Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 02 - Island Intrigue (3 page)

“Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?”

She shook her head.

“You know, word is going to get out on the island
that you’ve got a famous couple staying here…:’

“I promised to protect their privacy, so please don’t
pass it on”

“All right.” I scanned the Wanderlodge again. Lights
were on inside, but the shades were drawn. Wouldn’t
you just know it? I couldn’t make out anything or any one. Then something occurred to me. “If I guess correctly, would you tell me if I’m right?”

She paused. “Okay-deal.”

We shook on it.

Wanda Sue lingered, shifting from foot to foot. She
cleared her throat. She sniffed. Then she cleared her
throat again.

“Wanda Sue, is something wrong?” I asked.

“Maybe-I don’t know for sure.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s my daughter, Sally Jo. She’s married … well,
sort of. She and her husband, Tom Crawford, are separated right now.” She frowned, a shadow of pain crossing her face. “They’d been getting some counseling
from a shrink on the mainland, and things had improved. They were talking about getting back together.
But then, out of blue, Tom up and disappears with their
son, Kevin.”

“Did he kidnap the boy?”

“I don’t know. It was Tom’s day to pick up Kevin
from school and drop him off at Sally Jo’s house. He
swung by the school about three o’clock, got Kevin, but
then never showed up at Sally Jo’s trailer.”

“When was that?”

“Today. I know it seems kinda alarmist, but you can’t
be too careful when it comes to kids.”

“Did Sally Jo call Detective Billie?” He was the island’s chief lawman. A rugged, reserved, by-the-book, kind of cop who also just happened to exude sexy masculinity out of every pore.

Wanda Sue shook her head. “She isn’t really sure
they’re missing.”

“Did she try to call Tom?”

“Yep. No answer”

A gust of wind whipped my hair across my face. “Is
it possible they took off for a few days and just didn’t
tell Sally Jo?”

“That’s what I told her. They might’ve gone fishing,
and Tom forgot to mention it. I swear, that man wouldn’t
remember his own birthday if Sally Jo didn’t remind
him.”

“You think they could’ve gone fishing in this weather?
Isn’t there an advisory out?”

“Maybe” Wanda Sue’s concerned eyes met my glance
squarely. I had my answer.

“What can I do?”

“Poke around. See if you can find out if anything has
happened to ‘em.” She touched my arm. “I wouldn’t ask,
Mallie, except that Sally Jo is practically beside herself
with worry, and I don’t know who else to turn to. You figured out who murdered that writer guy last summerdigging and digging until you found the truth.”

And almost got myself killed, I added to myself.

“I sure would appreciate it, honey” Her voice broke.

“Okay. I’m covering the Autumn Festival at the elementary school tomorrow, so I’ll see if anybody knows
anything.”

“Thanks a million,” she gushed. “You’re a real friend.”

A slow smile spread across my face. “I don’t suppose
you’d like to rethink letting me in on the identity of my
new neighbors.”

“No can do”

My smile disappeared. “It was worth a try”

Wanda Sue shook her head as she tottered off. I
watched her hair recede into the night like a yellow beacon, and a little voice inside my head told me I was getting myself into something more complicated than an
errant husband. Nothing was ever that simple on Coral
Island.

My editor, Anita, just might have her wish for a decent news story after all.

I awoke the next morning to the familiar, slightly icky
sensation of a long, slobbery tongue being drawn across
my face. “Kong, please.” My eyes fluttered open, beholding all 2.8 pounds of my apricot-colored teacup
poodle. He was on the small side even for a miniature
canine dust mop, so I’d named him-on the recommendation of a doggy psychologist-after the fearsome giant ape in hopes that he’d outgrow his passive-aggressive
behavior.

So far my plan hadn’t worked.

He still took on strangers as if he were a German
shepherd in his aggressive moods but then had to be
dragged down to the shoreline for a simple walk along
the surf in his passive moments. Whoever heard of a
dog who terrorized people but panicked at the thought of dipping one paw into the water? He could’ve been
playing mind games with me, but I wasn’t sure. I had my
suspicions, though.

