Mud Bog Murder Read online

  “But, Eve, honey, private investigation is work for a pro.” He paused, as if rethinking what he had said. “Look, I know you’re one bright cookie, and some of the leads you’ve developed on cases have been right on. I guess I could try harder to listen to your ideas.” He added this with some hesitation.

  Damn. He was trying to be nice and accommodating. But was that what I wanted? No. I wanted more than accommodation. I needed a man who celebrated my intrusive nature, who could temper it with his own passion for what was right and share in finding the truth. He didn’t get it. I wanted the kind of mate Madeleine had in David, a man whose soul was just as inspired by tearing into trouble and making it yield. I sighed and gave up. I couldn’t tell him this. He wouldn’t understand, or if he did, he’d try his best to become what I needed and fail. This wasn’t a matter of “build the right man for Eve.” I pushed off from the counter and put my hands on his arms. “I know, but I think I’m commitment phobic after my marriage to Jerry.”

  “I’m not Jerry.”

  “It’s just ….” I stopped. This casual lie wasn’t going to wash. I knew it, and so did he.

  “I think you’re more than Jerry-phobic. I think you’ve got some trust issues. I can understand that, Eve. Your parents disappeared, dead in a sailing accident when you were nine. As an adult you chose to marry the most unreliable guy on the planet. Oh, don’t get me wrong—I like old Jerry—but I’d never marry him.” He paused for a moment. “Okay. Here it is. I’m not certain you love me, Eve.”

  I wasn’t either. Did I have the courage to tell Mr. Perfect that?

  Chapter 2

  The word was out all over town. Jenny McCleary had indeed signed a contract with a West Palm firm to host the Sabal Bay Annual Mud Bog Races on her property. I knew what holding those races meant for the wildlife, and so did many environmentally concerned citizens in the Sabal Bay area.

  Of course, not everyone agreed. There was so much swampy and boggy land in this part of rural Florida that many people wondered how killing off a few birds, snakes, turtles, and even alligators could be a bad thing, especially when the races would bring in money and, temporarily, jobs. Theirs was a short-term view. The long view was more complex: the races might lead to other kinds of development, good for the local economy but very bad for the environment. In the bad old days of Southern Florida, the goal had been to leash nature by rerouting the water, draining swampland, and paving over the wilderness.

  Madeleine and I talked about the races and my old “let’s do something” side emerged. I hadn’t felt this energized around an issue since Madeleine and I had joined a group protesting the building of a shopping mall in Connecticut. That was over ten years ago, but the issue was similar. The developers of the Revolutionary Shopping Mall outside New Haven had gotten past local governing agencies as well as state regulatory groups by filing what many saw as a fraudulent environmental impact statement with the state department of conservation.

  Madeleine and I joined the demonstrators when the first backhoe followed by road graters and dump trucks roared across the wetlands. Our effort changed no one’s mind about the project; it was the downturn in the economy that rescued the land from becoming all stores and concrete. Vegetation took over once more and all but obscured the rusting machinery that sat silently sinking into the marshy dirt. Birds built their nests among the metal pipes and girders, and turtles crawled through the concrete culverts left abandoned on the site. Nature once again claimed the land. Madeleine and I applauded the decay of human foolishness and the encroachment once more of weed and marshy swamp. But it was clear that, human nature being what is, greed would rear its ugly head in other places. Like here in Sabal Bay.

  I hated the thought of Jenny McCleary being behind the mud bog event, but I knew it would do little good to talk with her about it. Jenny needed the money, and once she made up her mind, that was that. When she appeared back in our shop rig the end of the week, I thought it was only fair to tell her that Madeleine and I would be joining the protest scheduled for the opening day races.

  “You do what you have to do, honey.” Jenny stood in front of the mirror wearing the dress I’d found for her in West Palm—a gently worn, dark green Oscar de la Renta sheath. She turned to look at how the dress hugged her derrière and seemed pleased with what she saw.

