Barnacle Bob spun around in his Mercedes of a birdcage and faced the wall, aiming his colorful tail-feathered rear end at Liz. Aunt Amelia had found him after a hurricane at a local pet rescue facility. She’d had her pick of other pets needing a good home, but she always went for the less fortunate, in this case Barnacle Bob. Owing to his colorful language, Barnacle Bob’s former owner had probably been a crusty old sailor or a Florida fisherman, no doubt male. Barnacle Bob had a soft spot for Aunt Amelia and he never said anything disparaging to her face, only behind her back. He was less kind to the rest of humanity.
Liz covered the parrot’s cage. “Early to bed, early to rise, BB.”
As she and Killer walked out of the music room, it was hard to ignore the muffled expletives spewing from Barnacle Bob’s foul beak.
Chapter 2
Sunday dinner at the Indialantic was the only time the guests, help, and emporium shopkeepers all ate together in the huge hotel dining room. However, today was an exception because it was Thursday. Aunt Amelia had asked Pierre to whip up a special thank-you feast to kick off the first annual Indialantic Spring Fling by the Sea, scheduled for Saturday at the emporium.
The hotel’s original dining room had been double the size that it was now, but it was still big enough to seat sixty people. There were fifteen square tables topped with white Irish linen tablecloths dating from the hotel’s opening, personally ironed by Aunt Amelia. Liz’s great-aunt found ironing a therapeutic distraction. Liz didn’t even own an iron. She looked guiltily at her white cotton blouse that her great-aunt had insisted on pressing. In the past, all Liz had had to do was leave a bag of laundry outside her Soho loft door on Monday morning and it would be picked up by Mr. Kim, the owner of the dry cleaner at the end of her block, then delivered back by Monday evening.
Three of the Indialantic’s hotel guests sat together at a table by a huge window overlooking the Olympic-sized pool—the same pool where old-time film star and synchronized swimmer Esther Williams had performed one of her water ballet scenes for an MGM movie. Captain Clyde B. Netherton, the septuagenarian owner of Killer, looked dapper as usual, his gold-handled walking cane leaning against his chair. The captain was retired from the Coast Guard and skippered the sightseeing and nature-watch cruiser Queen of the Seas from the Indialantic’s river dock every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He’d been staying at the Indialantic for the past two months. Also at the table was eighty-three-year-old Betty Lawson. Betty had lived at the Indialantic for over twenty years and was one of the reasons Liz had become a writer. In the sixties and seventies, Betty worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate as a ghostwriter for five Nancy Drew mysteries under the pseudonym of Carolyn Keene. Even under duress, she never revealed exactly which books she’d written. Betty had also penned a slew of other teenage mysteries for girls and boys under different nom de plumes. Sitting next to Betty was a new guest whom Liz had never met, but she’d seen her face plastered all over the society pages or attending local A-list events in the Melbourne Beach and Vero Beach area. Regina Harrington-Worth came from of one of the area’s most prestigious families. Her grandfather Percival Harrington I, built his oceanfront estate, Castlemara, a few miles south of the Indialantic. Later, Regina’s father, Percival II, commissioned a salvaging company to look for sunken treasure in the remains of the Spanish ship San Carlos—and scored big-time. The rest was Treasure Coast history.
Regina Harrington-Worth wasn’t one of Aunt Amelia’s typical strays. In fact, she looked and dressed like she belonged in West Palm Beach, or on a yacht moored at Fisher Island, where the residents had the highest per-capita income in the United States. She appeared to be in her early fifties, perhaps a little older, in no small part due to Botox and fillers. Her bottom lip was three times the size of the top. Near the woman’s feet was a rhinestone-studded pet carrier. Two ice-blue eyes looked out from behind the mesh window. Liz couldn’t tell what species the animal was, but she knew one thing: bringing a pet into the hotel dining room was a definite no-no in Aunt Amelia’s book.
Everyone had served themselves from the twenty-foot buffet against the stucco wall. Pierre Montague, the hotel’s live-in chef, who had his own suite of rooms on the second floor, stood in the doorway to the kitchen surveying the scene. He looked so much older than he had ten years ago. When her father and Aunt Amelia made the trip to Manhattan to visit her, she’d invited Pierre, but he refused to fly, saying, “Who would make the meals, Lizzy Bear?” He was right: Her father and Aunt Amelia could barely boil an egg. Liz was the only other cook in the family. When Liz was small, she called Pierre “Grand-Pierre,” a play on the French name Grand-Pere, which translates to “grandfather,” because that was how she thought of him. Like Betty, Pierre was family.
Pierre winked at Liz, and she pointed to her full plate, giving him a thumbs-up. At least he hadn’t lost the mischievous twinkle in his pale gray eyes. His furry white caterpillar eyebrows matched an unruly mustache whose tips were waxed and curled each morning in true Hercule Poirot style.
Liz filled her Baccarat crystal glass with water and a floating lemon slice from the pitcher in the center of the table. The lemons were plucked from the Indialantic’s own trees. At her table were her father and best friend, Kate Fields. Barnacle Bob called her “Crazy for Cocoa Puffs Kate,” and
