Murder Made to Order
Page 15
Gia thanked her again, sorry to have nothing more to ask. The woman had spunk, and Gia had a feeling she had tons of interesting stories to share.
“Y’all be careful heading back to the river now.” She looked up at the blue sky and squinted, then raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “Storms’ll be comin’ soon.”
“Storms? It’s beautiful out.”
“They’re comin’. Bad ones tonight, I reckon. Time to head back.” She said the last bit quietly, as if to herself. “I’ll see you again soon.”
Gia thought about asking her to go to the police station to issue a statement, but what had she really seen? It hardly seemed worth inconveniencing her. Besides, now that she knew her name, Hunt, if he ever showed up again, or Leo could probably find her if they needed her. If Cybil Devane was her real name. “How will I find you?”
“You won’t, but we’ll happen upon each other again.” She took Gia’s hand in both of hers. “Some paths are meant to cross, my dear. Maybe next time we’ll chat for a while.”
“I’d like that.” Gia squeezed her hand, then let go and watched the woman shamble across the clearing.
At least Trevor had witnessed the conversation. If nothing else, he could corroborate the fact Cybil was real and not a figment of Gia’s imagination or a fabricated alibi. She looked up at the sky. “How long do you think before it rains?”
Trevor, who’d remained quiet until then, shielded his eyes and looked around at the sky. “Don’t know. I heard the storms were coming in later today.”
“Still no word on Harley?” Gia hoped he’d find somewhere safe to stay or take her up on her offer to use the apartment if they got storms, but she doubted he would. Harley had been wandering the streets of Boggy Creek a lot longer than Gia had lived there.
“No. Nothing. No one’s seen him, but it’s not the first time he’s disappeared for a while.”
“All right.” There wasn’t really anything she could do, so she’d just keep leaving him food and papers and hope he’d come back around. She’d have to remember to mention it to Hunt if she ever heard from him again. Maybe he could check around. “Do you think we have time to finish kayaking?”
A wide smile spread across Trevor’s face. “You bet we do.”
They made it back to the kayaks without incident, moving a little more carefully than they had going in, and Trevor pushed Gia’s kayak off the shore and into the water. He held it parallel to the shore for her to climb in.
She put one foot in, then stopped. Scratches crisscrossed her leg, probably from the prickers that had been grabbing at her when she’d run into the brush. A small black bug crawled up her leg, and she flicked it off. Then she saw another. She swatted that one, but it still clung to her ankle just above her sock. “What are these things?”
“Ticks.” Trevor reached past her and plucked it off, then threw it into the water. “Stand up and get them off.”
“Them?” She yanked her foot out of the kayak and stood on the shore scanning her legs for more of the creepy little creatures.
Trevor brushed the back of her leg. “You’re going to have to check yourself when you get home later. If you find any, just pull them out and put them in a plastic bag with some rubbing alcohol.”
“What? Why?”
“Only way to kill them.” He brushed at his own leg where two ticks crawled slowly up his calf.
“What do you mean pull them out?”
“When they reach a spot they like, usually where something impedes their forward motion, like a waistband, or they reach your head, they stop and attach themselves.”
Gia’s stomach flipped over. “Attach?”
“Yes.” Trevor pulled a tick off his arm. “They stick their heads in and suck your blood until they are fully engorged before falling off. But they can carry diseases, so you want to be careful to get them out right away.”
She searched her legs, frantic to get any of the bloodsucking little vampires off her.
“Some of them are smaller than a pinhead, so you have to search really well, especially in your hair. Scrape your nails through every inch of scalp and make sure nothing catches.”
“Can’t I just get in the shower?”
“Well, yeah, but water doesn’t kill them.” He finally looked up at her and held up a finger. “Oh, and put your clothes in the dryer as soon as you walk in. Water won’t kill ticks, but the heat will kill any that remain in your clothes. Luckily, you have on shorts. Would have been worse with pants. Might not have noticed them.”
Though she didn’t see any more ticks, the sensation of things crawling on her remained as she climbed into the kayak. She squirmed, and the boat rocked. “Couldn’t you have warned me about those things?”
“I would have, if you hadn’t run off half-cocked through the forest.”
She held on to his wrist before he could let go. “I’m sorry, Trevor. I wouldn’t have run after her if it wasn’t important.”
“I figured as much from the conversation.” He patted her hand, then stood. “Come on. If we hurry, we might still be able to see the manatees before we have to head back.”
“Manatees?”
“Yup, you’ll love ’em.” Trevor climbed into his kayak and pushed off.
Gia followed, her kayak rocking as she tried to find her rhythm again.
In the seemingly serene water a few feet from where they’d left the kayaks, a turtle swam. In a swirl of water, a small, half-submerged alligator Gia hadn’t noticed whirled and grabbed it faster than she would have thought possible, then disappeared beneath the surface.
