dropped his bombshell. “This is my precious one. Meet Suzanne Harper. My new wife.”

  An involuntary gasp sprang to my lips and my hand gripped George’s arm so tightly my fingers left bruises.

  A less sturdy daughter than I, one whose features were unused to strict non-responsiveness, would have collapsed in a dead faint. I’ve lived thirty-nine years, practiced law for about fifteen of them, and I’m now a United States District Court judge. I have the same full range of emotions as other humans, but my job demands that I refrain from displaying them.

  So instead of shouting, “Are you out of your mind?” I smiled and exclaimed and hugged them both. And managed not to vomit.

  I was proud of the way I’d behaved because I hadn’t embarrassed anyone, especially myself.

  Still, the scene’s images, and the rest of the awkward evening that followed, intruded into the silent darkness of Friday night as if replaying in a continuous loop.

  “My wife, my wife, my wife,” I heard as I tossed about on our king-sized bed and raised weary eyelids to glance at the clock every hour while George slept like a hibernating bear.

  Both of our ninety-plus-pound Labradors had jumped up on the bed about four o’clock. Harry draped over my left leg at the bottom of the bed and my struggles to move him were futile. Meanwhile, Bess lay between George and me, her head on my pillow, blowing disgusting dog-breath into my face with every exhale.

  Just as I eventually settled into an uneasy sleep during Saturday morning’s wee hours, the sound machine that functioned as my alarm began its violent roaring, a noise more like Big Sur than the gentle lapping of our own Tampa Bay. The racket jarred me back rudely, into events I’d been trying to escape. But I was literally and figuratively trapped. The dogs didn’t wiggle so much as an eyebrow.

  I opened one bleary eye, saw it was only six o’clock and groaned out loud.

  Gasparilla’s Parade of Pirates, Tampa’s much smaller version of Mardi Gras, would begin in less than two hours. George’s restaurant, which is located on the first floor of our home, would be filled with several hundred guests. No mere hurricane in my private life would stop the party.

  I punched the off button and dragged my leg out from under a comatose Labrador, rose to a sitting position and allowed my sleepy head to drop onto my chest while I waited for the sharp pains of Labrador-crushed muscles to leave my calf.

  “Cheer up,” George mumbled, his back to me as he moved slowly to sit on the edge of his side of the bed. “Maybe a pirate will steal you away from all of this.”

  Had I the energy, I’d have thrown a pillow at him.


  The aroma of fresh coffee sidled into the bedroom then like the scent of a hot meal finding the nose of a starving hobo. A divine bouquet strong enough to lift me to my feet.

  I shuffled into the kitchen, belting my robe, then rubbing sleep from my heavy, tired eyes. It was impossible not to notice her—Suzanne Harper. My father’s new wife. I’m pretty sure I groaned out loud.

  “Morning, Willa,” she chirped, in her sweet, high-pitched voice. She prattled on, barely stopping to breathe. “Fresh coffee in the pot. I found eggs and cheese in your refrigerator, so we should have a baked omelet in a few minutes. I hope you don’t mind that I brought in the paper. I’m so excited about my first Gasparilla parade! I couldn’t sleep! This is all just so fabulous!”

  The last exclamation point was too much, too early, too nice.

  My mind clicked off and refused to register her chatter after that.

  I reached into the cabinet for my favorite “I hate mornings” mug and filled it with black coffee. Sitting at the end of the kitchen table, I watched Suzanne as she babbled on, her stream of words tumbling over my sullen resistance, wearing me down like water on a stone.

  Incredibly, Suzanne was as beautiful this morning as she had been last night. Her long, artfully-streaked blonde hair was softly curled. It fell attractively around narrow shoulders wrapped in a lavender warm-up suit sporting a designer logo on the breast pocket. The white tee-shirt under her silk jacket had the same logo in the center, and molded to her slender but full-breasted frame. She wore lavender sneakers to match. Her eyes fairly sparkled with a level of excitement usually exhibited by children under the age of six.

  I, on the other hand, sat with my short auburn hair matted to my head and green eyes barely open, feeling older and even less attractive than I surely appeared.

  My negative comparisons didn’t stop there.

  I barely had my skin on at this outrageous hour, while Suzanne’s makeup was perfectly applied to her flawless complexion. Except for the glossy lavender lipstick inside the deep purple lip liner on her full mouth. There should be a law against such foolish lipstick being worn by a grown woman.

  That was the problem, I realized again, as soon as the uncharitable thought entered my mind. She was twenty-three years old, but in no other way did she remotely resemble a grown woman.

  No, Suzanne was a sweet, engaging, loveable, child-like waif. Did that make my situation better? Or was it worse? Definitely worse, I decided immediately.

  If only I could’ve hated her on the spot.

  I dropped my head back into my hands.

  My father, Jim Harper, was a cliché. He’d married a woman less than half his age. Hell, she wasn’t much more than half my age.

  Everything about her screamed trophy wife.

  The prospect of introducing the two of them to all of our friends today made me nauseous again. My inner adolescent was alive and well, wailing, “How could you do this to me?” while my adult self had the grace to be ashamed of such thoughts. I was on edge and exhausted. The very idea of the long celebration ahead felt overwhelming.

  George entered the kitchen then, followed by both dogs. He grinned crookedly in response to Suzanne’s incessant drivel. When he sat down next to me with his coffee, he nodded in my direction and I flashed him a weak smile in return.

  Dad came in shortly afterward and kissed me on the cheek. “Morning, Jim,” George said, his nose buried in the newspaper, when Dad clapped him on the shoulder before approaching Suzanne.

