The Turtle Mound Murder (21 page)

“Can’t help you there,” he replied
crisply.

“Oh, we saw a red pickup truck at your place
when we arrived. I assumed it was your handyman.”

Al shrugged. “Don’t know anything about
that. I’m just renting the place.”

Just renting. I’d assumed Al owned the condo
when he said he came to New Smyrna often. “Rats, we hate to pick
someone at random from the yellow pages, you never know what you’ll
get.” I watched closely for his reaction.

He canted his head sympathetically. “Right.
Sorry I can’t help you. Some of these other guys,” he waved at the
room full of people, “probably know someone.”

“Good idea, I’ll ask around.” Darn, a dead
end; but, at least, it eliminated Al from the suspect list.

We’d chatted for a while about restaurants,
fishing, and local attractions, when Al leaned close with a
mischievous grin. “Want to step outside for a little smoke?” he
asked confidentially, patting his pocket. “I’ve got a joint here
that’s primo stuff.” He winked broadly.

“No,” I said a little too loudly.

Al took a step back, looking puzzled. “This
morning … I just thought—”

The smudge stick! Al thought we were smoking
marijuana. “Oh, that! It’s not what you think. Ruthie’s into
American Indian rituals. We were burning sage and sweetgrass for
good luck.”

“Sure. Sorry.” Al downed his vodka tonic,
clearly not believing a word I’d said. “How ‘bout some food.” He
motioned toward the buffet with his glass. I followed him to the
table where he quickly disappeared into a group around the shrimp
bowl. That was the last I saw of the man for the rest of the
party.

The remainder of the afternoon was
uneventful. The Furbies were a big hit as was Penny Sue’s
embellished tale about the old lady who jumped in front of her at
Dollar General. Virtually all of the women commented on our
Daffodil brooches, several of whom—including Shirley—were divorced
and wanted to join the club. Though the food wasn’t very good, most
of it was eaten. And, thanks to our caterer, my fears that people
would linger too long proved unfounded. Promptly at seven, Shirley
started packing up the aluminum platters, providing an unmistakable
hint that it was time to go; which the guests did to a profusion of
Wonderful-party, So-nice-to-meet-you’s. All except Lyndon who
tarried until everyone had gone. He planted a big kiss on Penny Sue
when he left.

“That’s one sexy man,” she said with a smile
so wide I could see her gums. “I’m definitely wearing that halter
top tonight.”

* * *

Penny Sue wore the halter top and so did
about two dozen other women in their forties. Marie came in her
shorts, though she’d switched the bandeau top she wore to the party
for a silk blouse. Short, tall, thin, and ... ample (like Penny
Sue), Harley Davidson leather covered a wide array of boobs and
butts that evening. Aside from the motorcycle garb, very few people
were dressed in costume, though I did see a number of umbrellas and
slickers, a sure sign of diehard Rocky fans.

Lyndon had never been to a
Rocky Horror
Show
, which was the reason he’d insisted on attending. Knowing
only that it was a rowdy masquerade, he’d tried to comply with the
custom. Sadly, Lyndon’s getup made him look more like an
expensively dressed Captain Hook than an alien transvestite. No
matter; Lyndon had a high old time. He laughed and clapped and even
squirted a few people with our water pistol.

We pulled in the driveway of the condo at
three o’clock. The wind was howling and it was so dark you could
barely see your hand in front of your face.

“The porch light is out again,” Ruthie
observed.

“Wind must have jostled it loose,” Penny Sue
said.

Lyndon backed up his rented Continental and
aimed the headlights on the front door. “Better?” he asked.

“Much,” Penny Sue said, handing the condo
key to me in the backseat. “Why don’t y’all go ahead? I’d like to
speak with Lyndon for a minute.”

Ruthie and I got the hint, said our good
nights and hurried inside. I poured a diet soda and stretched out
on the sofa. “Making out in a parking lot,” I commented. “It seems
so high school.”

“Dating at any age gets silly. Hormones
short-out the brain.” Ruthie chuckled as she switched on the light
beside the fireplace. “Darn,” she said, holding up the pole that
went in the track of the sliding glass door. “We forgot to lock up,
again!”

I shook my head. “Penny Sue must have gone
out for a cigarette. She’s been smoking like a chimney.”

