He was silent for a moment. “It was necessary. Mr. Nice Guy wasn’t going to get me the information I needed.”
“We made a pretty good pair. I guess he thought you wouldn’t hurt him in front of me.”
He seemed to consider this for a while. “There are plenty of white folks I like.” He looked over at me. “You’re one of them.”
“You weren’t so sure when we first met, though. What changed your mind?”
“Your friends.”
“You like me not because of my personality but for the folks I hang with?”
“Grandfather Egret would say they’re the same thing. Think about it. You are adored by a mob boss, a PI, a whole crowd of cowboys, rich women from West Palm, my grandfather, and Madeleine Boudreau, the kindest and most naïve woman in all of rural Florida. That’s quite a set of credentials.”
“I’m a diversity magnet.”
We left the lights of Orlando and headed down the turnpike toward home. The next thing I remembered, we were entering the city limits of Sabal Bay. I could just see the tip of the sun kiss one of the palms in the field east of the highway.
“What time is it?” It wasn’t light enough for me to read my watch.
“About five in the morning.”
“How do you Indians do that?”
“Do what?”
“Know what time it is?”
Sammy held up his arm. On it was a watch with a luminous dial.
“What do you intend to do with those guys who introduced your nephew to that high stakes poker game?”
“Have a chat with them before they can lawyer up after the cops get them. From what Oscar said, these guys did more than just introduce Bernard to poker. They know something about what happened to him.”
“I mean after you’ve talked with them.”
“After I learn what I need to know? Then I turn them over to Frida and Linc. What did you think I was going to do? Torture them?”
“No. I thought you’d lose them out in the swamp.”
Sammy’s gaze met mine. In it I could see I’d hit on the truth. I’d only been wrong about the sequence of events.
“I’ll leave them in the swamps a while, then retrieve them. They’ll be ready to talk after a night listening to gators sing to one another.”
I rolled down the window to let in the cool morning air.
“What’s that smell?” I don’t know why I asked. I knew what it was. A building burning. I remembered the smell from when Sammy and I spent the night in the swamp and wandered out the next morning to find a local airboat business on fire. The memory of that night and the fire sent prickly sensations down my arms.
“Something must be burning, something big.” Sammy swung the truck around a corner onto the street leading to our consignment shop and toward my neighborhood. Up ahead we could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles and fire trucks.
“It looks like it’s close to your shop.” Sammy braked. A barricade had been set up to prevent anyone from approaching the fire, which appeared to be contained. Black smoke but no flames poured from the strip mall. At the far end where our shop was located, fire trucks continued to pour water onto the structure.
The sign reading “Eve and Madeleine’s Second to None Consignment Boutique” lay in the street in front of our burned-out shop.
Chapter 10
I jumped out of the truck and tried to run around the barricade toward the shop, but a police officer stopped me.
I struggled to get out of his hold. “No, no, no! We were going to move everything out today or tomorrow. Now it’s all gone.”
Someone approached me from the side. I didn’t recognize who it was until she spoke.
“Too bad. You just lost everything. I guess I won’t have any competition after all.”
Elvira Reed. I swung around to face her and would have punched her in the nose if Sammy hadn’t grabbed my arm.
“What are you doing here?” Then it hit me. She had to be behind this fire. “Arrest this woman. She did this. She set the fire on purpose.” I grabbed the police officer by the arm to get his attention.
“Oh, don’t be absurd. This woman runs the shop, and she’s clearly overwrought with her loss,” Elvira said.
Sammy steered me away from her and the officer before I could say or do more.
“Eve, calm down. We don’t even know if the fire is arson. You said the air conditioner wasn’t working right. Maybe it was faulty wiring.”
“Yeah, right. Faulty wiring in that crazy woman’s head, maybe.”
I spotted curly red hair across the parking lot. Madeleine. One more tragedy she did not need right now.
“Madeleine!” I yelled and waved at her. “Over here.”
She saw me and ran over. “Thank God you’re here. I was worried about you,” she said.
“Worried about me? What about this? All our stuff is gone.” Crying is not something I often gave into; I’m more of a “turn your troubles into anger and blame someone else” gal, but I could feel myself close to tears.
Madeleine put her arm around my waist. “Don’t, Eve. Everything is fine.”
“I don’t call barbequed clothes, shoes, and other apparel fine. If only we could have moved before this happened.” I shot a venomous look at Elvira, who remained at the edge of the crowd, a smirky smile on her face.
Madeline grabbed me and spun me around so that I was facing the street. “See that?”
Parked on the street and taking up at least three out of four car lengths stood a gigantic motor home.
Nappi stood beside it, smiling and gesturing to me to come over. “It’s what I talked to you about,” he called out. “A consignment shop on wheels.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “An empty consignment shop on wheels.”
“Look inside.” Nappi gallantly took my arm as I ascended the steps. Inside I took a look around. All our merchandise was there, arranged on racks, clothes rounds, and in display cases.
“I don’t understand.” I stumbled into one of the bench seats near the front of the rig and plopped down.
