Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Box Set 2

by David Berens

  He found himself whistling as he worked and realized he felt better already…the double murder of Kim and Dana nearly pushed to the back of his mind. That was until Trixie Cameron came through the doors of the Austin. She was dressed in black, but not exactly a mourning outfit. It was a black tank top that didn’t quite cover her belly button and black jeans. Her hair was almost as dark as her clothing and Troy wondered if it was dyed. Trixie was Dana’s mother. She’d been sixteen when she had her daughter and she liked to say that folks around town often asked if they were sisters. Troy had been around enough to know that no one around town actually asked that.

  She pulled her sunglasses off her face as she entered and walked straight up to Troy. Dangit, he thought, this can’t be good. He braced himself for what could only be a rough confrontation. Trixie walked straight up to him and Troy put his hands up to surrender. He started to say he was really sorry, but before he could open his mouth, she wrapped her arms around him, laid her head on his chest and started sobbing.

  “It’s awful, isn’t it, Troy? My poor baby girl, gone too soon.”

  Stunned, he patted her back. “Yes, ma’am. It’s a dang shame.”

  She lifted her head and looked up into his eyes.

  “I know they thought you done it, but I know better, Troy. They told me down at the police station that you wasn’t even close to ‘em when they was killed.”

  “That’s right, Trixie. I wasn’t.”

  “They told me they’s workin’ on a few leads, but I know they don’t got shit.”

  Troy wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he just kept his mouth shut. After a few minutes, she let go of him, put her hand on his shoulder, and smiled at him.

  “You’re so sweet to have been hangin’ out with my Dana. She was so insecure and just needed friends. You and Kim were all she had.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I need something from you.”

  Troy took a step backward, unsure where this was going.

  “Well, now…ummm—.”

  “Five pounds of shrimp,” she said and pulled out her wallet.

  “Oh, uh, yeah, sure,” Troy felt relief ease into his mind. “What kind do you need?”

  “Just gimme the cheap stuff,” she said. “It’s for a memorial I’m hosting tonight at my house.”

  “Ah, okay, gotcha.”

  “In fact,” she winked at him, “why don’t you drop by for a bit.”

  “As much as I’d like to, I—.”

  “Nope. I won’t take no for an answer.” She took a pen from a cup on the counter and pulled out a napkin. “I live out at the Decharmarnel RV Park.”

  She scribbled the address and her number on the napkin and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

  “We’ll be goin’ all night, so just drop by when you can.”

  “Okay, but—.”

  “Good, it’s settled. See you tonight. And bring the shrimp, won’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  Troy watched as she pranced out of the store and smacked his forehead.

  “Looks like you got a date, Troy.” Fred, the manager on duty, laughed as he said it.

  “Not hardly. Least, not with her.”

  “Ohhhh,” Fred wiped his hands with a dirty rag. “Do tell.”

  “I’ll tell you ‘bout it tomorrow…unless I call in sick…and then you’ll know how it went anyhow.”

  “You dawg!”

  Troy smiled and headed back to the walk-in cooler. He was sure it smelled worse today than it ever had before…but maybe it was just his imagination. He pulled a couple of big bags of jumbo shrimp out and set about making Trixie’s order. I’ll meet up with Meira for dinner and grab these to drop ‘em off after, he thought, unless… But the more he tried to puzzle a way out of the dead girl’s memorial, he couldn’t think of anything. He thought he might text Barry and ask if he could come in and help out for an hour to help him put the big order together. He didn’t get an answer.

  Crap, no way out of this little predicament. Maybe Meira will ride out there with me, could be important to the case.

  He dumped the shrimp onto the prep table and started whistling again.

  Riley Carr stared at the boy across the table from her. He was supposed to be cute. He had looked cute in his online pic. At least, that’s what she had imagined when he invited her to come out to the store called Leviathan. Apparently, people weren’t always what they appeared to be online…even when they sent you a photo. She could tell he had used some kind of filter to make himself appear…well, smoother…than he did in real life. She couldn’t complain much. She had done much the same to her own photograph. But he paid attention to her, which was more than most of the boys at school could muster.

  His hair was a little brighter red, his cheeks were a little more freckled, and his nose was a little more pig-shaped than his photo had shown. But his eyes were exactly the same, and they were staring into hers right now.

  The table they sat at was littered with gaming magazines he’d bought for them and they were leafing through them discussing the newest and upcoming innovations in virtual reality games.

  When they had exhausted all of the small talk they could come up with, he had stunned her by asking her if she wanted to come over to his house.

  “Are you kidding me?” Riley sat back and shook her head as she said it. “My mother would absolutely kill me. Like, literally. Dead meat.”

  “Awww, c’mon,” he said. “Just tell her you’re at a sleepover or something. She’ll never suspect a thing. My mom’s not home and we’ll have the place all to ourselves.”

  He stuttered when she gave him a suspicious look and added, “ya know, to play games all night.”

  “First, she would never, ever go for that. I haven’t been to a sleepover in years. And second, I don’t have any friends that I would stay with anyway. And third, I’m already pushing my luck by being out here.”

