Murder is the Pits (26 page)

“There are two groups, and they don’t seem
to like each other,” Chris shrieked.

“Like the wreck on Route 1,” I mumbled.

“Well, they’re not getting me. This baby can
out maneuver those lardass boats any day.” Chris took a right at
the first intersection, a left on Cordova to King, and onward to
Route 1. “Do you seem them?”

“Yes, but they’re far back.”

“Good, I know where we can lose them.” She
hung a left on Route 1, drove a ways, switched off her lights, and
turned into the San Lorenzo Cemetery. We bumped down a dirt road
and parked behind the caretakers’ building with a clear view of the
entrance. We stared at the gateway, praying headlights would not
appear. No such luck.

“Damn! They probably bugged your car,” Penny
Sue cursed. “We’re sitting ducks—we’ve got to get out of here.”

We exploded from the Toyota and made a
beeline for a chapel in the middle of the cemetery. I lugged the
taser, Penny Sue had her .38. We left our pocketbooks behind, which
showed how scared we were. No Southern woman would be caught dead
without her pocketbook. It was the dead part I didn’t like. Hell
with tradition, the purses were on their own!

“Millie says we should find a guy with a
skull, then run to the right, toward the woods,” Ruthie panted.

“Guy with a skull?” Penny Sue called over
her shoulder. “Are you sure Millie’s a friendly ghost?”

“Look, I just call it as I get it,” Ruthie
snapped.

We reached the chapel and scanned the area
for a man with a skull. All we saw was row after row of small
crosses.

“Millie says nuns,” Ruthie nodded at the
crosses, “and we should go around to the front.”

We picked our way slowly, hugging the side
of the building. The car that turned into the cemetery had parked
behind ours.

“Hurry,” I started to say, but stopped as
another car entered the graveyard and cut its lights. “Geez, more
company.” We rushed around the corner and came face-to-face with a
giant marble statue of a man holding a skull.

“Crissakes,” Penny Sue exclaimed, backing
up. The skull glowed in moonlight streaming through a break in the
clouds. “Who’s that, the saint of death?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Ruthie
replied in a controlled shriek. “To the woods. Here they come!” We
bent down as low as we could and ran like hell toward the
trees.

By this time, the men who’d parked behind
the Toyota realized we weren’t at home and had started searching
for us with halogen flashlights. Their view obstructed by the
caretaker’s building, they obviously didn’t realize they had
company. Three lights fanned out from the first car, heading in our
general direction. A moment later, our worst fear materialized. One
of the beams caught Ruthie, who was in the lead. “Millie says
jump.” And Ruthie disappeared.

We stopped in our tracks. “What tha—?” Penny
Sue started.

“Down here. Jump!”

Lordy, Ruthie had jumped into a pit—no, a
freshly dug grave!

“A grave? I’m not hopping in a grave,” Penny
Sue declared.

A shot rang out, and one of the flashlights
fell to the ground. That was all the encouragement needed, we
jumped and landed in a thick layer of mud. Thankfully, I’d held the
taser over my head, so it wasn’t damaged.

We sat on our haunches in a good foot of
mud, too scared to move. A flurry of gunfire reverberated around
us. We heard a man scream, then a loud curse in a foreign language.
Silence. Another shot, and a curse in a different language. Then
the weirdest thing happened, the sky above lit up with a pulsating
blue. The light bounced off the thunderheads and filled the pit,
giving us the first look we’d had of each other since we left the
store. Faces full of terror, covered in mud, we were a pitiful
sight, to say the least.

“Remember that Speilberg mini-series about
the little blonde girl who was really an alien?” Penny Sue said,
her voice trembling, face raised to the heavens. “I think we’re
about to be beamed up like she was at the end of the show.”

“You think you’re an alien?” I quipped.

“Not me … Ruthie! This is exactly the way it
looked when the aliens came for the little girl.”

As Penny Sue searched the sky for a
spaceship, Chris inched upward to peer over the edge of the grave.
“Aliens, hell. It’s the cops!”

* * *

September 6-8, New Smyrna Beach, FL

The next day
at eleven-fifteen
AM
, the East Coast alerts for Frances were
officially lifted. Chris, Ruthie, Penny Sue, and I raised our
Mimosas and toasted the hurricane’s departure as we sat in the bar
area of the Casa Monica Hotel with a good view of the TV.

