“Hi! I’m Lily, Jules’ friend.”
I figured I’d better jump in before Jules reared back and punched the woman.
“Charmed, Lily.”
Maggie extended her fingers for an anemic and condescending handshake.
“So, what are you selling?” I asked as I looked up at the sign: The Feline Mystique. “Ah…another cat store, it looks like.”
“It’s hardly just another cat store, dear. I am the exclusive distributor for Feline Mystique products for Florida. It’s the Mary Kay of all things feline. You should join on as kitty entrepreneurs – I can start you off at the bobcat level. Everything is imported from the manufacturer in Lyon, France. We have wonderful furnishings for the kitty boudoir, designer clothing, polished nickel bowls, gem-studded collars, and of course our proprietary and sumptuous meaty blends of the most nutritious three-course meals for our little carnivorous friends. Our Moist Morsel pouches and cans will give them a luxurious, shiny coat and a long healthy life. Not like that dry drivel these other shops are trying to palm off as healthy and delicious.”
She had me sold, and I was going to pick up a few cans for Miss Pickles – until I saw the price tag.
“Well, it was so nice running into you again, Grandmother dear!” Jules kept up the haughty display till the end, right down to the air kisses. “We must be off now. Obligations, you know. Do be a dear and stop by for a visit soon.”
“I’m just here for the Markets, dear. Stop by when you’re in Boca Raton.”
We walked away, and I tried to keep my head erect like Jules’ until we got around the bend.
“Don’t look back…you’ll be turned to stone,” Jules said as she gradually returned to normal.
“Jules, you are too good at that sophisticated jibber-jabber. You’re not going to turn into her, are you?”
“Please, Lily. Phony smiles along with some sarcastic and passive-aggressive talk is the only way I can keep from telling her how I really feel.”
“Oh, I think your real feelings came through loud and clear, Jules.”
“Good.”
We passed through the vandalized area, which was looking as good as new now – almost. Mildred’s shop was closed with yellow police tape on the door, and the Come Rain or Come Shine store had been replaced with a smoothie shop.
“Two raspberry peach, please,” I said with a pleasant smile.
The young teenaged boy inside looked like he might be part of Esmeralda’s family too, with his freckles and crop of long orange hair.
“They’re almost as good as your smoothies, Lily. You might have to add this flavor to your menu.”
It was delicious. “Mmhmm. I might do that.”
I could see Eli and his crew of elves off in the distance when I heard a familiar shout.
“Hey, Lily. Come on over and visit me.”
It was Ezzy – Lady Esmeralda – sitting in her little booth.
“Hey, girl. How’s business?” There was something about this lovely Gypsy girl that just made me feel happy.
“Well, most people don’t want to know about their future until after lunch. It’ll pick up in an hour or two.”
I slid a ten across her little table and motioned for Jules to sit down next to me. “This is my best friend, Jules Ledger. Do her! Give her the works – cards, palm, whatever.”
“Oh, no, Lily…” Jules protested.
“I know,” Ezzy said, capturing Jules with her mesmerizing green eyes, “you’re a skeptic and don’t have time for this kind of voodoo.”
“Well…” Jules was trying to figure out how to weasel out of admitting that this girl, who made her living as a seer and palm reader, was absolutely right.
I nodded. “Yup.”
“No worries, Jules,” Ezzy said confidently, taking a sip from her bottle of green tea. “I don’t need any of this stuff to read you anyway. You were the lady snapping pictures here with that young high school girl last week, weren’t you?”
“Well, yes. I run…”
“The high school newspaper?”
“No. It’s a little community paper – but I do print the high school paper on the center spread every other week.”
“I think the girl is just a little too old to be your daughter, and she has a little Cuban or Hispanic blood. Maybe she’s a niece or neighbor?”
“Moira is my friend, Carmen’s daughter.”
