Read to Death

by Terrie Farley Moran

  Miguel blanched more than a little.

  “Well, as soon as I mentioned the garden, she pointed to this shell. She told me the one I had was a knobby, no, a knobbed whelk, but she said I needed this one because the horse conch is the Florida state shell. She saw it in a guidebook.”

  Sage placed a rock at each end of the conch shell opening and stepped back to admire her handiwork. Experience taught me that she was capable of puttering forever. Both Miguel and Bridgy were drilling me with their eyes, silently demanding that I make this end and fast. I decided to ask Sage the name of the woman she met in the shell shop. Maybe I could get Sage to focus on the woman’s aura or clothes or something, anything to distract her from the plan of forcing Miguel to have an herb garden planted in seashells.

  I was about to ask if Sage knew the woman’s name, when Sage said, “Oh, and she said if I am ever in New Jersey, that is where I should look for a knobbed whelk because it is the New Jersey state shell. And, as foodies, you will love this. She said the Italian word for the marine snail inside the knobbed whelk is scungilli. As if I hadn’t eaten that a hundred times at my aunt Loretta’s house complete with vinegar and oil, peppers and tomato.”

  Together, Bridgy and I nearly shouted, “Who? Who talked to you about the shells?”

  “You don’t have to yell. Didn’t I mention? It was your friend, the one with the husband. You remember, we met them at Doc Ford’s. We told you we met her when we were shopping in Times Square.”

  Bridgy and I exchanged looks. Margo, the one person who said she’d never been to the northeast, and yet she knew the state shell for New Jersey. Something was wrong.

  I motioned Bridgy into the kitchen, leaving poor Miguel to fend for himself.

  I may have been a little overexcited, because Bridgy felt compelled to remind me that I’d warned her about jumping to wrong conclusions. “Maybe Margo just loves seashells.”

  She had no chance of convincing me. I was determined to talk to Margo.

  “Sassy, stop. We don’t even know where she lives. Can’t we wait until she drops in again and casually thank her for helping Sage?”

  Bridgy’s words flew right by me. I already had my cell phone out, grateful that I had Maggie Latimer on speed dial. Since she knew where Tammy rented for the winter, she could probably lead us to Margo as well. And she did.

  I thanked Maggie and punched the “Off” button on my phone. Then it hit me. What do we do with the moms? I knew I couldn’t leave Sage here tormenting Miguel. That would almost certainly lead to our having no chef tomorrow morning.

  I hit another speed dial button. “Ophie, do you have a reason to need the moms right away?”

  “Y’all are the answer to my prayers. I just got a jewelry delivery, and I am having a problem deciding on my display space. I could use some extra eyes.”

  I pushed through the kitchen door. Miguel was as frozen as a deer caught in a Chevy Silverado’s headlights. When I announced that Ophie had an emergency and needed the moms right away, I could swear I heard Miguel mumble, “Gracias, Ophie.”

  Sage protested. “What about my seedlings?”

  Miguel diverted the potential catastrophe. “No problem, I will set them up on a rack in the slop sink. Nice, moist atmosphere, and we will take care of them mañana.”

  Once Miguel convinced Sage he’d take excellent care of her seedlings, she was quite willing to leave the shell and basil garden until the morning in order to check out Ophie’s emergency. The moms began to gather their things. I took the opportunity to slip behind the counter and pick up the bag with Margo’s copy of The Florida Life of Thomas Edison.

  We left Miguel to take care of the seedlings and walked over to the Treasure Trove with the moms, who were so delighted that Ophie’s “emergency” involved jewelry that they barely heard us say good-bye.

  We were halfway to the Heap-a-Jeep when Cady pulled into the parking lot.

  “I guess I’m too late for coffee and pie.”

  For a minute I was tempted to tell him to knock on the door of the café and Miguel would give him a slice on the house, but I’d already burdened Miguel with shells and basil plants. I didn’t think I should push it.

  I held up Sonja’s bag with the book in it. “We have to return this book to Margo Wellington.” It sounded lame to me, but only because I knew my real intent. I owned a bookstore and I organized book clubs. What would be more normal than returning a clubbie’s book?

