Murder is the Pits

by Mary Clay

  “These people from the Hamptons are fun, and they love our racing promo shots. They’ve donated a lot of money—over $20,000—so far. If you and Chris were here, I’m sure we’d get more. I’ve tried to call Chris, but her cell must be off. Hurry up. The big guys may fly out tomorrow.”

  After toting bales and lifting—oh, heck, what is the saying?—anyway, I couldn’t have cared less about the big guys from the Hamptons. Yes, I wanted donations for the hurricane victims, whose ranks were about to swell. However, fundraising was Penny Sue’s niche, not mine. She had the personality for it—brazen.

  I warmed a can of Campbell’s Clam Chowder with some garlic bread for dinner and started loading my car. Fortunately, Penny Sue’s behemoth Mercedes held most of our supplies. I was left with blankets, pillows, a lot of wine, and Snickers in case we ended up staying with Chris at her store. After I loaded the car, I poured a glass of wine and packed my suitcase to the chatter of the Weather Channel. Things didn’t look good. The darned storm was barreling straight for us. I was spooked, not only by the storm, but also the black Ford Taurus and Mafia thing. I placed a half glass of wine on the nightstand, set the alarm, as well as Lu Nee 2, and slid between the covers of my bed, giving the liquid taser an appreciative glance. It was only nine-thirty. I’d set the alarm clock for three AM.

  I drifted into an uneasy sleep, the kind where your mind is racing, thinking of all the things you should have done. At eleven PM a noise of some sort jarred me awake. I panted, scared to death. Was someone trying to break into the condo? They hadn’t succeeded, because the alarm didn’t sound. What if it did? What would I do?

  I’d jump out of the window and run. Yes, but the window was locked, and there was a credenza in front of it. Best to clear a path, just in case, I thought. I got up in my nightgown, pushed the credenza against the wall and unlocked the window to provide an unobstructed escape route.

  I went back to bed and thrashed around, thinking about the Mafia, and the logistics of jumping out the window. If I jumped out the window, where would I go? I threw back the covers and fetched my pocketbook and car keys. I took a sip of wine and slipped back between the sheets.

  I lay there fidgeting and thinking. If someone broke in and I had to jump out of the window, it would hurt my feet. After all, the window was surrounded by sea grapes and prickly vegetation. I climbed out of bed, put on my jogging shoes, and got back into the sack with my sneakers sticking out the bottom of the covers.

  I couldn’t go the sleep because the shoes kept getting tangled in the blanket. I took another drink of wine and recited my mantra. No dice. My mind churned. If someone broke into the condo, I’d jump out the window. My purse and keys were handy, the window was unlocked, and I had shoes to protect my feet. But there was a screen in the window!

  I whipped the blanket away, shut off the alarm and Lu Nee 2, opened the window and removed the screen. I brought it inside and propped it up in the hall. Then I shut the window, rearmed the condo, and returned to bed. I rolled over and looked at the clock … a few minutes after midnight.

  I grabbed the glass on the nightstand and finished the wine. I snuggled into the pillow, but my mind still raced. Okay, if someone broke in, I would grab my purse and keys, jump out the screen-less window, (which wouldn’t hurt my feet because I had on jogging shoes) run to my car and drive to St. Augustine.

  But I had on my nightgown. I couldn’t walk into a classy hotel like the Casa Monica in my nightgown. I rolled out of bed, got fully dressed, poured a few sips of wine that I gulped down, and sat on the edge of the bed. By now, it was one-thirty.

  One more time! I whipped the blanket over me and lay there stiff as a board. A half hour later, I’d had enough. What the heck? I locked the window, grabbed the taser, purse, keys, and headed out. The wind had started to howl, and fat drops of rain hit me on the head. Thankfully, no nefarious creatures showed themselves. Good thing, because the taser was charged and my trigger finger was twitching.

  I was out of the parking lot and headed for St. Augustine by two-thirty. A few miles down the road I realized my alarm clock would go off at three, sending Lu Nee 2 into a tizzy. Hell with it, I thought, and kept driving north.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  September 3, New Smyrna Beach, FL

  I decided to take Route 1, even though I-95 would normally be faster. St. Augustine was only about seventy-five miles north, and at seventy mph, one could make it in a little over an hour. But, the local radio station reported heavy traffic because of mandatory evacuations, and the wind and torrential rains meant no one could make good time, regardless of which road they took.

