Mouth of the Rat (A Samantha Jamison Mystery), page 1
Mouth Of The Rat
A Samantha Jamison Mystery
Volume 5
by
Peggy A. Edelheit
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Mouth of the Rat: A Samantha Jamison Mystery, Volume 5
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Copyright © 2012 by Peggy A. Edelheit. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
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Cover Designed by Telemachus Press, LLC
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Edited by Winslow Eliot
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Published by Telemachus Press, LLC
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http://www.samanthajamison.com
ISBN: 978-1-938701-67-2 (eBook)
Version 2014.01.18
Other Books by Peggy A. Edelheit
The Samantha Jamison Mystery Series
The Puzzle Volume 1
Without Any Warning Volume 2
86 Avenue du Goulet Volume 3
A Lethal Time Volume 4
Death Knell In The Alps Volume 6
A Samantha Jamison Detour
The Riviera is Burning Volume 5.5
Chase Your Dreams
& Remember,
Every Day is a Blessing
With Special Love to Bob
My biggest supporter and confidant
Marc, Aaron & Jonathan
A Special Thanks To My Editor
Winslow Eliot
Publisher
Telemachus Press
Steven & Claudia Jackson
Steven & Terri Himes
Acknowledgment
Jon Denz
Mouth Of The Rat
A Samantha Jamison Mystery
Volume 5
Chapter 1
A Change Up, But Nothing’s Changed
From the Boca Raton Historical Society
The meaning of the name Boca Raton has always aroused curiosity. Many people wrongly assume the name is simply Rat’s Mouth. The Spanish word boca, or mouth, often describes an inlet, while raton means, literally, mouse. The term Boca de Ratones or Boca Ratones was a navigational, referring to a rocky or jagged inlet, but the original location of Boca de Ratones was Biscayne Bay near present-day Miami Beach, according to eighteenth century maps. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the term was mistakenly applied to the current Lake Boca Raton, whose inlet was closed throughout most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The “s” and later the “e” were dropped from this title by the 1920s, yet the correct pronunciation remains Rah-tone.
Who was the rat with the kiss of death?
* * * * *
I was about to hit the button when the door whipped open. I stepped back in surprise, then smiled at my old friend Mona. My blonde hair was in a ponytail, but because I still had on multi-layered clothes from my trip I was sweating profusely in tropical Boca Raton, Florida.
Mona sighed in relief. “Sam, you came! If I sounded cryptic and panicky on the phone, I hope you’ll understand. This whole thing was so sudden and unexpected.”
I stood there, staring at my ample-figured, dark-haired, quirky and impulsive girlfriend. “Cryptic about sums you up …and cagey. As usual, you knew I’d fall for that dead part of your urgent phone message.”
Mona chuckled. “And maybe a potential mystery…”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What amazes me is how I’ve managed to survive this long to keep writing another one.”
Come to think of it, so were my agent and editor.
She looked past me, grinning. “I see you’ve dumped your three crazy old sleuths back in Highlands.”
“You sounded desperate so I rushed here. They say hi.”
“Come on in.” She grabbed one of my bags and led me inside. “I’m still settling in from my move.”
Mona showed me around the spacious first floor condo overlooking the golf course in the gate-guarded enclave. It was a corner unit in a building that housed four in total. Her area was Mediterranean style with clay-barreled roofs. It looked pretty pricey to me, including expensive, high-end leather and wood furniture.
Where was she getting the bucks for this?
She smiled, as though reading my thoughts. “It was his.”
“Whose?” I asked, verbally lost, as usual with Mona.
“Marco’s.”
“But he’s dead. You said so yourself.”
“I know.”
“So what gives? How did you end up with it?”
“…He sort of bequeathed it to me.”
“I’m not getting the bequeathed part of that sentence.”
“It’s not what you think. It’s all perfectly legal.”
“What is?”
“Our marriage.”
I dropped down to the couch, shocked. “…Married?”
“Marco insisted.”
“Why?”
“So his car collection wouldn’t be stolen by his wife.”
“…He’s married?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“It’s complicated.”
Ha! Like she’s telling me something new, right?
Chapter 2
Sorting Through Clothes & The Truth
Mona left me to unpack and freshen up in the guest suite, promising to fill me in over drinks after she started dinner. My head was spinning from her news.