  Dad’s precious one managed to silence her lips to receive his long and soulful kiss, a kiss that seemed to go on forever. The sight of their total immersion in the greeting caused my hands to shake as I drew the coffee cup to my mouth and looked away.

  Beads of sweat broke out on my brow. Our tiny kitchen became so crowded all of a sudden that I struggled to stand, mumbled a lame excuse and escaped, confident that no one noticed my departure.

  Gasparilla month, continued downhill from there.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tampa, Florida

  Saturday 9:30 a.m.

  January 27, 2001

  AN HOUR LATER, I’D forced myself downstairs to George’s restaurant, not quite ready to join the party in progress. I knew the day would be a lengthy one, but I was physically and emotionally drained by my father’s unexpected appearance, with a new child-bride, no less. As I went about the business of playing hostess, I didn’t fully comprehend the import of what seemed to be mundane, unrelated events.

  My gaze roamed the crowd. Members and guests of the social and service club George had founded, called “Minaret Krewe,” were gathered everywhere, practically standing on top of each other.

  Minaret Krewe is one of the more than thirty social clubs, or “krewes,” that participate in Gasparilla month events. Older krewes, with membership rosters as diverse as the Tampa population, had been doing so for a hundred years. At least two krewes consist entirely of women members while others celebrate the area’s Latin history or its African-American traditions. Because of Tampa’s connection to President Teddy Roosevelt, there’s even a krewe of Rough Riders.

  Minaret Krewe is one of the newer ones. They named themselves after our historic home, called Minaret because of the large, steel onion dome on the top. Today, several hundred members and their guests would filter through the restaurant, beginning with breakfast and continuing until after midnight snacks.

  Professional makeup artists, hired by the Krewe to transform its members into ferocious sea robbers and tawdry wenches for today’s parade, were hard at work near the staircase.

  A few guests had already begun the day’s heavy drinking with mimosas, bloody Marys and several varieties of frozen coladas. Long before midnight, our home and all of Tampa would be filled with drunken revelers. There was nothing to be done except to join them.

  With weary resignation, I bowed my head and asked quickly for an event way too busy for quiet chats with my father or his new bride. And for a while, my entreaty was granted.

  Mid-morning, about seven hundred members of Ye Mystic Krewe stacked onto their barge made over to look like a pirate ship. José Gasparilla landed at the Tampa Convention Center and took over the city while the party at our house continued unabated. I managed to avoid Dad and Suzanne, although I caught a glimpse of them from time to time and they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  George provided traditional Gasparilla fare, non-stop food and refreshments appeared throughout the day. Cuban sandwiches and Ybor Gold beer, brewed locally in Ybor City, were available. For those seeking a full meal, there were black beans and yellow rice, George’s version of the famous 1905 Salad, and several other Cuban dishes.

  Café con leche, the rich, Cuban coffee heavily laced with heated milk, flowed as freely as the beer. My caffeine of choice, I’d had a cup of that coffee in my hand the entire morning.

  I glimpsed only portions of the Parade of Pirates on the television in the Sunset Bar. Parade floats populated by pirates, wenches, beauty queens, Rotary, Lions and Kiwanis members, politicians and sports figures passed slowly by the television camera. High school marching bands filled the gaps between the krewes.

  The local news anchor had dressed like a crusty buccaneer and joined the parade. From time to time, he interviewed a few of the half-million or so spectators lining the sidewalks along Bayshore Boulevard.

  Most parade watchers were dressed in heavy coats, hats and gloves. Mother Nature, apparently out of sorts, had decided the high today would be forty-three degrees. What warmth the sun provided was overcome by the gusty, cold wind. I shivered in sympathy, hands folded at the elbows, providing my own warmth and glad to be inside.

  When I turned away from the television, two of my favorite people in the world were standing next to me. “I’m so glad you could come,” I said to Margaret Wheaton as I hugged first her and then her husband. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, Ron. How are you feeling?”

  Margaret, my secretary and good friend, looked tire
d and older than her sixty-something years. She is a kind person, always helping, never asking much for herself. At work, Margaret seemed to be handling her husband’s terminal illness with compassion and very little fuss. Only someone who knew her as well as I did would have noticed the toll on her.

  “As well as can be expected,” Ron replied to my question. He held my hand, with little strength. “Thank you for inviting us today. I don’t go to many parties.” He said this without self-pity, but it made me sad just the same. “Who knows how many Gasparillas I have left?” Anyone could see the answer to that question was “not many.”

  Ron was dying of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, abbreviated ALS. Often called Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a progressive wasting away of certain nerve cells of the brain and spinal column called motor neurons. The motor neurons control the voluntary muscles, which are the muscles that control movement.

  The disease would eventually kill Ron when the muscles that allowed him to breathe ceased to function. In the meantime, since Ron continued to be fully aware of himself and his condition, Margaret had told me his mental depression was overwhelming them both. I could barely force myself to think about Ron’s illness, and I wasn’t living the nightmare twenty-four hours a day like the Wheatons were. Had I been in Ron Wheaton’s shoes, I’d have been investigating euthanasia.

  “He’s doing much better lately, thank you,” Margaret put in. “If he gets his rest, he can still square dance with the best of them.” I saw the grief she tried to conceal behind the false cheer as Margaret put her arm through her husband’s and he patted her hand.

  Ron was a tall man, once robust but now thin and frail. Leaning against a bar stool for support, he smiled down on his diminutive wife with a deep level of love that was almost painful to watch.

  “Sure, honey, as long as I do it in my chair.” He nodded to a wheelchair sitting in a corner not far from where we stood. “I get tired quickly,” he said to me, by way of explanation.