  While I-95 was crawling, Route 1’s traffic was slow because of the rain, but cars weren’t bumper to bumper. I didn’t pass anyone going south, and there was a line of evenly spaced cars behind me headed north. I decided I’d call Penny Sue when I reached Palm Coast, which was approximately halfway. There was a straight, deserted stretch of highway, a good place to use the phone. Unlike Penny Sue who could eat, talk on her cell, and drive all at the same time, I’d found multitasking wasn’t my strong suit. For that reason, I rarely used my cell phone, except in emergencies, and hadn’t bothered to invest in a hands-free headset or one of the newer phones that took pictures and dialed numbers from voice commands.

  When I passed the Palm Coast sign, I held the phone at eye level, scrolled down to Penny Sue’s number, and hit send. I guess I slowed down, because I noticed a car in my rearview mirror gaining fast. I accelerated and set my speed control to sixty. Penny Sue answered after seven rings.

  “You’re here?” she asked with a thick tongue. “Lord, it’s only three-thirty.”

  “I’m at Palm Coast, probably forty minutes away. How do I get there from Route 1?” I caught a flash of headlights in the mirror. Two vehicles were close behind me, and the one at the rear—an SUV or, maybe, a pickup truck—had pulled out to pass.

  “Best way is to stay on Route 1, then go right on King Street, which takes you straight to the hotel. There’s valet—”

  “Oh, Lord!” I screamed and threw the cell phone on the passenger’s seat. The SUV wasn’t trying to pass the car behind me—it was attempting to run the car off the road! I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and floored the gas pedal.

  “What’s going on?” I heard Penny Sue cry.

  “A case of road rage behind me,” I screamed. “An SUV is trying to run a car off the road.”

  “Get out of there!” she shouted.

  “I’m trying,” I yelled back. My speedometer inched toward 80 as the vehicles behind gained on me, side-by-side, in a sick tug of war. But luck was with me: an exit sign to I-95 appeared. I hung a quick right and slid up the on-ramp, brake pedal pressed to the floor. I skidded toward a long line of cars traveling at a snail’s pace. All the while, I heard Penny Sue and Ruthie screaming from the phone in the next seat. Help me, God, I prayed silently. He must have heard me. Thanks to a slow-moving eighteen-wheeler, a space opened up in traffic, and I slid in, my speed down to about thirty. I let off the brake, my knee shaking violently.

  “LEIGH!”

  “I’m okay. Give me a minute to catch my breath.” I inhaled deeply, trying to calm myself, trying to steady my trembling hands. The traffic, bumper to bumper, moved at approximately thirty-five mph. I could care less. There was safety in numbers and slow was fine by me. Still panting, I picked up the phone. “Heavens, I don’t know who was trying to run over who back there. I thought the SUV was after the other car, then it seemed they were both after me. I’m on I-95 and traffic is creeping. I won’t be there in forty minutes.”

  “Why did you leave so early? To beat the traffic?” Penny Sue asked.

  “Yeah.” No need to go into my anxiety attack.

  “Call when you get to King Street. We’ll meet you at the valet stand.”

  “Evil all around us,” I heard Ruthie pronounce in the background.

  Great, just what I needed to hear.

 
“Be careful,” Penny Sue said and hung up.

  It was after five o’clock when I pulled up to the valet station of the Casa Monica. Penny Sue was waiting, dressed in flowing red silk pajamas, covered by an embroidered, knee-length jacket. She pressed a twenty into the valet’s palm and gave me a big hug. “You scared me to death!”

  I took my wheeled suitcase from the backseat and handed the car keys to the valet. “The rest of the stuff will stay in the car. You have secure parking, don’t you?”

  The young man—probably a student at Flagler College across the street—stiffened as if I’d offended him. “You are completely safe at the Casa Monica.”

  I winked. “I’m glad to hear that. Safe is good.” And I wasn’t kidding.

  Pulling my suitcase, I followed Penny Sue to the fifth floor. My friends had a corner suite in one of the towers. Ruthie waited with a cup of coffee, the TV was tuned to the Weather Channel. (Wonder of wonders!)

