Mangroves and Murder: An Enchanted Coast Magical Mystery

by Maher Tegan

  Dax scoffed. "Money, of course. What else? My brother happens to have more than his fair share of luck at the tables, and people tend to get annoyed when he wins. Especially when they are losing a lot of money to him."

  I raised a brow. "When you say he has more than his fair share of luck, do you mean he counts cards?” I only knew Jackson from tiki and didn’t keep track of what went on at the casino unless it was something big. I had a hard enough time keeping up with the monkeys in my own circus.

  "No," Amber said, shaking her head. "That's just it — he really is just that lucky. Did you ever just meet somebody who always happened to be somewhere at the right time? Or you know that one guy who always wins when it comes time to draw straws? Jackson's that guy. We all joke that before any big event, we should rub his head for luck."

  I probably would've been skeptical about that had it been anybody but Amber telling it. As it was, I believed her. Not only did I know she would never lie to me, I also knew she was no fool. If Jackson was a cheat, she would've picked up on it no matter how good he was.

  "Okay so when was this? I heard it was yesterday, is that correct?"

  "Yeah," Dax said, taking a drink of his tea.

  "I'm still not understanding what the fight was about," Tempest said rubbing her cheek. "Was the guy accusing Jackson of cheating?"

  Amber lined my placemat up so that it was following the edge of one of the boards on the table. "Sort of, but from what we understand, the guy was more irritated because he'd been on a steady losing streak. From what everybody says, he was being unreasonable, and Jackson was just the person he decided to take it out on."

  I'd seen a lot of people get like that at the casino, so I knew what she was talking about. I also knew that people who had the money to blow didn't typically react like that when they lost.

  "It sounds to me like the guy was spending money he didn't have. Was that the case?"

  Dax raised a shoulder. "I can't speak to that. All I know about the guy is that he's dead, my brother got into an argument with him the day before he got that way, and now they think Jackson's the one that did it."

  He was shifting his weight back and forth as if he couldn't get comfortable. I didn't know if that was because he wasn't used to being out of the water, or if it was the situation he found himself in. Either way, I wanted to make him feel better.

  "I heard the suspect — I'm assuming Jackson — had a ring that belonged to the victim. Is that right?"

  "It is," Amber said, raising her gaze to mine. "The guy ran out of money, so he bet a ruby ring. When he lost it, that's when he got angry."

  Now I was starting to understand. "Did anybody else see Jackson make the deal with him to take the ring in lieu of cash?"

  Dax sighed. "Not that we’ve been able to find. Jackson said that's what the fight was over. The guy accused him of cheating and refused to give him the ring after Jackson beat him. Rather than make an even bigger scene, Jackson just let it go. It wasn't that big of a deal to him."

  “Was it a signet ring?” I asked. Surely the guy hadn’t bartered his wedding band.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. It was a big ruby one.”

  Merpeople had a different take on what was valuable than most other species did. To them, money wasn't worth much. They placed more value on things that were pretty. For instance, a well-crafted silver spoon would be more valuable to them than a suitcase full of cash. Most of them had very little contact with the human world, so cash wasn't king to them. Amongst themselves, they lived on a barter system.

  Tempest grabbed a peach from the bowl in the center of the table. "So how did Jackson end up with the ring, then?" She took a big bite of the peach and juice ran down her chin and coated her whiskers.

  "Jackson said the guy hunted him down later," Amber replied. "Apparently, the guy had cooled down and realized he’d been a jerk. He found Jackson in the bar and gave him the ring an hour or so later."

  I licked my lips, thinking. "That should be easy enough to prove. There are cameras all over the bar area."

  "That's just it," Dax replied, shaking his glass so that the ice cubes rattled in it. "The camera does show the guy talking to Jackson, but the bar was so crowded that you can't really see more than just their heads. Also, the music was loud, so the guy was kind of yelling. In that situation, it's hard to tell from his expression if he was mad or just trying to be heard."

  "Still, that proves they talked," I said. "That should be at least enough for Blake to give him the benefit of the doubt."

  "You'd think," Amber said, "but I guess it was ugly enough in the casino that a little bit of muddy footage of them speaking to each other an hour later at the bar isn't enough to clear him."

  Tears welled in her big brown eyes. "All I know is that Jackson didn't do this. Yeah, he's a hothead, and yeah, he did argue with the guy, but I promise you, he didn't kill him. Can you help us prove it?"

  I sighed. "I was supposed to leave on vacation tomorrow." I felt guilty even saying that when I saw their stricken expressions. "But I suppose it won't hurt to stick around an extra day or two and help you clear your brother's name."

  After all, solving murders was kind of my thing, and it wasn't like I could start my vacation until the next evening anyway.

  I glanced to Tempest who had her paw on her forehead. I reached out to her through our link. "What do you think?"

  She glanced at me and rolled her eyes. "What do you think I think? I think we’re going to have to help them whether we want to or not."

  And that was why we worked so well as a team.

  I smiled at Amber and Dax, hoping it came across as reassuring. "I'll start checking into it first thing in the morning. You have my word that I’ll do everything I can to clear his name."

