A Sporting Murder Read online

  As the boat moved away from us and its captain opened the throttle, the surge forward made the cushion box slam closed.

  “That should smell pretty ripe in a few days.” Alex chuckled. “That’s my Eve.”

  David didn’t laugh with the rest of us.

  “He knew your name,” I said. “I get the feeling this wasn’t a chance encounter. Does he have some kind of a grudge against you? Tossing out that bait wasn’t a mistake, was it?” David nodded, and for a moment I thought he wasn’t going to say more, but finally he spoke, the anger in his voice barely under control. “I know him. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me. We’re competitors. He owns the other hunting ranch in the area and part of it abuts my land. His name is Blake Reed.”

  Seeing David’s distress, Madeleine put her arm around his waist as he leaned against the cabin near the wheel.

  “Can I tell them the rest of it?” she asked.

  “Go ahead. It’s no secret.”

  Madeleine fussed with the towel, pulling it tighter around his shoulders and placed her hand on his.

  “I think we all could use something to drink first,” said Alex. “How about a beer? There are some left in the cooler. Oh damn.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s all on the beach. We had to leave it when we swam out here. You think it’s safe to go back in the water around here? Should we chance it?”

  “I wouldn’t,” David said. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said sharks will think this is a feeding ground for a while.” David looked up at the sky. “And it’s getting late. The sharks like to feed now. We’ll leave it. I can come back tomorrow after you’ve left and see if our stuff is still there.”

  “I don’t want you going back into that water.” Madeleine hugged him tighter. “It was just a Styrofoam cooler, and I think there were only four beers left.”

  “What about the picnic container and the chairs?” asked Alex.

  “The beach chairs were bought at a yard sale and the picnic container came from a thrift shop in Stuart. We can replace them, but we can’t replace you.” I walked forward and put my arm around David, who became a hug sandwich between Madeleine and me.

  “Hey, okay. I’m covered in women here and can’t see to drive this boat. I’ll leave the stuff.” David smiled a weak smile which soon erupted into a wide grin.

  Alex grinned as well. “You can bet if it was Eve’s shoes left on the beach, we’d go back right now, sharks or no sharks.” He ducked as I reached out to slug him on the shoulder.

  Madeleine nodded in agreement.

  “So, is everyone still up for steaks and anchoring out tonight?” David asked. “We either take the turn to Sunset Cove ahead or we head straight for the Cut and the marina and call it a day.”

  “I’m not going to let some nasty, mean-spirited jerk ruin my dinner and evening,” I said, heading below to fetch one of the bottles of red wine we had in the galley.

  “What if he follows us there too? “ Madeleine sounded worried.

  “Then we’ll send Eve over to his boat with more chum to stash away.” David chortled at the idea.

  I emerged from the cabin with the bottle and four glasses in my hand. “We don’t have any bait.”

  “Let’s pull in at Louis’ and buy some. We go right by there.” Alex pointed to the marina up ahead.

  Of course we didn’t pull into the marina, but we were all in good spirits as we sped past. Madeleine went below to get the corn for our dinner, while Alex and David had their heads together over the fish finder screen in front of the wheel. I was the only one to see the fishing boat docked at Louis’ for refueling. The man David identified as Blake Reed looked up as we sped past. Our eyes met for a moment. His predatory gaze reminded me of what I’d seen in the shark’s eyes when it surfaced to take the bait this afternoon. Hungry. Evil. A killing machine. I shivered and shook myself free of those thoughts. I was overreacting. Wasn’t I?

  Chapter 3

  The barbeque grill was designed to use alcohol as fuel, a safety precaution on boats so that gas didn’t seek its lowest level and collect in the bilge, potentially causing an explosion. It attached to the side of the boat and hung over the water.

  “If I blow it with these steaks and they catch fire, we can dump the whole thing overboard,” David said.

  “And dive after the steaks before the fish get them.” I was famished from the earlier adrenaline rush of fearing I’d be on the menu myself.

