5 Highball Exit

  PRAISE FOR THE SHERRI TRAVIS MYSTERIES

  “A series that gives the reader a casual style and storytelling with staying power. The pacing is that of a southern drawl, with a core of beer, bars and bad behavior.”

  —The Hamilton Spectator

  “The Sherri Travis Mysteries started out well and have gotten better . . . the writing keeps getting tighter, and Smallman knows how to crank up the reader’s tension. One can’t help wanting more and anticipating the next book in this entertaining and fast-paced series.”

  —National Post

  “Smallman, winner of the Unhanged Arthur Ellis for her first Travis novel, is at the top of her game.”

  —The Globe and Mail

  “Phyllis Smallman is a gifted writer, and has a strong and captivating protagonist in Sherri Travis. Sherri is an engaging figure whose combination of single-minded determination, absolute candor and underlying sense of values utterly beguiles the reader. A fascinating read.”

  —The Sherbrooke Record

  “A murder-mystery crossed with chick-lit, this book is a lot of fun.”

  —Her Free Reads Blog

  “High tension, wonderful descriptions of the Florida countryside and a very real, heartbreaking theme of man’s inhumanity toward man . . . a must read.”

  —Mystery & Me Blog

  “Wonderful mysteries.”

  —Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com

  “Snappy dialog, rapid pacing and characters you’d love to meet in a beach bar.”

  —Winnipeg Free Press

  HIGHBALL EXIT

  ALSO BY PHYLLIS SMALLMAN

  Sherri Travis Mysteries

  Margarita Nights

  Sex in a Sidecar

  A Brewski for the Old Man

  Champagne for Buzzards

  Sherri Travis Short Mysteries

  Bitty And The Naked Ladies

  Jack Daniels And Tea

  HIGHBALL EXIT

  PHYLLIS

  SMALLMAN

  Copyright © 2012 Phyllis Smallman

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca.

  Phyllis Smallman Publishing

  www.phyllissmallman.com

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Smallman, Phyllis

  Highball exit / Phyllis Smallman.

  (A Sherri Travis mystery)

  ISBN 978-1-927129-79-1 [print]

  ISBN 978-0-987803-36-8 [eBook]

  I. Title. II. Series: Smallman, Phyllis. Sherri Travis mystery.

  PS8637.M36H54 2012 C813’.6 C2012-904826-7

  Proofreader: Lenore Hietkamp

  Cover and interior design: Tania Craan

  Author photo: Linda Matteson-Reynolds

  eBook development: WildElement.ca

  Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  1

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  3

  4

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  41

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  44

  45

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  47

  48

  49

  50

  Author’s Comments

  About the Author

  For Elle Wild

  ~ with much love and gratitude ~

  CHAPTER 1

  It was Sunday morning and I was out on the lanai of my borrowed beach house, sprawled in a canvas lawn chair, the Sunday Herald discarded at my feet. The bright Florida sun was giving me a headache. I couldn’t find the energy to go inside the air-conditioned house or even move into its shade. I’d surrendered to lethargy and given up on everything but breathing.

  The September air was heavy with humidity. At ten o’clock in the morning, the temperature already hovered around ninety, with a forecast for worse to come. Overhead small white clouds, eager to be gone, rushed across the sky, leaving nothing behind but the drought that wouldn’t end.

  Elvis flew in with wings extended, neck out and long legs dangling, and came to a running stop. He stepped delicately onto the listing concrete squares and stood there with his head twitching right, then left, and then back again.

  “What, do you want . . . applause?”

  He cranked his neck around and gave me the evil eye. “I’m no tourist. I knew you could do it.” Elvis tilted his head to the side.

  “Go away you moocher. I’m the only one getting a handout today.”

  He lifted a stick leg and paused before he set it gingerly down and inched closer.

  “There isn’t a scrap in that fridge.”

  He cocked his head, one yellow eye considering me as his fine white feathers quivered in the light breeze.

  “If there was a hotdog in there I’d eat it myself.” Elvis was the only egret in all Florida who preferred hotdogs to fish. He couldn’t abide those disgusting things no matter how hungry he was.

  “Get lost, freak.”

  Elvis decided I was suffering from a serious lack of charity and lifted off with a squawk of protest to fly north across the sand dunes, back towards Jacaranda, looking for someone more generous than me.

  This tiny aqua bungalow, on the beach in Jacaranda, was built closer to the edge of the Gulf of Mexico than the new laws allowed. Sand dunes and beach grasses were the only things I could see from the patio. It didn’t matter, all the other beach houses were empty until the season started. I was alone in paradise, solitary and miserable.

