The Turtle Mound Murder (19 page)

My shoulders slumped with disappointment.
I’d really hoped it was Deputy Moore who’d come to our rescue, like
a white knight, by tracking down Rick’s killer and our stalker. I
sighed dejectedly and glanced down at the very moment a lizard
started to scamper up my leg. I yelped and batted the little
reptile away, rustling the bushes. The men turned in my direction.
I hunkered down, afraid to breathe. They stared for a second, then,
seeing nothing, resumed their conversation. Yet, that moment was
enough. I saw them both clearly, full face, and it was Deputy Moore
and Mr. Red Pickup!

I stayed motionless in the brush until the
men shook hands and drove away, then raced to the car and fell into
the backseat, panting.

“What? What?” Penny Sue demanded, seeing the
horrified look on my face.

I told them what I’d seen, how the men acted
like old friends.

“That’s why Moore tried to play down the
truck angle,” Penny Sue stated. “He was covering for his
buddy.”

“Do you truly believe Pickup Man killed
Rick?” Ruthie asked with an edge of panic.

“He’s the best candidate,” Penny Sue replied
matter-of-factly. “The question is whether Moore is in cahoots with
him.”

“Cahoots on what? The murder? Turtles?” I
asked. Ted Moore had seemed like such a nice guy. He’d screwed in
the light bulb on the porch for us, shown concern for our safety,
and generally been a first-class gentleman. Surely, my judgment of
character wasn’t that bad. I thought of Zack. Maybe I was off base,
again. “I guess there’s no one we can turn to, no one we can
trust,” I muttered gloomily.

Penny Sue regarded me in the rearview
mirror. “Sure there is—we have each other,” she said blithely.
“After all, we’re the Daffodils.” She smiled impishly. “Come on,
we’re jumping to conclusions about Deputy Moore. That,” she waved
at the highway, “doesn’t mean a thing. We have a party to think
about. Don’t let this ruin the day.”

I gave her a thin smile. “You’re right. It’s
a small town. Everyone knows everyone—it’s to be expected. There’s
nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah,” Ruthie agreed weakly.

Penny Sue started the car and slapped it
into gear. “Perk up, now. This incident means nothing; forget it
ever happened. We have a million things to do before the
party.”

Our first stop was the liquor store. Scotch,
vodka, gin, bourbon, wine in every color, champagne, and imported
beer; we had so much stuff I was surprised we didn’t need a special
permit to transport it. From there we went to Dollar General where
we found the Furbies.

Ruthie rubbed the stomach of the display
model. The furry critter laughed and said, “Big fun.” Delighted,
she stroked its head. It made a smooching sound and declared, “I
love you.”

“Watch this,” Ruthie continued. She stuck
her finger in the Furby’s mouth.

It went, “Yum-m,” then said, “Hungry.”

“Isn’t it cute?” Ruthie asked as she reached
for a leopard-spotted model with blond hair. I picked up another
box and started reading.

“Absolutely the most precious thing I’ve
ever seen,” Penny Sue gushed. She put her finger in the display’s
mouth as Ruthie had done.

“Yum, very hungry. Again, please,” it
said.

“The poor little thing’s starving to death,”
Penny Sue said. She stood there with her finger in its mouth, the
critter going, “Yum, again. Yum, again. Please.” Nearby shoppers
drew close. “If only it were this easy with men,” Penny Sue quipped
loudly.

A gasp went up among the throng, and a
petite black lady in her eighties went into hysterics. “You got
that right, honey. Don’t take much to get the ‘again, again.’ It’s
the ‘yum, yum, please’ that’s always missing. I need one of them.”
The little woman lunged in front of Penny Sue and snatched a silver
Furby.

Penny Sue quickly grabbed the only remaining
toy and hugged it to her chest. “Ruthless,” she whispered, watching
the old lady toddle away. “Lord, this is as bad as the
after-Christmas sale at Saks.”

“Penny Sue,” I said, as I put my Furby back
on the shelf. “It doesn’t really pick up words from the
surroundings. It won’t work.”

She pouted. “I don’t care. I’m getting one
anyway, he’s darling.”

“Me, too,” Ruthie exclaimed cradling her
Furby. “Come on, let’s get out of here before we start another
riot.”

We picked up batteries and headed through
the Express Check-Out lane with two Furbies.