Right now Kong was my only companion, so I overlooked his slight personality disorder.

He began to lick my ear.

“Enough already” I threw back the covers and shivered. Rubbing my hands together, I made a beeline for
the thermostat. “Jeez. It must’ve dipped almost to freezing last night.” I jerked the lever upward toward seventy.
Nothing happened. I toggled it a few times and tapped on
the plastic thermostat cover. Heat finally blasted out of
the floor grates. Raising my eyes to heaven, I gave a silent
prayer of thanks to the heat gods. My Airstream might be
refurbished, but it was over twenty years old and didn’t
like freezing weather any more than I did.

Kong barked.

I groaned, knowing what I had to do. I threw on a
pair of tattered sweatpants and an old white cable-knit
sweater I’d bought at the island consignment shop. It
specialized in “pre-owned” clothing, rather than “used”
items. I didn’t care what they were called as long as the
price was right.

I fastened Kong’s leash to his collar and led him outside. A brisk wind roared in from the Gulf of Mexico,
the kind that made your teeth chatter and your shoulders hunch up somewhere near your ears. “Get the lead
out, Kong. I’m freezing.”

He trotted off toward a clump of areca palm trees, and I cast a quick glance toward the Wanderlodge. The
shades up, I could see outlines of objects inside the RV
but nothing more. I checked the license plate. It was
temporary-the paper kind issued for a new vehicle
with State of Florida stamped on it. A clue! They’d
bought it in state.

“I’ve got it. Gloria Estefan and her husband-they
live in Miami!” I exclaimed to Kong.

He ignored me. A gopher tortoise lumbering toward
the beach area had caught his attention, and he kept
jumping on its hard-shelled back.

Just then strains of jazz emanated from the Wanderlodge.

No Latin beat. Okay, so it probably wasn’t Gloria Estefan and hubby. Then I realized that, just because it
was bought in state, that didn’t mean the owners lived
in Florida. They could’ve flown in from anywhere,
plunked down a quarter of a million dollars at some RV
megastore, and driven off into the sunset.

I sighed. Must be nice.

Another gust of wind pierced my sweater, and all
thoughts of divining my neighbors’ identity flew out of
my mind. Pikes.

I pulled on Kong’s leash to distract him from attacking
the gopher tortoise. “Let’s get down to business, buddy.
I’ve lost all feeling in my fingers.”

He wagged his tiny tail, smug in the warmth of his
apricot fur.

“It’s either here and now, or we make for the beach.”
I flashed him a warning glance.

His head swiveled in my direction. I nodded and repeated the dreaded b word again. He did his thing, and
we retreated back to the Airstream before I could say,
“Surf’s up.”

I showered and made my way out to my truck in less
than half an hour. I didn’t spend a lot of time on makeup
and fancy clothing. To be honest, I didn’t have much of
either. Occasional lipstick and powder comprised my
normal “made-up” face. As for clothes, I wore jeans and
a T-shirt in the summer, jeans and a sweater in the winter.
Simple and cheap.

But I did devote at least fifteen minutes a day to my
hair. It was my one vanity. I fluffed the scarlet curls with
loving care until they shone like a new tomato. Unfortunately, I had the sun-sensitive, freckled skin that often
went with that color hair, but I figured my rich, luxurious
tresses were nature’s way of compensating me.

Not that there was a man in sight to admire them, if
you didn’t count Old Man Brisbee with his bushy eyebrows and protruding stomach. And the only reason he’d
probably started flirting with me was because he felt
guilty about the ice cream incident. Or maybe he liked
the feel of my butt.

As I drove Rusty along Cypress Drive toward the
Observer office, a tiny voice reverberated in my head:
Don’t forget Detective Billie.

As if I could. But he certainly seemed to have forgotten about me.

