Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 01 - Peril in Paradise

by Marty Ambrose

  PERIL IN

  PARADISE

  A Mango Bay Mystery

  PERIL IN PARADISE

  .

  Marty Ambrose

  (THOMAS & MERCER

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2009 by Martha Ambrose All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN-13: 9781477811962 ISBN-10: 1477811966

  This title was previously published by Avalon Books; this version

  has been reproduced from the Avalon book archive files.

  ~o~

  I would like to thank my husband, Jim, who has been my editor for many years. Also, many thanks to my mother’s keen eye for proofreading; she never misses a mistake in any manuscript. They are my biggest fan club-along with my beautiful sister, Elizabeth.

  My gratitude also goes out to my dear friend and editing partner of more than a decade, Tina Wainscott, who never loses the faith.

  And last but not least, I’d like to acknowledge my agent and constant cheerleader, Roberta Brown. You’re simply the best!

  “The only true paradises are the

  paradises which we have lost”

  Marcel Proust

  Chapter One

  The first time I saw Jack Hillman he was bare-chested.

  I hadn’t wanted to look, but it was like passing a particularly horrendous accident on the road: I couldn’t resist a peek. There he was, sitting on his second-floor redwood deck with the sunlight glinting off the rolls of flesh that hung around his middle. Yikes.

  At one time, his physique might’ve been impressive, but now gravity had done its thing and his skin was sagging with a lumpy softness reserved for mattresses left in the rain. To paraphrase Milton, the mind might be its own place, but the body is rooted in the here and now. And Jack’s had seen better days.

  Granted, he wasn’t posturing just proudly barechested. But still, I could’ve done without seeing that particular wreck.

  I’d been at the Coral Island Observer only one month when Anita Sanders, the editor, called me into her office, although calling the tiny, walled-off cubicle an “office” was like calling a rock a precious gem. It was, nonetheless, the closest thing our little paper had to a boss’ lair. The rest of us-a part-time secretary/advertising manager and me-had to make do with two rickety desks, an outmoded Dell desktop computer, and a battered old filing cabinet in the main room.

  “Mallie, I’ve got a story for you,” Anita began in a raspy voice. She tapped her half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray, one already heaped with previously smoked Camel stubs-no wimpy filter tips ever touched her mouth. “Jack Hillman is beginning his Summer Writers’ Institute, and I want you to cover it. Interview him. Attend some of the workshops. Talk to some of the writers. Give our readers some first-hand info.”

  “Jack does a workshop on this island?” I was amazed. He was a pretty well-known writer of true crime fiction. One had even been made into a feature film starring that guy from the X-Files show whose name I could never remember. Except that it ended with the same letters as anchovy.

  “Yep. He’s a longtime resident of Coral Island. Has an old house here and likes to spend the summers fishing and boating-and doing an occasional writer’s institute.” Anita took another long drag on her cigarette, drawing in her thin cheeks. She was painfully lean, with leathery skin from too much sun and lots of vertical lines from too many cigarettes.

  “It sounds interesting.”

  “A lot better than all those boring bike path committee meetings you’ve been covering.”

  “I wouldn’t call them boring.” I’d call them-dropdead dull. The only exciting thing that ever happened was when aging veteran, One-Eyed Al, would pop out his glass eye and toss it from hand to hand.

  At my lie, Anita gave a short bark of laughter that turned into a smoker’s cough. “Look, so far your work hasn’t stunk, but I want to break you of that college essay style you seem to love. Maybe giving you a story with a little more meat to it will help. You’ve gotta grab the reader, but keep it tight and simple.”

  I was silent. I needed the job too much to argue with her-or point out offices were supposed to be “smokefree” environments. Besides, she was probably right. Cranking out newspaper stories was a struggle for me because I had no experience with that type of writing. My most recent day job as a substitute high school teacher in Orlando hadn’t prepared me for much of anything except how to scribble hall passes and make sure senior girls didn’t sneak into the bathroom to dye their hair green with paint stolen from art class. My night job at Disney World left me with even fewer verbal skills, unless you consider the ability to sing “It’s a Small World” in five different languages a skill.