  “Live a little,” he said through a greasy smile. “You know you want to.”

  “Yeah. No.” Riley began stuffing her magazines into her backpack. “In fact, I gotta go. It’s late and my mom’s gonna kill me anyway.”

  “That’s cool.” He stood up and took her hand. “Can I text you later?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  He handed her his phone and she typed in her cell number. She handed it back to him and it dinged with a new message.

  “Ah, shit,” he said in disgust.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I gotta go into work. Apparently, they got a special order in for some big party tonight and Troy can’t boil the damn shrimp by himself. Stupid idiot.”

  “Okay.” Riley arched her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. “Not even sure what that means, but that’s cool.”

  “Kim and Dana couldn’t deal with that stuff either. If I didn’t work there a couple days a week, that place would fall apart.”

  Riley gave him an awkward thumbs-up as she shouldered her backpack. She walked to the door and the bell tinkled as she opened it.

  “Hey, but I’ll text you tonight, okay?” he jutted his chin out trying to look cool.

  “Not after ten,” she pointed at him.

  “Got it.”

  Riley grabbed her bike and walked it to the road. She glanced at her watch. It was after six.

  “Mom’s gonna kill me,” she muttered to herself as she pedaled down the sidewalk.

  Troy walked into the Thai Room Restaurant and the smell of hot curry blasted him in the nose. Luckily, Barry had strolled into the Austin Fish Company and agreed to save the day and do the big order for Trixie Cameron.

  “I ain’t drivin’ that shit out there though,” he’d grumbled to Troy. “You’re the delivery boy on this one, dude.”

  Troy agreed and flung his grimy apron at the kid on the way out and promised he’d be back in an hour. He didn’t wait to hear Barry gripe any more about it.

  Meira Carr looked fully refreshed and beautiful
sitting at a small table for two. Her hair was pulled back in a tight blonde ponytail and wore a loose fitting, off the shoulder white blouse. Her lanky runner’s legs poked out of a pair of distressed denim shorts that were almost too short. Her skin was pink with her nose bordering on red. Troy guessed she looked that way from the sun she’d gotten on her run earlier. As he got closer, he realized she was glaring at her cell phone.

  “Trouble in paradise?” he asked as he pulled the second chair out from under the table.

  “Ugh, it’s nothing,” she said and sat down her phone. “My thirteen year old decided to go on an adventure on her own tonight to some gaming shop up the road. She’s sitting at home, grounded, and keeps trying to get me to tell her the new Wi-Fi password.”

  “Hmmm,” Troy said with a grin. “No Wi-Fi, home alone, nothin’ to do? Sounds wonderful to me.”

  Meira laughed. “Yeah, me too. Not so much for a teenage girl I guess.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  She laughed again. Putting her phone down, she slid a menu over to Troy. He looked over if for a minute and then put it down.

  “Well, I ain’t got a clue what’s good here. You feel like makin’ a recommendation?”

  “You like shrimp?”

  Troy snorted and licked his lips. She smiled and winked at him.

  “Then you’ve got to try the Thai Shrimp Curry. How hot?”

  “They got Corona here?”

  She nodded.

  “Then I’ll take it as hot as they got.”

  “You sure about that? Curry is pretty darn hot.”

  “Bring it on.”

  A few minutes later, the waiter sat their plates in front of them. Ten minutes and four beers later, Troy was mopping his forehead and cheeks.

  “Dangit, woman, you weren’t kiddin’. That’s some hot stuff right there.”

  Meira grinned at him.

  “You shoulda warned me!” he joked.

  “I tried!”

  “Whew, I’m gonna get a box and save the rest…which I’ll be throwin’ in the ocean after you leave.”

  She leaned back in her chair and wiped her mouth.

  “If you’re going to throw it out, I’ll take it with me.”

  “It’s all yours.”

  Troy waved the waiter over and ordered two more Coronas. The Thai Room didn’t have any sliced oranges, so he settled for lime wedges. His mouth was on fire.

  “That stuff’s hotter’n a two dollar call girl with a fifty-dollar bill. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

  “Takes practice. You’ll get used to it.”

  “You invitin’ me to a second date?”

  “We’ll see.”

  A silence fell between them, but it wasn’t awkward at all. It was sweet. Troy wondered if he was imagining it, but she reached out and touched his hand. He found himself telling her all about his adventures in Pawleys Island, down in the Keys, up to Savannah, and now here… He realized he was telling her everything. There was something about her that made him open up. He hadn’t done that in a long time. Not since…Karah. He felt himself drift down that memory until she startled him out of it.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you called me and we’ll go from there. That could have a lot to do with whether or not we do this again.”

  Troy took a deep breath. “I s’pose you heard about those two girls gettin’ murdered?”

  She nodded and he leaned closer and lowered his voice.

  “ ‘Bout how they got their heads cut off and such?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes revealed suspicion.

  “Well, I worked with ‘em down at the Austin Fish Company.”

  “Oh?” She said taking her hand away from his.

