The Manatee Did It

by Kay Dew Shostak

  Another feeling comes over me from those college days: I’m responsible for no one. Usually with Craig home I’d be thinking of how to make him happy, constantly wondering what he might need. What does he want for dinner? For lunch? Does he need shirts from the dry cleaner’s? All that seems to have just dissipated. The day is mine. There’s no one I feel I want to keep happy, check up on, or even feed. Just a Friday with me and my friends. I’ve only walked half a block when I stop to take off the thin jacket I’d appreciated inside the chilly library. I fold it and put it in my big canvas bag along with my books. Yes, books. The ladies told me a couple of authors to look up and even the names of the first books in their mystery series. I ended up with Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson and Death on Demand by Carolyn Hart. I was shocked at how many books are in each of those series—the ladies last night said they’d read them all!

  With my bag back on my shoulder, I turn through the parking lot behind the library. On the other side I cross the street in front of some delightfully small restaurants, one with a wooden pirate ship for children to play on. I turn to the left and walk into an adorable bakery I’ve noticed but never stopped in. I’d texted the ladies first thing this morning that I’d bring dessert to lunch.

  Soft colors, soft smells, soft icing, and beautiful cakes make me want to swoon.

  “Welcome to Karen’s. Can I help you?” a voice says, attempting to pull my attention from the case of delightful offerings.

  “Yes,” I say, finally looking up.

  The lady is older than me, but the most striking thing about her is how happy she looks. She laughs as she wipes her hands on her apron. “I like someone who knows they need help.”

  “Well, I just know I need dessert for lunch today, and I’m not leaving here without it. What do you suggest?”

  “Oh, an assortment of cupcakes is always popular. Especially since I just finished this beach trio: coconut fudge, cherry limeade, and piña colada.” She points to a plate of cupcakes, all iced in bright colors with seashell decorations.

  “I’ll take, oh, give me a dozen. The hostess apparently loves sweets, so I can leave her some.”

  “A dozen it is. Are you new here?”

  “I am. My name is Jewel.” She notices how I choke off before I say my last name, but she doesn’t look too curious, just keeps boxing up my treats.

  “I’m Karen, nice to meet you.”

  “Karen, as in the owner of Karen’s Bakery?”

  “Yes, that’s me. Started in my house four years ago and just moved into this place last year. It’s all a dream come true.” Her hair is gray and cut short. She’s medium height and a bit heavy. Actually, she looks like a grandma. She just makes you want to smile.

  “That’s nice, your dream coming true.” I can’t help but sigh, and again, she notices with a quick glance in my direction.

  She ties a pretty lilac ribbon around the box, then writes up my bill. After being so friendly and open, she now seems focused only on her duties: running my card, making sure the box is closed properly, then handing me the cupcakes and helping me maneuver out the door. It’s almost like she’s hurrying me out, and even more so when she closes the door behind me with a clipped goodbye.

  I’m on the sidewalk, a tad confused, when the door is yanked back open and my name is practically shouted. “Jewel! Oh, you’re still right here.” Karen steps out and lays a hand on my arm. “Honey, I’m sorry, but sometimes I get these feelings so strong about people that I should say something to them. Now that I have this business I try to not do it with strangers, but well, honey, I just feel like I have to tell you something.”

  She’s looking up at me with such bright gray eyes, full of fire. She’s practically bouncing in place with whatever she wants to say, so I brace myself and nod. “Sure. What is it?”

  As her smile widens, her body relaxes, her eyes soften, and she says, “Don’t give up on happiness.” She steps away from me. “That’s all. Don’t give up on happiness. Now you have a good day.”

  Like a postman walking away from a door he’s just made a big delivery to, she fairly struts back into her bakery and leaves me staring after her. I don’t have a free hand to open the door, but the words are already forming in my mouth to ask what she means. She said she’d told me all she had to say. I guess I’ll have to stop in again. Soon.

