Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 04 - Killer Kool

by Marty Ambrose

  As soon as I flipped the cell open, Sandy’s voice came through, shrill and anxious, “Mallie, you’ve got to come back to the office right away. I think they’re going to arrest Jimmy!”

  Uh-oh.

  What?” I clutched my cell phone tighter and rammed it against my ear, trying to make out what Sandy was saying. Her words all jumbled together in a panicked tone, but I thought I made out “locker” and “shellfish” and “Jimmy.”

  “Sandy, calm down. I can’t understand you. Sandy!” The signal cut out. Damn. I snapped the cell phone shut. “I’m sorry, Beatrice, but something has come up. I’ve got to get back to the newspaper office immediately.”

  “Sure.”

  I gave her one of my cards. “Call me if you remember anything else about yesterday’s … uh, events.”

  She nodded mutely, tears in her eyes again.

  I left the house (after grabbing another biscotti) and headed to the Observer as fast as Rusty’s aging engine would take me. Barely five minutes later, I rushed in the front door of the office and found Sandy standing near Anita’s office door, her head on Jimmy’s shoulder while he patted her on the back.

  Jimmy’s brow was knit with worry, Sandy’s eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and Anita’s mouth was drawn tight into a single line of boredom.

  “What happened? Did someone else die?” I queried anxiously.

  “We couldn’t get that lucky,” Anita quipped as she leaned against the door frame of her office.

  “It’s Jimmy,” Sandy moaned, raising her head. “He might be arrested because of the shellfish articles found in his locker.”

  “Whoa.” I held up one hand. “Back up and start overslowly, please.” I gestured a “roll ‘em’ motion with the other hand.

  “Let me tell it, sweetheart,” Jimmy said, as he dropped a gentle kiss on her head. “One of Nick Billie’s deputies came by Little Tuscany today while I was cleaning up the kitchen from yesterday’s lunch. After getting my statement, he poked around the whole place, including our staff lockers. Well, inside of mine, he found a couple of online articles about shellfish.”

  My eyes widened.

  “The whole thing was surreal,” Jimmy continued. “The deputy took the articles and told me to drop by the police station tomorrow morning to talk with Detective Billie. I don’t understand why.”

  “I already called Madame Geri,” Sandy cut in, clinging to Jimmy’s arms.

  “It doesn’t take a psychic to figure that one out,” I commented with some asperity. “Nick told me that Marco Santini died from an allergic reaction-probably to shellfish.”

  Sandy whimpered and dropped her head back down onto Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “So, the police think I might have put shellfish into food that Marco ate?” Jimmy’s words came out slowly as the meaning dawned on him. “But I didn’t even know he was allergic to shellfish. And why would I want to kill Mr. Santini?”

  “Aside from his being a mean, insensitive, bad-tempered boss?” I queried, as I flashed a significant glance at Anita. She completely missed it because she had begun to slather more bee cream onto her already red, scaly face.

  “True, but I’ve had other bosses just like him,” Jimmy admitted, his boy-next-door face baffled.

  “Was there any other reason you might be implicated in Marco’s death?” I continued.

  Sandy raised her head. “What about that money you borrowed from him for our wedding?”

  Jimmy paused for a few moments and then jerked his head to one side in disbelief. “But I was paying him back from my wages with thirty-percent interest.”

  “What?!” I gasped. “That’s obscene.”

  “He told me it was fair, since he paid me a dollar more than minimum wage,” Jimmy offered with an open smile. I vowed to have a talk with Madame Geri. Her son was really too trusting. “But I almost had the debt paid off.”

  “Do you have proof?” I probed.

  He grimaced. “No.”

  “You’re even dumber than you look,” Anita commented.

  “Oh, yeah?” Sandy rushed to the rescue, her face as fierce as that of a mama bear protecting her cubs. “What could be more dumb than slapping some type of bee junk on your face that’s making it look like a broiled lobster?”

  “Not nearly as dumb as letting some half-baked New Age loon like Madame Geri plan your wedding date-“

  “Did somebody mention my name?” The island’s freelance psychic stood there in all of her HappyDays-meets-reggae glory: blond dreadlocks, fifties-style outfit-complete with poodle skirt and finely knit sweater-and turquoise parrot, Marley, perched on her shoulder. I had to admire her fashion courage, not to mention the proximity of the bird’s sharp beak to her face.

