“Yeah. And run by my great-great-grandfather. We don’t need this kind of news getting out about Morrison County.”
The hackles on my neck rose. “You’re letting this slide?”
“Never. This is my town.”
~*~
Lady Jay, aka Dr. Jen Jernigan, came in that afternoon all cool and collected. Her façade fell once the facts were revealed. Ike had sworn statements from two men who had used her services, and Cap’n Nick supplied a list of customers he’d ferried to the island for her. Jen was led away in handcuffs, making ugly noises about suing everyone in this backwater town. Minnie Lee admitted she’d worked tricks for money to pay for college. She was working on a plea bargain when I walked home.
Selma’s killer was in jail, and the turtle egg thieves were caught. Cap’n Nick would spend the rest of his sorry life behind bars. With a federal charge, Ozzie could never run for dogcatcher much less President of the United States. Too bad for both of them.
Jen Jernigan could breathe fire all she liked now in the big house. The Island Madam, as I’d dubbed her in my mind, threw away her career and her status, all to gain a steady supply of customers in her sex club. She’d lost more. Her freedom. Too bad for her.
I knew enough juicy details to fill an entire newspaper, but if I included everything, I would burn my bridges with Ike. That wasn’t going to happen. Things were finally getting back to where I wanted them with Ike. About time.
~*~
A few hours later Ike let himself into my place with his key. My man of action showed me how much he missed me. Afterward, I fed Ike pancakes and asked about his son, who was spending the weekend with his mother. While I finished the dishes, walked the dog, and locked the place up tight, Ike drowsed on the sunporch sofa.
He roused from sleep when I joined him. “Let’s talk to your folks about buying this place,” he murmured in my ear.
I wiggled out of his arms. “What?”
“It’s the best answer. You won’t move in with me. I want to be with you, but I can’t live in someone else’s house. We move in here together. You and I get our names on the deed.”
His idea shocked me. “Won’t it be messy if things don’t work out?”
“Life is messy. I’m used to it.”
“It’s a good idea,” I began slowly, interlacing our fingers. “I found out this weekend I don’t want to live in the county. I like living in town.”
“There’s plenty of room for Trent.” He gazed around the living room with interest. “And Bailey is accustomed to living here.”
“My dog will be fine. She’s the least of my worries.”
“What do you say, Lindsey? My heart can’t take you getting lost in the ocean or getting threatened by an armed killer at the docks. You have an uncanny knack of finding criminals.”
A smile split my face. “Must be my investigative journalism skills kicking into action. You and I are a good match personally and professionally.”
His fingers tightened around mine. “Say yes to my idea. I need to have this settled.”
There were so many things we hadn’t talked about: shared bank accounts, down payments, mortgages, babies, dreams, just to name a few. And he wouldn’t say he loved me. But he wanted to be with me, and he wanted to buy a house with me. Those were commitments. More importantly, I wanted to awaken in his arms every morning.
I cinched my arms around his neck. “Yes. Yes to you. Yes to the house. Yes to us.”
“This means the world to me, Linds.”
“Me too.”
--The End--
Southern author Maggie Toussaint loves writing mysteries. She’s published twelve novels in mystery and romantic suspense. Bubba Done It, Book Two in her Dreamwalker series, is her latest book-length mystery release. The next Dreamwalker book, Doggone It, will be released in October 2016. Under the pen name of Rigel Carson, she’s published three dystopian thrillers. She’s a board member for Southeastern Mystery Writers of America and LowCountry Sisters in Crime. Visit her at www.maggietoussaint.com.
Surf’s Up
By C.A. Verstraete
Editor’s Note: Could a miniature surf shop also be a small scale copy of the scene of a crime? A part-zombie detective-in-training tracks down clues to make a murder charge stick like Super Glue.
Early morning phone calls usually meant bad news. Someone calling this early on a Sunday morning meant it must be really bad news. It was—and it wasn’t.
“Who was that?” I asked my Tia (Auntie) Imelda with a yawn, it being only five thirty and hours before my usual waking time.