Married?
Who was this Marco? What car collection? What wife?
Like once before, Mona sounded like she had stepped into another potboiler of a mess. So what did she expect me to do? I was a novelist who wrote mysteries for a living, not a professional investigator. Why call me?
The two of us met at college, but then drifted apart. Several years later, after I had married Stephen, she vanished right after an abrupt and cryptic phone call to me. Then Stephen was killed in a suspicious car crash. After solving the mystery surrounding his death in Highlands, North Carolina, I fled to the beach at Ocean City, New Jersey to recoup and write in peace and quiet. But out of the blue Mona showed up at my door.
Mona’s mysterious reappearance back then soon had me caught up in nothing but lies and chaos. So you can see why I was kind of leery of this so-called emergency and what she was now saying about this Marco of hers.
Well, he wasn’t technically hers, was he? He was dead.
Would I regret allowing my curiosity to take over? With Mona, who was famous for stretching the truth and pushing the envelope, it was a constant guessing game.
But to tell you the truth, I still loved it.
I laughed, recalling how we dealt with threats, me with my baseball bat, and she with her umbrella, on her first night in Ocean City when an intruder invaded my rented beach house. After finally learning Mona had connections of her own, I assumed she was now carrying more than an umbrella for protection, especially after Marco died.
But how did Marco die? She conveniently pushed that off for later, leaving me with a meandering stream of questions. Was it accidental or murder? Could it involve the ex-wife? How did Mona get involved with Marco?
Mona was always about the comfort zone of having friends by her side when she was in trouble. And this certainly felt like trouble to me. The problem was how could I possibly help her if she was going to hand me her usual misdirection? Would she tell me the truth this time?
Would I let her know if I thought she was lying to me again? I sat down on the bed and gave that some thought. Why should I? She never did in the past with me. Then I grinned, realizing that in a bizarre way this was a gift. Why not play along and see where it took me?
Mona was right.
This could potentially be my next book.
Chapter 3
Much Ado About Marco
At first, we just sat there. Mona took a sip of wine, and then I took a sip. I knew by her look she was stalling for time. I still couldn’t believe I had rushed and traveled all those miles to sit there and wait.
But pressing her never worked, so I waited some more.
You know, I think she was actually enjoying this.
Once again I sipped my wine, but this time she gulped hers, a revealing gesture. She was on the verge of saying something. Why was the ever-talkative Mona suddenly acting restrained? Trust me, this wasn’t normal.
Hey, maybe she was in trouble.
She cleared her throat. “…It started with a phone call.”
“Okay, a phone call. What next?”
“They put Marco in the witness protection program.”
I swear I should have been a dentist. “…And?”
“I ended up getting caught in the middle.”
I sighed. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“The US Marshall’s office, DEA, and FBI were brought in for a special narcotics case and Marco’s protection.”
“For what?”
“He was a mother lode of drug network info, but in the process of being debriefed, something kept happening.”
“And what was that?”
“After a few weeks, he kept getting shot at.”
“What about all that protection?”
“No matter where he was relocated, it kept happening.”
“Sounds like he was used for target practice.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“How many shooting incidents were there?”
“Guess?”
I sat there and shook my head, still playing catch up.
“Three before that fourth, then a fatal one after that.”
“Sounds like the fourth was different than the rest.”
“It was. That was when he shot himself.”
“Shot himself?”
“No one anticipated that happening, especially me.”
I eyed the wine bottle. She was talking in circles.
“Like I said, it was unanticipated,” she repeated.
“…Did he shoot himself accidentally?”
Mona gave a half smile. “…You might say that.”
By this time, I was pouring. I couldn’t keep up.
“One day I unexpectedly walked in on him.”
“Keep talking.”
“Startled, he dove for the gun on his table. It went off.”
“He wasn’t supposed to have a gun, was he?”
“He thought I was someone else walking in on him.”
I took a guess. “But the gun didn’t surprise you, did it?”
“Sam, how do I get mixed up with these losers?”
“Let me guess. You seem to have a gift for it?”
“…There’s more. That gun was mine.”
Chapter 4
A Complexity Of Perplexity
“How about giving me more background on this?”
