Literally Murder (A Black Cat Bookshop Mystery)

by Ali Brandon

  Construction crew is here. Union plumber is MIA.

  Her message back had been a terse Boarding now, will call for an update once in FL. Not that there was anything out of the ordinary with a construction job starting off slowly; still, it put a damper on things to know her project wasn’t starting off smoothly.

  The engines shut down as the plane halted at its assigned gate, and even before the familiar ding sounded as the captain turned off the seatbelt light, passengers were already on their feet and scrambling to retrieve their baggage.

  “This is why I hate to fly,” Jake good-naturedly grumbled as she unfolded her six-foot frame from her aisle seat and began fishing in the overhead bin. “By the time I get all the kinks out, it’ll be time to head back to Brooklyn again.”

  “Hey, you’ve got over a week to unkink,” Darla reminded her friend with a sympathetic smile. “We’re here until next Sunday. Besides, I read online that our hotel is right next door to a day spa, if you want to book a massage.”

  She refrained from mentioning that at least the older woman had had the space beneath the seat in front of her free throughout the trip. Not that Darla begrudged her friend the leg room, since the ex-cop-turned-PI’s bum leg—courtesy of a shoot-out with a bank robbery suspect a few years earlier—had left her with a permanent limp and caused her early retirement from the NYPD. Still, Darla had spent the three-hour flight competing with a cat carrier for foot room. She would wager she had just as many kinks as Jake, despite being a good six inches shorter than her friend.

  While Jake pulled down their carry-ons from the overhead, Darla slipped into the seat Jake had vacated. Flipping her auburn braid over her shoulder, she leaned down to pry the cat carrier in question from where it had been lodged since the beginning of the flight. Then, with an effort, she hoisted the soft-sided container up onto the center seat and anxiously peered through its mesh side to see how the official FSA Guest of Honor was faring.

  “You okay in there, Hammy?”

  A groggy but decidedly peeved growl was her reply.

  “Uh-oh,” Darla said to Jake, who was now busy with her cell phone. “I think the herbal calming spray is wearing off.”

  “Well, give him another spritz of it,” Jake advised. “Who knows how long it’ll take first class to clear out so all us little people back here in economy can get off. Besides, we still have to collect our checked luggage, and then we’ve got the drive to the hotel. Let’s just hope Ma isn’t late.”

  So saying, she put the phone to her ear and began talking. Darla overheard snippets—“No, Ma, I said outside baggage claim!”—but her attention was on the oversized feline, whose protests were becoming more and more vocal.

  “Come on, Hamlet,” she coaxed, giving the spray bottle a couple of quick pumps. A faint scent of brandy tinged with something herbal promptly perfumed the air around the carrier. “Hold on just a little longer, and then we’ll be in a nice hotel room where you can stretch out.”

  Though she had to give the cat props in that he’d been more than cooperative to that point. Feeling somewhat foolish, she had explained to him the previous night that the carrier was not a harbinger of a visit to the vet’s—a bad place, to his mind—but a means to take him off to meet his fans. Whether it was that explanation or the fact that she’d baited the carrier with shrimp snacks, Hamlet had surprised her by climbing in on his own this morning. And several good spritzes of calming spray had kept him sleepy and mellow . . . that was, until now.

  “Mee-roooow!”

  Despite the renewed application of the herbal spray, Hamlet was rapidly rousing out of the relaxed state he’d been in for the greater portion of the trip. Now his muzzy cries could be heard over the bustle of passengers around them, impatient to deplane. Apparently, the calming concoction had a half life, at least when it came to this particular cat. The sooner she got Hamlet off the aircraft and into the terminal, the better.

  “Mee-roooooow.”

  Hamlet gave a low, threatening rumble, which, had Darla heard it while wandering a veldt instead of sitting trapped in a 747, would have spurred her to flee for her life. The sound seemed to trigger a similar primitive reaction in the nearby passengers, for a space miraculously opened in the aisle beside her seat as people scuttled back.

  By now, Jake had ended her call. Before Darla had a chance to update her on the situation, however, her friend gave her a conspiratorial wink and then spoke up.