“She was a little distracted by feelings of young love, but you don’t seem to have anything like that standing in your way. You tried love and marriage, but it was with the wrong man. He was too involved with his work and didn’t have time for the fun and artistry of life. So you divorced him and left a life of relative wealth…”
She took Jules’ hand and turned it over to look at her palm for a couple of seconds.
“…about two or three years ago. Now you’ve lost faith in love, although it’s still what you really want. You’re filling your time up with work and business and becoming more like your ex-husband every day.”
Jules shot me a look that asked, “Did you tell her about me?” and I shook my head. Then Ezzy looked into the crystal ball for a moment.
“You feel yourself pulled toward men and wanting their affection – especially right before you go to bed every night – but the moment you feel your emotions kicking in, you pull back. There is a nice man, a little older who works with his hands, who still dances in your dreams…and he’s still there for you too, waiting for you to smile at him.”
“Not bad, Ezzy.” I had sucked down my entire smoothie listening to her and now slurped up that last drizzle. “You’ve got a real talent.”
She took both of Jules’ hands in hers and looked into her eyes. “Jules, you have a soul made of pure sugar and honey and a spirit made of sunshine. Don’t let your special gifts grow dim and sour.”
Jules sat silently for a moment, struggling with her skepticism it seemed. Then she had one question for Esmeralda before we left.
“Thank you Ezzy…Can I stop by later with my camera and interview you for a feature story in the Gazette?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so…”
Then her father, still with his serious and brooding look, walked up from nowhere and nodded to her several times.”
“But, what the heck. We can always use the publicity. I have a break at 3:00.”
“Thanks, Ezzy.” Jules started to get up but then stopped and looked at the Gypsy girl again. “But tell me one thing.”
“I will if I can, Jules.”
Jules paused for a moment before she spoke. “Who is responsible for the vandalism here and the attack on our friend, Mildred?”
Ezzy leaned back in her chair. “Do you think my family is involved?”
“No! I didn’t mean to imply that at all. I’m so sorry. Although, last week it did cross my mind.” Jules looked down with a hint of shame and then looked at Ezzy again. “It’s just that you’re so near, and you seem to see into people, even if they are just passing by – as Moira and I were last week. I was just hoping that you might have an idea or an insight.”
“I can see that you really do want to get to the bottom of this terrible attack on your friend. I’ve thought about it too, and I honestly don’t know who is responsible. But there is one thing I can tell you…”
We both leaned in, hoping for a bit of wisdom from the sage young woman.
“It was done for love, and not for money. That is the sense that keeps coming into my mind. The entire mood that still hangs over this area comes from the kind of deep hatred that can only come from misguided and unrequited love.”
Jules and I walked away with our heads spinning.
“Ezzy never ceases to amaze me, Jules. She really nailed Eli and me last week, and it seemed like she hit a nerve with you too.”
“Maybe she did. I mean, I knew everything she said, and I’ve thought about all of those things a lot. But they seem more real and immediate when someone else says them and paints a
picture of your life right in front of your eyes. I guess the ‘becoming more like my ex’ thing was the one thing I really hadn’t considered before. Do you think she’s right?”
I had to think about how I could encourage Jules to follow her heart without agreeing that she was too involved in her work. “Well, not yet, Jules. Maybe she’s just your Ghost of Christmas Past stopping by early to warn you while there’s still plenty of time to take the sweet and sunny route. Ohh, I want to see if I can sit on Santa’s lap!”
Eli was standing with his elves, waving and “ho-ho-ho-ing” to the people passing by. Mrs. Santa was across the cobblestone path talking to a woman with a familiar blonde ponytail in front of a very small booth. Sandy had a big pail of Christmas cookies cut like snowmen and Christmas trees, all with brightly colored sprinkles. I’m sure she made them herself, and I was thinking about how I might be able to snag one.
“Well, hello, little girl,” Eli said to me. “What would you like for Christmas?”
“Don’t I get to sit on your lap?”
Eli looked to his left and right. “Later,” he whispered.
