Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 03 - Murder in the Mangroves

by Marty Ambrose

  Odd.

  I glanced down the hall. Mama Maria was already out of sight, Rivas nowhere to be found. I lifted the frame off the wall and slipped it into my bag. Okay, this is totally illegal. But I needed to show it to Aunt Lily and find out exactly what her connection was with Mama Maria.

  Making my way back to the restaurant, I spotted Cole, who was nodding sympathetically as Everett was pointing at the corns on his left foot.

  Poor Cole.

  “I’ve tried everything I can to clear ‘em up, but they won’t go away. I’m ready to wave a dead chicken over my feet and chant some kind of voodoo spell,” Everett grumbled. “My foot aches all the time.”

  “Try emu oil,” Cole suggested. “The stuff works like a miracle. It cured me when I had a pulled muscle.”

  Everett’s bushy gray eyebrows arched upward. “Thanks, sonny. I’ll get myself some of that moo oil.”

  “No, emu oil. E-M-U.”

  “Come on, Cole.” I tapped him on the shoulder. “We need to go-I have to talk to Detective Billie.”

  “What about lunch?” Cole murmured as he wrote emu oil on a napkin and gave it to Everett. “I already ordered tacos for us”

  “Maybe we can eat them on the road. I’ve got to see our island’s chief deputy about something urgent”

  “Watch her, sonny. She’s always up to some kind of mischief. Almost got herself killed a couple of times-she just doesn’t know when to back off.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Cole fastened his blue eyes on me, curiosity and amusement mingled in their depths. “At least life is never dull with a redhead.”

  “Aw, you’d be better off with a cat-like I have,” Everett responded in a disgusted tone. “No fuss. No sissy scenes. And you can get ‘em declawed.”

  Cole grinned. “I think there’s a lot to be said for human female claws.”

  My breath caught at the implication. Did Cole remember those playful nights in Orlando? I hadn’t forgotten any of the details, but, then again, having been without a boyfriend for a couple of years, those memories had taken on a cinematic quality.

  Just then, the waitress brought our tacos.

  “Could you wrap those up to go, please?” I asked.

  “Sure thing.” She disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared minutes later with the tacos. While Cole paid her, I turned to the old curmudgeon. “It’s been real.”

  He grunted.

  “See ya around, Everett.” Cole waved at him as we exited the restaurant.

  Once outside, I turned toward Cole in awe. “You’re incredible. How could you get so friendly with that old coot? I can’t stand him. Every time we run into each other, all we do is trade insults.”

  “You’ve got to see past all the barriers he puts up,” Cole mused aloud. “He’s not so bad.”

  “Everett Jacobs? Hah. Yeats hit the nail on the head when he said an old man is a `tattered thing.’”

  He put an arm around me. “Same old Mallie. Scrapping with the world.”

  I leaned into his shoulder. “Same old Cole. Surfing through life.”

  “Yin and yang, babe.” He dropped a kiss onto my head. “That’s why we’re so good together.”

  We climbed into Rusty, me behind the wheel. “Better open the windows. You know how temperamental Rusty’s air conditioner can be”

  “Sure do” He handed me a taco, then started in on his own.

  I shifted into second gear, noting the sauce dribbling onto my jeans leg. “Darn it.”

  “Here, let me” Cole took his napkin and dabbed at the stain.

  I flashed him a sidelong smile. “How have I made it this long without you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should remedy the situation.”

  “Cole, I don’t want to be having this discussion while I’m trying to eat a taco, drive my rust bucket of a car, and write Gina Fernandez’s obituary.”

  “Okay … later, dudette”

  But the words had been spoken. They silently echoed in my mind, creating momentary images of a future that were just too good to be true. Cole and I as a couple again? Was I ready for that?

  And what about Nick Billie? An image of his smoky eyes drifted through my mind-sexy and irresistible.

