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Mama Gets Trashed © 2013 Deborah Sharp
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First e-book edition © 2013
E-book ISBN: 978-0-73873921-2
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dedication
With love to Kathleen Robelen—
my sweet, Southern, second mama
acknowledgments
I owe a huge debt to my readers, especially those who’ve stayed with the Mace Bauer Mysteries from the start. No one can predict where life will lead. You’ve made this part of the journey a total blast. Special thanks to Elaine Naiman, whose charitable donation earned her a character name; and to the Alabama ladies of the Mama Posse: Dab, Muffin, Beth, and Lucie. Y’all know what you did!
As with all my books, I had help from myriad sources. Early readers of Mama Gets Trashed included Karen Feldman, Victoria Allman, and my fabulous sister, Charlene Bogolub. My agent, Whitney Lee, also applied her talents to improving the manuscript. I’m grateful for all their suggestions.
Paul Laska, a law enforcement consultant, offered advice on bombs and explosions. Several sources helped me understand the ins and outs of garbage trucks. Vince Ruano, the former city manager of Bushnell, Florida, spent some time with me on the phone. David Peters and Jeff Coleman, of the Stuart, Florida, public works department, gave me an up-close gander. Any errors are mine, and should not reflect on their expertise or knowledge.
I’m grateful to my editor, Terri Bischoff, and the talented staff at Midnight Ink. Lisa Novak designs great covers; Connie Hill edits like a dream; Bethany Onsgard helps spread the word. Thanks also to Alisha Bjorklund, for making “Trashed’’ sound enticing.
The world’s greatest husband, Kerry Sanders, and the world’s greatest mama, Marion Sharp, have my eternal gratitude for their love and inspiration. And Okeechobee, Florida, the real-life model for fictional Himmarshee, always holds a special place in my heart.
Finally, I’m indebted to book-sellers and librarians, who do so much for readers and for authors like me. Where would I be without you?
one
I toed aside a pink take-out bag from the Pork Pit. Barbecue sauce stained the cuff on my jeans. A soggy onion ring clung like a barnacle to the leather laces of my work boots. Flies buzzed. Mountains of household trash rose around me. Brushing at a sweat droplet that rolled from my forehead down my nose, I glared at Mama.
How had I let her drag me along on this search expedition to the Himmarshee dump on the hottest day of the year?
“Tell me again how you tossed out your wedding ring with the garbage?’’
“I already explained all that, Mace. It was an accident.’’
She sounded more annoyed at me than she had a right to, since I was the one doing most of the looking under a scorching sun. She stood in the shade cast by my Jeep, fanning herself with a paper cutout of a largemouth bass, a freebie from Gotcha Bait & Tackle near Lake Okeechobee.
“In other words,’’ I said, “you were careless because you were trashed.’’
“Trashed?’’
“Right. Tipsy. Blotto. Drunk.’’
Mama pulled herself up to her full height of 4 foot 11 inches, smoothed her perfectly coiffed platinum hair, and regarded me regally. Well, as regal as someone standing in a pile of moldy cantaloupe rinds and coffee grounds can be. “I was not drunk. I’d only had a tiny glass of pink wine. Barely a thimble-full, really.’’
I stepped on a squishy disposable diaper. Used, of course. A rat ran over the toe of my boot. I decided to continue our discussion, but keep my eyes on the ground.
“That’s not what Marty said. She said you just about finished the whole fiesta-sized box yourself. You barely left her enough wine for half a glass.’’
“Marty’s wrong.’’
“Right. My trustworthy little sister is a liar.’’
“She’s not lying; exaggerating, maybe. Anyhoo, I’d taken off my ring to scour the stovetop. I must have swept it off the counter into the trashcan with the used paper towels. We’ll never have to worry about the same thing happening with that new ring of yours, since you never scour anything.’’
I took pity on her and didn’t press it, figuring she felt bad enough about losing the enormous diamond wedding ring Husband No. 5 had recently given her. Amazingly, Salvatore “Big Sal’’ Provenza from Da Bronx was turning into a keeper. No such luck, apparently, with his ring. I kept quiet, working my way through another pile of rubbish. The silence stretched out, without Mama saying a word either. That was unusual enough that it made me look up to check on her.
She was tapping away at her smart phone. I heard the whoosh sound, signaling she’d just sent a message.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!’’
“What?’’ She raised her face from the phone, all blue-eyed innocence.
“Is my busting my sweaty butt to help you find your stupid ring keeping you from some more important business on that telephone?’’
“Oh, this?’’ She lifted the small electronic beast in her hand. “I was returning an email from your sister Maddie. She’s in crisis.’’
Mama closed the gap between us, and shoved the phone toward me. “Look at this picture. See the yellow dress? That’s what she’s supposed to wear to Kenny’s party next week. You know I absolutely cannot let Maddie wear that dress, Mace.’’
