Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  Even though I am not a patient woman, I agreed. I had heard something beneath Tyler’s words, something that warned me not to push. Information came from people and people moved best at their own speed. We agreed to meet at twelve.

  But I didn’t like the idea of going to lunch blind. I didn’t mistrust Tyler, but I feared his narrative would be overly colored by his easygoing nature. When we had been together, his habit of choosing the path of least resistance had bugged the hell out of me. That relationship had been doomed from the start. He was a carefree Southerner who took the easy road and I was a melancholy Pole from Baltimore who never did anything easy. He used to tell me I made things too hard on myself and maybe he was right. Maybe that was why my life so far had been like a game of Chutes and Ladders, minus the ladders.

  A rush of sadness and regret washed over me. The past, the fucking past—just when you thought it was done and gone, it turned up to slap you in the face.

  Once more I heard Joey Spoletto’s scratchy voice: “You gotta be careful, Addie. You’re an intuitive detective. You like to walk the tightrope. Just remember it’s a long way down.”

  “But you’re on the tightrope with me, aren’t you, partner?” I’d laughed, not hearing the warning.

  “Like hell I am. My feet are on the ground. I’m a plodder, moving from point A to point B like a fucking donkey. I’m slow, but I get the job done and I don’t gotta worry about falling.”

  But in the end, we both fell—Joey to a bullet on a south Baltimore street and me to Florida. But this morning I found the body in the woods, and that changed things. So I pushed back the past. There was work to do.

  I could be at the Grub and Grog in five minutes. That would give me plenty of time to talk with Barracas, and maybe chat with other staff who had worked last night. Then I’d have a sense of what had gone down before meeting Tyler. A good plan, as long as my extracurricular activities didn’t get back to Richt.

  I wasn’t sure where this road would take me, but I’d follow it a bit longer.

  * * *

  The Grub and Grog was less than half a mile from my office, with Maude’s Café spitting distance of the G and G. My father, an old-school cop who walked a beat in Baltimore for years, used to say that the only way you got to know a place was by walking its streets. So I would walk.

  The sun blazed white in the blue sky, with the piercing clarity peculiar to the South. Just enough of the early morning chill remained to make it perfect walking weather. I felt a brief exhilaration—most of my working day was spent in my dark office, poring over schedules and payrolls. I looked up at the neat brick buildings on either side of the landscaped street. Baskets of spicy-smelling lantana hung from posts. Not many cars, but golf carts hummed along their designated lanes. Not a piece of trash in sight. How could anyone have a problem on such a beautiful day? But yesterday had been just as lovely, and yesterday someone had blasted a hole in Mel Dick’s head.

  “I can’t believe this.” A voice squealed from below. “I just can’t believe it!”

  A young man in a dark blue suit smiled up at me, crouching over a rectangular plot of earth that brimmed with yellow chrysanthemums. It was the new financial guy, Jeremy Louis, who I’d met at last month’s orientation when I gave my usual spiel to the new recruits.

  “What can’t you believe?”

  Jeremy Louis stood, brushed imaginary dirt from his pants. He was a well-built man on the short side who would be almost handsome if not for the perpetual grin. Only idiots grinned all the time.

  “Yesterday afternoon I notified maintenance that the mums in this plot were brown and droopy. Today I come in to find the old flowers ripped out and replaced. I knew Mr. Richt ran a tight ship, but this is beyond the pale. The man simply doesn’t allow any imperfections.”

  “And you approve.”

  “Of course I approve.” Jeremy Louis beamed at the chrysanthemums and turned to me. “I heard about Mr. Dick.”

  “What have you heard, Mr. Louis?” My icy voice and stone expression didn’t deter Jeremy Louis.

  “That Mel Dick is dead.” He tittered, eyes glittering like ice. “And that his death wasn’t exactly natural, if you get my drift.”

  “I can’t speak on the matter.” Tyler was right about this one—the new financial planner had all the marks of an inveterate gossip.

  “Can’t or won’t? Yes, well, I see you’re busy and I’ve got a morning of appointments myself.”

