Mangrove Madness: An Ernestine Ernie Pratt Mystery (Ernestine Ernie Pratt Adventures Book 1)

by J. C. Ferguson

  She gives a little snort. “Ha! That’s one of his fantasies. Always looking for ways to make more money, pretending to be interested in the refugees’ welfare.”

  “He does tell some wild stories.”

  “But they are stories.” She grins at me. “You can’t help but like him.”

  “Right.” I smile, knowingly. Thinking about my afternoon with Jeremy puts the right look in my eyes, I’m sure. “Do you think he’ll be back?”

  “Oh, he’ll come home to see his kids, if nothing else. Have you ever met them?”

  “No.”

  “Cute kids.”

  I should visit Naples and look for the ex-wife and kids.

  “Hey, Ginnie. Where’s the coffee?” A customer complains, and the redhead returns to her work.

  Outside, where Bert and Allison are eating, I sit and make calls. This new cell is so sexy. Sleek and black and easy to use, but it’s not a flip phone. I’ll be making unwanted calls from my pocket.

  I was supposed to contact the VW dealer yesterday, but Jeremy sidetracked me. Who could think of cars? While holding for someone at the dealer who knows nothing, to find someone else who might know something about my car, I watch Bert. He’s throwing pieces of his lunch into the water, and a pelican dives for them.

  Finally, a mechanic comes on the line. “Ms. Pratt, I’m sorry but the insurance adjuster hasn’t showed.”

  “What do you think? Is the car redeemable? Or will I have to junk it?” My poor baby. I love that car.

  “It’s probably totaled. The frame’s bent, the left side panels are destroyed, and the cost to fix it is more than it’s worth. But we need the insurance people to agree.”

  Next, I call my insurance. The woman who answers knows nothing. She leaves me hanging while she finds another someone who knows nothing who tries to find someone who knows something about my car. This could get old.

  Bert holds a piece of fish, trying to coax the pelican to eat from his hand. No luck. The bird, almost as big as Bert, could lift him and fly away.

  An insurance agent comes on the line, but he knows nothing. After another long hold, an adjuster promises faithfully to contact the dealer tomorrow. No apologies for not showing up yesterday.

  Bert’s pelican splash-lands right in front of us, hard enough to spray us with water. My beautiful new mobile has drops of water on it. I carefully wipe it with a napkin and slip it into my pocket. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that damn bird did it on purpose.

  #

  Heading home, I take the boat down the channels bordering Bonita Beach and out through Big Hickory Pass. When we enter the Gulf, I turn the wheel over to Bert, so I can call Jeremy. I stand away from the rail; don’t want to drop my phone in the water.

  “Hey, Pratt.”

  My heart speeds a little at the sound of Jeremy’s voice. All those strange pleasure sensations, unused for so long, do a prickly little dance inside, without my seeing or touching him.

  “Hey, Thorpe.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I’ve been tracking down one of your missing persons, Jack Farrell, from Bonita Springs. Could you find out if he filed a float plan in July? Maybe someone called the Coast Guard when he didn’t show.”

  “Sure, Pratt. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. He should have a captain’s license. He was running charters on his sailboat, so there should be registration fees and all that. Or maybe he was winging it.”

  “No sweat. I’ll check him out for you.”

  “Thanks, Jeremy.”

  “Coming over tonight? I’m off at eight. We haven’t had dinner, yet.”

  Whoa! Those prickly sensations go into overdrive. The little dance inside me turns into a breakdance. God, I’m easy. Maybe I should hold off a little.

  I haven’t answered when he says, “Wear a dress. I’ll take you someplace nice.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say yes.”

  “You didn’t say no.”

  “Okay. Where should I meet you?”

  “Why not bring your boat up the river to my place? Eight-thirty, nine?”

  “Okay, I’ll see you tonight.” I’m already thinking about what to wear. I haven’t been decked out since I moved to Florida. Should I wear stockings? Ugh! Do I even have any? My legs are tan; don’t need stockings in Florida. I have this little red dress, or maybe the long black one with the slit up the side. No, too dressy. Stop it, Pratt! Grab the first dress you see in your closet.