  Minutes later, we pulled into the police station parking lot and finished our tacos. A smallish gray structure, built up about six feet on cement blocks, the station always gave the appearance of being the calm center of the island. Neatly landscaped, with white latticework around the base, it was also an immaculate oasis of authority. “Do you want to come in?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I want to meet my rival.”

  “Detective Billie? I told you, he doesn’t even like me.” Even though he’d held my hand under the black mangrove tree.

  “Like has nothing to do with it, babe”

  “You’re being downright silly,” I muttered as I shouldered open my door and hopped out. Was I protesting too much?

  My steps faltered, and Cole caught my elbow. “Did you trip on something?”

  “Uh … maybe a shell.” I bent my leg and peered at the bottom of my Birkenstock. “Looks okay. But you never know. Most of the roads and parking lots on the island are made up of crushed shells. The kind you see on the beach. Not that you find too many these days, what with all the tourists and red tide and … everything.”

  He propelled me through the door, whispering, “I must’ve hit a nerve. Your motormouth just activated.”

  Damn. He knew me too well.

  “Hi, Rhonda,” I greeted Nick’s superefficient, superattractive, and supernice secretary. “Is Nick in?”

  “Sure, just let me buzz him.”

  She didn’t have to. His tall, lean figure appeared in the doorway of his office, arms folded, dark eyebrows raised as he looked from me to Cole and back again. “I was just about to call you. The preliminary coroner’s report came in on Gina’s death”

  “That’s why I’m here-Gina. I … uh … picked up some information about an hour ago that I wanted to share with you” Nervously, I picked over my words. “We’d gone to Mama Maria’s for lunch so I could interview her for my story on Gina. One thing led to another, and-“

  “Maybe you ought to come into my office.” That longsuffering note that I knew so well had entered his voice.

  “Sure”

  He looked at Cole with pointed curiosity.

  “Oh, sorry. This is an old … friend, Cole Whitney. He’s staying at the Twin Palms for a while.”

  Awkward pause. Why did I feel so odd introducing him to Nick?

  “Glad to meet you” Cole shook his hand with his easy Ijust-caught- a-big-wave surfer-guy style. “Mallie has told me a lot about you”

  “None of it good, I’ll bet”

  “Untrue. She respects you a lot.”

  “Really? You could’ve fooled me. We’ve had our share of clashes over the last year, and-“

  “No need to go into that,” I cut in quickly. Why remind him of all the trouble I’d caused with his last two murder investigations? I felt uneasy enough right now. “We have a good, working, professional relationship. Right?”

  A flash of humor crossed Nick’s face. “Right.”

  Rhonda scanned our little group. “Can I get anyone a cup of coffee?”

  I shook my head.

  “Decaf?” Cole asked.

  “Nope, only high-test,” Rhonda informed him with a smile.

  “Thanks, anyway.” Cole smiled back. “I don’t do caffeine. The stuff is poison.”

  “You’re a friend of Mallie’s?” Nick inquired, disbelief flitting across his face. “Her whole life is caffeine and junk food”

  “Not my whole life just my meals,” I said defensively.

  Nick shrugged and motioned me toward the inner sanctum. “You’ll have to wait out here, Cole. Official police business.”

  “No problem. I don’t mind waiting.” He seated himself on the leather sofa and picked up an old sports magazine. “Take your time.”


  I moved past Nick, and he closed the door behind me, something he rarely did. “Okay, before I tell you anything, what was the cause of Gina’s death?” I asked.

  He exhaled audibly as he slid into the chair behind his desk. “Maybe you ought to sit down”

  My knees sort of buckled, and I felt the hard leather under me. “Was it … murder?”

  “Possibly. The coroner found high levels of a deadly pesticide in Gina’s blood.” His voice had turned flat, his eyes obsidian, as he revealed the news.

  I sat back, stunned. “But … how?”

  “You remember the syringe we found near her body? Traces of the pesticide were in it too.”

  “When I was with Mama Maria, I found out that Gina was diabetic-a pretty serious case. That’s what I was going to tell you. Is it possible she was giving herself an insulin injection and accidentally got some pesticide on the needle?”