  “It’s our cover.” Bridgy sounded like a crook in a heist movie.

  I rolled my eyes, but Cady took no notice of me. He sounded baffled. “Her book wound up in your book jacket?”

  Bridgy grew frustrated. “No. It’s our cover, you know, like our reason for visiting her.”

  I watched Cady get it. “Oh no. Whatever you two think you are doing, don’t. Just don’t.”

  “It’s probably nothing, but . . .” We told him about the knobbed whelk and the horse conch shells. I finished with, “Now honestly, would you know which was which?”

  Cady groaned. “You are going to accuse this woman of murder because she knows the name of the New Jersey state shell?”

  I waved him off. “Don’t be silly. We’re just going to return her book and . . . and invite her to a party so we can talk to her some more.”

  “What party? And why would she want to come?”

  Bridgy chimed in, “Because Miguel is the best chef on the island, and we’re all invited to his house tomorrow night for shrimp prepared a dozen different ways.”

  Cady waggled a finger between us. “Come on. Are you two making this up?”

  I knew Miguel liked Cady and would text or email him an invitation, so I jumped the gun.

  “No. There is a real party, and you are invited. If it makes you feel better, Ryan and Frank Anthony are invited, so we can all talk about Margo Wellington, Oscar and the seashells then. Unless she shows up, of course. In that case our own expert”—I pointed to Bridgy—“will start a conversation about some popular Florida seashells, and we can gauge Margo’s level of enthusiasm.”

  Cady ran his hand over the top of his head, flattening his hair as he always did when making a decision. “If you are determined to see her, go ahead, but I am going to follow along behind you. If you are not out of her house within ten minutes after she opens the door, I am coming in.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  We drove south on Estero Boulevard and turned off on one of the canals south of the Matanzas Pass Preserve. The address Maggie gave me was a cheery pink bungalow with a white and black striped awning covering the front door. The driveway was extra wide, so I turned in, while Cady pulled up at the corner.

  As if on cue, the front door opened and Margo’s husband came out carrying suitcases, which he piled in the trunk. He had an iPad in his hand. He waved at us and yelled through the open door. “Margo, your friends are here to say good-bye.”

  Bridgy and I got out of the Heap-a-Jeep, but it was obvious Margo wasn’t happy to see us. “Nice of you to stop by, but we are in a hurry to get on the road. We’re planning to make Georgia by nightfall.”

  Her husband nipped that in the bud. “We’ll be on the road for days, Margo. Why not spend a few minutes with your friends? You won’t see them again until next winter.” Then he sat sideways in the passenger seat of the car, stretched his legs out in the driveway and began to fiddle with his iPad. I glanced over at the street and saw that Cady was watching us intently. I wanted to tell him, “Nothing to see here.”

  I tried to give the book to Margo, but she pushed it back at me. “I have so many books. My shelves at home are stuffed. Do me a favor, please, and donate it to the library. We really have to go.”

  This was getting harder. I tried another tack. “It’s too bad you can’t stay another few days. We are having a shrimp fiesta tomorrow night.”

  Margo shook her hea
d, but her husband’s ears perked right up. He stepped out of the car. “Sweetie, the lease here isn’t up until the weekend. If you want to stay . . .”

  “I told you I have a medical appointment at home that I cannot miss. We have to leave today, right now.”

  Clearly trying to plot our next step, Bridgy made a long, drawn-out speech about how nice it was to meet Margo and that she hoped next year would find us all together again.

  Margo began tapping her foot to an ever-increasing beat. Finally, she began massaging her temples and she leaned in toward Bridgy. “Honestly, it has been lovely, but I need to leave now, and you are holding us up.”

  I took one last stab. “Okay, but before we get out of your way, I want to thank you for helping my mother pick out the right shell.”

  A bit of confusion morphed into the palpable impatience in her face. Perfect.

  “It would be a shame for her to go home from a trip to Florida with a shell that represents New Jersey.”

