by Mary Bowers
“I only ask so I don’t put my foot in my mouth. Is Michael the jealous type?”
“Bernie, what have you heard? Anything from Kyle?” Bernie’s much-younger friend was the Flagler County Sheriff.
Getting information from Bernie usually involved a trade of some kind. She’s a nice lady, but she’s been a newswoman for too long. You’d think she was looking for an edge over the cut-throat news dogs of New York, instead of the editor of a weekly feel-good lollypop full of gossip for the locals and coupons for the tourists.
When she’d stared at me silently with liquid brown eyes for long enough, I said, “Come on, Bernie, give. I can’t trade information. I got nothin’. I haven’t seen Fred Rambo since 1983. I think.”
“It happened in St. John’s County, not Flagler. Officially, Kyle doesn’t know anything about it.”
“And unofficially? You know the St. John’s County cops, too.”
Begrudgingly, she said, “They don’t really know a lot yet, but so far, it looks like . . . well, like something he ate or drank. They’re waiting for the tox screen, and that can take weeks, unless they know what they’re looking for. You two are the out-of-towners who threw the party?” she asked turning to Coco and Patty.
They nodded.
“I’m sure it was nothing we gave him,” Patty said. “We all ate everything he did. Nobody else got sick.”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh, Bernie, please,” I said, not liking the way she was looking at my friends. “They went to high school with me, for goodness’ sake!”
“I see.”
“Really, Bernie,” Patty said, “I’m sure poor Fred just had a heart attack.”
Grudgingly, Bernie said, “Betty Everson was there. She lost her husband to a heart attack a few years back, and she did say it looked like the same thing. Of course, she’s not a doctor.”
“I’m sure there’s lots of things it could have been,” Coco said airily. “They don’t really know yet, right?”
Bernie nodded. She still looked suspicious. “And you never met Fred Rambo before?”
“Never!” Patty said. “Oh, why did this have to happen right at the beginning of our vacation? And I can’t even find any Heyers.”
Bernie blinked, but didn’t say anything.
“Don’t worry, Patty,” I said. “The biggest used book store in the county is right next door. I only brought you here first because I thought I saw one in the racks last week, and profits from Girlfriend’s go to my shelter. Fifty cents is fifty cents, as I always say, and Barnabas charges a dollar for paperbacks. But he’s is bound to have a whole shelf full of Georgette Heyers.”
“Oh, Heyers,” Bernie murmured. “I couldn’t imagine why she was looking for hairs.”
“Listen, Bernie,” I said, hunkering down and getting close to her. Coco had found her purse – in fact, she found two of them – along with a silk blouse and a pair of earrings, and Patty had trailed up to the check-out counter after her. “I really need your help. If they nail down a cause of death, will you let me know? If you do,” I said, holding her gaze and speaking very deliberately, “I’ll owe you.”
The dear little old lady did some quick, shrewd calculations, then nodded. “Deal. Your friends don’t need to know this, but the police don’t think it was natural causes.”
“They were insinuating that last night, but the police always look like they’re insinuating something. I figured I was just nervous, and they were trying to hit all the angles. What do they really think?”
“They aren’t saying anything definite – yet. But the vomiting, the convulsions, the way he went into a coma, all look like some kind of poison.”
I stared.
After a moment, she murmured, “I’ll keep you posted.”
I shook her hand without squeezing her knotty, arthritic fingers too hard. “Thank you.”
I lifted my eyes to the picture rail, where Bastet was watching.
“Stay,” I ordered.
Patty and Coco were already out the door, and I didn’t wait for Bastet’s inevitable glare of disdain. By the time I caught up with the girls, Patty was pointing to where the cars were parked on the street.
“Look at that little thing. Is that real, or just a wind-up toy?”
“Might be a clown car,” Coco said. “Is there going to be a parade?”
