Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 02 - Island Intrigue

by Marty Ambrose

  Kong barked.

  I groaned, knowing what I had to do. I threw on a pair of tattered sweatpants and an old white cable-knit sweater I’d bought at the island consignment shop. It specialized in “pre-owned” clothing, rather than “used” items. I didn’t care what they were called as long as the price was right.

  I fastened Kong’s leash to his collar and led him outside. A brisk wind roared in from the Gulf of Mexico, the kind that made your teeth chatter and your shoulders hunch up somewhere near your ears. “Get the lead out, Kong. I’m freezing.”

  He trotted off toward a clump of areca palm trees, and I cast a quick glance toward the Wanderlodge. The shades up, I could see outlines of objects inside the RV but nothing more. I checked the license plate. It was temporary-the paper kind issued for a new vehicle with State of Florida stamped on it. A clue! They’d bought it in state.

  “I’ve got it. Gloria Estefan and her husband-they live in Miami!” I exclaimed to Kong.

  He ignored me. A gopher tortoise lumbering toward the beach area had caught his attention, and he kept jumping on its hard-shelled back.

  Just then strains of jazz emanated from the Wanderlodge.

  No Latin beat. Okay, so it probably wasn’t Gloria Estefan and hubby. Then I realized that, just because it was bought in state, that didn’t mean the owners lived in Florida. They could’ve flown in from anywhere, plunked down a quarter of a million dollars at some RV megastore, and driven off into the sunset.

  I sighed. Must be nice.

  Another gust of wind pierced my sweater, and all thoughts of divining my neighbors’ identity flew out of my mind. Pikes.

  I pulled on Kong’s leash to distract him from attacking the gopher tortoise. “Let’s get down to business, buddy. I’ve lost all feeling in my fingers.”

  He wagged his tiny tail, smug in the warmth of his apricot fur.

  “It’s either here and now, or we make for the beach.” I flashed him a warning glance.

  His head swiveled in my direction. I nodded and repeated the dreaded b word again. He did his thing, and we retreated back to the Airstream before I could say, “Surf’s up.”

  I showered and made my way out to my truck in less than half an hour. I didn’t spend a lot of time on makeup and fancy clothing. To be honest, I didn’t have much of either. Occasional lipstick and powder comprised my normal “made-up” face. As for clothes, I wore jeans and a T-shirt in the summer, jeans and a sweater in the winter. Simple and cheap.

  But I did devote at least fifteen minutes a day to my hair. It was my one vanity. I fluffed the scarlet curls with loving care until they shone like a new tomato. Unfortunately, I had the sun-sensitive, freckled skin that often went with that color hair, but I figured my rich, luxurious tresses were nature’s way of compensating me.

  Not that there was a man in sight to admire them, if you didn’t count Old Man Brisbee with his bushy eyebrows and protruding stomach. And the only reason he’d probably started flirting with me was because he felt guilty about the ice cream incident. Or maybe he liked the feel of my butt.

  As I drove Rusty along Cypress Drive toward the Observer office, a tiny voice reverberated in my head: Don’t forget Detective Billie.

  As if I could. But he certainly seemed to have forgotten about me.

  Once the murder case had been solved a few months ago, he hadn’t so much as called me to see if I had recovered. Oh, sure, I’d seen him at the Town Hall meetings, but he always came in late and left early, without so much as a “hi-ho” to me. I’d been tempted to drop by the police station on some trumped-up pretext, like a jaywalking alligator, but it seemed lame.

  To tell the truth, I didn’t know how I felt about him. With his lean-hipped, powerful body and black-as-night eyes, he made my heart beat like a heavy metal drum every time I saw him. But he also ticked me off with his arrogant, rigid, my-way-or-the-highway kind of attitude. What’s an independent kind of girl like me to do?

  I braked for the slow zone near the elementary school. Seeing the flashing yellow of the signal light and watching the school guard help the kids cross the road made me think of Wanda Sue’s missing grandson again.

  I made a mental note to talk to Kevin’s teacher when I came back to do the story on the Autumn Festival. But first I had to check in with Anita.

