afraid of animals.”
Lucy bobbed her head. In agreement? Or in ecstasy over the banana?
I tried to picture Grayson as he’d looked before I found him in the enclosure. Short, rotund, always smiling. Non-offensive, non-confrontational, almost non-there. Aster Edwina’s cruel assessment of him was at least partially accurate. Yet according to Roarke, Grayson’s manipulative behavior had almost overturned the great Gunn Trust.
“Oh, Lucy, regardless of what he was up to, he deserved better. Yes, I feel bad about him, but most of all, I’m worried about our friend Zorah. She’s still locked up in that jail cell when all she wants is to come back to the zoo and be with her lizards and tigers. And with you , my sweet girl.”
Her blue tongue snaked out again for the last lump of mashed banana. Giving a final grunt, she backed away from the fence.
“The sheriff thinks she’s a murderer, but he doesn’t know her like I do. So we need to find out who really did it, don’t we?”
Lucy didn’t answer, just sneezed, blowing banana mush all over my uniform.
C HAPTER E IGHT
Sunday was swab-the-deck day on the Merilee . After finishing the top deck, I went below and vacuumed the tiny salon’s blue indoor-outdoor carpeting and even tinier fore and aft cabins. I followed with a serious polish of the teak cabinets and other fittings. This tired me more than a morning spent cleaning up after the squirrel monkeys, but I enjoyed caring for the Merilee . I’d fallen into her ownership after a minor miracle.
When Dad absconded with Bentley, Bentley, Haight, and Busby’s millions, the Feds confiscated everything we owned: the house in Old Town, the paintings, the eighty-four-foot schooner, the Rolls, the Jag, my mother’s furs and jewelry. One G-man tried to take away the doll I’d been clinging to as they swept through the house, and only the intervention of a soft-eyed agent prevented the outrage.
I grew up believing we’d lost everything except for my mother’s hidden stash, but when I returned to Gunn Landing from San Francisco, Albert Mazer, Dad’s old poker buddy, visited to relay some stunning news.
“You own a boat at the harbor,” he said as soon as my mother left us alone. “I’ve kinda held it in escrow for you.”
The story he told both shocked and pleased me. To escape Caro’s eagle eye, my father had secretly bought the Merilee to use as a base camp for poker parties and less wholesome gatherings, transferring the title to Mazer so my mother couldn’t trace the boat. Over the years Dad paid the Merilee ’s repair bills, slip fees, and other expenses that came with owning a diesel-powered party boat. The understanding was that if something happened to him, Mazer would fess up and sign over the boat to me.
“The Merilee ’s not perfect,” Mazer had said, handing me the pink slip and keys. “Her engine needs work, the teak needs revarnishing, the hull needs scraping. You won’t like the decor, either, since it’s kind of, er, male. But she’s all yours, and if you ever get tired of living with your mother…” Here, a peek over his shoulder as if he feared the gorgon lurked nearby. “…the boat has a liveaboard permit. All I need to do is put your name on it.” Which he promptly did.
His visit proved providential. The next day Caro and I had a falling out over an eligible bachelor she wanted me to meet, “one of the La Jolla Piersons,” a much-divorced lout whose goatish behavior eclipsed his fortune. That very night I moved onto the Merilee . By the end of the week I’d cleaned out all the liquor bottles, Hustler magazines and the breast-shaped toss pillows, replacing the bawdy appointments with bedspreads and cushions portraying Pacific sea life.
I had never been so happy or so lacking in space. Although theoretically the Merilee , at thirty-four-feet long and eleven-point-eight-feet-wide at the beam, offered almost four hundred square feet of living space, most of that was taken up
Lucy bobbed her head. In agreement? Or in ecstasy over the banana?
I tried to picture Grayson as he’d looked before I found him in the enclosure. Short, rotund, always smiling. Non-offensive, non-confrontational, almost non-there. Aster Edwina’s cruel assessment of him was at least partially accurate. Yet according to Roarke, Grayson’s manipulative behavior had almost overturned the great Gunn Trust.
“Oh, Lucy, regardless of what he was up to, he deserved better. Yes, I feel bad about him, but most of all, I’m worried about our friend Zorah. She’s still locked up in that jail cell when all she wants is to come back to the zoo and be with her lizards and tigers. And with you , my sweet girl.”
Her blue tongue snaked out again for the last lump of mashed banana. Giving a final grunt, she backed away from the fence.
“The sheriff thinks she’s a murderer, but he doesn’t know her like I do. So we need to find out who really did it, don’t we?”
Lucy didn’t answer, just sneezed, blowing banana mush all over my uniform.
C HAPTER E IGHT
Sunday was swab-the-deck day on the Merilee . After finishing the top deck, I went below and vacuumed the tiny salon’s blue indoor-outdoor carpeting and even tinier fore and aft cabins. I followed with a serious polish of the teak cabinets and other fittings. This tired me more than a morning spent cleaning up after the squirrel monkeys, but I enjoyed caring for the Merilee . I’d fallen into her ownership after a minor miracle.
When Dad absconded with Bentley, Bentley, Haight, and Busby’s millions, the Feds confiscated everything we owned: the house in Old Town, the paintings, the eighty-four-foot schooner, the Rolls, the Jag, my mother’s furs and jewelry. One G-man tried to take away the doll I’d been clinging to as they swept through the house, and only the intervention of a soft-eyed agent prevented the outrage.
I grew up believing we’d lost everything except for my mother’s hidden stash, but when I returned to Gunn Landing from San Francisco, Albert Mazer, Dad’s old poker buddy, visited to relay some stunning news.
“You own a boat at the harbor,” he said as soon as my mother left us alone. “I’ve kinda held it in escrow for you.”
The story he told both shocked and pleased me. To escape Caro’s eagle eye, my father had secretly bought the Merilee to use as a base camp for poker parties and less wholesome gatherings, transferring the title to Mazer so my mother couldn’t trace the boat. Over the years Dad paid the Merilee ’s repair bills, slip fees, and other expenses that came with owning a diesel-powered party boat. The understanding was that if something happened to him, Mazer would fess up and sign over the boat to me.
“The Merilee ’s not perfect,” Mazer had said, handing me the pink slip and keys. “Her engine needs work, the teak needs revarnishing, the hull needs scraping. You won’t like the decor, either, since it’s kind of, er, male. But she’s all yours, and if you ever get tired of living with your mother…” Here, a peek over his shoulder as if he feared the gorgon lurked nearby. “…the boat has a liveaboard permit. All I need to do is put your name on it.” Which he promptly did.
His visit proved providential. The next day Caro and I had a falling out over an eligible bachelor she wanted me to meet, “one of the La Jolla Piersons,” a much-divorced lout whose goatish behavior eclipsed his fortune. That very night I moved onto the Merilee . By the end of the week I’d cleaned out all the liquor bottles, Hustler magazines and the breast-shaped toss pillows, replacing the bawdy appointments with bedspreads and cushions portraying Pacific sea life.
I had never been so happy or so lacking in space. Although theoretically the Merilee , at thirty-four-feet long and eleven-point-eight-feet-wide at the beam, offered almost four hundred square feet of living space, most of that was taken up
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