Rip Tide (A Ripple Effect Cozy Mystery, Book 2) (2 page)

The Willis Brothers
—Billy and Spider are miffed because their court-ordered AA meetings were cutting into their drinking time. Fortunately for these two rummies, Pinto can't afford to be too particular about who he hires as deckhands. These two siblings have set the bar low for their stations in life. But could they have had another objective in mind?

From the Desk of

Jeanne Glidewell

Dear Reader,

As a cozy mystery writer, every one of my novels should begin with the same nine words.
Make yourself comfortable while I tell you a story
. Because that's what I am; a storyteller. I'm not a wordsmith, a grammar professor, or even a fifth-grade spelling bee champion. I'm just a storyteller who's always happy to spin a yarn for the entertainment of others.

Please do not feel compelled to look up questionable words in this novel that my wonderful editors reluctantly let slide (while gritting their teeth). I grew up winning a good deal of Scrabble games by making up words (with believable definitions too bizarre and specific to have been made up) and I'm not above making them up now on those occasions when no word recognized by Funk & Wagnalls quite fits the bill. "Miffedness" is not the result of one of those occasions, by the way, but I won't vouch for "unmiff." I suppose my novels should come with the warning: "Do not try this at school."

Also, keep in mind,
Rip Tide
is a work of fiction, and I have freely used the creative license that comes with it; such as a few specific non-facts about the Rockport area, local business names and places, specifics about spear-fishing (which, like the majority of readers, I've experienced exactly zero times), and other random acts of total fabrication that are merely products of my imagination. I try to be as factual as possible, but when that option's not feasible, I just reach in and pull something out of my bag of tricks. And it's a very deep and crowded bag.

I'd also like to apologize in advance for the fact I can't seem to quit my bad habit of blathering—something Alice Duncan chides me for every time she edits one of my books. (I've tried patches, pills, even hypnotism—but nothing seems to work.)
Rip Tide
might have been more aptly titled
Blathering Heights
. With all that in mind, I hope you enjoy this tale involving one of my favorite pastimes: fishing while wintering in our Rockport, Texas, vacation home.

Happy Reading,

Jeanne

Chapter 1

"Fishy, fishy in the brook, come and get on daddy's hook," my husband, Clyde "Rip" Ripple, sang as he pretended to cast a heavy duty fishing rod inside Tackle Town, a popular sporting goods store in our hometown of Rockport, Texas. I don't think he had any idea how ridiculous he looked when he set the invisible hook on an imaginary fish. When Rip began pretending to reel in a large catch, which was clearly putting up quite a fight, I had to walk away so it wasn't obvious to other shoppers that he was my husband.

Satisfied with the fishing rod's performance, after apparently landing the "whopper" successfully, he walked over and placed two identical rod and reel combos in our basket.

"I can't wait to catch a big redfish," he said excitedly.

"Oh, wasn't that what you just caught in the bait bucket aisle? I didn't see you measure it, honey. Just how large was that thing? By the tussle it gave you, I have to assume it was a dandy."

"Oh, good grief! I almost forgot I need to get a couple of those stick-on measuring tapes to adhere to the sides of our poles. Thanks for reminding me." He turned on his heels to head back in the direction from which he'd just come.

"Seriously? I can't wait to see what a $117.29 fish looks like!" I exclaimed, speaking to his backside.

"What are you talking about?" He turned back around to ask.

"We're buying fishing licenses, expensive rods and reels—"

"I wouldn't want a trophy red to get away because we were using inferior equipment."

"Hand-held nets and neoprene waders—"

"Milo said they like to get out and wade for redfish in the shallows of Aransas and Copano Bays, and we wouldn't want to have to sit in the boat feeding bait to the crabs while Milo and Cooper are catching keeper fish right and left."

"And fishing line, nets, stringers, life jackets, pliers—"

"Duh."

"And why do we need all those four-and five-dollar plastic lures when Milo said we'll be using live bait? Mullet and shrimp, I think he said."

"Well, dear, it's because I need something to fill my new tackle box. There's no sense having a big tackle box if it's not fully stocked with tackle. And I had to have something to keep my steel leaders, sinkers, hooks and all in. It'd be embarrassing to have to keep my fishing gear in a Ziploc bag. I'd look like a kid fishing with a Mickey Mouse fishing pole. Besides, that way we'll be prepared if the reds aren't biting and the guys decide to 'throw some plastic' for speckled trout, as Milo put it," Rip said in defense of his power-shopping spree.

"Okay, I get it, Mr. Trump! My point is that Milo said we were each allowed to keep three redfish per day. If we both limit out we'll have a total of six fish. Divide six by what this basket-full of stuff's gonna cost us, and by my account we'll have about $117.29 invested in each redfish we catch. And that's not including the bait we'll still have to buy!"

"Just be thankful we didn't have to buy the boat, too," Rip said. "We might catch our limits in trout, sheepshead, flounder and/or black drum, too, you know. Besides, you can ask any fisherman and they'll tell you they can buy fish at the grocery store much cheaper than they can go out and catch them themselves. But that's of no significance. One doesn't fish to save money on their grocery bill. They do it for the pure enjoyment of the sport and the excitement of catching that trophy fish. The same thing goes for hunting, sweetheart."

