Sex in a Sidecar (3 page)

Gina dumped two sugars in her coffee. “Do you think anyone else will come in today?”

“No.” It didn't escape me that she hadn't answered my question. I let it pass. One thing I'd learned behind the bar, there's a difference between listening and prying. And besides, sooner or later it all comes out. People really want to talk about themselves, even the bad things and just being there is enough to get them started. Add a little alcohol to the mix and you can't shut them up…the things I could tell you about the good people of this town!

Gina asked, “Did you hear about the woman who was murdered on Monday?”

I stopped cutting up the honeydew melon. “Yes, but my attention was fixed on Myrna's teasing little antics.”

“I knew her… the dead woman.” She watched her spoon going round and round in her mug. “Actually I met her in here.”

“Jesus, sorry.”

The spoon stopped its circles. She raised her eyes. “Why was she murdered? That's what I keep asking myself. Why? Is the reason in her past or her present?”

“Present?” What in hell was she talking about? “She's dead. I don't think she has a present.”

She canted her head to the left, intent on her own thoughts. “Think of all the reasons people are murdered. Anger, for instance.”

“Like maybe she cut someone off in traffic?” I offered. She lifted her shoulders. “Or perhaps it was the type of person she was that led to her murder.”

“You mean someone said ‘that bitch is just too mean to live.' The victim is responsible for what happens?”

“Not exactly. I was thinking more like she was killed because she fit a certain profile.”

“Oh, like I think I'll go out and kill someone five foot two and a hundred and ten pounds?”

She shook her head, impatient with me. “No, no. Maybe she was killed just because of the kind of person she was.”

I went back to carving up the melon, more interested in my creation than her ponderings.

“I suppose all murder is personal,” Gina said.

Pointing the bar knife at her, delighted that I finally understood, I said, “Psychology. That's what you're talking about.” I sliced through the second melon and spread it open, the smell of it rising to fill my nose. “Find the murderer by knowing the victim. But you're overlooking something. People bring all kinds of things south with them. Colds, enemies…I even know a guy who lugs down his favorite recliner every year. Just because it happened here doesn't mean it has anything to do with any of us.”

“Oh, please. Don't tell me you think crime only happens in the North.”

“Well,” I thought about it as I cubed the melon, “Jacaranda is a small town. People here know each other too well for you to be able to hide your sins. On the other hand when outsiders come to Jac their secrets are their own and who knows what follows them.” I scooped up the melon pieces and filled a blender. “The paper said she was a tourist from New York so she was likely down here for a facelift or tummy tuck. Probably didn't know anyone here well enough to give them a reason to murder her.”

“What makes you think she was here for plastic surgery?”

“According to the
Jacaranda Sun
, Florida has more plastic surgeons per capita than any other state.” I loaded up the second blender. “I thought that's why you might be here…a little surgery.”

With a soft laugh, she said, “I'm not the kind of girl who's into self-improvement.”

The screech of the wind filled the bar and Chris slunk in. He slumped onto a stool, nodding at Gina, not really seeing her just acknowledging her presence. He was taking this storm real hard. He must be getting paid by meals sold or something. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“They're probably putting away their garden furniture so it doesn't end up in the next county and boarding up windows so they don't blow out.” I got out a small stepladder and climbed up to the top shelf for a dusty bottle of kiwi syrup. “Of course, if you live in a trailer park everything is pretty well ‘Hasta la vista, Baby' because the whole mobile home blows away.”

His ratlike little face got confused and his pointy nose twitched. Rats don't like it when you introduce a new piece to the maze.

As I climbed down, the radio announced that the rain would start within the hour in coastal areas. Winds were expected to reach sixty miles an hour. I was betting they were already close to that out here on the beach.

Chris's face screwed up in pain. “Why is this happening to me?”

The feral little shit definitely had a piece of the action. “Marley will be heading out in that old crapped-out Baptist Church bus to start rescuing people as soon as the rain starts,” I told them. “The homeless always refuse to come in until the rain actually starts.” I resisted the urge to call her, wanting to tell her to be careful just to reassure myself. Why do we think our loved ones are safer just because we tell them to be? Never mind common sense, I knew if anything happened to Marley and I hadn't called I'd blame myself.

“September's receipts were down over last year,” Chris whined. “I was hoping October would make up the loss. And now this.”