  “Not likely, considering the amount of the toxin found in her system.” He didn’t blink at my revelation.

  I locked glances with him. “You knew about the diabetes, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Irritation flared inside of me. “Why didn’t you share that information rather than let me think she was some kind of drug addict?”

  “I couldn’t. All personal details are confidential until cause of death is determined.” His tone wafted over me like an arctic breeze. Oh, great-the chill was back.

  I groaned. “Not that old refrain again.”

  “Mallie, you have to trust my judgment when it comes to sharing information.”

  “And you have to trust that I can tell the difference between writing a news story and revealing facts that could jeopardize your investigation.” My fingers gripped the armrests of the chair.

  “Well … you know now.”

  “Days after Gina’s death-and no thanks to you” I sniffed in disapproval.

  He placed both hands on the desk and folded them with an air of composed superiority. “You want to continue throwing a hissy fit or talk about the case?”

  “I feel like we’ve taken two steps backward. What’s happened?”

  “Nothing at all.” His features assumed a mask as remote as the faces on Mount Rushmore.

  What the heck was going on? We were on a first-name basis. We’d held hands under the mangrove tree and talked about life and death. That meant something.

  All of a sudden, a thought occurred to me. Was he jealous of Cole? Could it be?

  “May I at least have a formal statement from you about Gina’s death?” I reached inside my canvas bag for my notepad and pen.

  “No comment for the record yet”

  “Off the record?” I raised my brows. “Come on … I deserve at least that”

  “It looks like … she was poisoned by the pesticide.”

  “So that would mean someone put it in Gina’s syringe.” How? When? Thoughts skittered through my brain like cars weaving on a racetrack, distracting me from the whole Cole/ Nick jealousy thing. “Mama Maria told me that Gina gave herself two injections a day; that would mean the evening shot from the night before was normal. But the morning shot had to have been tampered with by … the killer.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Then, whoever did it knew that Gina was a diabetic and had to have access to her syringe that morning.” I brushed a hand across my forehead, sucking in air in breathless realization. “Family and friends.”

  Nick regarded me in silent agreement.

  “Wait a minute. I know her mother and brother were genuinely devastated by her death. They couldn’t have done it. And her fiance, Brett, seemed just as stricken.” Dawning realization hit me. “But those potential in-laws-“

  “The Palmers?”

  I nodded, their suspicious behavior flooding into my brain faster than my motormouth could handle. “When I spoke to Mr. Palmer yesterday, he seemed uneasy, to say the least. And his wife also appeared to be hiding something. And let’s not forget that Brandi Palmer had everything to gain from Gina’s death. She could finally realize her lifelong dream of becoming Mango Queen-“

  “Stop right there. You need to be careful. The Palmers are very influential people on Coral Island, and they could make life unpleasant for you at the newspaper.”

  “What could be worse than Bernice?” I responded. “Are you saying you’re not considering them the prime suspects?”

  His mouth hardened. “Based on what? A suspicion that they didn’t like their prospective daughter-in-law?”

  “That seems like probable cause”

  “When you’re dealing with rich and powerful people, investigations have to be handled with the utmost delicacy. They have legions of attorneys watching every move of the process. The least little thing that doesn’t go by the book can cause a case to be thrown out in the courts”

  “The same laws apply to everyone-rich or poor.”

  “True, but people don’t always receive the same treatmentor verdict.”

  I shook my head. “That stinks. If Gina was killed, those people did it.”

  “Are you so sure?” he probed. “Rivas wasn’t happy about his sister’s engagement, and I’d heard rumors that Gina’s business partner, Isabel Morales, owed her a lot of money. And there might be other suspects… “

  I remembered Rivas’ outburst of fury in Mama Maria’s kitchen and his hatred of the Palmers. He certainly had the temperament that could lead to murder. But his own sister? I shivered. As for Isabel, who knows?

