Murder at the Dolphin Inn

by C. S. Challinor

  “He should’ve gotten Taffy help. Or left her if she refused it, instead of letting us kids suffer. If she’d left everything to me and Walt, I could be more forgiving,” Diane said bitterly. “But even dead she continues to drag us into the vortex. And you see what a mess Walt is. He used to come home from school and she’d be half dressed, smashed out of her brain, and come on to his friends. He soon stopped bringing them to the house. I was the eldest and left home as soon as I could.”

  The diatribe, while exhausting Rex, seemed to have energized Diane.

  “Well, your parents are gone now,” he said gently. “You have two healthy kids and a chance at a new life. The circumstances may not be perfect, but it’s up to you now.”

  She gazed at him in silence. He could barely make out her eyes through the dark lenses. She finally nodded reluctant agreement. “You’re right, but I still think Michelle should cough up some of her windfall, help me and Walt out some.”

  “I saw Walt moving his belongings in,” Rex said, realizing too late that Diane could not be pleased about it, if she knew.

  “Yeah, well, that’s a fight I couldn’t win. Anyhow, it’s best if me and the kids live someplace else.”

  Certainly for the guests, Rex thought. No more screaming kids in the pool.

  “We’re moving into Walt’s efficiency until business picks up here and I can get something better. It’s just down the street.” She ground out her cigarette, less ferociously this time, and dragged herself off the lounge chair. “I should go help him. Thanks for the chat.”

  “You’re welcome.” He followed soon afterward. He was growing uncomfortably hot in his short sleeve shirt and had arranged to meet Helen for lunch. He felt in dire need of a cold beer.

  He decided to go up to their room and freshen up. As he came out the guest lounge, he heard an ominous thump-thumping on the stairs. He stopped in his tracks. His first thought was that the spinster librarians had returned. Not exactly a heartwarming prospect.

  ~THIRTEEN~

  As Rex reached the stairwell, the Barbers were on their way out, dressed in their pirate costumes and accompanied by a black wheeled carry-on case. It bulged to capacity, and Rex realized it was this article he had heard making its way down the carpeted steps, since it was evidently too heavy to carry. The Brimstone sisters were not back, after all, and he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked the Barbers in surprise.

  “We’re headed for Pat Croce’s Pirate Soul Museum for an informal signing outside,” Peggy replied.

  “We pedal our books at pirate venues,” Dennis explained. “Sometimes we sell quite a few that way. It helps pay for bed and board when we winter in Florida.”

  “Occasionally we get asked to move on if the museum or souvenir store is selling books on pirates and feels we’re competing with their business,” Peggy added. “But that doesn’t happen very often. We just roll our books on to another location.”

  “Very enterprising,” Rex said, thinking they were a respectable couple and added a touch of local color, so why should anyone care.

  A pink flower consisting of five petals surrounding a five-pronged, red-striped corolla shaped like a trumpet was threaded through the eyehole of Peggy’s bolero, to rakish effect.

  “Oleander is highly toxic, Peggy,” Rex warned her. “I don’t know if you’re aware. You don’t want to be licking your fingers after touching that flower.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know it was oleander. And I only thought white oleander was poisonous, probably because of the movie with Michelle Pfeiffer. It’s so pretty I couldn’t resist picking it from the yard.”

  “It goes nicely with the outfit,” Rex complimented. “Just be careful.”

  “People sometimes stand us drinks on account of our costumes. And being a writer has its perks. Walt agreed to give us a special rate. Of course, Taffy tried to get us to pay full price when we checked in, but we said a deal was a deal, and we’d traveled from Kansas on a budget.”

  “It’s not like the Dolphin Inn was full,” Dennis added. “She just liked to be the one in charge.”

  Rex wanted to ask Peggy about her earlier suspicions regarding the Shumakers, but Dennis was beginning to look impatient to be on their way. Nor did this seem the appropriate time or place. Walt squeezed past them in the foyer carrying empty boxes to the front door, which Dennis opened for him. Rex wished the Barbers good luck with their book selling and continued up the stairs to his room.