  “Karen is a doll. These will be the best cupcakes you’ve ever eaten in your life!” Tamela says as she holds the door open for me at Lucy’s mother’s home. The house is one of the older ones along this stretch of the beach, but it looks to be in good repair. The driveway goes underneath the house, and there’s room for parking there. The door Tamela is holding open is from the parking area up a set of interior stairs. We come out onto a narrow deck on the side of the house. She holds that door, too, as she steps out before me, then moves to the side.

  “Just go on down to the back deck,” she says, so I lead the way down the side of the house, with a worn wood railing on one side of me and a wall of long, narrow windows on the other. At the end of the house, the deck opens up to a view of the dunes and the ocean. Waves crash, and I’m arrested by the idea of living here. Being able to see the ocean any time? Why, I never even imagined this.

  “Hey, did you forget about me?” Tamela says since my stopping trapped her on the walkway part of the deck.

  “Oh, sorry. This is amazing. I guess I never thought of people actually living on the beach.”

  Tamela has stepped around me to knock on the sliding glass door. “There’s Birdie,” she says as she slides it open, and I leave the view to meet our host.

  “Oh, Tamela, you’re as pretty as ever. Being retired agrees with you!” the little woman says as she opens the door. She hugs Tamela, then turns to me. Her bright face folds in a bit. “Do I know you?”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I’m Jewel Mantelle. We’re new here.”

  Her face folds in even more. “But, but I know Mantelles. Don’t I, Tamela?”

  Tamela smiles at her and gives me a quick side glance. “Yes, ma’am, you do. Let’s take the cupcakes inside. Jewel is married to one of the Mantelles from here, and they just moved back. Oh, it feels so nice inside out of the sun. Can’t believe it’s already gotten so warm this year.” She has guided us inside and pointed me to the kitchen, although with the open floorplan, I’d already spotted it. “Miss Birdie, Lucy will be here with lunch any minute. Annie’s coming, too.”

  “Come talk to me, Mrs. Mantelle,” our host says. “I love meeting new people.”

  “You have such a beautiful home. I can hardly imagine living right on the beach like this.” I reach out my hand to her. “Now that I’ve set down that box I can meet you properly. I’m Jewel,” I say, taking a seat on the couch next to her chair.

  “Yes, that’s right. Jewel. What a pretty name. Is it like jewels in a necklace or short for Julia?”

  “Jewels in a necklace.”

  She laughs and puts her hands together in a clap. “I thought so. So which of the Mantelle boys did you marry? When we were newly here you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a Mantelle. Not so much anymore.”

  “My husband is Craig, and he only stayed here in the summers with his aunt. His great-aunt, really, I guess. Everyone called him C. J.”

  “Oh,” she says as she sits back. Her eyes shift to look out at the windows. I follow her lead and look at the waves, but suddenly she blurts, “He stayed in the big house? With Corabelle?”

  “Yes. His mother worked up in Atlanta where he lived the rest of the year. Did you know his aunt?”

  She’s blinking at me. It’s like watching that spinning wheel when my tablet is taking its time to load. Then her words slowly unravel. “You inherited the big house downtown? Oh my, I don’t leave my perch here by the sea often, but I would for a look at your home. How many times I walked or drove past it! Even while Corabelle was still there, I wondered just what it was like. Can I come see it?”

  “Why, of course!
The ladies were all there last night.”

  Tamela has joined us. “It’s pretty cool, Miss Birdie, but I guess I expected it to be scarier or something. Maybe haunted? It’s pretty much just a big old house plumb stuffed with furniture.”

  The older lady’s eyes are more sure and her speech more steady now that she’s connected with the correct memories. “When we moved here in 1968 some of the big houses downtown had been sold or were falling apart. Only a few were still in the hands of the original families, and those families stuck together. Sent their kids off to private schools or even had tutors for their children. Folks like us were never invited to the parties there. It felt like one of those living history museums to just walk in some of those neighborhoods. And there in the middle of it all was the biggest house, all closed up with an old lady living in it alone. Then when her nephew—my word, that was your husband—would come in the summer, she still never ventured out. It was strange to see him out and about and know he went back to that huge, dark house every night.”

