Murder is the Pits (11 page)

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to poke you.”

She relaxed.

“Penny Sue, you scared the hell out of
Timothy. You acted like a sex-starved floozy. I thought you were
going to tackle him and lick his arms or something.”

Her bottom lip jutted out as her eyes
contracted to slits, like a snake. “I am not a sex-starved floozy.
If anyone’s sex-starved, it’s you. I didn’t do anything,” she said,
glaring at Ruthie. “Did I?”

“Don’t drag me into this. I’m not taking
sides.”

Penny Sue put her hands on her hips. “What
did I do?”

“You all but drooled on the man.”

“Ha ha,” she chuckled theatrically. “Who
shouted, ‘chemist!?’ The poor guy nearly jumped out of his
skin.”

I sighed. She was right. I canted my head
apologetically. “Guilty.”

Penny Sue shrugged. “Let’s forget it. We’re
all on edge. It’s been a helluva few days.”

“You can say that again,” Ruthie exclaimed.
“The vibes in the atmosphere are truly ominous. It makes my skin
crawl.”

Back in the living room, Penny Sue and I
thumped our Styrofoam cups together as a final act of
forgiveness.

“There are more hurricanes brewing?” I
asked, following up on Ruthie’s comment about bad vibes in the
atmosphere.

“Two—Danielle and Earl. Danielle’s still
over by Africa, and Earl’s only a tropical storm. They don’t worry
me. It’s more than that.” Ruthie glanced around, searching the
kitchen. “Where’s the wine?”

I went to the closet, retrieved the now
chilled Chardonnay, and poured her a glass. We all toasted this
time.

Ruthie took a dainty sip. “It’s not only the
hurricanes, there’s bad energy everywhere.”

“Can you be more specific?” Penny Sue
asked.

I switched off the radio and herded them
toward the living area. Penny Sue snatched the bottle of wine as
she passed the kitchen counter. Ruthie perched on the loveseat,
while Penny Sue and I plopped on the sofa. I held up my hands.
“Ruthie, can you tune into the vibes if we’re quiet and all
concentrate?”

“Probably.”

“Wait. Shouldn’t we burn some sage or
something?” Penny Sue asked.

Burning sage was an American Indian
tradition for cleansing spaces of bad energy that we’d used several
times before in tense situations. I’m not sure it did any good,
though it surely didn’t hurt. We were still alive. The only
drawback was that the stuff smelled awful, a lot like marijuana,
which caused considerable trouble with our prosecutor acquaintance,
the spiteful Woody Woodhead.

“Sage?” Ruthie said. “Couldn’t hurt.”

I found some Spice Island sage in the
kitchen, dumped it in a bowl on the coffee table, and lit it. The
fine powder flamed for a moment, then smoldered. I fanned the stuff
on all of us, including the living room, saying a silent prayer
that Woody wouldn’t show up. All the doors and windows were open,
since the electricity was still out. The air was hot and heavy with
moisture, meaning the smoke hung in the room like stinky
clouds.

After a good cleansing with the sage—or as
much as I could stand—I placed the bowl on the coffee table and let
it burn out. I took my seat next to Penny Sue. Ruthie curled her
legs under herself like a pretzel. Penny Sue and I glanced at each
other, silently acknowledging that we couldn’t get in that position
if our lives depended on it. Ruthie placed her hands, palms up, on
her knees, thumb and forefinger lightly touching. Penny Sue and I
mimicked the movement, though our feet were firmly planted on the
floor. (
Where they should be
, as Grammy Martin would
say.)

Ruthie closed her eyes and we could tell she
was centering. “Om-m-m-m,” she intoned.

Penny Sue and I joined in. “Om-m-m-m.”

Then silence—a profound silence one rarely
experiences. Amazing how quiet things get without electricity. No
hum of refrigerators or air conditioners. No televisions or radios
playing in the distance. A quiet like people knew in the olden
days, I suspected, before electricity and before we were bombarded
with electromagnetic waves, continuous noise, and too much
information. The quiet was unnerving. I wasn’t used to a feeling of
such solitude. Finally, Ruthie spoke.

“Chaotic energy. Mother Earth is
rebalancing. There will be more storms. There are also hateful
energies all around us.”

No joke. Drug-crazed punks vandalized Mrs.
King’s house and a guy just died, probably murdered. That’s pretty
hateful in my book.

“Can you pinpoint the people responsible?”
Penny Sue whispered.