  Helen joined him shortly thereafter, laden with bags. She must have gone shopping after leaving the Hemingway Home. She asked about his morning while she sorted through her purchases. He told her about his depressing conversation with Diane, and advised Helen to avoid her if she didn’t want to spoil her holiday mood.

  “Nothing could do that,” Helen chirped. “I bought some postcards, which I’ll have to write today or there’ll be no hope of them arriving before we get home.”

  “It seems the young female student staying here is Taffy Dyer’s great-niece,” Rex informed her, preoccupied with the clown murders.

  “Oh, yes?” Paying scant attention, Helen pulled a black cotton T-shirt dress out of plastic bag and held it up to herself in the dressing table mirror. “What do you think?”

  “Nice,” Rex answered. It looked like a long T-shirt to him, as in fact it was. “Diane told me Michelle is the surviving beneficiary on a life insurance policy in her great-aunt’s name,” he continued. “And since there was one taken out on Merle too, and Michelle was, presumably, the second named beneficiary on that as well, the girl stands to come into a tidy sum.”

  “Well, there’s your motive. I’m sure the cops will be all over it. So many murders involve life insurance policies it’s surprising they’re allowed.” Helen went to hang the dress up in the free-standing closet made of distressed pine. “Too much temptation, if you ask me.”

  Rex sat on the edge of the bed. “A double murder is not that easy to accomplish in a small island town.”

  “Hard to dispose of the bodies, you mean?”

  “Right. Perhaps the killer or killers thought they might as well leave them in the kitchen for all to admire.”

  “The sort of prankish thing two students might do?”

  When Helen had finished sorting through her purchases, they set out for lunch and a spot more sightseeing, following a tour of attractions flagged on their street map. The weather continued its muggy vein of the morning, the sun intermittently peeking out beneath a wooly mantle of clouds, which sent pedestrians seeking the shade of trees and store awnings.

  After visiting Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, an exhibit of weird and wonderful phenomena and oddities of every description, some of which did indeed defy belief, they spied the Barbers. Seated in full regalia at a table on the side of Sloppy Joe’s fronting Duval, they appeared to have set up shop. Dennis wore his fake black beard, Peggy her seafaring garb of the seventeen hundreds. Rex recalled from his boyhood passion for pirates that there had been female vagabonds in britches sailing the high seas. A couple of tourists were just leaving the impromptu book signing, holding a copy of The British Brigand.

  “Come and join us for a drink,” Peggy called out when she saw Rex and Helen. “You look like you could use one.”

  “It is rather warm,” Helen agreed, taking a seat beside Peggy and removing her straw hat. She ran fingers under her hair, fluffing up the dampened blond strands.

  “The books are selling like hot cakes,” Dennis said in his deep, somewhat theatrical voice, which went with the costume. The fake black beard disguised his weak chin better than his goatee, dramatically improving his looks.

  “As long as we don’t monopolize the table for long and drink something, the server doesn’t appear to mind,” Peggy said.

  Rex asked the Barbers what they were drinking and ordered two ginger ales, a Guinness for himself, and one of the Hemingway specials for Helen.

  “Are you any female pirate in particular
?” he asked Peggy.

  “Oh, any of about ten of the most famous ones. Our costumes are a bit of a mish-mash.”

  “A dangerous occupation for a woman, I would have thought,” Rex said, hoping he didn’t sound sexist. “I mean, facing cannon balls and the depravities of a crew of cutthroats.”

  “Some women took to the life. For example, Anne Bonny from Ireland. It’s a great story. She left her sailor husband for ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, captain of the pirate sloop Revenge, and ultimately proved the braver of the two.”

  “How thrilling,” Helen said. “What happened to her?”

  “He was hanged, but she was spared on account of being with child. Some women followed their husbands and lovers to sea disguised as men, although it was strictly prohibited. The penalty in most cases, if caught, was death for the sailors who took women onboard.”

  The drinks arrived and Rex paid the tab. The loud country rock band finished their set on stage. Jimmy Buffet took over on the speakers, singing about wasting away in Margaritaville. Peggy took advantage of the reduced decibels to stand up and brandish a copy of their book in the air. “Signed copies of a popular pirate series while stocks last!” she announced before sitting back down at table.