“Maybe she’ll cut back now that the party’s
over and Woody’s off her back.” Ruthie turned on the television.
Hurricane Lizzie was moving north, parallel to the Florida coast,
thanks to a cold front sliding in from the west. If the current
track held, the storm could make landfall in North or South
Carolina. “The last few days have worn me out. I vote we stay a day
or two longer, then head home.”

Home. I didn’t have a home to go to, or at
least, not for long. I told her about the offer on the house. “I
should get back, too. And, I suppose I should call Zack about the
house. I’m sure he’s overjoyed.”

“Have you thought about what you want to
do?”

I sniffed back tears. “No. I guess I can’t
put it off any longer.”

“You’re welcome to stay with us as long as
you’d like. Our place is huge, much too big for Daddy, me, and Mr.
Wong. The guest suite in the south wing has its own entrance. You’d
have privacy.”

“Thanks. I’ll see how things go.” I checked
the clock in the dining room; it was almost four. “Want to see the
turtles? Gerty said they’d dig them up at six.”

“Sure. How about we catch a catnap,
first.”

I set the oven timer to wake us up and went
back to the sofa. Ruthie curled up on the love seat. Neither of us
heard Penny Sue come in. Her bedroom door was shut when the buzzer
sounded.

“Do you think we should see if Penny Sue
wants to go?”

Ruthie rolled her eyes. “I’m not knocking on
that door. No telling who’s in there.”

“Good point.” I followed Ruthie out on the
deck and turned to close the sliding glass door. Coated with salt
spray, the thing wouldn’t budge. I planted my feet and pulled hard;
it screeched across the track. Then, I heard a yelp and a guttural
retching noise. I whirled toward the noise and gasped with
revulsion.

* * *

Stinky—clearly dead
—was sprawled
across the deck next to the sidewalk, and Ruthie had managed to
barf all over him. Bent double, Ruthie backed into me, still
retching. I yanked the door so hard, it opened like it had Teflon
tracks. Then, I dragged Ruthie, puking and crying, to the kitchen
sink. “Penny Sue,” I screamed. I could care less if she had
company. “Penny Sue!” I really bellowed.

“What?” Penny Sue answered, opening her
bedroom door. She pulled on her robe as she ran down the hall. Her
hair was standing straight up, and she hadn’t bothered to take off
her makeup, judging from her raccoon eyes. “Wha—” The puke smell
hit her when she reached the living room. “God, what’s wrong with
Ruthie?” she asked through the hand covering her nose.

“There’s a dead man on the deck, Penny Sue.
It’s Stinky.”

Penny Sue raced to the back window and
peered through the vertical blinds. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

“He’s stiff,” Ruthie said between sobs.

“Lord.” Penny Sue held her face with both
hands. “I’ve got to think; stay calm.” She paced back and forth.
“What’s the number for nine-eleven?”

Still holding Ruthie over the sink, I gaped
at Penny Sue, not believing my ears.

“What’s the number?” She yelled, holding the
phone in one hand as she ran the other through her hair, which only
stood up even more. In another situation it would have been
funny—she looked remarkably similar to the wild-haired fight
promoter, Don King—but, with the vomit stench and Ruthie still
heaving, I was in no mood for games or stupidity. “For godssakes,
Penny Sue, the number is nine-one-one. That’s it,
nine-one-one!”

“Of course.” Penny Sue placed the call with
shaking hands and got a wet towel for Ruthie’s face. It took both
of us to get her to the bedroom. We put the wastebasket from the
bathroom next to the bed.

“Yell if you need anything,” I said, closing
the door. Sirens were already approaching on A1A. The first
contingency arrived a few minutes later. Penny Sue scampered to her
room to dress, as I answered the door. It was one of the young
officers who’d responded to Rick’s murder. I motioned toward the
back of the condo.

Dawn was breaking as the patrolman stepped
out on the deck into a puddle of puke. He scowled at me as if I
were responsible. I shrugged and pointed toward the body. The
crew-cutted officer knelt carefully and checked Stinky’s neck for a
pulse. He shook his head and stood.