My name is Rebecca Herrera Hayes, but most people call me Bec or Becca. Me, my aunts and my cousin live in the small farming community of Willowdale, Wisconsin.
“Becca, honey, you’re up early. I’m afraid something terrible has happened. You know my friend Joanna in Florida?” She gave a big sigh. “Her cousin Dean died. It looked like some kind of freak accident, but she doesn’t think so. She’s pretty upset. I—I mean all of us—you, my sister Manuela and your cousin Carm—should go help her out.”
Her last words cleared my foggy head fast. “We? You mean we’re all going to Florida?”
“Sí, it’s best if you come with since I don’t know how long I’ll be there.”
The sad look on my aunt’s face made me realize I’d better find out what happened. “You said it was an accident, right? Was it a shark attack?”
“No, nothing like that.” Tia poured coffee for herself and a coffee-flavored protein drink for me. It beat the raw stuff I had to eat since I’d been scratched and turned into a part-zombie. “Joanna said she found her cousin’s body this morning under a pile of surfboards. The two of them own a surf shop called Big Wave Dave’s. They kept the name because it had been around forever.”
That got my attention. “Surfboards? They can’t be that heavy. That sounds weird.”
“I thought so, too, but Joanna said a few of the boards, especially the professional ones, can weigh quite a bit. The police are looking into the accident. Joanna could use our support. She’s been working such long hours on her entry for the annual Create It! Miniature Display Contest. And now this happens with Dean. It’s really too much for anyone to handle.”
I smiled, thinking my cousin Carm would love seeing the miniature displays. She’d started collecting tiny things when she found a little table and matching chairs at one of the stores downtown a couple months ago. Now it made buying her Christmas and birthday gifts a lot easier.
Hmm, this also could be a great way to improve my detecting skills, I thought. Ever since my boyfriend, Gabe, got his PI license, I’d thought of taking some college courses on surveillance and basic investigating in the fall. If I had the proper training, maybe the two of us could work together on some cases.
Tia interrupted my daydreaming. “Honey, you’ll need to protect yourself from the sun. It’s a lot stronger there than what you’re used to. My only condition for taking you is that you wear a hat and lots of sunscreen. I’ll call my sister and make the reservations. I’m sure she’d enjoy a little vacation.”
“Okay.” Actually, I’d wear a bag on my head if that’s what it took to go to Florida. “I have hats. I’m gonna go pack.”
I ran upstairs and began tossing summer clothes—mostly borrowed from my fashion-horse cousin Carm—into a suitcase. A couple of floppy hats went on top. It was a small concession to my aunt, considering all she’d been through since I’d been infected with the Zombie Virus. Luckily, I’d been steadily improving with the daily meds. Maybe I still had to eat yucky raw stuff (only occasionally, and no, nothing like what full zombies ate) and down gallons of weird protein drinks, but my limp had improved and my eye had stopped twirling. Looking like less of a freak definitely had me looking forward to the future again, especially now. Viva la Florida!
~ * ~
The four of us—me, Aunt Imelda, my cousin Carm, and her mother, my Aunt Manuela—got off the plane at Palm Beach International Ai
rport on Tuesday morning anxious to find Tia’s friend, Joanna. Instead, the petite blonde found us first.
“I’m so glad you’re all here!” Joanna was dressed in a flowing blue print dress and beaded sandals as a concession to the July heat. She wrapped each of us in a big hug. “Manuela, I’m happy to meet you and the girls. Imelda, thank you for coming. You don’t know how much this means that you came out here to help me.”
“I know you have plenty of friends here, but I owed you a visit anyway,” Tia said. “How long since we’ve seen each other? Two years, three? I wish this visit was under better circumstances. I’m so sorry about your cousin Dean.”
“Thank you for your sympathy.” Joanna expertly herded us all out of the airport and to her car. “It’s been quite a shock. Everyone else is being so helpful that they’re driving me crazy. I’m just glad to have someone here I can be myself around.”