The next item on our To-Do List was a
leather bra or halter top for Penny Sue. We sat in the car, air
conditioner running, Ruthie engrossed in powering up her Furby.

“Where do you suppose we’d find one of those
halter tops?” Penny Sue asked.

If I knew, I didn’t want to tell her, even
though our need to appear normal had diminished with Woody’s return
of the gun. Despite his protests to the contrary, Penny Sue was
obviously not a suspect in Rick’s murder. Still, it wouldn’t hurt
to be cautious and show a little decorum in front of the neighbors.
After all, we weren’t completely in the clear as evidenced by the
fact that Woody wouldn’t let us leave town without his
permission.

“I’ll bet you’d have to go all the way to
Daytona Beach to find one,” I replied with all the credence I could
muster, hoping against hope that Penny Sue would drop the matter
until after the party. No such luck.

“Motorcycle people wear them,” Penny Sue
went on, oblivious to my comment.

Ruthie’s Furby came to life, laughing. “Ha,
ha, ha—”

“Harley,” Penny Sue exclaimed, slapping the
car in gear. “I’ll bet they carry them at the Harley Davidson store
over by Pub 44.”

They did. Thankfully, no bras; but the
dealership had a good selection of black leather halter tops, short
shorts, slacks, you name it. Penny Sue chose a halter top with a
Harley emblem in the center, below the boobs. She wanted to buy
leather shorts to match, but Ruthie convinced her otherwise.

“One continuous yeast infection,” Ruthie
pronounced quietly.

Those four words eclipsed all my arguments
about propriety and image. Too bad I couldn’t think of something
similar for the top.

The final stop was at Publix supermarket for
limes, mixers, ice, a bag of salad and Stouffers’ lasagna. It took
some doing, but Ruthie and I convinced Penny Sue that we should
stay home and rest up for the party. (Guess where she wanted to go?
It starts with an R.)

We finally got home at three-thirty.
Charlotte was cleaning fingerprints from the sliding glass doors to
the deck, and Pete was dusting Penny Sue’s bedroom. Penny Sue
enlisted Pete’s help with the liquor which he arranged on the short
side of the L-shaped bar next to the sink. I watched his
preparations with interest. It was clear he knew what he was doing.
I also noticed for the first time that he walked with a limp.

“What did you do to your leg?” I asked.

He hiked up his pant leg far enough to
reveal the bottom of a walking cast. “Motorcycle accident. Got
banged up pretty bad; broke this leg in three places. Almost healed
now, this cast is the last of it.”

An accident. So that’s what happened to his
lip.
Judge not according to appearance
, Grandma Martin’s
admonition came to mind. She was right again, bless her soul. Pete
would probably be a splendid bartender.

Charlotte and Pete finished up and left with
a promise to return the next day at two. Ruthie helped Penny Sue
unpack her Furby. For all the effort it took, you’d have thought
they were doing brain surgery. I knew better than to get in the
middle of that fray and contented myself with the Weather
Channel.

Former Hurricane, now Tropical Storm Lizzie
remained stationary, though was gaining strength. If an approaching
front held together, it would steer the storm out into the
Atlantic, away from land. If the front fizzled, Lizzie could go
anywhere. Stay tuned for the latest coordinates at eight.

“Me tah Lu Nee.” A little voice heralded
Ruthie and Penny Sue’s success.

“That means her name is Lu Nee,” Ruthie
said, looking up from the instructions.

“Lu Nee?” Penny Sue asked. “My baby’s name
is Lu Nee?”

Lord, a chip off the old block. I could
hardly keep a straight face.

“Little Lu Nee.” Penny Sue positioned the
toy in the crook of her arm and stuck her pinkie finger in its
mouth. It responded with a stream of yums and gibberish, punctuated
by a loud burp. Then, it snored and went to sleep.

We headed for the beach. We walked south
toward the public entrance at Hiles Boulevard, which, counting the
trek back, would give us a nice mile stroll. The weather was
perfect and the beach virtually deserted at this time of year. We
hadn’t gone very far when we encountered Gerty and Robert standing
between two turtle mounds.

“Good evening,” I called. “How’s the turtle
business today?”

Gerty glared at us, clearly not realizing
who we were. Luckily, Robert did. He put a hand on Gerty’s shoulder
as if to restrain her and replied with a jaunty, “Very fine, thank
you. A new brood’s about to hatch.”

We rushed toward him. “Now?” Ruthie asked,
excitedly.