  “Now, now, we don’t want a kitty meltdown,” she addressed their fellow passengers within earshot. “Maybe we can squeeze by everyone else and get the poor little fellow out of here right now, before things go really bad.” Jake shoved the phone into her jacket pocket and started up the aisle, both of their carry-ons in tow.

  “Gangway—ferocious cat coming,” Jake called as she began plowing her way through the queue before her. “Outta the way, folks, if you value your flesh! Ferocious cat! Make room! Hide the children.”

  Choking back a surprised laugh at her friend’s chutzpah, Darla grabbed Hamlet’s carrier and, hoisting the case on one hip, promptly followed after her. Unlike Jake, however, she didn’t need to assume a carnival barker’s spiel to clear a path. Hamlet was doing all the talking for her.

  “Me-ROOW! Hisssssssssssssss!”

  Those passengers who’d been stubbornly ignoring Jake and continuing to block the aisle were not so quick to disregard Hamlet’s warning cries. Most beat a hasty retreat back into their seats. A few more hardy souls broke into a trot in the direction of first class and the plane’s open door, Jake on their heels. Darla moved behind them as quickly as she could, given that she was hauling a struggling twenty-pound cat. It wasn’t until she’d reached the front that she paused long enough to set the carrier down with its unwilling occupant and extend the telescoping handle.

  Thank goodness for wheels, she thought with a sigh, glad that she’d spent the extra money for a rolling carrier. Waiting at the door and the jetway beyond were the usual contingent of flight attendants and gate personnel. Jake, with a regal nod, had already sailed past them.

  “You and your kitty enjoy your vacation,” the male flight attendant who’d made the earlier arrival announcement told her.

  “Me-ROOOOW!” was Hamlet’s reply, the outraged sound making all of them jump.

  “Thanks. Sorry,” Darla managed with a weak smile as, leaving behind the stunned airline employees, she hurried into the jetway.

  She’d left Hamlet’s harness buckled on him for the journey. Still, in the mood he was in, she didn’t dare unzip the carrier enough to snap on his leash and let him trot alongside her. Knowing Hamlet, the minute her back was turned, the wily feline would probably slice the lead with a claw and make a break for freedom.

  “Jake, wait up,” Darla called as she hurried through the tunnel, the sound of the carrier’s wheels rumbling loudly behind her. The air in the jetway was warm and humid, unlike the cool, uncirculated air of the plane. If this was a preview of weather to come, she’d done well to pack away her coat.

  “I’m going to have to remember that ferocious-cat trick the next time I fly,” Jake said with a grin in the direction of Hamlet’s carrier as Darla caught up. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten off a plane that fast before.”

  “Yeah, it worked pretty well,” Darla conceded with a smile of her own as they headed to the baggage claim area. “And Hamlet seems to know we’re on terra firma. He’s quieted down again.”

  “Well, let’s not stress him any more than we have to,” Jake said. “Why don’t I wait for the luggage, and you can take Hamlet outside to the curb to look for Ma.”

  “But how will I know her? What does she look like?”

  “Everyone in the family says she and I look alike, except I have more gray hair. She dyes hers,” Jake said with a wink.

  Darla chuckled. “Okay, that helps. What kind of car does she drive?”

>   “Last time it was a blue Mustang convertible. Before that it was a big yellow pickup. She swaps out her car every couple of years, though, so for all I know she’s got a Jeep now,” Jake said with an indulgent shake of her curly head, adding, “But don’t worry, I described you to her, so she’ll find you if I’m not there yet when she pulls up.”

  They parted ways at the baggage carousel, with Darla wheeling the cat carrier through the glass doors leading outside to the passenger pick-up area. As the doors closed behind her, she was enveloped by a warm breeze redolent with the scent of tropical blooms overlaid by diesel fumes.

  “Welcome to South Florida,” Darla told herself, wishing now she’d gone for shorts and a tank top. This might be sweater weather for Floridians, but she’d been up in New York long enough that her blood had thickened. To Hamlet, she added, “Hang in there, boy. I’ll get you some water the minute we hit the hotel.”

