Excerpt from INAPPROPRIATE by Sherry Morris
I hate discovering dead bodies.
Sandra Faire wiggled her fingers into a pair of purple nitrile
gloves. Fear crept up her spine as a
fishy dead-human stench wafted through the dawn. Waves slapped a creepy
cadence.
She tread softly through the sand to a bloated young black man clad in a
dress-blue United States Navy uniform.
“Sir, do you need some assistance?”
Please roll over and puke or something. “Hey buddy you okay?” Nothing.
She gave him a little nudge in the ribs with her sneaker. He felt squishy. She shuddered and hugged herself.
The sun rose pink on the horizon.
Red sky was good luck for sailors or something like that. Not for this guy.
This is so not the way I want to begin my last shift before
vacation.
Sandra unfastened the gold button on his wool collar and placed two of
her fingers on his carotid artery. No
pulse. He stared past her big brown eyes
with long eyelashes frozen in a peaceful expression. The curl of his lips looked as though he had
been up to something mischievous. She
lowered her ear to listen for breathing as she studied his chest. She didn’t see or feel respirations. Up close he smelled like chlorine bleach.
Sandra wasn’t a coroner but it was obvious to her this guy had been dead
for quite some time.
She struggled with the shrunken wet wool, peeling open more buttons on
the overcoat. She loosened his tie and
then unbuttoned his white shirt exposing his hairy chest and a gold Star of
David necklace. She didn’t find the dog
tags she was searching for.
“Rest in peace unknown sailor.”
She said a little prayer for him and pulled off the gloves as she hurried
back to the golf cart. She tossed them
in the back with the trash, exhaled, flipped open her azure cell phone and
punched nine on speed dial. She glanced
at her simulated diamond Tinker Bell watch and then wiggled her wrist to make
the pixie dust dance under the crystal.
“Cocoa Beach Department of Public Works.
What is your complaint?” demanded Igor the dispatcher.
“It’s Sandra Faire. I found a
military floater washed up in front of the Copacabana. He’s dead.”
Within ten minutes, Sandra was surrounded by three hotel security guys
wearing gray trousers and blue blazers; Andres the perpetually hung-over
lifeguard; Eagle, the hotshot volunteer beach patrolman who always startled the
sunbathers by tearing around the sand in his ATV; Bicep Betty sporting
the yellow polka dot bikini and matching support hose; six uniformed City of
Cocoa Beach cops. And Lieutenant Hottie
DiMattina, homicide.
Okay, so his first name was Frank and not that he was her type--anymore.
But her temperature sure rose whenever he met her gaze. She needed to redirect those misbehaving
hormones. Sandra was finished with uber-hot
alpha males. Especially this one. No man of hers answered his cell phone during
a romantic interlude. Just because there
was a category five hurricane looming, it was no excuse for him to run off to
work and leave her panting on the kitchen table.
Well, yeah, there were some other issues.
Frank and Sandra weren’t compatible except when they were making
out. His kisses were addictive. His
tongue infiltrated and conquered.
Perhaps it’s just as well the hurricane had interrupted them. She had nothing to regret.
They didn’t have anything in common.
She was eighteen the first time they kissed. And the last time. Now she
was twenty-three and he was on the other side of thirty. She didn’t like guys in law enforcement. Most
of the cops in her family were manipulative peacocks with swagger.
Hottie was dressed in a black tee shirt--way too tight. She could see the outline of his chiseled abs
and the ripple of his deltoids. He wore
a badge on a chain around his neck, a service weapon and handcuffs tucked into
the rear of his form fitting
The lieutenant studied the deceased as the tide lapped the sailor’s mucky
dress shoes. He paced off an area for
the uniforms to seal the death investigation scene. Hotel security assisted, thrusting hot pink
umbrellas into the sand to wrap the yellow police tape around.
Forensics and the medical examiner arrived and got to work. The lieutenant had a long conversation with
the lifeguard then shook his head, scribbled on a notepad, ducked under the
police tape and ambled to Sandra.
She leaned casually against the umbrella rental booth, twisting an errant
strand of ash blonde hair around a finger, determined not to allow his deep
testosterone voice to move her.
He looked down and rubbed his clean shaven chin. His eyes lingered on the finer parts of her
anatomy as his gaze climbed to her face and he asked, “You discover this one?”
Sandra sucked down a deep breath of humidity, trying not to remember his
erotic whispers.
“Did you discover the body?” he repeated.
She nodded.
“Anyone in the area at the time?”
She studied his dark coffee eyes, lingering in their mystique. She shook
her head.
“How long ago?”
She checked Tinker Bell. “About
forty-five minutes now. I called in the
find at six-thirteen.”