Chapter 17
Gia started to towel her hair dry after her shower, then cringed at the pain in her shoulders. As much as she’d loved kayaking, especially seeing the manatees as Trevor had promised, the experience had left her sore in muscles she didn’t even know existed. Never mind the hair dryer. She hung the towel over the rack to dry, then headed for the kitchen. Her hair could dry on its own.
She fed Thor, then checked the yard thoroughly for snakes and other critters, before letting him out into the fenced area beside the deck and watching him until he was done. Once she had him back in the house with the door firmly locked behind him, she took a glass dish of lasagna Savannah had made from the freezer and popped it into the microwave and poured a cup of tea. She’d planned on spending the evening relaxing, maybe reading a few chapters of her book, but her conversation with Cybil had left her with no clue about Marcia’s killer. She’d been disappointed Cybil hadn’t been able to offer any kind of leads.
She let Thor back in and took her tea to the living room, then placed it on a coaster on the coffee table. She went back to the bedroom and got her laptop and set it on the table beside the tea. As soon as dinner was ready, she’d do some research. No sense letting the evening go to waste when she could put the time to use looking up the names from the list.
She grabbed a toy for Thor and filled it with peanut butter. A small niggle of guilt tugged at her that she hadn’t taken him out to play all day, but thick, black clouds hovered overhead, and she worried about lightning. “Here you go, boy.”
Thor took the treat and trotted into the living room. He knew the routine.
When the microwave beeped, she took her lasagna to the living room and settled on the couch with Thor at her feet between the couch and coffee table. “Don’t you snatch any of my dinner, you hear me, mister? All that kayaking made me hungry.”
She took a bite and opened her computer, then typed “Sean McNeil” into the search box, hit enter, and took another bite, grateful Savannah had sent her home with leftovers the other night when Gia had gone for dinner with Savannah and Joey.
Gia scrolled past the first couple of pages of social media sites. She didn’t know enough about Sean to find him, and the name Sean McNeil proved to be more common than she’d hoped. She’d
reached the fourth page of Sean McNeils before she finally found something of interest, the headline, Bar Owner Fined in Student’s Death.
She clicked on the local paper’s website and pulled up the article dated twenty-two years earlier, then stuffed a forkful of pasta and cheese with a crumble of spicy sausage into her mouth. Mmm… Savannah sure could cook Italian food. If Gia ever decided to add dinner to her café menu, she knew whom to hit up for recipes.
She skimmed the article while she finished off her lasagna. Seemed a twenty-one-year-old student had been clearly inebriated when he’d walked into McNeil’s with a few friends. According to witnesses, Sean served him a shot and a beer; then the victim had stumbled out of the bar and into the street where he was struck and killed by an oncoming vehicle. Tragic, but the driver was not indicted as the incident was ruled an accident.
Sean, however, was fined ten thousand dollars for overserving the student, Frederick Masters. An update at the bottom of the article dated two years later stated though the fine had been paid, McNeil’s had never recovered from the tragedy and had closed two years after the incident. Right around the same time everyone seemed to take an interest in the zoning information on the bar. Just after Sara Mills was murdered.
She brought the search engine back up and typed in “Frederick Masters.” The only thing she could find was an obituary. Not surprising considering household computers weren’t as common twenty-two years ago. The obituary was a short blurb in the back of the local paper stating that Frederick Masters was an honor student studying engineering and had been a local high school football star before moving on to play college ball. His death had been ruled an accident. He was survived by his father, Floyd. Bingo. She’d found the connection, but what to do with it? Also survived by a brother, Dion. The date and times of the services were listed as well as a plea for charitable donations in lieu of flowers by Frederick’s aunt, Carolyn Masters.
She looked up Carolyn Masters and found another obituary. This one for a Carolyn Masters Hayes of Boggy Creek dated a few years ago, survived by her son, Howard, and her brother, Floyd. She couldn’t find anything about a Dion Masters.
She typed “Floyd Masters” into the box and waited. Nothing happened. She sipped her tea and waited for the search to load. Sometimes internet could be slow in Rolling Pines.
A nagging itch on the outside of her ankle started up again, and she pulled up her pajama pant leg. An angry red spot with a dark dot in its center sat just where the band of her sock had lain. She tried to see it closer, but couldn’t tell what the black spot was.
She grabbed her cell phone, then stood with her foot propped awkwardly on the couch, opened the camera, and zoomed in on the spot. Between the angle and the size of the spot, she still couldn’t make out what it was, even fully magnified. She snapped a picture, then sat and opened it. She magnified it until the black dot came into focus. Sure enough, the tiny speck sticking up out of her ankle had creepy little legs attached.
Ah jeez. How was she going to get a hold of something that small?
She dialed Savannah’s number.
“Hello?”
“Savannah?”
“Gia? Are you okay? You sound a little frazzled.”
“I have a tick.”
A moment’s hesitation followed before Savannah finally said, “So pull it out.”
“No. I mean, I can’t. It’s too small. I can’t get a grip on it, and it’s stuck in my ankle. It looks like its head is in there.”
“Use tweezers.”
