Too Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 2)

by Phillip DePoy

  I relaxed. “Always handed me a laugh.”

  He was with me. “I love that show.”

  “Me too.”

  He actually patted my back. “Well, Flap — you’re a tough guy.”

  I disagreed. “No such thing. I’m a layabout.”

  “I guess you get to watch a lotta TV in your line of work.”

  “A fair amount.”

  He patted me again. “You really related to Rusty?”

  “Any Tucker’s a Tucker, I guess.”

  “Well, don’t get in my way on this thing, Tucker or not. I’ll snap an obstruction-of-justice charge on you like a bat on a cow’s neck. Then you could spend some time in our little lockup here.” Smile chiseled out of a big block of ice. “Otherwise, help yourself. We’ll get to ’em before you do anyway. It’ll be some easy money for you.”

  “Yeah. It’s been easy so far.”

  “Got any leads?”

  “Where would a guy like me get leads?”

  He looked at me sideways for a while, then let it go. “See you.”

  I headed out the door. “Hope not.”

  He stood in his doorway watching me leave. I had planned to stop and ask the perky secretary about Lydia Habersham, but the cold eyes of the law would have none of it.

  I bumped out the door and into the rising heat; headed back to my car. I’d talked to a lot of people, and gotten a lot of opinions, but I didn’t seem any closer to the truth.

  13 - Silver Queen

  I decided to try for Savannah before the heat got really brutal. The drive over from Tifton’s not so bad if you don’t mind the scenic route. You get to go by a lot of farms and in the summer the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. This has always been a surreal image to me: an elephant in a cornfield. Gave me nightmares as a kid. Why did they write it that way? Why couldn’t the corn be as high as the Fourth of July? Corn tassels even look like fireworks. But, I reminisce.

  I got back to the car, and this time there was a dead body under it. Only when I made a noise, the legs wiggled and Ronnie Tibadeau squirmed out from under.

  “U-joint’s greased.” He got himself to his feet. “Plus, I took care of everything else.”

  “Everything else?”

  He looked back at the car, to make sure it was still there. “Yeah. Everything else, you know ... plus, it’s all good to go now.”

  No idea what everything else entailed, but I’m not that mechanical. “Ronnie, you’re going to town on this car. What’s the deal?”

  “Got nothin’ better to do.”

  “Pevus take his wife up to the doctor?”

  Ronnie nodded. “Thas’ where he is now.”

  “Did you do anything else to the car I should know about? Supercharge it, bore out the cylinders?”

  He grinned. “Naw. I knew you was goin’ to Savannah, so I thought she might need a little work — you know.”

  “Well.” I mean, what can you say? I didn’t even feel like asking how he knew where I was going. “By the way, does everybody in the world know that Peach and Maytag went down Savannah way?”

  He looked down. “Aw, I reckon there’s some that don’t know it. I hear they got a lots a people over in China.”

  “Yeah. They do.”

  “Have a good trip.”

  I opened up the door and he stood back. This time I was certain he was standing clear of it, but maybe it was just an automatic response. I smiled at him. “Peachy and Maytag. That’s some strange names for a couple of farm boys, don’t you think?”

  This was the biggest joke he’d ever heard. “You got a name like Flap an’ you wanna ast me that?”

  “Okay.” I shoved the key in the ignition and it roared right up. “You got me there.”

  He waved. I pulled out. Farewell, Tifton.

  Now, as I was saying, the corn was up and tasseled. I’ve got a romance with corn, especially Silver Queen. It’s probably primal. About the time of my youth I was reading too much world religion, I also got hooked on mythology. In a couple of native American cultures, corn is responsible for the creation of human beings. I don’t know all that much about my family history, but I could believe corn somehow played a part. Doesn’t stop me from taking a bite out of a roasted ear if I get the chance.

  Eventually, though, the cornfields pass and the air begins to fill up with the sea, and the sulfur, the awful hellish smell from the paper mill; and the Spanish moss hangs low, and the big white cranes balance on one leg in a marshy lowland, and you’re nearly into the city.

