Literally Murder (A Black Cat Bookshop Mystery)

by Ali Brandon

  “It’s Tino.”

  Jake shrugged. “Oops, a little early. Millie, what’s your decision?”

  By way of answer, Mildred raised the pistol. “Don’t answer the phone, Darla, or I’m afraid I’ll have to do something drastic.”

  Which meant it was their turn to call her bluff . . . except that Darla suspected from the expression of cool resolve in her eyes that the old woman meant what she said. Hamlet gave a soft meow-rumph, and Darla took a deep breath. Surely the cat-loving old woman wouldn’t pull the trigger if there was a chance of hitting Hamlet. Still, Darla’s fingers trembled as she hesitated over the phone’s screen.

  What to do? Answer, and have a couple of seconds to tell Tino they were in danger . . . and maybe get shot in the process? Don’t answer, and pray Tino followed through with calling the police?

  As she hesitated, the call went to voice mail.

  Jake shook her head in mock dismay. “Guess you should have let her answer the phone, Millie. Not answering was the signal for our buddy Tino to give the police a call. You remember Officer Garcia from the cat show? Turns out she’s his cousin, and he’s got her on speed dial.”

  Mildred’s expression went rigid.

  “You girls have made things very difficult for me. Of course, most of the blame belongs to Nattie.” She paused to give the unconscious old woman an angry look. “I could have taken care of Billy and Alicia and made it look like an accident. No one would have been the wiser, if she weren’t such a silly old busybody.”

  “Busybody!”

  Nattie’s eyes popped open, and she sat up. “Busybody!” she yelped again. “Well at least I’m not a murderous old biddy who turns on her friends like a snake!”

  Mildred’s mouth dropped open. “You’re awake! But—but the sleeping pills . . .”

  Nattie snorted. “Like someone who used to be my friend once said, I might be old, but I’m not stupid. The minute I saw them two”—she jerked a thumb in Billy and Alicia’s direction—“starting to nod off, I knew you’d try to slip me a Mickey, too, when you asked if I wanted some of yer coffee. I dumped it in one of those potted palms when you wasn’t looking, and then I faked being asleep.”

  “Why, that is the sneakiest thing I’ve ever heard!” Mildred shrieked, the pistol now trembling in her hand. “All right—all of you, to the dock. We’re going to take a boat ride. You girls”—she gestured the gun at Darla and Jake—“I want you to carry Billy and Alicia out there, too. You’re young and strong. You can do it.”

  Jake nodded. “Sure, Mildred, we’ll move them. Just keep calm. Ma, would you take Hamlet from Darla so she can help me?”

  Keeping a peevish eye on her former friend, Nattie got up from the couch and went over to where Darla stood. Darla handed the cat over to her with a warning: “Keep his leash looped over your wrist the whole time.”

  Praying Hamlet would continue to behave, Darla joined Jake at the other love seat, where Billy and Alicia still snoozed away, oblivious to all the drama. Neither was large, but unconscious they’d both be dead weight.

  “We’ll have to take them one at a time. Billy first,” Jake told her, maneuvering so that they both had their backs to Mildred. “See if you can help me drag him up.”

  In an undertone, she added, “When I say when, be ready to hand me that seashell you’re packing.”

  “Got it,” Darla murmured back. More loudly, she said, “Maybe if you take one arm, and I take the other, we can pull him to his feet and prop him up between us.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Jake agreed as they assumed position. “Ready on my count. One, two, three!”

  By some miracle, they manage to drag Billy upright just long enough to each slip a shoulder under one of the man’s arms. It was an awkward arrangement at best, given that Jake had to hunch over in order to stay even with Darla. Mildred, however, appeared pleased.

  “Good work, girls. Now, out to the dock with him, and then you can move Alicia.”

  She picked her designer shoulder bag off the console table and slipped the strap over her head so that the purse hung securely across her chest. Then she gestured with her pistol. “Nattie, you and Hamlet lead the way.”

  The ungainly procession began moving in the direction of the French doors, which Mildred had earlier left open. The old woman glanced about her and smiled.

