Well Read, Then Dead (Read Em and Eat Mystery) Read online

  “In your parking lot, two ladies were getting into an ancient, beat-up Chevy. One looked a lot like a friend of my mother’s from years back. Do you know their names?”

  I swiveled my head and took a hard look. Not much to see. Graying stubble on a narrow chin and gaunt cheeks. Under a faded green bucket hat, his aviator sunglasses revealed nothing but the reflection of my own brown eyes, puzzled by his question.

  “I’m sorry, but as you can see . . .” I indicated Miguel, lying on the floor, clearly visible through the kitchen doorway.

  He took the hint and left.

  I looked around. The café was empty. Miss Augusta, Miss Delia and one or two other regulars, although neighborly enough, had packed up and gone home, deciding to stay out of our way while we tended to the mayhem in the kitchen. I walked to the front door and was flipping the sign from “open” to “closed” when a green and white Lee County Sheriff’s car pulled in.

  Smokey Bear hat in hand, Ryan Mantoni waved as he was getting out of the driver’s seat. A native Floridian, born on Pine Island, he was always bragging that he’d been conceived while his parents were fishing on Lovers Key. His mother denies it, but that doesn’t stop him from spinning the tale.

  Ryan pushed his hat down over his sun-streaked brown hair and said something to the new deputy climbing out of the passenger side of the cruiser. Even at this distance I suspected the deputy had washboard abs. He took off his sunglasses and seemed to inspect me intently. I felt myself flush even as my hand rose to twirl a lock of my always unruly auburn hair. Good Lord, with Miguel writhing in pain on the kitchen floor, please don’t let me get all flirty.

  They walked toward me in military lockstep, and, judging by the way the short sleeves of his uniform shirt hugged his well-developed biceps, I became more convinced that my suspicion regarding his physique was spot-on. Even from half a parking lot away, I could see he would tower over my five feet seven inches. Not many men can make me feel petite.

  I was hoping for a quick introduction, but Ryan asked, “What happened?”

  I told them about Miguel’s fall.

  “Sassy Cabot, meet Lieutenant Anthony. He’s a new boss in the district, learning the islands.”

  The lieutenant’s smile lit up the parking lot no matter it was broad daylight. “Make it Frank. They really call you Sassy or is that Ryan being Ryan?”

  I sighed. “My parents have a sense of humor. My given name is plain old Mary, but my middle name is—”

  “Sassafras!” Ryan shouted gleefully, as he opened the café door.

  “Hmm.” The lieutenant was still eyeing me. “Time will tell if you live up to your name.” And he followed Ryan into the café kitchen. I hurried after them, willing myself not to start the hair twirl thing again.

  Chapter Two ||||||||||||||||||||

  Sirens blaring, the ambulance rushed toward the mainland. I tried to follow, my rusty, trusty Heap-a-Jeep bobbing and weaving through the traffic on Estero Boulevard. When the ambulance turned onto San Carlos, heading for our antiquated one-lane-in-each-direction bridge to Fort Myers, cars pulled onto the embankment to let the ambulance pass but immediately filled in behind it like the Gulf washing over the sand at high tide. I fell hopelessly behind.

  By the time I got to Health Park Medical Center and found the emergency room, Miguel was on a gurney in a curtained alcove, wired to an IV drip. As soon as he saw me, he clawed at my arm and pleaded, “Take me to Miami, mama. I wan’ go home.”

  The attendant assigned to take Miguel up to the OR must have been used to dealing with the power of pain meds. He pulled the gurney away from the wall and said in a soothing voice, “Little Havana, here we come. Vamos a Miami.”

  Miguel let go of my arm, gave a cheerful wave and went off with his new friend. His heart was bound for home and family; no matter that his leg was going to the operating suite.

  Hours dragged by. I alternated between thumbing through old magazines and pacing around the visitors lounge until a surgical intern came to tell me Miguel was out of surgery and doing nicely in the recovery room. And no, I couldn’t see him.

  I finally got back to the Read ’Em and Eat right after closing. When I opened the door, Bridgy jumped up, planting her hands on her hips. “I’ve called you a half dozen times. No answer, voice mail, voice mail.”