  I watched him scurry inside the Financial Building, all traces of my earlier exhilaration gone, squashed like a lovebug on the windshield of a speeding car.

  Chapter Three

  The Jabber of Parrots

  José Barracas stood behind the bar, arms knotted over his broad chest. His body retained traces of the muscular lineman he’d been in college, but give it another year or two, and it’d all be fat.

  “Tell me what happened last night in your restaurant,” I said.

  José snorted, gave me a sly smile. “I don’t have to talk to you. It’s not like Mystic Cove Security is investigating Dick’s murder.” José’s smile was gruesome, his breath worse. I detected something beneath the heavy Aramis cologne, and I was pretty sure that wasn’t coffee in his cup. “Murder? Who said anything about murder? I’m here as Mystic Cove Security Chief. Mr. Richt wants to know about the disturbance at your restaurant, that’s all. But if don’t want to talk to me, I’ll let Mr. Richt know.”

  José placed a sweaty palm on my arm. “Why didn’t you say so? We’ll talk in my office. Want a drink?”

  I put away my cell and pretended not to notice when José topped off his mug with scotch.

  “I’m gonna level with you,” José said, settling behind his desk.

  “I appreciate that,” I said, on full alert. Whenever people tell you they’re going to level with you, expect a lie.

  “Last night was no big deal. Mel got ticked when I handed him his check. He must have thought I was giving him the bum’s rush or something, which I guess I was, but lately Mel’s been off the chain. Is that my fault?” José opened his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Nowadays Mel Dick is either tearing somebody a new one or crowing about that stupid newspaper.”

  “Newspaper?”

  “The fucking Commentator!”

  The Cove Commentator was the official organ of the Cove Homeowners’ Association, the larger of the Mystic Cove’s two homeowners’ associations. “I’d forgotten Mel worked for the Commentator.”

  José smirked. “Dick didn’t work for the Commentator. He was the Commentator. If Gigi wasn’t the jealous sort, Mel Dick would have fucked that paper instead of her.”

  “You mean Anita.”

  “No, I mean Gigi. Everybody in Mystic Cove knows that Gigi is Mel’s main squeeze.”

  I wondered if Anita was one of those everybodies.

  “You remember the monstruo, don’t you?”

  “God, yes.” Gigi Tajani was a masterpiece of modern pharmacology and surgery. Though several times a grandmother, her skin was pale as ivory, smooth as silk, and tight as a drum. A true monstruo. “How long have Mel and Gigi been at it?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care, but there’s trouble in paradise.” José shook the ice cubes in his scotch and drank. He tilted his torso toward me, as if about to impart a secret. “Last night Mel was just as hard on Gigi as he was on the others.”

  “Others?”

  José smiled, well lubricated now. “Yeah, all of Dick’s buddies—Alan and Tally Rand, Fairley Sable, Gigi—were here last night, watching the old fart’s every move.” He leaned across the desk. I managed not to flinch when I caught the sour, acrid smell. “I saw everything. I was at the bar.”

  “Of course you were,” I said, but I got his meaning. A large picture window separated the Grub and Grog’s bar and
patio. From his barstool perch Barracas had a front-row seat of the action on the patio. “Seems to me you were keeping a pretty close eye on Mel Dick yourself.”

  José fidgeted, eyes shifting. He polished off his scotch in one gulp. “A...a good businessman keeps an eye on his business. I got a right to watch my business. Geez, it’s boiling in here!” He lurched from his seat like a jack-in-the box and stumbled to the thermostat. There was a thump, followed by a burst of cold air from above. He slumped into his chair, closed his eyes. “That’s better—some dumb fuck must have turned it off.” He put his chin in one hand, and the eyes fluttered shut.

  “Mr. Barracas? Mr. Barracas!”

  A slight start and the fried-egg eyes sprang open. “Is this going to be much longer? I...I got a business to run. I don’t...”

  “Let’s get to the altercation with Mel.” I wasn’t sure if José’s distress was caused by his empty cup or the subject. Probably both.