  Savannah’s more gothic than Charleston, in the Romantic sense. And it’s more urbane than any coastal city in Florida. Parts of the port look like New Orleans — parts look like Hell on a bad day.

  Down on River Street, where the big boats come in, there used to be a place called the Night Flight Cafe, where I played when I was the aforementioned callow something-or-other. Jazz with a little j. The big hit for us was an old Cab Calloway tune, “Minnie the Moocher,” all about a frail dame — something of a Silver Queen herself, now that I think of it, though by no means to imply that the song itself is corny — who was in love with a guy named Smoky Joe, a cokehead. In my youth, I could hi-de-ho till the cows came home. But the Night Flight’s gone now.

  River Street’s looking fair, though. It’s a great place for the tourists. So is the historical district. Got a lot of swell bed-and-breakfast joints. For me, it’s all too far from the sea. If I’m that close to the beach, I want to be able to roll myself out of bed and down to the water without actually having to get up off the ground. That’s why you have to go to Tybee Island.

  14 - Stardust

  It always seems like a long drive out a two-lane with marsh and seawater on either side, but once you’re on the island, it’s worth it. The first big place you come to after the turn in the road is the DeSoto Beach Motel. It was probably something in the big-band days. I think there used to be a dance-hall pier out on the water where all the greats played: Ellington, the Dorsey brothers, Glenn Miller. Now it’s kind of weedy and nobody much goes there, but the ambience is just right for me, and all that great music — melodies of days gone by, like “Stardust” — all on the jukebox in the lounge.

  I pulled into the gravel parking lot. It was just as I’d remembered it: big, clunky, beautiful, and nearly empty. Checking in was a breeze, Dally had made all the arrangements. I had what amounted to a suite, which only meant there were two rooms together with a kind of sitting room in between, but it was up high and there was a bay window overlooking the beach. After I threw my junk in the closet, and unpacked a very important grocery sack, I gave a call down to the concierge, just for laughs.

  “Hey, Flap Tucker, Room Twenty-seven. I was just wondering if my friends had checked in yet.”

  “I’ll be happy to look for you, Mr. Tucker. What were their names?”

  “Turner.”

  She checked. No Turners yet. She checked some more, and seemed worried. “Um, Mr. Tucker? We don’t seem to see any reservations under Turner for this week at all.”

  “No kidding. Maybe I better give ’em a call at home. Could you give me an outside line?”

  “Surely.”

  And there was an instant dial tone. I tried the same trick with the three other hotels on the island. No dice. The boys weren’t in a hotel on Tybee, or else they weren’t as simple as everybody thought and had used another name. It was worth a check, though; it gave me the sense of having done a little work. So I felt I deserved a break. I shuttled myself down to the lounge with the grocery sack in my arms.

  The lounge was just what a good bar ought to be. Kind of small, a little dark, not so clean that you were nervous about spilling anything, and loaded up with atmosphere. I jammed myself onto a barstool and conked the sack onto the countertop. The mistress of the establishment approached, a fine, handsome woman in her early fifties, long straight gray hair that somehow actually made her look younger.

  “What can I get for you?”

 
; I shoved the sack her way. “In here there are three bottles of the famous 1983 Château Simard. I would like to drink them all, but I would like to do it in these very pleasant surroundings. And despite the fact that they’re already bought and paid for, I will tip generously anyone who would not only open, decant, and pour this stuff for me, but guard it so nobody else gets any. It’s not that I’m greedy, but this is the only sort of wine I can stand to drink, and you’ve got so much other stuff here for everybody else. If I go sharing my particular poison with all and sundry, by and by it’s all gone. Then I’m unhappy, and the generous tips evaporate, you understand. So I’m asking, could we make an arrangement?”

  She had to laugh. “You must be Flap. Dally said you was a character.”