“Well, then…how about one of those star-shaped cookies with the red sprinkles in Mrs. Santa’s pail?”
“Ho, ho, ho! Come with me.” He walked up to his weekend wife. “Dear, do you have a nice red cookie for this little girl? She’s been very good!”
“Hi, Lily,” she said with a big white smile as she handed me the object of my desire.
“Oh, well…okay.” I tried to pretend it was Santa’s idea as I snatched up the sweet treat. “So this is where your booth is. It’s very small. Jules…” I was going to ask her if she wanted half the cookie (I knew she wouldn’t), but she was across the walkway whispering with Eli, who had retreated to a distance just out of earshot.
“Yes,” Sandy replied. “It’s mostly an informational booth. We’re giving out cards and flyers with tips on cat care and discount coupons to let all of the cat owners know that we’re here.”
“And,” Cora added, “we’re selling bags of Dr. Dawson’s specially formulated cat food too.”
“Cora actually whips it up and bakes it in our lab in the clinic. She’s an animal nutritionist and helped me to improve my formula.”
“Wow. You should get it in the stores around here.”
“Soon, I hope,” Sandy said with crossed fingers.
“Eeeeeeee!”
I heard the excited exclamation coming from a girl, and turned to see Jules jumping on her toes and quickly clapping her fingers together several times.
“Well, good luck with that, Sandy. It looks like some children are waiting to talk to you and Santa – besides Jules, that is.”
Eli was soon seated on his stool and had a little boy on his knee.
“No, you can’t see Santa’s gun,” I heard him say, and we waved our farewells as I turned to go back to the Cabana East to work.
“So, is Santa going to bring you a new bicycle or something? You looked pretty excited back there, Jules.”
“Something like that, Lily.”
She looked like the cat that just ate the canary, so I was pretty sure something was up. But she wasn’t talking. She just took out her phone and sent off a text to somebody. I’ll bet she took Ezzy’s words to heart and is going on a date. Maybe Eli agreed to arrange an accidental meeting with one of his officers or maybe with Mike Barton. Trevor Barton’s dad was a landscaper that she had dinner with one time and then seemed to avoid, even though she really liked him.
“You should do some Christmas shopping on the way back, Lily. Let’s stop into the Bees Knees and look at some of their handmade things.”
It was a big walk-in shop with a lot more than honey.
“Hey, maybe Eli would like one of these hand-carved walking sticks!”
I walked over to an oak barrel that must have had two dozen or more beautifully carved sticks with decorative brass and chrome heads. I picked up a black lacquered stick with a brass lion’s head on top.
“Look at this one, Jules!”
She walked over and started to examine the craftsmanship in a more professional way than I was able to.
“What do you think? Would Eli like it? I mean, it’s sixty bucks, but it’s nice and heavy, and seems to be well-balanced and weighted…”
“Lily…” Jules said as the color left her cheeks.
She turned the stick to show me the back of the lion’s head. In one of the grooves of his mane I could clearly see the crusty remains of a red liquid that looked very much like blood and a long red hair – grey closer to the root – that had gotten stuck between the brass and the wood.
Our blood ran cold as we looked at each other.
“Call Eli,” Jules said with serious and wide eyes. “It wasn’t a ballpeen hammer that cracked Mildred across the head. It was this.”
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Chapter Six
Saturday afternoon was horrible. The police set up a big van in the park to question all of the Irish Travellers while the investigators closed all their shops. Esmeralda was in tears and inconsolable, yet she stayed strong and never got angry. I made sure that Eli was the one to interrogate her. Her brother, Daniel, and the walking stick, were taken to the police station for fingerprinting.
I managed to get Ezzy to come over to the Methodist Church pavilion for some of Sal’s porchetta roast with baby red potatoes. She didn’t eat much at first, but the unique flavor eventually got to her, and she devoured it.
