Danger at the Dive Shop (A Starling and Swift Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by M. J. Mandrake

  Kitty froze. Chica had forced her head under Angelina’s arm and was blocking her from the food on her plate.

  Leander was already on his feet. He met Kitty’s gaze and she knew what was going through his mind. The last time they had solved a murder together, the killer had tried to poison Kitty by leaving her favorite drink outside her cabin door. Chica had forced her away from the tainted strawberry margarita, tipped off by her excellent sense of smell, or perhaps her psychic ability. Kitty didn’t care what had told Chica that the drink was deadly. She just knew that she wouldn’t be standing in front of them today if Chica hadn’t insisted, just as she was right now.

  “Chistosa perra,” Angelina said. Giggling, she dodged Chica and snagged a piece of fish from her plate, popping it into her mouth.

  “Wait! I― I don’t think you should eat that.” Kitty felt her pulse pounding in her ears. “Something’s wrong with it.”

  Everyone at the table froze.

  “What? Why do you say that?” Joan asked, her voice high.

  “I mean that Chica is trying to keep her from eating it. She doesn’t want the food.” Kitty reached over and picked up Angelina’s plate. Chica growled low in her throat and glared at the dish. Moving away from the table a few feet, Chica followed her.

  “She just wants a bite. Give her a bite,” Lisa said. She mumbled under her breath, “Never thought I’d have to eat with all these dogs.”

  Leander headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get another plate. Then we’ll see if she’s just looking for scraps.”

  As Kitty stood there, Angelina’s full plate in one hand and the other on Chica’s collar, she mentally thanked Leander for not laughing in her face. To everyone at the table, it was clearly a case of bad dog behavior. They simply didn’t understand how service dogs were trained. Stealing food from anyone’s plate was unthinkable. No, Chica had been trying to tell her something, and she was listening.

  She met Penny’s gaze and realized that not everyone at the table thought Chica was hungry for tacos. Elaine’s eyes were wide and she pushed her plate away.

  “There’s nothing wrong with the tacos,” Ren said. “They’re delicious.” He lifted another, giving a mock salute to the table and took a big bite.

  Jenny looked less convinced, but she took a bite as well. As she chewed, she fiddled with the red string around the end of her braid.

  “It’s okay, Kitty. These things happen.” Mark sounded tired, but didn’t look too angry at having his girlfriend’s dinner interrupted. “Nobody’s perfect, even a great dog like Chica.”

  Leander returned from the kitchen with another plate. He set it in front of Angelina. The whole table was watching to see what Chica did next.

  “Just stick her in the room so we can eat,” Andrew said. “I don’t know why she has to be at the table, anyway. It’s not like you’re deaf.”

  Kitty felt her face go hot, but she ignored Andrew.

  Chica didn’t move. As Angelina served herself salad, pineapple, black beans, and corn, Chica stayed focused on the plate in Kitty’s hand.

  Leander met Kitty’s gaze. Whatever was on that plate was dangerous, and Chica knew it.

  “See? Everything is fine,” Angelina said, giving Kitty a kind smile.

  “You’re right,” she said. But she didn’t know where to put the plate. If it went back on the table, someone else might eat from it.

  “For heaven’s sake. I’ll take it to the kitchen,” Lisa said, sounding thoroughly put out about the whole situation.

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll set it over here.” Kitty walked toward the bench. She wasn’t convinced Lisa wouldn’t throw it away. Placing it by the wall, she slowly walked away. Chica didn’t follow her. Apparently setting far away from the group was enough.

  “Whatever,” Lisa mumbled.

  “See? Everything is okay,” Angelina said. She coughed and cleared her throat a few times. “Ugh. Fish bone.”

  “Sorry, babe. I tried to get them all. Have some water,” Mark said, pointing to her bottle on the table.

  She reached out and knocked it over. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” It took her a few moments to set it up right again and the water soaked through the tablecloth. Bringing it to her mouth, she took a sip, coughed, and took another drink. This time the water dribbled down her chin.

  “Angelina?” Mark asked, standing up from his chair.

