New Smyrna Swing

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Champagne Books 

www.champagnebooks.com

Copyright 2015 by DD Queens

ISBN 978-1-77155-196-0

August 2015

Cover Art by Ellie Smith

Produced in Canada

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Champagne Book Group

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High River, AB T1V 1G3

Canada 

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Dedication

Mother, wife, friend, author, you performed all at the absolute highest level. Your spirit lives on in Jenna Palmer.

One

Oh. My. God. Someone had taken a baseball bat to Albert, and there he was, splattered all over the driveway. His compressed-foam innards were now outards, grinning whitely in the June sun.

"And I didn’t even go to UF," I grumbled, bending over to pick up the pieces of the once-proud University of Florida alligator mascot that had held my mailbox aloft. My efforts earned me the usual catcalls from Earl, my retired neighbor, who never missed a chance to express his admiration for my, um, assets.

"Now you’re watching, I yelled across the street. Did you see who did this?"

Nope. Musta happened before daylight.

It wasn’t the first time my home, which also doubled as my office, had been vandalized. Some people just didn’t like me poking into their business, but that’s what I’m paid to do. Gotta earn a living, people. Geez.

I’m Jenna Palmer, P.I. Yep, I’m actually a card-carrying private investigator in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, the cutest little beach town on the peninsula, in my opinion. I’ve lived here all my life but only recently hung out my shingle, after my lovely ex-husband won the state lottery and ran off with Ned, a bartender from the local biker bar. That’s right—Ned. Don’t know what was more shocking— the fact the jerk tried to stiff me over a lottery ticket paid for with our money, or that it wasn’t the girlies who kept him visiting Hurley Gurleys on a regular basis.

Of course, I’m suing the idiot over the ticket, but that’ll take years, and a girl’s gotta eat. And get her nails done once in a while. Which is how I ended up tailing rich guys and their mistresses, up from Orlando for a clandestine meal, or tracking down some clown who’s skipped out on the rent but isn’t smart enough to leave town.

It may have nothing to do with smarts. New Smyrna Beach, or NSB, as we locals call it, is a seductive little slice of paradise. The beach is beautiful, the weather’s great, and it’s loaded with the kind of charm you just can’t manufacture, no matter how hard that mouse down the road tries. I like to think NSB is what Key West must have been like before all the gajillionaires ruined it for real people. But don’t tell anyone; we want things to stay the same around here.

Not that we don’t have our share of rich folks in town; they just don’t show it. Many of the same cinderblock ranches that have rimmed the shoreline for decades are still there, and the condos that have sprung up are kitschy rather than classy. That’s just the way it is in this coastal haven; everybody wears flip-flops and T-shirts, and everybody says hi to everybody.

That’s what I love about NSB—you can’t tell the millionaires from the bums. And it’s a mistake to try. If a greasy-looking guy with fish guts on his shirt asks you to spot him a cup of coffee at the local quick-mart, do it. You might be out a couple of bucks for your trouble, or you might find a cooler full of fresh-caught tuna steaks and maybe even a sweating bottle of Dom on your doorstep the next day. Talking from experience here. Dinner was delicious that night.

Now back to my busted-up Albert. Tacky as hell, sure, but he was a great landmark for potential clients. Swing a left at the Beacon Restaurant, and then look for the Gator mailbox was all I had to say. Most people knew immediately which bright-turquoise cube of a house sat behind it.

It wasn’t turquoise when I bought it with the tiny bit of equity I was able to scrape out of the house my ex and I had owned. It used to be a nauseating shade somewhere between oozing sore and decomposing garbage, and even in a neighborhood where basically anything goes—boats in the driveway and cars in the yard are no big deal, and nobody around here’s ever heard of a manicured lawn—the house was truly an eyesore.

I had felt a little sick to my stomach when my best friend and realtor, Buddy Boatwright, first pulled up to the curb in front of it. Come on, Jen-Jen—it’s not as bad as it looks. That’s all cosmetic. A coat of paint and you’re good to go. And you can’t beat the price.

