by Molly Dox
Deadly Baggage
Poppy Pepper’s Paradise Cove and Mini Golf
Molly Dox
Copyright 2015, Molly Dox
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When a body is discovered in the trunk of a car, heads roll.
Poppy Pepper's old paramedic instructor turns out to be the victim. He taught her well. Now it's her turn to teach the killer that he or she won't get away with murder.
As always, things aren't quite what they seem. With all her cards on the table, will Poppy be able see clearly, or will her feelings get in the way?
Set in balmy Central Florida, "Deadly Luggage" is perfect for a light weekend read. This cozy mystery is family friendly with no foul language, no blood, and no sex. “Deadly Luggage” is book 5 in the ‘Poppy Pepper’s Paradise Cove and Mini Golf’ series.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 1
Poppy slammed on her brakes. A loud screech preceded the crunch of two vehicles smashing together. The car before her stopped short on a green light. She’d been distracted, reaching to change the radio station. Everything moved microscopically slow, as if time stood still.
Poppy shook off the shock of the accident and stared at the old sedan she’d banged into. The trunk had popped open. Cautiously, she got out of her Trail Blazer. She forced her trembling hands into her pockets, trying to calm herself.
The woman in the other car jumped out and started to yell at Poppy. The woman looked frazzled. She was stuck between a combination of panic and anger. Walking to the back of her car, she quickly pushed the trunk closed. The back of the car betrayed her as the trunk popped back open. The latch on the older car refused to catch.
Poppy scrunched her nose up as the smell of decay hit her. She stepped back when she realized where it came from. Trying to hold her breath, she leaned forward once more and noticed the luggage in the trunk, the very place the smell was coming from. It was leaking. She waved her hand in front of her nose, trying to escape the pungent odor. “What is that?”
The woman slammed her trunk closed one more time. This time it caught. She snarled at Poppy. “You hit me! You need to watch where you’re going.”
An officer was passing by and stopped. He got out of his car and asked them to pull their cars to the side. Figures, he’d come upon the accident on the way to lunch. He was good and ready to take his break, but now he’d have to wait. Stupid paperwork; accident investigations took a long time, which meant his lunch would have to wait. At least it didn’t look like anybody was hurt.
The woman from the car ranted to the officer. “She ran into me. She hit me for no reason!”
“It was a green light! You stopped for no reason, no warning, you just slammed on your breaks,” she exclaimed.
“There was a bird in the road, I was afraid I’d hit it.” Her self-righteous tone didn’t help matters. “If you’d been paying attention, you’d have had plenty of time to stop.”
“Plenty of time? Are you crazy? All of this because of a bird?” Poppy grumbled.
“Ladies,” the officer intervened. “I’ll need your driver’s license, insurance information, and registration cards.”
The woman sulked. She didn’t have time for this. She glanced at the back of her old car. “Look, it doesn’t look like there’s too much damage, just a dent in my bumper. Why don’t we save everyone trouble and leave it at that.”
“I wish,” the officer said, thinking of his sandwich waiting for him. “I need your information. There’s been an accident and I need to file a report.”
Poppy got her information out. Leaning into the officer, she whispered that he may want to check out her trunk. There was a strong smell and leaking luggage, she added.
The officer groaned. He wouldn’t be eating any time soon. “Lady, what’s in the trunk?”
“My trunk? Why? It’s an accident, what does that have to do with an accident?” She was scrambling to keep her calm.
“I need you to open your trunk,” he said.
“Are you searching my car? Do you have a warrant? That’s invading my privacy. I didn’t even cause the accident,” she said, her voice getting faster and faster.
“Do I need to get a search warrant?” He glared at the woman. Every second pushed him farther from his roast beef sandwich. His little lunch cooler housed a sandwich, a sweet tea, and a bag of pretzels. His stomach rumbled reminding him he’d skipped breakfast that morning. Big mistake, but he’d slept in.
The lady looked away, not sure what to do.
Poppy stood watching, biting her tongue. She’d already said enough.
The woman finally gave in. Her shoulders dropped. Her body shook as the tears started. She wanted to remain calm, but she knew what was in the trunk. Her life was over. She was a fool to have taken the deal. Greed got the best of her.
As she popped the trunk open, the smell hit them like a ton of bricks. The officer hesitantly leaned forward to look at the contents. He knew that smell. It was decay. And the leaking appeared to be from body fluids, no doubt. He started to gag, and then forced himself to stop.
“What’s going on here?” He looked toward the woman. He slipped his cuffs off of his belt holster and stepped behind her. He’d have to open the bags. He already knew what was in them, but there was no getting around that fact. After seating the woman in the back of his car, he called in for back-up. He turned to Poppy. “Lady, I have bigger fish to fry. If you want to pretend like this accident never happened, now is your time to leave. Otherwise, you’ll need to show up at the police station later to get a copy of the police report. This is going to take a while.”