It was a little green Geo Metro, what I would call an old bonger, but Ed prefers the word “vintage.” It belonged to my paranormal-investigator friend, Edson Darby-Deaver, the last person in the world I wanted to see that morning. I got furtive. I scanned the street. I didn’t see him, but I kept my head on a swivel. I did not want my friends getting anywhere near him. He’s a busy man, and he wouldn’t have time for the years of therapy he’d need after an encounter with Coco.
Patty was still amused. “I wonder what they called that color. Alien green?”
I tried to laugh, but it came out like a dying bleat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Coco had been suddenly mesmerized by something across the street. “Sharla’s,” she said, pointing. “Is that a dress shop?”
I hooked her arm and steered her the other way, toward The Bookery. “First things first. This is an emergency, remember?”
* * * * *
Ed wasn’t visible in The Bookery, and I began to relax. It had almost been a sure bet he’d be wandering the aisles looking for something arcane that had been out of print since 1921. Edson Darby-Deaver and Barnabas Elgin were compatible eccentrics, and when they got together, strange things began to stir.
Barnabas Elgin was revered in Tropical Breeze. His family roots went back to 1910, when his great-grandfather had founded what was the only book store in three or four counties at the time. It was beginning to look as if the current Barnabas Elgin (the Fifth), would be the last. He had never married, never had a child. The Bookery, by contrast, had continued to grow in an organic way that made it seem like a living thing.
Barnabas owns the whole 3-storey building. The bookstore is on the ground floor, Barnabas’s apartment is on the second, and his personal archives and research center are on the third, where he has a “morgue” of newspapers, the journals of local people, and all the written history of Tropical Breeze. The tchotckes – old portraits, early tourism postcards, vintage décor – are at the Tropical Breeze Historical Society Museum, around the corner on Sixth Street. But the personal stories and intimate thoughts of the people who lived and died there were kept in a fireproof safe on the third floor of The Bookery. Ed must have been up on the third floor already, I figured. I let out a sigh of relief. Once he was up there, he was good for hours. Days. Weeks, maybe.
Barnabas came to us solemnly out of sky-high book shelves, holding his Siamese cat Ishmael in the crook of one arm. With the opposite hand, he cradled the cat’s head and gently massaged it. As always, he was dressed entirely in black, with black sandals. His salt-and-pepper hair was pulled tightly back into a long ponytail.
Ishmael lay contentedly in his human’s arm and looked at us with limpid blue eyes.
Somehow, in The Bookery, you modified your behavior. You lowered your voice. You spoke more carefully, even to your friends. You felt the presence of the books, as if all those words, once gathered together, had formed living entities that continued to brood after their authors had passed away. It was like a library, only moreso. Only Coco seemed immune and was immediately bored.
I made the introductions, and Barnabas treated my classmates like visiting royalty, making a slight bow. He always speaks slowly and elegantly, and when you’re with him, the world seems a calmer and quieter place, so his pacing seems just right. Even the sunlight coming through the front window seemed to carry less energy.
“My friend Patty,” I said, touching her arm, “is having a Heyer emergency.”
There was no need to explain this to Barnabas.
“Dear, dear,” he murmured, petting Ishmael’s head. “The divine Georgette remains a c
omfort to us all. What a gift she had.”
“You read Regencies?” Patty asked in a rush, as if she’d suddenly found herself a friend.
“I read all things,” Barnabas told her. “And my mother was particularly fond of them,” he added with a note of tenderness. Barnabas almost never speaks of his mother; she died when he was young, and the wound is still fresh. It made a bond between us; my own parents had died when I was still in my twenties.
Coco and I ceased to exist, and with his free arm Barnabas gently took Patty and guided her back to the Romance section.
Coco watched them walk away from us for a moment, then turned to me and whispered, “Is he real?”
“Very. He just doesn’t burn himself out. He saves his passion for his books and his piano.”
She continued to watch for a moment and then said, “Is he married?” I knew she wasn’t really interested. She just couldn’t help herself.
