Murder Packs a Suitcase (18 page)

Just like Wade and me, Mallory thought. She quickly reprimanded herself for being as silly and starry-eyed as Annabelle.

“So we decided that we'd simply do our best to go on the same press trips,” Annabelle concluded. “And that's what we've done ever since. We always pretended we didn't know each other well because we didn't want to embarrass anyone else on the trip. But for us, each travel junket was another secret rendezvous. Phil and I have made love in Barbados, Madrid, Namibia, New Dehli, Boston, the Canary Islands, and Fallbrook.”

“Fallbrook?”

“Fallbrook, California. The avocado capital of the world.”

Pretty convenient, Mallory thought cynically, especially for a man like Phil. Not only was he accumulating frequent flyer miles, at the same time he was racking up another type of benefit that also began with the letter
F.

Annabelle leaned forward and slurped up the rest of her drink. Instead of making her even more intoxicated, however, for some unfathomable reason, reaching the bottom of a hurricane glass the size of a tornado seemed to sober her up.

“But ever since Sunday, I've been in a panic.” For the first time since they'd sat down, she sounded like her old crusty self. “I can't help worrying about what will happen if the police find out.”

“You mean you didn't tell Detective Martinez about it?” Mallory asked, startled.

Annabelle snorted. “Why would I? The fact that Phil and I were intimate is bound to make me a suspect.” She narrowed her eyes. “And of course I didn't kill him. Why would I? I was in love with him, for heaven's sake! I'm the last person in the world who would have wanted him dead!”

“Of course,” Mallory agreed.

Yet she was thinking the exact opposite. Annabelle's admission that she and Phil had been enjoying a lot more than free HBO in their hotel rooms hardly absolved her of guilt. In fact, as far as Mallory was concerned, it shot her way to the top of the suspect list.

As Annabelle had admitted herself, the police almost always began a murder investigation by focusing on the murder victim's significant other. And Mallory saw no reason why she shouldn't do the same.

12

“Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.”

—Anne Sophie Swetchine

M
allory was still pondering the unlikely pairing of Phil Diamond and Annabelle Gatch later that day as she drove to Kissimmee, a town just south of Orlando on the map.

The more I learn about the other travel writers, she marveled, the more amazed I am. It turns out you really can't judge a book by its cover.

At the moment, however, she had other things to concentrate on besides the intrigues of her fellow travelers and how they might relate to Phil's murder. On the agenda were two stores that she sensed would turn out to do a pretty good job of capturing the old Florida.

She pulled up in front of Orange World, a gift shop and produce store on Highway 192. When she'd stumbled across it while doing research on the web, she'd known immediately that it would be perfect for her article. For one thing, it had opened in 1973, meaning its roots were in the golden days of Florida tourism. Yet probably even more important was the fact that the building was designed to look like the piece of fruit that had inspired its name—at least its top half. The bright-orange, dome-shaped structure epitomized kitsch—especially Florida kitsch.

How wonderful that this building survived, she thought as she snapped a few photos.

Outside were bins filled with brilliantly colored oranges, grapefruits, and even tangelos. Mallory had never dreamed that so many different varieties of citrus fruits existed. Unable to resist a little shopping, she grabbed a plastic basket and picked out a bag of oranges. Each one was perfect, making them look as if someone had painted them with a coat of orange enamel.

Inside the shop, she found the usual tourist paraphernalia, the T-shirts and baseball caps and pens that were available pretty much everywhere. She was much more interested in the grocery section, which was stocked with local specialties produced by Florida-based companies. Mallory filled a basket for Amanda with several flavors of coconut patties and jellied citrus fruit squares that were made right in Orlando. For Jordan, she chose a chocolate alligator called a ChocoGator, which was packed in a box with so-called Gummie Gators. Personally, she found both types of candy creepy, but that was exactly why she thought her son would get a kick out of them. After a long debate, she tossed a jar of guava jelly into her basket, figuring she'd give it to Trevor.

Her second stop was a store that was farther along the same road. Shell World, which had opened a few years after Orange World, occupied a whopping twelve thousand square feet. Before going inside, she took photos of the Volkswagen covered in seashells and the golf cart with the same motif, both parked outside. For no apparent reason, a statue of a pirate guarded the door. Mallory looked for a treasure chest—one filled with seashells, of course—but there was none.

