Mud Bog Murder

by Lesley A. Diehl

  She crossed the room and held out her hand to me. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  I ignored the hand. “Funny. I haven’t heard a thing about you.”

  Sammy looked shocked, but the woman laughed, a warm, friendly sound. There was no hint of reproach in it.

  “Sammy, you bad boy. You didn’t even tell Eve your mother was coming for a visit.”

  Oh crap.

  Chapter 18

  “Oh, stupid me, Mrs. Egret. Sammy did tell me about your coming to visit, but I’ve been so wrapped up in, uh ….”

  “She’s a bit of a snoop, Mom. She’s working on this murder like Alex and me. I told you all about her curious side.” Sammy got up and stood by his mother, his arm around her shoulder.

  “Sammy told me you liked to, uh, look into things a bit, but he didn’t tell me you were also a private detective like his friend Alex.”

  “She’s not, Mom. She’s just a woman who—” Sammy didn’t get to finish his sentence because Grandy interrupted him.

  “Like me, she sticks her nose into things that aren’t any of her business. It runs in the family. I must say, however, that we’ve been wildly successful at tracking down some bad dudes around here.”

  “Yeah, well, she had a lot of help,” Sammy added. “Alex and Jerry and Grandfather Egret helped out too. And, don’t forget Nappi.”

  “It’s been a collaborative effort, a sort of amateur swamp posse,” Grandy said.

  “I can hardly wait to meet the other members of this group.” Sammy’s mother seemed genuinely impressed by our motley crew of snoopers.

  “Now wait just a darn minute,” I said. “Most of the sleuthing was mine. I had some help … mostly incidental.”

  “Incidental? We’re incidental, Eve?” said Grandy.

  “Most of the ideas were mine.”

  “True, and then we all have to ride in and rescue you because you go off like the Lone Ranger.”

  Sammy’s mother laughed. “Oh, dear. Does this mean you’re her Tonto?” She tapped Sammy on the shoulder.

  He reddened and smiled.

  “In fact, Eve was off on an information-gathering mission just now. Right?” Grandy said.

  Alex must have told her he was sending me back to George’s place.

  “He didn’t have much to say. A dead end.” I didn’t want anyone but Frida to know about my encounter with George. Everyone would be so concerned for my safety that I’d have a babysitter at my side each time I left the house or the shop or town. I intended to leave town for Boca Raton the next day. I just had to figure out how to do it without anyone knowing. And after the Boca trip? I wanted Grandy, Nappi, Max, and me to do some riding.

  “Max and I are going to turn in. Listen, Eve, I told Madeleine that Max and I would take over the rig tomorrow. She’s been working hard while we were in Key Largo.”

  “I think that’s my responsibility. I owe her for being willing to step in and run everything for almost a week.” I was telling the truth about Madeleine’s generosity. How was I going to manage the business and find out who killed Jenny?

  “Don’t be silly. You supported us through a bad time. Now that Max is better, it’s the least I can do to repay you, my dear.”

  Max got off the couch and leaned down to give me a kiss. “You were a rock to me and Grandy. Besides, I think it might be fun.”

  “Tell you what, then. You two sell at the rig tomorrow, and I’ll call Clay Archer to see if he’ll host us on Sunday. How do you feel about doing a little riding, Max?”

  “Riding on what?” he asked.

  “A horse. Grandy saw a horse at Clay’s ranch. She told him she was interested in riding it. What do you say?”

  Seeing his sudden pallor, I worried he might be having a heart episode.

  “Are you okay, Max?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that I’m not really certain how I feel about horses. The only thing I’m interested in riding is my boat. Cantankerous as she is, at least she listens to me.”

  “Just come along with us and get to know the horses,” Grandy said. “When you’re feeling more fit, you might want to give it a try.” She steered him toward the spare bedroom. “You might like it as much as fishing this lake.”

  Max looked back at me and rolled his eyes.

