1 Margarita Nights (10 page)

He frowned. “Now, if you don’t mind.”

I did mind, but my head hurt too much to argue. I just followed him to his car like a whipped puppy, sagging down in the seat and closing my eyes, praying I wouldn’t hoop all over his pristine upholstery.

When we arrived at the police building, just following him inside had me feeling like a criminal. By the time he led me through the reception area, down a corridor to a small closetsized room with no windows, I was ready to confess to anything.

Styles turned on the fluorescent lights and pulled a wooden chair out from a small oak table. “I’ll be back in a minute. Make yourself comfortable.”

There wasn’t much chance of that happening. I lowered myself carefully down, concentrating on keeping my two areas of pain, my head and my stomach, from colliding. I waited. And then I waited some more. If this was the new form of police brutality it was very effective.

A troop of cops going by the open door looked into the cubbyhole to see what kind of criminal it contained, studying me as if they were memorizing my face for the next time they saw it, which would probably be on a police bulletin in the post office. They went away and left me to sink back into my misery. I sat there for another half-hour. I needed water, lots and lots of water. I was contemplating how much extra trouble I’d be in if I just walked out when a voice said, “Hi, Sherri.”

Jadene Scarlotti smiled at me from the door. It was easy to see that her teeth were brushed and she’d had a shower that morning. And I’d have bet any money that she hadn’t spent the night before drinking margaritas and smoking way too many cigarettes. Jadene was always a responsible adult—even at sixteen when we’d sat next to each other in Chemistry class and she’d ratted me out on a silly practical joke that filled the lab with the sulfur smell of rotten eggs. She’d always been middleaged, respectable and well over on the side of authority. Now she worked for the Jacaranda Police Department as a dispatcher . . . polyester police from the get go.

Maybe that’s why I’d never liked her. Far too perfect for me. Today she was dressed in a severe beige suit, a little too tight around the ass, but hey I understood how that could happen, and a high-collared lace blouse, about as sexy as a bowl of prunes.

“Hi yourself,” I replied. Now call me a cynic, but wasn’t it strange that she showed up at this door out of all the rooms in the building? And she wasn’t the least bit surprised to find me there, didn’t even ask why I was there.

“Are you all right? Can I get you anything?” she asked.

I shook my head, a big mistake.

“I was sorry to hear about Jimmy.”

I stretched my mouth at her and looked away.

Never one to take a hint, she came into the room and sat on a chair across from me. She reached out to touch me but I jerked back and buried my hands in my lap beneath the table. She looked a bit startled but this girl was a stayer. “What do you think happened?” Her blue eyes were all sincere behind her blue oblong glasses.

“I think there has been a gigantic mistake. I think Jimmy is still alive and the sooner you people start looking for him, the happier I’ll be.”

“Well,” she said and gave me a weak little smile while she hunted for the perfect question to make me confess. The pale pink lipstick barely defined her mouth. “I’m sorry for your loss anyway.”

She sat there for an uneasy moment. “I understand you and Jimmy weren’t together anymore.”

I had the silence thing down to an art form. I dug around in my bag and found a hair clip at the bottom. I pulled the hair back from my face, rolling it into a knot and set the clip in place. Jadene wasn’t done yet. “When did you see Jimmy last?” I didn’t owe her anything, even politeness. I dug out my nail file and set to work.

The girl could take a hint. She pushed up from the table and left the room.

Within two minutes, Styles came through the door. And he started in on all the questions he had asked the day before, but this time there was a tape recorder. Finally he ran out of questions or grew bored with the same answers I’d already given. “Is there anything you’d like to add?” he asked.

“Jimmy wasn’t on the
Suncoaster
when it blew up. I think he left for the Bahamas yesterday morning on a boat called the
Hollidaze
. It’s out of Boca Grande and captained by a Captain Jessie Whiting.”

He wasn’t impressed. “Tell me about Mr. Beckworth? Are you having an affair with Mr. Beckworth?”

“None of your business.”

“This is a murder investigation.” Close to losing his cool, Styles’ voice now held an edge of anger. A small victory. “A murder investigation makes it my business,” he said. I reached up and resettled my hair clip.

“You don’t seem to realize a crime has been committed here.”

I crossed my arms and gave him my eat-shit stare, the one I used on guidance counselors back in high school.

Styles looked like he had indigestion. “Your husband’s truck is still in the parking lot at the boat launch. You can move it now. We’re done with it.” “What about the
Hollidaze
?”

“I’ll check it out.” He stood up and reached into his suit jacket. He laid a small brown envelope on the table in front of me. “The truck wasn’t locked. We found these under the floor mats.”

I smiled. “Jimmy never locks anything.”

“He’s dead, Mrs. Travis. And right now you’re the only one with a reason to kill him. You can drop the ‘my husband’s still alive’ act.”

The black-and-yellow cruiser dropped me off at the public boat ramp where Jimmy’s cherry red four-door Ford pickup sat in the empty parking lot. The sun glinted off the ton of chrome lining its sides, running board and dual exhausts. It yelled, “Hey, look at me”—bold and exciting just like Jimmy.