  It was as though a fire alarm sounded and we were trapped in a fifth-floor walk-up. Margo slammed the car trunk shut and yelled at her husband to get in the car. Uncertain, he obeyed. She jumped into the driver’s seat, screamed at him to shut his door and then darn near hit Bridgy while trying to back out of the driveway. Cady ran across the street and stood at the bottom of the driveway, waving his arms to flag her down. Nothing was going to stop Margo. She aimed right for him. He was barely able to jump out of the way.

  She was almost at the curb when a sheriff’s department car screeched to a halt, blocking her exit. Frank Anthony and Ryan Mantoni jumped out of the car and ordered Margo to stop. With their guns pointed directly at her, she didn’t have much choice. She turned off the engine and began sobbing. Ryan opened her car door, and she slid out, her knees buckled and she had to grab on to the roof of the car in order to stand.

  Her husband, completely bewildered, leaned across the seat and asked Ryan politely, “Should I get out, too?”

  At the sound of his voice, Margo cracked completely. “This is all your fault. We should have gotten out of town when we had the chance.” And she burst into tears.

  * * *

  Bridgy and I spent a long night at the sheriff’s office explaining why we were at Margo’s in the first place.

  We sat alone in an interview room for hours. Finally, Ryan came in with Lieutenant Frank Anthony, who stood in the doorway, shaking his head. “You should thank your lucky stars that Cady didn’t like Margo Wellington’s attitude and called Ryan based on his newsman’s intuition. Or you”—he pointed to Bridgy—“might be under the wheels of Margo Wellington’s shiny silver BMW. It has all-wheel drive. She could have rolled back and forth a dozen times.”

  I was more used to being chastised by the lieutenant than Bridgy was, but from the sound of it, this lecture was going to be one of the milder ones. We’d probably get out with our eardrums intact.

  With our hands folded on the table like attentive kindergartners during story time, Bridgy and I exchanged a glance, but neither of us said a word.

  Once Frank and Ryan sat down and turned on the tape recorder, the conversation began in earnest.

  Frank made a little speech into the recorder, saying who we were and why he was taping the conversation. He used military language to state the time and ended with the date. Then the questions started. He wanted to know why we visited Margo. (Although I, for one, would hardly call it a visit.) He pressed us to go over what felt like every single minute of every single day from the time Bridgy discovered Oscar’s body until Frank’s sheriff’s car screeched to a halt and blocked Margo’s BMW in her driveway. Of course we had questions, too, but the lieutenant was not inclined to answer them.

  * * *

  It seemed like I’d only slept for about five minutes when Bridgy was pulling on my arm and whispering, “Time for work. The moms are still sleeping. Let’s not wake them.”

  Groggy as I was, I knew waking the moms was the last thing I wanted to do. We got home mega late the night before. Aunt Ophie and the moms were waiting for us with more questions than even Frank Anthony. Although, in their favor, they served hot chocolate.

  As had become our habit, I drove the Heap-a-Jeep, and we left Bridgy’s shiny red Escort for the moms. I mused that we were up so late they would probably sleep until noon.

  Bridgy laughed. “We’ll be lucky if they are awake when we get home. Oh, and Miguel’s party is tonight. At least we won’t have to worry about dinner. Umm, shrimp.”

  We’d barely gotten out of the jeep when Miguel opened the café door. “Chicas, to think you had a gangster’s girlfriend in your book club. Ay, and she’s a multiple murderer.”

  “Miguel, all the deputies would tell us was that Margo confessed to killing Oscar because of something that happened in Atlantic City decades ago. How do you know . . . ?”

  Miguel waved a copy of the Fort Myers Beach News. “I guess they told Cady a lot more than they told you. Freedom of the press. First Amendment to the Constitution. Read all about it. He has a right to know.”

  I snatched the paper from his hand. The front page headline read: “MOBSTER’S MOLL CAPTURED IN FORT MYERS BEACH.” Well, I thought, that will do wonders for the tourist trade.

