Murder is the Pits (2 page)

Penny Sue sipped her coffee thoughtfully. I
marveled that smoke didn’t billow from her ears, the wheels in her
head were whirling so fast.

“Better safe than sorry. That’s our first
priority tomorrow. You have the day off, don’t you, Leigh?”

“I took the whole week off in case we have
to go to Orlando for the depositions.”

“Good,” she said emphatically. “A box of
supplies won’t take much effort, and we really should do it before
a storm heads this way. If we wait, grocery shelves will be bare.
It may already be too late. Stores sell out of water, bread, and
toilet paper first thing.”

Water and bread I could understand. Toilet
paper? The stress of the storms gave everyone the runs? Possible, I
suppose. In any event, I wasn’t going to argue with Penny Sue.
She’d morphed into her take-charge, schoolteacher persona. There
was no reasoning with that one.

Understand, Penny Sue is not a multiple
personality. She’s simply a Leo, who has to be on top and in
charge. God forbid something should happen that she wasn’t prepared
for. Yet, a kinder person you’d never find. “You’ve never been
loved until you’ve been loved by a Leo,” Ruthie had said
repeatedly. “They’re generous to a fault.” But, like the lion in
the
Wizard of Oz
, you’d better acknowledge a Leo’s
generosity and importance or that big ego was shattered. She didn’t
cry like Dorothy’s hairy friend in Oz—a pout was more Penny Sue’s
style. You could tell her feelings were hurt when her lower lip
protruded.

Of course, with the silicon lip injections
Hollywood stars got nowadays, it was hard to tell when they were
sulking. To me, most movie stars looked like they were pouting or,
worse, had recently been backhanded in the mouth.

“I don’t want to stay in that closet again.
If Charley heads this way, we should evacuate, don’t you think?”
Ruthie said nervously.

Penny Sue ran her fingers through her
meticulously streaked hair—four colors, she’d informed us, a three
hundred dollar job. “There’s no need to run if it’s only a Category
1 storm that’s moving fast. Heck, those things only last a few
hours. A little champagne and caviar and you won’t even notice
it.”

Ruthie looked doubtful. “Don’t you remember
how hot the room got the last time?”

I snatched a coaster and put my mug on the
coffee table. “Guess what? There’s a vent at the back of the
closet. I found it when I packed away my linens and discovered it
was closed.”

“All that sweating for nothing?” Penny Sue
went to the closet and peeked in. She reeled backward, bumping Lu
Nee 2, which unleashed a torrent of “Whoops!, Watch outs!, Take me
to your leader.”

“Lord,” she grumbled, smacking the button on
Lu Nee’s head. “Where did all this stuff come from?”

I cleared my throat. “Well,” I started
sheepishly, “I had to move out of my house fast and didn’t have
time to sort through everything. So I brought it with me.”

Penny Sue stared, pointing at the closet.
“Don’t tell me these are the linens Zack took half of? Like these
are all bottom sheets, no tops?”

Yep, the rat took all the tops, no bottoms.
One of each pair of pillowcases. I smiled weakly, hating to admit
my foolishness.

“Well, it’s got to go. We need room for a
cooler and some chairs.” Penny Sue screwed her nose up. “Why do you
want that stuff? It’s no good—you don’t have a complete set of
anything. Bad memories, it’s nothing but bad memories. Put the past
behind you. Throw them away.”

She was right; I didn’t have a whole set of
anything, thanks to my sleazy ex-husband. The worm took half of
everything in our house. Half the pictures on the wall, half the
furniture, and half of each set of china and crystal, and we had a
lot—several generations of china from both our families. As the old
joke goes, if Jesus came back to feed the ten thousand, a Southern
woman would have a place setting for everyone.

The sneaky beast had waited until I went to
visit my parents then swooped in like a vulture. The hatefulness
stunned me, considering he was responsible for the divorce. Mr. Big
Shot Attorney found himself a young stripper while he entertained
clients. And the sleazebag had the gall to rent a house for his
mistress in our neighborhood. Every night I went to bed thinking he
was sanding wood in his garage workshop. Hell, he was stroking
silicon breasts!

His scam worked for over a year, until our
daughter, Ann, was picked up for DUI late one night. I went to the
garage to tell Zack. His car was gone.

“Why are you glaring at me?” Penny Sue
asked, her bottom lip inching forward. “Keep the linens, if you
want. It was only a suggestion.”

