Murder in Tropical Breeze (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Mary Bowers

  Her eyes darted to the kitchen and I knew I had her, but when Officer Peterson piped up, it put the lid on.

  “I gave her a ticket,” he said, seemingly as surprised as everybody else. “Tuesday night. The night before the day Mrs. Huntington drowned. She was driving drunk, and I pulled her over and gave her a ticket. She was heading into town, coming from the direction of Cadbury House.”

  Sheriff Longley looked at Officer Peterson. “Get that mortar and pestle, son,” he said. “There’s probably zip-up bags in the pantry. Handle ‘em carefully, now.”

  Halfway to the kitchen, Peterson stopped and faced Graeme. “I gave you folks a lecture about that security system when y’all complained about the break-ins. Have you been setting the alarm since then?”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Graeme said, gazing at Tina with empty eyes. “I gave her the code. And no, we didn’t set the alarm before we went out that night.”

  “You didn’t change the code after you broke up with her?” Peterson asked.

  It was the Sheriff who answered. “They probably haven’t changed it since the day they had it installed. Am I right?”

  Graeme looked away.

  The Sheriff turned to Tina and started to recite the words that began an arrest. He did it in such an everyday tone of voice, it took us all a moment to realize what was going on.

  Tina twisted around and cried, “Graeme, help me! Tell them it isn’t true!”

  Apparently, he had done the math, as I suggested. He gazed at her and said, “My God, I brought this on myself. On all of us. If only I’d just told you to go to hell, or never had anything to do with you in the first place.”

  She made another animal noise. I’d been standing all that time and suddenly I needed to sit down. I took the chair nearest me and looked back out the window to where I’d seen Vesta and Bastet earlier.

  They were gone.

  When the police had taken Tina and left, there was an odd feeling of anti-climax. Nobody had moved, and nobody seemed to want to leave, even Bernie, who had a story to write and had come in the Sheriff’s car. She probably thought if she hung around, she’d get more, and she knew she could hitch a ride back to town with anybody there.

  And I was running on empty, talking because I couldn’t stop talking.

  “She thought Graeme would divorce Diana, sell this house and move away with her. She was planning a life with him, buying things for their oceanfront condo in never-never land.”

  I remembered my jealousy when I’d thought she was talking about running away with Michael. Would I have seen it all sooner if I’d realized what I knew deep down inside – that Michael would never leave Tropical Breeze, with Tina or anybody else? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. If so, I could’ve saved Diana, and I don’t want to think that.

  “I actually told her that once,” Graeme began, then couldn’t go on for a moment. “I actually told Tina that I’d leave Diana and take her to Miami Beach. But that was so long ago –back when the affair first began. I was just fantasizing, the way you do when you’re infatuated. But things had cooled off between us – at least I felt they had. I didn’t think she still believed it. At least Diana never knew.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t say so. Diana had been awfully desperate to get away from Tropical Breeze.

  Graeme abruptly got up and left the room.

  I looked at Jordan. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I was feeling so damn guilty after Grandma died, I never really tried to put things together. But you were right about Carmen. That’s why I dumped her. She was always at me to drug my Grandmother so she wouldn’t be wandering around the house getting in the way. She even suggested it might make her easier to manipulate about my trust. I don’t think she could’ve gotten at the pills though,” he said earnestly. “She didn’t know exactly how we did things, and I don’t think she was ever in Grandma’s bedroom to see where the pillbox was kept. I didn’t tell her that. She just knew I’d slipped her a pill – once.”

  I felt awful for him. I hoped he’d get over his guilt the way he’d gotten over Carmen.

  Chapter 29

  In the end, Bernie hitched a ride back to town with me, since I was dropping off the Purdy sisters and Bernie lived on the same block. With the Purdy girls in the car, Bernie didn’t ask me any follow-up questions. The excitement must have gotten to her, though, because she pulled out a cigarillo and stuck it between her lips. I watched her like a hawk, but she didn’t light it up in the car. I was all played out after my speechifying and didn’t feel like yelling at her. Not until I had it all off my chest did I realize how keyed up I’d been. I never doubted that my theory was correct, but it hit me on the drive back to town that I’d been doing a high-wire act and could easily have taken a very long fall.

  As I pulled up in front of the Purdy house and all my passengers got out, Florence gave me a smile and said, “I don’t know how to thank you, Taylor. You saved Myrtle. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Flo.”

  Myrtle gave me a vinegary smile and said, “Yes. Thanks. Though I don’t know why you had to make such a drama out of it all, haring over to Cadbury House with Bernie and the cops like we didn’t have a minute to spare.”

  Bernie piped up. “Personally, I like a little drama.”

  “We really didn’t have time to spare, Myrtle. At least, I didn’t know how much time we had, and I wasn’t taking any chances. You saw how Graeme’s attitude toward Tina changed as he realized what I was saying was true. Sooner or later – I’m guessing sooner – he would’ve put the pieces together for himself, and I didn’t want to give him a chance to go after Tina when he realized what she’d done.”

  Their faces fell and they nodded in unison. Then I said, “I’m going over to Girlfriend’s, Florence. Wanna come?”

