Mud Bog Murder

by Lesley A. Diehl

  Jay ran his fingers through his hair and looked down at the floor. Maybe he had meant to be big-hearted, but he must have heard the obvious subtext as he repeated his story: that he had entered into a shady deal to make a buck for himself.

  He raised his gaze to Grandy’s. “You’re right. Looking back on it, I’m not really proud of myself, but Jenny wouldn’t hear of my loaning her money. She wanted a business deal.”

  “Yeah, well you both behaved in an underhanded and unethical manner. You should be ashamed.” Grandy set her wine glass on the coffee table in front of her. “I believe I’m ready to go home now,” she announced.

  I held up my finger to stop her from getting up. “One more question. Clay told us it was his wife’s idea to go for the mud bog event, not his.”

  Jay smiled. “Well, it could have been. That woman pushed Clay around all the time. No one could figure out why he put up with it. I guess he worshipped her. To be honest, I think he’s better off without her. I don’t know if he sees it that way.”

  “Shelley said Clay and Jenny had a thing going for a while,” I said.

  “Hmm. Unlikely, but as you suggested, maybe she also approached him about the mud bog event and worked out some kind of deal. It could have included a little romance, I guess.”

  “Shelley seems to think Clay had a crush on Jenny. She could have used that, I suppose.”

  “Money troubles make people do all kinds of things they might not ordinarily consider,” Jay replied.

  “But then Jenny fell for George, who had no money, and that was the end of Clay.” Love trumps money, I thought. Or does it? If she had set up the deal with Jay when she met George, she wouldn’t need Clay. She’d have had both money and love.

  “I don’t blame you for what you think of me,” said Jay, taking Grandy’s hand as he walked her to the door. “I keep worrying about what role I might have unwittingly played in her death.”

  Grandy nodded. “You may never know. You’ll just have to live with it.”

  Before I got into the car, I turned to ask Jay a final question. “Do you own a machete?”

  “Of course. Everyone around here has one. They’re a necessity for cutting through brush or taking down a snake.”

  “As common on the ranch as a thirty-thirty, right?”

  Jay nodded, a look of confusion on his face.

  I thought back on the events of the evening as I drove home. Romance and money … they were somehow intertwined in Jenny’s death, I was certain of it. No, that wasn’t right. Why sugarcoat it? Lust and greed were the more likely motives for Jenny’s murder.

  I wasn’t happy with what I’d learned from the other individuals who had submitted proposals for the mud bog event. It didn’t appear to me that any of them had reason to kill Jenny. One had dropped out of the competition, the second—my friend Jay—had worked a deal with Jenny, and the third was Clay Archer’s wife, who lost interest in the event. I had gotten nowhere in tracking down the killer, and Grandfather Egret still sat in jail, the authorities convinced he was connected to the murder.

  Back home, after Grandy had gone to bed, I thought back to my earlier assessment that lust and greed were responsible for Jenny’s death. I seemed to have ruled out greed, so that left lust. I needed to talk once more with George, Jenny’s fiancé. I set my alarm for six in the morning, intending to get up early and revisit the fish camp where he lived.

  At two in the morning, Grandy knocked on my door. “Eve, honey. I need your help.”

  I jumped out of bed just as Grandy threw open the door. A sob escaped her as she ran into the room and threw her arms around me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “It’s Max. The captain of the boat next to ours just called. The ambulance took Max to Reef Hospital. It looks like he had a heart attack.”

  Any plans I’d made for solving this murder were put aside. Right now all I knew was that Grandy needed me. Everything else faded into the background.

  “Let’s go.” I shoved her toward the guest bedroom to pack what she needed while I tossed a few essentials into an overnight bag. Minutes later we were on the road to Key Largo.

  “Did your friend say how he was doing?” I asked as I sped out of Sabal Bay and headed toward the turnpike and West Palm.

  “He didn’t know too much, just that Max was alive and had been admitted. I called the hospital, and they couldn’t tell me much more.”

