Murder is the Pits (30 page)

“Welcome to the beach,” I said. “This isn’t
Atlanta where you’re judged by how much your outfit cost. Here,
nobody cares what you wear, which is what I like about the
place.”

A big hat, sunglasses, and regular clothes
provided the perfect disguise for Ruthie. Unfortunately, she didn’t
learn much from her daily treks except that Pearl was truly a brick
shy of a full load. Pearl snuck around the development hiding her
garbage in neighbors’ plants, stairwells, mailboxes, cars, and
anything else she could get in to. The old girl also had sticky
fingers. She stole the welcome mat from one condo and a man’s
swimsuit that had been draped over a railing to dry.

“Whoa, that’s seriously kinky,” Guthrie
said, when Ruthie recounted her story. “You think Pearl’s doing,
like, an Indian counting coup thing?”

“What’s that?” Penny Sue asked.

“It was a way Indians gained honor by
getting through the enemies’ defenses. All they had to do was touch
the enemy, or take something, to prove they were superior.”

“Pearl’s proving she’s superior by dumping
garbage everywhere and stealing things?”

Guthrie held up his hands. “Stranger things
have happened.”

The other thing Ruthie learned from her
daily walks was that fisherman Larry was doing a lot of walking,
too. “Likely because he can’t get to the beach to fish,” she
surmised.

“Or the fishing’s lousy with all the debris
in the water,” I suggested.

“That’s probably it,” Penny Sue agreed.
“That depression off the coast was just upgraded to a hurricane,
and some weather forecasters think Ivan will go out to sea in New
England, then turn around and come back here as a nor’easter.”

“You’re kidding!” Ruthie raced to the
television. With all the activity of the last few days, she’d
slacked off on her weather watching. Besides, Penny Sue had become
hooked on
CSI
re-runs that we’d watched most evenings. A few
minutes into the tropical update, Ruthie moaned.

“What, what?” Penny Sue rushed to the living
room.

“Ivan made landfall in the Panhandle this
morning. It’s been downgraded to a tropical storm and is supposed
to bring lots of rain all the way to New England. But the worse is
Tropical Storm Jeanne that was initially predicted to bypass
Florida. It’s now a hurricane and expected to take a northwest
turn, following in Frances’ footsteps.”

“English, Ruthie, English. What does that
mean to us?” Penny Sue demanded.

“We’d better restock the hurricane
supplies.”

Penny Sue and I both groaned.

The next week was Pearl and weather hell.
What probably got Pearl’s back up were the responses we started
receiving from the condo owners we’d written. Almost to a person,
each owner said they’d been contacted by Pearl Woodhead, but would
let us know if they decided to sell. I suppose someone told Pearl
about my offer. On Saturday morning we found a typed note stuck to
our door with chewing gum; “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”

“Put on gloves,” Penny Sue shrieked as I
started to pull the gum off the door. “The crime lab can probably
check it for DNA.”

I shook my head. “Penny Sue, get serious.
The police are not going to check this note for DNA.”

“It’s a threat, and we know Pearl did
it.”

I let out a long sigh. “You may be right,
but there’s no overt threat.”

Ruthie appeared with a baggie.
CSI
had obviously made an impression on her. “Doesn’t hurt to preserve
the evidence. Don’t you guess we should call the police?”

“Not for this,” I said. “But if it escalates
…”

And, it did.

That evening Gary Wilson phoned to tell us
he and Pat had decided to sell. If I wanted the condo, it was mine.
They’d been leaning in that direction, but Pearl Woodhead pushed
them all the way. The night before, Pearl called the Wilsons and
tried to pressure them into selling. When Gary told her he had
promised me first choice, Pearl went berserk, claiming it was
rightfully her land, and she’d put a hex on him, his children, and
his children’s children. Gary told her he’d heard enough and hung
up in her face. Pearl phoned several more times—they could tell
from caller ID—but the Wilsons didn’t answer. Pearl finally stopped
about midnight their time.

I told Gary I thought the beachfront condos
previously sold in the $550,000-$600,000 range, but considering the
repairs, would he consider taking less? “Absolutely, wouldn’t dream
of charging you full price,” he assured me. He’d give me a figure
when he received all the repair estimates.

I was ecstatic for about ten minutes. “Gary
will sell,” I exclaimed. “I’m not homeless any more!” I did a
little victory dance as Penny Sue passed around wine to toast my
good fortune.