“Did you notice any footprints around the body before you approached
it?” He cocked his head to one side and
gave her sneakers the once over.
She kicked up one foot so he could see the treads. “Sorry, I forgot to check…”
He frowned and gave her that you’ve disappointed me again
look. “Did you disturb anything?”
“I unbuttoned him with gloves on.
He was all buttoned up to his chin.
I felt his carotid artery. I
couldn’t find his dog tags. Oh…and I
kicked him in the ribs.”
“Left or right side?”
“Left.”
He scribbled on his note pad.
“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary on the beach in the last
twenty-four hours?”
She shook her head. This was why
she hated discovering dead bodies. It
forced her to collide with the most inappropriate man for her. Sandra didn’t want things to get stirred up
again. She couldn’t get things stirred
up again. Because of what happened
during the hurricane.
“Do you know him from anywhere?” he asked.
She shook her head again exaggeratedly slow with a wide-eyed expression.
“Thank you, Miss Faire. I’ll be in
touch.” He strutted over to the hotel security guards kibitzing near her golf
cart.
Sandra smoothed her bright white Department of Public Works tee shirt
down over her red uniform shorts as she traipsed past them. They were discussing the evangelical
Christian service held last night inside the Copacabana ballroom. Pastor Eugene Donaldson was a modern thinking
feel-good preacher, very popular with the locals and tourists alike. He had led
prayer breakfasts at the White House during both Slick Willie’s and Dub-yah’s
terms.
Sandra chimed in, “The sailor was Jewish.
There is a Star of David around his neck. He wouldn’t have attended.”
Frank rolled his eyes and glared at her.
She hated when he did that. Just
because she wasn’t a cop didn’t mean she couldn’t solve crimes…or sort out
which leads were dead ends.
She climbed back into the golf cart and waved to Andres, the
lifeguard. He smiled and waved
back. The guy was hot if you liked
suntanned guitar playing Euro-blonds without muscles. Sandra didn’t. She didn’t like his sing-song German accent
either. And she especially didn’t like
guitar players anymore…on account of Hurricane Alfredo.
She went on about her job puttering down the beach stopping to pick up a
piece of petrified palm trunk, a glass grape juice bottle and a deflated
football. She plucked them with a
mechanical snatcher device. She didn’t
know if it had an official name but she called hers Monkey. After two years at this job she was pretty
efficient. She could do it all from the
driver’s seat.
The theme to “The Pink Panther” jazzed from her shorts. She stopped and dug her phone out of her
pocket. Her mother’s picture was on the
caller I.D. She inhaled and answered,
“Hi, Mom.”
“Sandra are you still intending to climb aboard that train of fools?”
“They aren’t fools Mom. They’re
very nice people.”
She sobbed, “You’re being kidnapped by that cult and I’ll never see my
baby again.” She launched into one of her motherly speeches about how
everything Sandra did was inappropriate.
Sandra knew her mother was so disappointed in her. Her four brothers were cops working under
their dad, the police commissioner, but Sandra, her youngest child, toiled as a
sanitation engineer and public relations specialist for the Department of
Public Works. Translation: she picked up
the trash left on the beach and told the tourists where the public restrooms
were located. At least the uniform was
cute.
What her mom didn’t know was by day Sandra collected garbage but by night
she was an infamous cozy mystery author.
She wrote under the pen name of Dixie London. And she didn’t have a thing published. She had written almost twelve books…well the
first three or four chapters of twelve different books. Okay, so she was more like an infamous cozy
mystery author wannabee. But she had
fun. Sandra belonged to the Global Order
of Scribes, pronounced “goose” for short.
Rosemary Donaldson, wife of Evangelical Pastor Eugene Donaldson, was the
president of her local chapter. Sandra
couldn’t stand her, the snobby fakey flake.
Rosemary arranged a little writers conference of sorts aboard three
private railcars hooked onto the back of her husband’s crusade train, hooked
onto the back of a regular North American Passenger Railway train.
Of course Sandra could set her feelings for Rosemary aside and grace the
authors with her presence long enough for a two week free vacation aboard the
private rail cars. The Donaldsons were
wealthy so she knew this would be a first class to-do. The Agatha Christie birthday shindigs she
hosted at her mansion were always loaded with fat shrimp, alligator tar-tar and
a white chocolate fountain. Maids and
cabbage roses everywhere you turned in her lavish residence. Even the ceilings were painted with rose murals. Last time Sandra tucked two pieces of
Rosemary’s toilet paper into her pocket to show her mom. It was printed in full color, embossed and
scented with roses. Mom wasn’t
impressed. She told Sandra it would
cause bladder infections.
“Mom—Mom—Mom!” Sandra finally got
her to stop ranting. “I told you it’s
not a cult. I’m not going as one of the
devout followers of Pastor Donaldson.