“There was a change of plans. Mr. Napolitani called a few minutes after you left and wondered if we could move then rather than on Friday. I was exhausted, but I thought, why not? Let’s get our merchandise out of that place and into the newly designed shop on wheels. It’s all here, Eve. It’s safe.” Madeleine gave me a hug. Nappi beamed in his sophisticated way.
I got up from my seat and rushed down the steps and across the parking lot. “Hey, Elvira!”
She was in the same spot as before and still had the same snarky look on her face. Well, here was something to wipe away that satisfied smirk.
“There was nothing in the store. We hauled it all away earlier tonight.” I gave her a one fingered goodbye and ran off to my shop on wheels.
“You think that horrid woman set the fire, don’t you, Eve?” Madeleine came up behind me and linked her arm through mine. We paused for a moment to look at the charred timbers of what had once been our business, then turned toward our new shop. Would this work? I hoped so … at least for a time.
“Let’s move this buggy away from here. The smell is unpleasant.” Nappi pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to his nose.
“Can I drive?” Tired as I was from getting no sleep last night, the excitement of running this new shop on wheels had swept away most of my fatigue. Besides, I wanted to drive past Elvira and honk the horn, make her jump like a jack-in-the-box.
“Take her away.” Nappi handed me the keys.
I started up the coach, listening to the engine as it caught then purred.
I shifted into drive and circled the block, just to get a feel for the behemoth motor home, aka consignment shop. As I took the turn that would bring us back past the strip mall, I saw Elvira step from the curb and head across the street.
I gunned it.
Madeleine grabbed my arm. “You’re not thinking of running over her, are you?”
/> I kept my attention on the woman ahead and steered in her direction. At the last minute, Elvira heard the bus and turned her head in our direction, a look of terror on her face.
At the very last minute, I whipped the wheel to the right and missed her by one of those ugly brown hairs on her head. I honked the horn, which as I expected, sounded like the air horn on a big rig. Elvira jumped at the sudden loud noise, stumbled and fell into the gutter at the side of the street.
“That was taking quite a chance. You could have hit her.” Although Madeleine’s voice held a note of disapproval, I caught her face reflected in the rearview mirror. She was grinning like a kid.
“I knew I’d miss her. This thing drives like a sports car. I love it.”
“Where do we park it for the night?” Madeleine asked.
Nappi replied, “You have a permit to park it in the flea market lot anytime you want. And here’s your license to sell from it at the market on the weekends.” He flipped through the papers. “I also was able to obtain a temporary permit for you to open for business at any location in the state, as long as you pay sales tax, of course.”
“How did you do that so fast?” I asked. “It had to be expensive.” I pulled into the flea market parking area and drove around to the back.
Nappi wouldn’t look me in the eye as he said, “Uh, I had some coupons I used for a reduced rate on the permitting.”
“Coupons?” I knew he wasn’t using the term in the usual way—as in coupons from the Sunday paper.
“I know some people who know some people in this state.” He still avoided my eyes.
“This better be legal. I don’t want the West Palm Beach cops surrounding our motor coach and arresting Madeleine, me, and our wealthy patrons when we’re trying to sell a few cocktail dresses or feather boas.”
“Won’t happen,” Nappi assured me. This time he looked me straight in the eye and winked.
I would have winked back, but all I could manage was a yawn. Madeleine covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle her own.
“We need a few hours of sleep,” I said.
“I’ll ferry you gals home.” Nappi waved to the car that had followed us, and it pulled alongside the coach. Behind it was Sammy in his truck.
“You give Madeleine a ride. Sammy will take me home. We have a few things to discuss.”
Madeleine gave me a warning look.
“We need to talk about Sammy’s nephew. That’s all.”
“It’s not your problem,” Madeleine said.
“It’s a friend’s problem, honey.” I gave her a reassuring hug and jumped into Sammy’s truck.
“So what’s the next move?” I asked Sammy as we rolled toward my house.
“I heard what Madeleine said. She’s right, you know. This is my problem, not yours.” Sammy pulled into my drive. “I appreciate your help. Thanks.”
“That’s it? Thanks, but get out of here? Well, let me give you some advice then. Let the cops handle this. Don’t stick your nose into something that might not help your nephew but could get you into trouble. This could be dangerous, Sammy.”
The sun was fully over the horizon. It filled the cab of the truck, shining its yellow morning light on Sammy’s face. Unfortunately, that light was not kind. It showed all the lines surrounding his handsome features. His face was still appealing, but haggard and worn, as if his nephew’s disappearance had stamped the cares of an older man there.
“Oscar will introduce me to the guys who led Bernard into those private poker games. I’ll find out what I need to know, what they know.”
I tried to interrupt, but he held up his hand to stop me. “You are not invited to join me. I’ll take the risks because this is my family.”
I’d been cut out. Sammy couldn’t have made it any clearer. I got out of the truck tired and angry. Sammy waited until I went in, then drove off.
I mentally shrugged. Oh, well. Things could be worse. Madeleine and I had our shop on wheels. And I knew when and where Sammy was meeting Bernard’s gambling buddies just in case I wanted to intrude.
