Murder is the Pits (8 page)

“I agree. We can check in on Nana while
we’re there.”

The spirits, as Ruthie would say, were
obviously looking after Guthrie. The broken window was to his
utility room—a washer, dryer, and concrete floor. Granted, the room
was filled with water, sand, leaves, and a poor, dead seagull, but
nothing that couldn’t be cleaned.

Ruthie found a purple towel in the dryer and
gently wrapped it around the seagull. We stood in a circle while
Ruthie said a prayer. She blessed the gull for all its selfless
contributions to our plane (translation: Earth) and commended his
spirit to the great gull attractor field in another dimension,
where he would never feel pain again.

As a consummate New Ager, Ruthie’s service
didn’t surprise me, except for the attractor field part. That was a
new tangent for her. I made a mental note to ask about it
later.

Ruthie sat on the porch, lovingly cradling
the towel-wrapped gull, while Penny Sue and I finished the
inspection. We found no major damage, except for a possible leak in
the vent fan in the master bathroom.

“Rain probably blew down the roof vent,”
Penny Sue said.

I agreed quickly, anxious to leave Guthrie’s
personal space. Aside from a ten-by-fourteen headshot of a very
handsome man, whom I assumed was his friend Timothy, the room was
unremarkable except for the incredible clutter. In my experience,
gay men’s housekeeping put Martha Stewart to shame. Guthrie was
clearly the exception. Of course, he might not be gay. Plus, none
of it was my business, I told myself wryly.

Guthrie had polished off all the Hershey
Kisses and half the Snickers by the time we returned. The
electricity was still off, so he was listening to local TV on our
boom box. “Man, there’s another one out there.”

“Another what?” Penny Sue asked sharply,
probably peeved he’d helped himself to her candy bars.

“A hurricane. Man, we can’t get a break.” He
noticed the purple towel Ruthie was carrying. “You brought my
laundry?”

Ruthie gave him the most hateful look—or as
close to hateful as she gets, which is a long shot from most
people, like Penny Sue and me—I’d ever seen. “The window in your
utility room broke and a poor seagull blew in and died. We need to
bury him.”

Guthrie bolted upright as if spring-loaded.
“Man, that’s awful. I’m sorry I was flip.” He struggled to his
feet. “Absolutely, we need to give him or her a decent burial. I
could make a headstone. But we don’t know his name, do we? Guthrie
Gull. That fits, don’t you think?” He paused. “I’m babbling, aren’t
I? Sorry, I babble when I get nervous—”

I patted the air, indicating he should sit
back down. He complied meekly. I turned to Ruthie. “Where do you
think we should bury him?”

“In the sand dune,” she said without
hesitation. “Ashes to ashes—”

“Sand to sand,” Guthrie piped in. “Should we
call, like, a priest or something?”

“We said a prayer when we found him,” Penny
Sue said, still eyeing the half-full bag of Snickers on the coffee
table. “Now, we need to lay him to rest respectfully.”

“Right. You’re absolutely right.”

I went to help Guthrie. “Okay, let’s
go.”

Ruthie led the way, Penny Sue followed, and
I brought up the rear supporting our hobbling neighbor. Halfway
across the deck, Penny Sue relented (apparently deciding to let
eaten Snickers lie) and dropped back to help me with Guthrie.

The burial was short and solemn, partly
because we’d already commended the gull’s soul to the great
attractor field, and partly because it started to rain and we
didn’t have an umbrella. Apparently, Charley wasn’t finished with
us yet.

We’d only been inside a couple of seconds
when someone knocked frantically on the front door. Penny Sue
hurried to answer it. “My, my.” We heard her exclaim. A moment
later, much to Penny Sue’s chagrin, it became clear that the
visitor was Timothy, the good-looking guy whose picture was
displayed on Guthrie’s bedroom wall.

“Is he here?” our visitor demanded,
obviously assuming we knew who
he
was.

Penny Sue stepped aside and motioned to the
sofa. Timothy rushed past her and knelt on the tile floor beside
Guthrie.

“Timmy!”

“Guthrie!”

Geez, it was like a scene from a bad
B-movie.

“I came as soon as I got Mother home and
settled. She was lucky—her house had no damage and the electricity
was on.” Timothy gingerly touched Guthrie’s bandaged knee,
grimacing at the filthy, sirloin-blood-stained Ace bandage.