Well, the price was right, but that was only because most people wouldn’t slow down once they spotted the toilet filled with plastic flowers in the front yard and the spidery cracks fixed with duct tape in almost every window.

Buddy tried opening the front door, but the dozens of empty beer cans piled up inside against it elicited such a nails-on-a-chalkboard screech as they scraped against the terrazzo floor that I begged him to stop. Let’s find another way in.

He finally forced open the humidity-swollen rear door to the kitchen, which was only impeded by reeking garbage bags he managed to shove aside. The smell was unbelievable, and fist-sized cockroaches glared at us from every surface. Oooohh, no, Buddy. Can’t do it. Seriously.

Buddy glared at me, hands on his hips. Oh grow up, Miss Citrus Princess. This is real life now. There’s no man in your life anymore to kill the bugs for you. Toughen up, cupcake; welcome to your new reality. You might as well make the best of it.

It took me a minute to suck the air back in my lungs. Nobody, nobody talked to me like that. Ever. Well, except for Buddy. My best friend and teller of unvarnished truths. Believe me, if I didn’t really want to know if my butt looked big in a particular pair of shorts, I wouldn’t ask him. Because he’d tell me. Ouch.

I glared right back at him and sailed into the trash-filled space, suppressing a shudder at all the antennae rotating in my direction. And you know what? The house really did have good bones. The large front room, with a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows flanking the door, would make a great office. The hallway door would separate the private quarters, and the pink-and-black tile in the tiny bathroom was pretty darn cute—or would be, once I scraped off all the unidentifiable gunk. The minuscule kitchen was dated but serviceable, as was the small, shag-carpeted bedroom in the back.

The fact the place would take weeks and multiple trips to the dump to clean it out was daunting, but doable. And for the price, I could afford to have the house fumigated, replace the broken windows and get it painted inside and out. I chose sunshine yellow for the inside, a shade that never failed to cheer me, and turquoise for the outside because it’s such an iconic Florida hue. I decided to keep the stupid Albert E. Gator mailbox. Who knows why—his green body and orange and blue duds certainly clashed with my new turquoise exterior. But those garish team colors don’t go with anything, not even each other, no matter what those UF people say. Who says college makes you smart?

Anyway, Al stayed. And actually did his job well, keeping my mail dry and directing people to my new place of business. Until someone, for some reason, decided to bust him up. Now I needed to find that person and bust him up. And I could find him—I’m a detective, after all.

After cleaning up all the stray Al detritus, leaving the stump of his tail and his legs still standing at the curb as mute condemnation of this barbaric act of reptile-cide, I decided the situation called for action. I went inside and sat at my desk—actually a battered surfboard resting on milk crates, plus an extra crate where I could quickly dump the desk’s contents when the surf was up—drumming my nails on the once-glossy surface. Now it was tacky with wax and gritty with sand and shells, not exactly an ideal work surface, but it wasn’t like I had a lot of paperwork to do there. I was far more likely to take my laptop out to the Adirondack chair on the porch if I had research or billing to do rather than sit behind a desk. NSB’s perennial sunshine and beach breezes are just too seductive to stay inside.

Coming up empty on ideas, I pushed away from my desk and sighed impatiently. Maybe there was no ill intent meant toward me; maybe bashing Al was a random act of vandalism. Nah, that just didn’t seem likely around here. This is Gator Nation; Gainesville’s a two-hour drive away, but the University of Florida mascot is revered throughout the peninsula. Of course, venture into the Florida Panhandle and you’ll encounter the Gator Haters, Florida State University fans, whose mascot, a Seminole Indian named Chief Osceola, just doesn’t engender the same level of manic fandom Albert E. Gator does. Even if FSU did have a better football team. Sometimes.

So, was someone trying to send me a message? Warn me away from a case? Run me out of town? I had a few cases I was working on now, but nothing that would incite anyone to violence. Unless there was something more sinister going on in one of them that I hadn’t picked up on yet. But still. Why bust up a mailbox? Isn’t that kind of an indirect message? If it was supposed to be a message at all.