  The coffee was the best I’d ever tasted (could have been the timing), and the suite truly was spectacular, worth every penny of Ruthie’s $349 per night. If it hadn’t been for the small bar with a microwave and refrigerator, you’d think you’d stepped back into the nineteenth century. The walls were painted a pale yellow with white crown molding and trim, while brocade drapes and sheers hung over the expansive windows. The living area furniture had marble-topped tables with a couch and matching high back chairs upholstered in royal blue brocade. An ornately carved cabinet housed the television.

  The bedroom had two queen beds with fluffy white comforters and big pillows. Those pillows called my name, yet I had to be minimally sociable before ripping my clothes off and diving into bed. In fact, I was so tired I’d even sleep with Penny Sue.

  I sat in one of the chairs and gazed at the green shrimp formation, which was Frances, approaching the Florida coast. “What’s the storm doing?”

  Ruthie sighed. “Drifting ashore at five mph. Good news—they think it’ll hit south of New Smyrna. Bad news—that puts the condo on the strong side of the storm. It’s moving so slowly that forecasters predict tremendous flooding.”

  “Glad I left,” I said, noticing the wind speeds at various sites around the Florida map. I held up my cup. “Have any Bailey’s Irish Cream for this?”

  “Of course, darling,” Penny Sue drawled, pulling a bottle from a shelf under the bar. “You’re wiped out, aren’t you?” She filled my mug and splashed some Bailey’s over ice for herself. Ruthie declined, being as it wasn’t even six o’clock. “You’re pale as a ghost. What happened?”

  I gave them an abbreviated—that is, face-saving—version of the noises at the condo and the reason I left early.

  “I had a bad feeling about your staying there alone,” Ruthie said emphatically.

  Next, I filled them in on the bizarre race or road rage incident in Palm Coast. “Honestly, I was doing eighty, and they were gaining on me. I don’t know if they were trying to kill each other or trying to kill me.” I winked at Ruthie. “I received some divine intervention. At the moment my bug wouldn’t go any faster, I saw a sign for the interstate. Needless to say, I took it. I hit the brake and skidded up the ramp. It was short and I had to decelerate from eighty to thirty mph in a matter of yards. The wheels were locked, and I was skidding into bumper to bumper traffic.” I glanced at the ceiling. “Someone up there helped me. A slow eighteen-wheeler made a space and I slipped into it. If I could find that trucker, I’d kiss him. He saved my life!”

  Ruthie smiled. “There are no accidents.”

  “What happened to the guys following you?” Penny Sue asked.

  “They were accelerating when I made my move. If they were after me, I lost them.”

  Ruthie shook her head. “Evil is everywhere; I feel it.”

  I downed my drink. “I have to go to bed.”

  I slept until eleven. When I awoke, Ruthie and Penny Sue were gone. From the shape of the bathroom, they’d already showered, dressed, and headed to a late breakfast. Good. I needed some quiet time, and I was famished. The clam chowder I’d eaten for dinner was long gone from my stomach. I called room service for Eggs Benedict and a large pot of coffee.

  I found an iron and board in the closet, along with a terry cloth robe that I put on for room service’s sake, fished a cotton outfit from my suitcase, and switched on the Weather Channel. Frances remained just off the coast, moving at a snail’s pace. Jim Cantore had been in Daytona Beach earlier in the week, but had gone south, now.

  Fed and fully dressed, I located Ruthie and Penny Sue in the gift shop off the lobby.

  “We left so you could get some sleep,” Ruthie said.

  “Thanks, I needed it.” I glanced around the shop and the lobby. “This is a beautiful hotel.”

  “Yeah, too bad most of the fun people left this morning. They were afraid of getting caught by the storm and flew back to the Hamptons.”

  “Can’t say I blame them.”

  “No big loss,” Ruthie said. “I didn’t think they were that much fun.”

  Penny Sue’s brows knitted with disbelief. “Yes they were, and they’re rich as hell. Our pledges total over $50,000. If we’d found Chris, I know they’d be higher. She’s a great salesperson and from New York, to boot.”

  “Why couldn’t you find Chris? Did you call her store?”

  Penny Sue gave me a dumb look. “I called her cell phone.”

  She was clueless. “Penny Sue, Chris works. She probably turns her cell off during business hours. Did you walk down to her shop?”

  “Her shop?”