  As I breezed into the Observer office, I was assailed by the smell of fresh paint. Much to my amazement, a tall, heavyset young guy was applying a coat of seafoamcolored paint to the back wall. As I closed the door, he grinned and waved his brush in my direction.

  “What’s going on?” I questioned Sandy, our secretary cum-receptionist-cum advertising manager-cum-everything.

  “Can you believe it? Mr. Benton-the cheapo guy who owns the paper-called this morning and said we could finally get the place painted.” She waved one pudgy hand in the direction of the painter. A price tag fell out of the sleeve of her soft yellow sweater. She tucked it back in as though it were simply a loose thread. In the process of losing weight on her latest diet, she was working her way down clothing sizes. Never sure how long she’d be “plateaued” at a certain size, she liked to hedge her bets and be able to return items at a moment’s notice. Personally, it struck me as borderline unethical, but she’d lost over twenty pounds in the last year, and I didn’t want to discourage her.

  “Of course, Anita didn’t waste any time. She got a painter over here pronto and let me pick out the color. I decided on this one ‘cause one of my New-Age magazines said the sea is restful, serene. Just the kind of background to counteract the high energy of a newspaper.”

  “Good idea.” High energy? This was a three-woman operation, for goodness’ sake (and Anita barely counted as female). But I had to admit that anything would be an improvement to our shabby workplace. Dulled yellow linoleum graced our floor, two wooden desks, back-toback, served as our workstations, and a single fluorescent light hummed above our heads.

  Being a weekly paper with limited circulation, the Observer didn’t pull in big advertising dollars, needless to say. Whiteside’s General Store at Mango Bay was our largest client, and considering the fact that their establishment wasn’t much bigger than a convenience store, they didn’t spend big bucks promoting their two-forone toothpaste specials.

  In even worse condition than the main area was Anita’s space, a glass-enclosed cubicle. As editor of the paper, she possessed the only office-a ten-by-ten cubbyhole that barely provided space for a desk and a couple of chairs. Most of the time she sat in there obsessively checking wire services and hoping for hot-breaking island news that rarely happened.

  “What does Anita think of the color?” I asked.

  Sandy shrugged. “She hates it, but she hates everything, so I guess that means it’s okay”

  Made sense to me.

  “Hey, kiddo.” Speak of the devil. Anita appeared in the doorway of her office. “Did you cover the Town Hall meeting last night?” The only person I knew who could do this, she blew her nicotine gum into a bubble, then burst it with a loud smack. Charming.

  I nodded. “Big doings, let me tell you. It took them two hours to agree to buy the swing set and picnic tables. Then Old Man Brisbee pinched my cheek againand I don’t mean my face”

  “Don’t tell me…. He’s still using that cataract excuse?”

  “Macular degeneration.”

  She grunted in disgust. “Brisbee has been using that one for years. The old fool just likes pinching women’s rear ends. He tried it on me years ago, and I grabbed his arse right back”

  “Next time I see him, I’ll make sure my butt is nowhere in his vicinity.”

  “Good idea.” She eyed the painter for a few seconds, and her mouth tightened, causing the multitude of vertical smoker’s lines to deepen. I couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or grimacing. “What do you think of our decorating job? Benton decided to pump some money into fixing up our office, so I jumped on it before he changed his mind. Of course the only thing that really counts is put
ting out a good paper.”

  “True, but the place does look kinda grungy. And bluish green is a nice color,” I pointed out.

  “I guess-if you’re into that kind of crap. The smell alone is enough to make me gag.”

  I blinked in amazement. Was it possible that her sense of smell was still intact after daily sessions of breathing in nothing but heavy-duty, lung-scarring tobacco smoke?

  “Write that Town Hall story-and the Autumn Festival piece you’re covering today. I’ll need to check ‘em both over before Friday’s deadline.” She cleared her throat. “This damn gum isn’t doing anything-I’d walk across a beach of broken seashells for a cigarette right now.”

  A tiny pang of sympathy nagged at me. “Maybe you could try the nicotine patch”

  She muttered an expletive and retreated into her office, slamming shut the door.