  As they headed down the hallway toward the bedroom, I heard him say, “I like fishing this lake fine, but I don’t want to do it forever. I belong in salt water. Those alligators are frightening.”

  “And sharks aren’t?” I heard her say before the bedroom door closed.

  “You’ve got the day free tomorrow then,” Sammy said. “That’s great. The three of us can do something together. I’ll get Jerry to take care of the airboat business. What will it be?”

  Uh-oh. He seemed so anxious to get his mother, himself, and me together that I felt as if he was taking me home to meet the family.

  “You two decide. I’ve got to go to the West Palm area tomorrow because we haven’t had time to visit our clientele there lately. They expect us to stop by now and then and pick up clothes. I hate to disappoint them.”

  “West Palm?” asked Mrs. Egret.

  “Yep. If Sammy didn’t tell you, Madeleine and I sell high-end secondhand clothes in our shop. We get them from the wealthy matrons in West Palm. It’s kind of our unique niche here.”

  “Maybe I could ride with you and help,” offered Mrs. Egret.

  I groaned inwardly. No, no. You could not do that. It would mess up all my plans. I also feared she’d try to pick my brain about Sammy and my relationship, and I wouldn’t know quite what to tell her since I wasn’t sure myself what our relationship was all about. Good friends, soon-to-be bed partners?

  “I, uh, well …. That’s very nice of you, but my convertible doesn’t hold much, and I’ll be needing all the room in the car and the trunk for the clothes and whatever else I might find.”

  “Come on, Mom. You know there are family members here that want to see you. And you’re staying such a short time. We’ll visit the family tomorrow morning, and when Eve returns from the coast, the three of us can go out to the state park for a late lunch.”

  Her expression darkened. “You really think the family wants to see me?” she asked.

  “Of course they do,” said Sammy, but his words lacked conviction.

  She turned to me. “The family never really understood my marrying Sammy’s father. And no one was surprised when I left Sammy with Grandfather. Of course, they also disapproved.”

  “They’ve forgiven you,” said Sammy.

  “There was nothing to forgive,” she insisted.

  This sounded like the beginnings of an age-old family dispute.

  Sammy was quick to smooth things over. “Think about it, Mom. It’s really your call. But let’s spend the afternoon with Eve. I’m covered. David will be at the ranch and Jerry at the airboat business. And I’ll be with the two most important women in my life.” Sammy gave me a pointed look as if daring me to deny the truth of what he was saying.

  I’d told everyone I was on my way to West Palm to pick up consignment items when my real destination was Boca Raton to speak with Clay Archer’s estranged wife, Audra. What I remembered about her was that she was a striking woman, almost as tall as me with auburn hair and classic features. And according to Clay’s friends, a domineering manner and an acid tongue. I’d handled tough women before. And I was one.

  Before I took action, I needed a cover story, so I called Frida.

  “You interviewed Audra Archer, right?” I asked when I connected.

  “Okay, Eve, what are you up to now?”

  “I’m going to be in the West Palm area, so I thought I could travel south a few miles to Boca Raton and have a little chat with her.”

  “You’re free to talk with anyone you want. So what’s the problem?”

  Oh, she was the coy one.

  “I need a way to convince her to cooperate. I thought I’d tell her I was with the Sabal Bay Police Depar
tment.”

  “As what? A nosy friend?”

  “How about as a consultant needing to question her about irregularities in the papers filed for the mud bog event.”

  “I didn’t know there were irregularities or that you were interested in them.” Frida was spinning me around in the wind.

  “Maybe I can get something out of her that you didn’t.” I crossed my fingers, hoping Frida might agree.

  “Give it a try. I’ll cover your designer-clothed butt. Don’t break any laws, try to be civil, and call me as soon as you finish.” She disconnected.

  For Frida to agree to my scheme meant she was desperate for a break in the case. I knew she had been optimistic about finding who bought the hand; obviously that had not come through yet. I was glad to help my police pal out.