Eli seemed to understand the cruelty, disgrace, and great hardship this brought onto the families and their children. He saw to it that the shops, except for the Bee’s Knees, were released back to the merchants again as soon as possible. Most of them chose not to reopen for the rest of the weekend anyway, and the joyful voices of the carolers were also silenced.
On Monday morning I drove to the park early and found Ezzy outside their traveling home playing with her younger sisters and brothers. I barely recognized her in black skinny jeans and a simple top with her hair tied into a bun. She didn’t have on her usual Palm Reader’s makeup and was giggling and running with the other children, looking like a young schoolgirl herself.
I gave her a broad wave from a respectable distance so as not to intrude, and she ran over, followed by a little boy who obviously adored her. Her eyes were bright and her smile was deep and genuine, despite her recent hardship.
“Hi, Lily.” The shy little boy snuggled up against his big sister for protection and comfort. “This is Joshua,” she said, rubbing his head. “He’s my little shadow.”
“Do you like pancakes?” I asked the twosome.
The lad’s eyes lit up and he looked up at his sister with hope and anticipation. Ezzy nodded.
“Why don’t you ask your dad if you can come with me for a few hours? We’ll get some breakfast, I’ll show you my coffee shop, and I’ll have you back in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe we can go to the outlet mall in Sabina if you have enough time.”
Joshua tugged on Ezzy’s shirt and nodded his enthusiastic vote in favor of my idea. She looked back toward her father who was keeping a close eye on us while trying not to be too obvious. Daniel had been released by the police and was standing with his father too.
“Just a minute.”
She ran to her father and asked the question. He shook his head, and I heard her say, “Why not?” in that whiny sort of teenaged girl kind of way. There was a little more discussion as the other kids gathered around, and pretty soon she was jumping and cheering. It reminded me of Jules with Santa on Saturday. Then she hugged his neck and ran back to me. The young boy and two sisters, about 8 and 12, came along too. She looked at me with the same eyes that had just melted her Daddy’s heart, wondering if I would accept the entire group.
“Great!” I said. “Let’s go!”
This was obviously a big event for t
he kids, so I headed for the new Pancake Works on the ramp by the highway to Orlando. The younger girls were whispering to each other in the back seat. Ezzy was in the front.
“I’ve never been out with a buffer before, Venus. Do you think she’ll kidnap us and cook us in her oven?”
“Mira!” Ezzy barked as the two girls giggled. “Lily is not a ‘buffer;’ she’s a ‘settled person,’ and we are her guests, so be nice.”
Ezzy was really concerned about the impression her family would make on “outsiders” like me, and didn’t want bad behavior to perpetuate bad stereotypes about her people. I smiled and winked at her.
“They’re just being kids, Ezzy. Let them have some fun.” Then I talked to the three kids in the back. “And don’t worry, Mirasol – the pancakes will fill me up. And Joshua – buffers don’t eat little boys. They’re not as tender as little girls.”
Oops. It got kind of quiet for a few seconds, and I thought my little joke might have been a bad idea.
“She’s teasing you, Joshua,” Venus told her little brother, and their laughter broke the mood. Finally, the separate little conversations turned into one big conversation about being homeschooled, boys, and living on the road.
I never saw kids eat so much, clean their plates, and be so well behaved in a restaurant before. We were all stuffed and ready to go, but when we got up to leave the manager recognized Joshua as the little boy from the carolers at the Christmas Markets.
“You all must be the singers at the Markets. Will you do a number for our guests?”
Ha! My singing voice sound like chickens being strangled. “Sorry, I’m…”
Ezzy huddled with her siblings. “I’ll do Mom’s part. Venus, you do my part; Mira you can do your regular part. And Joshua – don’t beg for coins!”
They stood near the cash register, facing down the aisle of booths and began…
Ave Maria…
Ezzy’s clear, operatic voice filled the busy restaurant, and all chatter and eating stopped at once. All attention was focused on the girls.
…Gratia plena
Peppermint Pandemonium: A Cozy Mystery (Sweet Home Mystery Series Book 5) Page 5