She gave a sigh. “We met through some friends.”
I gave her an arched brow. “Friends?”
“…Who shall remain nameless at the moment. I was in the area, and, while visiting these friends, attended an art reception and was introduced to Marco.”
“Interesting, someone who was involved in narcotics and an art lover, too. Sounds perfectly compatible to me.”
“Hey, I had no idea at the time about the narcotics angle. He said he had a small art gallery in Boca and I should stop by someday to see it.”
“And a relationship developed?”
“A hot one, Sam, a strictly fast lane kind of thing.”
“What other kind of relationships have you ever had?”
“Hey, I do the best I can, considering.”
She was driving me crazy. “Considering what?”
“Considering I tend to get screwed in my relationships.”
“The error quotient never tipped in your favor, did it?”
“Hey, we all make mistakes.”
“You especially. So you didn’t see this coming?”
“No! After being glued to each other for a few weeks, we had a trust thing going on, or so I thought at the time. When Marco confided in me about his ex-wife and how dangerous she was, being connected and sending her thugs to threaten him because she found out he went to the Feds about her, he feared he’d never make it to trial.”
“But how did the gunshot-thing come into play?”
“After being relocated and getting shot at the second time, even I was concerned he’d never make it to trial.”
“And?”
“He became obsessed about his personal safety.”
“That’s not surprising.”
“Then he got shot at again. Since the Feds were having a difficult time covering his back, he thought there could be a possible leak, and I guess he reconsidered his options.”
“I’d reconsider mine, too.”
“I have a Florida permit to carry. When I forgot my gun one day, he grabbed it. The Feds had a field day with that. Afterward he felt he had to temporarily place his cars and condo with someone he could trust and I was that person.”
“You mean the ex found out about his cars?”
“Yes. An added incentive for knocking him off.”
“Sounds like she knew the what, but not the where. But that still doesn’t explain you marrying him.”
“To make it legal,” she said. “Hidden assets, alimony.”
What legalities ever stopped a mobster before? Uh-uh.
“…There’s something else you need help with, right?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Now, Mona. With you, there’s always more. You and I both know there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“…You’re right. That’s why I needed someone I trust.”
I was curious what she was after. Then it dawned on me what was conveniently missing from this equation.
“No one in the witness protection program knows about the cars, marriage arrangement, or condo yet, do they?”
She shrugged. “…Well, no, not really, not yet.”
I figured, I’d better get this over with.
“So what’s my part in all this supposed to be?”
“You have to help me find his Uncle Carlos.”
“His Uncle Carlos? What does he have to do with this?”
“That’s who Marco wanted me to sign over the condo and car collection to, should anything happen to him. It’s the least I can do for him. Then I’ll tell the authorities.”
“Didn’t you ask why he didn’t give it to him directly?”
“Blinded by love, my common sense was not in play.”
To tell you the truth, it was worse than I thought.
I forged ahead anyway. “You want me to find this Uncle Carlos so you don’t draw attention to yourself with the feds, his ex, or her thugs, am I correct in assuming that?”
“My plan should work, but there’s another snag.”
“Why am I not surprised? I won’t like this, will I?”
“No. I don’t know where the cars are either. I do know the bills of sale are in one of their glove compartments.”
“Are you serious? You are asking the impossible.”
“I know, but I’m desperate and you’re perfect for this.”
“Does the ex know about your marriage?”
“So far, no, but if she finds out, all bets are off.”
“Do you think she’d be upset if she found out?”
“Are you kidding? Wife or not, Marco said she’d kill for those cars. He said they’re worth a small fortune. I want out before she finds out about my connection to them. I’ll do what I can covertly at my end, but I need you to help me find his Uncle Carlos and those cars before I’m shot.”
An impossible mission, plus hormones and thugs!
Chapter 5
Getting Started, But Not Really
This scheme of Mona’s was wearing on me already. I tossed and turned all night long. Every creak and noise had me listening for an intruder; someone who would finish us both off and no one would know the reason why. I had to be insane to do this. Why had I finally agreed to help Mona find this Uncle Carlos? Oh, yeah, I think it had something to do with the two bottles of wine we polished off around midnight, laughing and reminiscing about old times.