She pointed out some of the local highlights as we drove three miles to her home in West Palm Beach. “You all can stay with me. I have plenty of room and I want you to make yourselves at home. Girls, I only live a block from the public beach or you can go down to the shoreline in back of my property. We have a great zoo here, there are beautiful botanic gardens, and I bet you’d love to see the manatees. First, let’s get you settled. Then I’d like to take all of you to the surf shop. It’s down by the public beach.”
With everyone anxious to see the shop and the beach, we decided to leave unpacking for later. In short order, we arrived at the surf shop and piled out of the car. The outside was painted like a rainbow in blue, green, orange and yellow. Even that paled in contrast to the beige sands and bright blue hues of the ocean in front of us.
“Wow,” Carm said.
“Yeah,” I added, unable for once to say much more.
Joanna took us inside and pointed out the pile of surfboards in the corner where her cousin’s body had been found. Yellow police tape contained the area. While she and my two aunts talked, I reached over the tape and tried to move one of the boards.
“Bec, don’t touch!” Carm warned.
“I know, but I had to see how much it weighed. Cuz, look. I can move it with one hand.”
“I read that most weigh about six pounds, although it depends on the size,” she said.
I tried to move another board and found it to be much heavier. I guessed it at about ten pounds. Even with only nine boards in the pile, that could mean anywhere from fifty to a hundred pounds landed on Joanna’s cousin. Obviously it was enough weight to kill someone depending on how, and where, it hit him. Or how he fell afterward. The thought sobered me.
We looked around for a while and then came back to the front counter where something else caught my eye. “Carm, look at this! It’s just like the real shop, only smaller!”
“That’s my entry for the Create It! contest,” Joanna said. “The Chamber sponsors the contest each year, and all the local businesses can enter. Everyone starts with the same unfinished miniature building kit.”
Carm’s eyes got bigger. “Wow, wouldn’t this be awesome for our businesses to do?”
Joanna patted Carm’s arm and sighed. “I just finished working on this. I brought it here after Dean closed shop Saturday so he could see it. He had insomnia, so he usually stayed late or worked crazy early hours. I thought he’d get a kick out of my making an exact replica of the surf shop. Too bad he didn’t get to see all the entries. I almost asked them to cancel the contest, especially since he was killed here in this shop. I never intended to create a murder scene in miniature. But I thought he would’ve hated having the contest cancelled. Not after all the work everyone did.”
“Where’s the contest held?” I asked.
“The hotel has a conference room,” Joanna said, pointing down the beach to a fifteen-story building. “It’s right behind the refreshment area and bar. The central location makes it easy for everyone to see the entries and vote for their favorite. There are prizes and trophies for First, Second, and Third Place. It’s pretty stiff competition.”
Her words made me pause. I looked at Carm, wondering if she had the same thought I did—was the competition tough enough to make someone kill to win?
I took a closer look at the miniature building. The scale model contained everything the real life shop had, from the bamboo cabinet and colorful décor, to the tropical decorations on the walls. The tiny surfboards had the same Hurley logo on them that the full-size ones did. I tugged at my cousin’s sleeve. “Want to go see what the other displays look like?”
“You bet!”
“Go ahead, girls. We’ll meet you there after I deliver my entry,” Joanna said.
As we hurried to the hotel, we discussed what souvenirs we wanted to take home. “I want to buy a tropical dress,” I remarked, knowing my fashionista cousin would approve. “Maybe a Lily Pulitzer-style print.”
Once we walked through the lobby, my cousin nearly knocked me over in her haste to get to the miniature displays behind the refreshment area. “I’d like a dress like that, too,” Carm said, “but I really want to go home and work on one of these mini buildings. I think it would be so fun!”
I shrugged, glad she was happy even if I wasn’t as excited about the creating part of the project, me not really being the crafty type. I have trouble sewing a button on my shirt.
The refreshment area was a long counter topped with a palm thatch awning so that it looked like a tiki hut. Outside and just beyond it there was a small seating area with umbrella-covered tables and stools.