“Best yet, you’ll be right next to me. Won’t
that be fun-n?” Penny Sue drawled.

I swallowed hard. Hmmm. I had to think for a
minute. Oh, well, Penny Sue wouldn’t be there much, so it would be
fun. We toasted again, just as the phone rang.

“Leigh,” Guthrie whispered. “Turn on your
front porch light. Someone’s messing with your car.”

I flew down the hall to the light switch.
Penny Sue followed, pulling her gun from its holster as Ruthie
slapped the battery pack into the taser. My heart pounded. “Okay,
on three. One, two, three-e.” I flipped the switch and flung open
the door. At that moment, a halogen spotlight from Guthrie’s upper
deck switched on, illuminating the culprit and Timothy creeping
toward the parking lot.

Pearl stood beside my car. She was holding
an egg carton and a jar. As I approached her from the front,
Timothy snuck in from the rear. Pearl’s lips curled back with a
crazed look of contempt when she saw me.

“You stole my condo,” she said. Before I
could stop her, she took an egg and broke it on the hood of my VW.
“This is my land.” She threw an egg at me, which missed, and
prepared to heave the jar. Luckily, Timothy had reached her by then
and snatched the jar before she could release it. Pearl whirled
around, eyes wide, and smashed the egg carton in Timothy’s face. He
staggered back, blinded.

Penny Sue shoved her gun into my hands and
raced to Pearl. With one swift move, Penny Sue swept her leg in a
low arc and knocked the old woman flat on her behind. Then, Penny
Sue grabbed Pearl’s wrists and held them tightly. “Call Woody.
She’s lost her mind. Ruthie, bring me a scarf or something I can
use to tie her hands. Nothing rough, her skin’s like tissue
paper.”

A two hundred dollar Chanel silk scarf is
what Ruthie brought back. What a waste. I sucked air as I watched
Penny Sue tie Pearl’s hands behind her with the expensive silk and
lead her into the house to wait for Woody.

Guthrie appeared with a washcloth and wiped
the egg off Timothy’s face, all the while Timothy studied the jar.
He let out a low whistle. “Be glad Pearl didn’t throw this,” he
exclaimed. “It’s mercury!”

My jaw dropped. Was Pearl responsible for
Clyde’s death?

“Got a hose?” Guthrie brought me back to the
present. “The egg will ruin your paint job.”

I absently pointed to the side of the house
and followed the others inside.

Woody arrived in a half hour. The moment
Pearl saw him she started screaming. We’d stolen from her,
assaulted her, none of it was her fault. She spit at Penny Sue.

“Mom, if you don’t shut up, I’m locking you
in the bathroom,” he said sternly.

She gave him the most hateful look I’ve ever
seen. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He stared her in the eye.
“What happened, here?”

Timothy started the story, telling Woody how
he and Guthrie were sitting on their deck and saw Pearl sneak up
and start messing with my car. Penny Sue finished the story as
Timothy held up the jar of mercury.

Woody took the jar and examined it. The
veins in his neck bulged as he rotated the jar and watched the
large silver globule side around in one piece. Finally, he thrust
it in his mother’s face. “Where did you get this?”

“A friend gave it to me.”

“What friend?”

“A relative friend.”

“What relative?”

“One of us,” she said defiantly.

“Us? Us, what?”

“Our brother. An Indian.”

Woody shook his head and put the jar on the
coffee table. “Mom, you’re not an Indian, Dad was. Can’t you get
that through your head? You’re not an Indian princess.”

“Your father was the chief.”

“Chief of what? The tribe is long gone.” He
asked us, “Have any of you heard of the Surruque?”

We shook our heads.

“No one has. Dad was the last of the
line.”

Pearl sat up straight. “No, son, you are.
This is your rightful land. I’m making arrangements to get it back
for you, so you’ll get the respect and riches you deserve.”

He gave us an expression of total defeat.
“I’ll pay for any damage. Do you want to press charges?”

“No,” I said. “Not if you get her some help.
Woody, at her age, she may have Alzheimer’s. Ruthie’s seen her do
some very strange things.”

“Yeah, man, like kinky,” Guthrie added.

“Thanks.” Woody helped his mother up. Ruthie
untied the scarf.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Woody said as he
walked his mother down the hall.