  “Har-de-har,” Dennis cheered in piratical fashion.

  Clearly, Peggy was the driving force behind the writing duo, Dennis a willing accomplice. He seemed happy to let his wife do most of the talking. And yet his mind never appeared idle as his restless dark eyes roved about, taking everything in, on the lookout for Rex knew not what.

  “I suppose pirates are a popular theme here because of the Captain Morgan Parade,” Rex attempted to segue into the Shumakers and Peggy’s suspicion of them. “The Shumakers told me they dressed up as pirates.”

  The Barbers sipped on their sodas, not taking the bait. Helen came to the rescue.

  “Alma Shumaker has such beautiful natural curls, a lovely auburn colour. Just the right sort of hair for the times. She would have been referred to as comely, with her sweet, pretty face.”

  “She made a good pirate’s wench,” Dennis concurred. “Just the right figure for it, too. Hour glass, I think they would’ve called it in the olden days.”

  “Alma was very self-conscious about her generous hips,” Peggy contributed, finally. “Though the tight shorts she insisted on wearing did nothing to help. It was incredibly tactless of Taffy to comment on her size in front of everybody when discussing her clown outfits. Poor Alma was in tears over it.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” Rex said with genuine sympathy. “I don’t see the need to make hurtful and unhelpful comments.”

  “Taffy did it all the time,” Peggy said. “And yet she couldn’t take a slight herself. Chuck Shumaker, who wouldn’t under normal circumstances say a mean word to anyone, defended his wife chivalrously and called Taffy a spiteful witch who couldn’t hold her liquor. There was quite a scene. Taffy later apologized, but I don’t think Alma ever forgave her. And I think it quite ruined her evening, if not her whole trip.”

  “Upset as Alma might have been, the insult hardly seems motive enough for murder, as you intimated earlier.”

  “But there’s more to it than that, Rex.”

  Dennis shot his wife a warning look.

  Peggy shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Motive? Maybe, maybe not,” she told Rex. “But Chuck’s a big guy, and getting the two frail Dyers tied up with Alma’s help wouldn’t have presented much of a problem. It was the perfect revenge for the humiliation, leaving them dead in their clown costumes, silenced forever with bags over their heads.”

  “My wife has a very fertile imagination. She dreams up most of the plots for our books. Mostly, I just edit.”

  Rex decided Peggy’s version of events in the Dyers’ kitchen probably required major revisions, but it had got him thinking about the psychology behind the murders. Peggy and Dennis continued to exchange meaningful glances. Rex, in turn, regarded the couple inquiringly. Peggy seemed eager to impart some further information, whereas Dennis appeared reluctant. Was it an act? Rex wondered whether husband or wife would prevail in this silent battle of wills.

  “There’s more,” Peggy came out with at last, casting a look of apology at Dennis. “I think Rex should know since he’s following the case. After all, we did tell the detectives about it.”

  Dennis did the sensible thing in the face of Peggy’s determination to spill the beans. He complied, albeit with an irritated sigh of resignation.

  “There was an even uglier scene between Taffy and Chuck after she insulted his wife,” Peggy revealed. “He grabbed a clown figurine off the book shelf in the guest lounge and threw it down on the tile, where it broke into smithereens. Taffy let out a howl like you wouldn’t believe. She said it was a priceless piece of china of great sentimental value, and if Chuck didn’t give her two thousand dollars in compensation within twenty-four hours, she would call the cops. Chuck said, ‘In your dreams.’ Merle had to drag Taffy away, kicking and screaming. Walt went in to sweep up the broken pieces. He was excruciatingly apologetic.”

  Rex could imagine the scene as though he had witnessed it himself. Peggy had a gift for description.

  “We heard the fracas and watched the whole thing from the doorway,” Peggy added. “Chuck is such a gentle soul, as you know, but he was severely provoked.”

  “I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression of Chuck,” Dennis said, perhaps to explain his earlier reticence. “I probably would have reacted the same way in his situation. And no way that hideous piece of junk cost two big ones.” He shook his fake black beard. “In any case, the Dyers can’t sue now...”