  Once they left, I pulled my phone from my pocket and tapped out a text to Mila to let her know that I had to put our trip on hold.

  "LOL," she texted back. "I didn't bother to tell anybody that I was going to be closed yet. I figured I'd believe you were coming when I saw it."

  That made me feel kinda bad, and I texted her a sad face.

  "Don't sweat it," she replied. "I have a couple things I need to do anyway, so solve your murder as soon as you can, and I'll be ready to go when you are."

  I reset the wards around my house, thinking how lucky I was to have such great family. I sighed. Now I just had one more call to make, and I wasn't sure Colin was going to be as understanding as Mila was.

  He wasn't a big fan of me going up against a murderer when he wasn't there, and really, who could blame him? Maybe it would be best if I just helped Blake put the murder to bed without saying anything. After all, it wasn't like I was in any real danger.

  There wasn't much I could do that night, so we agreed to meet again the next morning. I still needed to call Mila and cancel, or at least postpone, our vacation. I also needed to tell Colin, which I wasn't looking forward to. He’d been so excited that I was taking time off that I hated to crush his excitement.

  After Amber and Dax left, I did everything I could to sit down and relax since I figured it would be the last night I was gonna get to myself, at least until I solved the murder. I had to wonder why Blake was being close-minded about things, but I did understand that he had a lot of pressure coming down on him from above. After all, even though we were a place strictly for supernaturals—which inherently brought more risk for violence—murder was never a good look in a vacation destination’s reviews.

  Rather than trying to force my brain to shut down, which was an exercise in futility anyway, I decided to Google the victim. As it turned out, Marty Keller was a kept man. His wife, Sandra, came from a long line of money, and there was lots of info about them in the society pages. I had to wonder how Sandra's family felt about her marrying down like that since everything that I could find on Marty prior to their marriage would have fit into a thimble with some space left over. What I found about him after they hooked up, however, indicated he'd emb
raced the lifestyle of the rich and famous with open arms.

  Pictures of them cruising on fancy yachts, eating at high-end dinner clubs, and hosting charity events at one of their several mansions were splashed all over the society pages of both paranormal and human celebrity rags. There were also plenty of pages showing him fishing on private charters with friends, gambling in casinos around the world, and participating in just about any other spendy manly man activity that you could think of. Basically, if it involved spending a ton of money on stupid things, he was involved in it. He also seemed to have a thing for jewelry. In every pic, he was wearing gold necklaces and at least two or three rings. Looking closer, the only one that never changed was a large signet ring on his left ring finger. His wedding band, maybe?

  What I didn't see were a lot of pictures of them together outside of the society events. That made me wonder if they were just people who enjoyed their privacy or if the marriage wasn't as peachy keen as they wanted to let on. That was food for thought, because when you added up the facts that he was spending her money and that they were rarely seen together, it could have potentially resulted in an unhappy wife with the means to put a permanent end to her marriage without having to pay alimony or lose half her stuff. Though there was likely a prenup involved, there would probably still be a significant payout in it for him if they split.

  I made a note to check into that because a simple spousal murder would be open and shut and would get me on my way a lot faster than if it was something complicated. I pumped the brakes on that a little bit because the last thing I wanted was to do the same thing that Blake was apparently doing. I wanted to find the murderer, not a scapegoat.

  "You know you're not going to find an article that says hey look at Marty, all kinds of people wanted to kill him, and here's the list," Tempest said after a couple hours of watching me scroll through a million pages on the Internet.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. "I do realize that, but maybe I’ll at least find a thread to pick at."

  "Maybe,” she said, yawning, “but don't hold your breath. If we’ve learned anything about rich people, it's that you can't tell anything much about them just by scrolling through all the fancy-schmancy events they attend."

  She was right, but given the fact that my brain wouldn't settle, and I couldn't concentrate on anything on television, I didn't have much else to do. And I'd much rather go into the situation with a little bit of knowledge than walk in blind.

  My eyes were starting to feel like they were full of sand, and I was surprised when I checked my phone, and it said it was three a.m. Tempest had long since fallen asleep on the couch, and the TV that had been left on in the background had gone to the screensaver. I pulled in a deep breath and stretched my muscles. I'd been sitting in the same position for so long that I’d pretty much frozen in place.

  I arched my back and rolled my neck, wishing I hadn’t drunk a gallon of iced tea while I was looking. Fortunately, the caffeine didn't affect me like it did most people because I drink it in such mass quantities. The only regret I really had was that I was gonna have to get up fifteen times in the middle of the night to get rid of it. That meant I’d probably head into the next morning bleary-eyed, and that wasn't the way to start a murder investigation. It was hard enough to pick up on fine details and nuances in a person's speech when you were wide awake, let alone when you could barely hold your eyes open. Still, some sleep was better than no sleep, so I hit the sack. Surprisingly, I was out almost before my head hit the pillow.

  Chapter 6

  My dreams that night were a crazy mix of flying lighthouses, lines of customers clamoring for drinks while I frantically searched for the ingredients I needed to make them, and a guy who looked strangely like Dax being hauled away in chains while I stood helplessly by. A dream interpreter would have a blast with my life if they took ten minutes to crawl inside my psyche. Of course, anybody crazy enough to crawl into my gourd would need years of therapy themself, so that was an avenue I wasn’t willing to pursue just out of common courtesy.