  “Of course, this is all off the record. Until I get the official coroner’s report, the cause of death is still indeterminate.”

  “I assume you mean that’s what you want me to put in my story. But I can’t do that after everything you just told me.” I flipped open my notepad, pen poised in hopeful appeal. “Look, I’ve got Bernice breathing down my neck to sensationalize my front-page `Terror on the Trail’ piece. I’m trying to hold the line between my journalistic integrity and keeping my temporary editor satisfied, but I’ve got to have something from you. If Bernice finds out that I’m holding back, I’m out on my ear. So I’m going to ask you again. May I have a formal statement for the record?”

  A tiny muscle twitched in his jaw. Then he sighed. “Circumstances point to a suspicious death.”

  I scribbled his words down on paper. “I’m also doing an expanded obit on Gina, so I’ll be discreet as I’m digging for background”

  “Just stay away from the Palmers,” he warned. “For your sake.”

  “Okay, but I may need to talk to Brett.” I held up my notepad and smiled. “It’s nice to know you’re concerned about

  me” “You do tend to rush in before you’ve thought things through. Must be something to do with having hair the color of wildfire.”

  I resisted tossing my curls. “Life’s too short to play it safe”

  “That’s where we disagree.” His expression stilled and grew suddenly intense. “Does your boyfriend feel the same way?”

  The air immediately grew charged between us with that strange electricity. “He’s not exactly … my boyfriend.”

  “But he was at one time.”

  “Sort of.” I looked down, pretending to write a few more lines so he wouldn’t see the truth in my face. Cole had meant a lot to me. After a few minutes, I shut the notepad and tossed it into my canvas bag. “Okay, then, that should do it. I appreciate your time.”

  “Is he staying with you at the Twin Palms?”

  I rose to my feet. “I’m not sure that it’s any of your business, but he’s in his own van.”

  “Parked next to your Airstream?”

  My head tilted to one side so I could scan his hard-planed face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous.”

  Something flickered in the depths of his eyes.

  Ohmygod.

  Detective Nick Billie was jealous.

  left Nick’s office, my mind in a whirl, not able to say much to Cole as I drove him back to
the Twin Palms RV Resort. This whole romantic-triangle thing was freaking me out.

  I needed some time to think.

  Besides, I had a story to write and what appeared to be another murder investigation staring me in the face. Was it possible that my life had become so complicated in a scant few days?

  Cole, being Cole, completely understood my need for space. We agreed to have dinner later that night.

  Then, I drove slowly back to the Observer office, giving myself a little respite to first run through the details of Gina’s death. So, it turned out that she was poisoned. Rivas and Aunt Lily had been right when they suspected that her death hadn’t been an accident. But how did they know?

  Had Rivas been involved in some kind of way?

  And what about Aunt Lily?

  I remembered the picture I’d taken from the Fernandez house. What was my great-aunt’s connection with that family? I made a mental note to call her as soon as I got to the office and start probing for details.

  So, onto the more interesting dilemma of being torn between two men.

  The thought of Cole wanting to be back in my life set my heart all atwitter; the thought of reserved, by-the-book island chief deputy, Nick Billie, being jealous of Cole sent me practically into cardiac arrest.

  I didn’t know what to think. Deep, meaningful relationships were not my forte, and neither of the potential boyfriends had exactly committed to me.

  I pulled into the strip mall that housed our small office, undecided and dazed.

  When in doubt, think about it later. I needed all my focus to survive another day with Bernice the Butthead.

  Taking in a deep breath, I entered the office with halting steps.

  I looked around to find the office empty. Yippee. And then I noticed that the stump was gone. Double yippee. That damp, dirt smell had dissipated, but … now something else permeated the air.

  I sniffed.

  It smelled like … motor oil. Then I spotted the new addition to the office: some sort of engine with a sign next to it that read CHARLEY’S: CORAL ISLAND’S ONLY FULL-SERVICE GARAGE. Oh, no.