  “What a nice day for Billy to take his daughter and friends on a little fishing trip,” she remarked. “Too bad something will go wrong with the engine, and no one will be able to get to the life raft before the whole boat blows sky-high.”

  Darla stumbled and almost fell as she shot Mildred a horrified look. Was that how the old woman planned to eliminate any witnesses? Catching her look, Mildred smiled again and shrugged.

  “It’s amazing what one can find out on the Internet these days,” she said, unknowingly echoing James.

  Now, however, Darla could hear the faint sound of sirens drifting in on the light Intracoastal breeze. She doubted they signaled Officer Garcia’s approach, since the cop would have nothing more to go on than Tino’s suspicions that something was wrong at the Pope mansion. Still, the sirens served as a reminder that a call for help might have been made.

  Mildred must have come to the same conclusion, for her smile promptly faded. She all but shouted, “Hurry, we don’t have much time!”

  By now, they’d made it past the threshold and were cutting across the lawn, bypassing the pool and pergola and heading straight for the dock. Out on the Intracoastal, Darla could see a familiar white-and-blue fishing boat idling a short distance upstream from them. Ricko was keeping an eye out, just as he’d promised. They had almost reached the pier when Jake stumbled . . . or pretended to.

  “Hold up, Darla,” she exclaimed. “I think I pulled something, trying to walk like this.”

  “Here, now—none of that,” Mildred admonished in a frantic voice behind them. “We’re almost there.”

  Jake looked over at Darla and nodded, and then mouthed the word, Now.

  In a single swift move, Darla released Billy and reached beneath her shirt, pulling out the glass seashell sculpture. Jake let Billy go as well and snatched the sculpture from Darla’s hands and swung about.

  “Hey, Mildred—catch!” she shouted, and flung the glass shell at the old woman.

  Mildred shrieked and reflexively dropped her pistol as she tried to avoid the incoming missile. To Darla’s surprise, she almost did, suffering just a glancing blow off her shoulder.

  An alternate for the 1960 U.S. women’s gymnastics team, she recalled Nattie saying about the woman. Apparently, Mildred had retained some of her youthful agility, since Jake’s fastball pitch would have caught almost anyone else squarely in the gut. The shell, meanwhile, bounced a few times on the grass. Finally, it rolled to a stop next to Billy, its gleaming glass seemingly undamaged by such rough handling.

  Not bothering anymore with trying to herd the hostages, Mildred reached down and snatched up the gun again. Shoving past Nattie, Mildred rushed for the dock and scrambled down the ladder. A moment later, an engine revved, and the small runabout went flying out into the channel, Mildred at the helm.

  “Quick, we gotta stop her!” Nattie cried.

  Jake was already ahead of her. Phone to her ear as she rushed down the pier, she was shouting, “Ricko, hurry! I need you to pick me up from the dock and follow the boat that just left here.”

  “Wait, what about me?” Darla demanded as she caught up with Jake at the ladder. “I’m going with you.”

  “Me, too,” Nattie puffed once she reached the ladder, as well. “Me and Hamlet, we’re gonna see this to the end.”

  “No, you’re not,” Jake countered as she started down toward the water. Looking back up at Darla, she clarified. “Neither of you are. Mildred’s got a gun, and she’s desperate. As soon as Garcia and the others show up, let them know
what’s going on. They should be able to send out a patrol to cut her off somewhere on the waterway.”

  Ricko, meanwhile, was pulling up to the dock.

  “You must be the mama,” he exclaimed with a smile, pointing to Nattie. “Don’t be worrying. We take care of this.”

  Once the captain had wrapped the line around the ladder again to hold the boat steady, Jake hopped into it as lightly as Hamlet. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The young man obliged, loosing the line and then pulling back the throttle so that the vessel nearly leaped from the water. Nattie and Darla stared after them in varying degrees of outrage.

  “I can’t believe my own daughter left me behind like that,” Nattie cried as she set Hamlet down and handed Darla the leash. “Besides, I bet I know where old Millie is going.”

  “Where?”