  David smiled. “There’s peanut butter in the galley, but I’ve gotten pretty good with this grill. I don’t think we need to worry.”

  I sighed with relief. There’s no worse romance spoiler than peanut butter breath.

  We sat in the stern and watched the sun set, taking bets on the exact time it would slip below the horizon.

  “We could be betting for some real money at a bar on the bay, you know,” Alex said. He put his arm around me and squeezed me tight, letting me know he was happy here rather than in some crowded dive, jockeying with the tourists for a view of the water.

  I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Yeah, and we’d be paying real money for the drinks too.”

  A flock of roseate spoonbills flew overhead, their wings flashing gold in the setting sun. The cormorants nesting in a nearby mangrove gave their final pig-like grunts for the evening, then settled down. Quiet crept over the darkening waters.

  Our dinner was perfect. Potatoes roasted on the grill, medium rare steaks, salad, and more wine. After stuffing ourselves, we cleaned up quickly; then, coffees in hand, we hurried out to sit on the deck in the stern.

  “Look down there.” Madeleine pointed and leaned nearer the water’s surface. It glowed with a green-blue light that shimmered and undulated in the water.

  “Phosphorescence from plankton. Beautiful, isn’t it?” David sighed, a sound of contentment and of relief. We hadn’t heard the entire story about Blake Reed, and I was curious, but not curious enough to want to break the spell of enchantment we all were experiencing. A chorus of sighs joined David’s.

  And that’s the last thing I remembered until Alex shook me awake. “Get up, Eve. You’ll get damp and cold out here. Let’s go in and hit the blankets.”

  David pulled the plastic side and rear curtains down around the open stern and zipped them up to keep out the chill and mosquitos. We all stumbled down the stairs and into the cabin. David and Madeleine took the king-sized V-berth in the bow. Alex and I removed the seat and back cushions from the banquette and lowered the table to seat level, using the cushions to create a double bed. We opened our sleeping bags, zipped the two of them together and were soon cocooned inside. Some giggles and a slight snore from the other bed and soon Alex and I drifted into sleep.

  I awoke sometime near dawn, thinking I heard a boat engine, followed by voices. I slid out of the sleeping bag and tiptoed up the cabin steps to the deck. With the plastic curtains in place, it was difficult to see anything outside. I crossed to the back and unzipped one side. I stuck my head out and saw only still water. The boat swung on its anchor so that I was facing the mangroves.

  Something broke the surface of the water between the boat and the mangrove where the cormorants nested. A fin. I shuddered then jumped when a hand gripped my shoulder.

  “You’re letting in all the mosquitos.” It was Alex.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you, but—”

  “I heard something, too, but there’s nothing out there.”

  “You’re wrong about that. Look.” I pointed to the movement in the water. Another fin joined the first and then two more. The group moved toward us.

  “They can’t get us in the boat,” said Alex. But I could tell just the sight of them made him uneasy.

  David and Madeleine joined us on deck.

  “We’re surrounded,” I said.

  “They couldn’t have followed us here, could they?” There was fear in Madeleine’s voice.

  David poked his head farther out of the curtains, then
laughed.

  “They’re not sharks,” he said. “It’s a pod of dolphins. And it looks as if they have some young with them.”

  The sun broke over the mangroves, stirring the cormorants into activity. The dolphins moved closer to our boat. One stuck its head out of the water only a few feet from my hand. I reached over and touched its nose. It made a clicking sound and retreated.

  “It’s as if they knew we needed to get going early. Our special alarm clock.” Madeleine was back to her usual happy self, all earlier fears swept away by the appearance of these friendly creatures.

  “And now we need to put on the coffee, get dressed, and hit the road,” I said. “We’ll just make it to open at eleven if we leave here in an hour.” I pushed Madeleine back down the steps.

  We got back to the marina in time to wave at Grandy and Max as their boat left for a day of fishing.

  “I’ll give you a call tonight.” I hoped Grandy could hear me over the sounds of the engines. She must have, because she nodded and smiled.