So, the Pearl part of our hellish week came
to a fairly satisfactory conclusion. The paint on my car was
ruined, but Woody had Pearl committed to a mental hospital for
observation. I’m sure that was because of the mercury she had and a
secret fear that Pearl might have been involved in Clyde Holden’s
death. In any event, she was out of our hair.

It was the weather that proved to be the
hell of hells. For most of the week Hurricane/Tropical Storm Jeanne
did a loop-de-loop in the Atlantic, north of Haiti. It posed no
immediate threat, but the way it kept getting upgraded and
downgraded over and over, moving north, east, south, and west was
enough to make you crazy. I honestly feared for Ruthie’s sanity,
she’d become so obsessed with Jeanne.

If Jeanne wasn’t enough, Ivan the Terrible
did what a few forecasters predicted. It dumped tons of rain on the
East Coast, went out to sea in New England, and then circled back
to Florida as a nor’easter. So, as Jeanne did loop-de-loops, Ivan
slid to Jeanne’s inland side and pounded us with wind gusts and
torrential rains. In fact, the evil booger wasn’t satisfied he had
already hit the Panhandle of Florida—it crossed the state, reformed
as a tropical storm, and hit the upper Gulf Coast a second
time.

Though we were in St. Augustine for Frances,
locals who stayed for that wicked witch told us Ivan was nearly as
bad. For three straight days gale force winds, rain, and high tides
clobbered the coast. It was the wind and high tides that did us in.
The first day we watched a few sandbags float out to sea. By the
second day, several dozen were missing. On the third day, the rest
of the bags went, and one side of our deck collapsed.

And that was from a nor’easter and mere gale
force winds. Little did we know that two days later Jeanne, tired
of running in circles, would head for Florida as a Category 3
hurricane.

* * *

September 23-25, New Smyrna Beach, FL

Penny Sue and
Ruthie left for Publix
at eight
AM
to buy more hurricane
provisions. I stayed home to arrange to have my car painted. The
Volkswagen dealership would take it that afternoon. Good, I figured
the car would be in a garage if Hurricane Jeanne actually came our
way.

Remembering the ice shortage during
Hurricane Charley, I had the brainstorm that blocks of ice would
melt slower than ice cubes or the bags you could purchase. So, I
pulled out every mixing bowl in the condo, filled it with water,
and put it in the freezer. If I filled a couple of coolers with the
blocks of ice, they would last a long time. I hoped. Halfway
through my project, the doorbell rang. Of course, my first thought
was Guthrie. I figured he’d seen the weather forecast and had come
to beg for a place to stay.

I opened the door, not bothering to check
the peephole, and came face-to-face with a stout American Indian
and a greasy, but well dressed, New York-type. They were standing
inside the screen door. I noticed a gun tucked in the waistband of
Greasy’s trousers. A big black limo sat next to my car.

Greasy reached in his coat pocket and took
out a piece of paper that he carefully unfolded. It was a copy of
the letter I’d sent to the owners. “Are you Leigh Stratton?” he
asked, looking none too happy.

A vision of
The Sopranos
flashed
through my mind, a particular episode where Tony beat a man to
death, then chopped him up into little pieces. I smiled, stupidly,
wiping my hands against my shorts. Think, girl, think! You were
married to a lawyer for over twenty years; you must have learned
something about bullshitting people.

Dumb! Play dumb. Stall for time. Maybe
someone would walk by. Where were all those nosy neighbors when you
needed them? “Oh, are you a homeowner interested in selling? I’d
really like to buy a unit in this development. It’s so pretty with
the sand roads and native vegetation.”

Greasy ripped the letter into tiny pieces
and threw them in my face. “No, I’m not a homeowner.” He stepped
forward and shook his finger in my face. “You are a really dumb
bitch. What did you think my note meant?”

“No-ote? What note?”

“The one that told you to mind your own
business.”

I gave him a silly grin. “Oh, that note.”
Yuk, that was his gum I touched! “I thought Pearl wrote the note.
She’s old and has been acting funny lately. I didn’t take it
seriously.”

“You should have. Where’s Pearl? What did
you do with her?” he sneered.

“I didn’t do anything with Pearl, her son
did. She came over last night and threw eggs on my car.” I pointed
at my yellow VW bug with bubbled paint on the hood. “We figured
Pearl must be having a spell, so we called her son. He put her in
the hospital for observation. You know, at her age, Pearl could
have Alzheimer’s or dementia or hardening of the arteries. Maybe a
stroke.”