  “I turned off my cell at the hospital. I guess I forgot to turn it on again.”

  “And you never thought to call me? I’ve been worried sick about Miguel. How do you think I felt when Ryan stopped back after work to ask about Miguel and I had no information?”

  She and Ryan were eating Miguel’s mega-aromatic Old Man and the Sea Chowder. Think red pepper flakes, onion and tarragon slathered on the planks of a fishing pier. Ignoring us, Ryan reached for the plate of crackers set mid-table and crumbled a few into his bowl. He wore his off-duty uniform, baggy shorts and a Fort Myers Beach tee shirt. This one read: “Deputies Do It Safely.”

  “The hospital called Miguel’s sister in Miami, and during one of his more lucid moments, Miguel gave me his cousin Rey’s cell number. Remember him? Last Fourth of July? Anyway, he’s driving down from Lake Butler.”

  “Can he cook?” Ryan asked, raising a spoon brimming with bits of grouper and carrots.

  “Cook? I don’t know.” Then I understood. Who was going to make breakfast when we opened in the morning? “Oh. The kitchen.”

  I folded my arms and looked straight at Bridgy. The café part of Read ’Em and Eat was her idea, and she did fancy herself quite the gourmet cook.

  “I can manage for a few days, but with snowbird season right around the corner . . .” She hesitated. “We’ll be awfully busy. And I don’t know most of Miguel’s specials.”

  I sighed, knowing what was coming.

  In her tiniest indoor voice, Bridgy said, “Aunt Ophie.”

  “Who?” Ryan’s eyes swung from Bridgy to me and back again, slightly alarmed by the dread mixed with resignation crossing both our faces.

  “My Aunt Ophelia is the best cook on planet Earth, but, well, she’s a little different.”

  “What kind of different?” Ryan rested his spoon on the table.

  “Let me,” I said. “Three years ago when we first opened, Bridgy’s aunt Ophelia offered to come down from Pinetta to help with the cooking until we found a chef. You know how folks round here say that north Florida thinks it is really south Georgia with that y’all southern charm mind-set? Living barely south of the Georgia border, Aunt Ophie takes her role as Antebellum Grande Dame to heart.”

  Ryan gave a “no big deal” shrug.

  Bridgy took over. “Get ready to have your cheek patted and be called ‘honey chile,’ and I wouldn’t wear that shirt unless you’re willing to sit through a thirty-minute lecture about gentlemanly appearance and behavior. The happy news is you can bring your appetite for southern. We’ll have grits and hush puppies aplenty on the menu.” She turned to me. “As I recall, you had one of your cutesy book names for the hush puppies. To Kill a Mockingbird?”

  “Close. Harper Lee Hush Puppies. And don’t forget True Grits.”

  “Like the movie?” Ryan knew his westerns.

  “Like the book.”

  Bridgy laughed at my response. “Sassy doesn’t know movies. She only knows books.”

  “Do so know movies,” I retorted. “Both movies. The forty-some-odd-years-ago True Grit with John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn and the recent one starring Jeff Bridges. That one revived interest in the ‘based on’ novel, True Grit, by Charles Portis. The movie tie-in edition of the book hit the best seller lists.”

  Bridgy wrinkled her forehead, gave me her “whatever” look and moved on. “Your boyfriend was here. He heard about Miguel and wanted the 411.”

  “Boyfriend?” I panicked, afraid Ryan had noticed my getting lost in the dreamy blue eyes of the new lieutenant.

 
“You know. The reporter with the feminist name. Cady.”

  Cady Stanton. Irritated as I am by having Sassafras as a middle name, his mother named him after nineteenth-century women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I’d often wondered if she’d married Cady’s father for the sole purpose of having that last name for her children, Cady and his sister, Elizabeth.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested automatically.

  “You spent a weekend with him in Key West. If he’s not your boyfriend, what does that make you?” Bridgy was doing the hands on her hips thing again.

  “It was a literary seminar.” I waved my arm at the bookshelves. “Books, authors, readings. Anyway, we only traveled together. We had separate rooms.”

  Ryan guffawed. “You were right, Bridgy. She’s all about the books.”

  There was a loud bang on the door, and as we turned toward it, the face pressed up against the glass window pane screeched.

