Chapter 9
We found several nice baskets at the consignment shops. For Honora’s work, she needed those with sides at a right angle, so they could be rested with the opening toward the viewer. From there she would install walls of gator board, a type of foam core with a hard surface. We’d discovered these made lightweight scenes at a reasonable price. Typically Honora created bakery or cupcake shops inside. One or two lent themselves to other ideas, such as a tiny grocery store. Satisfied that we’d found enough to keep my friend busy, I let Honora direct us to Barbara’s house. Standing on her doorstep, I admired the Bubble House nearby. Although it was a bit hard to see it through the low branches of a tree, the curves were apparent. My curiosity was definitely piqued.
Barbara met us at the door. “Thank heavens, you’re here!”
“Are you all right?” Honora gave her friend a hug. “Yes, yes, but it’s been a trying morning. You’re in time for lunch! Tenchita, can you set the table for two guests?”
I gave the Bubble House one last longing look.
Barbara noticed. “Would you like a tour? The cleaning woman is there today. The owner listed the place with Airbnb, the bed and breakfast website. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I took you through.”
“I’ve seen it, so you two go ahead. I’ll keep Tenchita company while you have an explore.” Honora shooed us away.
The Bubble House proved to be a fabulous structure. Barbara had been correct: The cleaning lady was happy to allow us entry. To the left, as you entered, was an open plan kitchen, very kitschy and totally adorable. To the right, a sitting area. Black and white photos on the wall were in keeping with the décor of pale yellow, gray, and black. A low shelf had been formed in the concrete, and it ran about waist-high around the perimeter of the structure. Looking straight up, you could see a sunburst molded into the ceiling, a symbol pleasantly at odds with the comfortable temperature of the building. “That’s part of the charm,” Barbara said. “I don’t know if it’s the structure or the materials, but it’s always pleasant here, even when it gets hot outside.”
If you drew an imaginary line through the middle of the building, an equator of sorts, two bedrooms and a shared bathroom were south of that demarcation.
“Every inch of space is perfectly useful.” I marveled at the thoughtfulness. A small loft area overhead could be used for additional sleeping space.
“Yes, I agree. There’s nothing wasted. From what I understand the concept was also employed outside of Pasadena, California. There’s even a book—No Nails, No Lumber: The Bubble Houses of Wallace Neff. This house was featured in Life Magazine.”
My hostess had obviously calmed down, thanks to our shared interest in this historic building. I took the opportunity to ask her about Tenchita and Miguel’s fighting.
“Are you safe? Any worries that the fighting by Miguel and Tenchita might spill over into violence?”
“No. It’s contained to verbal sparring. If I understood more Spanish, I could follow the arguments. Sadly, I can’t. Or perhaps, I’m fortunate that I can’t. I guess it depends on your point of view.”
“Where is Miguel today?”
“He dressed rather smartly and sped down the street in Tenchita’s car. Oddly enough, he carried his backpack with him. I would like to think he’s taking classes somewhere, but that’s doubtful. Whatever he’s doing, it’s bringing in a good amount of cash. I found a receipt in the recycling for an expensive new shirt and pair of shoes from a designer shop in the Palm Beaches. I decided not to show it to Tenchita. It would only make things worse. If he really did buy those clothes, they’re bound to show up on his back.”
Walking across the vacant lot, I tried to keep a smile on my face, but I sympathized with Barbara. “I find it increasingly difficult to decide what’s right and what’s wrong in murky situations. Used to be, I had a sharp sense of black and white. The older I get, the more I see the world in shades of gray.”
“Amen to that,” Barbara said.
Chapter 10
Tenchita proved herself to be a fabulous cook. The smell of burritos greeted us and set my mouth to watering when Barbara and I re-entered her home. A cheerful bouquet of sunflowers sat inside a Mason jar, taking pride of place at the table. Starched linen napkins waited on bright green placemats. The water glasses were a recycled green, too, making the settings too cute for words.
