Dying to Retire (7 page)

“Yes, but I would have thought—”

“They usually come out at night. I keep telling that to the folks who like to stroll on the boardwalk in the evenings. We’ve got an old bull around here the animal control people have been trying to trap for a year, but he always gets away.”

I pictured Portia lying on the beach, ailing, and shuddered at the thought of her so vulnerable to attack.

Detective Shippee did not ease my mind when he said, “They prefer to catch their prey in the water, but they
are
meat eaters and they’re not averse to—Well, never mind.”

“Then she wasn’t alive when they found her.”

“No.”

“How long had she been dead?”

“Don’t know for sure. She died sometime during the night.”

“Heart attack?”

“You’re pushing into classified territory, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But I get the feeling that something about Portia’s death is bothering you.”

He snorted. “Don’t let my captain know. He’ll have a fit.”

“Detective Shippee, is it possible Portia’s death was not from natural causes?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that someone killed her, perhaps because she fought the development.”

Detective Shippee stared out at the water for a long time before he answered. Then he hunched his shoulders and looked back at me. “People have been killed for a lot less, Mrs. Fletcher.”

Detective Shippee took his leave, but I remained on the boardwalk instead of returning to Foreverglades as I’d intended. I retraced my steps to the gazebo and sat inside, protected from the heat and glare of the sun, listening to the lapping of the water and thinking about Portia. What a sad end to a life filled with purpose and sacrifice. She had found her true calling here in Florida among the other retirees. She had captured the leadership role that life and circumstances had denied her when she’d lived in Cabot Cove. In Foreverglades she took charge; she was a heroine to those she championed, but her body could not keep up with her ambition. She would have wanted to go down swinging. Instead, she collapsed on the beach she was trying to save for her fellow residents.

But can we ever choose how we die? And if we could, what would we want? To die in our beds, surrounded by loved ones? My husband, Frank, had left this world that way. I wasn’t sure his death was any easier given knowledge of its approach. We mourned his death together for months before it occurred. Perhaps Portia had departed quickly without pain or even consciousness of life ebbing away. I hoped so, for her sake.

I stood up slowly in the way we have when our thoughts sit heavily on our shoulders, and wandered back down the boardwalk to the place in the sand where Portia had died. The sun’s rays were blinding even with the protection of my new sunglasses, and I shaded my eyes with my hand, peering out at Foreverglades, visible beyond the expanse of tall grasses and tangled vines. A movement in the undergrowth next to the boardwalk caught my eye. I looked down. Two yellow eyes with black vertical pupils stared back at me. The head of the creature was huge, its broad, flat snout rounded at the end, its eyes twin bulges in the bumpy black hide. For a few seconds we stared at each other, both frozen at the unexpected intrusion into a private moment. Then it opened its jaws and hissed.

I forgot the heat of the sun as a chill crept over my body. Goose bumps rose on my arms and I felt as though my hair stood straight out from its roots. As my heart pounded in my ears, I tried desperately to remember the rules for encountering a wild animal. In Maine, the newspapers annually print advice on what to do when confronted by a bear or moose.
Pretend this is a moose, Jessica,
I told myself.
What are the rules? You should do . . . what? Rule number one: You should stay at least fifty feet away. Well, it’s too late for that now. Rule number two. What was rule number two? Oh, yes. Never get between a mother and her calf.

I glanced around quickly to see if a baby alligator was nearby, but from the size of the creature in front of me, I was guessing this was no mother, but a bull alligator, and one that was close to twelve feet long. I shivered, my breath coming in short spurts. So I wasn’t between a mother and a calf, but I was between the alligator and the water. That was probably its goal. The black hide I’d always seen pictured in photographs as shiny and wet was neither. It was dusty-looking, with streaks and patches of dried mud.

