Literally Murder (A Black Cat Bookshop Mystery)

by Ali Brandon

  The only true Florida kitsch in here was the white vintage chenille bedspread embroidered with bushel baskets of green-leaved oranges and topped with a giant accent pillow in the shape of a pineapple. The rest of the décor was tropical neutral: sand-colored carpet, pale blue walls with white trim, white rattan dresser and bedside table, and a watercolor of a fighting marlin “walking” the waves hung on one wall. While nominally a guest room, it also appeared to serve typical double duty as storage. The open shelving on either side of a quaint window seat held numerous lidded cardboard boxes neatly labeled with their contents. The double-door closet held more boxes along with a few winter coats and sweaters stored in plastic.

  Leaving her suitcase at the foot of the bed to unpack later, Darla pulled out Hamlet’s gear and set him up in the bathroom. When she was sure he understood where to find his food, water, and litter box, she gingerly opened the door to the hall again and let him out to explore the rest of the apartment.

  As she suspected, he made a beeline for the balcony sliders.

  “Jake, we’re going onto the balcony,” she called to her friend, who was busy unpacking in Nattie’s room. “You hear any screams, it’s me trying to drag Hamlet back from the brink when he proves he’s tougher than a hurricane.”

  But to her relief, the balcony did seem impervious to felines. The moment she slid open the door, Hamlet scampered out onto its concrete surface and then bounded onto a garish orange wicker lounge chair. After an exploratory sniff in all directions, he leaped from the chair onto the balcony’s broad rail and peered through the screen. He gave the material a tentative tap with one oversized paw, looking a bit surprised when the material bounced back at him. Finally deciding that it wasn’t worth fighting the system, he lowered his paw and settled down onto his stomach. Paws tucked against his chest now, he shut his green eyes and began to purr.

  “Score one for our team,” Darla murmured as, careful not to disturb him, she moved toward the railing to check out her surroundings.

  Nattie’s condo lay at the rear of the building. Thus, rather than a view of the driveway and fountain in front, Darla was treated to the sight of a respectably large rectangular swimming pool almost directly below the balcony. Taking advantage of the water was one very old (and very large) man in a very blue (and very tiny) Speedo, who was swimming excruciatingly slow but perfectly executed laps. Despite an open tiki hut complete with bar and stools situated at the pool’s shallow end, Darla suspected that Nattie didn’t have to worry too much about the noise from pool parties in the wee hours of the night.

  A nice bit of landscaped lawn lay outside the fenced and gated pool area. Darla spied what appeared to be the obligatory shuffleboard court, as well as a croquet lawn. At the moment, the only one outside besides the swimming gentleman were a couple of obvious retirees puttering around a small flower garden behind the pool. From what she’d heard Jake mention before, however, she knew there were ninety units in the building, which implied at least that many occupants.

  Minus one now, of course.

  With a final cautious look at the sleeping Hamlet, Darla walked back inside, where Jake was in the kitchenette, digging into the refrigerator. She pulled out two bottles of sparkling water and a lime, which she rinsed and then quartered with a knife that had a plastic lemon slice as its handle. Squeezing a lime wedge into each bottle, she strode out and handed one to Darla, and then raised hers in toastlike fashion.

  “To not doing a thing except sightseeing for the rest of our vacation,” Jake declared.

  “To sightseeing,” Darla agreed and clinked her bottle to Jake’s. “How about as soon as Nattie gets back, we drag her out to that restaurant Tino told us about that makes the amazing Cuban sandwiches? And then maybe we can catch a water taxi and take a ride up and down the river.”

  “Sounds like just my speed. I tell you what, I am so looking forward to—”

  “Jacqueline!”

  The front door of the condo flew open, making them both jump. Nattie burst into the living room, her red cockatoo’s crest fairly bristling in agitation. “Jacqueline, where are you? We have to talk about Billy! He’s in real trouble!”

  THIRTEEN

  “MA, I’M STANDING RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF YOU,” JAKE replied, waving her water bottle like a signal flag. “Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on.”