I peeked at Penny Sue and saw her eyes were
open and she was sipping wine.

Ruthie thought a moment. “Greed. A rapacious
craving for power. That is behind it. There are many greedy
factions, all vying for the top spot.”

“Can you tell who they are?” Penny Sue
asked.

“Only that they’re very dangerous.”

“What should we do?” I asked.

“There is another storm coming, much bigger
than the last. Soon. We should not stay. We should go to the Old
City, there is protection there.”

“The Old City? What the heck does that
mean?” Penny Sue asked.

Ruthie opened her eyes and shrugged. “I
don’t know. That’s all I got.”

“Maybe it means the mainland,” I said. “This
island was originally named Coronado Beach. The mainland was New
Smyrna. The two didn’t merge until 1947 and combined the names to
New Smyrna Beach.”

“Which is older?” Penny Sue asked.

“I don’t know. They’re probably about the
same age.”

Penny Sue refilled her cup. “Great, that
tells us a lot.”

A knock on the screen door ended the
discussion. My first thought was Woody. I sniffed the sage. Lord,
please, not Woody.

“Come on in,” Penny Sue called.

We heard the twang of the spring on the
screen door.

“Cool, man, incense. Sage. Are y’all
meditating? Can I join in?”

Guthrie. What was he doing here? He sounded
like he might have taken another pink pill. He hobbled in on
crutches with Timothy walking behind him, supporting his waist.
From the look on Guthrie’s face, Timothy was the only thing keeping
that injured puppy on his feet. Ruthie scooted to the rattan chair
and motioned for Guthrie to take the loveseat. He plopped down and
put his bum leg on the coffee table.

Timothy had changed into a tank top and
running shorts. I had to admit that the man was a fine specimen of
humanity. Penny Sue obviously agreed, since she was swigging wine
with her eyes fixed on his muscular thighs. Considering the
oppressive heat—the heat index had to be 103º—I was afraid she
might burst into flames. I once saw a television program about
strange phenomena that claimed spontaneous human combustion was a
documented fact. Maybe we had the prerequisite combination—heat,
humidity, a menopausal woman, and a very well built man.

Guthrie patted the place beside him and
Timothy sat down. Penny Sue groaned. Praise be, the spell was
broken. I had no desire to be toasted by a flaming Penny Sue.

Guthrie took a deep breath. “Man, I love
sage. Terrific for putting you in touch with the Great Beyond.
Lavender’s good, too. I use that a lot when I meditate. Anyway, I
had to thank you for letting me hang out with y’all last night. You
saved my life.”

“No problem. We enjoyed your company,”
replied Ruthie, a.k.a. Ms. Manners.

“How did it go with Officer Brooks?” I
asked.

“You mean Heather?” Guthrie patted his
temple with his forefinger. “That’s a sharp lady. Her head is
screwed on really tight.”

I bit my lip. It was all I could do to keep
from saying, “And yours is a little loose.”

“Did she give you any trouble about your
Glock?” Penny Sue wanted to know.

“Naw. She’d already run the serial number
and knew it was registered to me. Besides, Florida has some of the
most liberal gun laws, outside of the West. I think everyone
carries a gun out West. They shoot each other all the time. Did you
ever see that show,
Deadwood
? Man, those cowboys go at it.
Do you think George Bush packed a gun? I’ll bet he had one in his
desk at the Oval Office. Say the wrong thing, and he could pop you,
like they do in
Deadwood
. The Secret Service would probably
cover it up. Did you see the episode—”

Timothy stroked Guthrie’s good leg.

Guthrie eyed Timothy and smiled meekly. “I’m
babbling, huh?”

Timothy winked.

Guthrie sat up straight. “I’ll be quiet,
because Timothy has something to say.” Guthrie twisted his fingers
in front of his mouth like he was turning a key.

No question in my mind, he’d had another
pink pill.

Noticeably embarrassed by Guthrie’s antics,
Timothy stared at the ceiling. “After the police left, I took a
look at Guthrie’s hurricane shutters. I agree that they were
sabotaged. A highly reactive solvent of some kind. My specialty is
fuels, and I’ve worked for NASA so long, I’ve forgotten a lot of
basic chemistry. I’ll have to do a little research, but I promise
to look into it. Someone definitely wanted Guthrie’s windows to
blow out.”