  Tamela and I are staring at her like she’s telling ghost stories around a campfire, so when Lucy comes sailing in the side door we both yelp.

  “You liked to scared us to death!” Tamela says. We jump up to help Lucy with her things.

  “Annie’s right behind me. You won’t believe what she’s brought.” Lucy rolls her eyes and shakes her head at us.

  “Someone get this door!” Annie hollers. “My hands are full, and I can’t wait for Cherry.”

  I pull the door open wide, and in she comes, lumbering, carrying a huge glass pitcher full of yellow-green liquid.

  “Limes and salt are in my bag. I figured having a pitcher of margaritas like Pierson Mantelle was beamed with will help our detecting!”

  “Can’t hurt, I guess,” I say.

  Cherry comes running up the stairs. “I feel so bad. I didn’t even think to bring anything.”

  “From the looks of things I don’t think we need anything else at all,” Tamela says with a laugh.

  Lucy is opening containers of salad and emptying her bags of crackers and chips. “Y’all want to have lunch outside? Start carrying all this out and I’ll get the plates and utensils.”

  On the end of the back deck, across from the walkway we arrived on earlier, the deck is covered. A table for eight is tucked into the corner. With everyone working, the table is pulled away from the wall and set, the chair cushions brushed off and claimed, and margaritas poured in no time at all.

  Birdie raises her glass. “I want to make the toast. To the ocean. To the sea. To having you all here with me!”

  They’d given me the honored seat as a first-time guest, even though Cherry has never been here either apparently, and I’m looking directly at the beach. Even with the drama and the lack of sleep from last night, I can’t help but be in a good amount of awe. I’m sitting on a deck overlooking the beach with new friends, sipping a margarita.

  Annie grimaces at me, tips her glass in my direction, and says, “Drink up, friend. You’re going to need it when you hear what I learned this morning about the murder.”

  Chapter 23

  The squawks of the seagulls have nothing on us. Apparently we’d all taken our assignments from Lucy seriously last night, and we all wanted to tell what we’d discovered first. Finally Cherry half stands from her low seat, holding her long arms out over the table.

  “Stop! I can’t hear what everyone is saying, and we’re going to give our hostess a stroke with all this. Now, who thinks they should go first?” Cherry’s short, dark hair is still wet from the shower she told us she took after her morning run on the beach. Her arms are muscular, as her legs must also be to hold that stance for as long as she is. With a nod at Annie’s raised hand, Cherry pulls her arms in and plops back down in her seat. “Annie has the floor.”

  “Thank you for having us here, Lucy and Miss Birdie.” Annie looks around the table as we all lift our just-refilled glasses. We take sips and carefully set our glasses back down.

  “These are very good, Annie,” Lucy says. “Tasty but not too strong.”

  Annie beams. “I do make a good margarita. Oh, maybe we should’ve toasted Pierson’s memory? Although I don’t guess we have many memories of him, do we? He was quite a bit younger than most of us.”

  That spreads a pall over the table; then Annie shakes her head and clears her throat. “Which is another reason we have to help figure this out. So, sorry, Jewel, but Craig is back up near the top of the police suspect list. They found out about the dockominiums.”

  “The what?” the ladies ask.

  Annie responds quickly. “Dockominiums are what they call condominiums on the dock, or at least in the dock area. You buy a boat slip at the dock when you buy your condominium. I’d never heard the term either, but I bet we’ll be hearing it a lot more in the future,” she says with a knowing look.

  Tamela shakes her head as she takes a forkful of chunky crab salad. She hides her mouth with her hand as she asks, “Here? Where in the world would there be room to put condos near the dock?”

  “Annie’s right,” I say as I lift my glass for another drink. “Craig and Pierson were going to be partners in this whole scheme.”

  “What!” Lucy exclaims. “They knew each other?” She turns to Annie. “And what is this about condos at the marina? I mean, there was some pipe-dream plan a few years back, but it was unworkable with the city owning the marina.”