Rather than fry the burritos, Tenchita baked them in the oven. A green salad with sliced cucumbers, tiny cherry tomatoes, and shredded carrots was set at each place. The tea had been flavored with fruit juice. All in all, our lunch was a feast.
When we’d eaten our fill, Tenchita said, “I made extra. I send you home with them for later, okay? We’re all out of Tupperware, so I put tinfoil inside a box. The burritos are wrapped up, too. You can share them, okay?”
Honora laughed and answered before I could. “Cara loves to recycle. Anything and everything. You’re a woman after her heart, Tenchita.”
“I’d be happy to take home more of your burritos in my bare hands, if I had to,” I said. “These are fantastic.”
After accepting a plastic carry bag, Honora thanked the cook and her employer. I did the same, telling Barbara how much I’d enjoyed my tour of the Bubble House. “I’m always happy to share local history,” she said.
When Honora got to my car door, I held it open for her. She handed me the plastic bag. That’s when I realized that the box was actually a shoebox.
The engine on my old Camry turned over smoothly. However, I hesitated before pulling away from the curb. “Honora? I’m wondering. What kind of shoe is that for?”
After unbuckling her seatbelt, she retrieved the bag from the floor where it had been sitting between her feet. Slipping away the plastic, she hoisted the cardboard box. “Men’s athletic shoes. Size nine. Black. See the picture?”
I stared at a low canvas slip-on.
“Would you phone Barbara for me, please?” I headed around Zeus Park, set like a hubcap in the Hobe Sound neighborhood.
“Barbara? Cara Mia wanted to speak to you. Here she is.”
Pulling over into a driveway, I took the phone. “Please don’t let Tenchita overhear us, okay? About that shoebox. Do you happen to know if that was a recent purchase? Like within the past two weeks? It was? Thank you. No, I don’t know if it’s significant.”
From there I drove to the Jupiter Island Department of Public Safety. When I stopped the car, Honora shook her head at me. “What’s this all about?”
“A hunch. Just a hunch.” I took the plastic bag with me. “You want to come?”
“Of course I do!”
Once outside the Camry, Honora planted her feet. “Just tell me one thing. One thing, all right?”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“We will get to keep the burritos, won’t we?”
“I’m pretty sure we will. No promises.”
Chapter 11
Later that evening, a crunching of tires in my driveway set my dogs barking their heads off. Both pups are rescue animals. Jack, my Chihuahua, was tossed out of a truck. Gerard, a Bahamian Royal Potcake, was adopted in the Bahamas, flown here, and abandoned by my sister.
In response to the general mayhem, Luna, my gray rescue cat, slipped under the sofa.
I couldn’t blame her. After driving back to The Treasure Chest, I’d had a long day with customers streaming in through our front doors.
“Your back-to-college specials are working,” I told Skye. “What a genius idea!”
She’d assembled terrific products in a variety of sets at different price points. Parents of kids returning to school could order the sets, and we’d do the mailing. For girls, she’d put together a small sugar scrub, a cute poster of a beach, hair products, Florida taffy, a self-tanner, and a product that promised “beach hair.” For guys, there was body wash, a bottle of cologne, self-tanning towelettes, a hair product, and the same poster of the beach. Kids were encouraged to send us their photo, after they posed
in front of the poster of the beach. We would put these up on our website with the name of the school they were attending.
“Personally, I think the storage bags are a better idea. They’re more useful.” Skye pointed to the zippered plastic bags. You could hook them up to your vacuum cleaner and suck out the excess air. To make them even more useful, she’d created small notebooks and a numbering system. You could then keep track of what you stored, so that you didn’t have to dig through the bags to find stuff.
“I like the book club idea.” MJ joined us. “After people send their children to school, they might have time to enjoy a good read. The sign-up sheet for book club members is filling up fast. Sid was smart to feature it in our last email newsletter.”
