Liz begged to differ, but said, “Yum,” anyway. Her great-aunt had been let loose in Liz’s kitchen. Aunt Amelia had ignored all the gourmet lunch choices in the fridge, including Pops’s homemade pâtè de champagne—country-style pâtè. Not that Liz didn’t live on English muffin pizza when she was in college, but even then, she’d sprinkled Italian seasoning on her tomato paste and used fresh mozzarella cheese. Her great-aunt’s heavy-handed choice of curry powder and blue cheese didn’t scream “pizza”; it screamed Pepto-Bismol.
Aunt Amelia clapped her hands. “Road trip! Let’s hit the trail. I call shotgun!”
Now Kate had done it. Per Betty’s assignment, Liz planned to head to Cocoa Beach with Kate and check out Iris’s mother’s return address on the envelope she’d stolen from under Iris’s bed. The envelope was safely tucked inside her handbag. But Liz didn’t want Aunt Amelia to know she was looking into Regina Harrington-Worth’s murder, or questioning her great-aunt’s choice of a housekeeper.
Liz said to Aunt Amelia, “I thought you had to wait for David Worth to come back from the hospital?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? They’re keeping him for one more night, which is a good thing, because the Windward Shores Suite hasn’t been used in decades, and Iris has a full day ahead of her.”
A half hour later, everyone was loaded into Kate’s aqua-colored van, which was probably built in the same decade when Aunt Amelia had starred in Dark Shadows. Kate loved it because it had lots of room in the back for her bike, surfboard, books, and the precious junk she rescued to go into her shop. When Kate dragged Liz to estate sales or antique shops, the hippie van perfectly fit the bill. Liz was always the designated map navigator, because Kate was one of those people who had no sense of direction. In Kate’s case, she seemed to enjoy getting lost. Everything was an adventure.
After Kate’s big announcement about their plans, Liz had texted her to keep quiet about their covert assignment involving Iris, saying their cover story would be that they were going to a potential client of Kate’s who was looking for a rare book. Aunt Amelia had been given a new cell phone for Christmas from her nephew, but she never used it except to call Liz, Fenton, or Betty. Unlike Betty, she didn’t grasp the “smart” part of a smartphone. Betty had tried to teach her a million times, to no avail. When things settled down, Liz had a great idea to motivate Aunt Amelia to use the Internet on her phone. She would download the YouTube app and let her search for clips from her past roles in TV Land.
They took the scenic route via A1A to the northern tip of the barrier island, turned left at Patrick Air Force Base, and headed west. Silhouetted against a startling blue ocean sky was the barrier island’s black-and-white Cape Canaveral Lighthouse, its working light having been a beacon to sailors for a hundred and fifty years. Once over the Indian River Lagoon, they turned right onto Highway 1.
Halfway to Cocoa Beach, Kate stopped at their first garage sale. Liz realized they needed a book as a decoy for their covert mission. While Kate was filling the back of her van with boxes of UFOs, unidentified found objects, and Aunt Amelia was looking through a stack of old movie-star magazines, Liz spied a vintage Dick and Jane children’s book that she quickly paid for. She stuffed the book in the front waistband of her long, gauzy cotton skirt and untucked her blouse to cover it. At the thought of the word “gauze,” Liz was reminded of the Ace bandage used to strangle Regina, a strange weapon to use when you were already carrying a knife. As Liz pondered these dark thoughts, a single cloud in the bright blue sky smothered the sun.
Two yard sales later, they entered historic Cocoa Village. Quaint Main Street was lined with palm trees and awninged storefronts. There were all of the typical shops found in most small Florida towns built in the late 1800s, including a quilt and fabric shop that Liz knew Francie frequented. Could Francie really be considered a murder suspect? Liz couldn’t picture Francie strangling Regina and then stealing the necklace and earrings as subterfuge to stop the demolition of Castlemara. Francie had been upset at the plans for tearing down the mansion, but upset enough to kill?
As they passed I Dream of Jeannie Lane, Aunt Amelia said, “I can picture astronaut Tony Nelson walking down Main Street looking for his mischievous genie. Did I ever tell you about when I was—”
Kate interrupted. “Yes. Great episode of I Dream of Jeannie. When onlookers think Tony pushed Jeannie overboard, but really she’d blinked her way back to her bottle in Cocoa Beach.”
“I played Young Woman Number One. All I said was, ‘Look!’ and then pointed.”
Kate added, “And you did it perfectly, in your bubble gum–pink lipstick and platinum-blond hair.”
“A wig, of course. I think I still have it somewhere.”
Liz laughed. “It’s probably in my trunk of dress-up clothes in the hotel’s luggage room.”
At the end of Main Street, Kate turned left. The map server on Kate’s phone directed them to the return address on the envelope Liz had pilfered from Iris’s bedroom. They turned onto a small shaded street on the water side of town. The phone broadcasted, “You have arrived,” as Kate pulled into a gravel drive.
Liz said, “Don’t forget the reason you’re here.” She handed Kate the Dick and Jane book titled Guess Who, the irony of which wasn’t lost on Liz.
Kate looked down at the book. “Wow! This is a classic. Worth at least sixty bucks.”
“Kate, you act like you’ve never seen it before?” Aunt Amelia said.
“You know Kate and her books, Auntie,” Liz said. “She hates
