As Pop Pop returned, the bleach bottle balanced on top of his oxygen tank, he cocked his head to one side with a triumphant expression. “Told you I’d get the goods on Travis.”
“I never doubted you.” Well, maybe a little.
“When we negotiate pay, I’m going to make sure that Pepe gets a little extra to make his lip-smacking taco lunches.”
“He should patent the sauce.” I gave my index finger another once over, then grabbed the bottle and refocused on the matter at hand, the tanks with hundreds of dead fish floating belly-up. At the very least, we had evidence that Travis was a fish killer. “Did you see Travis put this stuff in the water?”
Pop Pop held up his cell phone with a picture of Travis pouring bleach in the tilapia tank. “He was shaking that bottle like a diablo on a mission of death.” His voice rose to a high pitch of outrage, causing him to cough and need another hit of oxygen.
“That’s odd, because his business is going strong, financially speaking.”
“He isn’t just killing the fish; he grinds up the dead carcasses and puts them in his fertilizer.” Pop Pop held up a canvas compost bag. “He’s gone loco.”
Ohmigod. I cradled the bottle under my arm and placed the other one on his shoulder. “You need to come home to the Twin Palms; we need you there now that Wanda Sue has gone AWOL.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “You’re not fooling me, missy. You just want me back as your boyfriend, but I can’t now. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
I hoped he wasn’t going to grill the bleach-bloated tilapia.
“Today the tilapia farm, tomorrow the palm-tree farms.” He thumped his UTFU pin. “I intend to unionize every operation on Coral Island. Power to the people!”
As if on cue, Jose and Pepe hobbled in. They wore work jeans and t-shirts, but also sported UTFU buttons. Once they reached us, they began shouting, “Union! Union! Union!” Jose tapped his cane in time with the chant.
So much for being unobtrusive.
“Pop Pop, let me know how all that turns out. I’ll get this evidence to Nick Billie.” But my words fell on union-deafened ears. They were already marching out of the tent, chanting and wheezing all the way.
I took one last look at the dead tilapia and shuddered once more. Travis needed to be stopped, at least in terms of the contaminated fertilizer and animal abuse. Whether he or Liz killed Bucky remained to be seen.
Hotfooting it back to my truck, I slid in and handed the bleach bottle to Joe Earl. He was just wrapping up a conversation on his iPhone. “Okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“First thing, we have to drop this evidence off at the police station. It implicates Travis in poisoning his fish tanks. Pop Pop even snapped a picture of him doing it,” I began, shifting Rusty into gear. “Then, we can also tell Nick what happened today with Liz Ellis’s road rage.”
“No can do. Your Aunt Lily just called and said we need to get back to the Twin Palms immediately. She said it was urgent and do not pass go. What does that mean?”
“It means tighten your seat belt. We’ve got to roll.” I made a wild guess that Monopoly wasn’t an iPhone app.
I hit the gas.
Fifteen minutes later, we breezed into the Twin Palms main office and found Aunt Lily standing behind the check-in counter, her head bent over the reservations book with a pencil tucked behind her ear.
“What’s so urgent?” I asked.
She flipped the pages slowly. “You know, Wanda Sue’s bookkeeping system really needs to be computerized. It’s amazing that she makes any money at all.”
“That’s the emergency?”
“No.” Aunt Lily snapped the book shut and finally looked up. “But it’s part of it.”
Joe Earl leaned against the counter. “TMAI.”
“Tell me about it,” I translated for her. “He’s into texting big-time.”
“LOL to you, too.” Aunt Lily’s mouth twisted wryly. “After I checked in a few newcomers this morning, I was going through Wanda Sue’s reservations cabinet, and found this form, which I guess she misfiled.” Aunt Lily produced a contract with the Shoreline Bank header. “It looks like Wanda Sue applied for a twenty-thousand-dollar loan on September twenty-sixth of this year for landscaping improvements to the Twin Palms RV sites. With the park as collateral. It was processed by Destiny Ransford, but the initials in the corner are TH.”
My eyes widened as her words sank in. “Travis Harper.”
“Could he sign off on a loan that big?” Joe Earl chimed in.