All in all, it had been a productive day. Honora had started working on her baskets right away. The Jupiter Island Department of Public Safety had taken photos of the shoebox—they didn’t need the actual box itself—and sent us on our way. Back at the store, Honora had divided up the spoils. That gave me a second meal of Tenchita’s burritos. Boy, the food tasted even better the second time around.
But now a knock at my door forced me to get to my feet.
Outside stood the young cop I’d met when Poppy and I found the disturbed turtle nest.
“Hi. Would you like to come in? You don’t mind dogs, do you?”
“No, ma’am. I love them.” The young officer squatted to give both pups affection. “I stopped by to thank you for your lead. We apprehended the person who’s behind the turtle egg theft.”
“Really? Have a seat. Tell me about it. Would you like a bottle of water?” I knew that most of the officers never accepted anything, so water seemed like a safe bet.
Once he’d had a couple of swigs, he said, “Your hunch was a good one. Mr. Miguel Gonzales bought those shoes over at the Walmart in Stuart, because he lost one of his older pair on the beach when you and your grandfather interrupted him.”
“Is his wife okay? Tenchita? And her employer, Barbara Melano? They were both worried about his behavior. That’s why I ask. I hope they weren’t too stressed out.”
“We just finished notifying the women. Mrs. Gonzales is upset, of course, but she was more angry with her husband than at us. You see, we followed the suspect into Riviera Beach, and then called our local counterparts. There Mr. Gonzales met with a man that federal authorities had been watching for weeks. This second guy is part of an organized crime group. He’s not a ringleader, but he’s an important figure. He received the stolen turtle eggs. He’s from the same state in Mexico as the Gonzales family. That’s how he connected with Mr. Gonzales in the first place.”
“What does he do with them? The eggs?”
“Sells them. They have a list of customers who believe the eggs to be an aphrodisiac. Others eat them as a delicacy. They charge $30 a dozen for the eggs. These creeps sell them on street corners, so the transactions don’t attract a lot of attention. The authorities actually caught one dude slurping his just around the corner from where he bought them. Another buyer took them to a restaurant. Turns out that if you knew what to ask for, you could get boiled sea turtle eggs. People eat them with salt and pepper.”
I shook my head. “Wow. They killed a lot of hatchlings, didn’t they?”
“Yes, ma’am, they did. Since 1980, there’ve been 41 cases of people trafficking the eggs. Those are cases where the bad guy has been caught. The Riviera Beach authorities caught Mr. Gonzales with 300 eggs in that backpack of his. We have no idea how many other eggs he’s sold at different times.” The officer thanked me for the water and stood to leave. “It’s up to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission now. We’ve done our part.”
“What will happen to Mr. Gonzales?”
The young man shrugged. “I don’t think he’s going to be out walking the beaches anytime soon. Taking more than eleven eggs is a felony.”
After I closed and locked my front door, I climbed stairs to the deck on my second floor. A full moon tossed silver strands of light onto the surface of the water. It reminded me of tinsel on a Christmas tree.
Moonlight was the only illumination on the beach. Local residents took pride in following instructions to cover beach-side windows after sundown, so the artificial light didn’t disorient the nesting turtles.
Out there in the sands, a baby turtle might sense his mates getting ready to hatch. Accordingly, he would speed up or slow down his development, so they could all break out of the nest at once.
When the time was right, using a special tooth called a caruncle, a hatchling would shred the leathery container that had been his home for many months. Getting out of the egg might take as long as twenty minutes.
Over the next three to seven days, the baby would dig its way to the surface. An embryonic yolk sac would provide the only sustenance for the hatchling until it could find its own food source. Once depleted, the egg sac would drop off the turtle’s body.
After crawling out of the nest, a baby turtle would orient itself toward the brightest light on the horizon. Residents had been reminded not to turn on any outdoor lights that faced the ocean. We didn’t want to confuse the hatchlings as they traveled inch by inch, making a perilous journey toward their new home, the ocean. The nest mates would travel as a group, making it more likely that at least a few of them would survive the raccoons, possums, snakes, crabs, and birds that would prey on the small turtles. If a hatchling was lucky enough to survive, thirty years later it would return to these beaches to give birth to another generation of sea turtles.