Poppy stood frozen. She was staring into the trunk, her hand covering her nose and mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
The officer pushed the button to put the back window down some. He’d get some information while waiting for the other woman to finish being sick. “Why?” He shook his head; it was more of a rhetorical question.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. She knew she had a right to a lawyer, but her emotions were too strong. She spilled what she knew. “They paid me enough for a new car. I just had to deliver it to an address.”
The officer had seen and heard it all through his career. He stared at the lady as she sang like a bird.
“They said the second half would be in the cab. I just had to drive there.” She was crying, realizing the gravity of her situation.
“Who paid you?” Lunch would have to wait for way too long.
Her bottom lip quivered. “I don’t know. I was desperate for money. It was a blind offer. I didn’t know it was a body. I thought it was drugs or something. I was told not to look, so I didn’t. They loaded my car, I drove.”
“Who loaded your car and where did you have to drive to?” Poppy asked, now standing next to the officer. She grimaced, realizing she spoke when she shouldn’t have.
The officer repeated what Poppy had said. “Who loaded the car? Where did they tell you to drive to?”
“I should get a lawyer. I need a lawyer. I said too much.” The panic washed over her face.
“Okay, let’s go to the station. I’ve got to get a tow out here for the car. We’ll need to investigate. Lady,” he said, turning toward Poppy,
“I’ll have the accident report ready by tomorrow. I have other things to tackle first.”
Poppy nodded. She was stunned by what she saw, and the smell was still permeating the air. They should really close the trunk. It was starting to draw attention as the cars passed, slowing to a near crawl.
***
“…And there was this smell. It was like road kill on the side of the street that had been baking in the sun too long.” Poppy relayed the news to Reggie on arriving home. “Can you poke around a little bit? See if there’s more information?”
“I’m sure it will be the talk of the town, but we’re different departments. Sometimes, it can take a while for news to spread. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to just come out and ask?” Reggie hoped the answer was no. He’d done too much asking lately, and he was afraid it would draw a spotlight on him. He understood Poppy’s drive to find out more, but he had to be careful.
“Could you? I mean, I’ll ask Panda too, but you know, I was sort of involved,” she said, rambling.
Reggie sighed. “That’s kind of gruesome. I’m sure it will be a hot topic anyway. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m going to leave a message with Panda. He’s probably going to be the one to examine the body.”
Poppy knew she shouldn’t get involved. It’s just that life got boring at times, and if an intriguing set of circumstances happen to have stumbled into her life, who was she to ignore them?
Poppy said good-bye to Reggie and then called her brother. “Panda, it’s Poppy. There’s going to be a weird case coming in. You’ll know the one. Can you call me when you finish working the case? I’m the one who found the body.”
It felt weird saying body. It was obviously split up between two bags. That meant it was grisly and gruesome. Poppy scrunched her nose up, remembering the scent. Some poor soul…
There were two suitcases. One was a red rolling duffel bag. Another was an old fashioned leather bag. It was the kind her father kept – a Pranston’s Limited bag. Odd. She hadn’t seen one of them in years. It was an old suitcase. She wasn’t even certain that Pranston’s was still in business. She only recognized it because of her father. He refused to update his luggage when what he had worked perfectly fine. Poppy preferred the new rolling bags, and nylon was so much lighter than leather.
Poppy jotted a note down about the bags, and a reminder to pick up the police report the following day. She’d need to call her insurance company to report the accident.
Chopper sat meowing at the front door. She opened the door to see if he wanted to come inside. He looked at her, and then looked at his food bowl. “Right, let me take care of you.” The stray cat that adopted Poppy seemed satisfied and waited patiently.
Normally, the bowl had dry food in it. She’d give him a treat of wet food time to time too. He’d gone through all of the dry food. She could have sworn she’d filled it the day before. It usually lasted him longer. She hoped the raccoons or squirrels weren’t pilfering his goods.
Poppy refilled Choppers food and gave him fresh water. Drawing her hand over her eyes, she looked at the sky. The Florida weather was always changing. Come mid-afternoon, the sun would swell and people would be wiping their brow, and not a few hours later rain would fall from the sky fast and hard for a solid ten to twenty minutes. Not a few moments later, the sun was out and people would be wiping their brow once again. At least the off-season was a few degrees cooler than the normal swampy heat they saw most months of the year.
“I’m going to fix the shower in unit six. And I need to get to the grounds,” Poppy’s father said.
“Speaking of the grounds, I wanted to pass something by you. The golf course, I was thinking maybe it was time to update. I think I pool will be a bigger draw these days,” she said.
“A pool takes more work, maintenance, there’s more liability, and the excess water will draw the snakes, lizards, frogs, and bugs. I looked into it before. Most of our visitors are retired, older folks, like me. Golf is a nice easy game that you can relax into.”
“What if it was a covered pool, screened in to keep the creepy crawlies away? We could even add a hot tub area,” she challenged.