Ugh… Why hadn’t she thought of that?
An alarm sounded on her phone. Odd, she didn’t remember setting an alarm, and as far as she could remember, she didn’t have any plans for the evening. “Hang on a minute, Savannah. An alarm is going off on my phone.”
She pulled the phone away from her ear and read the urgent weather alert. A line of strong storms capable of producing tornadoes moving through the area. A tornado watch was in effect.
“Tornadoes?”
“Oh, yeah. I saw that on TV earlier. Do you know what to do if there’s a tornado?”
Fill the car with gas, point it north, and head back to New York. “I haven’t the slightest clue.”
“Go into an interior room, or in your case, the hallway, since all of your rooms have windows.”
“Oh. Lucky me.”
“Are you okay, Gia?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Savannah. So far today I’ve had a poisonous snake on my deck, seen an alligator eat a poor, unsuspecting turtle, gotten a tick, and now I’m sitting smack in the middle of a tornado watch. Not to mention last week’s fire or the tinderbox I’m living in out here with no escape route. When you were busy spouting all those ridiculous statistics regarding the lack of crime in the neighborhood, you failed to mention the place was a death trap.” Winded, Gia took a moment to catch her breath.
“Done?”
“Not even close. Just trying not to hyperventilate.”
“While you regain control of yourself, it’s my turn to talk. Granted, you’re going to come across snakes, both venomous and not. It’s Florida, Gia. Snakes live here. Actually, snakes live in most places, even in New York. For the most part, they are just as afraid of you as you are of them.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”
“Well, trust me, it is. It’s not like you’re Indiana Jones descending into a pit full of asps, for crying out loud. And as for the alligator, what would you have him eat? A nice salad perhaps?”
“Sarcasm isn’t helping anything.”
“Neither is freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out, I’m just…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Okay, maybe she was freaking out. A little. But she didn’t have to admit it out loud.
“Do you remember that time I went out to Fire Island with the other dancers from my show? You didn’t come because you had to work.”
“I remember.” Though I don’t know what it has to do with anything.
“I found three ticks crawling on me that day.”
“You never told me that.”
“Because there was nothing to tell. A bug crawled on me, so I brushed it off and went about my day.”
“When you say it like that—”
“There is no other way to say it. And as for the tornadoes, I have to admit, I’m a little freaked out about them too. I’m not a huge fan, but we don’t get them often, and when we do, they’re usually not very strong.”
Gia got up and headed to the bathroom for tweezers. “Well, when you say it that way…”
“I didn’t say it any way.” She laughed. “I just put things in perspective to keep you from having some sort of an episode.”
Gia sighed. What could she say? Savannah wasn’t wrong.
“You’re right about the fire. The situation up there is a little scary, but that’s why you are going before the board tomorrow night to discuss the possibility of adding a fire exit.”
“True.”
“No matter where you live, there are going to be downsides. And you want to talk about death traps? Those soaring apartment buildings y’all live in up there in New York make Rolling Pines look like it’s right off a fire safety poster.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” But Savannah wasn’t completely wrong either. “I understand what you’re saying, Savannah.”
“If you are looking for excuses to run back home, it’s not necessary, Gia. You are a big girl, and you have every right to decide where you want to live. As far as everything else, if there’s something within your control, by all means, fix it. If not, you just have to deal with it.”
Gia squeezed the tick gently between the tweezers and pulled. She’d need her phone to magnify the tip of the tweezers to see if she’d gotten it. “Hold on a minute, Savannah.”
“Sure.”
Savannah sighed. “I’m sorry, Gia. I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat.”
“No, you’re right. I do have to get a grip. It’s just a lot to get used to. There are a lot of things I love about Florida too.” She thought of the lush forest she’d witnessed while kayaking. “I also saw monkeys and manatees today. And they were amazing.”
“Yes, they are.”
“Are you okay, Savannah? Lately you seem… I don’t know…” The term Cybil had used jumped into her head. “Conflicted.”
“I have a lot on my mind.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“Hunt, for one. I haven’t heard from him in days, have you?”
“No.” She couldn’t blame her for being worried about Hunt. They had always been very close, and he was acting more than a little strange lately. “But Leo said he was out of town following up on a lead.”
“He told me the same thing. Grudgingly.”
Gia examined her entire ankle. Nothing. “Did he mention a second body when you spoke to him?”
“No. Why, is there another body?”
“I’m not sure. When he told me Hunt went out of town to follow up on a lead, he slipped and said it had something to do with a second body. When I tried to get him to elaborate, he clammed right up.”
“He didn’t mention anything to me about another body at all,” Savannah said.
“Is that unusual? That he would keep something from you?” Gia pulled up her pajama pant leg and studied her other ankle. No more ticks. At least, not that she could see.
“That man has been an open book since we were kids. He’d share anything with me. And yet, suddenly, his lips are sealed up tight, won’t say boo about Hunt or Marcia’s case. A case that obviously has something to do with my mother’s death.”