  “I’ve already called Hillman-he’s expecting you at his house” She ground out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray.

  “Where’s that?” I reached into my large canvas bag and fished out my little spiral-bound official reporter’s notepad that made me at least look like a real journalist.

  “He lives south of Mango Bay on a part of the island called The Mounds. It’s off Seashell Lane. The houses are built right into the side of some ancient shell mounds-his is the two-story.”

  I was jotting down all of this in my notepad as fast as I could.

  “Just to warn you, kiddo, Jack can be a bit … eccentric. Don’t take him too seriously. He was a security guard at the Coca-Cola factory in town before he became a big-name writer.” She lit up another cigarette. “Now he likes to pretend he’s Hemingway or something.”

  “I’ll try not to be too intimidated.” Irony threaded through my voice.

  Anita raised gray brows as she handed me a copy of his last book, Men on Death Row. His picture was on the back cover. Barrel-chested with a full head of graying hair, he had the look of a man whose best years had passed him by like a flock of birds gone south. But he was still stubbornly entrenched in the nest of midlife, unwilling to admit that his season had come and gone.

  “I look forward to meeting him.” I might skip reading the book, though. True crime wasn’t my thing. After perusing his first book, Night Games, years ago I decided macho-gritty confessions weren’t for me. And men on death row were even less my thing.

  “Good” She turned toward her computer screen in an obvious dismissal.

  I exited her smoke-filled cubicle and went to my desk to pick up an extra official reporter’s notepadjust in case the interviews grew lengthy. I dropped it in my canvas bag and it was immediately swallowed up by the jumble of pens, keys, wallet, lipstick, checkbook, sunblock, mini-mouthwash, and various other assorted daily necessities. I liked to carry a little chaos with me-it made life interesting.

  “I heard you were doing a story on Jack Hillman,” Sandy, the advertising manager/secretary, commented. She had long, straight brown hair, wore round glasses and, from what I could tell in my short time at the paper, was on a perpetual search for the holy grail of diets in between badgering local businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.

  “Boy, news travels fast in an eight-hundred-squarefoot office”

  “Anita e-mailed me about the story” She pointed a pudgy finger at the small Dell com
puter screen.

  Something hanging from her sleeve caught my eye. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, this? It’s a sales ticket.” She tucked the tag back into her sleeve. “I haven’t decided whether I want to keep the dress or not. I might need a smaller size soon.”

  “Good strategy” The red knit dress was already so tight, she practically burst out of the seams.

  “Watch out for Jack-he’s a real lady killer,” Sandy warned in a light tone.

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged. “He’s got quite a reputation on the island for … well, hitting on everything in a skirt and stealing women that aren’t his. You know, other men’s wives and that kind of thing. He’s technically single now, but he’s never without some young blond.”

  “So he likes blonds?”

  She nodded.

  “Then I guess I’m in the clear.” I patted my wild red curls with a smile. My hair was my one vanity. It was a vibrant scarlet color-not auburn or russet-but a deep fire-engine red that always drew stares and questions about whether it was my natural color or not. The rest of my appearance was sort of bland-blue eyes, lots of freckles, and a figure that could only be called skinny. I had that girl-next-door look that rarely drew a second look. Except for my hair-it drew a second and sometimes even a third look.

  “You’re as safe as a bug in a rug,” Sandy agreed, but her glance lingered on my hair.

  “Thanks,” I said dryly.

  “Oh, and don’t forget Anita needs the first draft of your bike path story update tomorrow morning. She’ll want to do her usual slash and trash editing by the Friday deadline.”

  I winced. “It’s pretty much the same story as last week. Salty Bob won’t give up his easement, and everybody on the committee is totally fed up with him. They actually talked about condemning the easement and then taking over his property without his permission.”