“Relax.” I wiped the sticky dust off the kiwi bottle and twisted it open, difficult because a hard crust had formed around the neck. “People will come out in droves when it's over. You'll make it up in no time.” I took a sniff of the syrup. “Things with alcohol in them can't go bad, can they?” Another good sniff. “That's the theory I'm working on, alcohol preserves forever. I should live to be two hundred.”

“No customers means no tips for you,” Chris said. If I'd been a dog I would have bit him. I was tempted to do it anyway but I'd probably get something disgusting.

I added a little of the syrup, thick with age, to the melon and turned on the blender.

Chris sat up straight. “Hey wait a minute. Who ordered those?”

“I'm trying out a new drink.”

“This storm is keeping away the customers and you're wasting good booze on some stupid drink?” he howled.

“Cheer up,” I told him. “This place may be a heap of matchsticks tomorrow, shame to waste all this lovely booze.”

Chris slumped forward on the bar, holding his head in his hands.

Gina got in on the party. “Don't forget the storm surge.” “What?” he asked.

I took over delivering the good news. “We could get a storm surge of six to ten feet. That's where the real damage comes.”

“Six feet?” Chris's head shot up. “That will bring the water across Beach Road and into the stores downstairs.” “The excitement just never ends,” I said.

“Oh my god,” Chris howled and sat up straight on his stool. “Do you think I should empty out the bar and restaurant? I could move everything inland. Just rent a U-Haul and head east.” He was beaming now, thinking he saw a solution to a potential problem. “Wouldn't even have to unload it, just wait for the storm to pass and then run it back.” He bounced to his feet, ready to move, nearly dancing in anticipation at his brilliant idea.

It brought me joy to burst his bubble. “Most people did that yesterday. Everybody else started when they woke up this morning. Where are you going to get the truck? Who's going to load it?”

“Oh.” He slumped back down on his stool.

“They moved the stock out of the jewelry store and up to a bank vault in Tampa yesterday morning,” I told him, “which will be a mistake if Myrna hits Tampa. The Windcharmer loaded up their stock and moved it inland after lunch.”

“Oh,” Chris said again.

“You didn't notice?” Gina asked.

“Well, I saw the storm shutters come down.”

I took pity on him. “No worries. Myrna isn't going to hit here.” I turned on the blender. “This will be a big seller. Make us famous. Like a Singapore Sling or a Jamaican Mule. The Jacaranda Hurricane.”

“It's nice to see someone who enjoys their work,” Gina told me.

“Everyone needs a hobby and this seems to be mine, trying out new drinks. No way anyone can call me an underachiever now. I'm going for greatness, Baby.” Chris whined, “It's a waste of booze and booze is money.” Gina rapped her knuckles on the mahogany bar in front of him. “You should be more worried about murder than money.”

“What?” he squeaked and swung around on his stool to look at her.

“We were just talking about unsolved murders, Chris. Know any?” I asked, betting the sneaky little rodent spawn knew where more than one body was hidden.

“I knew the woman who was murdered out on the beach,” Gina told him.

“Really,” he said. Really as in “who gives a shit,” not really as in “tell me more.”

Gina, bless her, didn't know the difference. Drawing herself up and staring intently at Chris she began her lecture. “I think this murder is the work of a serial killer,” she jabbed a figure at him, “and serial killers don't stop until they're caught.”

His eyebrows almost met his receding hairline and for a moment something besides his percentage of the take held his attention.

Gina jammed her finger at him again. “Some people are just evil, you know.”

“Geez!” He shot to his feet. “Aren't things bad enough without this kind of talk? Do you know what a murder will do to business?”

Gina ignored his interruption and slid halfway off her stool, following him in her excitement. “Criminals don't stop. Murder, theft, fraud: when people get away with a crime once they go on. Someone has to stop them.”

“I can't take any more of this,” Chris said and headed for the door.

I pointed after him with the paring knife and whispered, “There goes the murderer, a bent and perverted little man. And his mother had unnatural relations with a rodent.”

Gina wilted against the bar.

“Hey,” I said, feeling like a rat myself. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't be making jokes when your friend just died.”

“She wasn't my friend,” Gina said, tucking a loose fall of hair back behind her ear. “She was bossy and nasty.” I laughed. “Other than that, how'd you like her?” Gina lifted her head. Tears dampened her periwinkle blue eyes. “My sister was murdered too.”

