by Ali Brandon
The phone rang twice, then Nattie’s voice answered, “Hello?”
“Hey, Ma. It’s me, Jake.”
“Oh, hi, Jake. What do you want?”
Darla raised her eyebrows in alarm. She’d never heard Nattie use that nickname. Jake caught her glance and nodded. Obviously, her mother was raising a signal right off the bat.
“I just wanted to let you know that Darla and I decided not to wait for you to come back to go shopping. We called a cab, and we’re going to head downtown and poke around in some of the shops. Is that okay?”
“Sure, sure,” came Nattie’s voice. “I should be back in time for you to take me to that fish place you talked about, and then we can watch another Gidget movie exactly like last night.”
Exactly like last night. As in, with Mildred there? Darla thought.
“Sure, Ma, that sounds great,” Jake said. “Anyhow, we’re off to spend some money. I’m looking for a framed watercolor like the one we had in the guest room in the Thirty-Fourth Street house back when I was a kid. Remember how much I loved it?”
There was a small snort from the other end, and then Nattie answered, “Yeah, yeah, I remember. Your aunt Gianna painted it. She was talented, wasn’t she? Well, I’d better go now. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Ma.”
Jake hung up and then put a hand to her forehead. “It’s bad. She never calls me Jake, and she darn sure never says she loves me when she hangs up the phone. We’ve got to get into that house, and now.”
“Don’t worry, chicas, we’re here,” Tino called back to them.
He pulled into a damp, cobbled lot there on the waterfront. The parking area was squeezed between a high-end surf shop and a small shopping plaza complete with a real estate storefront, two seafood restaurants, and a souvenir stand. Ahead lay an open-air building and beyond that a series of finger piers—each with a dozen small boat docks branching off from a larger wooden wharf into the Intracoastal. Unlike the gleaming yachts and cigarette boats they’d seen the day before during the water-taxi tour, the vessels docked here were small fishing boats, along with a couple of personal watercrafts.
Tino parked in a spot near the open-air structure and hopped out. “Come on,” he said as the two women and Hamlet climbed out of the back. “I see his boat, so he must be around here somewhere. Hey, Ricko!”
Ricko turned out to be a young Haitian man about Tino’s age whose gleaming black skin contrasted with the yellow-orange hue of his bleached, shoulder-length dreadlocks. He wore cutoff blue jeans, a black bandana wrapped pirate-style over his dreads, and nothing else. He was sitting at a picnic bench next to the building sipping on an energy drink and munching chips.
“Hey, mon,” he called back to Tino with a friendly wave, sending a shower of potato chip crumbs flying. “You bring me some clients?”
“Not exactly. These chicas need someone with a boat to drop them off at one of the houses a little ways up the water. Can you take them?”
Ricko rose from the bench and started toward them. Standing, he towered over even Jake. “So, where you be wanting to go?”
Jake answered before Tino could. “Do you know Billy Pope’s place? His is the yellow stucco home with white trim, with a matching detached garage, mother-in-law quarters, and a pool house.”
He nodded, dreadlocks swaying. “Yeah, I know it. Why you need to be going there?”
“My mother is being held against her will there. We couldn’t make it past the front gate, so getting in by water is our only choice. And I’m afraid we don’t have much time.”
“My rate, it be seventy-five dollars an hour, two hour minimum.” Then, when Jake began to frantically dig in her pockets in hopes of finding some cash, the young man smiled and shrugged. “But for friends of Tino, I take you free.”
“Thank you,” Jake exclaimed. “Quick, we have to hurry.”
“Okay, the boat be that way.” He pointed to a cheerful white twenty-footer with blue stripes and a blue Bimini top, along which was mounted a row of fishing rods. Small, but probably pretty fast, Darla judged.
“Do you chicas need me to wait for you?” Tino wanted to know.
Jake looked at her watch and nodded. “Give us about forty-five minutes, and we’ll either be back here, or be calling you to pick us up from Pope’s place. If we haven’t contacted you by then, call your cousin and tell her there’s trouble.”
“Got it. I’ll wait right here,” he said and pointed to the bench.