“It’s not only Guthrie’s windows,” I added
quickly. “The water pipe beneath Mrs. King’s condo was sabotaged,
too. They both have the telltale rust.”

“Whew, that makes me feel better. I thought
someone was out to get me. I can understand that someone might want
to nail my Aunt Harriet, who owns the condo. She has, like, a
personality problem. Crab-b-by doesn’t begin to describe her.
That’s why I moved over here. I couldn’t stand her yelling anymore.
I lived next door to Harriet in my mother’s house. Mom passed a
while back—heart attack. Everything was fine for a while, and then
Harriet went berserk. I don’t know how Uncle Daniel takes it.
Anyway, I rented out Mom’s house and pay them rent on this place.
Works out good. Daniel uses the rent money to hire a nurse, so he
can get away to play bingo and cards. I’m telling ya, the man would
be crazy, too, if he didn’t get away from that old witch.”

I waited for Guthrie to take a breath, but
he kept going.

“She wasn’t always like this, so it’s sort
of a love-hate thing. Uncle Daniel wants to hold onto this condo
until Harriet croaks. He figures these places will be worth a
fortune. Then, he can sell and get enough money to go into one of
those elderly homes where all the nurses are young and have big
tits.”

Timothy patted Guthrie’s knee.

Guthrie shrugged. “Too much
information?”

Timothy nodded.

If I were a writer, this was one pair that
would make a terrific novel. Guthrie was like a big, floppy puppy,
the kind that gets into everything, rolls in dirt, and likes to
give people sloppy, wet kisses. Timothy was flawless—straight out
of
GQ
in looks and demeanor. What they saw in each other was
beyond me.

Yet who was I to question relationships? I
had my own inexplicable marriage to Zack. In retrospect, our
relationship was dumb. Back then, young women graduated from
college and got married. Besides, a lawyer was a good catch or so
everyone said. Seemingly perfect at first, our marriage went
downhill fast, which I attributed to the ambitious lawyer syndrome.
By then, who cared? Zack worked long hours? Big deal. I had my
precious babies to look after.

Yep, Timothy and Guthrie’s relationship was
none of my business. I hoped they, and everyone on the planet, were
blissfully happy—except Zack. (Sorry, Grammy, I know that isn’t the
right Christian attitude. Forgiving Zack is beyond my ability at
the moment, the wound is too fresh. Besides, he’s still a
jerk!)

“Guthrie,” Ruthie spoke for the first time.
“You’ve been around this area for a long time, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I used to come here to surf when
I was a kid. Man, we had some great clambakes, better than the
stuff in
Gidget
. This was a really cool place. Only problem,
there were no bathrooms. See, the place was pretty deserted
back—”

Timothy thumped Guthrie’s arm. Guthrie
smiled.

“—yes, I’ve been coming here a long time,”
he finished.

“If someone told you to go to the Old City,
what would you think? Does
Old City
mean anything to
you?”

Guthrie stroked his chin, in deep thought,
or dementia—perhaps Aunt Harriet’s condition was hereditary.
Actually, I suspected his reaction had something to do with the
pink pills for his knee.

“St. Augustine,” Timothy said without
hesitation. “The Old City in this state is St. Augustine. The
legend of Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth centers on St.
Augustine. Even the first settlers of New Smyrna initially landed
in St. Augustine, then followed the St. Johns River down here.”

“I never thought of that,” Ruthie replied.
“I always think of St. Augustine as a great place to shop.”

“St. Augustine is full of history,” Penny
Sue piped in. “I went with Momma when I was a child. Indians,
Spanish, and British all fought wars there. Because of that, there
are a lot of disjointed spirits.”

Ruthie rolled her eyes. “You mean
Earth-bound spirits. People who went so fast and unexpectedly, they
don’t know they’re gone. They stay at their old haunts, not
realizing they’re dead.”

Penny Sue waved her arms expansively. “Yes!
There are a bunch of ghost tours in St. Augustine.”

“And nice hotels,” Ruthie added.

“They were all booked for Charley,
remember?” Penny Sue chided. “You need to get some dates from your
spirits so we can make reservations.”

“Reservations for what?” Timothy asked.

I let out a loud sigh. “We did a
meditation—y’all smelled the sage—and Ruthie’s guides told her a
bigger storm was coming and we should not stay. They said we’d be
safe in the Old City.”

Guthrie’s eyes lit up. “Ruthie, you’ve got
guides? Is it the sage? Girl, I’m coming with you.”