  “Where’s Shelley today?” I asked.

  Shelley had called me last week to make a suggestion Madeleine and I had talked about several times—a service for customers who needed their clothing altered. From Shelley’s drawings, I knew she would be a perfect candidate for simple and more complex tailoring. I asked her to stop by the shop to discuss the plan in more detail, but she hadn’t yet. Since I didn’t know if she had mentioned the idea to her mother, I said nothing to Jenny.

  “I think she’s got a boyfriend. Name’s Darrel Hogan, I believe.”

  Madeleine and I looked at each other and wondered if Jenny had read the paper this week. The name Hogan appeared in the police blotter. Was it a relative or the fellow himself, I wondered.

  “I see your looks, and I saw the paper. Darrel has sticky fingers, it appears. He has crappy taste though. He took a Western shirt from the big box store. You’d think he’d target the Western store for a better grade of merchandise. Well, no matter. His daddy bailed him out. Like always. Darrel is a chip off the old Daddy Hogan blockhead. Ask your detective friend Frida. She’ll tell you the Hogans have been nothing but a headache for the law around here. Well, I like the dress. Do you think it’s too bold for an old lady getting married again?”

  “I think it’s perfect. It’s you.”

  Jenny laughed. “It was somebody else before it was me, though, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “Sometimes it takes a couple of owners before a dress finds the right home.”

  After we rang up her purchase, she waved goodbye and headed for the door. Before she stepped out, she turned and said, “You gals take care now. The cops have gotten wind of the protest at the races so they’ll be on hand. Don’t get yourselves arrested. I certainly won’t bail you out.” She chuckled and waved again.

  “She’s certainly taking our different opinion of the event well,” said Madeleine.

  “Yeah,” I replied, but I ignored Madeleine’s next comment because I was distracted by the possibility of getting arrested at the rally. I’d done that before and wasn’t interested in seeing the inside of a jail again. Certainly not the inside of the Sabal Bay facility. It would be especially embarrassing to have Frida, our detective friend, stop by our cell to offer us bread and water.

  “Eve, where are you? I asked you if you wanted me to drive to the rally, or will you?”

  “Sorry. I will.”

  “You off in thought worrying about Alex?”

  “No. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “You could marry him. That’s what he wants. Don’t you?”

  I gave her my flip answer. “I’m not ready to make that kind of commitment yet.”

  She squinted at me. “Really? Is that what you told him, too? I don’t believe it. What’s stopping you?”

  The words were barely out of Madeleine’s mouth when a tall, dark-skinned, startlingly handsome man stepped into the shop. He was followed by an older man, gray hair in braided plaits.

  Could that be what was stopping me? Questions about the relationship I had with Sammy Egret, member of the local Miccosukee tribe? Sammy’s effect on me when we got together was puzzling. There was something like electricity that hummed between the two of us. We’d spent a night alone lost in the swamps. Nothing had happened out there in the solitude other than an intense awareness of each other. I tried to be a good friend to Sammy, to treat him as I did his grandfather, whom I adored. But somehow when I teased Sammy or touched him in a friendly fashion it was as if the earth stopped spinning and we both couldn’t breathe. We’d handled the situation up until now by ignoring it, but the awkwardness persisted. What was the next step,
I wondered.

  “Hi, Sammy,” said Madeleine. “I ….” She didn’t finish her sentence. “Sorry, I’ve got to ….” She ran off toward the tiny bathroom in the rear of the rig.

  “What’s with Madeleine?” asked Sammy.

  “I think she’s caught this flu bug going around. She’s been complaining of an upset stomach for over a week.” I smiled at both Egret men, then reached out and gave Grandfather Egret a hello hug. The mahogany skin on Sammy’s face took on a red tone. A blush? I stepped back and wiggled my fingers at him. “Hey, Sammy. What are the two of you doing here?”