Seeing the truck, a huge emptiness opened up inside of me. I turned away from the last tangible piece of Jimmy. Crossing my arms tightly over my chest, holding myself together, looking everywhere but at the stupid truck Jimmy loved, I walked over to the concrete ramp where people backed their boat trailers into the Intracoastal Waterway.

It was a day designed by the board of trade to lure tourists and their money from the snow up North, a clear fine day, a good day to be out on the water with temperatures in the seventies, warm for January. The incoming tide gently lapped at the shoreline at my feet. I stood there between clumps of seagrapes and searched the water, looking for some sign that would tell me what had happened, why a ball of flame had shot into the sky. A light breeze smelling of saltwater and fish was blowing, but I was sure I could smell gas and burning wreckage. Only the remains of a horseshoe crab at my feet spoke of death. There was no debris. No charred remains of boat or man. No sign left on the water of the
Suncoaster
, or of Jimmy—just sunlight dancing off water nearly as blue as the sky. A brown pelican flew north up the Inland Waterway towards Jacaranda, its wings going up and down in the same unhurried peaceful rhythm all pelicans seem to use, like they’re going to fall out of the sky at any second if they didn’t flap harder.

The truck cab was hot as hell. Careful to avoid any scalding hard surfaces, I slid onto the old towel Jimmy had thrown over the vinyl upholstery. Jimmy sure hadn’t gotten any tidier living alone—there was more flotsam and jetsam in the cab than along the waterline. The passenger’s seat and floor where covered with fast-food containers, dirty clothes and empty cigarette packs, the miscellany of his life.

Who did the truck belong to now? Likely the bank or a lease company; for sure Jimmy hadn’t paid for it. I started the truck as the police cruiser pulled slowly out of the parking lot.

The radio was playing a song about a guy that was a long time gone. The witch must have been shaken by Jimmy’s music choices. Jimmy had even less class than I did and, whether his parents liked to acknowledge it or not, Jimmy was even more of a redneck than I was.

Outside my door a basket of white lilies waited. The card said “Thinking of you,” and was signed Cordelia and Noble.

I let myself in, leaned back against the door with the pungent lilies cradled in my arms and listened to the emptiness. Evan, sweetie and good housekeeper that he was, had closed all the windows before leaving my apartment. A cloying smell of floral scents assaulted me. I opened the sliding door and waved a tea towel madly about to move the air.

I showered and dressed in what the witch would call my white trash clothes—a cropped stretch top in pale pink, with a heart cutout edged in red glitter to show maximum cleavage, and ragged-ass cutoffs, low enough to show off my navel ring. I looked like nobody’s idea of a grieving widow, except maybe the grieving ho widow from hell. I should stop by and see Bernice . . . see how she was coping.

I headed for Big Red with a garbage bag. Styles said the police had checked the truck and hadn’t found anything, but they didn’t know Jimmy like I did. Somewhere there had to be a clue to what he was up to.

I checked all the crumbled bills and receipts I found in the glove compartment before I dropped them in the bag. In a plastic sleeve behind the visor on the driver’s side I found an old picture of me in my red cheerleading costume. I threw it quickly in the trash and then just as quickly retrieved it and shoved it in my back pocket. It was a picture that had been in Jimmy’s wallet for years.

The Ford had a crew cab and the seat was piled with a dozen boxes of new golf shoes, stock probably belonging to Windimere. I opened every box and took a good look inside. All I found was a bill with the supplier’s name on it. A name and telephone number was written at the bottom in Jimmy’s handwriting. It went into the pocket of my shorts with the picture.

After I finished emptying out the truck, even looking under the seats and running an old T-shirt of Jimmy’s over the interior to take off the dust, I wasn’t any the wiser. The hinged cap that covered the bed of the Ford was locked but its key was on the ring with the ignition key. The box contained mismatched golf clubs, fishing equipment, the spare tire, a plastic garbage bag containing what looked and smelled like dirty washing, and a cooler with crushed Coors cans, melted cold packs, as well as some food thing gone green and slimy that I didn’t even want to think about. I didn’t find any travel brochures for South America.

Upstairs, I ignored the blinking message light and called the number Jimmy had written on the bottom of the bill. The wall clock read a quarter to five. If it was an office number they might not answer but if it was a cell phone I might get lucky. A man answered and identified himself as Bill Jackson.

“Mr. Jackson, my name is Sherri Travis. My husband Jimmy has some shoes that you supplied.”

“Look, Mrs. Travis, I am sorry to hear about your husband but this has nothing to do with you. I supply Windimere with product and if someone on your husband’s staff is padding the cost it isn’t my problem. I told him that two days ago when he called. There was no need for him to fly off the handle like he did. He had a real mouth on him.” “Which staff member is doing the fiddle?” Silence thundered down the line. At last he said, “I think that’s all I have to say, Mrs. Travis. Goodbye.”

If someone was skimming off the owners out at Windimere and Jimmy was about to blow the whistle, was that a good enough reason to make the
Suncoaster
disappear?

And did I have anything better to do with my time then take a trip out to Windimere? The shoes were a perfect excuse.

It was getting dark. Everyone would either be gone or about to leave. I’d have to hustle. Nothing happens on a golf course after dark—well, nothing good.

I climbed into the pickup. Until someone came to claim Big Red he was all mine and I planned on enjoying him.