“Sure. The park is worth way more than that.” Aunt Lily flipped over the loan form to reveal a scrap of lined paper from a yellow legal pad. “Here’s the interesting part. Clipped to the loan paper was Wanda Sue’s handwritten note to cancel her application because she decided not to buy expensive greenery from Liz Ellis’s nursery.”
My breath caught in my throat. “When did she change her mind?”
“Three days ago. Right before that infamous town-council meeting.” She paused, pointing at some nearly illegible sentences scrawled at the bottom of the page. “Wanda Sue claimed the nursery plants weren’t up to par.”
“Because of Bucky’s contaminated fertilizer,” I interjected, my thoughts racing faster than an eight-cylinder Mustang. “Travis was putting bleach-bloated tilapia in Bucky’s fertilizer, not to sabotage his business, but to bankrupt Bucky’s landscaping business, and maybe ruin his clients, too. I’m curious who signed off on Liz Ellis’s loan.”
“Bucky must’ve found out about the fertilizer and asked Travis to meet him after the town-hall meeting. They argued, fought, then Travis whapped Bucky on the back of the head with the frying pan to implicate Wanda Sue.”
“That means Travis must’ve planned it,” Aunt Lily pointed out.
“You both rock.” Joe Earl high-fived me and my aunt.
“But why did he want to take over Bucky’s and Liz’s businesses?” Aunt Lily’s brows knit in bafflement. “They were small potatoes.”
“They add up. I’m sure he wanted to add their companies to his little island empire,” Joe Earl said. “From what I see in his financial statements, he was becoming a wealthy man bit by bit.”
“We need definite proof.” My elation dimmed like a flickering bulb of indecision for a few seconds. Then it surged brightly again as a thought occurred to me. “Destiny Ransford can tell us for sure.”
“Mallie, you’d better call Nick Billie first.” Aunt Lilly picked up the office phone and handed it to me.
“It’s just a theory. I don’t have any proof.” I replaced the receiver.
She gave me a hard stare.
“All right, I’ll call him on my way to the bank, and I’ll take Joe Earl with me. Safe enough?”
Her glance didn’t waver. “I don’t like it.”
But we were already out the door.
“So you don’t think Liz Ellis did it?” Joe Earl opened Rusty’s passenger door. “Even after she tried to mow us down with her mega-car?”
“Not after hearing this evidence. Liz is probably just an angry ex who had a major meltdown and, unfortunately, we took the brunt of it.” Back at the wheel again, I cranked up Rusty’s engine and drove off.
On the way, I called Nick to tell him that we were following up a lead, but his phone went straight to voice mail. Rats. I left him a message that didn’t seem too rambling to me, but Joe Earl kept making a slicing motion across his neck to wrap it up. I put my motor mouth in neutral.
Then, I speed dialed Madame Geri, who picked up on the first ring. “We’re heading to Shoreline Bank to question Destiny.”
“Be careful,” she warned. “The violin started vibrating again.”
“Will do.”
As we pulled up in front of the bank, I noticed the parking lot was empty, and fallen palm fronds covered the crushed-shell walkway. “It looks deserted.”
“Island hours.” Joe Earl followed my glance. “Everybody leaves at noon on Friday.”
I sighed. “Anita never lets us knock off early.”
“You could change that.”
“Fat chance. I’m just warming her seat until she gets back.” Still, I had made the deadline for this week’s edition of the Observer with only a phony psychic and an iPhone-a-holic sidekick to help out. Not bad. I clicked off the engine with a decisive snap. Maybe I could fill in for Anita again. Just not too soon.
We exited Rusty.
Once we reached the entrance, Joe Earl tugged on the glass door’s handle. It swung open. I gave him a thumbs-up and we entered the lobby.
“What are you doing here?” Destiny demanded as she strolled out of her office. Her face still looked blotchy from crying. Hair pulled back tightly, she wore brown, linen dress pants and a matching jacket, buttoned up and smoothly pressed. “We’ve closed for the day.”
“If I could just have a few minutes of your time; I need to ask you a couple of questions.”