“It’s nice to meet you, Timothy.” I held out
my hand. Timothy stood to his full six-plus feet of hard-packed
muscle. Guthrie’s picture didn’t do him justice—this guy was truly
awesome. “Guthrie’s mentioned you several times.” I nodded at our
friend on the sofa. “We think he should go to the hospital and have
his knee X-rayed, but he won’t listen to us.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not giving him a choice.”
Slipping one arm under Guthrie’s shoulders and the other under his
legs, Timothy lifted Guthrie like a doll.

“Holy shit,” Penny Sue muttered, eyes
bulging like Timothy’s biceps, triceps, and other ’ceps we’d
probably never heard of.

Guthrie tittered, wrapping one arm around
Timothy’s neck and waving to us with the other. “Like, I guess I’m
going to the hospital. Thanks ladies, it’s been real.”

I ran ahead to get the front door. Timothy
raised his chin toward a baby blue BMW. I got the hint and opened
the passenger-side door. He placed Guthrie on the seat as gently as
a feather.

“I’ll stop by later to pick up Guthrie’s
things. I can’t thank you enough for looking after him.” With that
Timmy peeled off to the hospital.

Penny Sue was standing in the doorway when I
returned. “What an Adonis! Laa, he’s about the best built man I’ve
ever seen. And he’s in love with Guthrie! What a loss for
womanhood.”

“Opposites attract,” I said, heading down
the hall, Snickers on my mind.

“C’est la vie.” Ruthie turned on her heel
and followed me.

“Yeah,” Penny Sue said loudly, but it’s a
real pisser. She fanned herself, chomping on a candy bar. “It’s
getting hot in here.” She peered out the window. “It’s stopped
raining. Let’s walk around the complex and check the damage.” She
glanced at Ruthie. “What about the beach?”

“Half of the first dune is gone.”

“Could have been worse. One and a half is
better than none.” Penny Sue snagged ice from the cooler and poured
a diet cola.

We went out the sliding glass door to the
deck and followed the public boardwalk for the complex. From that
angle, we had a better view of the condos’ roofs, many of which
were missing large swaths of shingles.

Ruthie pointed to the three-story unit on
the far side of Guthrie’s duplex. A man sat in the corner of the
second story balcony. “Someone else braved the storm. Do you know
him?”

I squinted in his direction. “That’s one of
the condos that recently sold. I wonder if he’s the new owner.”

The man stood, raising his arm. “Seems
friendly, he’s waving to us.” Penny Sue waved back.

Then, we heard a muffled pop. The man
lurched against the handrail, the railing collapsed, and he crashed
to the ground.

“Magawd,” I croaked, my hand fluttering to
my heart. Ruthie froze, eyes the size of saucers.

Bless her heart, Penny Sue hailed from
heartier stock. Probably the result of all the firearm, Tae Kwon
Do, and terrorist avoidance driving courses she’d taken. In any
event, this was one time I was happy for Penny Sue to take control.
“Ruthie, run get a cell phone. Call 9-1-1. Leigh, you’re with
me.”

Huh? I wasn’t good with mangled bodies. She
grabbed my arm and yanked, I had no choice.

The man had landed face down in the sand,
with one leg folded under his abdomen and one hand bent backward.
Penny Sue felt his neck for a pulse and grimaced. “Help me roll him
over. I’ll try CPR.”

One look at his contorted hand and my mouth
filled with the taste of Snickers. I gritted my teeth and swallowed
hard. “You can do this,” I told myself. “You have to do this!”

I placed my hands on his torso, and rolled
him to his back. Poised on her knees ready to administer CPR, Penny
Sue gagged at the sight of the bullet hole in the middle of his
chest and sat down hard. A handgun that looked a lot like Guthrie’s
Glock was under the body. Blood oozed from the hole in the man’s
chest. CPR forgotten, Penny Sue and I scrambled away from the
corpse. At that moment, Ruthie barreled up with her cell phone. She
took one look, whirled around, and vomited. Penny Sue and I held
our noses and crawled to the side of the building.

“Toss me the cell phone,” Penny Sue called
to Ruthie. “We’ll take care of this. Go back to the condo and clean
yourself up.”

Ruthie threw the phone and made a
half-hearted attempt to kick sand over the vomit while Penny Sue
dialed 9-1-1. “You just got a call about an injured man. Yeah,
that’s the one. Send the police. It’s a gunshot wound.”

A patrol car and fire truck arrived
simultaneously. A female officer bounded from the patrol car, gun
drawn. She slowly turned in a circle, searching nearby balconies,
while her male partner stooped beside the paramedic. The
examination only took a minute. There was no doubt in anybody’s
mind that this man was dead as a doornail.