Enough already. I grabbed my cell phone and headed out the door. When the going gets tough, this girl gets a manicure.

As I pulled the door shut behind me, I rolled my eyes skyward when I saw who had just pulled into my driveway. Inside the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office police cruiser was DeWayne MacDougal, possibly the stupidest person ever to wear the badge. He meant well—thank God he wasn’t stupid and mean—but it was rarely a benefit to have Deputy MacDougal on the case. I’ve known him since the third grade, when D-W was perpetually in trouble for trying to sneak sandwiches out of other people’s lunchboxes or attempting to pass off his sister’s year-old homework as his own after inexpertly erasing her name and replacing it with his, but never remembering to change the date, too.

Oh, hey, D-W, what’s up?

D-W hit a button, reluctantly lowering the window and releasing a whoosh of frigid air. Almost instantly, beads of sweat popped up on his considerable forehead. He made no effort to get out of the car. Just wondering what might have happened to your scaly friend there, Jenna.

Don’t know. Seen anybody around here with a baseball bat or other bludgeoning device?

D-W frowned at my last two words, clearly not understanding their meaning but loath to admit it. Uh, no, no. Nothing suspicious around here. You piss anyone off lately, Jenna?

Now it was my turn to frown. Not that I know of. But I’m starting to feel a little pissed myself. I started to move away from the cruiser and down the driveway. Thanks for stopping by, D-W. Let me know if anything turns up.

Like what?

Not bothering to answer, I gave him a halfhearted wave and headed toward Flagler Avenue. It would be a mystery to anyone how a dumbass like D-W could have obtained a driver’s license, much less a deputy’s badge. Unless you were from these parts and knew his father was a longtime county commissioner. That’s how things worked around here. As a matter of fact, that’s how things worked just about everywhere in Florida. Forget about six degrees of separation; there were three degrees of connection in the Sunshine State. Everything was connected by money, influence and family ties. If you had at least two of the three, you had it made, no matter how dumb you were. Our state legislature being a prime example.

As I walked, I went over my current cases in my head. Was there anything there that could have resulted in Al’s demise? Let’s see. I had an irate wife paying me to tail her husband every time he left for his board meeting twice a week. Turns out Mr. Pillar of the Community had a sun bunny stashed away in a tiny condo on A1A where he went on Tuesday and Thursday nights for his meetings. Pretty routine and so predictable. It was an easy gig, and all the wife wanted me to do at the moment was track and document his comings and goings. I was sure neither the philandering hubby nor his side item had any idea they were being tailed.

Okay, check them off. An insurance company had me watching out for a potential insurance fraudster. The guy was claiming a back injury that left him barely able to get from bed to toilet, thus preventing him from going to work. He sure had no trouble hoisting a surfboard and heading to the beach at the break of dawn each day. Too bad he sucked at actually getting up on the board. The moron seemed to think if he did his surfing and got back in bed by 7:00 a.m, no one would be the wiser. I had a month’s worth of time-stamped stills and videos on him and would be wrapping up the case in a couple of weeks. No way that guy knew I had him under surveillance either; I’d used my handy-dandy hat-cam and cell phone while texting to capture my shots. There were plenty of early-morning bird-watchers, fishermen and beach strollers out every day, and I blended right in.

I ran through the rest of the philandering husbands (and one wife), insurance scammers and petty criminals I was tracking, and none of them seemed like likely suspects. Okay, so who? A disgruntled ex-boyfriend? To be sure, I had plenty of them; I just didn’t seem able to hang onto a guy, and it almost always ended badly. I could sure reel them in, but they always seemed to break the line and bolt at the last minute. Not sure why; although I’m not exactly an attentive girlfriend, and I’m not too picky about juggling more than one man at a time. That seems to make most guys mad. Whatever. Plenty of fish and all that.

My buddy Buddy keeps telling me pretty soon, I’ll run through every available guy in Volusia County, but heck, this is a transient place and there’s always someone new coming along. After my craptastic marriage shocker, I had no interest in settling down again. Ever. Sorry—been there, done that. Never again.