  We docked David’s boat and left him to finish securing her for the week. Alex had driven me down to Key Largo and Madeleine had come with David, but since she and I needed to open the store today, Alex offered to drive us back early. David would follow later.

  None of us was happy to be leaving for rural Florida. Not that it didn’t have its appeal, but when you’re in the retail business and trying to stick to your budget, the store owns you six days a week. On the seventh, we often went in to check inventory, clean, do the books and generally worry about our business. Taking off this Sunday for a trip on David’s boat meant we’d have to make up for our fun later in the week, probably one evening. We usually spent the time after we closed the store heading to the coast to pick up merchandise from our wealthy West Palm clients who couldn’t take time off from their charity events to bring us their clothing, jewelry and any other items they no longer wanted. We counted on these high end items to set us apart from the other consignment shops in Sabal Bay and even those on the coast in Stuart.

  Some of our consignors did make the trip to Sabal Bay because they thought it had “charm,” meaning they found the miles of pasture with cattle an oddity to gawk at. But most of all, they enjoyed staying late into the evening and hanging out in the cowboy bars because, well, there were cowboys there. And there’s nothing as handsome as a long lean man, face tanned from riding herd on those cows, and wearing tight jeans, colorful Western shirts, and cowboy boots. Sometimes they even chose to wear their spurs into the bars. I think they did it to show off to the gals from the coast. Jangling spurs upped the charm factor.

  And, of course, some of them could dance and sing. I agreed with my clients. These guys were yummy. Not that I didn’t already have a yummy guy of my own. I did wish he would consider losing the polo shirts and khakis once in a while.

  “Our lease is up the end of this month and the owner sent us the renewal.” I’d picked up the mail when I ran out to the nearby fast food place to grab burgers for lunch. We’d only had toast and coffee on the boat and hadn’t stopped once on our way up here from the Keys. I was starved.

  Madeleine was in the back, assembling a mannequin we’d purchased from a consignment shop on the coast. Actually it was one of their old mannequins they were replacing.

  “Isn’t that some kind of violation of consignment shop ethics, buying a new mannequin?” I’d said to Madeleine when we’d picked it up several days ago.

  “Shhh. Don’t let them hear you. We only paid five bucks.”

  We’d hustled it into the back of our van feeling better than if Manolo Blahniks were half off at Macy’s, but this morning Madeleine was having trouble with it.

  “I can’t get this damn arm to stay on.” Madeleine sat on the floor of our shop leaning over the mannequin and looking as if she was in a women’s wrestling competition. “I don’t think it fits.”

  “I guess we could leave it off. Our other mannequin only has one arm. We could place them next to each other and dress them in similar clothing, like they’re Siamese twins or something.”

  “That’s just gross.” Madeleine sat on top of the recalcitrant model and pushed the arm into the shoulder with a grunt. “You try.” She held the arm out to me.

  “Oh, crap. Will you look at this,” I said.

  She got up and dropped the arm. “Be back in a minute, Cheryl.”

  “You named the mannequin?”

  “I thought it might be more cooperative. Maybe she doesn’t like the name.”

  Madeleine took the paper I held out to her and read through it quickly. “We can’t afford to sign this lease. They’ve doubled the price. We’re barely covering our expenses now.”

  “I’ll call them and give them a piece of my mind. This is Sabal Bay, not City Place in West Palm.”

  “I wouldn’t tell them that, Eve. Let me handle it.” Madeleine took the phone out of my hand and punched in the numbers. As she wandered across the room to talk in private so that our landlord wouldn’t hear me yell obscenities, Madeleine tripped over Cheryl’s arm and almost fell.

  “Damn you, Cheryl. Stay out of my way.” She put her hand over the phone for a moment, kicked the offending arm, then plastered a charming smile on her face and continued to speak with honey in her voice. “Mr. Roland? About our lease ….”

  “She didn’t mean to take it out on you, Cheryl,” I said. Now she had me talking to the mannequin. I went over and picked it and the arm up and joined the two with no effort.

