Killer Tied

by Lesley A. Diehl

  I stopped by the airboat business and found that Sammy and his father were out on the boat with a load of customers.

  Grandfather Egret sat in the chickee where tickets were sold for the boat rides. He looked bored, but his face lit up at my greeting.

  “I was hoping I’d find Sammy here. I need to talk to him.”

  “I’m guessing it’s about last night. You had a disagreement.”

  In the earlier years of our relationship, I would have asked him how he knew, but now I accepted that Grandfather knew things others did not. I wondered if the swamps sent him messages on the wind.

  “Did you know his father meant to take the boys to the swamps this weekend?’

  “No, but if that’s what’s bothering you, who else would know how to protect them in the swamps better than he would?”

  “I know. It’s not that. I just wish he had talked to us first. We are their parents.”

  Grandfather hesitated before responding. “He can be a difficult man, Eve. He was always stubborn, making decisions on his own, never letting others in on what he was doing or thinking. But I think his pigheadedness is what kept him alive all these years. And now he’s met you.”

  “I’m the problem?”

  Grandfather held up his hand. “The two of you are so alike.”

  “We’re what?” I sputtered.

  He smiled. “Think about it.”

  “I will not. I am nothing like that man. He does his own thing, is in-your-face, sticks his nose into others people’s business ….” I heard my description of him, stopped talking and laughed. “You’re right, but please do not tell me I should be more patient around him. That’s a virtue neither he nor I possess.”

  “One of you needs to develop it, then, or there’s trouble ahead.”

  I heard the airboat in the distance.

  After the passengers left, Sammy and I wandered off down the canal.

  “I’m sorry about last night.” I said.

  “So am I.”

  “The boys will be thrilled to go into the swamps with their grandfather.”

  “Of course. Maybe you could tell him that?”

  Okay, I would. I was pretty sure he didn’t much care for me, but he was family and I had to learn how to get along with him.

  Chapter 4

  Madeleine, Grandy, Shelley, and I had arranged to meet at the shop early in the morning before we opened, so I gunned my car out of the airboat-business parking lot to make certain I wasn’t late. We had decided it was time to talk about the future of our two stores. I had grown fond of the RV because it allowed me alone time to think when I drove it over to the coast to open shop on the weekends, but we had to address the issue of merchandise and what sold best where. We couldn’t continue to offload our items on Sunday night from the RV and then reload some of them into the rig early the following Saturday morning when we drove to the flea market in Stuart. It was too much shuffling around of goods.

  I tried to watch my speed as I drove down the highway into town, but I heard a siren and saw lights in my rearview mirror. I looked down at my speedometer and noticed I was going five miles faster than the posted speed limit.

  “Oh, fish heads,” I said to myself in disgust. I pulled over and watched the driver of the police car behind me walk up to my car. It was my friend Frida Martinez, a homicide detective with the Sabal Bay Police Department.

  “I thought you were interested in dead people, not those alive enough to be driving on our roads,” I said. “And I was only going a few miles over the speed limit. Does the city need the revenue that bad?”

  “I have no idea how fast you were going. Since I spotted your car, I decided to take the opportunity to stop you so we could have a word. But since you’ve confessed to an infraction, I’ll have to write you a ticket.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  She pushed her dark curls off her face and leaned on my car door. “Is now a good time to talk?”

  “No, I’m on my way to the shop. I’ve got an important meeting. Can we do this some other time?”

  “Name it.”

  We agreed to meet for a late lunch at the diner on the main street of Sabal Bay.

  “By one thirty, most of the lunch crowd will have dispersed, and we’ll have some privacy,” Frida said.

  “Can you tell me what’s up?”

  “Can you just be patient?”

  That word again. No I could not be patient. I shook my head.

  “Well, learn a lesson from today,” Frida said.

  “What lesson?”

  “Don’t admit to anything around an officer of the law. Here’s your ticket. The instructions for settling up are on the back.” She gave a cheery wave and left.

