Mouth of the Rat (A Samantha Jamison Mystery)
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Authors: Peggy A. Edelheit
Mouth Of The Rat
A Samantha Jamison Mystery
Volume 5
by
Peggy A. Edelheit
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Mouth of the Rat: A Samantha Jamison Mystery, Volume 5
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Copyright © 2012 by Peggy A. Edelheit
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Published by Telemachus Press, LLC
http://www.telemachuspress.com
Visit the author website:
http://www.samanthajamison.com
ISBN: 978-1-938701-67-2 (eBook)
Version 2014.01.18
Other Books by Peggy A. Edelheit
The Samantha Jamison Mystery Series
Death Knell In The Alps Volume 6
A Samantha Jamison Detour
The Riviera is Burning Volume 5.5
Chase Your Dreams
& Remember,
Every Day is a Blessing
With Special Love to Bob
My biggest supporter and confidant
Marc, Aaron & Jonathan
A Special Thanks To My Editor
Winslow Eliot
Publisher
Telemachus Press
Steven & Claudia Jackson
Steven & Terri Himes
Acknowledgment
Jon Denz
Mouth Of The Rat
A Samantha Jamison Mystery
Volume 5
Chapter 1
A Change Up, But Nothing’s Changed
From the Boca Raton Historical Society
The meaning of the name Boca Raton has always aroused curiosity. Many people wrongly assume the name is simply Rat’s Mouth. The Spanish word boca, or mouth, often describes an inlet, while raton means, literally, mouse. The term Boca de Ratones or Boca Ratones was a navigational, referring to a rocky or jagged inlet, but the original location of Boca de Ratones was Biscayne Bay near present-day Miami Beach, according to eighteenth century maps. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the term was mistakenly applied to the current Lake Boca Raton, whose inlet was closed throughout most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The “s” and later the “e” were dropped from this title by the 1920s, yet the correct pronunciation remains Rah-tone.
Who was the rat with the kiss of death?
* * * * *
I was about to hit the button when the door whipped open. I stepped back in surprise, then smiled at my old friend Mona. My blonde hair was in a ponytail, but because I still had on multi-layered clothes from my trip I was sweating profusely in tropical Boca Raton, Florida.
Mona sighed in relief. “Sam, you came! If I sounded cryptic and panicky on the phone, I hope you’ll understand. This whole thing was so sudden and unexpected.”
I stood there, staring at my ample-figured, dark-haired, quirky and impulsive girlfriend. “Cryptic about sums you up …and cagey. As usual, you knew I’d fall for that
dead
part of your urgent phone message.”
Mona chuckled. “And maybe a potential mystery…”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What amazes me is how I’ve managed to survive this long to keep writing another one.”
Come to think of it, so were my agent and editor.
She looked past me, grinning. “I see you’ve dumped your three crazy old sleuths back in Highlands.”
“You sounded desperate so I rushed here. They say hi.”
“Come on in.” She grabbed one of my bags and led me inside. “I’m still settling in from my move.”
Mona showed me around the spacious first floor condo overlooking the golf course in the gate-guarded enclave. It was a corner unit in a building that housed four in total. Her area was Mediterranean style with clay-barreled roofs. It looked pretty pricey to me, including expensive, high-end leather and wood furniture.
Where was she getting the bucks for this?
She smiled, as though reading my thoughts. “It was his.”
“Whose?” I asked, verbally lost, as usual with Mona.
“Marco’s.”
“But he’s dead. You said so yourself.”
“I know.”
“So what gives? How did you end up with it?”
“…He sort of bequeathed it to me.”
“I’m not getting the
bequeathed
part of that sentence.”
“It’s not what you think. It’s all perfectly legal.”
“What is?”
“Our marriage.”
I dropped down to the couch, shocked. “…Married?”
“Marco insisted.”
“Why?”
“So his car collection wouldn’t be stolen by his wife.”
“…He’s married?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“It’s complicated.”
Ha! Like she’s telling me something new, right?
Chapter 2
Sorting Through Clothes & The Truth
Mona left me to unpack and freshen up in the guest suite, promising to fill me in over drinks after she started dinner. My head was spinning from her news.
Married?
Who was this Marco? What car collection? What wife?
Like once before, Mona sounded like she had stepped into another potboiler of a mess. So what did she expect me to do? I was a novelist who wrote mysteries for a living, not a professional investigator. Why call me?
The two of us met at college, but then drifted apart. Several years later, after I had married Stephen, she vanished right after an abrupt and cryptic phone call to me. Then Stephen was killed in a suspicious car crash. After solving the mystery surrounding his death in Highlands, North Carolina, I fled to the beach at Ocean City, New Jersey to recoup and write in peace and quiet. But out of the blue Mona showed up at my door.
Mona’s mysterious reappearance back then soon had me caught up in nothing but lies and chaos. So you can see why I was kind of leery of this so-called emergency and what she was now saying about this Marco of hers.
Well, he wasn’t technically hers, was he? He was dead.
Would I regret allowing my curiosity to take over? With Mona, who was famous for stretching the truth and pushing the envelope, it was a constant guessing game.
But to tell you the truth, I still loved it.
I laughed, recalling how we dealt with threats, me with my baseball bat, and she with her umbrella, on her first night in Ocean City when an intruder invaded my rented beach house. After finally learning Mona had connections of her own, I assumed she was now carrying more than an umbrella for protection, especially after Marco died.
But how did Marco die? She conveniently pushed that off for later, leaving me with a meandering stream of questions. Was it accidental or murder? Could it involve the ex-wife? How did Mona get involved with Marco?
Mona was always about the comfort zone of having friends by her side when she was in trouble. And this certainly felt like trouble to me. The problem was how could I possibly help her if she was going to hand me her usual misdirection? Would she tell me the truth this time?
Would I let her know if I thought she was lying to me again? I sat down on the bed and gave that some thought. Why should I?
She
never did in the past with me. Then I grinned, realizing that in a bizarre way this was a gift. Why not play along and see where it took me?
Mona was right.
This could potentially be my next book.
Chapter 3
Much Ado About Marco
At first, we just sat there. Mona took a sip of wine, and then I took a sip. I knew by her look she was stalling for time. I still couldn’t believe I had rushed and traveled all those miles to sit there and wait.
But pressing her never worked, so I waited some more.
You know, I think she was actually enjoying this.
Once again I sipped my wine, but this time she gulped hers, a revealing gesture. She was on the verge of saying something. Why was the ever-talkative Mona suddenly acting restrained? Trust me, this wasn’t normal.
Hey, maybe she was in trouble.
She cleared her throat. “…It started with a phone call.”
“Okay, a phone call. What next?”
“They put Marco in the witness protection program.”
I swear I should have been a dentist.
“…And?”
“I ended up getting caught in the middle.”