  “I hate you,” Madeleine mouthed at me from across the room. I blew her a kiss and took Cheryl into the store to have her choose a dress to wear. I mean, I chose a dress for the mannequin.

  Madeleine ended her call and crossed the room with an expression on her face that said the negotiations had not gone well.

  “Roland won’t budge from his position. I reminded him that we paid on time and that we are good tenants, but not only does he insist on twice as much, he says he has a prospective client who is interested in buying the entire building.”

  “I didn’t know Roland wanted to sell.”

  Madeleine gave Cheryl a glance. “I see the surgery was successful.”

  “I’m stronger than you are.”

  “Right. I know that. Do you think that skirt and blouse are right for her though?”

  “Skirt’s a little long. I’ll pin it up.” What was I doing? Who cared how Cheryl looked in the skirt? She was a mannequin, for heaven’s sake. I removed the skirt and selected another one. “So Roland wants to sell, does he? Maybe we should consider buying.”

  “I don’t think we can afford it right now,” Madeleine said. She was the one who always worried about the money, while I always assumed things would work out somehow.

  “I know. Unless ….” I paused.

  “What?”

  “We could get a loan.”

  “The banks wouldn’t go for it. We’re stretched too far already with the renovations we had to make to the space.”

  I stared out the front window.

  Madeleine grabbed a bathing suit off the rack. “Here. Try this. Show off her legs.”

  I thought I saw Cheryl’s lips curve upward a fraction of an inch as I slipped her into the red suit.

  “I don’t mean a bank loan,” I said.

  Madeleine’s smile seemed to slide off her face like an egg off a greasy frying pan. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I refuse to go into business with a mob boss.”

  She was talking about Nappi Napolitani, who had come to my rescue on several occasions. I was aware of his connections to the mob, but I considered him my friend anyway even though Alex and Madeleine didn’t trust him. I did, and so did Grandy. Her support was good enough for me.

  “He’s a friend. And I’m certain the money would be clean.”

  Madeleine continued to shake her head so vigorously that I thought it might fly off. “No. Of course the money would be clean. It would have been laundered through some other legit business and then through ou
rs. Are you crazy?”

  I gave in to her reasoning. It was one thing to have Nappi’s support in the way of errands or backup if I needed it, but he had broken into a house for me and that was about as far as I wanted to go stretching the boundaries of what was legal.

  “We have no choice but to look for another location. I guess we could begin by making a few calls now, then follow up after we close the shop this afternoon.” I grabbed the local newspaper and flipped it open to real estate listings.

  “You want to cancel our tour of David’s ranch? We’re scheduled to meet Alex there after we close. Did you forget?” she asked.

  I had forgotten. “Let’s see if I come up with anything for us to look at.”

  As it turned out, there were two places available in town, but one was beyond our budget; the other we couldn’t see until the next day.

  The lease issue was still on my mind when Alex, Madeleine, and I headed out to David’s place after we closed up shop in the afternoon. I knew Madeleine was thinking about it too. She was gnawing on her thumbnail, something she did when she was worried.

  “That’s Reed’s place. You know, the shark guy from yesterday.” Alex slowed the car as we drove by the entrance.

  The letters spelling out “The Reed Ranch” were burned into a piece of cypress hung by two chains attached to large metal statues of horses on either side of the drive. The horses were stallions and reared up, big as life.

  “Does he let his clients hunt horses as well as game?” I asked.

  “Huh?” said Alex.

  “Why the horses?”

  Alex shrugged.

  “They sure are impressive. Big,” Madeleine said.

  “He should have put life-sized sharks out front,” I muttered under my breath.

  “He should have put pants on them,” Madeleine said.

  I was surprised at her. “I never knew you to be a prude.”

  “I’m not, but I think it’s kind of ….” She searched for the word.

  “Ostentatious, crude, tasteless?” I offered.

  “Like the owner, I guess,” said Alex.