  “Fine. I’m fine,” she said, but her words were slurred. “My mouth feels bad.”

  Leander was at her side, taking her chin in his hand. “Do you feel numb? Double vision?”

  She didn’t answer and he switched to Spanish.

  “Sí,” she said, but it sounded like “thee”. She put a hand to her dark hair, as if her head was hurting, and the next moment, she slumped over in her chair.

  Screams split the air, dogs barked, and most of the table jumped up to help. Leander carefully lowered Angelina to the ground.

  Mark rushed to call an ambulance and the sound of his panicked voice rose over the hubbub of the group.

  Kitty felt frozen in horror. The mystery of Chica’s devotion to Angelina was finally answered. Her life had been in danger all along. Chica had known the killer was stalking Angelina, and now Kitty was sure that the psychopath was someone at that very table.

  Angelina’s eyes were wide and white froth dotted her lips. She tried to speak, her face contorting as her limbs moved in a jerky pattern.

  “She’s not choking on anything,” Leander said after trying to clear her airway and turning her onto her side. Angelina’s eyelids drooped unevenly. “Facial paralysis, numbness, breathing problems.” He looked up at Kitty. “She’s been poisoned.”

  Kitty crouched beside him and took Angelina’s twitching fingers in her own. Her heart broke as she watched this lovely, sweet girl who had treated Chica with such kindness slip away.

  Chapter Eight

  “Though lovers be lost, love shall not;

  And death shall have no dominion.”

  ― Dylan Thomas

  Kitty opened her eyes and for several terrifying seconds couldn’t remember where she was. Her neck was stiff from sleeping on the hard chair and her eyes felt like someone had thrown sand in them. The next moment, the horror of Angelina’s poisoning rushed back and Kitty sat up straight. Her book had fallen onto the floor and she picked it up, carefully checking for loose pages.

  Standing up, she walked to the small window and looked out at the darkened parking lot below. She checked her phone. Five in the morning. Leander had promised to update her as soon as he could, but she hadn’t seen him in hours. Maybe he’d forgotten or had gone back to the dive shop to help the police look for evidence.

  The waiting room was distinctly unpleasant with its beige walls, scuffed floor, and flickering overhead light. There was a large water color painting of sailboats hung crookedly on the wall. The vending machine in the corner advertised café caliente, but when Kitty had fed it a few coins, it had blinked and gone back to displaying zeros. The vending machine gods had rejected her offering and there would be no hot coffee for her that night.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and wished Chica was there for company. Kitty had only been concerned with getting Angelina to the emergency room and when Penny and Elaine had offered to watch Chica for her, Kitty had joined Leander as he raced after the ambulance. Maybe it hadn’t been her place, since Mark was there, too, but Kitty wanted to be helpful in any way she could. So far that had consisted of warming the uncomfortable waiting room chairs and being ignored by hospital staff.

  The door opened and Leander entered the room. He looked utterly exhausted. “I’m glad to see you, but I was almost hoping you’d gone home. You’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “It’s okay,” Kitty said. “Thank you for…” She wasn’t sure what she was trying to say. For helping Angelina? For coming back? For remembering she was waiting? It had been such a terrible day and all she wanted was to escape back to her room and curl up with Chica, but
all the sleep in the world wouldn’t erase what had happened in the last twenty four hours.

  For a moment he stood there, as if undecided what to do, then he opened his arms.

  Kitty walked into them and tried her best not to cry, which apparently wasn’t enough because tears leaked from the corners of her eyes despite her best efforts. Men didn’t like women who cried into their shirts. Being over-emotional had never won anybody any points, but Kitty couldn’t completely keep everything bottled up inside. It seemed like this nightmare of a day would never end.

  “Angelina was so kind and so young,” Kitty said. “And so in love.” She remembered what those years it had been like, with the world ahead of her, and everything a bright and shining possibility.

  “They’ve put her on life support,” Leander said against the top of her head.

  Kitty stepped back, wiping her eyes. “Life support? She’s still―?”

