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

by J. C. Ferguson

  “I have no idea. The last time I saw him was in the Caymans in August.”

  “Have you been there since?” I ask.

  “Yes, once. But Alex wasn’t around. I’m pretty sure he took off somewhere with a gal from one of the dive shops.”

  “Do you know the name of the business or the girl?”

  “Mandy or Amanda or something. She was the daughter of the owner. I don’t remember the name of the shop. I remember where it is.” He stares at the ceiling as if the name is written there, then he looks straight at me. “Why all the questions?”

  “I’ve been trying to help Allison find her brother. She hasn’t heard from him since he came to Florida in July.”

  “I’m sorry, Allison.”

  I take the list of dive shops and hotels from my bag and hand it to George. “Here, see if any of these places ring a bell.”

  George scans the list. “I think it’s this one, Salty Sam’s. The address looks right, too.”

  Good, we can at least make some calls.

  “Tell us the story of where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing for the last six months.” Allison loves a good story. She grabs two chairs from the kitchen table and hands one to me. You’d think she owned the place. A take-charge kind of gal.

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start with Jack Farrell and his sailboat,” I tell him.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I’m good at my job. I’m a PI.” I flash him a smile.

  “Thought you said you weren’t a cop. That’s a private cop.”

  “Whatever.” No need to lie to him. “If you’re nervous about cops, you’d better leave. At least three are sitting in the parking lot keeping an eye on this place. We didn’t want Susan to come here, but we wanted to find out about you and Alex. So here we are.”

  George bounces off the couch and starts pacing. “Is this conversation being taped?”

  “No.” Not that I know of at least. Maybe the cops bugged the place. Who knows?

  “Are you going to tell us what happened?” Allison asks.

  He walks to the window and peeks outside, then returns to sit next to Susan. “You sure we’re not being taped?”

  “George, give it up.” Allison says.

  “We want to help you.” Susan offers.

  “If the cops wanted you, George, you’d be in cuffs and on the way to the station,” I tell him.

  “Okay, okay. I met Jack Farrell at the Beach last summer.” He pauses and looks around again, then settles in to talk. “He was looking for some guys to sail with him in the Caribbean. Undefined destination, unknown date of return. He needed people who had no jobs, no commitments, but could pay for the trip. I was hanging out in Florida with no money. Alex was in Boston and he had money. I called and convinced him to take the trip. Bruce Mondrone, my roommate, was working, but he quit his job and came with us.” George frowns when he mentions Bruce.

  “We sailed to Key West and hung around for a while, then we took off again, around Cuba to the Caymans. We stayed there for a few weeks, and that’s where we lost Alex. He found this girl, plus he didn’t like Farrell’s agenda.”

  “What was that?” I ask.

  “Someone approached him, or he approached them, not sure which, about taking a few bales into the Keys. It seemed pretty harmless, and it gave us money to keep on sailing. Alex got righteous on us and refused to have any part of it.”

  “So you took a load of grass into the islands and then what?” Allison asks.

  “We went to Cuba.”

  “I didn’t think it was allowed,” I say. “How do you just sail into Cuba?”

  “No one seemed to mind. Farrell had been there before. Anyhow, it was harder leaving, sneaking away in the night with half a dozen refugees. We took them to the Keys, again in the middle of the night, docked at one of the smaller islands and left them. More money for us to continue our voyage. In the beginning, we paid Jack to go sailing, but now he was paying us a split of the profits.

  “Next we went to Jamaica, stayed and played for about a month. Then we brought in some more weed. On the way back, we stopped in the Caymans again. I wanted to check on Alex, and we all wanted to do some diving. But Alex was gone.”

  “Did you try to find him? Try to find where he'd gone?” Allison leans forward in her seat. She looks ready to attack poor George.

  George shakes his head. “Figured he could take care of himself.”

  “Tell us the rest.” I want to know about the Cubans.