  Even the chartreuse gecko darting in and out of the clay pots full of dead flowers couldn’t lift my mood. My business . . . no, my life, the Sunset Bar and Grill, was running on borrowed money and the fumes of my dying dreams.

  I kept telling myself that everything would go back to normal when the long line of cars with out of state license plates started arriving. The winter before, the tourist trade had been down, leaving me pirouetting on the edge of bankruptcy, and now I’d reached a crisis point. The Sunset needed an infusion of cash or it wouldn’t survive.

  If I could just last until after Thanksgiving, two more months, I stood a chance of keeping the bank from stepping in. But this nasty, nasty little voice in my head kept saying, “And what if the tourists don’t come? What if this is the new normal . . . the new state of things?” God, I hate that little
voice. It keeps insisting on pointing out truths I’m quite capable of avoiding.

  I tried to think of someone to tap for money, considered all my options, and discovered there weren’t any. When you grow up in a trailer park on the edge of a swamp, you just don’t make the right social connections to stave off insolvency.

  It was time to make a new plan and decide what I was going to do when it all went down the tubes. I’d read every line in the Help Wanted section of the Herald, but nobody wanted bartenders, my only marketable skill.

  So there I sat identifying the expendable—which server I’d let go and what supplier I could string out a little longer—when I heard a car pull in on the crushed-shell driveway. Glad to be distracted from my wretchedness, I went inside to see who my visitor was.

  A police car was parked outside the kitchen window.

  CHAPTER 2

  The back door of the cruiser opened. A swollen ankle in a white sneaker appeared below the door. A few seconds later the second foot followed. It took a little more time for the stout figure to pull herself to her feet.

  I gripped the edge of the sink and stared at her as my world went tilt. Everything outside looked so bright and ordinary, but I knew the truth. Elderly ladies don’t come visiting in police cars.

  Aunt Kay was overweight, maybe even obese. Two black raisin eyes peered out of her rice pudding face while her salt and pepper hair sprang up from her head in an uncontrolled tangle of steel wool. Holding onto the top of the door with both hands, she stepped around it, slamming it behind her without ever taking her eyes off the kitchen window.

  She was dressed in cropped beige pants and a square-cut orange flowered blouse, an outfit that did nothing to enhance her appearance. But looks had never been the important thing about Aunt Kay. She had something far rarer than beauty; she was easy to love.

  Frozen in front of the window, I watched her uneven gait as she made her way to the house. My brain was doing a quick survey of potential disasters and came up with too many possibilities to make speculation worthwhile.

  When she reached the carport and disappeared from my sight, I rushed to the kitchen door. I stepped out onto the small stoop, holding the screen door open with my butt, and waited as she pulled herself up the rickety wooden steps on knees that no longer bent.

  Aunt Kay stopped at the top, gave me a weak smile, and turned to wave at the police car. The cop saluted and reversed out onto Beach Road.

  “What are you doing here?” I reached out and kissed her smooth cheek and hugged her, smelling the familiar odor of rose-scented talc. The fragrance brought back feelings of comfort and safety. Aunt Kay had been my afterschool caregiver through most of grade school, and my weekend minder while my mother worked and Tully Jenkins, my mostly absent father, was either in disgrace or hauling oranges north.

  I liked going to Aunt Kay’s house. It was close to my best friend Marley Hemming’s house and there was always a jumble of kids to play with. Later, when I was too old to need watching and an abusive man moved in with my mother, Aunt Kay’s was my safe place to hide from his hands. She never turned me away or pushed me to tell her what was bothering me. She just accepted that I needed to be there.

  “What’s happened?” I was desperate to hear the worst now, needed to know the full extent of the nameless horror about to crash into me. “Why is a cop delivering you to my door? Why are you here?”

  I tried to hug her again but Aunt Kay shook me off. “Oh for goodness’ sake, Sherri, give me a minute.”

  I held the door while she went inside, dropped her bag on the table, took a deep breath, and then let the air out all in a rush. “I wanted to tell you before you heard it from someone else.”

  I waited, my mind chasing shadows. Someone had to be dead. My first thought was Clay. But he was up north at Cedar Key and Aunt Kay barely knew him.

  It couldn’t be Marley. She was out at the ranch with Tully and if either of them were dead the other would have called. But what if they were both dead?

  I reached out to touch Aunt Kay’s arm. It felt chilled and damp, like her blood had gone cold. “Just tell me.”

  “It’s Holly.”

  “Holly Mitchell?” I said the name just to be sure I had the right person . . . that I’d heard correctly.

  Aunt Kay nodded. “She’s dead.”

  “She can’t be! Holly’s too young.” Silly thing to say—being twenty-one is no protection from death. “Was it an accident?”