  “Yeah, I did.” Anita’s words sounded defiant, but even she kept a wary eye on Marley.

  “The New Age label fits, but I object to being called a `loon.’ ” She stared hard at Anita, who stared back, but when Marley began flapping his wings, my boss averted her glance and retreated a few steps. “By the way, Anita, if you keep up with that bee cream, your face is going to puff up like a balloon.”

  Her hand flew to her face. “It’s just filling out the wrinkles.”

  “I told you, the bees on this island don’t produce the right type of honey for human skin.” Madame Geri stroked Marley to calm him down. “Your face is rejecting the cream; that’s why it’s red and swelling.”

  “Bees are bees, and cream is cream,” Anita spat out, but she placed the lid on the jar and screwed it shut. “My skin has never looked better.”

  Relatively speaking, I added to myself-if you had to choose between a puffy catcher’s-mitt face or a sagging saddlebag.

  Madame Geri shrugged and turned to her son and Sandy. “Tell me the whole story.”

  As Sandy repeated what Jimmy had told me, Madame Geri listened intently, occasionally posing a question. Anita took the opportunity to disappear into her office, but I spied her putting another layer of bee cream on her face. Catcher’s mitt, all right.

  “What does it mean, Madame Geri?” Sandy asked. “Is our wedding off because Jimmy is going to j-jail?”

  Madame Geri closed her eyes briefly. “I can’t tell for sure. We need to find Marco’s killer to make certain Jimmy isn’t blamed.”

  “Who said anything about a killer?” I interjected, still eyeing Marley. The bird scared me; in fact, all birds made me slightly uneasy from the time I’d been attacked by a group of maverick ducks near Lake Buena Vista at Disney World. “Maybe Marco could have been cooking up a dish for a customer, and he accidently swallowed some shellfish.”

  All three of them turned and looked at me without saying a word.

  “Okay, it’s a long shot, but it’s possible.”

  “Don’t be stupid, kiddo!” Anita shouted from her office.

  “Oh, go back to your bee cream!” I yelled back.

  Marley flapped his wings again, and I retreated even farther.

  “He thought you said `beak him.’ ” Madame Geri stroked the bird as she murmured some reassuring words.

  “Make sure you translate verbatim for Marley. I don’t want my eyes pecked out if he thinks I’m asking him to `beak’ anybody, including me.” I kept my tone light but maintained my distance from both of them.

  “He understands almost everything.” Madame Geri gave the bird one last pat and then returned her attention to Sandy and her son. “Let’s say, as I’ve just heard the spirit world tell me, that Marco was murdered. Who else might be a suspect?” She raised her eyebrows in my direction, waiting for a response.

  ‘All right, here’s my two cents’ worth: I think Francesca and Kyle might be possibilities. They dropped by Little Tuscany yesterday morning and apparently had a raging argument with Marco. Two hours later, he was dead.” I tried to reconstruct the events in my mind, wondering how mother and son could have managed to slip shellfish into food that Marco was cooking. “Who else was in the kitchen during the morning, Jimmy?”

&nb
sp; “Let me think.” Jimmy tapped his chin. “Uh, aside from Francesca and Kyle, and Beatrice and Guido just me.” He swallowed audibly. “That doesn’t sound so good, does it?”

  I tried to offer an encouraging smile, but I had to agree with him. Potential Marco killers weren’t exactly coming out of the woodwork. “Why did you have the shellfish articles in your locker?”

  “I was working on some new recipes for Mr. Santini that included shrimp and lobster,” Jimmy explained. “So I was reading up on the difference between freshwater and saltwater shrimp, and Maine lobster and Florida lobsterthat kind of thing. Honest. I just wanted to be a better cook for Mr. Santini, not kill him with shellfish.”

  “I believe you, Jimmy,” I said.

  “Sounds lame to me!” Anita shouted out again. Sandy went over and closed the door to her office.

  “What do we do now?” Jimmy circled his arm around Sandy again when she came back to stand by him. “I want to make sure that the wedding takes place, and that won’t happen if I’m arrested.”