  Nattie gave a smug nod. “There’s a private launch right before you turn up the New River. You can’t find it unless you know where to look, because it’s hidden by mangroves. When we worked on the water taxi, some of the kids would pull in there for a little recreation, if you know what I mean. I bet she’ll jump out there and walk down to Las Olas to catch a cab.”

  “Well, then let’s hop in the Mini Cooper and get there before she does,” Darla urged her.

  Nattie grimaced and shook her head. “We can’t. That rotten old biddy stole my car keys from me. I think she’s still got them in her pocket. We’re stuck here.”

  “Maybe not,” Darla exclaimed as she heard a sudden loud honking from the front gate. “Come on, I think plan B just pulled up!”

  She hesitated, however, as she recalled Billy and Alicia. The former still lay upon the manicured lawn where she and Jake had dropped him, face peacefully pointed to the afternoon sun. While he didn’t appear to be in any physical distress, he apparently wasn’t going to be waking up anytime soon, either.

  “Nattie, Alicia should be fine in the house, but we can’t just leave Billy here.”

  “Eh, sure we can.”

  The old woman trotted over to the pergola and came back bearing one of those personal-sized beach umbrellas designed to clip onto the back of a chair. She popped it open and set it on the grass beside Billy, shading his face.

  “There. Now he won’t get sunburned. C’mon, Darla—let’s go!”

  With Hamlet galloping alongside her, Darla rushed around the side of the house past the garage and Nattie’s hostage Mini. She could see a familiar cab sitting in front of the gate, horn still blaring.

  “Tino!” Darla shouted, waving. “We’re okay, but we need a ride!”

  Letting up on the horn, the cabbie jumped out and rushed to the gate.

  “Glad you’re still alive,” he called, clinging to the pickets like he was a prisoner. “When you didn’t answer my phone call, I got worried and called Ana.”

  “Good,” Darla panted out as she reached the gate. “Now you need to call her back and tell her Mildred Fischer admitted to killing Ted Stein, and that she’s escaping on a boat down the Intracoastal. But first, we need you to drive us to where Nattie thinks Mildred is headed, just in case she outsmarts Jake and Ricko.”

  Nattie, meanwhile, had pressed the button to open the gate. Then, catching a glimpse of Tino, she frowned.

  “That’s the guy who yelled at me at the airport,” she declared to Darla, bottom lip now sticking out at a mutinous angle. “I’m not getting into no cab with him.”

  “Hey, she was the one parking illegally,” Tino protested in turn. “She deserved to be yelled at.”

  “Tino,” Darla clipped out, “age trumps right in cases like this. Now apologize to Nattie so that we can get going.”

  She thought for a panicked moment that the cabbie was going to refuse, but then he gave a determined nod. “You’re right. I should have been polite to an old lady. I’m sorry I yelled.”

  “Old lady,” Nattie muttered, but to Darla’s relief she gave a grudging nod of acceptance. “C’mon, let’s get going.”

  Hamlet took the lead, leaping into the open cab door, followed by Darla and Nattie. Tino climbed back in, too, and slammed the cab door after him.

  “All right, chica,” he said as he pulled out onto the shaded street and handed Darla his cell. “You talk to mi prima and tell her what’s going on. And, Tia—Auntie,” he added to Nattie, who sat in the front seat with him, “you tell me where we’re going.”

  Tino’s phone was already dialing as Darla put it to her ear. A moment later, she heard what she presumed was Garcia’s irritated voice on the other end.

  “Darn it, Tino, I already told you I’d drive out there.”

  “Uh, Officer Garcia?”

  “Who is this? Where’s Tino?”

  “Actually, this is Darla Pettistone . . . the lady with the black cat who went missing? Tino’s driving, so he wanted me to explain what was going on.”

  “Hold it,” Garcia cut her short. “I thought I was on my way to find you and your friends at Billy Pope’s home, and now you’re driving off somewhere?”

  “Well, things got a little, uh, tense back at the house.”

  While Tino whipped down side streets and slid through yellow lights, Darla clung to the grab strap on the door and gave Garcia a rundown of everything that had happened after Officer Johnston texted the picture that had turned out to be of Mildred to Jake’s phone.