I went inside and prepared to clean the
floor. It was a coping mechanism I’d picked up from my mother. When
my grandmother died, Mom cleaned out the attic and basement. When
my younger brother was hospitalized with an unknown lung infection,
she’d cleaned the whole house. If she and Dad had a fight, she
might straighten a closet or a drawer—the amount of effort directly
proportional to the seriousness of the situation. My first
therapist said it was healthy, the equivalent of counting to ten.
Perhaps. If nothing else, it got the house clean. The house. The
sold house. It had been squeaky clean for over a year, I thought
bleakly.

I headed for the utility room. The mop and
bucket were next to the dryer. Without thinking, I snatched the mop
with one hand and the bucket with the other. I almost fell down.
I’d completely forgotten the heavy pesticides I’d stowed in the
bucket when we first arrived. I hefted the bag of bug killer out of
the bucket, careful to lower it to the floor gently, so the flimsy
bag wouldn’t break. Then I loaded the bucket with ammonia and went
back to the living room where I mopped vomit to the piercing whine
of sirens. Judging from the red and blue flashing lights that
danced on the walls, most of New Smyrna Beach’s police and rescue
units had responded to the call. Thanks to Ruthie’s weak stomach,
the crews went around the building to get to the deck, instead of
traipsing through the condo as they’d done with Rick. Amazing how a
dirty diaper or a little up-chuck could scatter a throng of the
most manly men. I used to hate that about Zack: how he’d invariably
disappear when anything odoriferous came up. This time, the male
shortcoming suited me fine.

I finished the floor and sat down in the
living room with Penny Sue, who’d combed her hair and donned slacks
and a silk blouse.

“Thanks for cleaning up,” she led off.
“You’re so responsible and such a good friend, I don’t know what
I’d do without you. What happened? You were going to see the
turtles when you found him?”

I nodded. “It was still dark. Ruthie tripped
over the body.”

“And barfed. Boy, he’s really stinky now.”
Penny Sue picked up the remote and turned on the television. It was
tuned to the Weather Channel. Lizzie was a couple hundred miles due
east of Miami and moving north.

“I think it was a premonition,” Ruthie said
from the hallway. The color had returned to her face.

“You feeling all right?” Penny Sue slid over
to make room for her on the sofa.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry about the mess. His
name, Stinky; I think our calling him that was a premonition.”

“Premonition of what? That you’d vomit on
him?” I asked.

Ruthie looked down at her lap. “That and his
untimely end. If I recall correctly, I was the one who pinned that
label on him.”

Penny Sue and I hesitated, both searching
back through our memory banks. Ruthie was right.

“I wonder what he was doing here,” Penny Sue
said, breaking the silence.

I raised my hand. “I believe I know that
answer. I saw him at Food Lion the day before yesterday. He must
have followed me home.”

“You saw him?” Penny Sue asked
incredulously. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I’d gone to buy air freshener after we’d
smudged the condo. He was circling your car when I came out of the
store. The car alarm scared him off. I thought he was long gone by
the time I finally left.”

“You think he followed you here, then came
back last night to rob us?” Ruthie asked.

“Makes sense. That is a big, distinctive
Mercedes. Stands to reason a person with an expensive car has
expensive jewelry to match. Shoot, I think we were all decked out
in our finest when we first met him at JB’s.”

Penny Sue canted her head ruefully.

“And, wait.” I pointed at Ruthie. “You
tripped over the pole. Remember? The sliding glass door was not
locked last night … or the night before!”

We both looked at Penny Sue. “Not me,” she
said, waving off our unspoken accusation with both hands. “I made
certain that stupid stick was in place before we left. It was in
the door track, I swear.”

“Then, someone was in the condo.” I stood.
“We’d better see if anything is missing.”

We reconvened in the living room a few
minutes later. Ruthie led off. “Someone’s definitely been through
my drawers. I don’t see that anything’s missing, but my clothes are
rumpled, you know, like someone was rifling through them.”

“Mine are, too,” Penny Sue said
excitedly.

I regarded her skeptically. Ruthie was a
neat freak, but Penny Sue? How in the world could she tell if her
clothes had been disturbed?

She curled her lip at me. “I know what
you’re thinking. Although my stuff might look messy to an outsider,
there’s order in that chaos and someone has been through my things.
Nothing seems to be missing. I had all my jewelry with me, except
for the emerald necklace, which I accidentally left in the bathroom
soap dish. It’s still there.”