Once the murder case had been solved a few months
ago, he hadn’t so much as called me to see if I had recovered. Oh, sure, I’d seen him at the Town Hall meetings, but he always came in late and left early, without
so much as a “hi-ho” to me. I’d been tempted to drop
by the police station on some trumped-up pretext, like a
jaywalking alligator, but it seemed lame.

To tell the truth, I didn’t know how I felt about him.
With his lean-hipped, powerful body and black-as-night
eyes, he made my heart beat like a heavy metal drum
every time I saw him. But he also ticked me off with his
arrogant, rigid, my-way-or-the-highway kind of attitude. What’s an independent kind of girl like me to do?

I braked for the slow zone near the elementary school.
Seeing the flashing yellow of the signal light and watching the school guard help the kids cross the road made
me think of Wanda Sue’s missing grandson again.

I made a mental note to talk to Kevin’s teacher when
I came back to do the story on the Autumn Festival. But
first I had to check in with Anita.

As I breezed into the Observer office, I was assailed
by the smell of fresh paint. Much to my amazement, a
tall, heavyset young guy was applying a coat of seafoamcolored paint to the back wall. As I closed the door, he
grinned and waved his brush in my direction.

“What’s going on?” I questioned Sandy, our secretary cum-receptionist-cum advertising manager-cum-everything.

“Can you believe it? Mr. Benton-the cheapo guy
who owns the paper-called this morning and said we
could finally get the place painted.” She waved one
pudgy hand in the direction of the painter. A price tag fell
out of the sleeve of her soft yellow sweater. She tucked it
back in as though it were simply a loose thread. In the
process of losing weight on her latest diet, she was working her way down clothing sizes. Never sure how long
she’d be “plateaued” at a certain size, she liked to hedge
her bets and be able to return items at a moment’s notice.
Personally, it struck me as borderline unethical, but she’d
lost over twenty pounds in the last year, and I didn’t want
to discourage her.

“Of course, Anita didn’t waste any time. She got a
painter over here pronto and let me pick out the color. I
decided on this one ‘cause one of my New-Age magazines said the sea is restful, serene. Just the kind of background to counteract the high energy of a newspaper.”

“Good idea.” High energy? This was a three-woman
operation, for goodness’ sake (and Anita barely counted
as female). But I had to admit that anything would be
an improvement to our shabby workplace. Dulled yellow
linoleum graced our floor, two wooden desks, back-toback, served as our workstations, and a single fluorescent
light hummed above our heads.

Being a weekly paper with limited circulation, the Observer didn’t pull in big advertising dollars, needless
to say. Whiteside’s General Store at Mango Bay was our
largest client, and considering the fact that their establishment wasn’t much bigger than a convenience store,
they didn’t spend big bucks promoting their two-forone toothpaste specials.

In even worse condition than the main area was Anita’s
space, a glass-enclosed cubicle. As editor of the paper,
she possessed the only office-a ten-by-ten cubbyhole
that barely provided space for a desk and a couple of
chairs. Most of the time she sat in there obsessively
checking wire services and hoping for hot-breaking island news that rarely happened.

“What does Anita think of the color?” I asked.

Sandy shrugged. “She hates it, but she hates everything, so I guess that means it’s okay”

Made sense to me.

“Hey, kiddo.” Speak of the devil. Anita appeared in
the doorway of her office. “Did you cover the Town
Hall meeting last night?” The only person I knew who
could do this, she blew her nicotine gum into a bubble,
then burst it with a loud smack. Charming.

I nodded. “Big doings, let me tell you. It took them
two hours to agree to buy the swing set and picnic tables. Then Old Man Brisbee pinched my cheek againand I don’t mean my face”

“Don’t tell me…. He’s still using that cataract excuse?”

“Macular degeneration.”

She grunted in disgust. “Brisbee has been using that
one for years. The old fool just likes pinching women’s
rear ends. He tried it on me years ago, and I grabbed his
arse right back”

“Next time I see him, I’ll make sure my butt is nowhere
in his vicinity.”