Carm rushed to the long display table decorated with colorful fake flowers and a grass skirt. Eleven miniature buildings sat on the table along with a big empty, glass jar for the votes. “Wow, look at this!”
Joanna, Imelda, and Manuela had taken their time following us. Now Joanna set her small building at the end of the table with the number twelve in front of it. “Voting doesn’t begin for a half hour.” She sniffled and cleared her throat. “I still wasn’t sure I should bring this.”
“Oh, you definitely had to,” Carm said. “Everyone should see it!”
I agreed. “Your cousin Dean would be happy you entered. I think it’s a great idea for everyone to see it here—maybe even the person who killed him.”
Joanna gasped. “I hadn’t thought of that. How could anyone kill somebody over a silly contest? It’s just for fun.”
“I wondered about that. I’m sure the police asked you, but was anyone angry with you or Dean? Was he fighting with anyone?”
“No, not that I know of. Dean’s the one who was at the shop most of the time, but he didn’t say anything…” She paused. “You know, he did seem cranky when I saw him last, like he was mad about something. I asked him what was wrong, and if he could glue the mini surfboards in for me, but he said everything was fine. Apparently it wasn’t.”
When she walked over to talk to Tia, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and joined Carm in her inspection of each miniature building.
She pointed out a tiny replica bar. “Look at the little tropical drinks on the tables.”
“They even have tiny umbrellas.” I was equally amazed.
“How can you pick a winner?” Carm moaned as she ogled one after the other.
“I don’t know. They all look great.”
Then I saw something which would’ve made my heart skip a beat—if I could still feel my heartbeat, that is, with my part-zombie condition. “Carm, hey, look at this.”
“Another surf shop!” Carm studied the interior, a frown forming on her face. She lowered her voice. “Somebody’s a copycat. It looks almost like Joanna’s mini surf shop, right down to the logos on the surfboards.”
We both noticed the similar bamboo bookcase and decorations on the walls. Even the exterior had been painted almost the same, except the main color was yellow instead of the blue on Big Dave Wave’s Surf Shop. This mini shop even had a pile of surfboards—which also had fallen over.
“Here’s another one.” This entry c
oncentrated more on fish tanks and fishing supplies, but it also had a pile of mini surfboards standing in the corner.
I looked up from the miniature and stared into the eyes of a young man with long blond hair and a deep golden tan. He looked more like a surfer than a crafter.
“You like miniatures, too?” I asked.
“It’s my sister’s,” he explained. “She made me bring this in for her. I agreed only if she put the surfboards up in the corner like Dean had them arranged at Big Wave Dave’s. Saw his entry when he was workin’ on it. Cool shop. Been there for ages. What’s a beach shop without surfing, right?”
“Definitely,” I agreed.
A bearded man wearing a bright orange shirt decorated with green ferns joined us at the table. He took the acrylic top off the other surf shop. “The boards keep falling over,” he said. “I should’ve glued them down.”
I nodded and looked at him. “Awesome idea. Too bad there are two entries almost the same.”
He looked at me and shrugged. “Eh, it happens. Almost every year a couple of us get the same idea. I told Dean I’d been working on shrinking down my surf shop, too. I own Barnacle Bart’s at the other end of the beach. He seemed kinda mad when I stopped in Saturday morning and asked how he got the mini boards to stay in place, but he shared his secret anyway. Too bad he’s not here to see the results.”
He went back to gluing down the surfboards while I joined Carm at the other end of the table. I poked my cousin in the arm and pointed out the irony. “It looks like art is imitating life.”
“Or more like art imitating death,” she said.
“We need to tell Joanna what we suspect,” I said.
~ * ~
A half-hour later, the vote jar was filled and the judges began their tabulating. But their decision wasn’t near as exciting as the moment when two policemen walked over and put Barnacle Bart in handcuffs and led him away. Shortly after, one of the judges removed Bart’s tiny surf shop entry from the table.
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 82