  Sandy was shaking her head. “That’s not going to work. They need to try to connect with his inner child. Find out why he’s such a jerk. It’s all right here in O” She held up a copy of Oprah Winfrey’s magazine. “People act hostile because they have unresolved conflicts from their childhoods. Maybe Bob was ignored.”

  “Maybe.” Along with her diets, Sandy spent an inordinately large amount of time reading self-help books, self-improvement magazines, and self-fulfillment pamphlets. But, then again, she might have a point about Salty Bob. He could’ve been an ignored middle child. Could explain why he was so doggoned stubborn about getting his way with that easement.

  As I left the newspaper office located in a tiny strip mall at the island center, I thought about Sandy’s selfhelp quest. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. If I’d planned better, thought more clearly about what I wanted in my life, I wouldn’t be in my late twenties at a weekly newspaper on a rural island in Southwest Florida. But what else could I do with a BA in comparative literature, a string of unsuccessful jobs, and no man on the horizon since my last boyfriend left for Arizona to “find himself”?

  I was lucky to have the job at the Observer-courtesy of my great aunt Lily-the grand dame of Coral Island and my favorite relative. She and I were simpatico, which meant she didn’t call me “Mixed-up Mallie” like the rest of my family, and she didn’t criticize me for the lack of “direction” in my life. I preferred to think of my lifestyle as a quest for adventure. I liked it better not knowing what would come around the next corner, rather than have my whole life planned out like a roadmap of boring ruts and routines.

  I climbed into my ancient Ford truck and cranked up the engine. “Come on, Rusty, do your thing.” I pressed the pedal down a few times in rapid succession. The engine sputtered, then turned over. Quickly, I threw it into gear and rolled down the window to catch a little of the early morning breeze. Almost June, the suffocating Florida heat hadn’t blanketed the island yet, but it was coming. I reached into my glove compartment and pulled out a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic Sunblock with an SPF of fifteen and an overpowering smell of sickly sweet coconut. Slathering it on liberally, I checked my peeling, red nose in the rearview mirror. It was still mildly sunburned. Much as I loved my red hair, the pale, freckled skin that went with it was less than compatible with the scorching Florida sun.

  Maneuvering Rusty onto Cypress Road, which was the main drag of Coral Island, I took in a deep cleansing breath of sea air and tried to appreciate my surroundings. This swampy, coastal island, touted as a “lush, tropical paradise” in the marketing advertisements that appeared in the Observer was, in reality, a hot, humid, and buggy spit of land only twenty miles long and about a mile wide. Tucked inside a ring of barrier islands, it boasted no fabulous stretches of sandy beaches or highrise hotels. Just good fishing. Still, it had its charm. A small dune that passed for a beach was located on the northern tip on Mango Bay, and bountiful vegetation was everywhere, including tall, thin pines and clusters of seagrape.

  I eased up on the accelerator and made a left turn on Seashell Lane. The unpaved, sandy road curved around dense foliage and gumbo limbo trees only to end at the tiny settlement high atop thirty-foot shell mounds. Spectacular, they rose up from the shoreline of Coral Island Sound in giant white formations, with a grove of exotic trees set beyond the highest point. Two houses were perched about halfway up the mounds-one a long, flat stuccoed dwelling with a wraparound screened porch, and the other, a two-storied white clapboard structure, complete with dormer windows and a small, open-air second-floor deck.

  That’s when I saw Jack. He was lounging on a white Adirondack chair on the deck, soaking up some morning sunlight, half-naked, with a drink in his hand. Jeez.

  As if sensing my scrutiny, he glanced down and met my stare. Unembarrassed, he simply waved and turned his face toward the sun again.

  I blinked a couple of times, trying to clear the image out of my mind, but it perversely refused to leave. It would be a long time before I was able to forget that I’d seen that sagging ruin of a man’s body.