  Darla, meanwhile, had recovered from her momentary surprise and rushed to close the door after the old woman. She’d have to tell Nattie about Hamlet’s propensity for slipping out open doors and wandering where he didn’t belong. Although he was still peacefully sleeping on the balcony, at any moment the wily feline might decide it was time to get up and get close and personal with life in South Florida.

  Nattie stood wringing her veined hands. Apparently, something had not gone well with the bailing-out process. Though how much more trouble someone could be in after a murder arrest, Darla wasn’t certain. Jake pulled another bottle of water from the fridge and, giving it the lime treatment, handed it off to her mother. “C’mon, let’s sit down and talk.”

  Nattie let herself be led to the rattan couch, sitting beside Jake and clutching the bottled water, from which she took a shaky sip. Darla, meanwhile, settled into the matching chair.

  “So tell me what happened, Ma,” Jake prompted her. “Did Billy’s lawyer get him bailed out okay?”

  “Oh, that was the easy part, though when Alicia and I went to pick him up from the jail, we waited around almost an hour for him to get out. You shoulda seen the kind of people coming and going there. Ugly, no teeth, tattoos . . . and that was just the women.” Nattie sighed and took another sip of water. “And then Alicia’s phone rings, and it’s Billy. His lawyer had already taken him home.”

  “So he’s bailed out, and he’s got an attorney. Sounds like everything is on schedule. So what’s the worry?”

  “What’s the worry?” Nattie gave her daughter an indignant look. “He’s being charged with second-degree murder. But he’s innocent! You gotta help him.”

  Jake sighed. “Ma, I explained this to you before. I’m not licensed as a PI in this state, so there’s not a darned thing I can do for him. Besides, with all his money, your friend Billy can afford to hire himself a whole contingent of lawyers and private investigators.”

  “Yeah, but none of them are as good as my Jacqueline.”

  Jake smiled a little and gave her mother’s hand an encouraging pat. “Ma, I’m sure everything is going to work out. Unless there’s some really damning evidence against Billy, there’s a good chance this won’t make it to the grand jury, let alone to trial.”

  “Yeah, but get this: Billy told Alicia that rotten police detective—what was her name, Martinez?—figured out why Ted was wearing his shoes. And that’s why she arrested him.”

  Darla and Jake exchanged glances. The whole odd footwear appropriation was what had stumped Darla from the first, and she had yet to figure out a logical explanation for it. She assumed Jake hadn’t, either.

  “Come on, Ma, spill. What did the shoes have to do with it?”

  “They found a picture on Ted’s cell phone of Hamlet sitting next to someone’s legs, and those legs were wearing Billy’s shoes!”

  “Ma, that’s not a motive for murder. Is he sure there’s really a picture, or could Detective Martinez have been bluffing?”

  Nattie gave a vigorous nod. “There’s a picture, all right. Billy checked his phone and said that no-good Ted Stein emailed it to him, too.”

  Jake furrowed her brow, took a sip of water, and then leaned back against the new throw pillow she’d bought for Nattie.

  “All right, since we don’t have any better theories at the moment, let’s assume that Ted was responsible for the Hamlet-napping. Here’s how I see it went down.”

  She began ticking points off on her fingers. “Ted smacks me over the head, steals Hamlet, and manages to sn
eak him out of the exhibition hall before they lock the place down. He hides Hamlet in an unknown location for a few hours, then waits until after the show to somehow get into Billy’s hotel room while no one’s there. He digs a spare pair of wingtips out of the closet, snaps a selfie with Hamlet, and then sends the picture to Pope right before someone walks in on him. This person—or persons—unknown then proceeds to cosh him with the glass seashell. Does that about cover it?”

  “So far, so good,” Darla agreed.

  Jake sighed. “Okay, here’s where it goes from complicated to downright convoluted, and why I’m glad this case belongs to Sam Martinez and not me. We’ve got a handful of different offenses here, and various possible motives behind them. There’s assault on me, theft of property—sorry, Hamlet—breaking and entering, and murder. And maybe blackmail, if that’s the purpose of the picture Ted sent Billy. And that doesn’t take into consideration the possible embezzlement going on here with Ma’s condo association.”