“Eh, sounds nice, but it will cost a fortune, along with driving our insurance sky high.” Martin Pepper shook his head.
He was right, but if they didn’t do something to tweak the place a bit, how would they pull in new guests? Right now, they had a lot of repeat business from snowbirds, but there were times in the hotter months where they were running only half full. “Just think about it?”
Martin groaned. “Why do you want to create more work for yourself….” He set off to do the repair.
Chapter 2
Panda’s examination was more difficult than he anticipated. He recognized the man’s face. Nobody tried to hide it; they simply couldn’t fit the body into one bag. Unfortunately, their solution was to put him in two bags, which meant it was messy and grisly. Panda’s stomach knotted and retched. He’d hate breaking the news to his sister, especially since she knew the man. Panda looked over his notes. He also recorded his thoughts as he went along. He was thankful for his assistant’s help. Finishing up, he nodded and went to clean up. He’d have to deliver this news in person.
The story going around was that the woman was supposed to drive to a specified location. There was supposed to be arson involved. They intended on torching her car, but she never showed. News was spreading fast. One of Panda’s friends at the police station filled him in when he poked around. The woman they’d arrested sang like a canary, terrified of prison. She hoped if she talked, they’d be more lenient on her like she’d seen on television shows. The plan was that she’d collect the second half of her money waiting in the cab, have enough to replace her car, and then leave town. Instead she’d be spending her time incarcerated. Taking the deal had been a seriously bad choice.
Panda drove to Paradise Cove, trying to find the wording. The older man on the examination table had been Poppy’s paramedic instructor years ago. They became friends, but lost touch after she stopped running with the rescue squad and started at the resort. The EMS crews usually knew each other, dispatch, firefighters, EMT’s, paramedics, cops, sheriffs, constables and more. Those working the street watched out for each other.
Panda pulled in and went inside to speak to his sister. He lowered his head. “…I’m sorry, Poppy. I thought you’d want to know.”
Poppy thanked her brother and tried to absorb the news. Gary Portsmith was in his mid-to late-sixties, had remarried after a nasty divorce, and had two grown children. The talk of the town was that his new wife was much younger than he was. In fact, she was younger than his grown children. It caused quite a stir and commotion. While his kids were in their early forties, his wife had only recently hit her thirties. People talk. Word got around.
He’d done alright for himself and had made some good investments. The gossip was that his wife was more interested in his credit card limit than the man himself. Of course, she played the role of devoted wife so nobody could really say for sure, but the word “gold digger” was used more than once when speaking of Gary’s wife.
His family would certainly be looked at, but what about his investments? Was he gambling? Did he owe anybody money? Who wanted him dead? What about his ex-wife?
Poppy knew where Gary lived, because after she graduated her paramedic training course, Gary held a party at his house for the class he’d taught. Of course, maybe he’d moved. That was eons ago, and he was still living with his first wife at the time. Maybe she owned the house. Either way, she’d go see if any of the Portersmith family was still residing at Gator Spring Ponds.
The next morning, after Poppy handled check-outs, she left her father in charge. She was heading to the large development off of Route 27, about thirty minutes from where the resort was. The stone entryway led down a palm tree lined drive. They’d been perfectly planted exactly twenty feet apart, one after the
other. Gator Spring Ponds was a development of two story houses, mostly four and five bedroom homes with screened in pools and manicured lawns. She hadn’t been there in ages. What if he no longer lived there? And what was she going to say?
Poppy pulled up to the front of the house she remembered. Thankfully, it was a corner lot with memorable appeal. She sat looking at it. There were cars in the driveway. Poppy got out of the car, not sure what she was doing, and was about ring the bell when she heard shouting. There was a heated argument going on. She could hear bits and pieces through the door. She stood eavesdropping. Words like ‘greed’, ‘insurance’, and ‘money’ were accentuated. She knew what to do. She had a plan. Poppy rang the doorbell.
A tall, blonde woman answered the door. “Can I help you?”
Poppy stuck her hand out. “Hi, I’m an insurance investigator. We heard about your…father’s passing.”
The woman sighed. “I’m his wife.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. We heard about your husband’s passing. I’m here to ask a few questions before we can release a check and cash out your husband’s insurance policy. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but due to the unfortunate situation, it’s standard procedure,” she said. Poppy’s heart was beating a million beats a minute and her palms grew sweaty.
The woman stared and then shook out of her daze. “Sure, yeah, come inside.” She led her to the living room. Two grown women were sitting on the sofa.
“Insurance investigator,” the woman said. She turned to Poppy. “These are Gary’s children.”
The women glared at Poppy, obviously having been interrupted. One of the women questioned Poppy. “Don’t you need to write things down?” She noticed the lack of pen and paper.
Poppy pulled out her phone. “I prefer to record interviews,’ she said, trying to remain calm and in control. “First, do you know if your father had any enemies or people that wanted him dead?”