  “The blight took its toll on my tomatoes, so we’re here to buy some at the market. I’ve got a lot of cooking to do,” said Grandfather Egret. He was a wonderful cook. I’d eaten his dishes many times, and he’d even been generous enough to share some of the traditional tribal recipes with me.

  “Making some delicious Miccosukee dish, I’ll bet,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Making spaghetti sauce. You want to come over tonight? Or are you busy?”

  “I’m free.”

  Sammy smiled and shuffled his feet. A roomful of women’s designer fashions wasn’t a comfortable environment for a guy who loved being out in the swamps or in his airboat, flying down the canals.

  “How’s the airboat business?” I asked.

  “I had to teach my nephews how to operate the boat. We’re swamped with all the women from the coast you sent our way. I’m tied up at David’s hunting ranch most days although he seems inclined to do more of the work himself out there now.” Sammy had stepped in last year when David lost his foreman and ended up staying on.

  I was glad to hear David was showing renewed interest in the hunting ranch. He’d inherited it from his father, but hadn’t wanted to run the business after one of his clients was killed there. Sammy may have taken on the foreman duties, but his heart was back on the water, taking people out into the swamps. Foreman wasn’t a position he wanted to hold for much longer.

  “Between the women from the coast and the winter visitors, our business is so busy I think we may want to run a second boat,” said Grandfather.

  “A second boat?” Sammy blew out a breath. “First we need to think about a reliable first boat. That thing is held together with vines and duct tape. And who’s going to run the second boat?” He sounded overwhelmed.

  “Me. I could help out,” said a voice from behind Sammy.

  The voice was oh so familiar. I groaned. It was Jerry, my ex-husband. Why was he here? I thought he would be in West Palm doing whatever he did for my mob boss friend Nappi.

  “Did Nappi fire you?” I asked.

  Jerry greeted Grandfather and Sammy and then tried to gather me into a hug.

  “Hands off, Jerry. Can’t you see I’m working? It looks bad if I hug every man who comes in here.”

  I caught sight of a twinkle in Sammy’s eye. “She didn’t hug me. Why should she hug you?”

  “Because we were once married, so we’re kind of related,” Jerry said.

  I grimaced. “I’d rather hug an alligator than you, Jerry. Didn’t it state that in our divorce agreement?”

  Jerry looked appropriately hurt. Despite the fact that we had divorced and I found Jerry tiresome, aggravating, and intrusive, I also felt kind of sorry for him. I’d met Nappi through Jerry because Jerry was dating Nappi’s daughter and thought he was about to become part of Nappi’s family by marrying her, but then she dumped him. Now Jerry was nothing but a gofer for the guy.

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Lighten up. I’m just kidding.”

  Sammy and Grandfather exchanged looks of amusement at our sparring.

  “I’ve got my nephews to help out. They’ll be there to cover this Saturday,” Grandfather Egret said.

  Jerry’s face brightened. “I can help out anytime you want. So what’s up Saturday?”

  “That’s why we stopped by. We wondered if Eve and Madeleine were going to the mud bog event.”

  I was shocked. “You’re attending the event? I thought—”

  Grandfather didn’t let me finish.

  “Only in a manner of speaking. I thought we’d join the protest. Many of the tribe will be there. We’ve had about enough of white folks raping this land.” Grandfather’s usual pleasant smile was replaced with a frown of anger.

  “I thought the event was good for the area. Brings in money, right?” Jerry said.

  Three pairs of angry eyes glared at Jerry.

  “Right. I get it,” he said. “There are better ways. So who’s running the boat. Can I? I can handle the whole thing by myself. I did it before.”

  “And I heard the complaints from my customers in here,” I said. “You’re not a member of the tribe. Being squired around by a short, pasty-faced Yankee isn’t the experience these women or tourists are looking for.”

  “I’m not that short.”

  “You are compared to Sammy,” I said. “I told them to expect a tall Miccosukee as their airboat pilot.”

  “I could spend the week in the tanning booths. Might help me look the part.”