  “That’s why Pierson’s company wanted to own the marina,” Annie explains. “They’ve done it a lot down south apparently. The police interviewed Adam. You remember my oldest son, Adam, Miss Birdie? He works down at the marina.”

  Miss Birdie is fading on us, so she lightly smiles and nods at Annie.

  “Anyway,” Annie continues, “Adam was fit to be tied to find out they were making all these plans behind the scenes. His friends from down south at marinas that have gone from public to private have different opinions on how it worked out. Some good, some not so good. However, any that were bought by the company Pierson was representing turned out bad. Awful, as a matter of fact. They misled the communities about how much access they’d have to the slips and priced the ones not associated with the dockominiums out of sight. He’s heard of slips, just a slip with no condo, being bought for well over one hundred thousand dollars!”

  Lucy’s shoulders fall. “That’s a lot of money for politicians to ignore.” We all agree, then take a moment to eat and drink as the wind has been taken right out of our sails.

  Cherry folds her napkin and lays it on her plate. “But you said Craig works with building roads. How would he be working with Pierson Mantelle and the whole marina thing at all?”

  They all are looking at me. Dr. Kahill always encouraged me to make friends. My kids say I need friends. I actually have wanted friends. It’s just not that easy for me to share, to talk about what’s going on in my life, but this keeping everything to myself, keeping all my thoughts private, feels crazier and crazier, especially now that the idea of me and Craig growing closer is obviously a delusion. I sit up straighter and take another sip of margarita.

  “Margaritas were a good idea, Annie. Thanks.” I take a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. Craig was involved with Pierson because the inheritance on the house has us tied to it for the next five years.” I ignore the looks around the table and the intakes of breath. “Craig was trading the house to Pierson for the marina manager’s job and a condominium in the new complex. I didn’t hear the term dockominiums, but that sounds about right. I never knew any of this.”

  “But…” Tamela’s words come slowly. “But if they were partners, what motive would Craig have to, uh, you know?”

  “Pierson had promised the manager position to someone else, too,” Annie says. “Ray Barnette. Ray is right in the thick of all this, so I guess he would’ve been competition for Craig.” She’s studying her plate and not looking at me.

  “But Craig says he’d decided he didn’t want the job,” I bl
urt out. “Decided he doesn’t want to be here all the time.” At the suspicious looks around the table, I nod and say, “I know. Maybe he’s lying about that, but I don’t think so.” I lift my glass, ready for another sip as I mumble, barely loud enough for them to hear, “I think he’s done with everything on Sophia Island. Especially his wife.”

  No one argues with me.

  After a pause, Annie says, “Well, Ray was up to his neck in this thing. More so than he let on at first, but there’s more…”

  Miss Birdie has fallen asleep, and a little snore from her causes Annie to lower her voice. “Sheryl-Lee was working with another company that’s in competition with the one Pierson worked for. She’s been trying like everything to get a copy of the plan Pierson was working from. Allie, y’all remember my daughter Allie and Sheryl-Lee have been best friends forever? You met them both, Jewel. Well, Allie’s grown pretty jealous of Sheryl-Lee. Last night after dinner she told me Sheryl-Lee had been sleeping with Pierson to find out his plan!”

  “Oh my,” Lucy says. “You see that kind of thing in movies, but would a man who has two twenty-year-olds on his boat be so smitten with Sheryl-Lee King he’d tell her his secrets?”

  Cherry laughs. “Oh, I think it’s more that she would have access to his papers and things. Not that he’d be doing any pillow talk.” We all nod and take a minute to think. Cherry continues. “On the girlfriend front, I found out the police have not talked to either of the girls except through their lawyer. They didn’t return to college; they both went home. The girlfriend is from California, and her mother is some big lawyer out there. She’s apparently shut down any and all lines of questioning. One of my friends is a nurse at another private school, and she said she’s not surprised that they are protecting their students. She said most of the parents there are important people who know how to use, or ignore, the system.”

  Lucy throws her napkin onto her plate. “But they were on a boat when a man was killed! How can they just refuse to talk to the police?”