  “Yeah.”

  She started to say something, but he held up a hand to stop her.

  “There’s more.”

  He described how he’d found their heads in lobster traps that were attached to his boat. And how he’d found two of his beds soaked in their blood. He watched as her unease became full-on fear as he told the story.

  “But as bad as it sounds, I’m clean of it all. There’s a lot of stuff the police have that shows it wasn’t me. You can check it all out if you want.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah. Guess there won’t be a second date after all.”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” she said, but a wall had clearly gone up between them. “I’ll check all this out at the police station tomorrow and give you a call. I know Darla pretty well. She’ll show me the files.”

  For a few minutes, they said nothing and she waved the waiter over for the check. It looked like she was calling this date to an end. Troy felt his stomach lurch as he swallowed the last Corona. He knew he was going pay for the curry in his belly. His cell beeped and he looked down to see a message from Barry.

  -Shrimp done. All yours delivery boy.

  “Okay, well,” Troy stood and opened his wallet. “I’ve got a delivery I gotta get out of the store. Maybe look up that stuff and call me tomorrow?”

  “Deal.”

  He put two twenties down on the table and tipped his hat to her. He turned and walked out wondering if she would ever call again. He found himself hoping she would.

  7

  Peace and Blessings

  The Decharmarnel RV Park was always home to a flood of tourists who drove their mobile homes around the country and found this ocean front location to be a fantastic place to stay. But there were a fair number of trailers that were not going anywhere anytime soon. Semi-permanent tin cans of redneck living crowded row after row of the trailers sporting satellite dishes, clotheslines, picnic tables, portable grills, an occasional pirate flag, and sometimes…chickens. Pets weren’t strictly allowed, but there always seemed to be a dog or cat poking around looking for scraps left on tables in the early morning and late at night. Troy eased his borrowed truck into an empty gravel spot at the front of the park. It was dark except for a few flickering fires smoldering around him.

  He almost stepped on a shaggy golden retriever lying under a charcoal grill licking the metal legs. He had a flashback to Afghanistan, but couldn’t quite remember the story that went along with the memory. The dog looked up at him and sniffed at the cooler he was carrying with Trixie Cameron’s five pounds of shrimp inside.

  “Sorry, buddy. Can’t give you any now, but I’m bettin’ if you hang around long enough, there’ll be some shells scattered about.”

  The dog snorted and went back to licking the grill. Troy pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and found the lot number of the grieving mother’s trailer. He ambled down the rows of RV’s nodding to various vacationers, squatters, and vagrants huddled around campfires and picnic tables. The strong odor of citronella wafted out from every direction almost cancelling out the smell of the tide. Troy thought more than once about telling these people that citronella had almost no effect on the bugs that were biting them…but he never did. Let them have their false sense of security.

  When he turned the corner of the second row, he was shocked to see the…contraption…sitting in the spot Mrs. Cameron had scribbled on the piece of paper. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t what he saw. An over-the-cab RV with no sign of its original paint showing, hunched in the space on four rusted wheels. None of them even had a dry-rotted tire to give it the impression that it might ever move again.

  The sides of the trailer were hand-painted in wild blues, oranges, yellows, greens, and reds with stars, swirls, circles, diamonds, spots, paisleys, flowers, and hearts. On top of the trailer was a pile of junk that seemed likely to start falling off and crashing to the ground any second now. Ladders, crumpled metal barrels, an old grill, the remnants of a crib, a crutch, two bicycles both missing their tires, a couple of suitcases – the Samsonite kind – and various unidentifiable hunks of rusty metal perched precariously on top of the vehicle.

  The passenger’s side of the windshield was also painted over with a
yellow and purple peace sign. The view into the driver’s side was obstructed with a velvet painting of Jesus. Troy tipped his cap to the smiling image and took a long slow breath.

  He walked to the side of the trailer and rapped his knuckles on the door through a torn screen. He could hear the sounds of music drifting through the open windows and Bob Marley told him not to worry ‘bout a ting.

  “Hold your horses. I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” Trixie’s voice echoed from inside.

  The sounds of someone stomping through the trailer and maybe throwing things out of the way rattled around, as she got closer to the door. She jerked the door open with a loud squeak and a bang as it flung to the side.

  “What is it?”

  She stood in the doorway, one arm propped above her head leaning against the doorjamb. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was a rat’s nest. She didn’t look anything like she had earlier when she came by to order the shrimp. Also gone were the black jeans she’d had on, replaced by a pair of rebel flag boxers. They hung loosely on her hips threatening to fall to her ankles. The tank top was skewed to the side, one shoulder hanging off. It was like that scene from Flashdance, but on acid.

  “Got yer shrimp.” Troy held up the white Styrofoam cooler and shook it a little.

  Trixie Cameron struggled to make sense of what he’d said. Troy could almost see the fog in her mind trying desperately to clear. She stoned out of her gourd, he thought.

  “You know…for the memorial gatherin’?”

  Something seemed to click and she smiled.

  “Right, right,” she said.