  I look around to see where we are. Starboard I recognize Sanibel; to port is open ocean. At least we’re headed in the right direction. There’s a pelican flying alongside us, keeping pace. Is he Bert’s lunch date?

  When we dock at Fisherman’s Island, a pelican comes swooping in and lands on a post. He stares at Bert. I swear this is the same bird. Get a grip, Pratt. There are so many pelicans around here, what makes you think this is the one Bert was feeding in Bonita? You give animals too much credit for intelligence.

  Speaking of intelligent animals, Max meets us at the dock, jumping into the boat, tearing around, yowling. He jumps on my shoulder and bangs his forehead against mine in greeting, then takes off like a streak. About fifty feet away he stops, waits, pacing, tail swishing, like he’s trying to tell me something.

  “That cat is totally insane.” Maggie stands on the dock, hands on hips. “He’s been acting like that for an hour.”

  “He’s trying to tell us something.” I stand next to Maggie and watch Max’s antics. Maggie’s dog, Tiny, starts barking at Max, but Max ignores him.

  “Come on, Pratt. Cat’s aren’t that smart.”

  “Maggie, this cat is brilliant. If only I could speak his language.”

  “Hey, Ernie, are you going to help with the boat?” Bert tosses a line, which bounces off my hip and into the water. Pay attention, Pratt. He tosses again and I catch it and tie off the boat.

  “I’m going after Max.” As I walk toward the cat, he runs through the trees toward the beach, not down Main Street.

  The island is populated north of the dock; the south end is mostly what we call a park but is actually wild and untended. That’s where the Cubans came in the other night. The east side of the park, inside toward the mainland, is mangrove swamp, and the Gulf side is covered with palmettos, scrub palm, Florida rosemary...not easy walking ’til you hit the sand at the beach. There’s a road of sorts down the middle of this mess and paths through the brush to the beach. But that’s not where Max chooses to lead me. Every time I stop to untangle myself from the brush, Max turns and yowls. When we arrive at the beach, Max circles a palm tree.

  “Dumb cat. You could have taken the path.” A footpath across this mess reaches the beach about ten feet away.

  “What’s with the tree?” I walk over to get a better look. Small footprints mark the sand under the palm. Child prints. Bare feet. Maybe a kid’s in trouble.

  Max makes me look up by climbing the trunk of the palm and from there onto my shoulder. I try to grab him, but he jumps higher into the tree. There must be some animal in the top. If it was the kid, I could see him. All this for some raccoon or fruit rat. He goes into the palm fronds and makes these squeaky little sounds he makes when he’s talking to his buddy Mindy. Mindy answers. There she is. Mindy, the shy one, peeks down at me.

  “Hey, Mindy, come on down. I’m not climbing this tree for you.” I reach toward the cats. This is really stupid. I stand here looking at two sets of eyes peering at me from the top of a tree. “Push her out of the tree, Max.”

  “Whatcha doin’ Pratt? Talkin’ to a tree?” Maggie and Tiny pop out of the brush onto the beach. Bert and Allison are close behind. At least they had enough sense to follow the path.

  “The stupid cats are up there.”

  I point at the footprints around the tree. “What do you think, Maggie? Are these from one kid or a bunch of kids? Did they chase the cat up the tree or were they trying to rescue her?”

  “Looks like one kid.” She hunkers down and stare
s at the sand. “Strange though. No kids are staying here right now.”

  We have less than fifty residents on Fisherman’s Island. The only kids, except visitors, are three teenagers who go off to school in a boat every morning. The prints are much too small for a teenager.

  “Maybe someone stopped in a boat for a picnic or a look around,” Allison suggests.

  “These prints lead into the brush.” Bert points, and we all stare at where the small footprints disappear into the scrub, coming and going. There’s no sign of anyone plowing through. No trampled bushes like where I came onto the beach.

  The cats yowl for my attention. I walk over to the palm. It’s not very tall. I can almost reach the fronds hanging from the top. “Can anyone climb?”

  “I’ll give you a leg up.” Maggie stands next to the tree with her hands intertwined for a foothold.

  Do I really want to do this? “Hey, my sweet little kitties. Come to Mama.”