  Somehow I’d have to find the time to pick up donated clothes as well as question Mrs. Archer. Locating her was easy enough. She was in the phone book. She lived in one of the wealthier gated communities in Boca, so I called first and told her what I wanted.

  “You can call my co-worker Frida Martinez, and she’ll verify my credentials,” I told her on the phone. I gave her Frida’s number.

  “Well, I don’t understand it, but come to the house. I don’t want any loose ends impeding the divorce.”

  “Righto,” I said. “Loose ends are never good for a divorce.”

  Mrs. Archer’s house was like every other mega-mansion in the area—landscaped front lawn, mature plantings of royal palms, and a walkway made of coral. Once inside, I saw the usual high ceilings, and in the living room, white leather couch and chairs, marble floors covered with expensive Persian rugs, and art that could have been original and probably was—though not selected by Mrs. Archer. The place had the feel of design by paid consultant—costly and a bit cold. This was her pied-à-terre between marriage and divorce, a temporary place until she could arrange for better.

  “I checked with your boss, Detective Martinez. She said you were a real bulldog for following up on leads. I’m not sure I understand. Why am I a lead?”

  “Your husband, Clay Archer—”

  She interrupted, “My soon to be ex-husband.”

  “Yes and that’s just it. He said filing the papers for the mud bog event was your idea.”

  “Did he? Well, it wasn’t my idea.”

  “Really? He indicated that you were initially enthusiastic about booking the event, but then lost interest.”

  “In a way he’s right. I let him file the papers and then I did lose interest. However, he was the one who withdrew the papers.”

  “He did? Hmm. That’s not what he told me.”

  “Well, you can’t always believe Clay. He’s a bit of a liar.”

  “For example?”

  She leaned forward on the couch. “He said he loved me. It just wasn’t true.”

  “Oh.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I married him anyway, thinking he’d changed and that I could change him more. I thought I could make him love me.”

  Oops. Somehow I’d gotten myself dead center in a marital issue that was totally unrelated to Jenny’s murder. Or was it? I plunged ahead.

  “Someone told me he was interested in Jenny McCleary.”

  She opened her eyes wide in surprise, then leaned back on the couch and laughed. “Did Jenny say that? If she did then she was denser than I thought. Let me tell you something. If Jenny McCleary thought she could handle Clay Archer, she was dead wrong.” Her words must have echoed in her head because she stopped talking for a moment. “Sorry about that. What I meant to say is that Jenny didn’t have a chance with Clay.”

  “You didn’t like Jenny? But you attended her funeral.”

  “It was the appropriate thing to do. Besides, I was curious.”

  “About what?”

  “I thought you were here to inquire about the mud bog event, not Jenny McCleary’s funeral.”

  “Right. I think she might have been trying to make some kind of a deal with him.”

  “Using her charms as bait? Not likely. She had nothing that would charm Clay.”

  “It appears she was going to have Clay withdraw his papers so she wouldn’t have any competition. She would then offer him a cut of what she made for the mud bog event if he would put some money up front.”

  Again, laughter erupted from her. “Now that’s almost as funny as the idea of her trying to get him into bed. If you’re here thinking Clay might have killed Jenny because she took the mud bog event away from him or reneged on some deal they had, you are wrong, wrong, wrong.”

  “How do you know that, Mrs. Archer?”

  “Because Clay doesn’t have a nickel to his name. That ranch belonged to my father, and he gave it to me. The only way Clay could use it for any event would be if I signed off on it. I wouldn’t do that unless there was a guarantee that I got the mud bog event. I like to get my own way, Miss Appel, and I don’t like competition, especially from some cracker woman in Sabal Bay. Jenny got the event, and there was nothing Clay could do about it. If she had dropped out of the competition like the others, then maybe I would have looked at it. But she didn’t, did she?”