Inside, Shell World was all that its name promised. Aisle after aisle was jampacked with merchandise that was a tribute to the seashell. Seashell wind chimes, seashell night-lights, seashell necklaces, seashell tissue boxes, seashell boxes, seashell wreathes, even a curtain made of shells, which could be purchased with or without a palm tree design created by different colored shells.

The store's inventory also extended to any and every other item that was even vaguely related to the sea: plastic lobsters, mermaid snow globes, rubber sharks. There were also aisles containing nothing but seashells in their natural state, in case shoppers became so inspired they wanted to go home and cover various parts of their homes or possessions with shells.

Mallory wandered through the Seashell Museum, which featured exhibits of different types of starfish, sand dollars, and other unusual sea creatures. “Reticulated cowrie helmet,” she wrote in her notebook. “Video on deep-sea diving.”

While at first she'd been horrified by the store's seashell-themed wares, as she snaked through the aisles on her way out, she kept stumbling across items that caught her fancy. A seashell night-light for the bathroom, shell earrings for Amanda, one of the rubber sharks for Jordan, even though she had no idea what he'd use it for. She also bought a few shell-covered boxes, soap dishes, and necklaces for purposes that had yet to be determined.

I'd better get out of here before I buy enough shells to cover my Subaru back home, she thought.

As she came out of Shell World, blinking in the bright sunlight, she glanced around, wondering if Highway 192 had any other treasures left over from the old Florida days. Her heart began to beat faster when she spotted a building right across the street that she hadn't noticed when she'd arrived.

It was shaped like a giant ice-cream cone.

Patrice, she thought. Phil Diamond's ex-wife.

She knew that Patrice was no longer in the ice-cream business. But she couldn't resist checking this place out on the off chance that the person who worked there might know something about her.

Mallory hurried into her PT Cruiser, got back on the road, and made the first U-turn she could. As she pulled into the parking lot, she saw that the ice-cream shop's window was cut out of the “cone” and giant swirls of what was supposed to be soft-serve vanilla ice cream formed the roof.

Mallory was afraid the stand would be manned by a sixteen-year-old whose idea of ancient history was Bill Clinton's presidency. Instead, a woman who was at least Mallory's age stood at the counter, hunched over a magazine. She was wearing an orange halter top made of fabric that looked wet and slippery, and a pair of denim shorts that were daringly short. Her hair, dyed an unnatural shade of red that still managed to look flattering, was piled up on her head and held in place with half a dozen silver barrettes.

“What can I get you, hon?” the woman asked. She barely glanced up from an article that, according to the headline, promised “amazing weight loss secrets” that enabled someone to lose ten pounds in one week while eating chocolate cake.

“I'll have a vanilla cone,” Mallory replied without even bothering to check the short menu posted along the back wall.

“Yeah, that's pretty much what everybody has,” the woman replied with a knowing smile. “Power of suggestion, you know? Small or large?”

“Uh, small.”

“Ever hear of subliminal messages?” the woman asked as she stood at the gleaming silver soft-serve machine, expertly filling a normal-size cone with a tower of ice cream. “It's a technique people in advertising use all the time. See, they sneak secret messages into the ads you see on TV. In magazines, too. Like in a vodka ad, the swirls in the ice cubes spell out ‘Buy Stoli Now!' That's how they brainwash you. Anyway, I swear that's what this giant ice-cream cone over my head does. It makes people order vanilla.”

Or maybe people simply like vanilla, Mallory thought. But she wasn't about to argue. Not when she was hoping to get more than just ice cream from this woman.

“This is a great building,” she said, taking her first few licks while she waited for her change.

“No kidding,” the woman said with pride. “This place is a classic.”

“I'm actually pretty interested in this kind of thing. Old Florida, I mean.” Mallory swiped at her cone with her tongue, forestalling a nasty drip in the nick of time. “I'm a travel writer, and I'm writing an article about whether the old Florida still exists. I'm focusing on places just like this that recapture the feeling of the past.”

“Then I guess you've already been to Shell World and Orange World,” the woman commented, handing over a pile of coins.