  “You’re not going to be arrested, son,” Madame Geri pronounced in a firm tone. “We just need to come up with a plan to smoke out the murderer.” They all looked at me again.

  “Oh, please. The last time I got involved with a mysterious death, the killer drenched me in mango pulp right before she tried to silence me forever.”

  Never again.

  The little group kept up the stare-fest, including Marley, who drilled me with his beady little eyes. I don’t know if it was fear or foolishness, but I found myself agreeing to help with the “plan.”

  “Jimmy and I can go to Le Sink and try to get info out of Kyle,” Sandy offered, sending a beaming smile up at Jimmy. “We’ll be like that private-detective couple in the old black-and-white movies-“

  “Nick and Nora Charles,” I finished for her, not wanting to point out that Sandy and Jimmy’s wholesome, middle-American appearance didn’t exactly jibe with the hard-drinking, sophisticated 1920s style of Dashiell Hammett’s duo.

  Still, what they lacked in cosmopolitan canniness, they made up for with eager honesty-not to mention desperation over Jimmy’s possible jailbird future.

  “Mallie and I will go to Taste of Venice and see what we can glean from Francesca,” Madame Geri volunteered. “You can also get a restaurant review out of it.”

  “That one isn’t on my list,” I protested, not wanting to be saddled with Madame Geri for another meal.

  “Put it on the list, kiddo!” Anita yelled out one more time. Jeez, does she have superhuman hearing or what?

  “Great,” Sandy enthused. “You guys will be like Thelma and Louise.”

  “They weren’t detectives just two women on a crazy joyride,” I clarified. “And they wound up dead at the end of the film.”

  “Oh.” Sandy’s mouth puckered in concern. “Maybe you could just be yourselves, then.”

  I glanced at Madame Geri with her dreadlocks and parrot; yeah, being herself was probably best. Then I looked down at my worn jeans and misshapen sweater, realizing I was probably most comfortable being my shabby-chic self too.

  “I need to go home and walk Kong before dinner.”

  “I’ll book the reservation and take Marley home” Madame Geri set the parrot on Sandy’s desk. After giving him a few pats, she whipped out her cell phone and began clicking on the keys. “Mallie, you’d better dress up. This restaurant isn’t another Le Sink.”

  I felt a touch of excitement flicker inside. “You mean it’s a nice place?”

  “Four stars, according to some of the spirits who ate there when they were alive.”

  “Cool,” Jimmy said with a smile. “Maybe they can suggest an entree.”

  Too freaky. I refused to take food advice from dead people. I had to draw the line somewhere.

  By the time I returned to my Airstream at the Twin Palms RV Resort, the temperature had begun to drop again, and the air had taken on a sharp chill. Quickly, I hustled Kong out for a quick walk and took a peep at Cole’s van before I retreated inside my silver hutlike home.

  It looked empty and dark. And still no sign of Cole.

  I sighed.

  “It’s no more than I deserve, Kong,” I commented to my teacup poodle as I hiked up the thermostat. Holding my breath, I waited to see if the heater clicked on.

  Nada.

  I switched on Pop Pop’s space heater, hoping it would keep chugging through the night. I flipped on the television and saw Miss Perky Weathergirl predict that the cold snap would last at least a week. Not good. I left another message for Sam, begging him to come over and fix my heater, though I figured he had about fifty similar calls from islanders panicked at the thought of nothing but a twenty-nine-dollar space heater between them and frostbite.

  Coral Islanders never prepared for chilly weather and, consequently, feared it almost more than a hurricane.

  I freshened up, plumping up my red curls (my best feature), smoothing on a thin layer of makeup over my freckles (my worst feature), and gliding a dab of pink lipstick onto my lips (my okay feature). Then I had a more problematic decision: what to wear to a fancy restaurant.

  Aside from my jeans and tops, I possessed only two dresses: a yellow sundress that I’d picked up at Secondhand Rose, the island’s consignment shop, and a longsleeved black jersey dress, which my lawyer-sister had given me years ago and I’d never worn. Too preppy for my taste.

  I guess the decision wasn’t that hard. I could either freeze in a sundress or be comfortable in my sister’s conservative castoff. As I slipped on the black dress, I heard a knock at my door.