  So Clay had no money and didn’t have the right to use the land for the event. I watched Mrs. Archer’s face. While her words sounded honest and revealing, her expression remained shuttered. She was hiding something. What?

  “Why are you so certain Clay wouldn’t have been interested in Jenny? As I understand it, you had left him. Maybe you misjudged him. Maybe he liked a self-sufficient, opinionated woman from the country.”

  “Oh, please. Are you kidding me?”

  “What then?”

  She arose from the couch. “I think this interview is over.”

  I called Frida as soon as I left the house. “I probably don’t know any more than you do, except I do find Mrs. Archer quite unpleasant.”

  “Everyone does. No one can understand why Clay put up with her for so long.”

  “Money, of course.”

  “You found out about that, did you? Well, keep it under your hat. I don’t think anyone around here knows Clay doesn’t have a penny to his name and doesn’t own that ranch and won’t get it once they’ve divorced.”

  “Keeping his secret, huh?”

  “Let him keep his pride. He had no reason to kill Jenny that I can see and spreading gossip about his marital difficulties won’t change that.”

  “I got the feeling Audra Archer was keeping something from me.”

  “Good sense on her part, I’d say.” With a chuckle, she ended the call.

  I headed north to West Palm and dropped by several of our best patrons to pick up items for consignment in the shop. It had been several weeks since either Madeleine or I had visited. I came away with clothes, jewelry, and household items such as candlesticks, paintings, glassware, and high-end cookware. I hadn’t lied to Sammy’s mother. The inside of the car and the trunk were piled high with merchandise. I had about twenty minutes to unload my car at our store on wheels before I was to meet Sammy and his mother at the park.

  I hadn’t been near the shop we were renovating since I came back from Key Largo. I looked at my watch. I had just enough time to stop by. Madeleine told me the Miccosukee crew Sammy recommended had been working this past weekend. She said their work was excellent, and they had nearly completed the rewiring and replumbing of the shop. I hadn’t expected any workers to be there since it was a weekday, and they were only scheduled to work on the weekends or evenings. Sammy had arranged for the work to be done during off-hours. Thanks to his “in” in the tribal business, we were still being charged the lower weekly rate.

  A Miccosukee tribe member from the work crew was at the shop when I arrived. I remembered meeting him at one of the local arts and crafts festivals selling tribal art.

  “Ms. Appel, how are you? I heard about your grandmother’s husband. I hear he’s up here, and you and your grandmother are taking care of him at your place. I wish him a speedy re
covery.”

  I shook my head in amazement. I’d only been gone to Key Largo for a week and already the entire Miccosukee tribe seemed to know about Max. How did they manage that? I was certain Grandfather Egret read minds, but did all tribe members? They certainly had a way of finding out what was happening in Sabal Bay. How they did it continued to baffle me.

  “Max is recovering nicely.”

  “I understand he’s pretty good at catching fish.”

  “How did you know that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Oh, everyone knows that.” He gestured toward the walls. “We got the walls up where you want them, but now we need to choose colors for them. Madeleine was by here yesterday and said a light sage would be good, but to check with you. Should I bring by some samples or do you want to just buy it from the hardware store?’”

  “I’ll talk with Madeleine, and we’ll buy the paint. I’ll drop it by tomorrow morning.”

  “Good. I’ll be in this weekend to finish up then.”

  “Really? That was fast.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Once I get the paint on the walls, just see to it that you don’t get any more wildlife in here to ruin my work.” He grinned.

  So he’d heard about our alligator visitor. Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “And I recommend you stay out of the shop until you get someone to do the cleansing.”

  So everyone knew about the evil invading the shop as well.

  “Aren’t you worried about it?” I asked.

  “No, ma’am. As I understand it, these spirits are the work of the previous owner and directed only at you. You must have really gotten to her.”

  I was only a few minutes late getting to the park. Sammy and his mother were already there unpacking the food—pastrami on rye sandwiches, chips and root beer, a watermelon for dessert.