“Sorry,” I said, shaking off the rotten
memories. “I was thinking of Zack.”

Penny Sue nodded sympathetically. A person
who’d been around the altar three times, she had her own
regrets—the worst being Sydney, her second husband, who turned out
to be bisexual. It’s one thing to be dumped for a woman, and quite
another to be dumped for a man. That was a real slap in the face
for her, as well as for Judge Parker. Yep, her daddy took Sydney’s
shenanigans very personally. Penny Sue is quite wealthy as a result
of that parting.

“Sorry, Leigh, I didn’t mean to drag up
dirty linen.” She smirked, pleased with her witticism.

I rolled my eyes.

“What if it’s a Category 2 storm?” Ruthie
asked anxiously, having missed the whole conversation about Zack.
“We won’t stay then, will we? There would probably be storm surge;
we could be flooded.”

Penny Sue huffed. “There are two big dunes
between us and the beach, for crissakes. If it makes you feel
better, we’ll evacuate for a Category 2. Of course, that means
we’ll have to go to a school and sit in a hallway with a bunch of
screaming kids.”

“School?” Ruthie repeated, biting her
fingernail. “I figured we’d go to one of the hotels in Orlando or
St. Augustine.”

“
If
we can get a room. This is
tourist season—everything’s already booked.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ruthie
replied.

Our sensitive friend was working herself
into a tizzy. Ruthie had run her hands through her hair so many
times her bangs were standing straight up. I patted her knee
reassuringly. “Don’t worry—the storm won’t hit us. It’s south of
Cuba and headed for the Gulf. We’ll lay in supplies as a
precaution. New Smyrna has never taken a direct hit.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. Did you ever
think that we might be overdue? Besides, a glancing blow from a
Category 2 storm is nothing to sneeze at. Winds can be as high as
110 mph.” Her voice was up an octave. “Imagine driving a car at 110
mph and sticking your arm out of the window. Think how that would
feel!”

Ouch! I’d never thought in those terms. My
stomach suddenly knotted. “Maybe we should try to find a
hotel.”

“Y’all are worrywarts,” Penny Sue said,
eyeing the clock. “Only a few minutes left of my birthday, and
you’re whining about something that may never happen.” She sashayed
to the kitchen and poured herself a Bailey’s on the rocks. “Come
on, let’s party!” She held her drink up.

Ruthie and I shook our heads. One
liquor-laced coffee was enough.

“I know what you need.” Penny Sue pushed the
CD for
Midlife Crisis
into the boom box and turned the
volume to high. The musical’s spoof of “Heat Wave” bounced from the
vaulted ceiling.

Glass held high, Penny Sue twirled to the
driving rhythm. Suddenly, she planted her feet. Snapping her
fingers like the dance scene in
West Side Story
, she gyrated
toward us, stopped within inches of our faces and crooned, “It’s a
hot flash burning up my spine. … A hot flash that makes my forehead
shine.” She snapped her fingers. “Come on,” she chided, “don’t be
sticks in the mud.”

The energy was infectious. I glanced at
Ruthie, who shrugged and giggled. “What the hell?”

Next thing I knew, Ruthie and I were gulping
wine, shaking our booties, and singing three-part harmony.

The heck with Charley! Tomorrow was another
day. Now, we were going to party for the last few minutes of Penny
Sue’s birthday.

* * *

August 13, New Smyrna Beach, FL

Rinn-ng, rinn-ng. B
AM
, BAM,
BAM. “Halt, who goes there?” Lu Nee 2’s mechanical voice
squawked.

I rolled to my side and checked the clock.
Eight
AM
. What dimwit would come calling
at eight in the morning? Then I realized it was Friday the
thirteenth. Fitting. I hoped this wasn’t an omen for the rest of
the day. I snatched my robe from the end of the bed and headed down
the hall followed by Ruthie. Penny Sue was already at the door, eye
pressed against the peephole, hands holding her head. It looked
like she’d slightly over-celebrated with the Bailey’s Irish
Cream.

Penny Sue was a sight, as my mother says,
with her hair standing on end and mascara streaking her cheeks. The
only saving grace was a spiffy, pink print kimono.

“It’s a tall, skinny guy with salt and
pepper hair,” she whispered.

I nudged her aside and took a look. “That’s
Guthrie.”

