by Noreen Wald
“Kate?”
“Sorry, Nick, I was just protecting the corpse from the hot sun.”
Though his jurisdiction ended at Palmetto Beach’s western border, Nick Carbone appeared on the scene less than fifteen minutes later.
Sure that no one would be going anywhere, Kate had decided not to tell anyone—not even Marlene—about the murder until either Nick, the Coral Reef homicide detectives, or the bus that would transport the Ocean Vista residents back home arrived. She wasn’t surprised when Carbone got there first.
Kate had planned to use those fifteen minutes to observe the suspects—she never even considered an outsider might be the perpetrator—while the killer still believed the body hadn’t been discovered.
She’d forgotten that the best laid plans can go astray. Suspect number one, Rosie O’Grady, hosted an impromptu dance party, and suspects two and three were eager participants. A CD in Bob’s laptop provided the music: the Andrews Sisters. Rosie sang along as she swung out and in of Joe Sajak’s arms.
Bob’s long legs had moved with the grace of the old movie musical hoofer, Dan Dailey. Kate thought he looked a bit like the actor too. Who’d have thought refined, stodgy old Bob could perform such a great Lindy Hop? But then who’d have thought Uncle Weatherwise would be threatening the condo’s finance chair about missing money?
Lucy Diamond, her dark pageboy bouncing, had partnered with a new owner, a younger guy—only in South Florida could fifty-five be considered young—from the first floor. He hustled to keep up with the retired prosecutor.
Marlene had grabbed Kate and they danced together like the teenagers they once were, the steps coming easy as Marlene led. Kate remembered Marlene had taught Charlie to dance too.
No one seemed to miss the weatherman. Not even Kate, the dancing detective.
Nick Carbone had cut in. He didn’t look happy as he swung Kate out, saying, “Show me the body.”
In the blazing sunshine, Kate pointed to the black plastic bag, wondering if the killer had watched them leave the dance floor.
When Nick had arrived, Marlene mumbled a puzzled “What’s up?” The others, absorbed in dancing and/or themselves, appeared not to notice.
Nick dropped to his knees and bared the body. He still favored his left leg, injured in a fall in Broward General Hospital, slipping on spilled water that Kate hadn’t properly wiped up. “Coral Reef’s homicide guys will be here soon. I just thought I’d take a look.”
“How much of a head start did you give yourself, Nick?” Kate didn’t even try to cover her laughter.
“The weather vane intrigues me,” Nick said, without glancing up at her. “Someone making a point.”
She laughed again. One of Detective Carbone’s few charms: dry humor. “Uncle Weatherwise called this hurricane wrong, but I don’t think Harriet’s the motive.”
Nick, using the ground as leverage, pushed himself up and onto his feet. It took some effort. And heavy breathing. Why hadn’t he retired? He was only a few years younger than Kate. Well, maybe more than a few. The man had no life. Only death, which, like Charlie, he loved to investigate. At least Charlie had Kate and the boys. Nick had no one. Or did he?
Nick smiled, a sly, not a friendly, smile. “Do tell me, Miss Marple, whodunit?”
She wished she had a weapon. “I don’t know; however, I do know that three of Ocean Vista’s condo board members appear to have motives.”
“So a condo commander killed Uncle Weatherwise? Now, really, Jane, er, Kate...”
A police siren shut him up.
Five
“Nobody’s going nowhere. So settle down, folks,” Lee Parker drawled.
The Coral Reef homicide detective and Nick Carbone had conferred for a few minutes and were now standing under the home team’s basket, flanked by several policemen in really spiffy uniforms, much nicer than Palmetto Beach’s finest.
Kate could see—Mr. Magoo could see—that Nick couldn’t stand his counterpart. A study in contrasts. Nick, a brassy Brooklyn transplant, overweight and overbearing. Lee, a lanky, down-home boy, with a master’s in art history from the University of Miami, had decided to serve his city by putting the bad guys in their place: jail or the cemetery.
The assembled Ocean Vista residents stirred: restless, puzzled, anxious, and angry.
Ballou, curled up in a comer, slept through the commotion.
“You need to tell us why we’re being detained, Detective.” Lucy sounded adversarial, probably a mistake, based on Lee Parker’s crossed arms and stone face. The former prosecutor pointed to the unhappy bus driver who was pacing in front of the gym door, twirling his hat. “We have to get back to Palmetto Beach. As bylaws chair of Ocean Vista, I demand an explanation for this delay.”
“Would a murder investigation suffice, Ms. Diamond?” Detective Parker asked. “Walt Weatherwise is dead. Please take a seat in the bleachers.”
Lucy staggered, then murmured, “I wondered where he’d disappeared to.” She sank down onto a bench in the front row. “How? When?” Staring into space, she didn’t seem to expect an answer.
Kate scanned the crowd, trying to catch Rosie and Bob’s reaction.
“The mob!” Rosie, steel-gray curls bouncing, pushed her way in front of an ashen Joe Sajak. “A hit, right? The New York wiseguys iced Weatherwise. I ain’t a bit surprised; he had it coming.”