  “Don’t forget the whole cat-show brouhaha,” Darla spoke up. “Ted was hoping to cash in on his Minx, and he wasn’t pleased not to win his division. And, Nattie, remember how you said Billy called Ted a charlatan for trying to push that new breed?”

  “Yeah, and that Ted wasn’t taking it lying down,” Nattie declared. “Only last week, Billy told me that’s why he thought Ted was accusing him of stealing the condo-association funds. You know, revenge for Billy not helping him get the Minx cats recognized.”

  Jake gave an approving nod. “That wasn’t on my radar, but it could be important. So to figure out who the killer is—and, Ma, sorry, I’m not prepared to take Mr. Pope off the list—we need to determine if all these various crimes and misdemeanors are all tied together, or if they all just happened to occur around the same time.”

  “Wait, wait. One more suspect to add to the list,” Darla broke in, reflexively waving her hand as if waiting to be called on in class. “What about Alicia’s daughter, Cindy? She’s some sort of addict, from what I overheard Alicia say. Plus, remember that I saw her threaten Alicia with a bottle that first night at the hotel. And don’t forget that she got arrested with the other girls for disrupting the cat show. Maybe she had a beef with Ted that no one knows about. Or maybe she was the one to find him in Billy’s room, and things got out of hand.”

  “Wow, Darla’s good at this,” Nattie said with an admiring look at her. “Jacqueline, you should hire this girl as yer assistant.”

  “I think Darla has enough to do running her bookstore” was Jake’s response. “But Cindy definitely has suspect potential. You did tell Sam about that incident with Cindy, didn’t you?”

  Darla nodded.

  “Good. So we’ll leave it to Sam to figure out. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to go ride the water taxi.”

  So saying, Jake rose and headed to the kitchen to dispose of her empty bottle. Nattie stared after her, her expression petulant. “So you’re going to throw Billy to the dogs. I never thought I’d see the day when my own flesh and blood would do such a thing to a friend.”

  “Ma, if he truly didn’t do it, I’m sure Sam will find the guilty party, and then he’s off the hook permanently. Now, how about that water-taxi ride?”

  When the old woman remained stubbornly silent, Jake added in a cajoling tone, “C’mon, it will be fun. You can even tell us all the stuff the water-taxi tour guide gets wrong.”

  “Oh, believe me, they’ll get a lot wrong,” Nattie proclaimed, looking a bit more chipper as she hopped up.

  Then, to Darla, she added, “Say, where’s that cat of yers?”

  “He’s out lounging on your balcony,” Darla told her. “When we go out, I’ll put him in the guest room and leave the bathroom door open so he can go in and out. I don’t think he can open these doors by himself.”

  She briefly told Nattie about Hamlet’s misadventures the first night on the hotel balcony and how he’d managed to hang from the lever-style handles to open the doors.

  “Now that’s one smart cat,” the old woman said, her tone admiring.

  While Jake and Nattie prepared to leave, Darla bit the bullet and rousted Hamlet from his balcony perch.

  “Sorry, fellow. I can’t take the chance that you’ll figure out a way to undo the screens,” she told him as she carried him into the bedroom. “But after we get back, I’ll take you for a nice walk around the pool.”

  With a grumpy Hamlet settled in the guest bedroom—Darla crossed her fingers that he wouldn’t use her luggage as a litter box to show his displeasure—the three women headed out. Nattie drove, the Mini Cooper again barreling down the road like a carnival ride. Darla clutched her seatbelt to her, wishing she had a medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, to wear for the duration of this visit.

  They parked near one of the launch stops and bought tickets for the water taxi. It was rather like riding a subway, Nattie informed them, each bright yellow boat with its scalloped Bimini top making stops along the Intracoastal Waterway and the New River.

  “Just don’t get in no hurry,” she warned them as they boarded. “They’re slow as Christmas, and if you get off, you can wait an hour for another one to come by. I think that’s why they fired me. I tried to make them kids that crew the boats toe the line.”