  “We bounced back and forth a couple more times, hit Puerto Rico, the Virgins. Then went to Cuba again. This time we were bringing refugees here to Fort Myers. The kicker was that someone connected with the refugee operation wanted us to bring in a load of Colombian cocaine. The cocaine made us nervous, and the Colombian connection made us more nervous. It wasn’t like bringing in a few harmless bales. Farrell said no.” George squirms in his seat.

  “It didn’t seem to be a problem. We collected the Cubans and no coke. No one hassled us about not taking the cocaine. We came to the West Coast because they’re tightening security in the Keys these days. We were going to sail right into Fort Myers Beach and drop the refugees. The guy at the other end must not have told anyone we didn’t bring the coke.” He stood and paced. Not much room to pace.

  “This fishing boat meets us off shore and says they’ll take the Cubans and the coke. Farrell gives them a hard time because we have no coke, and no one said anything about a boat meeting us. We were going straight in. Well, the guns came out, and they searched our boat. Found nothing of course, except our supplies, a little bag of weed, and our money. They took the Cubans and left.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t shoot you or throw you overboard and take the boat.” I can hear my own heart beating at the thought of it.

  “We were lucky.” George plops onto the couch.

  “What next?” Allison asks.

  “We went to Jack Farrell’s house in Bonita Springs. We had no money, no supplies. Right back where Jack was a few months ago when he was looking for customers with money. A few days later, someone broke into his house. We were trying to decide what to do about it, when these guys barged in. Apparently, they weren’t the ones who trashed the house the first time, so they took their turn at it. Had a dog to sniff for cocaine. They went through the house and boat. Found nothing.” George stops for breath. He’s shaking, and his face looks pale under his freckles.

  “Who were these guys?” I ask.

  “Colombians, I guess.”

  “What aren’t you telling us? What scared you?”

  He puts his head in hands and is quiet for a long time before he tells us, “Bruce gave them some lip, and they shot him.”

  Chapter 39

  “Is he still alive?” “Did you call the police?” “What did you do?” Susan, Allison and I all talk at the same time.

  “He’s dead. We didn’t tell the police.” George’s hands cover his face and his voice is so low I can barely understand him.

  “Are you saying there’s a body at Jack Farrell’s house?” I can’t believe they took off and left their friend. One of the guys I’ve been looking for. Dead!

  “Yes. Unless Farrell went back and took care of it.”

  “Hold on. I’m calling the cops. I can’t believe you didn’t at least call 911.” I call Jeremy. No signal. Damn!

  “You stay right here, George Stark. I’ll be back.” I run outside.

  No cruisers, but Jeremy’s Supra is lurking at the other side of the parking lot. As I head for it, a man pops out of a car. “Susan Bain?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  This guy starts walking toward me. “Do you know her?”

  “No.”

  “You know George Stark?”

  “No.”

  He’s getting closer, but I’ve almost reached Thorpe’s car.

  “You’re lying, lady.”

  He grabs my left arm. I swing aroun
d and punch him in the solar plexus with my right fist and reach for the door of the Supra.

  Damn! It’s locked. No Jeremy. I scoot around to the other side and dive into the bushes.

  Bam! A shot! Blue and red lights flash. “Police! Drop it!” Then another shot.

  I crawl deeper into the bushes, so scared I almost pee my pants. I hear scuffling and yelling. No way am I going to get up and look. This is one time fear overrides curiosity. I lie on my belly, nerves jangling.

  “Pratt, where are you?” It’s Thorpe.

  My voice won’t work. My throat’s seized. I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. What a stupid thing to think of now. If I keep shaking like this, he’ll hear the bushes rattling. Something crawls across my leg. I scream and bounce out of the bushes in a flash, voice and muscles working again.

  “Hey, babe, you all right?” Jeremy grabs me and holds on.

  “No.” My body is still trembling and my heart pounds in my ears. “Something crawled across my leg, a snake maybe.”

  “You’re worried about a snake when someone just shot at you?”

  I hate guns! “Where were you?” Don’t be demanding, Pratt. He’s here.

  “I was leaving the car and headed your way when he grabbed you.”

  “What car? You weren’t in your car.” My voice sounds a bit hysterical, even to me.