  I raised my eyes to the ceiling and groaned to Sandy, “I’m sorry about her cigarette cravings, but I can’t believe she still wants to edit every line of my stories.” I thumped my large canvas bag onto the desk. Two pens and a can of Diet Coke rolled out. I shoved them back into the black hole that passed for my purse. “I’ve been working here almost six months, and I think I can write a simple story without her second-guessing everything I’ve done”

  “Anita is a Capricorn, ruled by Saturn.” A smile tipped the corners of Sandy’s bow-shaped mouth. “She likes control and order…. You have to let her do her thing, or she’ll feel like she’s losing her sense of authority.”

  “Do you know her rising sign?” the painter piped up.

  We both turned in his direction.

  “Huh?” I couldn’t imagine anything “rising” out of Anita except curses and mutterings.

  “My mom is Madame Geri-short for Geraldine.” He placed a hand across his heart and, in a quaint, oldfashioned gesture, gave a slight bow.

  “Our newspaper astrologer?” I asked.

  “Yep. And I gotta tell you, she knows her stuff. Really awesome. She taught me a lot about the planets and how they influence people.”

  Sandy’s features kindled in sudden interest. “I love Madame Geri’s column. I mean, she isn’t just your average, run-of-the-mill astrologer. She … she’s clairvoyant.”

  I listened to the two of them praising Madame Geri for a few minutes, wondering if they were talking about the same person whose column rarely said anything more specific than Avoid arguments today and you’ll feel much happier. Who couldn’t predict that?

  “If I could get the date and time of Anita’s birth, do you think Madame Geri could do her chart?” Sandy asked, her voice rising in excitement.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “But, Sandy-” I began.

  “No ‘but’s about it. Listen, Mallie, if we can find out what makes Anita tick, it could make things work a lot smoother around here,” Sandy pointed out.

  “I don’t think-“

  “It could even help you find a way to get your articles written without her breathing down your neck.”

  She had me there. “I … I guess there’s nothing wrong with just checking out her birth date.”

  “I’ll get right on it-after my diet bar.” Sandy pulled out a six-inch bar with the words LOW CALORIE blazoned across the silver foil.

  “Are you dieting?” the painter asked.

  Sandy chomped a large bite out of her bar and nodded.

  “Me too” He gestured toward his potbelly. A youngish guy probably in his midtwenties, he had the beefy good looks of a guy who ate his frosted cereal flakes every morning rather than checking to see if his planets were aligned.

  As they conversed about the merits of their present diet for a few minutes, I rooted around in my desk drawer for my Official Reporter’s Notepad. Once I found it, I tossed it into my canvas bag along with the new addition to my journalist’s arsenal: an iPod. I thought it gave me a certain panache to whip it out when I was conducting interviews. As long as I remembered to hit Record and then Save.

  “I’m driving over to the elementary school now.” I threw a couple of extra pens into my bag, since I still primarily took hard-copy notes. “Let me know if anyone calls.”

  “Will do,” Sandy said absently. Elbows propped on the desk, she was still absorbed in her conversation with the cute painter.

  I grabbed my bag, zipped my cheap blue Windbreaker right up to my chin, and ran out to my truck. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I glanced over at the small police station that stood alone across the road. A neatly landscaped, one-story, wood-frame building, it looked like Detective Billie-sleek and remote. I imagined his sitting at his desk, methodically sifting through paperwork. That little vertical line between his eyes would appear as he frowned in concentration. He might even shove his dark, straight hair back from his forehead with an impatient hand-

  A horn honked.

  “Get a move on, missy. We don’t have all day!” a gray-haired man with a beard shouted from the car behind me.

  “Oh, jeez, it’s Everett Hall,” I said aloud. The island curmudgeon. He saved my life a few months ago but somehow negated that by always making a habit of being cranky to the point of downright obnoxious in my presence. Coot. I flicked my turn signal and pulled out onto Cypress Road. He turned the other way before I could make a rude hand gesture.