“And, to Woody, who helped us for a change,”
I added. Chris and Ruthie tipped their glasses. Penny Sue scowled.
“Come on, Penny Sue, Woody deserves some credit, you have to admit
that.”

“He was doing his job.”

“True, but he saved our hides.”

She squinched her nose, yet begrudgingly
lifted her drink. “To Woody. About time he did something
constructive.”

The information I gave Woody about the
wrecked Taurus and our being followed made its way to the St.
Augustine Police Department and the area office of the FBI. While
we played poker at Chris’ store, the FBI checked our cars in the
Casa Monica garage. They found tracking devices, deciphered the
frequency, and gambled that the gang would use it again. They were
a little late staking out The Rising Moon, so missed the action
there, but located Chris’ car in the cemetery and arrived in the
middle of the shootout.

“Quite a catch,” John, the lead agent for
the FBI task force, gloated when we picked the two men out of the
lineup who’d followed us from New Smyrna Beach. Frankie, Penny
Sue’s heartthrob, turned out to be an underboss in the Italian
Mafia. The guy with the snake necklace was a notorious character
from the Russian mob. Who was chasing whom, and for what reason,
was unclear, since no one would talk. In any event, the FBI thought
both gangs would lay low for a while, putting us in the clear.

So we were celebrating and biding our time
until we could go back to New Smyrna Beach. According to Woody,
damage was extensive—a combination of wind and thirty-six hours of
rain—and the power on the island remained off. He advised us to
stay in St. Augustine for a while (probably hoping we’d stay
forever), since many roads were impassible from downed trees, not
to mention the massive traffic jams and gas shortages caused by
returning evacuees.

Another time we would have headed for St.
Augustine’s Old Town shopping district or the outlet malls. On this
Labor Day, most stores were closed, so we had to settle for
massages at the hotel. Too bad, oh, twist my arm! I, for one,
intended to plop in the hot tub as soon as we finished lunch.

Our sandwiches arrived. “Wait,” Chris said,
catching Penny Sue with a wedge of club sandwich halfway to her
mouth. “One more toast.” Penny Sue put her sandwich down
reluctantly and reached for her Mimosa. Chris stood and we followed
suit. “To us!”

“To us.”

“And Millie,” Ruthie added.

“To Millie.”

“And victory in the race!”

“Victory!” We clicked our glasses and did a
sloppy high five.

I was about to chomp down on the biggest,
juiciest hamburger on the planet when my cell phone rang. I checked
the display—it was Guthrie. I longingly eyed my burger and debated
whether to answer. Guess I should—he might be calling about the
condo. “Hello?”

“Man, are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine. I’m in St. Augustine with Penny Sue
and Ruthie. How about you?”

“Peachy, considering there’s no electricity
and,” I could hear him cup his hand around the mouthpiece of the
phone, “Timothy’s mother is driving me batty. She calls me Guppy
and is crazy as a loon. Like, when are you coming home?”

“The electricity is out all over the island.
We’re planning to stay here for another couple of days.” I glanced
at Penny Sue who’d already eaten half of her sandwich. “Can I call
you back? We’re in the middle of lunch.”

“No prob. I’ll be here playing Scrabble with
Mother.” His hand went around the mouthpiece again. “She
cheats!”

Suffering from news deficit with all the
commotion of the past few days, Ruthie carried the tiny
battery-operated TV to the spa. How anyone could relax with a
massage as she watched the news was beyond me. I suppose being
informed was a security blanket for Ruthie, insuring she wouldn’t
be surprised like she had been by her ex-husband, Harold. Trusting
soul that she was, Ruthie had no inkling Harold had run around on
her all through med school.

While Ruthie and Penny Sue were kneaded and
rubbed, I lounged in the hot tub and called Guthrie.

“Devastated. Just devastated at the beach.
Roofs gone, dunes eroded, still no power. I fear what we’ll find
when we get home. I hope you’re coming home soon,” he whispered.
“I, like, can’t stand it here much longer. Mother makes Aunt
Harriet look good.”

“Hold on.” I called to Ruthie and Penny Sue,
“Think we’ll head back tomorrow?”

“If the power’s on,” Penny Sue answered. “I
need to check the condo. I hope we didn’t get any damage.”