Not interested in any response I might have to his explanation, Rip walked away to check out a rack of Guy Harvey merchandise: t-shirts, belts, jackets, and ball caps, with depictions of trout, redfish, sailfish, tarpon, and other game fish on them. I assumed the fish needed to see which particular fish you were hoping to catch before they decided whether or not to bite down on your bait. Judging by the cap Rip brought back and tossed in the basket, he was hoping to land a hammerhead shark.

"I'm putting my chest waders back if we're going to be out there wading amongst sharks," I said.

"Actually, Milo told me we were more in danger of a dolphin grabbing hold of the fish on our stringer than being attacked by a shark. But he did say a fisherman pulled a five-hundred-pound bull shark out of Aransas Bay a few years ago."

"Thank you, honey. That makes me feel so much better about wading now!" I said with a dramatic shudder. Rip shrugged and turned to head toward a rack of Columbia fishing shirts with mesh backs covered by cape-like material. Air vents, I assumed. "Don't tell me that to have a successful day of fishing we have to dress like Harold Ensley, too."

For years, Rip tuned in weekly to watch Harold Ensley's show,
The Sportsmen's Friend
, to see what the fishing legend would reel in on that episode. Even though we resided in a fishing community, Rip's career had kept him too busy to participate in the locally popular activity. But learning the art of angling had been on his bucket list since he retired from law enforcement. I really was happy to see him enthusiastic about the upcoming fishing excursion, just appalled at the chunk the trip would take out of our checking account.

As I watched Rip select a pale blue shirt from the rack, I wondered if the fish might not take me seriously if I had on the stained Texas Rangers shirt I was planning to wear. They'd been handing the t-shirts out free at the admissions gate when we attended one of the Rangers' baseball games nearly twenty years ago. And if something's free, I'm all over it whether I need it or not.

I was much more financially conservative than my husband of nearly fifty years, as was abundantly clear by the over-flowing basket of merchandise he was now pushing toward the check-out counter. All I'd added to the cart was a two-dollar tube of lip balm with SPF-30 sun protection in it. I was more concerned about getting blisters on my lip than I was about catching fish.

Rip and I had sold our home in Rockport five years ago when we were sixty-three, and bought a thirty-foot travel trailer. We, or more accurately, I, nicknamed it the "Chartreuse Caboose" after we'd painted the trailer that color to amuse ourselves on a slow afternoon. Rip would classify the phrase "we painted" as a misnomer because he was neither amused by the work, nor in favor of the paint job to begin with. It might have been the yellow and brown sunflowers I'd added to give our trailer a little extra pop that had turned Rip off. Fortunately, a lengthy foot massage was his weakness and in exchange for one, I could have gotten him to paint all the
SpongeBob
characters down the sides of the trailer, too.

Rip's idea of amusing himself on a slow afternoon was being stretched out on the couch with a Crown and Coke in one hand and the TV clicker in the other. It was often up to me to keep Rip busy, or even mobile, at times. My restlessness was the primary reason we were now full-time RVers, traveling the country and living a more active lifestyle.

Occasionally, we'd stay in an RV park for several months and help out the campground owners for free rent and occasionally a little cash, to boot. Other times we'd drive from place to place just enjoying the scenery and the open road. We had a tendency to follow the sun like a field of sunflowers. Hence, the reason I added a few of them to our trailer's paint job. And here, you probably thought it was an odd decision on my part.

We were spending this entire winter back in our south Texas hometown on the Gulf so we could spend some time with our fifty-year-old daughter, Regina, and get to know her husband a little better. Also, we felt it would give Rip, with his new artificial hip, some much-needed time to recoup and recover in the warmer climate.

Dolly, our plump grey and white tabby, traveled with us. Her belly didn't drag the ground when she walked yet, but she seemed to have set her sights on that attainable goal. Her favorite place to take a cat nap was stretched out on the back of the couch with the sun glaring through the window, roasting her fur. Dolly was actually hot to the touch sometimes. We nearly had to use hot pads to pick her up at times. But like a pig on a spit, Dolly turned over on occasion to ensure she roasted evenly and didn't get too done on one side or the other.

We'd found a nice site in a newer RV park only a matter of blocks from Regina and Milo's home. Reggie, as we most often call her, and her husband, Milo Moore, were still newlyweds. They worked as a team, buying up properties that needed a little TLC, work they frequently hired out, and then selling the houses for a profit. They called it "flipping houses."

Cooper Claypool was an old friend and business partner of Milo's. He'd been responsible for getting Milo involved in the house-flipping business, and they co-owned MC Hammerheads Construction Company. Cooper had offered to take the three of us out on a fishing trip the following day while Reggie spent the day having her hair done and getting a manicure and pedicure at a local nail salon. Have I mentioned that Reggie is what I like to refer to as high-maintenance?

Reggie worked as a realtor for a small agency in town and listed the houses that Milo and Cooper had refurbished. I was certain she was very successful at her job. As a child, she could sell dandelions to the neighborhood kids for a quarter. Reggie once persuaded a young boy to give her his new bicycle in exchange for an old ragged, sodden, and basically eligible, copy of
Playboy Magazine
she'd found on the ground outside a local convenience store. When I'd learned of the trade, I'd called the boy's mother. Charlie got his bike back and, like my daughter, probably two weeks of hard labor.