  “And when did this all take place?” Rex asked.

  “The evening of the parade. At happy hour.”

  Except, it had not been so happy. Rex and Helen crossed amused glances.

  “Yeah, it’s funny to think about now,” Dennis said. “That china clown smashing on the floor and all, but then the Dyers got murdered.”

  Rex wondered why Dennis felt it necessary to drive home the point. He felt quite capable of joining the dots himself.

  At that moment, a male couple in shorts and sleeveless T-shirts entered the saloon and inquired about the authorship of the stack of books on the table. Excusing himself for reaching between Helen and Rex, the older man of the couple picked up the top copy and turned it over in his hand. Rex glanced at Helen and, catching his meaning, she gathered up her shoulder bag, and they got up to leave, explaining to the Barbers they still had Harry Truman’s Little Whitehouse to visit, and they would see them back at the B & B.

  “Not a bad little earner if you’re retired,” Helen said as they exited the bar to the sound of Joe Cocker growling from the speakers.

  “No, indeed, if pirates are your thing.”

  Rex wondered if perhaps the Barbers weren’t a little too matey and hearty. With Dennis, it seemed a touch forced.

  ~FOURTEEN~

  That night, after returning from dinner in the courtyard of a Thai restaurant on Greene Street, Rex sent Helen into the B & B ahead of him and said he would be up shortly. He wanted to take another look in the alley. It was dark, as on the preceding night, except for the bulb burning toward the back of the building. He ducked under the yellow crime tape. A shadow vacillated at the far end of the passage, an upright shape gaining definition and depth as Rex approached.

  “Who’s there?” he called out into the night.

  “It’s me, Mr. Graves,” Walt’s reedy voice responded.

  Silhouetted against the light on the wall, the form concretized into that of the round-shouldered innkeeper holding a long object in his hand.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” Rex apologized. “After the disturbance last night, I thought I’d take a look.” The trash cans appeared to be in order, the lid firmly in place on the round one. “Helen and I were just returning from dinner.”

  Walt asked where they had gone and, hearing the name of the restaurant, said he often
got take-out from there. Rex felt he could not inquire what Walt was up to in his own alleyway. “Is everything okay?” he simply asked.

  “I was moth watching.” Walt waved a net attached to a pole. A moth hovered above him, outlined against a square of white sheet suspended below the light on the wall. Smaller insects nosedived into the bulb, glowing when they hit the target.

  “Ah, I remember now. You’re a lepidopterist.”

  “That one’s a gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar, introduced to North America from Asia in the eighteen sixties. Most moths are nocturnal, but the male gypsy moth is also active in the daytime.”

  “Are you going to catch it?” Rex asked, taking pity on the harmless creature.

  “Only if it had been a female. Those are white. I already have a moth.” Walt bent down to pick up a lidded jam jar. Rex could see a dark shape fluttering inside. “A rare one. I’ll show you my collection, if you like.”

  Rex decided it would be impolite to refuse and, in any case, he was curious to see inside the private suite. He followed his host round to the front door. Presumably the side door into the kitchen was bolted for the night as had been the case yesterday. Walt led Rex down the hall to his new living quarters.

  “This used to be the dining room, which is now in the old front parlor,” he explained. A marble fireplace, identical to the one in the dining room, had been converted to electric and embraced a pile of ceramic logs in the hearth. “The previous owners, Mr. and Mrs. Wurthers, did the remodeling, adding a wall here and there,” he further explained.

  A lamp beside the brown corduroy sofa blazed in a burnt-orange shade. The desk lamp on a computer-less workstation was likewise lit. Framed cases of dead moths lined the walls, the paint appearing mustard in the artificial light. The insects were, for the most part, drab in color, some furry, others resembling thick-bodied miniature airplanes, all mounted on pins, their pairs of feathery antennae pointing upward in V formation.

  “Here, let me put on the main light so you can see better,” Walt said, following word with action. The walls changed to a fluorescent yellow. “There are over eleven thousand species in the world. Moths have existed a hundred million years longer than butterflies, and vary in a number of ways. For instance, most butterflies rest with their wings upright, moths with their wings spread flat.”