“As soon as the power’s back on,” I relayed
to Guthrie.

“Fab, man. I’ll check every hour and let you
know the minute the juice is back. Like, I really can’t stand much
more Scrabble and rummy.”

Ruthie suddenly moaned. Not good. It wasn’t
an I’m-so-relaxed moan, it was of the oh-shit variety.

“What now?” Penny Sue asked peevishly.

“Tropical Storm Ivan has been upgraded to a
hurricane.”

“No!” I held a towel over my face. “I don’t
want to know.”

The electricity in our complex didn’t come
back on until late Tuesday evening, so we headed home Wednesday
morning. By then, most of the traffic had cleared, although there
was still precious little gasoline. Fortunately, we both had half a
tank and knew we could make it. Penny Sue led the way with me
following. The further south we drove, the worse the destruction
became. By the time we reached Port Orange, we saw that most of the
blue tarps covering roof damage from Charley were flapping in the
breeze. There were also large portions of roofs, tarps still in
place, piled on the side of the road.

I got a sick feeling as we approached the
South Causeway Bridge and saw police stopping traffic and checking
IDs. A precaution to prevent looting. No one without an official ID
that showed they belonged on the island would be allowed to pass.
Thankfully, Bobby Barnes had clued me in and vouched for my
employment at the center, so I was able to get a business and
resident pass. Without his help and the passes, I wouldn’t have
been allowed on the island, since I’d never taken the time to get a
Florida driver’s license. I quickly called Penny Sue and told her
to pull over.

“If we get out of line, we’ll never—” she
started.

“Hush. Without a pass, you won’t get home at
all. I have one for you.”

They worked like a charm. We flashed the
passes, and the police waved us on. We drove slowly, single file,
overwhelmed by the downed signs and debris. About the time we
reached Ocean’s Seafood, my phone rang. It was Guthrie.

“They won’t let me on the beach because my
driver’s license has my old address,” he wailed.

“Park in the hospital lot, I’ll come back
for you.” I hung up, hit redial for Penny Sue, and told her to pull
into Publix’s parking lot. “Guthrie’s stuck, I need your pass.”

The lot was full of Publix eighteen-wheelers
and a bunch of cars. The cavalry had arrived to restock the frozen
food. Penny Sue would be happy about that—it probably meant they
had ice.

She handed me the decal. I nodded at the
grocery store. “Might be a good time to pick up some ice.” I
started for my car.

“Wait,” she called. “You’re not going to
invite Guthrie to stay with us, again, are you?”

“Geez, we don’t know what we’ll find when we
get home. We may need to stay with him.”

Her brow furrowed. “You’re right. I was
being pissy. We’ll do what we have to do.”

Leaving the island wasn’t a problem, and I
quickly located Guthrie and handed him the pass. We were both in
shock when we finally got home. With rubble piled on both sides of
A1A, the area looked like a war zone. He went to his condo, I went
to mine … er, the judge’s. I found the front door ajar and the tile
floor covered with damp sand. Ruthie and Penny Sue were in the
great room, inspecting the windows and furniture.

“Water must have run down the hill and under
the front door,” Penny Sue said.

“It rained for thirty-six hours,” Ruthie
said quietly.

Lu Nee 2, our robot security guard/maid,
stood in the far corner of the room, perfectly still. Penny Sue
patted her head. “Little Lu Nee is dead!”

“Probably out of power, a recharge should
fix her up,” I said, remembering I’d forgotten to turn off my alarm
clock, which had undoubtedly sent Lu Nee into a tizzy. For hours
the robot probably demanded, “Halt, who goes there?” until her life
was spent.

“You’re right.” Penny Sue stepped under an
AC vent. “Cool air. Hallelujah!” She hurried to her room and
returned with Lu Nee 2’s charger.

I gazed out the salt-coated windows. The
image of the beach was fuzzy, still the water seemed a lot closer
than it used to be. “We should check outside,” I said. “The ocean
looks awfully close to the deck. We should go down the cluster
walkway.”

Ruthie pressed her nose against the window.
“You’re right, I think we’ve lost the last dune.”

We trooped out the front door and ran into
Guthrie. “It’s a disaster,” he wailed. “The windows without the
shutters blew out. The condo is soaked. The wallboard has swollen
up like a sponge. Frances even blew the pictures off the walls.
What am I going to do?”