Huddled against the side of the building,
Penny Sue whispered, “His gun must have gone off when he fell. He
might have survived the fall otherwise.”

“What was he doing with a gun?”

“Looters. After all, someone tried to break
into Mrs. King’s condo. They would have succeeded if it hadn’t been
for her burglar alarm. But alarms aren’t working now—even the
backup batteries have run out of juice.”

“I heard a pop, didn’t you?” I said.

“The railing giving way. These condos are
old, and the wood dries out and rots if it’s not properly
maintained. That’s why so many people are switching to aluminum. A
couple of years ago, a balcony down the beach collapsed and a whole
family was injured.”

The female officer, Heather Brooks, squatted
beside us with a notebook and a big roll of yellow crime tape. “We
need to rope off this area. Do you live in the complex?”

I nodded. “At the end of the boardwalk,
number forty-two.”

Heather wrote it down. “Your name?”

“Leigh Stratton. That’s L-e-i-g-h.”

She tilted her head at Penny Sue. “You’re
staying together?”

“Yes, it’s my father’s condo.”

“And you are?”

“Penny Sue Parker.”

The officer did a double take. “Sorry.” She
grinned sheepishly. “Could you give me that again?”

“Penny, P-e-n-n-y. Sue—”

The officer held up her hand. “Got it.”

“Parker.”

Heather consulted the previous page of her
notebook. “You made the second call. Ruthie Nichols made the first
call. Do you know her?”

“She’s staying with us, too. We sent her
back to the condo to clean up …” Penny Sue pointed at the pool of
puke. “Ruthie isn’t good in a crisis.”

Heather scrunched her nose. “I see. The
three of you witnessed what happened?”

“Yes,” I said.

The officer made a notation in her book,
stood, and reached down to help us to our feet. I was grateful for
her assistance; my knees were still a little wobbly.

“Someone will be down to take your
statements as soon as we secure the area. In the meantime, you
should keep your doors locked.”

Oh, boy. My right knee started to
twitch.

* * *

August 14, New Smyrna Beach, FL

Ruthie sat at
the kitchen counter
cradling her head in her hands. She’d changed into a yellow cotton
shirt with matching culottes. Un-ironed, since there was no
electricity. Normally a fashion plate, ironing was clearly not high
on Ruthie’s list at the present time.

Penny Sue rubbed Ruthie’s shoulder. “You all
right?”

Ruthie shook her head no.

“A cola will settle your stomach.” Penny Sue
pulled three diet colas from the cooler in the closet and poured
them into Styrofoam cups with a smidgen of ice. “Not much ice,”
Penny Sue said, handing the cup to Ruthie. “Who knows how long the
power will be out?”

Ruthie spoke without lifting her head.
“Electric feeder lines are down. New Smyrna Utilities has no idea
when power will be restored. We have to conserve water. Almost all
the pumping stations are running on generators. We should limit
flushing toilets.”

“Toilets aren’t a problem, because we can
always use ocean water. There are some buckets in the utility
room,” I said.

“Right,” Penny Sue agreed brightly, trying
to cheer up Ruthie. “Y’all made fun of me, but we have a ton of
food and bottled water. Best of all, we can cook—we have gas!”

Ruthie raised her head and stared at Penny
Sue with red-rimmed eyes. “You are bad luck.”

Penny Sue tilted her chin haughtily. “I most
certainly am not! I had nothing to do with that man,” she turned on
me, “did I, Leigh?”

She didn’t give me a chance to answer,
though I was inclined to agree with Ruthie.

Penny Sue went on, “I’ve never seen him in
my life. He was guarding against looters, leaned on a rotten
railing, and fell on his gun. You can’t blame me for that!”

“You didn’t cause it,” Ruthie said quietly,
“but you’re a lightning rod for trouble. Murders don’t happen
unless you’re around.”

Penny Sue drew back as if she’d been slapped
in the face. “You were there too, for Lord’s sake. Maybe you’re the
lightning rod!”

I held my hands up, trying to calm everyone
down. After all, the police would arrive any minute to take our
statements. The last thing we needed was a fight among ourselves.
Besides, we were all stuck in Florida for who-knew-how long, in
case we were required to give depositions in the mafia case. Our
initial instructions said we might be called next week. With the
hurricane, I had a sneaking feeling the timeline would be extended.
I sure as heck didn’t want to spend weeks together at each other’s
throats.