  Within a few minutes I stood in the main office of the Coral Island Elementary School. A bustling place, it was the preferred school for most of the island kids. A few people from the ritzy Sea Belle Isle Point area drove their children into private schools in town, but most Coral Islanders preferred that their kids attend the island school. Painted a hot shade of mango, the one-story, stuccoed building hummed with energy and warmth.

  “Hi, Trisha,” I said to the receptionist. She flashed a wide smile in my direction. With her shoulder-length, nut brown hair and open features, she looked little older than most of the kids.

  “Hi yourself” She handed me a steaming cup of coffee. “Cold enough for you?”

  “I’ll say” I sipped it gratefully. The heat spread through my body. I sighed in contentment.

  “Sorry all the donuts are gone”

  “Shoot” She’d learned all my weaknesses from the many times I’d come here to do stories.

  “I think I’ve got a couple of oatmeal cookies in my purse”

  “Forget it. `A rose by any other name…’”

  “Huh?”

  “Shakespeare said it in his play, Romeo and Juliet … uh … never mind.” Sometimes my degree in comparative literature would rear its ugly head, and I’d feel compelled to make a literary allusion. Usually no one responded, except with diffidence. Today, you were lucky if people knew that Dickens wasn’t some kind of hip-hop band on MySpace. “I’m here to cover the Autumn Festival.”

  “Great. The kids are in the gym wearing overalls and doing a jump rope marathon.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  Tricia had me sign in and handed me a hall pass. “Remember, don’t use the kids’ restroom. Adults are supposed to use the one designated for teachers”

  I rolled my eyes. Last time I visited, I made the mistake of using the little girls’ restroom. A couple of kids ratted on me, and the repercussions of that faux pas reverberated all the way back to Anita, who gave me a stern lecture about conducting myself with proper journalistic decorum at all times and in all places. Heck, I was only trying to use the toilet.

  “Do you know Wanda Sue’s grandson, Kevin?” I asked.

  “Yeah, Kevin Crawford. Nice kid. Has a buzz cut and braces”

  “Sounds adorable” I shifted my heavy canvas bag from one shoulder to the other. “What’s the story with his parents?”

  “Not much. Father is barely eking out a living as a fisherman, but that’s pretty much every other guy on this island. He and Sally Jo, Kevin’s mother, were having domestic problems, and he moved out”

  “I heard from Wanda Sue that they were getting back together.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.�
� She put her elbows on the desk and propped up her chin with her hands. “Why are you asking?”

  “Wanda Sue told me last night that Kevin’s dad was supposed to pick him up from school and take him over to Sally Jo’s house, but he never showed up”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember now. Sally Jo called around four o’clock and asked if Kevin’s dad had picked him up. I checked with Kevin’s teacher, and she said yes”

  “What’s her name?” I pulled out my Official Reporter’s Notepad.

  “Beverly Jennings.”

  I scribbled down her name. “Any other helpful info on the boy?”

  “Nope. Except that it’s pretty common for an island fisherman to take his kid out of school for a couple of days and go on a boating trip.”

  “You think that’s what happened? In this weather?”

  “Dunno”

  “Okay, thanks. See ya” I flipped the notepad shut and exited the office. Walking in the direction of the gym, I wondered briefly if Wanda Sue had sent me on a wild goose chase. I told myself I had to cover the festival for the paper anyway, but I secretly still wanted to prove myself to Anita as a real reporter.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. Some people had a nose for news. A sixth sense for headlines. Whereas I had an instinct for the inane. I thought every half-baked story that came in my direction might be “the big one”-the article that would finally get Anita off my back. Fat chance. After the murder case last summer, the best headline I’d been able to write was about the island streaker, a guy who liked to run around naked while he did his laundry. Nothing too earthshaking there, just a man who liked to wash his clothes au naturel.

  I shoved my Official Reporter’s Notepad back into my canvas bag. In this case, I hoped it would be one of those nothing stories, and Kevin would show up at Sally Jo’s later today, safe and sound.

  I headed for the gym.

  The cacophony of children’s voices drew me toward the the gym. As I entered the large room with its high ceiling and shiny wood floors, I stopped in my tracks and blinked twice, not sure if I was ready to take the plunge.