  “I was in the car with the other cops.” He points.

  I lift my head off his shoulder and look around. Two guys next to a black Crown Vic with lights flashing are cuffing the man who grabbed me. I guess they’re cops not in uniform.

  “You’re bleeding.” Jeremy holds me at arm's length. “Were you shot?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He opens the trunk of his car, grabs a first aid kit, and gently wipes at my hairline with a gauze pad and some peroxide.

  “Ow! That stings.”

  “Looks like a branch or something scraped you. Head wound, lots of bleeding. Not a bullet wound.” He tries to look serious, but I see the amusement in his eyes. “Poor babe. You got another boo boo.” He kisses the end of my nose.

  “Thorpe, quit consorting with the victim.” A black cop, not as tall as Jeremy but bulkier, walks over to Jeremy’s car.

  “This is my girlfriend, Ernie Pratt.”

  Wow! Jeremy introduced me as his girlfriend.

  “Nice to meet you, Ernie. I’m Mace.” He reaches to shake hands. “You okay?”

  “A scratch I got diving into the woods. I’ll be fine.”

  “You should go to the hospital, have it looked at.”

  “No hospital.” Why do people keep trying to send me to the hospital?

  “We’re taking the shooter in, Thorpe. Are you coming or staying?”

  “Think I’ll stay. If you need any paperwork from me, let me know.”

  Mace heads toward the unmarked police car. All at once my mind clicks into gear and I remember why I’m here.

  “There’s a dead guy in Bonita Springs. Do you suppose they’ll want to know?” I nod toward Mace.

  “Hey, Mace. You might want to hear this,” Jeremy calls to him.

  “What’s that?”

  We walk over to the Crown Vic. How am I going to tell this without George going to jail? “I heard that someone got shot a couple of days ago in Bonita Springs and the body was left in the house.”

  “Where?” Jeremy asks.

  I rattle off Jack Farrell’s address from memory. “Someone could have gone back and got rid of him. Was anything called into 911?”

  “Let me check.” An older gray-haired guy in the car has been listening. He starts yakking on his radio.

  “How do you know about this?” Mace asks.

  I look at Jeremy. What should I say?

  “Tell us, Pratt. Otherwise we’ll have to take you in and torture you.” He’s not smiling, but his eyes are laughing.

  I can’t protect George from the cops, but they can protect him from the drug guys. Best to tell. He’s not a client. “You must have seen a man arrive at Susan’s.”

  “Figured that was George Stark.”

  “It was. He told us some Colombians busted into Jack Farrell’s house and shot Bruce Mondrone. Said he and Jack took off, running scared.”

  “They shoulda called it in,” Mace says.

  “I know. Who would leave a dead body in their house, a friend even, and run away without calling?” The thought makes my stomach turn.

  The deputy in the cruiser leans toward the window and says, “No one called it in. They’re heading there now to check the house.”

  I stick my head in the car window. “The dead guy, Bruce Mondrone, has been missing for about six months.”

  “Thanks.” He talks more on the radio.

  “Why did you come running outside, Pratt?” Jeremy asks.

  “Because my cell wouldn’t work. No signal. And I wanted to tell you about the shooting.”

  “We’d better talk to George.” Jeremy heads toward the apartment building and I follow.

  “Need any help, Thorpe?” Mace yells after him.

  “No.” Jeremy turns to me and asks, “He’s not armed is he?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Just scared.”

  “We’ll wait here.” Mace climbs into the cruiser.

  Susan’s door is locked. I knock. “It’s Ernie. Let me in.”

  The door cracks open and Susan’s ghostly face appears. “Oh, Jeremy. Is everything okay? We heard shots.” She looks at me and my patched forehead. “Ernie! What happened?” Her face goes even paler. Who’d of thunk it possible?

  “Let us in, Susan.”

  Jeremy gives the door a gentle push. I hear a door slam and Susan turns to look behind her. Back door. I’ll bet George took off. Stupid move.

  Inside, no George to be seen. Jeremy pulls the two-way off his belt as he moves through the apartment.