  Turning my truck into the driveway, I noticed several cars already parked there-presumably the participants of the Writers’ Institute. It was an interesting array of makes and models. A large, old model Cadillac with New Mexico license plates; a Ford escort, complete with hatchback and chipped paint along the sides; and a small, snappy Miata convertible. A silver Dodge Viper was also parked next to the house. A shiny testament to testosterone, it bore a license plate that read, “Author.” Presumably, it was Hillman’s vehicle.

  I liked to match people to their cars, knowing that my battered, old Ford truck spoke volumes about my own lifestyle: little disposable income but a lot of heart. Oh, yeah, a mirror reflection of me.

  Turning off the engine, I climbed out of my truck and made for the winding stone path that cut through the thick, overgrown bougainvillea bushes. A couple of long, spindly branches stuck out and thorns brushed against my legs. Grateful I was wearing a pair of old jeans, I kept moving until I reached a clearing. A small screened porch jutted out from the front of the house, a small, brass captain’s bell-like the kind on a boatwas near the door. I gave the cord a quick pull. The bell clanged and a young woman instantly appeared.

  “Hi” She pushed open the screen door. “I’m Chrissy Anders.”

  I immediately noted her long, honey-blond hair and shapely figure highlighted by cutoffs and a tight T-shirt with “Save the Earth” splashed across the front in gold letters. Her face and body had that perfectly toned and tanned look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors hiking and kayaking and jogging and all that kind of stuff that created a disgustingly healthy glow. At least, I told myself that. It made accepting my own freckles, blotchy skin, and thin form a little easier to take.

  “I’m Mallie Monroe, a reporter with the Observer” I started to shake hands with her when Hillman appeared behind her-now wearing a pair of shorts in olive drab and a matching short-sleeved shirt. Quite an improvement, really.

  “Jack Hillman. How ya doin?” He pumped my hand in a strong grip. “
Anita told me you’d be attending the Writer’s Institute. We’re glad to have you. Very glad” His glance had settled on my hair.

  “I’m not exactly an attendee. I work for the newspaper, and I’m here to do a story on the Institute-“

  “That’s even better. You can learn some pointers on how to write a nonfiction article. I worked on several newspapers before I became a fiction writer, and I can show you how to knock off a front-page, potential Pulitzer Prize-winning story in less than an hour.”

  “But …”

  “It’ll get old bullheaded Anita off your back. I pledge, promise, and promote success” His florid face broke into a wide smile that even I had to admit was sort of appealing in an aging, bad-boy kind of way. And the prospect of getting Anita off my back was even more so.

  “But the story has to be about the Writers’ Institute,” I said weakly, knowing I was caving in, if for no other reason than Hillman’s persuasive use of alliteration.

  “Sure. Sure. Everyone is already in the Florida room. Let’s go on in so you can meet them” He led me into the house and through a very modem, very gourmet kitchen, complete with granite countertops, an elaborate gas stove, and a pot rack with the latest shiny red cookware. I took a sidelong glance at his protruding middle. It was obvious he liked to eat, but now I knew he liked to cook. Interesting.

  I strolled into the expansive Florida room and was again treated to a room decorated with affluence and good taste. Jalousie windows surrounded the room on three sides, and wood floors gleamed beneath my sandals. Wicker furniture upholstered with tropical print cushions was scattered around the room, along with a mahogany antique or two. Hardly the kind of room I expected from a man who prided himself on his gritty writing prowess but, the more I saw of his house, the more I began to see Jack had intriguing dimensions. Not the least of which was he could lounge half-naked on his deck with this many people in the house.

  “Hello, I’m Burt Morris and this is my wife, Betty,” a tall, middle-aged man said from the small bar area off to the side of the room. Betty was equally as tall, with a wide mouth and large teeth. Both of them, in fact, had a vaguely equine appearance. “We’re from Tucumcari, New Mexico, and we’re writing a series of short stories about the Old West” He held up a pitcher. “Care for a margarita?”