  “I can see you’re in there. Open this door.”

  “Sounds like that lady with the poufy lilac-colored hair. The one who runs the consignment shop.”

  Ryan nailed it. Rowena Gustavsen. Remembering this morning’s book club, I thought, This can’t be good.

  I opened the door and Rowena barged past me, her face nearly as purple as her hair. She dropped a huge lemon-colored purse on the Hemingway table and growled, “Which one of you sent that derelict to me? I demand to know.” Chunky plastic bracelets clattered on her wrist as she flung one arm high in the air and dropped it to a dramatic rest on her forehead. “I cannot have such riffraff in my shop. What will my clients think?”

  She finally stopped for a breath, followed by a deep sigh.

  “Rowena, sit down. Have a cup of tea.”

  She pulled out a chair, crumpled heavily onto the seat and propped her elbows on the table. I scurried to put on the kettle, hoping to keep her calm at all costs.

  I was reaching for the tea canister when she bellowed, “Sweet tea, if you have it.”

  I brought a tall glass of sweet tea, with a couple of sugar cookies on a doilied plate. From the moment Rowena came through the door, Bridgy and Ryan were frozen in place. I signaled as discreetly as I could for them to join her, but Bridgy gave an infinitesimal shake of her head, confirming my suspicion that she was at the bottom of Rowena’s dilemma, be it real or imagined.

  I sat opposite Rowena. After watching her drain the glass dry, I went back to the kitchen and brought out a pitcher of sweet tea and a tray of empty glasses. This could take a while.

  I was pouring her refill when Rowena sprang to life again. “I almost called the sheriff.” She turned to Ryan. “You know how you’re always saying to call if I think something is wrong.” She swung back to me. “But he said you sent him, so I decided to ask you first. Glad Ryan is here nonetheless.” Her head bobbed an emphatic nod.

  “Rowena, who are we talking about?”

  “Who did you send to my shop?”

  Round and round we go.

  “We all support one another’s businesses. Could have been anyone.”

  “Not anyone. That old man. Smells like seaweed. The one who carried the human head around all last year. You sent him to me.” The accusation was forceful.

  Skully. What would he be doing in the Sand and Shell Emporium?

  Bridgy stood up and cleared her throat. “Actually, Rowena, I sent him.” She was fidgeting, the fingers on her right hand tugging on her left. “I ordered some earring posts and jeweler’s wire from a website and encouraged him to stop using fishing line for the things he makes. I’m convinced his lovely shell and fish bone jewelry will be top sellers. I thought you’d want to market such exquisite items, but if you don’t . . .”

  “We’ll sell them here,” I finished.

  Bridgy’s eyes widened in surprise, but I was not about to waste my night on Rowena’s histrionics, so I called her bluff.

  “Not so fast.” Rowena must have had a vision of dollar bills flying out of her cash register and into ours. “I need time to decide.”

  “Well, what did you tell Skully?”

  “He said his name was Thomas. Thomas Smallwood. I told him I’d think things over and he should come back tomorrow. That way I could have Ryan around if needed.”

  “And what did you think of his jewelry?”

  “Oh, it’s magnificent. His wire and shell pendants are elegant; the handiwork is extremely intricate. They are guaranteed to jump off the shelves. He can’t possibly make pieces as fast as my clients will buy them.”

  Ryan spoke for the first time. “Ms. Gustavsen, believe me, Skully is a decent man, just a little out of touch with this century. A few decades after the Civil War, lots of folks began traveling up and down the Gulf, stopping their boats at this island or that, plying their skills. Fishermen. Toolmakers. Tradesmen. It was how they earned a living, and passed down father to son for generations. Times have changed. Skully prefers the old ways. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Rowena knew the history of the islands better than most. It was part of the sales pitch for her merchandise. I could see she was 95 percent convinced.

  “Why do you call him Skully? He said his name is Thomas.”

  Ryan touched each side of his head with his index fingers and rocked from side to side. Before Rowena realized Skully got the nickname when Lee County deputies found the fifty-year-old skull he’d dug up on Mound Key and stashed in his duffel bag for a few months last winter, Bridgy tapped Ryan on the nose with a rolled-up magazine as if correcting a naughty puppy.