“I’m off, then.” Nick extended his hand to Lee Parker. “Call me if I can be of any help.” He left without even a goodbye nod to Kate.
Feeling abandoned, she realized she’d counted on Nick being there when Detective Parker interviewed her. Now she was on her own.
“Everyone, please take a seat.” Detective Parker spoke in a low voice, polite as a hostess at a backyard barbecue, but no one could mistake his request for anything less than an order. “Officers Logan and Bernstein will be recording all your names and phone numbers. Your condo units too.”
Parker ignored the crowd’s grumbling and groans, and gestured toward Kate. “Mrs. Kennedy, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Butterflies flooded her digestive tract, flying both ways. Did she have a Pepcid AC in her pocket? Relax. After all, Nick must have told Parker she’d discovered the body. It wasn’t as if she’d killed Uncle Weatherwise. Though she couldn’t have felt any more nervous if she had.
“Let’s grab a cup of coffee from the refreshment table,” Parker said.
She trailed behind him to a metal table covered with a white cloth, Thermoses of coffee and tea, bottled water, muffins, and other goodies that the St. Thomas High School Boosters Club had provided for the evacuees.
Parker poured and handed her a mug of coffee. “Here you go, little lady.” The detective smiled down at her in the benevolent despot tone and manner that many younger men in positions of authority use when addressing elderly—or what they perceive to be elderly—women.
“I drink tea, Detective Parker.” Assertive, not aggressive. “And I can pour my own, thank you.” She reached across him, lifted the tea Thermos, and filled a mug without a visible shake or spill, though the butterflies were drag-racing through her esophagus.
She had no appetite; the gym smelled of sweat, and even with the air conditioner on, she felt clammy.
“Muffin, Mrs. Kennedy?” None too sharp about body language, was he?
“No, thank you.” Were they just going to keep standing here? She’d be damned if she’d suggest sitting.
“Okay, let’s take it from the top, ma’am.” Parker paused, sipped his coffee, and stared at her, waiting.
She added a smidgen of milk, stirred for a long time, and smiled up at him, trying for guileless. And clueless.
“You were out walking your dog, right?”
Silent, hoping to appear to be in deep reflection, Kate nodded. If she only had a Pep
cid AC, she’d almost be enjoying herself.
“And,” Parker prompted, “what did you see, Mrs. Kennedy?”
“See?” She shook her head. “I don’t quite understand your question.”
“Now, look here,” the detective sputtered, sending spittle into the space between them.
Kate stepped to the right, out of range. “Well, at least at first, all I saw were piles of debris. Ballou discovered the body.”
“Since I can’t interview your dog, Mrs. Kennedy, please speak for him.” Parker sounded as if his patience had run out
“Ballou uncovered a large black plastic bag, then investigated, sniffing away. I noticed a sneaker—a Nike—protruding out from under the bag and went over for a better look.”
“And?”
“A foot was in the sneaker.”
“What did you do then, Mrs. Kennedy?” Exasperation punctuated his question.
“I kicked away the rest of the bag and exposed Walt Weatherwise’s body.”
“How did you know he was dead?”
“A weather vane had pierced his heart.” Kate felt no obligation to discuss either her decades of pillow talk with the best homicide detective in New York City or the growing number of dead bodies she’d encountered since moving to Palmetto Beach.
“How were you so sure that Weatherwise hadn’t been badly injured but still alive?”
Tempted to tell the chauvinist “women’s intuition,” instead Kate shrugged and said, “I don’t know how I knew, I just did.”
The expression on Lee Parker’s face could only be described as disgust. “Did you touch the body or any part of the crime scene?”
Oh God. Had Nick told this condescending lout that she’d covered the corpse?
“Mrs. Kennedy, answer my question. Did you disturb the body or the crime scene?”
“Kate, don’t answer that.” Lucy Diamond’s court-trained voice boomed out from behind. The former prosecutor thrust herself between Parker and Kate, wagging her index finger in Parker’s direction. “Is Mrs. Kennedy a suspect, Detective?”
The butterflies reached Kate’s throat. If she hadn’t been a suspect before, she’d bet she was one now.
Six
“Maybe Lucy killed him,” Marlene whispered to Kate. “You know, pretending to defend and protect you, while planting suspicion. Devious, but clever, right?”
The last to board, they sat in the back of the fourth and final of the St. Thomas school buses to leave the gym. Ballou settled in on Auntie Marlene’s lap and snored. Assorted cats, dogs, birds, Rosie O’Grady’s bunny rabbit, and Bob Seeley’s white mice in a Calvin Klein shoebox had inspired Marlene to nickname the bus Noah’s Wheels.
Competing animal cries filled the narrow aisle and Noah’s Wheels smelled like the monkey cage in the Central Park Zoo. Kate, certain her aroma was as bad as the pets, tried—and failed—to pry open a dirt-crusted window. She popped a Pepcid AC and two Tylenols followed by an Evian chaser.