“I just came from both. But I'd love to include something about these ice-cream stands that are actually shaped like ice cream.” She paused. “There's somebody in particular I'm trying to get in touch with. I understand there's a woman who had a place like this about twenty years ago, back in the late 1980s. I don't suppose there's any chance you'd have ever run into her…?”

“I might have,” the woman said. “The tourism business is a pretty small world, at least around here.”

Just like the travel-writing world, Mallory thought.

“What's her name?” she asked.

“Patrice Diamond. At least, that was her married name. She's gotten divorced since we lost touch, so I don't know what name—”

“Sure, I know Patrice. At least I used to. I haven't talked to her in ages, though.”

Mallory tried not to let her excitement show. “Is her ice-cream stand still around?”

“Nah. They knocked it down. I think they put up a KFC instead.”

“That's too bad. But what about Patrice? I understand she left Florida a long time ago.”

The woman cast her an odd look. “Why would you think that?”

Mallory blinked. How about because that's what Desmond Farnaby explicitly told me? she thought.

“You mean she's still in the area?” she asked.

“Sure is. You could probably find her in the phone book. Of course, she's using her maiden name these days. It's Hammond.”

“Patrice Hammond,” Mallory repeated. “Thanks.”

“Hey, anytime. And enjoy that ice cream.” With a shrug, she added, “Who knows how long this place will survive before somebody puts some fast-food joint on the property—all in the name of progress.”

Energized by the possibility of having found a new lead, Mallory wolfed down the rest of her ice-cream cone as she drove along the highway, then pulled into the first parking lot she spotted. After digging out her notebook and a pen, she dialed Information. Sure enough, within seconds an automated voice recited a local number that belonged to a Patrice Hammond.

She dialed that number next.

“Patrice?” Mallory asked when a woman answered.

“You got her. Who's this?”

Mallory did some fast thinking. She hadn't expected to get Patrice on the phone this easily, so she hadn't planned out what to say.

“My name is Mallory Marlowe.”

As she paused to think of what her next sentence should be, Patrice said, “If you're selling something, I'm not interested.”

“Actually,” Mallory said haltingly, “I'm the person who found your ex-husband's body a couple of days ago.”

While she hadn't intended to be quite that blunt, her simple statement seemed to have the desired effect.

“Go on,” Patrice said, her tone wary.

“I should explain that I didn't actually know him,” she went on, speaking quickly. “I'm down here in Florida for the same press trip he was on. It's my first, since I just started writing travel pieces for a magazine. I actually live in New York. Well, outside of New York. Anyway, what really matters is that the police have this ridiculous idea that I might have had something to do with his murder.”

She stopped talking, hoping that what she'd said so far would be enough to keep Patrice from hanging up on her. As she was debating whether or not to add anything about the clippings about her and her deceased husband that had turned up in Phil's hotel room, Patrice asked, “What do you want from
me
?”

“I'm not sure,” Mallory replied honestly. “I'm simply trying to find out whatever I can about the man, since I'm suddenly in the horrible position of having to convince the police I had nothing to do with him, either dead or alive.” She could hardly believe her life had taken her to a place in which she would actually utter the phrase
dead or alive.

“I don't know how helpful I can be.” Patrice's voice had softened. “I mean, I haven't seen the guy in, what, more than a decade?”

“It's not his recent past I'm interested in,” Mallory told her. “I can't help wondering if maybe some of the stuff he was into in the past could have led to his murder.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, it's kind of hard to go into all this on the phone. Is there any chance you'd be willing to meet with me? Even for half an hour? Just tell me where and when, and I'll accommodate your schedule.”

“I could do that,” Patrice agreed. With a hoarse laugh, she added, “It's funny: No matter how much time goes by, women never get tired of bad-mouthing their ex. How about Thursday afternoon, on the late side? Like around four?”

“Perfect.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Polynesian Princess Hotel on International Drive.”

“Of course.” Patrice laughed. Once again, there was a definite undertone of bitterness. “The place where Phil finally got what he deserved, right?”

Mallory made a note to add Patrice's name to the list of people who had apparently felt the exact same way about Phil Diamond.

“I could meet you at the McDonald's on Sand Lake Road, right off International,” Patrice suggested. “Do you know where that is?”

“I'll find it.”

“Just ask anybody where the world's largest McDonald's is,” Patrice said. “They'll know.”