* * * * *
Patty selected five Georgette Heyers in The Bookery. Five. She even found two she hadn’t read before. Barnabas tried to get her to take them as a gift, and there was some extremely polite back-and-forth at the check-out counter until Coco slapped a five dollar bill on the counter and brought them back to earth.
“Allow me,” she said. “Let’s go. I’m hungry. It’s too late to go to the condo and start cooking now. We’re eating out.”
As we stepped outside into the blinding sunshine, she shielded her eyes and looked up and down the street. “Is there a good restaurant anywhere in this town?”
“Right across the street,” I said, “two doors down from the dress shop, which you will not be going into today, even though you’d love it, because after lunch, we’re all going to the condo and you two are going to tell me exactly what happened at the party before Michael and I got there.”
It wasn’t until we were seated in a booth at Don’s Diner that I realized that not a word had been said in The Bookery about Fred Rambo’s death. Without a doubt, Barnabas knew about it, and had understood immediately why Patty needed a comfort book, but never in this world would he have mentioned it in the presence of ladies, even the ones directly involved. He would have considered it indelicate.
* * * * *
The diet had definitely been postponed. Coco and Patty hadn’t seen a beehive hairdo on a waitress since the car-hops of Art’s Drive-In, back in the day. It put us in the mood for diner food, and nobody diets in a diner.
“Even the little velvet bow just above the bangs,” Coco whispered as DeAnn approached the table with menus. “Do they have to do their hair like that to work here?”
“I never asked, but I think so,” I said. By then the waitress was at our table, and I said, “Hey, DeAnn. These are two of my old high school buddies, Coco and Patty. They’re on vacation at a condo up on Crescent Beach.”
DeAnn’s eyes got wide. “Did you hear about the man who died at a party there last night? Was that in the condos you’re staying at?”
I tuned out.
The grilled cheese sandwich and fries were as hot, crunchy and good as always, but the conversation, (which expanded to include a group at another table, three guys on stools at the soda fountain and part of the kitchen staff) was becoming stale. I couldn’t believe how many people knew that I’d once dated Fred Rambo.
When Edson Darby-Deaver came beetling in the door and looked around in his startled-fawn way, I was almost relieved. Ed has been laughed at for most of his life, and it has sensitized him. He never puts anybody on the spot, ever.
He came forward with courage, despite the fact that there were two other ladies in the booth with me and they were both staring at him.
“Barnabas told me,” he said, focusing on me through owlish glasses.
“Are you a friend of Taters’?” Coco asked. “Join us.”
He shot her a quick, nervous glance, then looked back at me desperately. He really didn’t want to be surrounded by so many women, but he wanted to know things, and most of all, he wanted to be sure I was all right. He’s like that.
I was alone on my side of the booth, and I scooted over and he sat down, still turned toward me.
“I just want to know,” he said, full of determination, “that if you need my help, I’m here for you. If not, I’ll stay out of your hair. Is this . . . one of ours? You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” I said, and for the first time when faced with the insinuation that I had psychic powers, I wasn’t irritated. “No, Ed, this isn’t one of ours. The man just collapsed and died, and I happened to know him. Nothing more complicated than that.”
“I see. Astonishing.”
“What’s astonishing about it?”
“That it should happen to you. You’re suggesting it was merely something . . . normal?”
I nodded.
DeAnn walked over and asked Ed what she could get for him.
“Nothing, my dear. I won’t be staying.”
“At least let me introduce you to my friends,” I said quickly. He was already on the rise.
He stood still, blinking, as I made the introductions. Then he ducked his head, said, “Ladies,” and took himself off, speed-walking. There were snickers from the guys at the soda fountain, and I glared at them. They stopped snickering and turned around.
It had taken all the courage Ed had to do that. Bless his little heart, he’d have walked through fire if he’d thought he could help me. Bless his big heart.
“That’s the guy?” Patty asked.
“That’s the guy.”
“And you don’t think he can help?” Coco asked.
“Not this time. Ed’s kind of specialized. He actually has a paranormal reality show.”