  I lean against the tree, take off my sandals, and step into Maggie’s hands. She lifts and I scramble higher, holding on to the rough bark. I’ve seen people who can shimmy up these things, no problem. Stubs where the old branches have died off almost create a round ladder. When I can almost reach the cats, Max jumps and lands on Maggie who drops my foot. I slide down the tree trunk taking a gouge out of my ankle before I get a grip and stop downward progress. Dripping blood, I climb again and grab for Mindy. I can only use one hand and she resists. I grab some fur and pull. Teeth and nails dig into my hand and arm. My over-reaction to this assault brings me and my cat falling to the ground. Whump!

  When my breath returns and my eyes begin to focus, three people are standing over me, looking worried.

  “Where are the cats?” I ask.

  They all point toward home.

  Chapter 20

  “Hi, Mom. Have you seen the cats?” I beat Bert and Allison to the house by a mile, with no patience to walk slow for them to keep pace.

  Mom’s on the porch, buried in a pile of printed paper, scribbling madly between the lines. She points at the door without looking up. I look over her shoulder as I pass and she covers the page she’s working on. Must be her latest romance novel.

  In the kitchen, Max and Mindy are at their food dishes, eating calmly, as if nothing happened. They don’t even look my way to say thank you.

  I take off down the hall, drop my clothes, jump into the shower. Some of the scratches on my legs are beginning to itch. My hand and arm look like I was in a catfight. I guess I was. I need to clean all my wounds. Now that I’m in the shower, the scrape on my ankle is bleeding again.

  When I dry off, spots of blood dot the towel. Besides the long red scrape on my ankle, my arm has a slash like a knife wound from cat claws, my hand shows teeth marks. My legs look like I’m breaking out with some nasty disease where the bush scratches are surrounded by angry red welts. I turn in front of the mirror to examine my rear and discover cuts and bruises on my back and bum where I landed when falling from the tree.

  You are one fine mess, Pratt. No way are you going to put on a dress and go to dinner tonight. I climb in the shower with a bottle of peroxide to clean all my injuries.

  I slip into the usual cutoffs and T-shirt, and look for my phone. Can’t find it. Not in my room, not in the bathroom, not in the pockets of the clothes I left strewn on the floor. I spot Mom’s mobile in her room and borrow it to call Jeremy.

  “I can’t go tonight.”

  “Are you avoiding me, Pratt?”

  “No, Jeremy. If you could see me, you’d understand. I can’t be seen anywhere in a dress.”

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. I rescued a cat.”

  “You what?”

  “I’ll tell you the story when I see you. Can you cancel the reservation?”

  “That’s no problem. You can still come over. We’ll go to dinner another time.”

  “I’d scare you if you saw me.”

  “I’ll leave the lights off if that helps.” I can hear him chuckling under his breath.

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Okay, babe. Tomorrow.”

  I click off, remember the footprints, and call again. “Hey, Jeremy, I almost forgot.”

  “What?” He is definitely laughing now.

  “There were footprints.”

  “Where?”

  “On the beach under the tree.”

  “What’s unusual about footprints on the beach?”

  “Little prints. A kid. No kids live on Fisherman’s Island.”

  “Boats stop there all the time.”

  “No sign of a boat.”

  “Tides could have washed the signs away.” He has an answer for everything.

  “I was thinking.”

  “Really, Pratt? Thinking?”

  “There was this shoe, a kid’s shoe that my cat found the night the Cubans landed. What if the Cubans hid a kid from the Coast Guard and the police? Would they do that if they were scared?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose, but not likely. I wouldn’t think they’d leave a child behind.”

  “Well, if you guys won’t check, maybe I will.” I can’t get more beat up than I already am.

  “If you really think there’s a child on the island we should start a search. We’ll need a bunch of people to flush him out.”

  “Or her.”

  “Him or her. Can you get some people together? I’ll send over some troops.”

  “Can I try something first before we scare the kid to death?”

  “What, Pratt?” Impatience creeps into his voice.

  “I want to try feeding him...or her.”

  “Not bad, Pratt. You try that and I’ll get a search started in case it doesn’t work.”

  “You don’t think it will work, do you?”