  “Well, don’t you worry.” I patted her hand. “He’s a tough old bird. He’ll pull through this.”

  “It’s so hard not knowing what’s happening.”

  I pushed down on the accelerator. It was important to get there as soon as possible. If I got a ticket, so be it.

  The Florida State Troopers must have been busy with other criminals because we set a record driving to the hospital in Tavernier, shaving a half hour off my usual time, and I am not a slow driver.

  I dropped Grandy at the emergency entrance, knowing she’d want to be by his side right away, and parked the car. I was directed by the people at the desk down the hallway and into another smaller waiting room. Grandy was talking with a tall, thin man in a white coat. I ran up to them.

  “Oh, Eve. This is Dr. Grant. He admitted Max and says it was a moderate attack.”

  “When can we see him?”

  The doctor turned to me and Grandy introduced me as her granddaughter.

  “I know both of you are anxious to see him, but right now he needs rest. First thing tomorrow morning, you can talk with him. I’ll let him know you were here and that you’ll be back. He’s a lucky man. We haven’t yet assessed the damage to his heart, but we’re hoping it was minimal.” I was relieved that he appeared confident Max would recover. He gave Grandy a pat on the shoulder and me a smile of encouragement. Although also reassured by the doctor’s report, Grandy wanted to stay in the hospital and wait until morning.

  “I know we won’t sleep,” I said, “but let’s go to the boat and at least get comfortable. We can be back here early.” I looked at my watch. It was early in the morning, already after five.

  I lay down in the berth in the stern while Grandy took the one she and Max shared in the bow. I surprised myself by sleeping until the smell of coffee woke me at around seven.

  “Did you sleep at all?” I asked Grandy as she handed me a cup of coffee.

  “No. And don’t ask me if I’m hungry because I couldn’t eat a thing. Let’s gulp this down and go.”

  “We can take it with us in the car.” I threw on a pair of shorts and a cotton tee. Before we could get into the car, the guy on the boat next to Max and Grandy’s stopped us.

  “I heard you arrive early this morning. How’s Max doing?” he asked.

  Grandy introduced us. “Oh, Rob, tell me what happened.”

  “Max came over to my boat around one in the morning, saying he was having chest pains. He got that something serious was going on. I don’t know why he didn’t call for an ambulance.”

  “He didn’t call because he’s a stubborn old cuss,” Grandy said.

  Rob smiled his agreement. “I called and the ambulance was here within five minutes. I followed in my car. I couldn’t get much out of the people at the hospital, but Max asked me not to call you. He didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Damn, stubborn cuss,” Grandy repeated.

  “So I promised I would keep my mouth shut, and that’s when I called you.”

  “I’m glad someone around here has some sense. Thanks, Rob. I’ll just lie and tell him the hospital called me. We talked with his doctor when we arrived, and he told us Max is doing well. We’ll find out more this morning. We’re headed there now.”

  “I’ve got a morning charter or I’d come with you. Tell the old goat I said to get well.”

  “Will do.” Grandy waved and we got into the car.

  At the hospital we ran into Dr. Grant.

  “He’s doing well—so well that he thinks he can go home this morning. He asked if you had been n
otified and threw a fit when I said you had been. He thought he could keep this whole thing from you. I told him we were recommending inserting a stent in the area that was partially blocked. He asked if we could do it right away so he could get out of here. He’s something else. With his up and at ’em attitude, he should recover quickly.”

  Grandy snorted. “Unless I bop him alongside the head for trying to keep this from me. Will a concussion retard his recovery, do you think?”

  The doctor laughed. “I understand your attitude, but hold off on the bopping until we’ve got him back on his feet. Then you can bop him all you want.”

  “I’ll tell him that,” said Grandy. “Now where is the old curmudgeon?”

  The doctor led us to the room where Max was sitting up in bed and regaling several nurses with a pithy sailing tale.