  I yelled out my window, “Lunch is on you.”

  She replied, “Let’s not make trying to bribe a police officer yet another charge.”

  I heard her chuckle as she got into her car and drove off. The ticket was blank.

  “You’re late,” said Grandy, handing me a cup of coffee as I entered the backroom of the shop.

  “I got stopped by a cop. It took time.” I threw myself into the desk chair.

  “Let Madeleine have the comfortable chair, honey. She’s been juggling babies this morning.” Grandy took my hand and pulled me into one of the folding chairs she’d set up for our meeting.

  “Thanks, Eve.” Madeleine sank into the chair with a sigh, followed by a moan. “Both of them were up most of the night. Eve woke up baby David. She’s got a set of lungs on her.”

  All eyes turned on me as if it was my fault the kid wouldn’t let her brother and parents sleep.

  “Hey, she’s my namesake, something I never agreed to. I don’t send her telepathic messages telling her to misbehave.”

  Everyone looked skeptical.

  “Grandfather hasn’t taught me how to do that yet,” I joked.

  “Of course not, Eve,” said Grandy. “Oh, before we begin, I have a message for you. Crusty McNabb called after you left this morning and said to tell you he’s returning today, a day early. Apparently, the visit with his daughter did not go as well as anyone would have liked.”

  It was my turn to groan and sigh. I had hoped to call him and let him know, gently, that I’d done some light cleaning in his office. I didn’t want him confronted by a surprise that I knew he’d find less than pleasant. Crusty seemed to thrive on chaos, and I’d relieved him of a habitat that looked as if a Category 4 storm had hit it.

  “I’ll call him on his cell after our meeting.”

  “Good girl.” Grandy knew what he was like. “I told him you had a surprise for him, but I didn’t say what, so he’s somewhat prepared.”

  No, he wasn’t. A “surprise” to Crusty meant a new ashtray or a month’s supply of cigars or a new roll of toilet paper in the bathroom—nothing as radical as soap and water, room deodorizer, and a new arrangement of his files.

  “Let’s get things rolling here,” I said, eager to leave the Crusty issue behind.

  “Maybe I don’t belong in this meeting,” said Grandy. “I’m not an owner, and I’m not even a paid employee. I’ve been working the shop floor in return for Max and my room at Eve’s. Soon we’ll be heading back to Key Largo and the boat, and that’s the end of my involvement in the shop.”

  “How long before Max decides to return to the fishing boat?” I asked.

  “I’m not certain. He was eager to go a few months back, but now he just keeps going out with his friend, Captain Jack, and fishing the lake every day. I may be more interested in having us return to the Keys because I’m sick of cleaning his catch every night.”

  “Yeah, and my freezer is full of bass, more than we can eat. We may have to open a fish store along with the consignment shop and sell speck, bass, and catfish,” I said.

  “Why don’t you see if you can get an answer out of Max about his plans? When we know whether or not you’ll be with us, we can plan accordingly. Meantime, we need to discuss how we’re splitti
ng the merchandise between the two shops. What sells best where?” I asked.

  “I’ve been running through our receipts,” said Madeleine, “when I can’t sleep, and we sell clothing well on the coast, but not our used household merchandise like furniture and decorative items. I think we should focus on clothing and reserve the other for here.”

  “Good idea. It saves moving heavy items in and out of the rig. That is, if we want to keep the rig. What do you think?” I asked.

  “That still depends upon sales personnel. We need to know Grandy and Max’s plans,” said Madeleine. “We love having you here, but we understand you need your own life.”

  Madeleine and I could have gone ahead without considering Grandy, but neither of us wanted to do that. I wasn’t about to shove Grandy out of my house and the store if she and Max were not ready to leave.

  I looked at my watch. “That’s all we have time for now, except to say that your future plans are important also, Shelley. Do you have any idea what you’d like to do?”

