Death Among the Mangroves Read Online Free Page B

feel comfortable. And you do know that you look silly with that thing in your ear.”
    They had a nice view of the yacht club docks from their window table. Troy turned from the view to look at her. He never tired of looking at Lee Bell. They had met at this very club six months earlier.
    “Why? I see people walking through the grocery store with earpieces and talking into phones and all they’re discussing is the price of tomatoes,” he said. “Me, I’m doing important police chief work.”
    Wanda Frister was on duty and refilled Troy’s ice tea. Lee was drinking a mimosa. “How are you and Milo getting on,” Troy asked Wanda.
    “Great. And I’m glad to be out of that trailer anyway. And away from that horrible Billy Poteet, too.” She moved on with her ice tea pitcher.
    “She didn’t have much choice about the trailer,” Troy said to Lee. “Hurricane Donald blew it into the bushes last July.”
    “Billy Poteet was the boy you killed during that hurricane, wasn’t he?” Lee asked.
    “Yep. Had to.” He nodded toward Wanda who was now at the next table. “Shoot him or he would shoot her.”
    “Now she’s living with one of your officers? Milo Binder? Is shacking up with someone you’re not married to still against the law in Florida?”
    Troy was focused on scraping together odd bits of leftover food for one last forkful. “In fact, it is,” he said. “Florida, Michigan and Mississippi still outlaw men and women living together—cohabitation. The penalty is a five-hundred-dollar fine and sixty days in the hoosegow. Nobody’s enforced it since 1868, far as I know, and the legislature tries to repeal that law every year. And every year one or two legislators kill the bill because of their religious beliefs. And, today, the funniest part is that it doesn’t apply at all to homosexual couples. Only to heteros. What’s your point? Want me to arrest the two of us?”
    “We’re not ‘shacking up,’ exactly,” Lee said. “We each have our own shack.”
    “Good point. Was about to call someone to handcuff me.”
    Lee Bell laughed. “Leftover laws.” She ate a snip of lettuce and sipped her champagne. She didn’t normally drink much because of the rules about drinking and flying. Troy didn’t drink liquor at all.
    “Things sometimes work out,” Troy said. “Wanda took up with Milo Binder and he has come around a little. He needed a woman in his life to knock off some of the sharp edges. He was such a pain when I took over the department that I considered firing him, even if it offended the mayor, his uncle. I think Wanda is a good influence on him.”
    “I think you’re a softie, Troy Adam.”
    “Nonsense. Chiefs of police aren’t ‘softies.’ It’s the old ‘iron fist in the velvet glove’ thing.” He glanced over at the buffet line. Maybe he could get some more bacon and eggs.
    “Aha. So, you’re usually all over any problem the moment it presents itself. You’re almost a one-man social service, always wanting to rearrange other people’s lives. Why aren’t you out there right now, evicting that family out of that poor man’s house? They’re just squatters.”
    Troy looked back at Lee and sighed. “I know. I spoke to them and to the realtor, Frieda Firestone. She hadn’t a clue where those people came from or where her lockbox and sign went. I talked to the man last night, when I was not in the sack with you—which would have been preferable—and again this morning.”
    “I should hope so. You left me kind of…hanging, you know. And didn’t come home for hours.”
    “I was busy with important chief things. And I made it up when I did come home.”
    Lee grinned. “You came home at seven a.m. It was ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’ and you changed into uniform and left again.”
    “Many are the duties of the Mangrove Bayou Director of Pubic Safety.”
    “Right. At least I got a good night’s sleep before then.” Lee grinned and then forked another tiny bit of