She folded her arms across her chest and started tapping the toe of her high-heeled shoe. “I’m very busy.”
“This won’t take long.” I fished around in my hobo bag and pulled out my notebook. Flipping through the pages, I scanned my scrawls until I found her interview remarks. “Didn’t you say that you had been . . . involved romantically with Bucky?”
Her eyes teared up and her mouth trembled.
“Was there anyone else in your life at the time?” I probed.
“No.” Destiny spat it out quickly. Too quickly.
“The investigation into Bucky’s death is still open, but something else did turn up that I wanted to ask you about. It seems that Wanda Sue applied for a big loan here at Shoreline Bank, and you approved it.”
A shadow of wariness flashed across her face. “Yes, that’s true. I review all loan applications.”
“And Travis Harper approves them, as well?” I asked quietly, watching her reaction. “He’s on the board of directors, I believe.”
The toe tapping halted abruptly, and her arms dropped to her sides. “I . . . I think you’d better leave,” she said in a small voice, her eyes darting around the room.
“We’re not going anywhere.” Joe Earl moved closer until he stood next to me.
“I have nothing else to say,” she managed to get out.
“Is it true? Was Travis approving bad loans?” I hammered at her.
Her hands picked at her jacket hem. “Maybe. I don’t know. You need to leave now.”
“Was the bad blood between Travis and Bucky on account of you? Did Travis want you for himself?”
“Absolutely not! Travis was old enough to be my father.” Her outrage at least seemed genuine.
“Then what was it?” Joe Earl queried.
She buried her face in her hands and mumbled, “I told Bucky about the loans.”
Excitement lurched inside of me. “And that Travis had you doing his illegal, dirty deals.”
“They were legitimate, at first,” she explained, raising her head with a loud exhalation. “Some of the small businesses defaulted, and Travis bought them up. Then he started pushing me to approve bigger and bigger loans to companies that had no hope of paying them back.” Her eyes turned pleading. “I didn’t want to do it, but Travis found out that I’d taken a few thousand for myself when he reviewed the annual audit.”
“You were embezzling?” Disbelief threaded through my voice. I was definitely not opening an account in this bank.
“I had medical bills from when my mother was dying,” she confessed. “Honestly, I was going to pay it all back, turn Travis in, and take my punishment, all because of Bucky. He made me want to tell the truth about everything.”
“Except about his murder,” I said.
“I was too afraid of Travis, and I knew they’d never arrest Wanda Sue.”
My head was spinning at the web of lies, and the noble portrait of Bucky. “Let me get this straight: Travis blackmailed you into processing the loans, you told Bucky, and he confronted Travis.”
“Not at first. I wanted to pay back the money I’d taken, so I asked Bucky to wait. But Travis got suspicious when I slowed down processing any more loans. Liz Ellis’s second mortgage was the last one.” She bit her lip and tears rolled down her cheeks. “At that point, we realized that Travis was putting something in Bucky’s fertilizer to ruin his business. We had to stop him.”
“And it all erupted at the town hall,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “Bucky and I argued before the meeting about when to confront Travis. Afterwards, they met and Bucky told Travis that he was going to the authorities . . .” she faltered.
“But he wouldn’t accept it,” I prompted.
“That’s why I had to kill him,” Travis explained as he appeared at her side.
He held a gun in his right hand.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I told you to leave.” Destiny said to Joe Earl and me, wringing her hands. “He arrived right before you did and was listening to everything we said from my office.”
“Dirtbag,” Joe Earl said.
“Sticks and stones.” Travis wagged a finger back and forth with a tsk-tsk sound. “There’s no need to be rude, my boy.”
“Oh, please, drop the southern-gentleman routine. We all know what you are now: a slimy killer,” I said, throwing caution to the winds. “Nick Billie is on his way here right now, so you might as well put the weapon down. It’s over.”
“Not quite.” He checked his watch. “If I’m not mistaken, at this very minute, Nick is heading to Cresswell’s Retro Diner on a hot tip that Wanda Sue may be hiding out there.”
Fear swept through me as I eyed the distance to the front door. Damn. Too far away.