  Shelley looked reluctant to say anything.

  “Honey, I know you see yourself as our tailor, but you’re much more than that. You’re an integral part of this operation. This is as good a time as any to suggest you begin thinking about whether you’d like to come into the business as a partner and part-owner,” I said. Madeleine nodded her head in agreement.

  “I don’t know. I always dreamed of going to New York City and apprenticing to some designer there. I’d have to think about staying here and what it would mean.”

  “Whatever you decide, you know we’ll back you one hundred present,” I said.

  As we began putting the chairs away, there was a banging on the front door of the shop. I stuck my head around the door to see who was there. It was the crazy woman from the other day. Seeing her head of blonde, spiky hair so like my own was freaky, especially so early in the morning with just a half cup of coffee in me. Maybe I was experiencing caffeine-deprivation hallucinations. Nope. The banging continued, followed by her yelling.

  “Let me in. I need help.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s ….” I went to the door and opened it. “You’re just the person I wanted to see.”

  She stumbled into the shop. “Really?”

  “No, not really, but we should talk. I think I deserve some straight answers.” I didn’t know then that I wouldn’t like what I heard.

  Madeleine and Grandy worked the store while the young woman and I headed toward the back. Grandy grabbed me before we went into the office.

  “Are you certain you want to talk with her? She sounds demented to me. And she may be dangerous.”

  “I’m bigger than she is. And I’m almost a PI. I think I can handle her.”

  Grandy gave me a skeptical look. “Whatever you think is best.”

  “Is there some reason you don’t want me to talk to her?”

  Grandy seemed both surprised and annoyed at the question. “No, of course not.”

  My doppelganger, as Madeleine had called her the other day, told me her name was Eleanor Montrose, and she had lived most of her life in Upstate New York with her father and mother. “Several weeks ago,” she said, “Mom left home very upset. She said she wanted to hide out from the men after her, then she changed that, saying she had to warn my sister of danger. She seemed almost hysterical.” Eleanor’s face was flushed and she seemed about to cry, but she took a deep breath and recovered herself.

  “Mom was always a bit odd, wary of others and trusting only Dad. Now I think Dad is holding something back. I’m pretty sure he knows something about Mom’s past, but he wouldn’t tell me. About two weeks after she left, I received a phone call from her, telling me she was in Florida and had located my sister in Sabal Bay, but didn’t know if she should contact her. After that call, I heard nothing more and decided to follow her to Florida, but not before talking with Dad. He confessed that he and Mom were not married.”

  Eleanor continued with her odd story. “He told me that she couldn’t marry him because she was still married to another man. She told Dad her husband might come after her and kill her. That would be your father, Eve. I think he found her and she had to leave.”

  “That’s absurd. My father is dead. He died in the same boating accident my mother died in.” What a loony story.

  “No, no. That was a cover. Our mother made it look as if she drowned in the accident. She assumed her husband had perished, so for a time she felt safe. But the boat was never recovered and neither was his body.”

  “ ‘Felt safe.’ From what?”

  “From him. From your father—he was a violent man. Didn’t you know that?”

  I wanted to toss her out of the shop, but I also needed to hear the end of her insane tale.

  “Go on,” I forced myself to say.

  “Mom met Dad, and they had me. We moved around Connecticut and then to a small village in rural New York. She thought she was free of your father, but recently someone had been calling and hanging up, and she’d received threatening letters in the mail.”

  “Did you see the letters or hear the hang-ups?”

  Shaking her head, she continued, “Mom and Dad realized that your father wasn’t dead. That he had found her and was going to kill her. And he probably would kill Dad and me too.”

  “What do you think I can do?”

  “Don’t you see, Eve? If he’s after us, then your father will try to find you, too. We’re all in danger. I don’t want to put you in jeopardy, but you’re a PI, and I read stories in the newspapers that you helped catch some murderers. We can use your help.”