  “Hi, hon,” he said, a flush rising on his cheeks. “You shouldn’t have bothered coming down. This is nothing. As I told the doc, I feel good enough to go home now.”

  Grandy rushed over to the bed and hugged him, her face turned to one side. I saw her fight back the tears. Joining her, I gave Max a kiss on his leathery cheek.

  “I know, I know, but I had to come home to pick up some clean underwear anyway, so it was no bother,” she said.

  Well, aren’t they cute? I thought. But someone has to cut through this dance of prevarication.

  “Okay, you two. Max, I got the word from the doctor that you’ll be here for a few days, having some tinkering done on that ticker of yours. Then you’re coming back to Sabal Bay with me to recover. Pack plenty of clean undies, both of you. You’ll be there for a while.”

  Max insisted he was going to stay in Key Largo after he got out of the hospital. He even swore he would begin taking out charters the day he got out. Grandy vowed she’d leave him if he didn’t cooperate and take at least a week off before they decided what the next step would be.

  As we wheeled him out of the hospital several days later, Max said, “We’re not discussing ‘next steps’ again. My next step will be back here, chartering this old tub, that’s what it’ll be. I’m a man who needs water. What would I do with my time up there among all those cattle, cowboys, and horses? I don’t even know how to ride.”

  “There’s lots of water where I live, a huge lake. You could go fishing for your own pleasure there. You might like it.” I opened the door to my Mustang, and he got in.

  “That water is brown. I’m not taking any fish out of brown water.” He slammed the door before I could close it.

  “The fish there are used to brown water. They like it,” I said as I got into the car. Grandy was already in the backseat making harrumphing sounds.

  “I’ll blow up your damn boat. What do you say to that?” she said.

  “Well, there’s no way you could do that, is there?” he shot back.

  “I’ve got friends who know how to convince people to do what they don’t want to do,” Grandy rejoined.

  The look on Max’s face spoke for itself. He knew she meant Nappi, and he wasn’t certain how serious she was about having the mob boss help her blow the boat out of the water.

  “Well, okay then, since you insist. But I’m coming back here in a week. We need the money.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror at Grandy, who shook her head no and mouthed, “We do not need the money.”

  Madeleine called me in Key Largo to tell me Jenny’s body had been released and the funeral was scheduled for the next day. “Shelley called. She said she’d left several messages on your cell but you never responded, so I told her about Max.”

  “Thanks for letting her know. I’ve been too distracted to check my messages.”

  “There was something else. She said it would be better if we didn’t attend the funeral, given the local feelings about the protest the day of Jenny’s death.”

  “She’s probably right. The funeral is about Jenny, her daughter, and her friends. I don’t want the attention taken away from that, do you? But I have an idea. Would David be willing to attend?”

  “You mean to represent us?”

  “Kind of,” I replied.

  “You mean as a spy of sorts,” Madeleine said in that astute way of hers. “Is there anything specific he should look for?”

  “I want to know who comes to the service, and I’d particularly like to know if Darrel accompanies Shelley.”

  “Oh, surely not. Not after that incident where he hit you.”

  Love’s a funny thing, I said to myself. I ignored Jerry’s unfaithfulness for years. Why? I guess I thought it meant nothing to him so it should mean nothing to me. With Alex, I’d found someone who I knew would never cheat on me. Is that all there is to love? I wondered. Simply find someone who curls your toes and is kind, intelligent, and faithful? How did Alex feel about me? He said he loved me—I knew that meant I made his toes curl too—and he liked my sassy attitude. Or did he? I was beginning to think he did not find that quality endearing, but rather something he’d have to learn to overlook. And just where did that sass come from? The question brought up an image of my parents on their boat, the wind blowing through their hair, smiles on their faces. I missed them like crazy. Was that it? My sass was a way to deal with inner pain? I wiped away the tear already trickling down my cheek. Naw. That’s silly. Alex doesn’t dislike my sassiness; he just doesn’t understand me. I wanted to leave it like that, but I had a niggling feeling that I was missing something that had to do with love. I let the feeling drift away, to be replaced once more by concern for Shelley. She’d said it herself: Darrel was her only friend. Whether she was right or not, friendship was a powerful component of love.