I looked around for the body and then asked, “When?” thinking like maybe five minutes ago, like there was a dead body real close, stuffed behind a leather chair or a potted palm.

“Last April,” Gina replied.

“Is that why this hit you so hard?” She nodded.

I dried my hands on a towel. “Tell me about your sister.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She was beautiful.” Her face softened. “She would be one of those women who come to Florida to be improved, although she really didn't need it. Looking after herself was a full-time job for Sam, the only one she ever had. She took it seriously.” With a bittersweet smile Gina said, “She married well — several times. There was no need for her to work. Marrying well was her career.”

“Sam called me every Sunday before lunch, no matter what. That was our time.” Her voice was soft, her thoughts in the past. “I knew as soon as she didn't phone that Sunday morning, something was wrong.” Memory distorted her face.

“I started calling every half-hour. When I couldn't get her by four, I phoned the police. They checked out her house and said everything was fine: no broken windows or forced entry, but the next morning the maid found her. The police thought she had opened the door to her killer, someone she knew. He dragged her into the bedroom and…” She blocked her mouth with her fingers.

I reached out and touched her arm. The bartender's manual didn't cover this situation.

Gina sucked in her lips and then said, “The police haven't solved it.” Her hands fisted on the bar and anger hardened her sweet face into hard angular lines. “I'm just so infuriated. He put the belt from her robe around Sam's throat and choked her to death. I can't stop thinking about how terrified she must have been.”

“I went down to Asheville. A month passed. Nothing. The police kept telling me they were still working on it. I think they were just waiting for another woman to be strangled, reacting instead of acting, waiting for the killer to make a mistake.”

She wrapped her hands around the empty coffee mug. “One day in late May I went into the police station to see if there was any news. I saw a man there. When I asked the detectives about him they said they were interested in him but they had to let him go.” Gina's voice turned harsh and brittle with rage. “They didn't have enough to charge him.”

Silence. I waited.

“So I hired a private detective.”

“Did he find the killer?”

She turned the mug around and around in her hands. “Maybe.”

“That's why you're in Jacaranda!”

She looked me in the eye and said, “I don't want another woman to go unavenged. Bunny Lehre was like my sister in a way. Oh, I don't mean Sam was nasty; she was just imperious and self-centered. Life evolved around her. She could be kind and generous to a fault but she also could be demanding. Especially with staff, she wanted what she wanted when she wanted and didn't listen to excuses.”

The weather station was issuing a special warning. I raised a finger to halt her story and turned up the radio. The storm was no longer going straight north but had curved farther east and was now headed north by northeast, spinning closer still towards us.

“Damn.” I turned down the sound as they started reviewing emergency measures. “It will hit up north of Tampa. We'll be on the land side. That's where the wildest winds are. It could get real dangerous. You should go.”

“Not yet.” She was dry-washing her hands with worry. “I can't leave yet.”

“Even if the eye hits a hundred miles north, out here on the island there's no room for error. Remember those tidal surges.”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Why? It's just plain stupid to wait.”

“You're still here, what's keeping you here?”

It was a question I wasn't prepared to answer. “If you don't want to head to Pennsylvania, come up to Orlando. We can hang out for a couple of days and then come on back.”

“There's something I'm thinking about doing,” Gina told me.

“There's only one thing to think about doing…leaving.” Of course, the same held true for me. But I might miss Clay if I left too soon. Surely, if he loved me, he'd come back to Jacaranda and evacuate with me? He wouldn't leave me to run for cover on my own. No matter what he was, Jimmy would have come back for me. Clay would too. “Ye ah, right,” the voice in my head said in disgust. “And while you're at it, why not hang out here and wait for George Clooney to rescue you? It makes about as much sense.” The thing was, I didn't need to be rescued, I'd been through this all before, but I just wanted him to be worried about me, to give into that worry and come back for me. And I didn't want to spend days in a motel on my own. “You need to get out of here,” I told Gina.

Gina shook her head, “Not yet.” The dry-washing of her hands said leaving was exactly what she wanted to be doing. It wasn't false bravery or foolishness keeping her there. The weather terrified her. What was stronger than fear?

Then it hit me. “You think the guy that killed your sister is in Jacaranda, don't you?” I leaned towards her and whispered, “Who is it? Is it someone from the Sunset?”