Robert nodded. “Both nests are due. We came
to dig this one up, but it’s already cooking.” He pointed to a tiny
flipper emerging from the sand. Looking like a brown Brillo pad
with feet, the reptilian tyke struggled free of its eggshell and
turtle-toddled toward the ocean. Fortunately, the tide was high, so
it didn’t have far to go. Yet that short distance seemed like an
eternity. First, he (Penny Sue claimed it was a male because of its
pig-headedness) ran headlong into a piece of driftwood. The
hatchling bounced back, paused as if dazed, then plowed right back
into the obstacle. The little booger did that four times before he
found a path around the barrier.

“Can’t we help him?” Ruthie asked after what
looked like a particularly painful head butt.

“No,” Gerty replied sternly. “A certain
amount of flailing is good; it builds up their lungs. This little
guy’s developing the coordination he’ll need to survive in the
ocean.”

“Like a child learning to walk,” I
observed.

“Exactly,” Robert said.

By then the nest had transformed into a pot
of boiling, roiling sand as miniature heads and flippers struggled
free. Each struck out across the sand. Most seemed to sense the
ocean and headed for the surf. Some went in circles, while others
struck off in the wrong direction. Contrary to Gerty’s stern
admonition that we not touch them, I saw her stealthily nudge a few
toward the ocean with the toe of her shoe. Eventually, all but one
had made it into the water.

The straggler had had a particularly rough
time of it, wandering in circles and being rammed and trampled by
his siblings. Several times Gerty nudged him with her toe; each
time he started out toward the ocean, but veered off course. We
watched in horror as his motion got slower and slower.

Tears welling in her eyes, Ruthie dropped to
her knees beside the hatchling. “He’s too exhausted to go on. Can’t
we help him?” she looked up at Gerty. The old woman shook her head
grimly. A tear streaked down Ruthie’s cheek.

“We’re going to let him die?” I asked,
feeling a lump form in my throat.

“We can’t pick them up,” Robert responded
stoically. “We can’t interfere.”

Penny Sue had watched the exchange in
silence, hands on hips, her jaw getting tighter and tighter.
Robert’s comment sent her over the edge. “Horse hockey,” she
exploded. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” She dropped to
the ground and plunged her hands into the sand. “Damn, I broke a
nail.” She paused, sucking her finger. “Well, help me. Are y’all
just going to sit there?”

“What are you doing?” Ruthie asked, blotting
her cheek with the back of her hand.

“I’m digging a canal, what does it look
like? If we can’t take the turtle to the water, we’ll just have to
bring the water to the turtle.”

Brilliant! She’d surprised me again. Ruthie
and I started scooping sand. In a matter of minutes the trench was
finished and filling with water.

“Come on, sugar,” Penny Sue purred to the
hatchling. “Get in the water.” A seagull swooped low, circling our
heads, clearly anxious to intervene in his own way.

Ruthie covered her mouth, eyes welling up
again. “I think we’re too late.”

Penny Sue glared defiantly—the same mixture
of anger and determination I’d seen on her face when she tried to
stop Rick’s brawl. Lord, I was glad she didn’t have the gun. If she
had, the seagull was a goner and possibly the Turtle Patrol, too.
Not that Penny Sue would shoot them; I was confident of that,
unless of course, her hormones are seriously out of whack. But, she
might warn them, which was the same as a threat with a deadly
weapon, according to Woody.

“Come on, baby cakes; move it. Get in the
water,” Penny Sue called to the turtle. The critter still didn’t
budge. Penny Sue’s face got red. “Get out of here,” she shouted to
the seagull, waving her fist overhead. Gerty, Robert, and I all
took a step back.

And then the universe intervened. (At least,
that’s how Ruthie would have explained it.) A big wave overflowed
the trench and splashed the baby turtle. He sprang to life,
stroking frantically. The water washed over him, and he started to
float.

“That’s it, baby. Swim,” Penny Sue
cheered.

The receding wave sucked him into the
trench. We followed him, shouting encouragement, as the tiny tyke
paddled furiously toward the ocean. Another good wave, and our baby
was gone. Gone to find his mother, his brothers, and a big meal, we
hoped.

“Live long and prosper,” Ruthie
whispered.

Penny Sue yelled, “Stay away from
fishermen.”

Gerty checked her watch and nodded to Robert
who removed the stakes from the now empty nest.