“Perfect. All right, Ricko, let’s get out of here.”
They hurried down to the dock, where the boat waited. Ricko climbed in first, and then helped Jake down the ladder. Even from the dock, Darla was aware of a faint but pungent and sweet scent drifting from the vessel. She shook her head, wondering if Jake could smell it, too. Apparently, Captain Ricko passed the time between clients by indulging in what, if he were living in California, would probably be euphemistically described as medicinal herbal therapy. She could only hope that he hadn’t partaken in any so far today.
As Darla prepared to hand off Hamlet to Jake and climb in, however, Ricko stopped her.
“Wait, that black cat, is he coming on my boat, too?”
Darla nodded. “I know people think black cats are bad luck, but he—”
“No, no—the black cat, he be good luck on a boat,” Ricko said with a smile. “But maybe you put this on him, just in case.”
He reached into the boat’s storage locker and pulled out a bright yellow mini life jacket. “My sister, she have one of those yappy dogs. I make him wear this on the boat.”
Darla eyed the life jacket with no little alarm. Chances were Hamlet was not going to be as amenable as the yappy dog. Still, she nodded and then gave Hamlet to Jake before climbing in herself.
“You can sit right there,” the captain said, pointing them to the bench in front of the console. Cranking the engine, he said, “Okay, now hang on to your kitty.”
While he backed up the boat, Darla managed to fasten the life jacket on Hamlet. To her surprise, he seemed to accept it as another variation of his harness, for he squirmed only a little as she fastened the plastic squeeze clips that held the straps closed.
“Let’s see what kind of a sailor you are,” she told the cat as Ricko throttled the boat forward.
The first portion of their ride was in a no-wake zone, meaning that their progress up the Intracoastal to Pope’s house was barely above an idle. Fortunately, Hamlet seemed to enjoy the water, sitting quietly between Darla and Jake as they motored along, whiskers flicking as he sniffed the fishy breeze.
“We could have swum it faster,” Jake muttered, fingers beating out a nervous rhythm on her thighs.
“No worries,” said Ricko, whose hearing was apparently as keen as Hamlet’s. “Give it a minute, and then we can be moving into the main channel.”
Jake nodded, but she didn’t stop the tapping. To distract her friend a bit, Darla asked, “What was that you were telling your mother about wanting to buy a watercolor?”
“It was my way of trying to tell her we’d be coming by boat. When I was a kid, my Aunt Gianna took a watercolor class, and she decided to paint Ma a seascape as a surprise for her birthday.” Jake managed a fleeting smile. “She brings it over, and Ma tears off the paper, and there’s this painting of a big, out-of-proportion sailing ship that looked like it was about to crash into a lighthouse. I was ten years old, and even I knew it was ghastly. But because her sister made it, Ma insisted on displaying it. I’m hoping she took the boat hint.”
Darla smiled a little. Then, pointing, she sobered, and said, “Look, there’s Billy’s place now.”
Around the curve, she could see a glimpse of yellow stucco with a matching yellow pool house not far from the water’s edge. Two craft were docked there: one, a fishing boat more than twice the size of Ricko’s, and the other a small, sleek
little motorboat with a wood veneer, the kind of boat that Darla had heard referred to as a runabout. Fortunately, the way the vessels were tied left a spot for Ricko to dock across the front of the pier.
“So how are we going to do this?” Darla asked as they drew closer. “Jump off the boat and storm the house?”
“That’s all I’ve got,” Jake said with a worried look. “Best case, Billy will call the cops on us for trespassing, and we’ll be able to get Ma out of there. Worst case . . .”
“What’s worst case?” Darla wanted to know, her grip on Hamlet tightening.
Jake shrugged and reached for the hotel shopping bag, which Darla hadn’t realized she’d brought aboard. “I don’t know how bad it can get. Maybe it’s nothing, but just in case, I brought along a little equalizer.”
She reached into the sack, pulling out a familiar-looking glass scallop seashell sculpture. Darla stared at it, wide-eyed. “Where did you get that?”
“The Waterview Hotel gift shop,” Jake said. “I bought it before we left the hotel, when I got that pillow for Ma.”