More than the stench bothered her. When the driver had yelled, “All aboard, last call for Ocean Vista!” Lee Parker had invited Kate to stop by his office later that afternoon. Lucy Diamond, still in the detective’s face, had volunteered to come along.
Lucy now sat two rows in front of Kate and Marlene, cuddling her Siamese cat, and shouting legal advice to Kate over Bob’s bald head.
“Knock it off, Lucy,” Marlene shouted back, then turned to Kate. “That woman’s setting you up as prime suspect.”
Kate, haunted by Weatherwise’s face, squirmed, but said nothing. A shiver spread over her, leaving a chill in its wake. A blast from the past? A buried memory?
“Kate, did you hear me?” Marlene sounded so far away. Kate tuned her out.
Why did Uncle Weatherwise seem familiar? She’d seldom watched him on the Channel Eight News and had never laid eyes on him in the flesh until he arrived at Ocean Vista.
The Pepcid AC went to work and Kate felt better. She opened her eyes and sat up straight
“Are you okay?” An edge of anger coated Marlene’s concern.
“Yes, don’t worry. I’m just tired,” Kate lied. She smiled at Marlene. “We’ll be home soon.”
“God knows what havoc Mother Nature has wrought,” Marlene groaned. “We’ll deal with that later.” She leaned closer to Kate. “Don’t let Lucy come with us this afternoon.”
“Us?”
“Well, you’re not planning on seeing Parker without me, are you?”
Kate laughed, patting Marlene’s hand. “No, but I am planning on avoiding Lucy until you and I return from Coral Reef’s Police Department.”
Bold, bright sunshine as they crossed the bridge to A1A belied their dark and miserable journey west the night before. The pastel stucco stores and restaurants lining both sides of Neptune Boulevard appeared intact if water-stained, and cluttered with flotsam and jetsam up to their doorknobs. Straight ahead on the otherwise deserted beach, a crew from the Palmetto Beach Parks Department swept up debris and raked the sand. Good to see their tax dollars, at the third highest rate per capita in Broward County, being put to good use.
A1A was empty. No traffic. No people. Just the yellow school bus winding its way up Ocean Vista’s circular driveway and depositing its weary evacuees at the condo’s imposing front door. Be it ever so grandiose, there’s no place like home.
A flashback to her childhood home in Queens, a red brick semi-attached, two-family—far from fancy—house with a forest green door and shutters and a wide brick stoop with a low wall separating it from the house next door, popped into Kate’s head. A smiling Uncle Weatherwise opened the front door. She screamed.
“Good God, what’s wrong?” Marlene’s shout bounced Kate out of the past.
Lucy, standing in line to exit the bus, swung around, almost dropping Anna, her sleek black Siamese. “Don’t let your nerves get the better of you, Kate. A witness in a murder investigation must remain calm and collected. And, of course, I’ll be at your side during the interrogation with Detective Parker, so you have nothing to fear.” But fear itself, Kate thought, as she held out her arm to keep Marlene at bay.
“Let me at her,” Marlene snarled through clenched teeth.
“Later.” Kate sounded as shaky as she felt. “Let’s assess the damage and have lunch first.”
The wall-to-wall carpet was ruined, but Kate had never liked it much anyway. Her son Peter’s partner, Edmund, a plastic surgeon by trade and an interior decorator by design, had used a white and off-white palette throughout the entire apartment, too neutral and too sterile even for Kate. She’d rip up the Berber and replace it with terracotta tile. Add a little warmth to her life. The legs on the oak dining room table and chairs would have to be re-stained; however, the rest of the inside damage appeared to be minimal.
She stepped outside and into a pool of muddy water. Her plants were ruined and many of their pots had been smashed to smithereens. Clean-up could wait ’til tomorrow. Since most everything else on the balcony was plastic, she wouldn’t have to replace the table and chairs. Marlene, who used her ground-floor balcony as an extra closet, would not fare so well.
Kate breathed in the sweet ocean air, considering herself and her neighbors very lucky. She wondered if the misanthrope next door had been disappointed.
The Palmetto Beach Parks Department had already replaced the lifeguard station. The wreckage of the old one lay to its left, waiting to be loaded into an orange dump truck, looked just like Kevin’s favorite childhood toy.
At the rate the workers were moving, by tomorrow the beach would be restored to its former glory.
Miss Mitford—who’d manned the front desk ever since Ocean Vista first opened—had advised the bedraggled owners that there was running water and the electric power had been restored an hour ago. Had the sentinel ever left her post?
Nah. Knowing Mitford, she’d slept in the lobby last night—like Kate’s neighbor—prepared to go down with the condo.
Her damage inspection over and her to-do list complete, Kate headed for the kitchen to make a nice cup of tea.
By noon, with the ruined carpet rolled into a corner and the water mopped up, Kate the Capable, as Marlene had dubbed her sister-in-law decades ago, was walking Ballou on Neptune Boulevard. Only mad dogs, Englishmen, and South Florida Westie owners go out in the midday sun. Though she’d showered and washed her hair, Kate was drenched in sweat, her blue t-shirt clinging to her bra.