All of this would happen while we were sleeping, safe in our beds. What faith it took for them to crawl out of the sand, across the beach, and toward the boisterous surf! There they would hide in the floating tangles of seaweed.
At least tonight Miguel Gonzales wouldn’t dig them up, wouldn’t shove them into his backpack, and sell them on the streets of Riviera Beach. Thanks to the diligence of local law enforcement officials, turtles hatching on our beaches tonight would have a chance at making it into the ocean.
From there, who knew what adventures awaited them?
I wished them well and went to bed.
--The End--
Joanna Campbell Slan is the national bestselling and award-winning author of thirty books, as well as being a contributor to many of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. When she isn’t walking the beach with her Havanese pup, Jax, she’s writing books for one of her three mysteries series and building dollhouses. Joanna and her husband David live on Jupiter Island, Florida.
Visit her website, JoannaSlan.com. You can read two of Joanna’s books for free by going to http://bit.ly/teardownanddie and http://bit.ly/inkreddead.
Dying for Graduation Tea: A Beach Tea Shop Short Story
By Linda Gordon Hengerer
Editor’s Note: The Powell sisters can always be counted on in a pinch. Is that why someone has framed them for murder?
Chapter 1
Brittany Madison threw her arms around Dani, Chelsea, and Alex Powell. “Thank you for catering my graduation tea on one day’s notice. I don’t know what we would have done without you!” Happy tears were brushed away, and a smile blossomed on her face.
The Powell sisters smiled and exchanged glances, because they were used to Brittany’s emotional responses. She had been the hostess at the Beach Tea Shop, after school and on Saturdays, since the summer after her sophomore year at Citrus Beach High School. The past two years had flown by and now she was graduating. They would miss her when she started college at Florida State University in Tallahassee in August. They hugged her back, enjoying the quiet before the storm of setting up a tea for 20 guests in an unfamiliar house.
Brittany’s panicked phone call the day before set the sisters mixing fillings for tea sandwiches, making an assortment of treats, and crafting green peppermint pinwheel trays to serve updated childhood favorites. A last-minute shortage of cupcake liners prevented every treat from having the same green-patterned container. Addi
ng solid white and green liners in CBHS school colors lent a festive air that coordinated beautifully with the patterned liners.
Brittany and her two best friends, Bailey Archer and Katie Fenton, had decorated the Fenton’s house. The early June sun warmed the flowers in the garden. Their fragrances wafted through the kitchen each time the door opened. Katie’s parents were the nominal host and hostess, but the graduating seniors had done all the work.
Florida’s hurricane season started June 1, but today’s weather was all they hoped for: 80 degrees with low humidity, sunshine, and a light breeze. The Treasure Coast of Florida had seen some heavy thunderstorms in the past few weeks, and the graduating seniors had crossed their fingers that they would have good weather for the Graduation Tea.
Green and white crepe paper wound through the trees inside the screened pool area. Creamy white orchids in green pots with baby’s breath wreaths around the base were centerpieces on every other table. All the tables were covered with a green toile overskirt, and the underskirts were either grass green or white. Tables without a gardenia centerpiece held clear glass vases filled a third of the way with glass gems in emerald green and opaque white. A green grosgrain ribbon was tied around the vase halfway between the top of the vase and the glass gems, and a bouquet of baby’s breath was set into the gems.
The Fenton’s garden was in beautiful bloom, a reminder that “Florida” came from the Spanish word for flower. The roses, bougainvillea, and hibiscus were a riot of color against the green and white table settings. Short and tall palm trees surrounded the screen enclosure. A stand of bamboo swayed in the breeze, creaking and clacking as the slender trunks rattled against each other. Wind chimes in the trees tinkled with every movement. Gardenia trees were at each corner of the house, the ivory blooms set off by glossy dark green leaves.
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 61