  Cole? Nick?

  My heart leaped with joy. Maybe one or both of them had forgiven me.

  I finished dressing, slipped into a pair of pumps, also a gift from my sister, and caught sight of myself in the bedroom mirror. Not bad. Black made my red curls turn almost copper and my skin look almost creamy.

  I swung open the door and beheld Pop Pop.

  The joy faded like the last rays of a setting sun.

  “Just checking to see if that space heater was still working.” He pulled down his knit cap to cover his ears; he looked like a hip-hop mummy.

  “It’s fine.” I tried to hide my disappointment behind a bright smile. “I’m hoping Sam will come over some-time tonight and fix the heater, so I can return your portable one by morning.”

  “It’s yours as long as you need it.” He squinted and pulled out a pair of thick, Coke-bottle glasses. “You look mighty nice, Mallie. Are we going out to dinner again? I can be ready in two shakes.”

  “No need to shake anything.” I shook my head. “I have to do a restaurant review with Madame Geri tonight, so it’s a … uh … business dinner.”

  “Okay.” His saggy features drooped in disappointment, which meant his chin hit his skinny chest. “I understand, and I don’t want you to feel bad about ditching me. I mean, I know I’m not exactly a spring chicken, while you’re a cute chick.”

  Talk about laying a major guilt trip on me-and it was working. “I guess we could include another person for dinner,” I said with slow reluctance.

  “Great! I’ll be waiting for you to pick me up, tootsie.” He grinned, which, unfortunately, caused his dentures to shift out of place. “Oops.”

  As he snapped the dentures back into place and hobbled off, I closed the door. Kong nuzzled my ankle and gave a supportive yelp, which I swear hit a note that seemed almost human.

  Oh, boy. This should make for a fun evening of companionship-the geriatric RV park caretaker and island psychic. Could my heart take it?

  I slipped on my old coat, hopped into my truck, and headed for Pop Pop’s cottage.

  Just call me the dating diva.

  By the time we arrived at the Taste of Venice restaurant, it was an hour later. I’d had to drive back to the Twin Palms RV park twice-first for Pop Pop’s spare oxygen tank and, second, for his blood-pressure medication. Madame Geri was standing out front, pointing at her watch. She’d chang
ed into her evening dress as well: a 1920s-style sequined tunic, leggings, and a cape.

  Sassy, if not classy.

  The restaurant stretched behind her, a smallish wooden structure with a vine-covered trellis across the front and twinkling lights circling the windows. It had a laid-back, cozy feel, the kind of ambiance that only a really good restaurant could pull off successfully.

  “Sorry we’re late,” I said, “but Pop Pop had a few last-minute items he’d forgotten.” I helped him out of my truck, now being an expert at handling him and his oxygen paraphernalia.

  As we approached, Madame Geri whispered, “Don’t get too attached; he’s got a date with destiny soon-if you get my drift.”

  I started. “How soon?”

  “A few years.” She shrugged. “You’ve got time to be a couple, but don’t expect a long-term relationship.”

  “We’re not dating,” I hissed back as we entered Taste of Venice. The subdued lighting and fine linens bore out the quiet elegance of the exterior. “It’s just that he gave me a space heater, and I felt sorry for him, because he’s all alone every night. I know how it feels, now that both of my potential boyfriends have disappeared-” I broke off, realizing how lame I sounded. “All right, fine, we’re dating! I’m dating a man in his eighties!”

  Everyone in the restaurant fell into silence right at the moment I spewed forth with my loud declaration. I raised my chin, refusing to be embarrassed, until I spied Cole and Nick in the group of diners at a table together.

  Huh?

  I heard a few snickers, which I tried to ignore, and eventually people resumed their conversations.

  My two MIA boyfriends had just heard me say that I was now dating a man old enough to have known President Roosevelt personally.

  Still cringing, I realized the bigger question was, what were they doing at the same table? Were they doubledating already, and the women had excused themselves for a few moments? Had they each found someone to replace me within twenty-four hours?

  Then again, I was with Pop Pop.

  Wishing the floor would swallow me up, I tried to keep up a good front and a firm hold on Pop Pop’s oxygen tank.