Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 04 - Killer Kool (13 page)

“So, the police think I might have put shellfish into
food that Marco ate?” Jimmy’s words came out slowly as
the meaning dawned on him. “But I didn’t even know
he was allergic to shellfish. And why would I want to kill
Mr. Santini?”

“Aside from his being a mean, insensitive, bad-tempered
boss?” I queried, as I flashed a significant glance at
Anita. She completely missed it because she had begun
to slather more bee cream onto her already red, scaly
face.

“True, but I’ve had other bosses just like him,” Jimmy
admitted, his boy-next-door face baffled.

“Was there any other reason you might be implicated
in Marco’s death?” I continued.

Sandy raised her head. “What about that money you
borrowed from him for our wedding?”

Jimmy paused for a few moments and then jerked
his head to one side in disbelief. “But I was paying him
back from my wages with thirty-percent interest.”

“What?!” I gasped. “That’s obscene.”

“He told me it was fair, since he paid me a dollar more
than minimum wage,” Jimmy offered with an open smile.
I vowed to have a talk with Madame Geri. Her son was
really too trusting. “But I almost had the debt paid off.”

“Do you have proof?” I probed.

He grimaced. “No.”

“You’re even dumber than you look,” Anita commented.

“Oh, yeah?” Sandy rushed to the rescue, her face as
fierce as that of a mama bear protecting her cubs. “What
could be more dumb than slapping some type of bee
junk on your face that’s making it look like a broiled
lobster?”

“Not nearly as dumb as letting some half-baked New
Age loon like Madame Geri plan your wedding date-“

“Did somebody mention my name?” The island’s
freelance psychic stood there in all of her HappyDays-meets-reggae glory: blond dreadlocks, fifties-style
outfit-complete with poodle skirt and finely knit
sweater-and turquoise parrot, Marley, perched on her
shoulder. I had to admire her fashion courage, not to mention the proximity of the bird’s sharp beak to her face.

“Yeah, I did.” Anita’s words sounded defiant, but
even she kept a wary eye on Marley.

“The New Age label fits, but I object to being called
a `loon.’ ” She stared hard at Anita, who stared back, but
when Marley began flapping his wings, my boss averted
her glance and retreated a few steps. “By the way, Anita,
if you keep up with that bee cream, your face is going to
puff up like a balloon.”

Her hand flew to her face. “It’s just filling out the
wrinkles.”

“I told you, the bees on this island don’t produce the
right type of honey for human skin.” Madame Geri stroked Marley to calm him down. “Your face is rejecting the cream; that’s why it’s red and swelling.”

“Bees are bees, and cream is cream,” Anita spat out,
but she placed the lid on the jar and screwed it shut.
“My skin has never looked better.”

Relatively speaking, I added to myself-if you had to
choose between a puffy catcher’s-mitt face or a sagging
saddlebag.

Madame Geri shrugged and turned to her son and
Sandy. “Tell me the whole story.”

As Sandy repeated what Jimmy had told me, Madame Geri listened intently, occasionally posing a question. Anita took the opportunity to disappear into her
office, but I spied her putting another layer of bee cream
on her face. Catcher’s mitt, all right.

“What does it mean, Madame Geri?” Sandy asked. “Is our wedding off because Jimmy is going to j-jail?”

Madame Geri closed her eyes briefly. “I can’t tell for
sure. We need to find Marco’s killer to make certain
Jimmy isn’t blamed.”

“Who said anything about a killer?” I interjected, still
eyeing Marley. The bird scared me; in fact, all birds made
me slightly uneasy from the time I’d been attacked by a
group of maverick ducks near Lake Buena Vista at Disney World. “Maybe Marco could have been cooking up
a dish for a customer, and he accidently swallowed some
shellfish.”

All three of them turned and looked at me without
saying a word.

“Okay, it’s a long shot, but it’s possible.”

“Don’t be stupid, kiddo!” Anita shouted from her office.

“Oh, go back to your bee cream!” I yelled back.

Marley flapped his wings again, and I retreated even
farther.

“He thought you said `beak him.’ ” Madame Geri
stroked the bird as she murmured some reassuring
words.