  She walked a short distance to the passenger pick-up area, where a steady stream of cars was trolling slowly past, their drivers looking for arriving friends and relatives. No old women who looked like Jake, however. No doubt she was still circling around the airport, Darla decided.

  Resigned to the wait, she sagged onto a bench and took a deep breath. Immediately, tension she didn’t know she had been holding seemed to seep from her very pores, along with a fine coating of sweat that abruptly enveloped her. She unzipped a side pocket on the carrier and pulled out the in-flight catalogue she’d taken from the plane. She used it to fan a little air into the carrier, relieved to see that the feline showed no further signs of distress as yet. For herself, she dug into the pocket again for the small clutch purse she’d stashed there. She fumbled through it until she found a tissue, which she used to blot her damp forehead.

  “Hey, chica, like they say, it’s not the heat. It’s the humidity.”

  Darla looked up to see a short, handsome young Hispanic man dressed in knee-length khaki cargo shorts and a Hawaiian-style shirt grinning down at her. His teeth were bright against his neatly cropped black beard, as precisely trimmed as his short black hair. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the pair of designer sunglasses he wore, but he exuded an air of friendly good humor that reminded her of people she’d known back home in Texas.

  “Need a cab?”

  He gestured to the vehicle behind him with the usual oversized phone number in block numerals along its side and the requisite triangular sign on its roof advertising some expensive gentlemen’s club.

  Darla gave a cautious shake of her head in return—she had a rule about not letting herself be chatted up by strange men—and answered, “Thanks, but we’ve got someone picking us up.”

  “You sure? What, you got a little doggie in that bag? You don’t want to wait around, let the doggie get too hot.”

  “Actually, he’s a cat, and we’re okay,” Darla assured him, smiling as she decided he was likely harmless if persistent. “Our ride should be here any min—”

  A sudden blare of horns and squeal of tires echoed in the tunnel-like passage, the sound cutting her words short. Fluent now in the art of being a defensive pedestrian—living in NYC did that to one—Darla reflexively leaped up, grabbed the carrier’s handle, and ducked behind a column. But feeling morbidly compelled to meet possible death head-on anyhow, she ventured a peek around her concrete barricade. She was in time to see a sporty, dark green Mini Cooper convertible zip around the other passing vehicles and slide to a stop mere inches from the taxi’s rear bumper.

  The cabbie’s genial grin vanished, and he spouted a litany of outraged Spanish in the driver’s direction. The coupe’s top was down, and for a stunned instant Darla thought the Mini Cooper was driverless. Then, as she eased her way back around the column for a better look, she glimpsed a shock of bright stop-sign-red hennaed hair barely visible over the top of the steering wheel.

  “Keep yer pants on, kid,” came an elderly woman’s voice from the convertible’s direction, the accent almost stereotypical “Joisey.” “It’s not like I hit ya.”

  The cabbie made a shooing gesture to the unseen driver. “Hey, lady, this is taxi parking only. Get outta here!”

  “Shame on you, treating an old lady with such disrespect,” replied the woman. “I’m picking up someone. I got as much right here as you.”

  Proving her point, she shut off her car’s engine, as if prepared to wait.

  The cabbie gave his head a disgusted shake.

  “Snowbirds,” he spat, referring to the hordes of (mostly elderly) people from Canada and the Northeast—most particularly, New York and New Jersey—who made annual pilgrimages to Florida for the winter months before returning home again in the spring. “They can’t drive, and they sure don’t tip.” He turned back to Darla. “This is what you got to look forward to in sunny South Florida. And, word to the wise, chica: Don’t go near a restaurant around four-thirty in the afternoon. Those crazy snowbirds, they’ll stomp their walkers over their own grandkids to make the early bird dinner special.”

  With that parting advice, he hopped back into his cab and pulled off in a cloud of exhaust, leaving the unseen elderly driver waving bony arms to dispel the fumes while shouting a few pithy curse words after him.

  Wincing, Darla looked around, praying that either Jake or her mother would show up before any further drama ensued. Said prayers were promptly answered, as the terminal’s automatic glass doors slid open again, and she saw Jake stride out, followed by a skycap wheeling a cart with their bags.