  “Don’t be so pushy, Jerry. He doesn’t need your help right now,” I said.

  “But we’ll keep you in mind,” Sammy said, giving Jerry a pat on the shoulder.

  Madeleine emerged from the bathroom, her face greenish compared to her usual rosy-cheeked glow.

  “Hi all,” she said. “I knew I should have gotten that shot. I think I’m coming down with the flu, Eve.”

  I felt her forehead. “You’re not feverish, but I think you should go home and rest. And you’re not attending the rally unless you’re better.” I pushed her in the direction of the door.

  “I’ll drive you. No need to call David,” Jerry offered.

  “I heard this is going to be a bad flu season. Did you get your shots?” I asked Grandfather and Sammy.

  They both nodded.

  “I hope Madeleine doesn’t have something more serious than flu,” I said.

  “I think she does,” said Grandfather.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head, but said nothing else.

  In a fit of anger, the woman from whom we’d bought the store had trashed it before we could take possession. We’d once rented at that location, but through a series of unfortunate events, including a fire, she had taken over our store for a short while. Needing money for her lawyer’s fees, she was forced to sell the property. She hadn’t wanted us to be the buyers, and she made that clear by tearing out all the shelving, writing graffiti on the walls, taking a sledgehammer to the toilet and sink, and in a final fit of rage, using the sledgehammer to penetrate the walls until she could tear at the wiring within. She wasn’t a pleasant person, but now she was in prison and no longer a threat to us. Of course we got the shop at a reduced price, but all the destruction meant we had weeks of work to do before the site was fit to open as a consignment shop.

  Our carpenters finally arrived on a Monday several weeks ago and then disappeared. I tracked them down and extracted a promise from the head guy to return this Monday. Madeleine and I decided one of us should stop by daily to check on the crew because they had a reputation around town for not working very hard or many hours in a day. We suspected they might take long breaks and lunch hours that ran into the middle of the afternoon. But they were the best we could afford.

  There were simply too many tasks and activities for the two of us to handle. Whoever was not supervising at the shop would visit the coast for consignments. There were no flea markets operating nearby during the week, but the one in Stuart on the coast opened for the weekend. We’d miss it this Saturday, so I tried to find a stand-in to run the rig in our place. I called Grandy, my grandmother who lived on a boat in Key Largo, to see if she could come up while Madeleine and I attended the rally against the mud bog races. Grandy called back to say she and Max had several charters on Saturday, so I begrudgingly asked my ex, Jerry, to open the shop. I hated to be in debt to him, but there wa
s no one else to cover for us. I could almost hear Jerry’s voice quiver in anticipation. I decided not to consider who would run the shop if Madeleine and I got arrested at the protest.

  The week went by without incident, and the carpenters made some progress in the shop. Having either Madeleine or me drop in at odd times might have annoyed them at first, but since whoever showed to check on their work always brought a treat like brownies or sent out for deli sandwiches at noon, the men soon embraced our appearance as a welcome break from fast food. We were celebrated as heroes. Well, at least when we put in an appearance.

  That week Madeleine and I talked again and again about the rally. Not only was I concerned about her health, but we knew as business owners we were vulnerable if we took a stand unpopular in the community. I was trying to temper my initial “get ’er done” attitude with one more reasoned.

  “I just want to add my voice to those of others in Sabal Bay who are concerned about the impact of the races on our environment,” I said. “This is our community now, and I worry about what’s being done to the land around here. There are plenty of folks who feel as we do. You saw the letters in the local newspaper.”

  “I’d feel better if I knew who was writing the letters. I wonder if it’s the ranchers and business owners or just us transplants from the North.” The worry lines on Madeleine’s forehead deepened.

  “You think our business may be impacted if we take a stand,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Can we tiptoe around everything that’s a local issue? I don’t think so. We’ll be respectful at the rally. We’ll just yell and wave our signs. We won’t throw anything or get too rowdy. That’s my perspective, but you have to decide for yourself.”