  Bernie had waved goodbye and walked down the sidewalk, lighting the cigarillo as she went. I’d never seen her actually smoke one before; she said she only lit them when she was alone, working. The article must have already started writing itself in her head.

  “No, dear, you go ahead,” Florence said. “Sheena and that nice boyfriend of hers have been minding the store, so you don’t need to go if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to,” I said grimly. “I definitely want to.”

  The shop was empty. Sheena was reading a book at the register, and Kevin was quietly waiting, enthroned in one of the Queen Anne chairs. When he saw me, he stood up.

  “I guess we need to talk a little more,” he said.

  Sheena bit her lip and looked at me nervously. Kevin indicated he wanted to go into the back room, away from Sheena.

  When we were behind the back room curtain, he held up his hand, indicating he wanted to talk first, so I sat on a packing box and gave him the floor.

  “First of all,” he said, “I want you to know that I had no idea that my good friend Dusty was using my truck to acquire himself a new sideline – breaking and entering. I had nothing to do with that, and the fact that he borrowed my truck to do the jobs –“

  Words failed him.

  I lifted my eyebrows wisely, but (also wisely) held my tongue.

  “He stayed away from work after that break-in here, and when I needed my truck back, he left it in front of his apartment with the keys in the ignition, which I did not appreciate.”

  “I think I know why. He didn’t want you to see the scratches on his face from Wicked.”

  “Yep. Anyway, you can check it out with your friend Peterson. That cop buddy of yours. He caught up with Dusty this morning. It’s been over a week since the cat got at him, but he still looks like somebody threw him in a blender. Since he didn’t manage to steal anything, far as they can tell, and he says he got the scratches from some girl in a bar whose name he conveniently doesn’t know, there’s not much to charge him with. That’s as far as the law is concerned. As far as me and Sheena are concerned
–“ After another pause to fight for composure, he said, “Needless to say, good ol’ Dusty and me have parted ways, and he is no longer a resident of Tropical Breeze.”

  “Good riddance.”

  “Amen, sister.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Anyway, I wanted you to know. Sheena told me I had to get right with you. We’re getting married, and she wants you to be her maid of honor or whatever.”

  “Matron of Honor,” Sheena called from the other room.

  “I’d love to. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you!” Sheena called.

  Kevin slowly smiled.

  I stayed away from downtown for several days after that. In addition to the usual lightning-speed Tropical Breeze grapevine, Bernie had put out a special edition of The Beach Buzz, and I didn’t want to run the gantlet on Locust Street. Actually, some of the big-city papers had picked up her article, but only in Tropical Breeze did everybody know me by sight. So I stayed home and didn’t answer any out-of-town calls for a while. But by Thursday I decided it was time to go into town again. Otherwise, it’d soon be the weekend, with increased foot traffic and more people to poke at me as I put my head down and ran by.

  I went straight to The Bookery and parked in the alley behind the store. Like in all of the Locust Street shops, there was a back entrance, and I came in that way and walked up front to find Barnabas. He had been a special friend of Vesta’s, and I wanted to see how he was taking it all. Just because he has a calm exterior doesn’t mean the man doesn’t have depths.

  He was dressed all in black that day, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail embellished with a black ribbon. Ishmael greeted me formally, then hopped up onto the wall of books that constituted the check-out counter and sat down neatly, gazing at me with clear blue eyes.

  “Ah,” said Barnabas, and I thought it had a slightly deeper inflection than the “Ah,” he usually greeted me with. “So there is justice.”

  “Is it what you expected?”

  He considered, then put it more precisely. “I was not surprised.”

  “About the affair?”

  “About anything That Woman might have done. She is not,” he said darkly, “an animal lover, despite volunteering at your shelter. She was only after a man, and when he didn’t tumble, she went after another.”

  “Ah,” I said. It was catching. “You mean she only volunteered so she could run after Michael. When he didn’t want her, she went after Graeme.”

  He paused to glance at me before transferring his gaze to a stack of books. Eye contact exhausts him. “And Michael Utley, I think, would rather spend his hours with you, Miss Taylor. Mr. Utley,” he added significantly, “is an animal lover.”

  I nodded, knowing how he meant that. He sometimes has an obscure way with words.

  It came to me after a moment of watching Barnabas shuffling his black flip-flops that there was something else on his mind. He was waiting for me to figure it out for myself, and for a moment, I couldn’t.

  Then it hit me, and I was quick to reassure him. “No, Barnabas. They have no proof, really, so there’s no point in it.”

  He nodded, relieved. “Terrible things, exhumations. Violating one’s rest to poke and prod and cut.”

  “Don’t think about it,” I told him. He had all too vivid an imagination. “She’s safe. Graeme doesn’t want it, and the Attorney General’s office says there’s no point in it. They wouldn’t be able to prove murder, accident or even suicide if they did find she’d had an overdose. Sheriff Longley is a little frustrated, but at least he’s got Diana’s killer.”

  “So Vesta can rest,” he said quietly. “She was so afraid. She felt the hatred around her, and she knew her son was in danger from That Woman.”