“Make sure you translate verbatim for Marley. I don’t
want my eyes pecked out if he thinks I’m asking him to
`beak’ anybody, including me.” I kept my tone light but
maintained my distance from both of them.

“He understands almost everything.” Madame Geri
gave the bird one last pat and then returned her attention
to Sandy and her son. “Let’s say, as I’ve just heard the
spirit world tell me, that Marco was murdered. Who
else might be a suspect?” She raised her eyebrows in my
direction, waiting for a response.

‘All right, here’s my two cents’ worth: I think Francesca and Kyle might be possibilities. They dropped by
Little Tuscany yesterday morning and apparently had a
raging argument with Marco. Two hours later, he was
dead.” I tried to reconstruct the events in my mind, wondering how mother and son could have managed to slip
shellfish into food that Marco was cooking. “Who else
was in the kitchen during the morning, Jimmy?”

“Let me think.” Jimmy tapped his chin. “Uh, aside
from Francesca and Kyle, and Beatrice and Guido just me.” He swallowed audibly. “That doesn’t sound so
good, does it?”

I tried to offer an encouraging smile, but I had to
agree with him. Potential Marco killers weren’t exactly
coming out of the woodwork. “Why did you have the
shellfish articles in your locker?”

“I was working on some new recipes for Mr. Santini
that included shrimp and lobster,” Jimmy explained. “So I
was reading up on the difference between freshwater and
saltwater shrimp, and Maine lobster and Florida lobsterthat kind of thing. Honest. I just wanted to be a better
cook for Mr. Santini, not kill him with shellfish.”

“I believe you, Jimmy,” I said.

“Sounds lame to me!” Anita shouted out again. Sandy
went over and closed the door to her office.

“What do we do now?” Jimmy circled his arm around
Sandy again when she came back to stand by him. “I want
to make sure that the wedding takes place, and that
won’t happen if I’m arrested.”

“You’re not going to be arrested, son,” Madame Geri
pronounced in a firm tone. “We just need to come up
with a plan to smoke out the murderer.” They all looked
at me again.

“Oh, please. The last time I got involved with a mysterious death, the killer drenched me in mango pulp
right before she tried to silence me forever.”

Never again.

The little group kept up the stare-fest, including Marley, who drilled me with his beady little eyes. I don’t know if it was fear or foolishness, but I found myself
agreeing to help with the “plan.”

“Jimmy and I can go to Le Sink and try to get info
out of Kyle,” Sandy offered, sending a beaming smile
up at Jimmy. “We’ll be like that private-detective couple
in the old black-and-white movies-“

“Nick and Nora Charles,” I finished for her, not wanting to point out that Sandy and Jimmy’s wholesome,
middle-American appearance didn’t exactly jibe with
the hard-drinking, sophisticated 1920s style of Dashiell
Hammett’s duo.

Still, what they lacked in cosmopolitan canniness,
they made up for with eager honesty-not to mention
desperation over Jimmy’s possible jailbird future.

“Mallie and I will go to Taste of Venice and see what
we can glean from Francesca,” Madame Geri volunteered. “You can also get a restaurant review out of it.”

“That one isn’t on my list,” I protested, not wanting to
be saddled with Madame Geri for another meal.

“Put it on the list, kiddo!” Anita yelled out one more
time. Jeez, does she have superhuman hearing or what?

“Great,” Sandy enthused. “You guys will be like
Thelma and Louise.”

“They weren’t detectives just two women on a crazy
joyride,” I clarified. “And they wound up dead at the
end of the film.”

“Oh.” Sandy’s mouth puckered in concern. “Maybe
you could just be yourselves, then.”

I glanced at Madame Geri with her dreadlocks and parrot; yeah, being herself was probably best. Then I
looked down at my worn jeans and misshapen sweater,
realizing I was probably most comfortable being my
shabby-chic self too.

“I need to go home and walk Kong before dinner.”

“I’ll book the reservation and take Marley home”
Madame Geri set the parrot on Sandy’s desk. After giving him a few pats, she whipped out her cell phone and
began clicking on the keys. “Mallie, you’d better dress
up. This restaurant isn’t another Le Sink.”