Rosemary invited our mystery readers’ book club to tag along. We’ll be segregated from the fanatics. We have our own private cars and we’ll be
reading and discussing books…and knitting.”
Her Mom loved knitting so she just threw that in.
“Really, knitting?”
“Un-hunh. A couple of the ladies
are involved in the knit-a-scarf-for-a-sailor charity. We’ll be softly warming the brave necks of
our men and women at war.” Sandra was great at making things up.
“Oh well why didn’t you tell me? What time do we leave? I’ll need to
finish the laundry—“
“No!” She cleared her throat. “No, Mom.
You can’t go. The train is
already filled to capacity. You needed
to reserve a compartment ahead of time.”
“Nonsense. I’ll bunk-in with you.”
“No can do. I have a
roommate. Josephine.”
“Oh…Josephine. How is she? Is her
Aunt Beverly recuperating as well as can be expected?”
Josephine White was the only friend she had whom Mom approved of.
“Josephine and Aunt Beverly are doing just fine. I’ll tell her you asked about them. I gotta go, Mom. Got to finish up by
“Come see me before you leave.”
Yeah, right. So you can jump in
the backseat and stow away. “I’ll
try. Gotta run. Bye.”
Sandra closed her phone and stuffed it back inside her pocket.
She motored along the beach. Two
guys stumbled knee deep in the surf, fishing.
An early jogger trotted by.
Sandra smacked her forehead and lifted her foot off the gas. If Lieutenant Hottie had any follow up
questions for her she wouldn’t be available.
She should have told him she’d be departing on the GOOS Express. Could this be a dilemma? He didn’t tell her
not to leave town or anything. And she
had only discovered the body. Sandra
wasn’t technically a witness or suspect.
And besides it was just a routine death investigation. She was confident the autopsy would show he
had drowned.
Sandra deduced the sailor probably was on shore leave, rented a speed
boat with his buddies, got drunk and fell overboard. Yeah, that’s it. He seemed really happy by the smirk frozen on
his face. I ought to open a detective
agency. And I could hire my writing pals
as operatives. An all woman force. Nobody would suspect us of spying on
them. We’d make a killing. She giggled at her pun.
Sandra peeked at Tinker Bell, shook up the pixie dust, looped around and
did a U-turn. It was time to stop by the
dumpster and then check-in with Igor.
A mob of tourists had congregated at the crime scene as the police carted
off the corpse. They were gobbling
Krispy Kremes and sucking back Starbucks.
Sandra placed her hands on her hips and sighed. More trash for her to collect later on.
She observed the lieutenant down along the shoreline, running his fingers
through his short dark hair. Perhaps
I should advise him I’ll be leaving town.
Sandra decelerated and threw her hand up. He didn’t notice so she kept going. She decided to call him from the train.
Part of her was relieved not to have to talk to him face-to-face. If Lieutenant Hottie were to make a late
night visit to her little studio apartment--to discuss the case--she wouldn’t
be home to answer the door wearing something entirely inappropriate.
* * * *
At exactly
The crusaders sported primary and water colored leisure suits and church
appropriate dresses. The African, Asian
and Cuban-Americans carried the style off well enough. However, the European-Americans who had baked
thousands of hours in the
Rosemary Donaldson waved her down to the rear of the train.
Sandra’s tummy jittered with excitement.
And hunger. She couldn’t wait to
gobble the gourmet goodies. She drew a
deep breath and plodded through the throng of elderly passengers.
“Hi, Rosemary.”
They fake kissed the humidity near both cheeks. Sandra tried not to cough in the perfume haze
engulfing the raven haired, liposuctioned, botoxed pastor’s wife dressed in
white patent leather boots, striped over-the-knee socks, a ruffled plaid
fuchsia miniskirt and an orange low-cut sweater. Rosemary had the body for the outfit but at
her age and considering her husband’s holy profession, jail bait tart was not a
good look.
“We can board any minute now.
Here’s our itinerary,” Rosemary said, in her high-pitched nasally voice
as she presented Sandra with a floral motif pocket folder.
Sandra released her luggage handle and accepted it. The suitcase plopped down onto the concrete
with a resonating thud. The cooler’s lid
didn’t dislodge, thank goodness. She squatted to pick them up.
“Sandra, I’m so glad you talked
your mother into joining us,” said Rosemary.
Sandra shut her eyes tight, scrunched up her face and clenched her fists,
hoping she hadn’t heard correctly.
“Pardon? What did you say?”
“Your momma stopped by my house this morning with a trunk full of yarn
and knitting needles. She volunteered to
teach the crusaders to knit.”
INAPPROPRIATE by Sherry Morris is Available at Amazon
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