  They spent the next hour bobbing gently down the Intracoastal and up the New River. They got a look at Port Everglades and the Fifteenth Street Fisheries and passed the Swimming Hall of Fame from its opposite side this time before hopping off at the Riverfront to find a place to eat an early lunch. Then it was back on the water taxi again for another hour’s ride to gawk at mansions along what was called Millionaire’s Row.

  According to the pert young woman in gray shorts and a vaguely maritime-looking short-sleeved white shirt holding the microphone, “millionaire” was something of a misnomer. “Billionaire” was more accurate. Meaning, Darla presumed, that they wouldn’t be cruising past Billy’s place.

  The accompanying commentary as they floated by the multimillion-dollar homes was cheesy but rather eye-opening. While Darla had expected a “tour of the stars’ homes (nautical version),” she learned that most of the celebrities had places further south, in Miami.

  Here the homes belonged to corporate bigwigs, attorneys, doctors—capitalism at work, though a couple of requisite movie directors did also own places along the waterfront. They floated past the marina where Spielberg and others docked their yachts for a thousand dollars per day—in contrast to the mooring buoys farther down, where humble fishing boats could tie up for a mere thirty-five dollars a night, making them quite the cheapest place to stay in the city, according to their guide.

  They eventually disembarked again where they’d first climbed aboard. Somewhat windburned by the Intracoastal breeze, the three agreed to spend the rest of their afternoon on dry land.

  “You’da thought she coulda pointed out Cher’s old place,” Nattie grumbled about the tour guide as they headed back to the car. “And you’d of missed that little red, white, and blue guest house if I hadn’t of mentioned it. Oh, and she forgot to tell you about why the House of Butterflies is called that, because it’s shaped like a butterfly. Though you can’t really tell except from the air.”

  “Ma, everything was fine,” Jake assured her. “We had fun, right, Darla?”

  “It was great,” Darla agreed, adding with a groan, “though I kind of wish I hadn’t eaten that whole slice of cheesecake at lunch.”

  “Eh, don’t worry,” Nattie said. “We’ve got plenty of time to rest up before the memorial service tonight.”

  Jake gave her a considering look. “You really want to go to that?”

  Nattie unlocked the Mini and nodded. “Of course,” she said, hopping behind the wheel and putting down the top. “In all those mystery novels, the killer always comes to the memorial service to gloat. I want to go and see who�
��s gloating so I can figure out who really killed Ted Stein. You girls can come along or not.”

  “I guess I’d better go and make sure you stay out of trouble,” Jake said as she folded herself into the Mini Cooper’s front seat. Glancing back at Darla, who was busy contorting herself into the back, she asked, “What about you, kid?

  “Sure, why not? I’ve got some postcards to write, but I can do them tonight. All I ask is that I get my Cuban sandwich, okay?”

  Once back at the condo, Darla hurriedly reminded Nattie as they rode up in the elevator, “Take a peek first, when you open the door, and make sure Hamlet didn’t get out of the guest room.”

  “All clear,” Nattie proclaimed a few moments later after sticking her head past the front door. “Come on in girls, we’ll—”

  “Loose cat!” yelled Jake as a black flash whipped out the door and into the hallway.

  “Hamlet!” Darla shrieked, making a dive for the cat and missing, instead landing in an ungainly heap upon the faux Oriental rug. Hamlet didn’t give her another chance at capture but made a beeline down the hall toward the elevator’s closing doors.

  To her relief, the elevator door slid shut a heartbeat before the fleeing feline reached them. He stopped on a dime and stared a few moments at the metal door, as if willing it to open again. Then, when the elevator proved immune to cat telepathy, Hamlet gave a flip of his long black tail and turned. Looking quite pleased with his feline self, he trotted back to where Darla still lay sprawled on the floor. Ignoring her plight, he slipped past the condo door and went inside again.

  “Are you okay?” Jake asked in concern, helping her to her feet.

  Darla nodded. “I’ll live.” Limping a little, she hurried into the apartment to find Hamlet patiently waiting next to the locked sliders.

  “You little so-and-so,” she grumbled as she opened the glass door. “Fine, go out.”