  “And she was right.” I’m never surprised anymore when somebody I meet knows Dalliance Oglethorpe. She gets around plenty — plus, she’s in the bar business, and it’s a kind of network, or family, like any other. Lots of people know about her joint, Easy. It’s a home away from home for a brace of oddballs. And anybody that knows Dally loves her — you’d have to be crazy not to be crazy about her.

  The barkeep stuck out her hand. “It’s June.”

  “Hey, June. So Dally called you about me.”

  She nodded. “Said you’d be down. Told me to help if I could.”

  “Can you?”

  “Sugar babe, there ain’t a thing that happens on this island I don’t know a little somethin’ about. Not to mention I’m clairvoyant.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yup. The very first time I laid eyes on my third ex-husband? I knew he was trouble. And sure enough.”

  “Amazing.”

  “That’s not all. I can predict the future.”

  “I see.”

  “Ask me something big.”

  “How does the world end?”

  “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

  Now I was amazed. “Clairvoyant and educated.”

  “Got a friend who’s interested in the poetry. Ask me somethin’ else. Somethin’ closer to hand. Somethin’ you really wanna know.”

  I nodded. “I really want to know what I’m having for dinner. Had a long drive on an empty stomach.”

  She whisked away my wine and walked toward the other end. Over her shoulder she answered, “That’s easy. Scallops. They’re very fresh.” She put two bottles beside what looked like her own purse under the cash register. The other she turned, opened slowly, popped the cork, sniffed it, smiled, and poured me a taste.

  She came back, set the glass — along with the cork — in front of me. I saluted her with the glass, and took the first sip. It’s very rich, even right when you open it. “Well, okay. I love scallops, you know.”

  She closed her eyes. “Yes. I know. What kind of clairvoyant would I be?”

  “Where are they, these scallops?”

  “Down at the end of the beach, little shack.” She shrugged. I had the idea I’d see it when I got there.

  “How are they cooked?”

  “Lightly sautéed. Ask for one of Tina’s tables. She’s my girl. What I don’t know, she does.”

  “Okay. Tina’s table.”

  “What else?”

  I took another sip and looked around. The place was nearly empty. “Okay, what about the Turner boys?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Dally told you why I’m here.”

  She took a second, then decided to be straight with me. “Uh-huh, but they’re not on Tybee, that I know — or they’re really crafty.”

  “I’m told that’s not an option.” I sipped again. “But you never know.”

  “Cops don’ think they’re here. Police been an’ gone; swarmed ever’-which where. Didn’t find a trace. Boys’re most likely in Savannah.”

  I set the glass down and gazed out the window at the blue, blue sky and the white ocean breaking. “So. Maybe I’m just here on vacation.”

  She was sympathetic to the idea. “It’s nice here this time a year. What with the ocean an’ everything.”

  I held out my hand. “How about telling my fortune? Am I going to have a good vacation?”

  She glanced down at my hand. “You got a big surprise comin’ to you.”

  “Really. And what might that be?”

  “If I tell you,” she patted the bar and strolled away, “it won’t be a surprise.”

  I had to hound her. “That’s easy for you to say. Anything remotely out of the ordinary after such a pronouncement, it’s bound to seem like a fulfillment.”

  She didn’t look back. “The world is fulla skeptics.”

  I had to agree. And by my reckoning, the world is also short on poetry-quoting barkeeps. She had, after all, foretold my scallops, which I was bound to have. So what did I have to lose? I had to ask the last question.

  “What about a Lydia Habersham?”

  She froze. “What about her?”

  “She’s been known to haunt these parts.”

  “So?”

  “So is she here now?”

  June came back to me with her attitude adjusted more than somewhat. “I kinda feel Lydia is like a second daughter to me, right? I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

  I looked at my glass. “What could happen to her?”

  “Guy like you? I’m guessing just about anything.”

  I sipped. So why was everybody so protective-feeling about Lydia? I decided on a change of approach. “How’d you come to know her?”

