“Special agents for Homeland Security Investigations arrested a Fort Lauderdale woman, Mira Fedorova, as she boarded a flight for New York’s LaGuardia Airport this afternoon,” Valerie said. “Ms. Fedorova’s suitcase contained more than five million dollars in emeralds, officials said.”
The camera panned across the glittering hoard of jewels, photogenically displayed in the unzipped pink suitcase.
“Never saw a pink pirate’s chest before,” Helen said.
“Sh!” Phil said.
Mira’s mug shot flashed on the screen as Valerie continued: “Ms. Fedorova, a twenty-nine-year-old yacht stewardess, was charged with multiple counts of smuggling. She is being held without bail as a flight risk. Federal agents are still questioning her companion. We’ll have more updates on this breaking story.”
“Thank you, Valerie,” Donna the anchor said. “Remember, this story is on just one station—channel seventy-seven.”
“I knew we could trust Valerie,” Helen said. “But I still held my breath during her report.
“Josiah will be relieved his yacht wasn’t mentioned. Now, on to our other case. What do I wear to this restaurant?”
“Nothing fancy,” Phil said. “It’s a taco truck in a parking lot.”
“Very cool. Just like L.A.,” Helen said.
It was a fine night for a drive on I-95. Palm trees rustled in the light breeze. The air was soft and warm. Cars whizzed past, some weaving in and out of the traffic, others poking along in the slow lane.
“Now, where did I leave off telling you the adventures of Blossom?” Phil asked.
“In the last installment,” Helen said, “you were disguised as Bob the Cool Guy air-conditioner repairman. You followed Blossom to a Deerfield Beach bar and pretended to check the air-conditioning vents.”
“Hey, I wasn’t playing make-believe,” Phil said. “I risked my neck climbing a stepladder and heroically resisted a beer and burger while I listened to Blossom argue with Surfer Dude. His name is Zack.”
“Anything to this Zack besides his blond good looks?” Helen asked.
“Not that I could tell,” Phil said. “The man was greedy and stupid. I was around the corner from their booth, listening as hard as I could. I’d unscrewed the vent cover and heard Zack say, ‘I told you to get rid of it.’
“Blossom started arguing. ‘No. I might need it,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. I have a good hiding place. It’s in plain sight.’
“‘What is this?’ Zack said. ‘Some freaking TV detective show? Why keep it?’
“‘Arthur’s daughter hates me,’ Blossom said. ‘She’s been to that lawyer, Nancie Hays. Hays is trouble.’
“‘So?’ Zack said. ‘You can afford good lawyers, too. If anything happens to Violet so soon after Daddy bit the dust, it will look suspicious.’
“Zack gulped his beer and ordered another,” Phil said. “He told her, ‘I don’t know why you offed the old guy, anyway. You could have slipped out any time to see me.’
“‘No, I couldn’t,’ she said. ‘He was around the house all the time. He couldn’t keep his hands off me. It was horrible. He’d go to his office sometimes, but I never knew when. The one time I went to see you, that housekeeper caught me. Couldn’t wait to tell me the next day.
“‘I wanted his money and I got it. Now the daughter’s after me. She’ll fight me every step of the way unless I do something. That’s why I kept it. They didn’t find it in him and they won’t find it in her. Most medical examiners don’t know to look for it and he didn’t have an autopsy. She won’t, either. Her death will look like a heart attack. Runs in the family.’
“Then she laughed,” Phil said.
“She wants to kill Violet, too,” Helen said. “That gives me chills.”
“It made Zack hot under the collar,” Phil said. “His voice got low and threatening. ‘Don’t do it, Blossom,’ he said. ‘Be patient a little longer. Once his estate makes it through probate, we can get married.’”
“What did Blossom say to that?” Helen asked.
“Nothing,” Phil said. “The silence was so loud even a lunkhead like Zack realized she didn’t want to tie the knot. He was so upset he abandoned his beer and started whining. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘I thought you wanted to marry me.’
“Blossom got real cagey. ‘I’m not sure I want to tie myself down again so soon, Zack.’
“He got mad. He gripped his beer bottle so hard I thought it would crack. ‘It’s that new handyman, isn’t it?’ he said.”
“Zack was jealous,” Helen said.
“Of me,” Phil said, and grinned. “I realize I’m serious competition—”
“Can we go back to the story?” Helen asked. “They were arguing and Zack was jealous.”
“Right. Blossom said, ‘Keep your voice down. He’s not a handyman. He’s an estate manager.’
“Zack started whining again. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘I do the dirty work—’
“‘Dirty work?’ Blossom said. ‘You picked two off the ground.’
“‘That’s two more than you picked up,’ Zack said. ‘You thought that was a mango tree. I’m the one who found out why you couldn’t eat those mangoes. I bothered to talk to the girl at the hotel.’
“‘You must have been talking in braille,’ Blossom said, ‘the way you had your hands all over her.’
“‘Well, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have had them,’ Zack said. ‘I gave you a wedding present—the way to end your marriage. A secret way. Of course it doesn’t have to stay a secret. I could tell the police what really killed Arthur.’
“‘You’d go to prison, too,’ she said.
“‘Not if I cut a deal,’ he said. ‘I didn’t make that curry. I just gave you some pretty seeds. I had no idea they were poison. There’s no proof I had anything to do with Arthur’s death. No one ever saw me at his house, not even that nosy housekeeper. Don’t forget, Arthur wasn’t cremated. They can still dig him up and find it.’
“‘I couldn’t cremate him,’ Blossom said. ‘He had a prepaid burial plan.’
“That’s when Blossom seemed to realize her hunk had his own plan. She hugged him and kissed his cheek. ‘Zack, honey, I’m grateful,’ she said, ‘but I’m not ready to get married so soon after Arthur. It wouldn’t look right. What if I gave you a gift instead?’
“‘How big a gift?’ Zack asked. Suddenly he was sober.
“‘Two million dollars,’ she said.
“‘Pocket change,’ Zack said. ‘I’m not interested in a going-away present. If I marry you, I’m entitled to five million. Actually, I’m entitled to more. But I’m not greedy. Marry me and we’ll have a nice arrangement. You’ll go your way and I’ll go mine. We’ll both have enough to do whatever we want.’
“‘I’ll think about it,’ Blossom said. Her voice could have frosted beer mugs, but Zack didn’t notice.”
Phil turned off the highway in Lake Worth, a town near Palm Beach. Soon they were in a neighborhood of Latino working people.
“Then what happened?” Helen asked.
“The bar owner came by and asked me—or rather Cool Bob—if I’d look at the filters in the main unit. I looked, but it could have been run by gerbils for all I knew. I said I had new filters in the truck, ducked out the door, jumped in the truck and didn’t look back.”
“That’s it?” Helen didn’t hide her disappointment. “You never learned the name of the poison?”
“Yes, I did,” he said. “Later. I Googled ‘poison,’ ‘mango’ and ‘Maldives’—that’s the islands where she married Arthur. That’s how I found out about the suicide tree, Cerbera odollam. Grows in India and southern Asia. Has pretty white flowers and fruit like small mangoes. The seeds are highly poisonous. Blossom could easily mix them in spicy food—like curry—and the old man would never know what he ate. It’s a common poison in southern Asia, but not well-known here.”