It must want the water; it’s hot. Unless, of course, it’s not hot. What if it’s hungry? You’d make a tasty meal,
I thought, gulping, my throat as dry as the alligator’s back. Would Seth come looking for me? What would he find if I couldn’t get out of this? I’d gotten out of many dangerous situations in the past. But how long could my luck hold?
No, don’t think that way,
I chided myself. The rules. What were the rest of the rules? Don’t yell. That was rule number three. Loud noises and wild gestures might startle the animal into attacking. Not that I could yell at the moment. I was too breathless. The real question was, Could I move at all?

I started inching my way back down the boardwalk, trying to hum softly, but the sound came out more as a grunt than a hum. I maintained eye contact with the alligator until the heel of one shoe caught on a plank, and I stumbled.

The alligator hissed again. It had been crouched in the grass. Now it rose up on its legs; even its long, heavy tail was completely off the ground. The boardwalk was an easy step up for an animal this size. Would it climb onto the wood and chase after me?

But I couldn’t run in these shoes, and the only trees around were behind the alligator. Carefully I raised my foot and reached to remove one shoe, and then did the same with the other.
At worst,
I reasoned,
I can fling them at the alligator if it follows me.

In my stocking feet I moved away slowly, putting feet and then yards between us, praying that I was near the railing, which began only when the boardwalk bowed out over the water. If the alligator followed me that far, I could vault over the side and escape. But where? Into the water, where his companions might wait?

The alligator placed one leg on the planks and then the other, hauling its heavy body onto the boardwalk, its belly sliding across the wood, one eye keeping me in view at all times. It lurched forward, flopped onto the beach, and lumbered toward the water, its massive tail making waves in the sand.

I felt the adrenaline drain away and began to shiver. My knees buckled and I sank gratefully onto the rough boards. Still, I stared transfixed, watching its progress, until the beast slithered silently into the water, and the knurls on its back and long pointed tail slipped below the surface.

“Did he say he suspected foul play?”

“No, but I got the distinct impression he was thinking along those lines.”

“And he wouldn’t tell you what the autopsy report said?”

I shook my head. “He wants to talk with Clarence first, and I respect that, of course.”

It was the day after the funeral and the weather was delicious. The skies were sunny overhead; a warm breeze off the water ruffled my hair as Seth and I had breakfast in an outdoor café in the village. Even though the Foreverglades apartments we’d settled in had full-sized kitchens, they were not stocked with food. We’d debated whether or not to stop at a market, but since we had no idea how long we’d be staying, we’d decided against it.

“The likelihood is that she died of congestive heart failure, Jess.”

“I know.”

“She was being treated with digoxin for many years, but if she was dosing herself with supplements, she could have been compromising its effectiveness.”

“True.”

“She wouldn’t listen to me,” he said, his voice rising. “I warned her about those things.”

“Yes. You did.”

“And on top of that, if she’d been taking those darned diet tablets, she could have unwittingly committed suicide.” He pounded his fist on the table and the silverware jumped.

Several people turned around to see who was disturbing the peace. Seth seemed startled by their reaction. “Well,” he said to me in a lower voice, “I’m just not a fan of all these pseudomedications.”

It was our first opportunity to talk privately. We’d spent the previous afternoon at Portia’s apartment, but there had been so many people crowded into the three rooms—not to mention the group of women who’d monopolized Seth’s attention all afternoon—that conversation of this nature had been impossible. When I’d managed to squeeze past people in the hall and walk into Portia’s bedroom, I’d found a lively political debate in progress among a half dozen of her friends. There was no way I could peruse the bottles on her bureau, which I’d hoped to do, with an audience watching me.

The brief conversation I’d had with Seth, Mort, and Maureen had, of course, been about my encounter with one of Florida’s undomesticated residents. Maureen had turned very pale and shuddered—“Oh, my gosh, Jessica. How horrible”—and we feared she might faint. We assisted her to a chair, and Mort fanned her with a magazine while Seth took her pulse.

“How come I’m not doing this for you?” he said to me.

“You’re welcome to,” I said, holding out my arm.