  Rowena reached over and poured another glass of sweet tea and began muttering, almost to herself, “Now if only Delia would part with some of the old bric-a-brac cluttering up her house, I could have a banner year; make a nice commission. Stubborn as a mule, she is. Why, she won’t even sell her island. Not like she ever spends any time there.”

  “Island?” I was mystified.

  “Down in Ten Thousand Islands. Did you think all that ‘we been here forever’ talk was blather? Delia’s and Augusta’s families came here, claimed and settled land forever ago. Long before the E.J. Watson brouhaha, and that happened right after the hurricane of 1910. Between Delia and Augusta, they probably own at least a hundred islands. Most not more than patches of mangroves. Maybe a shell mound or two. Anyway, some resort company took a fancy to one of Delia’s islands. She won’t even talk to them.” Rowena shook her head at the folly of Delia’s decision and reached for the last cookie.

  “Except for Chokoloskee, those islands are all in one state or national park or another,” Ryan countered. “No one can own them.”

  Rowena placed her palms on the table and pushed herself to standing. “That might be what you think. Might even be what the government thinks, but I guarantee that Augusta and Delia have papers that say different. And they aren’t the only ones. Say, maybe my new jewelry supplier has a deed or two tucked away in that scruffy bag he carries.”

  At long last we shut the door firmly behind Ryan and Rowena, who were still chattering about the islands and the Everglades. After we wiped down the tables and chairs, I ran the electric broom over the floor while Bridgy did the end-of-the-day kitchen checklist. Stove burners off? Check. Freezer door shut? Check.

  I put the broom away and was wiping a barely visible speck off the countertop when I decided to put on my happy face. We’d talked Rowena into consigning jewelry from Skully. Miguel’s cousin Rey would be at his bedside tomorrow morning. The worst was behind us.

  Bridgy was quick to erase my imaginary smile when she poked her head in the kitchen pass-through and said, “I guess I’ll call Aunt Ophie first thing in the morning.”

  Chapter Three ||||||||||||||||||||

  Thunder rat-tat-tatted like gunfire. I opened one bleary eye. Not thunder. Bridgy banging on my bedroom door.

  “We have kitchen duty. The café
opens at seven sharp. We’ve got to go. Put on the coffee. Fire up the grill.”

  I reached for my night table and smacked the button on my projection clock. Like the Bat Signal in Gotham City, a circle of light beamed on the ceiling, but instead of the shadow of the Caped Crusader my light circled three numbers. 4:45. In. The. Morning.

  I threw a pillow at the door. It bounced once and floated silently to the floor. I should’ve thrown the clock.

  “Come on, Sas. Get out of bed.”

  I grumbled, nothing intelligible, but Bridgy took any sign of life as acquiescence.

  “Glad you’re up. We going to ride our bikes or are you too tired, poor thing?”

  I buried my head in my one remaining pillow. I so wanted to close my eyes for another hour or two, but I accepted my fate and flung back the covers.

  “I’m up,” I announced to the door. “And I seriously wish we’d bought two tiny but very separate condos instead of sharing this palace you swore would be a growth investment. If I had my own place, you couldn’t come wakin’ me whenever you feel like it.”

  “But then you wouldn’t have that mind-blowing view. Look out the window. That’ll chipper you right up.” And I heard her trot away from my door, feeling pleased, I’m sure, that she’d got me to my feet.

  Okay, she was right about the view. From here on the fifth floor, my not-quite-floor-to-ceiling bedroom window faced north, showing off the whole of the Gulf of Mexico. Brooklyn girl that I am, I never quite got used to the Matlacha Preserve, with its foliage, green and dense from January through December. Dead ahead, the fishermen on Pine Island already had their lamps lit and were probably filling their thermoses about now. Across Pine Island Sound, other barrier islands—Sanibel, North Captiva, Cayo Costa—jutted into the Gulf with far less electric sparkle. Past those familiar islands, land masses were mere dots to the naked eye, but I knew they led a path straight to the Florida panhandle. I opened the window and stretched my arms high, bent to touch my toes, all the while taking deep breaths of that salty/sweet Gulf air.