  “Yes, the store we’re invited to stay in. The store with the friendly ghosts and psychic cat. The Rising Moon! Does that ring a bell? It’s only a few blocks away, on Spanish Street.”

  “That does sound familiar,” Penny Sue allowed.

  “I hope so, after everything Chris has done for us and the race.”

  “We’ll go visit Chris this afternoon. Come on, I want to introduce you to one of the guys we met.” Penny Sue grinned devilishly. “He’s single.” She charged out of the gift shop and ran smack-dab into a man walking down the hall. There was a quick exchange of apologies, and the man headed out the side door.

  “Slow down, Penny Sue. There’s no need to rush. Frankie’s obviously here for the duration, since he didn’t fly home with his friends,” Ruthie said.

  “Wait,” I said, following them into the hallway. “I know that man.”

  “Frankie?” Penny Sue sounded peeved.

  “No, the man you just rammed.”

  She tossed her hair. “I didn’t ram him, it was a minor brush.”

  “That almost knocked him down.” Ruthie chuckled.

  “Seriously, that guy came in the Marine Conservation Center yesterday. He wanted information on nature cruises. We gave him some brochures and sent him packing. I thought it was strange that someone would be interested in boat tours when the island was being evacuated. Now he shows up here.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same person?” Penny Sue peered out the side door.

  “Positive. I recognize the heavy gold necklace he’s wearing. It’s unusual to say the least—intertwined snakes.”

  “How tacky,” Penny Sue said.

  We started toward the lobby. “Forget tacky—what’s he doing here?”

  “Evil,” Ruthie murmured, shaking her head.

  Geez, I wished she stop saying that! With murders and hurricanes, even I knew the vibes were awful. I didn’t need to be reminded constantly. But, that was Ruthie; she meant no harm.

  We took a quick tour of the ornately furnished lobby and ended up in the bar for a cappuccino. Penny Sue insisted, claiming the hotel’s cappuccino was the best in the world. I shook my head.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Lame. Surely you can come up with a better excuse than that.”

  “Lame how?” She plopped her purse on a table by the window and sat down. A television over the bar was tuned to the local news.

  Ru
thie and I took seats with a view of the TV. “Frankie wouldn’t have anything to do with your sudden desire for coffee, would he?” I asked.

  She waved to the bartender, pointed at the cappuccino machine, and held up three fingers. He got her drift. “Maybe. Frankie came here yesterday for lunch.”

  Chocolate, men, and wine. You could count on at least one being the motive for almost anything Penny Sue wanted to do. She was so predictable, I almost laughed aloud.

  Suddenly, Ruthie gasped and pointed to the television.

  “Frances?” I asked.

  “No, a wreck on Route 1. A black Taurus. They said the driver apparently lost control and ran off the road. He was speeding.”

  “Where? Did they say where the crash occurred?”

  “Just beyond the 298 interchange. That’s the ramp you took to I-95!”

  “Gracious! I’ll bet it was one of the cars following me—it was about the size of a Taurus. I’d better call Woody.” I swiveled toward Penny Sue’s chair. She was gone. It was a small bar, so she wasn’t hard to find. She’d intercepted a lanky, dark-haired man at the entrance. Frankie I presumed. I squinted to get a good look at him. “Crap! I’ve seen that guy before. He was at the racetrack watching us during the TV interview. I know it. Ruthie, there are far too many coincidences for my taste. We have to get Penny Sue away from him, and we need to get out of this hotel!”

  “I told you—” Ruthie started.

  I held up my hand. “Don’t say it—‘evil,’ I know. The question is, ‘What should we do about it?’”

  “Pull out your cell phone and pretend you’re talking.” I did. “Barrett,” Ruthie called to the bartender who was making our coffees. She motioned to me. “An emergency. We have to leave, charge it to my room.”

  “Want me to put them in paper cups?” he offered.

  “No time,” Ruthie replied, then whispered to me, “Duck your head and pretend you’re crying. Rush past Penny Sue to the elevator. I’ll get her and meet you at the suite.”

  I brushed past Penny Sue and Frankie with my hand over my eyes. Ruthie lingered to speak with them. I found an elevator waiting and took it to the fifth floor. A few minutes later Ruthie and Penny Sue arrived. She rushed to me and gave me a big hug. “Oh, Leigh. Your father?!”