“Why? Is it against the law to wear yellow for your husband’s forty-fifth birthday?’’
“Don’t sass me, girl. You’re not too old for me to grab a switch.’’ She leveled a look that could still scare me a bit, even though I’m thirty-four years old and tower over her by almost a foot. “Yellow turns Maddie’s skin tone as green as my wrist got after Husband No. 3 bought me that watch from the man with the card table in New York City.’’
I shielded the phone’s screen from the sun and examined the dress. It was smiley-face yellow. I thought it looked cheerful. Mama ran the Color Me Gorgeous
franchise at Hair Today Dyed Tomorrow beauty parlor, so she considered herself an expert in what shades of clothing did and did not match which skin tones. I had less fashion sense than the guys at the feed store, so I didn’t really see the problem.
“Maddie and her yellow dress is hardly a crisis, Mama. I’ll give you a crisis. If we don’t recover your ring, and Sal finds out you lost it even before he’s had the chance to pay it off because you got blitzed on too much sweet pink wine—’’
“—Say no more, Mace.’’ She took back the phone, and slipped it into the pocket of her orange-sherbet-colored pantsuit. “I’ll take that corner over there by the fence. I see a bunch of white paper towels and some empty cans of that dog food Teensy likes. Maybe that’ll be the trash from my house.’’
Picking up a broken broom, Mama began using it to delicately poke at garbage piles. I had to smile at the look on her face when she lifted the broom handle to examine what was stuck to the end and a banana peel dropped down her blouse. I was about to say something smart-alecky, when a sparkle of light shining between a bunch of spoiled beets and a flat bike tire caught my eye.
I walked over to get a closer look. A fishy smell about knocked me out. A week’s worth of leftovers from Jimbob’s Seafood Shack moldered. Sure enough, though, I saw the unmistakable glint of a diamond.
“I found it,’’ I yelled, only to hear Mama’s excited shout at the same moment.
“I’ve got it!’’ she cried from across the dump. “I found my ring.’’
She was waving, and the sun reflected off the big rock returned to her hand. If Mama had found her diamond, what exactly had I found? Kicking aside some crab shells and rotten shrimp, I lifted the bike tire. Up came a stained sheet tangled in some snapped-off spokes. Underneath was the body of a scantily clad woman, with one hand flung out. Against the deathly pallor of her wrist, a diamond bracelet glittered.
two
A lace-up bodice of black leather barely contained the upper half of the young woman’s body. On the bottom, she wore a short leather skirt, also in black, with fishnet stockings. Dark hair fanned out across a bare shoulder. What looked like a dog collar encircled her neck, black leather with silver spikes and a ring for a leash. On her left foot was a five-inch stiletto heel; the shoe’s mate was missing. Pale pink polish on her toenails gleamed through the wide mesh of the fishnet. The demure color, such a contrast to the revealing leather, made her seem especially vulnerable. Aside from the missing high heel, the rest of her clothing looked intact, if scanty.
“Do you know her?’’ I asked Mama.
She shook her head, eyes riveted on the body. Considering the heat, the girl couldn’t have been dumped too long ago.
“Me neither. I’d say she’s in her twenties, maybe thirty. Younger than me.’’
Mama nodded. To my surprise, tears pooled in her eyes. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t cry. You know this isn’t the first time we’ve found a body, unfortunately. We can say a prayer for her, if you want. Either way, this poor gal is past caring.’’
Mama plucked a sherbet-hued handkerchief from her pocket. “I can’t help it, Mace. Seeing her dumped here like household garbage just breaks my heart. I think of how I’d feel if harm like this ever came to you or your sisters. She was somebody’s daughter.’’
Now I felt the sting of tears, too. Mama grabbed my hand. We recited the verses of Psalm 23, Mama filling in where I faltered: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want …
When we finished, I raised my head and looked around the dump. I added a silent prayer that God would receive the soul of the dead girl into heaven. If she did get the chance to sit beside Him, I hoped she wouldn’t remember what had brought her to such an end on earth.
I had the urge to cover her again with the bed sheet. But I’d already called the police, and I knew we should disturb things around the body as little as possible. We retreated a short distance away to wait. We both pressed close to my Jeep, seeking the small amount of shade the vehicle provided.
The morning was young, but the sun was already demonstrating its hot hold on middle Florida. Even at eight a.m., it was sweltering. Mama had made me promise I’d swing by before work at Himmarshee Park to bring her to the dump. Now, all I could think of was how many places I’d rather be. She consulted her mirrored compact, dabbing with the handkerchief at her mascara. It was melting from the heat and her earlier tears. I squinted past her toward the open gate.
“Here comes a car. That’s got to be Carlos,’’ I said.