  “Hey, kid, why are you sitting there? How come you’re not in the car?”

  “What do you mean?” Darla replied. “I’m still waiting for your mother.” She looked toward the loading area in confusion. Then, as realization dawned, she focused back on the green Mini Cooper.

  The old woman driving it had popped up from the convertible’s front seat like a prairie dog checking out the surrounding. She waved her arms again, and her spiky hennaed hair fluttered like a cockatoo’s crest in the sudden draft of a passing limo. Bright red lips spread in a thin grin, she called, “Jacqueline, bambolina mia, come give your old mama a kiss!”

  THREE

  “YOU SAID SHE HAD RED HAIR,” NATALIA MARTELLI SHRIEKED to her daughter over the sounds of interstate traffic. Glancing in the rearview mirror at Darla, she yanked a handful of her own cropped scarlet mane, and added, “That’s not red hair. This is red hair.”

  “Both hands on the wheel, Ma!” Jake yelled back as the Mini Cooper swerved precariously close to the next lane, currently occupied by a semi. “You kill me in a car wreck, and I swear I’ll come back to haunt you!”

  “Eh, I’m a wonderful driver,” the old woman protested, though to Darla’s relief she returned her arthritic hands to the ten-and-two position on the wheel. “I’m the only one in the condo association who hasn’t gotten a ticket yet this year.”

  “That’s nothing to brag about, Ma. It’s not even spring yet!”

  While the two Martellis bickered, Darla shut her eyes and hugged the cat carrier on her knees more tightly. The one benefit of being crammed into the low backseat of the Mini between two oversized suitcases was the feeling of having additional protection in the event that the little convertible went flying off the highway. On the other hand, it was going to take Jake, her mother, and probably a crowbar to pry her out of the car again once they stopped . . . assuming they made their destination in one piece.

  Hamlet gave a questioning meow, and Darla returned it with a reassuring little cluck. Lucky for him, the feline had no idea of the peril he was in. A whiff of his calming spray might have helped her endure the ride with similar aplomb. Too bad that she’d zipped the little spray bottle into her carry-on, now in the trunk behind her. Instead, she was going to have to go the Zen route and breathe deeply while conjuring peaceful images in her head.

  Several verdant meadow visualizations and many deep breaths later, the veh
icle began to slow. Darla cautiously opened her eyes again. She saw in relief that they were exiting the freeway, not that she was prepared to let her guard down yet. Didn’t the old truism hold that most accidents happen ten miles from one’s house—or, in Darla’s case, hotel?

  “You and Hamlet okay back there?” Mrs. Martelli called over her shoulder.

  The old woman’s initial introduction to the feline had taken place as they’d loaded the luggage into the Mini. Hamlet had managed not to hiss or growl, seemingly accepting Mrs. Martelli as extended family, being Jake’s mother. In return, Mrs. Martelli had made the appropriate noises of approval while also confiding to Darla that she wasn’t a cat person per se, but did the cat-show thing as a lark.

  In the scheme of things, Darla deemed that encounter a great success.

  Now she nodded. “Hamlet is snoozing, and my heartbeat’s almost back to normal. No offense, Mrs. Martelli,” she hurriedly added, catching the old woman’s glance in the mirror.

  The latter grinned again. This time, Darla saw the unmistakable resemblance between Jake and her mother despite their almost comical height difference. Both had the same strong features and heavy-lidded dark eyes, and both women had more than a hint of wickedness in their smiles.

  “None taken, kid. And call me Nattie; everyone else does.”

  Nattie drove at a more sedate pace now that they were on the surface streets. Darla began to relax a bit, enjoying the warm breeze and sun on her face. “We’re not in Brooklyn anymore, Hamlet,” she murmured, gaping like the tourist she was.

  And it was a whole new world, from both Texas and New York: art deco modern office towers and lofty condo buildings, tropical scents intermingling with auto exhaust. Of course, there were numerous fine examples from that same architectural period in New York City, Darla reminded herself, but here the buildings seemed so much more . . . well, deco. It had to be the use of color, she decided.