  Garcia listened in silence until Darla got to the part about a pistol-toting Mildred hopping into a boat and being chased by Jake and the Haitian captain. Then she said in a terse voice, “Hang on.”

  Darla assumed she put the phone down, for all she heard was a few moments of muffled radio communication before the officer finally came back on the line again.

  “Okay, we’ve got paramedics heading out to Mr. Pope’s place to check him and his daughter out, and I’ve got the sheriff’s department sending out a boat to try to intercept the suspect, not that we have much of a description of the vessel to go on. You say Ms. Martelli has the suspect in sight?”

  “She did, but that was fifteen, twenty minutes ago. I haven’t talked to her since.” Darla paused and pulled out her own phone, pressing Jake’s speed dial key. “Hang on, I’ll try calling her.”

  But either Jake wasn’t getting reception on the water, or else, more likely, she couldn’t hear her phone ringing over the boat’s engine, for the call went to voice mail.

  “I can’t get hold of her,” Darla said. “But Nattie—Mrs. Martelli—is pretty sure Mrs. Fischer will be heading for a private launch she knows about. That’s where Tino is taking us now.”

  She gave Garcia the cross-street information that Nattie had shared with Tino. The officer repeated the address, and then said, “I’m turning around and heading that way. You tell Tino he is not to approach an armed suspect. That goes for you two ladies, too. You stay out of sight and wait for the PD to get there. Understood?”

  “Don’t worry. All we’re going to do is keep an eye on her until the police show up,” Darla said, though she rather suspected that Nattie had visions of wrestling the gun from Mildred’s hand and making a citizen’s arrest. Her job would be to make certain Nattie made no such attempt.

  Darla handed the phone back to Tino and gave Hamlet a nervous pat. He’d been remarkably calm through all of this, she realized. Was he confident that all would be well . . . or was he lulling them all into a false sense of security before he pounced? Tightening her grip on his lead—the cat had already seen his share of excitement over the past few days—she peered out the taxi window. From the change in skyline, it was apparent that they were nearing the Waterview Hotel, where everything had started.

  “Stop—turn there!” Nattie shouted all at once, pointing at what looked like an alley.

  Tino turned down what proved to be a narrow, sloping drive barely wide enough for two cars the size of his taxi to pass, and edged by alm
ost impenetrable rows of tropical foliage. Through the windshield, Darla could glimpse a tangle of vines, coconut palms, mangrove trees, and lapping water. Near the launch site, the drive broadened into a roundabout where drivers pulling boat trailers could circle around and position themselves to back down the ramp. A couple of trucks with empty trailers hitched to them had already disgorged their vessels and were parked around at the far edges of the roundabout, half-hidden in the foliage.

  Tino whipped the cab around and slid into an open spot behind one of the trailers.

  “Good,” Nattie said with an approving clap of her hands. “Mildred will have to tie off down there in the mangroves and walk back up the ramp. She’ll probably go right past the cab and never even notice it. C’mon, let’s go down to the water and see if we can see the runabout.”

  She hopped out before Darla could say anything. Tino grinned and glanced back her. “Guess we’re getting out here.”

  Darla hesitated. On the one hand, if they all stayed huddled in the taxi and Mildred spotted them, they’d be trapped in the vehicle. On the other hand, skulking about the boat ramp could have its own set of dangers.

  “Is it safe to be down there?” she asked Tino, suddenly more nervous about the local fauna than a retiree with a pistol. “Aren’t there supposed to be alligators?”

  “Don’t worry. The water’s too brackish here for them. But you might want to keep your eyes peeled for snakes.”

  Which was almost enough to keep Darla in the cab, trap or no trap. But gritting her teeth, she lifted Hamlet into her arms and slid out from the back of the taxi. She started down the ramp, glad she had on her walking shoes instead of sandals. The stone ramp was littered with pine needles and the occasional palm frond and even a couple of fallen coconuts. Nattie was ahead of her, already crouched behind a tangle of broad leaves. peering anxiously across the water.

  For his part, Hamlet apparently was ready to hop into action, too, for he began to squirm in Darla’s arms. “Fine,” she muttered as she put him down. “You get swallowed whole by a python and see if I care.”