  It didn't take me long to get ready the next morning, but I spent the time organizing my thoughts. I was almost positive I hadn't met the victim or his wife, so I figured meeting her was the first order of business. Well, after talking to Blake that is. He wasn't going to be happy that I had postponed my vacation, but that street went both ways—I wasn’t thrilled that he was forcing my hand by not listening to Amber and Dax, but I was hoping to change that.

  I was going to do my best to convince him that he needed to look more closely at other suspects so I could pack my bags and head out knowing he was giving it all he had before letting the council ride roughshod over him. It wasn't like he was unreasonable or stupid, so if I just presented him with an alternate suspect, I had faith that he would take it seriously. I needed to make sure that whatever I took him was strong, because I had a feeling if he'd already arrested this guy, he had a lot stronger evidence than just having the two of them on tape arguing.

  Blake wasn’t the type to rush ahead on something like that with so little evidence, especially when a man's future and life hung in the balance.

  Tempest spent the morning sulking, alternating between glaring at me and staying completely away from me. She was displeased, to say the least, that I had opted to take the case. She'd get over it, though, because deep down, she was one of the fairest most compassionate beings I'd ever met. Finding evidence of another suspect would help me smooth her ruffled feathers, too, so it was even more important.

  "You know Blake wouldn't have this guy under arrest if he wasn't sure he did it, right?" She’d hopped up on the bathroom counter while I was washing my face and brushing my teeth and had spent five minutes just staring at me. She knew it irritated the crap out of me, so I suspect that was her motivation.

  I fished a new tube of Mila’s special moisturizer with sunscreen from my closet and slathered it on my face. "Yeah, but you also know Amber and Dax. Do you really think they would've come to me if they weren’t convinced that his brother was innocent?"

  I swiped on some mascara but didn't get any fancier than that. It was about two hundred degrees above boiling outside, so any other makeup would've just melted off my face anyway.

  Tempest lifted a furry shoulder. "I don't know. We do funny things when it comes to family. After all, what if it was Mila or Cori or Michael that was in trouble?"

  I shot her a don't be stupid look. "You know as well as I do, none of the three of them would ever kill anybody. So of course, if they were accused, I’d jump to their defense. This is apples and oranges.”

  She tilted her head at me and just stared for a few seconds, so I could think it out. I realized what she was trying to make me see. Michael was a member of the Paranormal Criminal Bureau of Investigations, and often came up against shady people. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he might kill somebody in the line of action, and it could be interpreted as something other than self-defense. I pressed my lips together, not wanting to admit that she was right even though she was. That might be a different circumstance, but it was still a situation where he could be accused of murder and even arrested for it if the right people were running the investigation. Anything was possible when you lived in shades of gray like he did.

  "Fine," I huffed. “Point taken. But we still have an obligation to Amber and Dax to at least check it out.”

  "I'm not saying we shouldn't check it out," she said. “I'm just saying that we need to be prepared for the fact that we might be tilting at a windmill. It's entirely possible that the guy’s guilty. You know how it is when money comes into these things. For that matter, based on all the pictures and articles that we saw about the guy last night, I can see where he might be the sort of person to inspire murder."

  I slicked some lip gloss on and headed to my closet to find something adult-like to wear. As a beach bartender, my business casual was shorts and a tank top, but if I was going to talk to somebody in a semi-official capacity,
I needed to look like I had a right to ask questions. "If every annoying person on the planet were able to push a rational person to murder, we’d have a whole lot more killings on our hands."

  She shrugged a furry shoulder and hopped up onto my bed. "Do you really think so? I mean, we already have a ton of them. People murder each other every day, especially in the supernatural world."

  She huffed a breath out through her nose and combed her paws through her tail, smoothing it down. "Shoot for that matter, I'd say there are at least as many people knockin’ each other off in the human world as in the supernatural one. And I'm willing to bet a lot of ‘em are driven to it.” She ran her paws through her fluffy tail, tugging a couple tangles out of her black and white fur. “People are annoying. Even I could be pushed to murder under the right circumstances. And so could you for that matter."

  She wasn't wrong, but I figured we should at least give Jackson the benefit of the doubt until we talked to him and to the victim’s family. I slipped into an olive blouse with a keyhole neckline and my slate cargo capris and called it good enough.

  It was hot, and I hadn't slept well. On top of that, I'd only had enough coffee to make one cup, and that wasn't nearly enough to get me started. Rather than trudge through the heat, I decided to teleport to the tiki. That was sort of breaking my own rule, because I was the only person on the resort besides Blake that had that privilege, plus I ate way too much fried food and needed to walk all that off. However, I considered being out of coffee and having to find a murderer extenuating circumstances.

  Even though the tiki wasn’t open yet, I aimed to land by the dumpster behind it so I wouldn't land on some poor soul on their way to the beach. Surprisingly, Bob was already there and almost tripped over me because he was carrying a stack of boxes so tall that even he couldn't see over them. When I saw them teetering, I shot out a little jolt of magic to stabilize them for him.