  Bridgy stretched over my shoulder. She pointed to a paragraph just below the headline. “Look at this. She claims that back in the eighties her boyfriend beat her so she stabbed him in his sleep and made off with a pile of money he was supposed to deliver to his boss, a drug and gambling czar.”

  “I guess that proves stabbing is her murderous method of choice.” I quivered at the thought. “But what does it have to do with Oscar?”

  “Enough, chicas.” Miguel pulled the newspaper out of my hand. “Be grateful she is under lock and key and no longer coming here for sweet tea and pecan pie. Come see what I have done.”

  Miguel led us into the kitchen and pointed to the windowsill. “I came in early and planted basil seedlings in three shells, which is all that the windowsill will hold.”

  We smothered him with praise. I knew that his effort would make Sage happy; I only hoped that it wouldn’t lead her in new and more annoying directions.

  Miguel was in the middle of telling us that he would put some shelves across the window so we could have more seashells filled with herb seedlings, when the ship’s bell outside the front door began to gong insistently.

  I slid my phone out of my pocket to check the time. It was much too early for customers. I went to see what all the commotion was about, and there were the moms.

  Sage gave me a quick hug. “We know you and Bridgy have to be exhausted, so we’ve come to help.”

  Emelia chimed in, “And to prove to our little girls that we can handle this café.” And the two of them marched into the kitchen.

  Within seconds, we heard Sage exclaim, “Seedlings and horse conch shells. I knew they’d be perfect together.”

  I was grabbing another copy of the Fort Myers Beach News off the pile by the register when the ship’s bell clanged again. Ophie!

  She twirled in, rocking on gray patent leather high heels, which matched the belt cinching the waist of her black-and-white striped dress. “What do you think? Prison chic in honor of Margo, who’ll be wearing stripes for the rest of her life.”

  I tossed the newspaper on the counter. Obviously, I was never going to be able to draw the direct line from Oscar to Margo. Usually oblivious to other people’s frustration, Ophie was extremely considerate.

  “Honey chile, y’all are upset. Not enough sleep, I’m guessin’.”

  “It’s not that. Everyone seems to know what happened between Margo and Oscar except Bridgy and me.” I shook the newspaper. “And I can’t find a minute to read Cady’s article.”

  “Y’all don’t need a newspaper. Just remember the book club outing. Oscar was running his usual patter about knowing all us girls back
when. He kept saying he remembered some of us from his Atlantic City days. Even said he thought he recognized a chorus girl or two.”

  “And that was enough for Margo to kill him? Oscar always joked around, he never meant anything by it.” I was still stymied.

  “We’re all used to Oscar’s clowning but a snowbird like Margo couldn’t be sure. And she was a woman with secrets. She had no way of knowing Oscar’s banter wasn’t real. From what I read, she confronted him in the van, he kept up his teasing and out came the scissors. Both their fates were sealed over a bit of foolishness.”

  Ophie skipped a beat and pushed me toward the kitchen. “Emy called me to help run the café today. Now let’s get Bridgy. Y’all are going home to rest up for Miguel’s big shindig.”

  We resisted for a while, but with Ophie and the moms pushing and prodding, Bridgy and I went home to rest during the break between breakfast and lunch. It made sense. The five of us were tripping over one another, and I could see Miguel’s frustration building. He liked a certain order in his kitchen, and the last thing anyone wanted was for him to be cranky at his shrimp fiesta.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Miguel had strung twinkling lights on the palm trees in front of his house and on the bushes along the bayside.

  When Bridgy and I arrived with the moms, Miguel’s yard was already filling up. Tina Wei looked adorable in shorts and an oversized baseball shirt that read “LEE COUNTY SHERIFF” in big letters. I reminded myself to congratulate her on the fabulous home run she’d hit in the softball game against Charlotte County.

  Ophie, along with her friend Mark Clamenta, was serving batidos to Maggie Latimer and her daughter Holly.

  Ryan, Cady and Owen Reston were grouped together, laughing like chums, which, now that Oscar’s murder was solved, they were. I looked around for Skully, although I knew better than to expect him to show up at a social event.