He batted it away. “You get into more trouble than any ten people I know put together. Darned foolish woman.” He sounded as if he were angry, but there was no use in pointing out that I had merely been walking in a public place in the middle of the day. I knew his gruffness was out of concern for my safety.

“I wish I’d thought to bring my gun,” Mort said. “I could take care of that monster right now.”

“You’d never have gotten it past the inspectors at the airport,” I said. “Besides, the police are aware of the alligator’s presence. They’ve been trying to trap it for some time.”

“Until they do, they’d better put up a warning sign telling people to stay away,” Mort said. “Did you report the incident?”

“I did,” I said. “They were going to send out another team from animal control this afternoon. I hope they don’t kill it.”

“Why not?” Seth asked.

“As Detective Shippee said, we’re trespassing on the alligator’s territory, not the other way around. If they catch it and release it somewhere else, it can live in peace and not hurt anyone.”

“Dead or alive, it’s got to go,” Mort said.

“I can’t believe you have sympathy for the alligator,” Maureen said, rallying. “You nearly got eaten. Don’t you care?”

“On the contrary. I’m very grateful to be standing here,” I said. “I’m not in the least insensitive to the danger I was in. Now that I’m out of harm’s way, I’m able to think about the animal with compassion. Mort is right, however. It’s got to go. Someone else might not be so lucky.”

The four of us had agreed to forgo dinner—my revelation had spoiled everyone’s appetite. Of course, the others had filled up earlier at the plentiful buffet Portia’s generous neighbors had supplied. My stomach was empty. Nevertheless, I was grateful to retire to my apartment early. The rigors of travel, combined with the emotional impact of the funeral, not to mention my experience as a potential meal, had taken their toll. I’d gone to bed early, although dreams about yellow eyes with black slits down the center kept interrupting my sleep.

“What if Portia never intended to take the diet pills?” I asked Seth as I dug into a platter of bacon and eggs. “What if someone slipped them into her pillbox?”

“Wouldn’t she have noticed?”

“I don’t know. Her eyesight wasn’t very good.”

“It was good enough to put the pills in the container in the first place, wasn’t it?”

“If she did.”

“I think you’re overreacting,” he said, biting down on a flaky pastry and sending a sprinkle of crumbs and powdered sugar across his chest. “It’s the normal sequence of events to order an autopsy if you find a body on the beach, but nine out of ten times it’s going to be natural causes.”

“You’re right. I’m probably misinterpreting the detective’s point of view. He never really said he suspected anything out of the ordinary in Portia’s death. Still, it would put my mind at rest if I knew the results of the autopsy.”

“Then you should get them. Maybe Mort can help.”

“Maybe Mort can help with what?” Maureen asked, coming up to our table with her husband in tow. Completely recovered from her shock at my episode on the beach, she was carrying a colorful straw tote bag I hadn’t seen before, and Mort’s arms were full, holding a box and two shopping bags from Weinstein’s Pharmacy. We pulled over two of the chairs from an empty table and they sat, Mort piling the purchases on the ground between his feet.

“What a marvelous find,” Maureen said. “Have you been in there?” She gestured to the shop across the street. “Who knew a drugstore would have so many great things? They gift-wrap, and they ship, too, if you don’t want to take your purchases with you. It’s too bad we won’t be down here before next Christmas; I could really go to town.”

“I think you already went to town,” Mort said, eyeing the pile. “Wasn’t there anything here you could have shipped home? These’ll never fit in the suitcase.”

“We’ll make room,” she said. “We can roll up the table mats, and I can put the salt and pepper mills in your shoes. Anyway, I’ll need the sunscreen and the face cream while we’re here. And I didn’t want to take a chance on the candles getting broken in the mail. Mmm. The coffee smells good. We haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Do they have any doughnuts?” Mort asked, pushing his packages under the table so he could bring his chair closer.

Seth gestured to our waitress, and Mort and Maureen gave her their orders.

“Did I hear you wanted my help with something?” Mort asked.