  “It was like this. The Dicks came in at four for happy hour, sitting at my big table on the patio even though there’s only the two of ‘em. By six o’clock I had a line at the door—customers who don’t mind paying full price for drinks. I told Sheila to give Mel his check, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave. But she wouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” It seemed an innocuous action.

  “Sheila was afraid how Mel would react. Damn it, we’re all afraid of that fuck! I was tired of it. It was time to take the bull by the horns. Sheila tried to talk me out of it, but I didn’t listen.” José rubbed his temple, deflating like a punctured tire.

  “What’d you do?”

  “I went to the table, check in hand. Right off the bat I had second thoughts, but...but I had to finish what I started. I mean—” his eyes met mine, “—Sheila was watching and all. So at the table I made a little small talk, asked Mel if everything was okay, though I could tell things were as far from okay as they could be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s hard to explain. When I talked to Dick, I had the feeling he wasn’t listening. Like he was a million miles away. And Anita wasn’t much better, just staring out at the bay. Like a couple of waxworks, you know what I mean?”

  I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.

  “I put down the check and started to edge away. At first I thought Mel hadn’t noticed my move, but he noticed. He always noticed.”

  “What did Mel do?”

  “He looked me in the eye. Right off the bat, I knew I’d made a real bad mistake. His face was awful, like boiled tomatoes, and his eyes howled. He crushed the check into a ball and threw it at my head! I must have yelled ’cause everything got quiet. Everybody was watching me and Dick.” José licked his dry lips. “I was apologizing like crazy—all I wanted was to get back to the bar, but Mel wouldn’t let me go. He was screaming at me—called me a prick—said if I didn’t fight him, I was a filthy coward.” José wiped his damp face with the back of his hand. “It was like being stuck in a dream.”

  “And then?”

  “I heard Gigi yelling, ‘Mel, Mel!’ and Mel heard it too. He stared at Gigi like he’s seeing her for the first time. That was my chance to bail. As I ran for the bar, I heard Mel screaming a bunch of paranoid shit.”

  “At you?”

  “No, he was screaming at the people who used to be his friends—Gigi and Fairley, Alan and Tally Rand, and Anita too—Mel yelled at ’em all!”

  “What did he say?”

  “Paranoid shit, like I said. Stuff like ‘Everybody’s against me,’ shit like that. When he’s said his piece, he grabbed the mutt and beat it.”

  “And Anita?”

  “He left her sitting at the table. I tell you, Mel doesn’t give a fuck about his wife. Even his last words were for Gigi.”

  “What did he say to Gigi?”

  “I dunno. It was crazy talk.” José waved his hands, like he was swatting no-see-ums.

  “Come on, José.”

  “All right, he said, ‘Tutu, Gigi.’ Isn’t a tutu for a ballerina? Hey, I told you it was crazy.”

  Maybe not so crazy. “Might Mel have said, ‘Et tu, Gigi’? Might it have been that?”

  José stared at me. At last he said, “Yeah, it might have. It sounded like what you said.”

  Before leaving I spoke to the bartender, who backed up José’s account. Marco the busboy was there but didn’t speak English, and the person I most wanted to talk to—the waitress Sheila Green—was off today. After I got her contact information from José, I hustled over to Maude’s.

  Maybe they didn’t teach Shakespeare at the University of Newnansville, but then José Barracas had only been there to play football. Still he should have recognized the quote.

  “Et tu, Brute”—ultimate words of betrayal, spoken by the dying Caesar to his murderer, his friend, the beloved Brutus.

  “Et tu, Gigi”—words spoken by a dying Dick to his mistress.

  His murderess as well?

  * * *

  “Sorry I’m late, Tyler.” I waved off the menu the waitress had shoved in my face and ordered coffee.

  “Sure you won’t have some lunch?—the fettuccine Alfredo special was great.”

  “No thanks,” I said, eyeballing the knot of gummy noodles on Tyler’s plate. Once I’d made the mistake of ordering a cannoli at Maude’s and received a sodden pastry stuffed with cardboard-tasting cheese. I grieved for all I lost when I left Baltimore, which somehow translated into a sudden craving for an almond-filled bear claw from Hoehn’s Bakery in Highlandtown.