  “Yes, she’s still alive. Mark is staying with her now that she’s stabilized, but it looks like puffer fish poisoning.” He paused. “I’m sure you know all about puffer fish.”

  Kitty nodded. As hopeful as she felt hearing that Angelina was still alive, poisoning was one of those horrible scenarios that all tour guides feared. One type of puffer fish was a delicacy in Japan, but fugu was very carefully prepared and controlled. The little spiny fish that lived in the Cozumel reefs contained tetrodotoxin, a substance a thousand times more deadly than cyanide. Causing paralysis and eventual suffocation, there was enough toxin in one pufferfish to kill thirty adult humans. There was no known antidote. The only chance of recovery was to place the person in a coma on artificial life support, and wait for the body’s natural metabolism to process the toxin.

  “The police are sure it’s an accident,” Leander said.

  Kitty rolled her eyes. “They honestly think Mark or Angelina caught a puffer fish by accident and fried it up for tacos?”

  “There’s no evidence to the contrary and they don’t think this is related to Coleman Larson’s murder.”

  “That’s a little premature, since they don’t know why he was murdered.” She realized they were alone for the first time since he’d arrived. There was so much she needed to know. “Have they done an autopsy? How many times was he stabbed?”

  “Preliminary autopsy showed seven stab wounds to the upper torso,” he said.

  “Seven? That’s a lot, isn’t it? I don’t know much about it, but…” She mimed stabbing someone with a knife. One, two, three, four… “Seven feels like a lot. If anything, it’s not very efficient.”

  Leander smiled. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose,” Kitty said, quoting the book she’d just put down.

  He cocked his head and stared into space for a moment, clearly struck by the implication of her words. “Yes, passion. He was stabbed from the front. There was no sign of any contusions on his scalp, so I think he was conscious, knew the person who killed him, and wasn’t afraid of them.”

  “Angelina said something that caught my attention,” Kitty said. “Coleman took people out at night regularly. The night before I found his body, Mark said he wasn’t available when we had a meeting. Everyone was upset that we hadn’t gone to Punta Molas yet. Then Andrew said tonight that he and some of the others had gone out with another diving company this afternoon, and were planning another trip in the morning.”

  “So, you think maybe one of them persuaded him to make another trip out there, they killed him and drove the boat back? That would narrow it down a little.”

  “It might,” she agreed. Her eye was twitching fiercely and she pressed it with the heel of her hand. “Joan, Lisa and Christina share a room. They might notice if one of them snuck out. I didn’t get the feeling any of them were able to drive a speedboat.”

  “Or were obsessed with the treasure,” Leander said. He peered down at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, this? Just an eye twitch. It started after I swam around with a dead body under my arm. No big deal.”

  “Maybe we should stop talking about this,” he said, looking concerned.

  “No, it’s fine. It doesn’t happen as much now that you’re here. I think you’re helping.”

  “So, I make your eye twitch less? I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” He walked to the coffee machine and dug around in his pockets for change. “I think we need to look closer at Andrew. He seemed the most invested in searching the area.”

  “It’s broken,” she said, nodding at the machine. “And I think everybody gets a little obsessed with treasure when it’s dangled right in front of their noses. It’s perfectly natural, don’t you think?”

  He turned, smiling at her. “I thought you were a strictly Bingo girl.”

  “Golden treasure appeals to everyone,” she repeated, blushing. The last time they’d been together, Leander had witnessed Kitty’s thirty second long dance routine that started when she bellowed Bingo, and ended with Chica playing dead, legs in the air. Life was too short for sedate expressions of celebration when Bingo was involved.

  “Ren said he needed to go there for some species of fish he had on a list, but later he admitted it was for the treasure,” she said. “Before you came to dinner tonight, Jenny cried about being kicked from the program because she didn’t have enough to pay for tuition.”

  “But why would they kill Coleman if he’d brought them out to Punta Molas? Unless he’d found the treasure and they killed him to keep it for themselves.” Leander leaned his forehead against the coffee machine, as if willing the hot coffee to materialize before him. “If gold is the motivator, it could be anyone.”