Penny Sue regarded me like I’d dropped in
from outer space. “Guthrie? Who the heck,” she paused to massage
her temples, “is Guthrie? What kind of name is that?”

“He’s staying in the two-story unit on the
far left. His name is Guthrie Fribble.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Guthrie
Fribble? You’ve got to be kidding.” She turned on her heel. “It’s
barely light, for godsakes! I’m not in the mood for Fribble’s
dribble.” She stomped past me to the master suite and slammed the
door.

BAM, BAM, BAM. Whether Guthrie heard Penny
Sue’s comment, I don’t know, but he was not giving up. “Leigh, it’s
me, Guthrie. Something’s happened! Something bad,” he shouted.

Penny Sue must have been listening from her
bedroom. The “something bad” apparently got her attention. She
barreled from her room and opened the front door.

The three of us must have been an eye full,
because Guthrie went mute.

“What happened?” Penny Sue demanded.

Guthrie, barefooted and dressed in baggy
jeans with a very faded Arlo Guthrie tee shirt, backed away.

I patted the air soothingly. “Sorry, you
woke us up.” Guthrie was an old hippie—about 50, I guessed—who
might have done a few too many drugs in his youth. Still, he was a
neighbor who’d been staying in his aunt and uncle’s place for the
last few months. My intuition said he was gay, though it really
didn’t make any difference. He’d always been nice to me and was a
good guy as far as I could tell. “What happened?”

“Little Mrs. King’s in the hospital. Someone
tried to break into her condo, and she had a heart attack.”

My hand went to my mouth. I had no idea who
he was talking about. “Mrs. King?” I asked sheepishly.

“My next door neighbor.”

Oh, that lady. She was a quiet, sweet widow
approaching 80, whom I knew as Nana.

“Someone broke into her house?” Penny Sue
asked.

“They tried to pry open the window in the
garage and set off the burglar alarm. The alarm must have scared
Nana and caused the heart attack. She had a weak heart, you
know.”

“I didn’t know about her heart,” I
confessed, feeling like a dirty dog for not taking more interest in
my neighbor.

Guthrie’s hand went to his heart. “And now
Hurricane Charley …”

“What about Charley?” Ruthie snapped, eyes
widening.

I pushed open the screen door, the rusty
spring stretching with a loud twang. “Let’s talk about this over
coffee.”

Guthrie took the stool at the corner of the
L-shaped bar. Ruthie flicked on the television that was still tuned
to the Weather Channel from the night before. While I scooped
Columbian grounds into Mr. Coffee, Penny Sue made toast.

“There, see?” Guthrie exclaimed, pointing at
the television and a jumble of colored lines fanning out from
Charley’s location. “Those are computer forecasts of the storm’s
path. Check out Mr. Yellow.”

Ruthie sank onto the sofa, her expression
grim. “It goes right through Central Florida and could become a
Category 3.”

Penny Sue slid a basket of toast, knives,
jelly, and stack of napkins on the counter. “A hurricane box is our
first priority.” She glanced at the clock. “The stores are probably
packed already.”

“Yeah, sure.” I passed Guthrie a mug of
coffee. “How is Nana?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Her alarm woke
me. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it. Luckily, she wore one of
those medical emergency necklaces. Like the ones in the commercial
where the lady falls and can’t get up. Nana had the strength to
push the button, so it couldn’t have been a massive heart attack.
The police and ambulance arrived at about the same time.”

“The burglars didn’t get in?”

“No, I guess the alarm scared them away. The
police are dusting for fingerprints now. Ten bucks says it was some
kids looking for quick cash. Dummies. That window had an alarm
sticker on it.”

Penny Sue washed down two ibuprofens with
her coffee. “Those warnings don’t make much difference. So many
people put up stickers who don’t have alarms, they’re not much of a
deterrent anymore.”

Guthrie nodded. “She doesn’t have an outside
bell, so the kids probably thought the sticker was a fake. Nana
told me the outside bell kept rusting in the salt air, and she was
tired of replacing it. She had an extra loud alarm installed
inside, figuring that noise would scare away thieves. Seems it
worked. Only, it nearly scared her
away
,” he glanced at the
ceiling, “like, permanently.”

Ruthie sat next to Guthrie and snagged a
piece of toast. “If Charley comes this way, will you stay?”

“I guess,” he said, waving at the radar
image on the TV. “Where would I go that’s not in the line of
fire?”