Mama licked the tips of two fingers and spit-patted my unruly bangs. “Your hair’s a mess, Mace. It looks like a bunch of raccoons crawled in there and threw a party.’’
I ducked out of her reach. She offered me her mirror, and got a scowl in return.
“Mama, this is a murder scene. I doubt whether a little hair frizz
is going to be the paramount issue on my boyfriend’s mind.’’
“He’s not just your boyfriend anymore; he’s your fiancé. You better get used to saying the word.’’
Out came her Apricot Ice lipstick. While Mama attended to her face, I watched Carlos Martinez climb from the driver’s side of his unmarked car. A homicide detective with the Himmarshee Police Department, he was also my fiancé. I was still having a bit of trouble getting my head around that description. Not the homicide part. I was used to that, since Mama and I had managed to encounter him at an unusually high number of crime scenes over the last couple of years. It was that word, “fiancé,’’ that threw me.
It had only been a couple of months since he popped the question. Before that, we’d traveled a rocky road, romantically speaking. We might be officially engaged, but I still kept expecting us to plunge into a relationship pothole or run ourselves off the pavement into a ditch at any moment.
“Yoo-hoo, Carlos!’’ Mama sounded like we were at the malt shop and she was saving him a seat. “We’re over here, honey!’’
“Shhh! I’m the one who called him to come out here, so he knows where we are. He sees us,’’ I whispered. “And don’t forget there’s a body lying over there just a few yards away.’’
“Well, I know that, Mace! I prayed over that gal just like you did. But just because she’s gone to meet her Maker is no reason for me to be rude to my future son-in-law.’’
Carlos walked toward us, the sun casting a golden glow on his face. Despite the serious circumstances, I felt the same tingle I always got at the sight of this gorgeous man. With his black hair and eyes, his jaw set in grim determination, he looked like a Spanish conquistador charging into battle. He might be dodging garbage piles instead of galloping over the plains on an Andalusian steed, but he still looked mighty fine doing it.
He waved, and allowed us a fleeting smile. “You two are in the bad place at the bad time again, aren’t you?’’
Born in Cuba, moved up to Himmarshee from Miami, Carlos sometimes got his English vernacular mixed up.
“Absolutely. Wrong place; wrong time.’’ I pointed to where we’d discovered the body. “She’s over there. Earlier, Mama found a broken broom handle. We stuck it in a trash pile to mark where the girl is.’’
“And you’re sure you don’t recognize her?’’
We both shook our heads.
“She’s not from Himmarshee,’’ I said. “She’s wearing some kind of sexy, black-leather getup. I can tell you I’ve never seen anything like it on sale at the Home on the Range Feed Store and Clothing Emporium.’’
He raised his eyebrows. “You should know better than to make snap judgments, Mace. You’d be surprised what people are like behind closed doors; even people in little bitty towns like Himmarshee.’’
“Well,’’ Mama said, “I think it’s safe to say she wasn’t a churchgoer at Abundant Forgiveness Love & Charity Chapel. Not wearing an outfit like that.’’
“One thing’s for sure,’’ I said. “She ran out of Love.’’
Carlos gazed around the dump, his nose wrinkling at the
stench
of garbage and worse. “She ran out of Charity, too.’’
Mama said, “When Mace called you, did she mention the girl’s diamond bracelet?’’
He looked at me. I gave him an apologetic shrug. “I forgot,’’ I said. “I work at a nature park and trap nuisance critters on the side. It’s not like I’m a professional detective.’’
“I’ll remind you of that fact when you go stepping your size-ten shoes all over my investigation. Speaking of the case …’’ His sentence trailed off as he started toward the dead girl. He spoke over his shoulder. “The medical examiner and the crime scene van will be here soon. You two should go. Someone will contact you later to give official statements.’’
Mama stopped him, tugging on his arm. “I just wanted to tell you one more thing. That girl might have been short on Love and Charity, but that leather bustier she’s wearing doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Between what she’s showing up top, and that string of jewels on her wrist, your murder victim had Abundance to spare.’’
three
Charlene put a plate of steaming biscuits on the breakfast table at Gladys’ Diner. It was the day after Mama and I found the girl at the dump. I helped myself to two of the flaky morsels as Charlene moved around the table, filling our coffee cups from a glass carafe.
When she got to my big sister, Maddie covered the rim of her cup with her hand. I’d never known her to turn down fresh, hot coffee before. Or little else, for that matter.
“Are you sick?’’
Maddie touched her stomach. “Woke up with a little something.’’
“It’s probably just nerves over the big party next week.’’
Mama had just started in with Maddie about the yellow dress, when the cowbells clanged on the door of the diner. Our little sister, Marty, pushed through, with the Himmarshee Times in one hand. Mama stood up and snatched the paper away, even before Marty had a chance to sit down.
Mama Gets Trashed (A Mace Bauer Mystery) Page 1