  I nodded. “A woman who would take what didn’t belong to her. Who could never be satisfied until she had what she wanted, or destroyed it.”

  “Vesta knew, and she was afraid. The goddess is quiet now,” he added sagely.

  Startled, I said, “How did you know? How did you know that the cat has disappeared?”

  He gave me a flicker of a glance. “Cat?”

  “The goddess came to me as a cat. A real cat. She’s been living with me this whole time, but after the showdown at Cadbury House, I went back to Girlfriend’s, where I’d left her and she was gone. I haven’t seen her – I haven’t even dreamed of her – since.”

  “She has achieved her goal. She no longer needs to be here. She has avenged a murder that would have gone unpunished otherwise.”

  I frowned. “So she got her vengeance – by allowing another murder?”

  “Who can question the ways of the gods? The goddess made her judgment, saw the future and chose not to interfere. Now she is satisfied, and so she has gone. You must learn to go on without her. One likes to keep one’s gods close, but we were made to stand on our own.” He let his gaze drop to the cat pendant I still wore. “But you must still wear that – in remembrance of Vesta.”

  “Yes. I don’t seem to want to take it off. I never did remember to pay for it. I kept telling myself to, and even set a price for it, but I never got around to actually doing it. I was told that it was a gift. Maybe it really was.”

  “You still have doubts?”

  I thought about it. “No. No doubts. It’s over.”

  I risked checking in at Girlfriend’s next. I left The Bookery by the back door and went in the back room at the resale shop. Then I stayed hidden until I was sure there were no customers in the showroom. So far I’d been lucky; nobody in town had accosted me about Diana’s murder and Tina’s arrest. I was dying for a cappuccino, but when you’re keeping a low profile the last place you go is a coffee shop, so I decided to pop in at Girlfriend’s and then sneak out of town. Sheena had the day off, so I wouldn’t risk seeing Kevin, (okay, he’d explained everything, but I still couldn’t warm up to the guy). As I expected, Myrtle had come into the shop with Florence. I came in and Wicked strolled up and looked behind me, searching for Basket.

  “Sorry old boy,” I told him. “Your girlfriend flew the coop. But look on the bright side: I’m here.”

  He gave me an ironic look, turned tail and curled up on the seat of one of the best chairs in the shop and went to sleep.

  “Isn’t he something?” Myrtle said, coming up to me. She smiled down at the sleeping cat.

  I had to blink. The last time I’d heard Myrtle on the subject of cats, she’d been talking about allergies and how they needed to get rid of Wicked.

  “So you’ve made peace with him?” I asked cautiously.

  “Oh, there was never any problem with him,” she had the nerve to say. She looked at him and broke into a stream of baby talk. “Himself has always liked me, hasn’t he, Mr. Wicked? He grins at me.”

  He grins at everybody. I decided to let her think she was special. I kept a straight face as I gave Florence a slow wink while Myrtle continued to burble at the cat. Waking for a moment, he gave her a tolerant look and went back to sleep. Usually Myrtle is so grim. Maybe this is how she breaks down hysterically with relief, I thought, now that she’s no longer a murder suspect. Whatever the reason, I was happy Wicked had managed to charm the old warrior.

  Meanwhile, Florence came over to me and said, “We need to thank you again for straightening out that mess. When I think of what that nasty bit of goods did, my blood boils, and when I think she tried to hang it all on my little sister . . . !”

  Little sister? Hysterical relief was going around today.

  “I’m only happy I could do something about it,” I said. “And of course, I had help.”

  Both sisters looked at me and asked what I meant.

  I had to think fast. I shouldn’t have said that out loud.

  “The truth. The truth always comes out.”

  They agreed in a tentative way, and I got out of the shop and went home.

  Chapter 30

  On the way home, my cell phone rang, and but the Caller I.D. said it w
as Michael.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “On my way home. I’ve been taking care of a few things in town.”

  He chuckled. “Manage to dodge all the gossips?”

  “Pretty much. I only saw the ones I wanted to see. What’s up?”

  “I’m actually at Orphans now, so you’re headed my way. I thought you’d be here, still hiding out, so I just came on over. Come into the shelter when you get here. I’ve got some business to discuss.”

  I tried to get more out of him, but he was being coy, so I just drove the rest of the way home, parked in my driveway and walked over to the shelter, intrigued. Michael’s car wasn’t the only one parked in front of the building.

  Angie was at the reception desk, and when she saw me coming, she was too excited to wait for me. She got up and caught me by the door.

  “Michael is here. And guess who’s with him!”

  “Judging by the car outside, it must be Graeme Huntington. What do they want?”

  Irritated, she whispered, “They wouldn’t tell me. And Graeme’s got Jordan with him! They’re waiting for you back by the dog run. Should I go get them and bring them to your office?”

  “No, I’ll get them.”

  Disappointed, she went back to reception and I walked down the hall and out the back door. The three men were there, talking to Stacey. There is enough space for the dogs to go off-leash and run around the fenced yard, but there was only one dog outside now: a handsome German Shepherd, and Michael had him on a leash.