So, was there any one guy I’d really made mad? Or some other woman I didn’t know about? Hmm.

I quickly tired of running guys through my head, sifting through incidents as I searched for any signs of anger management issues, possible slights or any other potential reasons for Gator-busting. Nothing was jumping out at me.

Luckily, just as I’d had enough of all this ruminating, I arrived at my destination: Get Nailed, a hole-in-the-wall salon just off Flagler, New Smyrna’s main drag that ended, quite literally, at the Atlantic Ocean. And you didn’t have to stop at the end of the road; in Volusia County, you could take a left or a right and drive right along the beach. Sure, somebody, usually a tourist, got run over, usually by a lifeguard, at least once a year, but beach driving was a fiercely guarded tradition in these parts, and no amount of bloodshed or exhaust fumes was going to end it.

The bells jingled on Get Nailed’s door when I walked in, and Angelica, the owner, grinned widely when she saw me. Girl, what are you doing here without an appointment, as usual? Don’t you know I’m busy? I looked over at the lone pedicure chair. Empty. And Angelica was sitting at the only manicure station with no client in front of her. The truth was, I never needed an appointment to see Angelica. Except for the occasional lost tourist who wandered in, Angelica had few customers. At least for mani-pedis. Her profit center was located behind a set of beaded curtains, where the real nailing took place. Sure there was a room back there with a massage table, but it was rarely, if ever, used. The action was beyond the rear wall, where a bookshelf swung out to reveal a set of stairs leading up to a warren of small rooms.

Those rooms were where the real business of Get Nailed took place. Make no mistake; this was no whorehouse. Angelica merely rented rooms to people who needed a discreet retreat. For whatever reason. None of my business, she shrugged the first time I confronted her about the rooms. I’d been tailing a man whose wife was curious about where he kept disappearing off to and tracked him to Get Nailed. Turns out, hubby wasn’t bringing some hoochie up to Room #12, which he had rented out long-term. The poor guy just needed a place to escape from his harridan of a wife and work on his model airplanes. The garage wasn’t far enough away; she complained about the paint and glue fumes, and there was no place for a workshop in their postage-stamp yard. In #12, he had a place to indulge in his hobby and enjoy silence and solitude while doing it; every room at Get Nailed was ultra-soundproofed.

Angelica had a variety of tenants, some hourly drop-ins, some regularly scheduled overnights, and some, like #12, long-term rentals. Angelica had rules, and woe to the tenant who didn’t follow them: no animals, no contraband, and no nonsense. This wasn’t the place to start an illegal grow house for cannabis, bring in underage kids, or engage in anything hinky or kinky. If you wanted to bring your mistress in for a fun weekend, fine. If you wanted to bring in a carton of whips and chains and a party of five, forget it. And the only money changing hands was between the renters and Angelica; no hookers or pimps permitted, thank you very much.

The funny thing was, I didn’t think much sex at all actually went on upstairs. Like the guy in #12, a lot of Angelica’s clients just seemed to need a place to get away for a little peace and privacy instead of a little somethin’-somethin’. It seemed to work; Angelica provided a service for which there was steady demand. She liked doing nails, too, so the occasional customer who came in for that service as well suited her fine. I imagined she was sitting on a big pile of mostly unreported money, but who was I to judge? I loved being paid in cash.

But I still had some more questions for her that first day. If there’s no illegal activity allowed, what’s with the hidden door, then? I demanded. That sure doesn’t seem like it’s on the up-and-up.

Angelica looked annoyed, but for some reason, she decided to indulge my interrogation. Atmosphere. My customers love the idea of slipping away to a hidden room where no one can find them. Intrigue and whatnot. It’s like having a secret play fort when you’re little. Besides, it keeps any irate spouses or the curious from barging on up there.

Okay, made sense. I was willing to buy that, and I was already starting to like this sassy, self-confident lady who’d built a genius business for herself. She’d found a market niche and exploited it. I admired that. And since she was in the business of