It seemed only minutes after I’d beaten my pillow into a comfortable sleeping shape that I awoke with a start. Someone was in my room. My back was turned toward the doorway so the intruder couldn’t tell I was awake with my eyes wide open. I moved my hand carefully under the comforter, reaching for the brass lamp on my bed table. That lamp had proved handy for beating off another intruder. It would be just as useful now. I was just about to grasp the base ….
“Leave it.”
I recognized the voice. Alex.
“I used my key,” he said.
I turned over and eyed him.
“You gave me one. Remember?”
No, I didn’t remember.
“I did no such thing.”
“Well, you kind of did. You told me where you hid the extra key.”
“That’s not giving you a key.”
“It’s close.”
“I should just bean you with this lamp anyway.”
“How about I make coffee and we have breakfast together.”
“What the hell time is it?”
“It’s after ten. Why are you still in bed?”
“I got to sleep at seven. It’s a long story. Wake me at two.” I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.
“And I woke up early this morning just to get up here from Miami so I could help you move tonight. Aren’t I nice?”
“Mr. Napolitani is nicer. He took care of all that last night.”
The silence that followed my announcement was loud enough to wake Madeleine across town.
I pulled back the covers. “Oh, get in here, you big lug. I’ll explain everything.”
I’ve never seen a man undress so fast. Hot diggity and sleep be damned. But before we could get to the hot or the diggity part, my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was Frida.
“Something has come up with Sammy’s nephew,” she said.
“Why are you calling me? Why not call Bernard’s family?”
“I did, but this concerns David, and I know he’s going to call Madeleine about it. I asked him to call you instead of her. He agreed she might not take it well. I know he’s hired Alex to do some work for him, so I told David he could get in touch with Alex at your place.”
“How do you know Alex is here?”
“I’m a detective, remember? David should be getting in touch soon.” Frida disconnected.
No sleep and no hot diggity this morning. No sooner had I placed the phone back in the cradle when it rang.
It was David, as Frida predicted.
“Put Alex on the other line. I’ve got something to tell you. I heard about the fire at the shop, and I know Elvira Reed was there. It makes me all the more convinced that the Reeds are trying to frame me for the murder. She’s helping him make my life a living hell by creating trouble for you and Madeleine.”
“I think she set the fire, but until we find out the cause, I won’t kick her in her perfect size six butt,” I said.
“Did Frida call you?”
“Just now. She said this was about Bernard Egret’s disappearance. I don’t get the connection.”
“I don’t either,” Alex chimed in from the phone in the living room.
“It’s crazy is what it is. The detectives had me back in the interrogation room early this morning and asked me all kinds of questions about that missing kid whose car they found near the casino.”
“Bernard Egret,” I said. “He’s Sammy’s nephew. How does this involve you?”
“They found my business card in his glove box with my private cell number written on the back.”
Chapter 11
“What of it? Did you ever give him one of your cards?” Alex wandered back into my bedroom, the phone to his ear.
“No,” David said. “I don’t even know the guy.”
“Is the handwriting yours?”
“I don’t think so, although the seven in my number has an extra hori
zontal mark through it. I write my sevens that way.”
“So do a lot of people.” Alex waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “It sounds like they’re on a fishing expedition. You did have your lawyer with you when they questioned you, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“David, is there something you’re not saying here?” I asked.
“The ink used to write down my cell …”
We waited.
“It was the bright turquoise color, like in Madeleine’s favorite pen. It sure makes it look as if I borrowed her pen and wrote the number on the card.”
“And you didn’t do that for anybody that you remember? Wait a minute. Isn’t your cell on your card?” Alex said.
“My business cell, but this was my personal number. I’ve been racking my brain. I don’t give out my personal cell number to very many people.”
“First, you’d better make a list of those you have given your personal number to. I’ll need it. I’m just back from Miami this morning. I’m going to pay a visit to the family whose son invaded your home.”
“The one I killed.”
“The one you shot to defend your daughter.” Alex’s voice was firm, but sympathetic. “Do the police know the significance of the ink? Does your lawyer?”
“Cops, no. Lawyer, yes. He told me to keep it that way.”
We ended the call and looked at each other with concern.
“It sure looks like someone is trying to frame David and isn’t content to leave it at the murder of his client. Now Sammy’s missing nephew is being pulled into the picture. What’s the connection?” Alex walked out of the room.
“Do you want coffee before you leave?” I called to him.
“Yep. That’s what I’m going to do now. Make a pot. You go on back to sleep for a few hours.”
Sleep? Was he crazy? How could any self-respecting gal sleuth sleep when there were leads to be chased down?
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
An hour later, wired on two cups of Alex’s strong coffee, I sat in the passenger seat of his car as we rolled down the highway leading west around the Big Lake and into the small community of Deer Mound. It took me most of that hour to convince Alex I would, number one, not be a problem, number two, not get in his way, number three, keep quiet unless asked to participate, and number four, be useful to him in his interrogation. I don’t think he bought any of my reasoning, but I wore him down, and finally wouldn’t let go of his shirt when he got into the car. He was stuck with me. The best he was able to accomplish on the way was to get me to promise to stay in the car while he talked to the Warren family. As with my other promises, I had no intention of keeping it, but he didn’t need to know that.
A Sporting Murder Page 8