“He’s on TV?” Coco turned and stared at the Exit door as if she wanted to get up and chase after him.
“Coco, behave yourself,” I snapped. “He’s very shy. He’s only on the show because he’s so good at what he does, and the show gives him resources he wouldn’t have otherwise. In fact he’s so focused on the paranormal, he’s pretty much oblivious to everything else. Natural deaths don’t interest him. I think Fred just died of natural causes.”
I could only hope it was true. But after the way Detective Bruno had acted and what Bernie had told me, I was more than a little worried.
Chapter 7
“So, we’re putting the diet on hold until things settle down a little?” I asked, driving them down Route A1A, from island to island, bridge to bridge, past luxury beach houses and ramshackle cottages, all lined up to stare at the ocean.
“What makes you say that?” Coco asked.
I wiggled my eyebrows, but kept my eyes on the road. “Burger, fries and a malt? And what did you have, Patty? A reuben?”
“I told them to hold the fries, and I did not order that malt. It’s not my fault they got generous when they heard we went to high school with you. And refusing to eat the free slice of pie would’ve been just plain rude. We’ll skip dinner tonight.”
Naturally, my buddies had told everybody my old high school nickname, and after over forty years, I realized I was going to have to hear it again all the time. I mean, it’s only my name. Taylor has a certain style, a kind of je ne sais quoi. Taters sounds like what you yell when it’s time to feed the pigs.
Then DeAnn had made a cute remark about all our nicknames. “Coco, Patty and Taters? Y’all sound like the children’s menu!” The whole diner had laughed. I had crunched a French fry and tried to act like I hadn’t heard variations of that one for a full four years as a teenager.
When I made the turn onto Old Kings Road, I had to remind Coco that we needed to pick up their rental car and drop off a certain cat. She said she didn’t want to bother stopping because she was so full she just wanted to go straight back to the condo and lay down. (Translation: She knew Michael wasn’t home.) Bastet had actually stepped into the carrier obligingly, but I felt a little nervous about her still being in there when I went to get her out again. Even I wa
s getting superstitious about that cat.
Of course she was there, looking bored, and after a quick shuffle and the usual pit stops, we got back on the road and I followed their rental car up A1A to the condo.
* * * * *
The smell was gone. I’d anticipated it until I’d gotten myself into a state, and when everything looked and smelled normal in the condo, I sighed heavily and relaxed. Then I worried for a moment that Coco and Patty had noticed, but they were having the same reaction as me.
I thought of a way to distract them. “Isn’t it time you two got out to the beach?” I said.
Coco just glared.
“I thought you were going to walk, walk, walk the pounds away.”
“After that lunch, we really ought to,” Patty said. She didn’t mean it.
“After that lunch, all I want is a nap,” Coco told her.
“Come on, troops!” I said. “We’re never going to knock off that five pounds in a week’s time if we keep going like this.”
“Oh, shut up,” Coco muttered, collapsing on the couch.
“Maybe later,” Patty mumbled, picking up the remote and turning the TV on.
I took the remote away from her and turned the TV off. Then I sat down.
“Come on, guys. If you’re temporarily ditching the diet, I guess I can understand, but we at least have to talk about Fred, now that we’re alone. We’ve got to figure this out. Let’s go over the menu from last night. By the time I got to the kitchen, all I could see was cheese spread and some picked-over platters. You had wine . . . ?”
They both groaned, and Coco said, “Don’t start talking about food. I’m so full!”
She slid sideways, pulled her feet up and curled into a little ball on the couch. Either she was pretending, or she immediately went off to sleep.
I looked at Patty, who was in the other living room chair, one of those throne-like, tropical island fantasies with a rattan-and-bamboo frame and thick, orchid-covered cushions.
“Well, if you don’t want to talk about last night, at least show me that book with the diet plan you keep telling me about.” I said. “That’s what started it all, right? Coco going down to the pool and bragging about what good cooks you are and all the recipes you were going to try?”