  “Go do your thing. I’ll have some deputies over, soonest. Let me know if anything changes.”

  “Give me at least an hour.”

  “Okay, Pratt, one hour.”

  Bert is vacuuming in the living room when I emerge. “You left this path of sand and blood all the way from the door to your bathroom.” He really would make a good live-in maid.

  “We don’t have time for that.” I unplug the vac so I can hear myself and drag Bert to the porch where Allison has joined Mom. I only want to explain once about the search.

  Almost before the words are out of my mouth, Allison pops from her chair, ready to go. “Bert and I can round up the neighbors. We need to find him before dark.”

  Mom heads for the kitchen and starts rummaging through the refrigerator. She pops a container of frozen chicken soup into the microwave. “I’m with you, Ernie. Food is the answer.”

  I grab some fruit from the table on the way out the door.

  Mom and I take the golf cart to the south end of the island and walk to the beach, where I rescued Mindy. This time we take the path. I don’t need more scratches.

  The homemade soup smells delicious. I hope the aroma entices the hidden child out of the brush before the ants invade. We also brought some fruit—mango, banana, orange. We place the culinary treasures on a stump close to where the footprints disappear into the brush. Then we hide behind Mindy’s favorite palm, where we’re not too obvious, and we wait.

  And wait and wait and wait some more. It’s quiet, with only the sounds of birds and waves against the shore. The sun moves closer to the horizon. Soon it will dip into the Gulf.

  Voices break the silence. The crowd must be gathering for the hunt.

  “What can we do?” I whisper to Mom.

  She starts singing in Spanish.

  “A la nanita nana, nanita ea, nanita ea-

  Mi niña, tiene suena bendito sea, bendito sea”

  I don’t understand the words, but it’s a sweet song and she has a pretty voice. It sounds like a lullaby.

  Scratching noises come from the brush, like a small animal moving. A tiny brown hand appears and snatches the banana. Mom keeps singing. I�
�m dying to capture the kid, but I don’t want to scare him. In a few minutes a small boy crawls out and lifts the soup, ignoring the spoon we left, drinking from the bowl. He couldn’t be more than four or five, at most. The clothes on his tiny body are torn and dirty—shorts and shirt, no shoes. Bones are visible beneath the skin. Matted dark hair sticks to his face and neck.

  Mom stands slowly, still singing. The child looks at her but keeps on sipping at the soup. Brown, frightened eyes stare over the bowl. I don’t dare stand for fear of startling him. Mom is small and dark and singing Spanish songs. Much less frightening than tall, skinny me. She moves toward the tiny figure and murmurs something in Spanish. The boy still clings to the bowl. He doesn’t run. Mom opens her arms and he cautiously releases the bowl, reaching to take one of her hands.

  A crowd of people bursts through the bushes. The boy screams and pulls away. Mom grabs him and tries to hold on, but the small body slips through her arms and disappears into the brush.

  I feel like screaming, too, or crying. We were so close. This crowd is enough to frighten the devil. Jake Murphy, his pot belly hanging out between shirt and shorts: Eleanor Watts with her frightful blond wig; loud Hawaiian shirts on Mr. and Mrs. Duffy; and they’re all calling in English and Spanish, yelling and screaming and stomping the ground. What a sight. Big Jim, who is enough to scare any kid, ambles behind them with a couple more deputies.

  “Damn! I thought you guys were going to wait.” I’m furious. We had him. Why did they pick now to appear?

  “We did wait.” Jeremy’s voice behind me makes me jump. Try jumping when you’re sitting lotus-style in the sand. He reaches and gives me a hand, pulling me to my feet.

  “Why didn’t you call and warn me? Mom had the kid. This circus scared him away.” Tears of anger threaten. Don’t cry, Pratt.

  Jeremy wipes a tear off my cheek. “I tried, Ernie. You didn’t answer.”

  Oh, shit! I pat my pockets, but I know. My phone is lost; Mom’s is at the house.

  “So, what now?”

  “Take care of your mom. I’ll see if we can get this circus organized.”

  Mom still sits by the food, looking very sad like she’s trying not to cry. I lower myself to the sand and wrap my arm around her.