Travis moved next to Destiny and slipped an arm across her shoulders, but he kept his razor-sharp eyes on me. “I could tell that you were closing in on the truth about the loans. So I figured it was time to dispose of Destiny but, before I had the chance, you showed up. So I get a two-fer . . . or, rather, a three-fer. This isn’t as carefully planned out as the frying-pan attack on Bucky, but sometimes you have to improvise.”
“No, please,” Destiny whimpered.
“Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing when I put a bullet right here.” He kissed her forehead, and she visibly shuddered. “We had a good thing going, Destiny. Until you grew a conscience. Too bad.”
“It won’t take long for Nick to figure out what happened,” I warned, puffing out my thin chest with bravado that I was far from feeling. “A lot of people know we were on our way here. Aunt Lily and the entire staff at the Observer.” I hoped he couldn’t hear my knees knocking.
“I’ll be gone by then with the money from the last loan that I just approved, for two million dollars against my own company.” He remained calm. “More improvising after Bucky tried to stop my expanding financial enterprise.”
“So, you decided not just to destroy Bucky’s business, but close down yours as well?” My question was more of a statement.
“Only recently. Since he started sniffing around my banking activities.” Travis smiled. “Then, after our little fracas at the town-council meeting, I realized that I’d have to eliminate him altogether and liquidate my assets. Sad, but necessary.” He flexed his fingers around the gun. “I have to give you credit, Snoop Girl. In spite of the messy clothes, rat’s-nest hair, and bumbling investigation, you’ve got some grit, I’ll give you that. I put that rattlesnake in your truck and tried to run you over afterwards. And still you survived—and kept digging. Not bad.”
“Bastard!” Joe Earl spat at his shoes.
Travis jerked back his foot, giving Joe Earl a much-needed nanosecond to whip out his iPhone and snap a picture.
“What the hell are you doing?” Travis yelled out. “Give me that damn cell phone!”
“Too late,” Joe Earl said, holding it up with a wide grin. “I already posted your picture on Facebook, so the whole world can see you holding the gun on us.”
“Welcome to the world
of digital natives,” I sang out, still smarting over the rat’s-nest hair comment.
Travis roared a string of vicious insults at us, knocking the iPhone out of Joe Earl’s hand. It crashed to the ground but didn’t break. It just bounced, snapping pictures with every clunk on the floor.
Destiny elbowed Travis in the side and ran for the door, her arms and legs pumping hard. But she barely covered a few feet before he squeezed off a shot that grazed her leg. She screamed and went down, with a dark red stain streaked across her calf. She curled into the fetal position, rocking and sobbing.
“Looks like I’m going to Plan B: kill everyone and take my chances.” Laughing wildly, he aimed the gun at her again. “I’ve already got my ticket booked to Costa Rica, and I just might get there before they find your bodies.”
“No!” I yelled, lunging at him. But I tripped on the carpet and fell to my knees, the contents of my hobo bag—checkbook, pen, lipstick, and stapler—spilling out over the floor.
“Ditz,” he mocked, leveling the gun at Destiny again. I grabbed for the stapler and rammed a few staples into his ankle. He yelped and kicked me in the side. I winced in pain, feeling my rib crack. Joe Earl then barreled into him and they went down.
At that moment the front door swung open. Nick? I looked up and blinked in disbelief.
Not Nick.
Pop Pop stood there, haloed in the afternoon light, wearing full camouflage gear with the oxygen tank at his side. Jose and Pepe stood behind him in similar outfits, waving yellow, plastic baseball bats and shouting in Spanish.
“Get him, brothers!” Pop Pop took a whiff of oxygen and motioned his cohorts forward. “Andale!”
Jose and Pepe swarmed around Travis, beating him with the plastic bats, while Pop Pop butted him with the wheels of his oxygen tank, shouting, “We’re kicking ass for the working class!” Joe Earl quickly rolled out of the way.
I grabbed Travis’s gun and stood up, reaching for my cell phone to call 9-1-1. But before I could punch in the numbers, Nick Billie came jogging through the door, followed by Deputy Brad. His glance moved from Destiny on the floor, to the seniors wielding their bats, to me holding the gun.
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