  “Mace, there’s a blond kid went out the back, the one we saw coming in the front earlier. Pick him up.”

  I follow Jeremy to the back door.

  “Stay inside, Pratt.” He takes off across a golf course. Seems like every inch of this area has turned into new homes, canals, or golf courses. Almost nothing wild is left in Southwest Florida.

  There’s no moon, but the paths on the golf course are lit and lights surround a small body of water. I can see George on a green headed for the trees. His white hair is like a flag bouncing through the night. Mace and the other cop burst through the trees in front of him and he swerves to miss them, falling into the pond. There’s thrashing on the other side as something slips into the water. The cops grab George, and a gator follows them onto the bank. Mace punches the gator in the nose and it retreats. I’m glad he didn’t shoot it. They’ll be here catching it tomorrow, I’ll bet. Can’t have a gator hanging around and scaring the golfers, even if it was his home first.

  Jeremy returns to the apartment door with George in handcuffs. George is covered in mud and dripping pond scum. “I’m taking him in. We don’t want him in the same car as the shooter.”

  “Will you throw him in jail?” Susan looks like she might cry. “Can we bail him out tonight?”

  Allison asks, “Do you need a lawyer, George?”

  “I knew I shouldn’t trust you.” He looks straight at me. “But maybe no one will try to kill me in jail.”

  Jeremy shakes his head. I know what he’s thinking. If he’s crossed some drug lord, then he’s not safe anywhere. Especially not in jail. Jeez, if he watches any TV, he should know that. I keep my mouth shut. I don’t think my comments would help George’s mood. I also don’t bother to tell him if he hadn’t run, they might not have arrested him.

  “You shouldn’t stay here, any of you.” Jeremy says. “Go home. Get some sleep. I’ll call if they decide to let George go tonight. Probably won’t be ’til morning.”

  Thorpe takes his captive around the building. Considerate of him not to drag the dripping George through Susan’s apartment, but he’s going to mess up the spotless
Supra.

  #

  “Ernestine, what happened this time?” Mom inspects the bandage on my forehead when we arrive at the house. The scratch probably wouldn't even show if it weren't bandaged.

  “Minor stuff, Mom. Got grabbed. Got away. Got shot at. Dived into the bushes to hide. Got scratched. It’s nothing.”

  She puts her hands over her eyes and groans.

  “Allison, aren’t you going to tell the story for us?” Big Jim asks.

  “Can’t. I didn’t see it. But I can tell you about George getting captured by the cops.”

  “Captured?” Mom takes her hands from her face and raises both eyebrows in disbelief. “I thought you were only going to talk to him.”

  I jump in with the short version of the story. I’m not in the mood to hear one of Allison’s long tales. “George told us about a dead body and when Jeremy came in to talk to him, he ran away. Of course the cops chased him—they can’t stand to see someone run away. Then George made the mistake of falling into an alligator pond on the golf course and luckily one of the cops punched out the gator before it got George.”

  “Whose dead body?” Jim asks.

  “Bruce Mondrone. One of the guys who was on the sailboat with George.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mom interrupts. “Who shot at you, Ernie?”

  “I don’t know, but the deputies took him away. Do you think you can get us an update, Jim?” I ask. “They were going to check Jack Farrell’s house in Bonita. That’s where Mondrone was shot.”

  “And could you find out what’s happened to George?” Susan ducks her head as if she has no right to ask.

  Now that we’ve covered the whole evening’s events in ten seconds, everyone goes quiet, except Jim, who wanders outside talking on his mobile.

  “Where’s Manuel?” Allison breaks the silence.

  “And Lucky?” Susan adds.

  “Both sleeping,” Mom answers. She motions to follow and tiptoes into her office where Manuel sleeps with arms wrapped around a snoring dog. The two cats are asleep at his feet. It’s one crowded cot. I note that she’s moved the cot from her bedroom, into the office. Does that have something to do with Big Jim? I don’t think he’s sleeping in the recliner anymore.

  When we all sneak into the living room, Big Jim has finished his conversation. Everyone starts asking questions at once.