Darla wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or dismayed that Jake was armed with nothing more than a glass shell. Ricko dropped to an idle again and brought the boat toward the pier, then tossed a couple of fenders—the rubber bumpers that kept a boat’s hull from smacking the dock—so that they hung over the side, and then maneuvered the boat across the front of the pier. Between the pool house and the height of the pier, which with a low tide required climbing up a few rungs to reach the dock, any view of the boat from the house was pretty well blocked. Unless someone was watching out the window and had seen their approach, chances were that no one inside knew they were there.
“I’m not going to tie off,” Ricko said, simply wrapping a line around the ladder and tugging it to pull them closer. “As soon as you two ladies and the cat be on the dock, I’m taking off. But I’ll stay nearby for a while, in case you need me. You can call me.”
He told Jake his cell number, which she quickly programmed into her phone. Then, with a smile, he said, “I wish you good luck finding your mama.”
Darla unfastened Hamlet’s life vest. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought him along; still, Hamlet had proved his mettle numerous times in the past. She handed the cat to Jake and clambered up. Jake in turn handed Darla the shopping bag, and then hefted Hamlet as high as she could. Lying on her stomach, Darla grabbed him and, fingers tightly intertwined in his harness, lifted him to the dock.
“Oof,” she whispered to him as she sat up and settled him on his feet. “No more pepperoni snacks for you.”
By now, Jake was safely atop the pier, too. Ricko gave them a thumbs-up and, releasing the line, quietly motored away from the dock.
“Now what?” Darla whispered.
Jake pulled out her phone and whispered back. “I’m going to call Ma, and let her know we’re here. But first, let’s get into the pool house so we’re out of sight.”
Keeping low, the two of them and Hamlet trotted up the dock and into what was the nicest pergola Darla had ever seen. Built of yellow stucco, it served as both an outdoor room in which to party and a means to shield the pool and its occupants from anyone cruising down the waterway. Though the pergola was open to the elements, a combination of white lattice panels and long white drapes gave an illusion of privacy. They could see the house from their vantage point, but with luck she and Jake would go unnoticed, at least for a while.
They crouched behind what looked like a kitchen island, complete with sink and cooktop, while Jake dialed Nattie’s number. After what had to be several rings, Jake whispered, “No answer yet.”
Then she shook her head and covered the phone’s microphone with her hand, mouthing, The line is open.
Darla nodded. Maybe Nattie had managed to set her phone to vibrate and had answered it but been unable to speak. The question was, if Jake said anything, would someone other than Nattie hear it?
She could tell by Jake’s uncertain expression that she was worried about the same thing. Finally, after a few seconds, she raised the phone to her ear again, and whispered, “Ma? Ma, can you hear me?”
“Of course, she can’t hear you, Jake,” a familiar voice said with a laugh. “You see, I have her phone.”
Darla choked back a cry. The voice had come in stereo . . . from Jake’s cell, and also from behind them. She exchanged looks with Jake, who shook her head in resignation and hung up the phone.
“All right, girls, I saw you duck behind that island,” Mildred said from a few feet away. “There’s no point in trying to pretend you’re not there. So let’s all go inside, where we can talk.”
EIGHTEEN
“THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN,” JAKE SOFTLY exclaimed. “Get it? Not Pope. Fischer!”
Darla nodded, for the same realization had just struck her. “Hamlet tried to tell us, but we picked up on the wrong person.”
Jake, meanwhile, was reaching into the paper sack and pulling out the glass shell. “Okay, Mildred, we’re coming out,” she called to the old woman. To Darla, she hissed, “Quick, stick this in your waistband under your shirt, and then hold Hamlet in front of you.”
Darla nodded and did as told. The glass was cool against her sunburn, but hardly comfortable. Whatever it was Jake planned to do with the sculpture, Darla figured she’d do her part to help should the need arise.
Jake waited until Darla gave her a thumbs-up, and then called out, “Say, Mildred, you don’t have a gun or anything, do you? I’d kind of like to know before I stick my head up.”