  “She had a big boat out here, charter fishing mostly. Before she got married to that skunk. Came in here of an evening to listen to the tunes. Didn’t drink, but liked the company. She’s a livin’ doll. I got attached right away.”

  I could tell there was more to it than that. I set the glass down again; couldn’t help noticing she talked about Lydia in the past tense. “Big boat. She had dough.”

  June shook her head. “Parents give her money to keep away from ’em. They didn’t care much for her, seemed to me. She’s not like other girls.”

  Seemed to be the story I was getting from most everybody. “Got a picture?”

  She blinked and then stared. I returned the favor. Finally she straightened and got a little framed newspaper article from off the wall behind her. It was a color feature article in the local paper all about a girl who’d been missing three weeks at sea with no provisions and came back into Tybee one afternoon fresh as a daisy like nothing had happened. She said she thought she’d been gone for a day or two. The picture wasn’t much help. Lydia looked pale and thin, with long sun-blond hair flying every which way in the ocean breeze, covering up most of her face. Even so, I guess most anybody would have set her down as pretty. And there was even something vaguely familiar about her, like a fashion model, maybe. I wished I could have gotten a better look at her face.

  I handed the frame back to June. “What happened? Where was she all that time?”

  June put the thing back in its place of honor. “The explanations run from alien abduction to some Cuban drug connection.”

  “Which one do you buy?”

  She shrugged. “Lydia loves the ocean. She just lost track of the time.”

  For three weeks? But I didn’t say it. Instead: “So, are you going to guard my wine for me, or not?”

  She was happy to return to less personal matters. “Like it was my own. You see, I set it right next to my purse.”

  “I noticed.”

  “By the way, you got a little trouble ahead of you. You wanna be careful.” She tapped her forehead, right about the position of the third eye, if you believe that sort of thing.

  “Must be a kind of curse, this psychic thing.”

  She glanced up at the wall clock. “Why doncha finish off that glass and take a little nap before dinner? You been travelin’.”

  Now, a nap is just fine with me nearly any time of the day, but I got the idea she knew something I didn’t. Still, I felt she was full of good advice and kind intention, so I indulged her by
tossing back the rest of the Simard and leaving a five on the bar beside my empty glass.

  I stood up, but I couldn’t resist the jukebox. I sidled over, idly pocketed a pack of matches from the top of it — never know when you’re going to need a light. I checked the selections, popped a quarter in, and mashed R2: “Stardust.” It was good exit music.

  Up the stairs I could still hear it a little. I was humming to myself, when I noticed the door to my room was open. I stopped humming, walked slower. Maybe it was the maid service. I poked my head in. There was somebody in the suite all right. They were in the other bedroom; sounded like they were rummaging around. I slipped up to the doorframe and tried to get a peep in. All I could see was a smallish figure bent over one of the drawers looking for something.

  I stepped into the doorway to block egress. “Looking in the wrong place, pal. My stuff’s in the other bedroom. Something I could help you with?”

  And who should turn around with the face of an angel and a dress in each hand but none other than Dalliance Oglethorpe.

  She smiled big. “Yeah, you can help me decide which one of these things to wear to go to dinner with you.”

  I must have been smiling pretty good too. “Well, you got me. This is indeed a surprise, as our psychic bartender downstairs just foretold.”

  “I’ve got to admit I put her up to it.” She dropped the darker of the two dresses on the bed. “I tried to hint to you. When’s the last time I closed Easy just because one of the utilities didn’t work?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I thought that was a little fishy, if I may use that word on an island such as this.”

  “You may. How’s June?”

  “Cagey.”

  “We go way back.”

  “I gathered. She’s pretty sure, by the way, that the boys aren’t here.”

  “She ought to know, or her daughter, one or the other.”

  I leaned against the doorframe. “We’ll ask tonight at dinner, I guess. She told me about some scallops on the other end of the island that her daughter will be only too glad to bring us.”

  “Tina? She’s a good kid.”

  She held up the blue number in her left hand. I nodded. “I’m not sure exactly why you’re here.”