  “And how did you find out about me? You were in Upstate New York. I can’t believe you were reading the Sabal Bay newspapers.”

  “Dad told me about you, so I googled you.”

  There was no privacy anymore, not even in the wilds of rural Florida.

  “Where is your father now? Did he come here with you?” I knew the answer, of course. Henry Montrose, my other strange visitor, had clearly been her father.

  “I don’t know. I think he might have followed me here, but he would have been very circumspect about that, not wanting to alert your father about ….”

  Oh, like that would help. If she found me through an internet search, so could anyone.

  I did not believe her story, but what seemed obvious to me was that she did believe it. I needed to talk to Grandy. I knew this woman had upset her somehow yesterday, and I was determined to find out why. For now, I wanted Eleanor out of the shop and gone. But gone somewhere I could find her. I didn’t believe my father had returned from the dead to hunt anyone down, but from the fear in her eyes and her voice, I knew she was terrified that someone was after her. She didn’t know where her parents were. She was all alone, and I knew what being alone was like.

  “Where are you staying?” I asked.

  “At the Rimside Inn.”

  Yikes. That had to be the worst motel on the canal. But it was cheap. And who would look for a young woman there? On the other hand, with her spiky do, she would attract as much attention as I had when I arrived in town. People were used to me by now, but what would they think of my clone?

  I couldn’t be certain she wasn’t a bit crazy and maybe dangerous, so moving her in with any of my friends was out of the question. If there was someone after her or after her parents, she needed to stay out of sight. She could use a place she would be safe in and one where she could cook her own meals, do her laundry, and chill for a time. Until I could figure out what was going on.

  “I’ll need to take a look at those threatening letters. Do you have them with you or can you get them?”

  “Mom burned them.”

  Well, of course she did. Nothing was going to be simple here. There was no proof that anyone was after this family, only the word of the people in it, and they seemed to be an odd lot. I wondered if the mother was as weird as her daughter and the father. But where to stash this frightened young woman? Where had the man who’d approached
me at Crusty’s disappeared to? He told me the mother was dead. Was she? My head was aching.

  As if in answer to my question, my guardian angel entered the shop—Nappi, my mob-boss friend. If anyone could protect Eleanor and keep an eye on her, it was Nappi Napolitani, and I would be calling on him yet again for a favor. He always came through, and my debt to him grew ever larger. Sometimes I wondered if it was a smart thing to be so beholden to a man with ties to organized crime.

  “Stay right there,” I said to Eleanor.

  “Nappi,” I greeted him with a hug.

  “My lovely Eve,” he said, taking my hand and kissing it in the old-fashioned and gentlemanly way he did when greeting me, Grandy, and Madeleine. Grandy and I loved him for many reasons. Madeleine, like Frida and some of my other friends, had her doubts. Grandfather Egret seemed to think he was just fine, and that was better than good enough for me.

  “She’s in a pickle,” said Grandy. “She has this nut job in the office who’s saying something crazy about Eve’s parents. I’ll let her tell you all about it, but I’ll bet she wants you to solve the problem for her.”

  “As in remove this person?” asked Nappi, guardedly.

  “As in put her someplace for safekeeping,” I said.

  “A bad idea,” said Grandy.

  “Her life could be in danger,” I said.

  “Well, not from your father,” Grandy said, “unless you believe in ghosts.”

  “You were listening, weren’t you?”

  “Of course I was. She’s a crazy person. You need to be protected.”

  “I only want to find out about her story.”

  Grandy gave me a look I’d seen few times on her face before. The corners of her usually happy mouth drooped, a sign she was disappointed in me. “You believe her story? You think I lied to you?”

  “I know you did not lie, but perhaps you didn’t tell me the entire truth. Perhaps you wanted to protect me.”

  “I can’t believe you’d say that. I thought you trusted me. Maybe it’s time Max and I went back to Key Largo.” She turned her back, grabbed her purse from under the counter, and left.