Mildred trilled another little laugh. “Actually, I do, but it’s strictly for self-protection. I’m sure I won’t need it today.”
“Okay, just wanted to be sure.”
Jake slowly straightened. Darla stood, too, making sure that the shell was securely in her waistband before picking up Hamlet and snuggling him up against her stomach. The cat loosed a small growl that Darla knew wasn’t meant for her. She hoped for Mildred’s sake that the woman wasn’t foolish enough to try to take the feline a second time.
“Come on, come on,” Mildred said, gesturing them forward. “You don’t want to pass up a chance to see the inside of Billy’s house. It’s truly lovely.”
Mildred was dressed in what Darla assumed had been her outfit from that morning: black slacks, white knit top, and a string of pearls. The only difference, presumably, was the small caliber automatic pistol she held at her side. She gave them a cheery smile, as if she were a hostess welcoming them to an afternoon soirée. As they drew closer, Darla saw that the usual speck of lipstick was missing from her front tooth.
Oddly, she found this little aberration more ominous than anything else that had yet happened.
“Oh, good, you brought Hamlet,” Mildred exclaimed. “He is quite an exceptional cat. Now, go on in, but watch your step,” she continued, pointing to the open French door. “You have to walk down a level once you’re inside.”
Another time, Darla would have been thrilled to tour her first ever mansion. Under the circumstances, however, all that registered was an expanse of white marble tile, beige walls and angled ceilings, and a scattering of modern art and furniture, accented with a few potted palm trees. But what really held her attention was a pair of burgundy leather love seats, which faced each other in front of a glass-tiled fireplace. On one love seat slumped Billy Pope and Alicia Timpson; on the other sprawled Nattie.
All were unconscious . . . or so Darla prayed. The alternative was something she didn’t want to consider.
“Ma!” With that choked cry, Jake rushed toward the old woman. Gently, she shook her and tapped her cheek. To Darla’s relief, Nattie briefly opened her eyes before her head lolled back and she nodded off again. Jake settled her more comfortably, then turned a deadly cold look in Mildred’s direction.
“What have you done to her?”
“Oh, don’t
worry, I just slipped them all a few of my sleeping pills. I needed a little time to decide what to do, and it was too hard keeping an eye on that many people.”
“Well, slight problem, Millie. You’ve got two more of us to deal with. That’s five people you’re going to have to bash over the head if you want to get rid of all the witnesses. Not to mention a guy with a boat and a guy with a cab both waiting to hear from us. If they don’t get a call in”—Jake paused for a look at her watch—“five more minutes, they’ll be phoning the cops to come out here. So why don’t you do the right thing and let me bring in Detective Martinez to settle things once and for all?”
“I don’t think so, Jake.” Mildred gave her an equally cold look through her steel-rimmed glasses. “I might be old, but I’m not foolish, and I’m certainly not stupid. I don’t want to go to jail for the rest of my life . . . which, given my genetic history, is liable to be another twenty years or so. I’m not sorry for doing something that needed to be done, even if a jury sees it differently. You don’t understand. Ted Stein had to be removed, for everyone’s sake. I’d kill him again if I had the chance.”
While Darla shivered at Mildred’s chilling words, Jake glanced at her watch again. “Four minutes, Millie.”
“You’re getting very annoying, Jake.”
“Yeah, well, I tend to be that way with people who bash me over the head.”
The old woman shot her a peeved look. “It wasn’t me who hit you. That was Cindy, and it wasn’t in the original plan,” she said with a glance at the unconscious Alicia. “But, like they say, stuff happens. You and Hamlet were—what do they call it in the movies?—collateral damage.”
“Three minutes, Millie,” Jake coolly said, continuing the countdown. “Come on, you’ve seen it on television. The judge always goes a bit easier on you if you don’t make a fuss over being arrested.”
“You’re bluffing. You don’t have people waiting to call the police.”
Barely had she spoken the words than Darla’s cell phone abruptly rang a few notes of the old hit “Cat Scratch Fever.” Juggling Hamlet so that she had a free hand, she pulled her phone from her pocket and glanced at the caller ID.