  Aunt Kay looked away and her lip quivered.

  CHAPTER 3

  “The police came,” she said. “They found my telephone number in her wallet. She listed me as next of kin on one of those little ID things that come with wallets.”

  She leaned forward, the edge of the table cutting into her breasts. “Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard? To think I was the closest thing to a relative she had.”

  “How?” I asked. “How did she die?”

  She pulled back from the table and her eyes dropped. Her left thumb found a hangnail and began worrying it.

  “Tell me.”

  “It seems she committed suicide, took a highball of drugs.” Tears slid down her cheeks.

  I got a box of tissues off the top of the fridge and set it on the table between us.

  I wanted to ask if there could be a mistake. “She was so unendingly cheerful. How could someone with that optimistic outlook kill themselves?”

  “The policeman who came to tell me about Holly’s death took me to Sarasota to make the official identification.” She sucked in her lips and bit down, struggling for control.

  “They showed me her note, on pink paper. She always loved pink.”

  “I remember.” When I first took over the Sunset, and was stillfeeling my way into the job, Aunt Kay called and insisted I hire Holly. Aunt Kay had no pride when it came to begging jobs for the people who grew up in her backyard. We all knew if we needed it she’d do the same for us, her love making us part of a small and unique tribe.

  “They took me to the morgue. I didn’t know it was her at first. Holly’s hair was stark black. You know how she was, a new color every week. I hadn’t seen this one. I haven’t seen her in months. She looked so small and fragile, like some discarded porcelain doll . . . so thin. Her face . . .” Her hand rose to her own cheeks. “Holly’s face was all bruised. Someone had beaten her.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “There’s something else worrying me.” Aunt Kay’s eyes were locked on mine. “No one knows what happened to her baby.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Baby? Holly didn’t have a baby.” Why was I so sure of this? Maybe because spiked magenta hair and a glittering nose stud were not included in my vision of motherhood.

  “Oh, there was a baby all right,” Aunt Kay said, nodding her head.

  How long had I known Aunt Kay? Almost all of my thirty-one years—was her mind starting to wobble? Perhaps the shock of Holly’s death had been too much for her.

  “I’m not losing my mind.” Her piercing black eyes held mine. “Angel was born about Christmas and Holly borrowed a car and brought her to Jacaranda in January or early February. Holly wanted me to take care of Angel full-time . . . until she worked some things out.”

  “She had no right to ask that of you.”

  “Holly said it would only be for a few months.” Her mouth worked in and out and her hands worried each other. “I said no. Today I asked the police about the baby. They said there wasn’t any baby, said there was no sign of a baby in the apartment.”

  “Perhaps Holly found someone else to care for the child, maybe her parents.”

  Aunt Kay shook her head. “A few months ago Marnie Mitchell moved back to Jacaranda and started working behind the beauty counter at my local Walgreen store. I asked her about Holly’
s little girl and she stared at me like I’d lost my mind. She said Holly didn’t have any children. Got all sweet and started doing the ‘There, there’ thing we do with people suffering from dementia, and told me I was confused.”

  “Maybe Holly gave her baby up for adoption.”

  She gave a grimace of annoyance and leaned towards me, trying to make me understand. “Holly only wanted me to take Angel for a couple of months. She said that everything was going to change soon . . . that all her dreams were coming true. She was real excited, so sure things were finally working out for her. She thought her big break had arrived.”

  “Sounds like horse feathers to me.”

  “Yes, I thought so too. Holly, well, she . . .” Aunt Kay was searching for nice words to say that Holly had nothing but stale air between her ears and operated from hope rather than common sense. “Holly was never practical. She needed me and I let her down.”

  “You had a perfect right to say no if you didn’t want to care for another child.”

  “It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help her. I couldn’t.”

  “Couldn’t?”

  She sighed. “Life can play strange tricks.”

  “And what particular prank did it pull on you, Aunt Kay?”

  “Just age and a body that won’t co-operate anymore. Time seems to be having its way with me. I always knew life was a terminal condition, but . . .” She wrinkled her nose and shrugged without finishing her thought. “I’ve been having some problems. It’s my heart you see; seems I was born with something called Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. The thing is, my heart is just worn out. I can’t be responsible for children anymore, can’t even drive a car.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She reached across the table and took my hand. “I know.” She patted my hand. “I don’t mind so much, it’s just this waiting, no family, no one needing me.” She sat back in her chair. “I loved Holly like my own child. I need to know what happened to her and I want you to help me find out.”

  “Aunt Kay, I’m trying to keep my restaurant alive and filling in for staff I can’t afford to replace. I haven’t got time to help you. I’m so sorry.”