  Tyler smiled at the server. “I’ll have coffee as well and a big hunk of red velvet cake.”

  I must have made a face, for Tyler asked to be let in on the joke.

  “I’d just forgotten how much you liked a hearty lunch.”

  “That’s not it, Addie.” Tyler’s Southern drawl stretched my name like a rubber band—Aaaahdeeeee. I always got a kick out of the way he talked. Southerners added syllables while Baltimoreans chopped them off. In a nut, that was the difference between North and South.

  “Since you asked, I’ll tell you.”

  Tyler’s face already showed regret, but it was too late.

  “I don’t get red velvet cake. Why put a whole bottle of food coloring in a cake? It doesn’t add flavor, just a disgusting color.”

  “But if it ain’t red, it ain’t red velvet cake.”

  “It’s just not right.”

  “You always did have a peculiar idea of right and wrong,” Tyler said with an easy smile.

  What could I say? It was true.

  “Word on the street is that Mel’s murder was a robbery gone south,” Tyler said. “That how you see it?”

  I shook my head. “Didn’t appear to be a struggle, no obvious defensive wounds on the body. I sensed rage in this killing and that means it’s personal.” The server appeared with our coffees and a huge slice of cake the color of radioactive blood. When she’d gone, I said nonchalantly, “I just had an interesting chat with José Barracas.”

  “Smart move catching him early, gives you a fifty-fifty chance of finding him sober.”

  “He was pouring the Cutty down.”

  Tyler laughed. “When did José upgrade to Cutty? He used to be a rum-and-coke man.” Then he looked at me, the smile gone from his eyes. “Seriously, why did you talk with Barracas? Richt ain’t gonna like it.”

  “A spur-of-the-moment decision,” I lied, “and it was just a casual conversation.”

  Tyler sliced off a bit of cake with his fork. “You don’t have casual conversations. I’ll bet you cajoled and wheedled and pressed José Barracas until you got what you wanted. You may have the face of a Polish saint, but your heart is all pit bull.”

  “You don’t know my heart,” I said, anger flashing like a grease fire.

>   “Sorry, I forgot you were part porcupine.”

  The server returned with the check and while Tyler pulled out his Discover card, I gazed in the distance. Mystic Bay was calm, a tarnished mirror. From behind the Grub and Grog, Long Pier, which was actually quite short, jutted into the water. At its terminus a young woman huddled over a little child, pointing at the miniature lighthouse to their right.

  “You okay, Addie?”

  “Yes,” I said, all anger gone. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. It’s...it’s been a strange day.”

  “I’ll tell you what I know about the shit at the G and G, but it’s not much,” Tyler said. “Sheila Green called headquarters at around six-fifteen. She said Mel Dick had gone nuts, and somebody needed to get over right away. She was trying to hold it together, but I could tell she was scared to death.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Even though Sheila was scared to death, as you said.”

  “You know Mr. Richt wants us to handle these kinds of problems in-house. He’d have a fit if...”

  “What happened next?”

  Tyler speared another forkful of cake and sipped his coffee. “I took my car instead of a cart, which turned out to be a mistake. I was going west on Cove Road when I spotted Dick’s Humvee coming my way and hauling ass! I chased, even though I had no notion what I was going to do with him when I caught him. I was right on his tail when he turned into Birnam Wood, where I couldn’t follow.

  “So when I got to the Grub and Grog, Okpulo County Sheriff’s Office cruisers lined the street and people were buzzing around like they’d just seen fireworks. I told OCSO about my aborted chase of Mel Dick. They said they’d send a cruiser out to Dick’s house for a safety check. There wasn’t much else to do. Barracas didn’t want to press charges. No harm, no foul.”

  Not for Mel Dick.

  “But now we’re getting to the interesting part of the evening.” Tyler stabbed the last bit of cake. “OCSO was about to take off when Bubba Spooner joins the party.”

  I nearly snorted my coffee. “But Founder’s Centre is in Okpulo County.”