I felt a touch of excitement flicker inside. “You mean
it’s a nice place?”

“Four stars, according to some of the spirits who ate
there when they were alive.”

“Cool,” Jimmy said with a smile. “Maybe they can
suggest an entree.”

Too freaky. I refused to take food advice from dead
people. I had to draw the line somewhere.

By the time I returned to my Airstream at the Twin Palms
RV Resort, the temperature had begun to drop again, and
the air had taken on a sharp chill. Quickly, I hustled Kong
out for a quick walk and took a peep at Cole’s van before I
retreated inside my silver hutlike home.

It looked empty and dark. And still no sign of Cole.

I sighed.

“It’s no more than I deserve, Kong,” I commented to
my teacup poodle as I hiked up the thermostat. Holding
my breath, I waited to see if the heater clicked on.

Nada.

I switched on Pop Pop’s space heater, hoping it would
keep chugging through the night. I flipped on the television and saw Miss Perky Weathergirl predict that the cold
snap would last at least a week. Not good. I left another
message for Sam, begging him to come over and fix my
heater, though I figured he had about fifty similar calls
from islanders panicked at the thought of nothing but
a twenty-nine-dollar space heater between them and
frostbite.

Coral Islanders never prepared for chilly weather
and, consequently, feared it almost more than a hurricane.

I freshened up, plumping up my red curls (my best
feature), smoothing on a thin layer of makeup over my
freckles (my worst feature), and gliding a dab of pink lipstick onto my lips (my okay feature). Then I had a more
problematic decision: what to wear to a fancy restaurant.

Aside from my jeans and tops, I possessed only two
dresses: a yellow sundress that I’d picked up at Secondhand Rose, the island’s consignment shop, and a longsleeved black jersey dress, which my lawyer-sister had
given me years ago and I’d never worn. Too preppy for
my taste.

I guess the decision wasn’t that hard. I could either
freeze in a sundress or be comfortable in my sister’s
conservative castoff. As I slipped on the black dress, I
heard a knock at my door.

Cole? Nick?

My heart leaped with joy. Maybe one or both of them
had forgiven me.

I finished dressing, slipped into a pair of pumps, also
a gift from my sister, and caught sight of myself in the
bedroom mirror. Not bad. Black made my red curls
turn almost copper and my skin look almost creamy.

I swung open the door and beheld Pop Pop.

The joy faded like the last rays of a setting sun.

“Just checking to see if that space heater was still
working.” He pulled down his knit cap to cover his ears;
he looked like a hip-hop mummy.

“It’s fine.” I tried to hide my disappointment behind a
bright smile. “I’m hoping Sam will come over some-time
tonight and fix the heater, so I can return your portable
one by morning.”

“It’s yours as long as you need it.” He squinted and
pulled out a pair of thick, Coke-bottle glasses. “You look
mighty nice, Mallie. Are we going out to dinner again? I
can be ready in two shakes.”

“No need to shake anything.” I shook my head. “I
have to do a restaurant review with Madame Geri tonight, so it’s a … uh … business dinner.”

“Okay.” His saggy features drooped in disappointment, which meant his chin hit his skinny chest. “I understand, and I don’t want you to feel bad about ditching
me. I mean, I know I’m not exactly a spring chicken,
while you’re a cute chick.”

Talk about laying a major guilt trip on me-and it was working. “I guess we could include another person
for dinner,” I said with slow reluctance.

“Great! I’ll be waiting for you to pick me up, tootsie.”
He grinned, which, unfortunately, caused his dentures to
shift out of place. “Oops.”

As he snapped the dentures back into place and
hobbled off, I closed the door. Kong nuzzled my ankle
and gave a supportive yelp, which I swear hit a note that
seemed almost human.

Oh, boy. This should make for a fun evening of
companionship-the geriatric RV park caretaker and
island psychic. Could my heart take it?

I slipped on my old coat, hopped into my truck, and
headed for Pop Pop’s cottage.

Just call me the dating diva.