  Her stomach dropped to her toes. Greed was a very good motivation for murder. “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I think I saw a little place on the main strip that’s open all night. We can grab something there.”

  He nodded, glancing around the cold hospital waiting room. “Mark was completely distraught so I don’t think he’s the one who poisoned Angelina. She’ll be safe with him watching over her tonight. Plus, this room is giving me a Dante’s Inferno vibe. All it needs is a bump in temperature to be a proper circle of hell.”

  Not too long after, they hailed a taxi, coffees in hand. The ride to the dive shop went quickly although they didn’t speak much. Leander removed his coat and tie, and Kitty figured they looked like a couple who’d spent a fun night out instead of a harrowing time at the emergency room.

  The sun was rising just as they started to walk the down the sandy lane to the dive shop. It occurred to Kitty that it was their second sunrise together, and then she felt embarrassed to have thought of it.

  “It’s funny,” he said, glancing her way. “I think I’ve watched more sunrises with you than with people I’ve known for years.”

  “Not a morning person then, are you?” she asked. She took a sip of her coffee and pretended to look out toward the water, hiding her smile.

  “Not really. Are you?”

  Kitty thought about it for a moment. Her wake-up time wasn’t usually of her own choosing unless she was on vacation. “When I’m home, my cats wake me up around seven, so I’m not really sure.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Raven and Rook. Black as night, both with green eyes like…” She almost said ‘like yours’ except only one of his eyes was green and it seemed awkward to say ‘your green one’. She went on, “They’re both troublesome creatures who like to sit on whatever book I’m reading.”

  He watched a seagull cross the sky above them. “I like their names. Are they trained service cats?”

  “Trained to annoy only, but that’s a good idea. Then I can have three service animals in the house. It won’t matter if I have any senses left at all. I’ll never miss a thing.” Her coffee was getting cold, but she wasn’t as tired as she had been half an hour ago. She tried not to think about how much of the day was ahead of her and how littl
e they knew about Coleman’s murder.

  “Is that a possibility? Losing some senses in the future, I mean.”

  For just a moment, Kitty was tempted to lie. She barely knew Leander, really. The state of her hearing wasn’t something she discussed with anyone outside her family, and sometimes not even then. It was a conversation that would change their fledgling friendship. Either for the better, or worse, it would change.

  The sky was riddled with pink and orange clouds, and the hum of traffic had grown louder just in the few minutes they’d been walking. The island was waking up.

  “Life is uncertain. Nothing is set in stone.”

  He didn’t say anything, simply waited for her to go on. She stopped in front of the dive shop and leaned her elbows on the railing. The beach was deserted.

  “In the future, somewhere down the line, I’ll most likely lose my hearing, just as my parents did. Just as my brother did. They say it’s not for sure, but I hate being unpleasantly surprised, so I’ll just call it a sure thing and be done with the uncertainty.” She was trying to be light-hearted, but it came out sounding flippant.

  “I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

  Most of the time she found herself on the defensive, trying to prove how the deaf community was just as capable and alive as the hearing community. She hated the platitudes and the ignorant questions. Defending the independence and intelligence of deaf people was her default state. But Leander had grown up in the deaf community. She didn’t need to defend or explain.

  “Yeah, it is. Sometimes I find myself avoiding music because I don’t want to miss it later.” She shrugged. “Silly, isn’t it? To deny myself something wonderful now because I’ll miss it later?”

  “It sounds logical,” he said, his voice soft.

  They stood watching the sky lighten over the water. After a few minutes, Leander sighed. “Time to go inside and start asking questions. I feel like we’re missing something really important. Why Angelina? Was it an accident that she got the poisoned fish?”

  “Or was all the fish tainted? I can’t remember who ate what. If it was all tainted, then the poisoner would have made sure not to eat any. I can think of a few people there who only had salad on their plates. Lisa, Mark, Joan… But if you were going to murder a bunch of people and get away with it, wouldn’t it make more sense to take some fish and not eat it? Then you could say you intended to eat it but didn’t.”