  I arranged for one of the fishing guides at the nearby park to take Max out on his boat the day after we returned to Sabal Bay. When he arrived back at my place that evening, he tossed a string of speck on the kitchen counter and launched into a fishing tale that went on and on until Grandy finally put a stop to it. She told him to get out back and clean the fish or there would be no dinner.

  “Okay, gals. But you’d better be prepared for a lot more of the same tomorrow, because I’ve scheduled another tour with Captain Mike. This time we’re going after some bass.” Max slammed through the back door, taking the stringer of fish with him. We could hear him singing some song out of tune at the top of his lungs. He sounded happy.

  “I thought he didn’t like fish from a brown lake,” I said to Grandy.

  “In principle, he doesn’t, but the challenge and fun of catching them is another matter.”

  “Looks like we’ll be on a fish diet for the next week or so, until he gets bored with the sport. There’s enough there that I’d better invite Madeleine and David over for dinner. Maybe Nappi, too.”

  “Invite Jerry. You know he’s been helping Madeleine out in the shop while you’ve been with us in Key Largo,” Grandy reminded me.

  I sighed. She was right. I had debts all over the place. And while I was issuing invitations, I got ahold of Sammy at the airboat business. I had talked with him when we got back yesterday, but only for several minutes. Grandfather Egret still sat in jail. My calls to Frida to find out what was happening with the case weren’t returned.

  Tonight Sammy picked up the call on the first ring.

  “Alex is here, and we’ve been going over the case. I’ll have to call you back, but I don’t think I can make dinner tonight.”

  I couldn’t help asking, “Are you and Alex following up on some hot lead tonight then?”

  Part of me hated the idea that Alex might be close to breaking this case, but the other part of me wanted him to be successful. With Sammy’s help, he might be on to something I hadn’t thought of.

  Sammy hesitated. “No. In fact, I think Alex wants to talk with you. Hold on a minute, would you?’

  Alex came on the line.

  “I understand that you knew Jenny’s fiancé years ago and that you and Grandy visited him after the murder.”

  “We did, and he told Frida I was harassi
ng him.”

  “Would you be willing to harass him some more?”

  Would I? You bet.

  Chapter 17

  It seemed our little crew of friends got along best when there was food to gather us together. Grandy fried up the fish with a flour and cornmeal coating, the way I remembered her doing it when I was a kid, and served sides of tangy cole slaw and hush puppies. Sweet iced tea, a Southern favorite, accompanied the meal, which was followed by pecan pie and a lot of sighs of satisfaction and groans of, “I am so full.”

  I slumped down on the couch after the meal, Alex beside me. I decided I should pump him for why Sammy couldn’t be here tonight. He had seemed so odd on the phone earlier.

  “I don’t know what he was up to tonight. He said he had to get home, take a shower, and change his clothes. He usually goes right from working on the airboat and the ranch to visiting Grandfather in jail. I’ll bet he had a date.” Alex gave me a sideways glance, a sly look on his face. Was he outright lying or only trying to get a rise out of me?

  I changed the subject. “So what’s your plan for talking to George? And what makes you think I’d be any more successful this time than I was last time?”

  “This time I want you to be friendly, not confrontational. Do you think you can do that, just this once?”

  If I’d still had a plate of pie in my hand, I would have beaned him with it.

  “I’ll give it a try,” I said as I bit back a snarky retort.

  Alex looked surprised, as if he’d expected sass in my response.

  “Help me with the dishes?” I asked, getting off the couch.

  Alex nodded, still wide-eyed.

  The two of us gathered up plates and glasses and carried them into the kitchen.

  “I thought you were going to get in touch with me after my foolish proposal at the Biscuit,” he said as he loaded plates into the dishwasher.

  “I meant to, but I didn’t know what to say.”