Emerald's Secret

By Iris Chacon

Greg Hallstead lost the championship buckle to Terry McCaskill at this year's Policemen's Rodeo. Now, he's partnered with his rival, working undercover at a Florida resort, while sparks fly between them at every turn.

Greg & Terry are unconvincing as a brother/sister duo, but even less convincing are the cops pretending to be their "parents:" a gay "dad" and sexy, flirty "mom."

Still, the four cops may survive, if the resort owner's wife, Emerald, doesn't reveal she dated Greg years ago. And if a hotel hooker doesn't recognize him from past arrests. And if "dad" and "mom" will stop flirting with the same man.

If they can't keep their secrets, all four cops will soon be shark bait off the Florida coast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iris Chacon
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463530634

Iris Chacon

Iris Chacon is an award-winning author whose novels have garnered acclaim in the Mystery and Humor categories. In Iris’s wholesome stories, her characters find romance, mystery, and joy on the Florida peninsula and its islands. Her books are set in (sometimes little-known parts of) Florida, where her family has lived since the 1700s. Iris is the mother of two and, in addition to her novels, has written for radio, stage, and screen. She has also been a musician, teacher, and librarian.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

(Our story is about a Miami tattoo artist in 1995. In case you don't remember 1995, this brief intro will bring you up to speed. If you remember 1995 well, or if you just hate reading introductions, feel free to skip right on over to Chapter 1. Happy reading.)

In 1995, photographs were made with film, phones were connected via landlines mostly, and tattoos were worn by a small percentage of the population, who comprised their own subculture of Americana.

Photographs

In 1995, photographs were developed and printed by the local drugstore or camera shop, and it took several days between dropping your exposed film canister at the shop and picking up your printed four- by six-inch pictures. If you planned to share your pictures, you ordered double prints, and you kept one set while mailing the other set to Aunt Agatha for the family scrapbook. The cost for having someone develop and print your pictures was substantial. If you took ten rolls of pictures (figuring from 12 to 36 shots per roll), you would spend well over a hundred dollars to see them.

Professionals and accomplished amateur photographers would set up their own dark rooms with basins of chemicals, enlarging/printing machines, and a clothesline for hanging wet prints to dry. This didn't save any money, since the chemicals and equipment were expensive, not to mention the special photographic paper, trimmers, and lighting required to establish such a personal photo lab. Having your own dark room, however, meant you had the ability to finesse your developing and printing in your own individual style, thus creating a unique work of art out of every photo negative.

Photographic magazines such as National Geographic would typically send photographers into the field with ice chests full of film. For a single article containing six or so finished pictures, a photographer would often take hundreds of shots and return to the magazine with a cooler full of exposed film rolls ready for developing. The hundreds of negatives would be developed into hundreds of color slides (they would not be printed on paper). The magazine editors would line up the slides on flat glass light boxes and study the pictures under a magnifying lens. A half dozen slides would be chosen for printing in the magazine and the rest either archived or discarded.

How much faster and easier it is in 2017 to snap digital photos with a phone, a tablet, or even (gasp!) a camera. We see the finished picture immediately. We share it electronically with anyone, anywhere in a few seconds. We pay nobody in order to see and keep and share our photos. Camera shops are almost nonexistent (although many drug stores still have photo departments), and most of us have never even seen a dark room, much less constructed or used one.

Wireless Telephones

Telephones in 1995 were connected by wires, except for the basic, not-smart cellular phones with one-inch-square, black-and-white screens. The menus were rudimentary and usually limited to contact list, call history, and speed-dialing codes one through ten. With rare exceptions, there were no keyboards on these wireless phones; to type a message you tapped the alpha-numeric keypad. For example, if the number 2 on the keypad was also labeled ABC, you would tap number 2 once for A, twice for B, and thrice for C. If the number 5 corresponded to JKL, you would tap number 5 once for J, twice for K, and thrice for L. As you can imagine, typing out an entire sentence in this manner took time, patience, and determination. Abbreviations proliferated very quickly. You could tap four times to write the word to, or you could just substitute the one-tap 2. To write you took eight taps, or you could substitute U, which took only two taps. School teachers would later blame text messaging for the loss of spelling and grammar skills in children and teens.

For international calling or calling to and from remote areas, a few people used the more expensive satellite phone, which was about the size and shape of a brick. While the basic cellphone could fit in your pocket, the satellite phone would rip your pants off if you tried to cram it into your khakis. These brick-phones were heavy, expensive, and ugly, but in their day they were state-of-the-art for communicating without wires in remote locations.

All of this changed in 2007, when Apple introduced the first iPhone. In 1995, however, the iPhone wasn't even a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye, probably. However, that might not be true, given the visionary nature of his extraordinary mind. Perhaps, with his innate genius, he had conceived of the iPhone while playing with his Playskool portable radio at age three.

Tattoos

Tattoos have a much more prominent and accepted place in 2017 society than they had in the late 1990s. According to one Huffington Post article, tattoos, at the time our story is set, were common only ...on sailors, prison inmates, and members of tough motorcycle gangs. If you looked at accountants, pro ping-pong players, or shoe salesmen though, it would have been pretty rare to find some ink. According to the same article, even ten years after the time of Lou's Tattoos, society remained prejudiced against tattoos, ... and, while some people were getting them on their own, no one would say tattoos were a part of pop culture. (http://www. huffingtonpost.com/mik-thobocarlsen/how-tattoos-went-from-sub_b_6053588.html, co-authored by Victor Chateaubriand, accessed 9/28/16)

The AARP polled members over age 65 in 2016 and deduced that just five per cent of those senior adults had tattoos, which they would have gotten in the late 1990s. Estimates from various sources place the percentage of today's 18- to 25-year-olds having tattoos at anywhere from thirty to thirty-eight per cent, or roughly one-third of young adults. (AARP Magazine, June-July 2016, accessed 8/10/17.)

The Huffington Post, in its article quoted above, deduced that in today's world, Having a tattoo can be an expression of who you are. Or what you believe in. Or something you cherish. Or just something you thought was fun. The prejudice, not having disappeared completely, is certainly greatly diminished.

For more on the history and cultural aspects of tattoos, peruse Appendix 2, Tattoo Trivia, at the end of this book.

For more on American pop culture in 1995, see Appendix 3, Pop Culture '95, at the end of this book.

PART ONE

Chapter 1: JUNGLE

Five stories up in the green canopy, a bearded, long-haired man in a photographer's vest was hanging by his knees precariously from a tree limb, lens-to-eye with a python twenty yards long and not a bit shy. The man was Galen Randall. The best natural history magazines paid top money for his pictures. No other photographer was dedicated enough — or, some said, crazy enough — to do what Galen Randall was willing to do in order to capture a shot people would remember for decades.

While Galen hung there, focusing on the flicking tongue of the python and forgetting about simple things such as gravity or carnivorous reptiles, another man balanced on a higher limb, holding Randall's ankles and straining to keep them both aloft. This was Ushti, Randall's guide, whose eyes were wide with awareness of all the simple things. The deadly simple things.

Hurry! hissed Ushti in his native Swahili.

Shhhh! said Randall.

Ssssss! said the python.

The snake inched closer and closer to Randall. Its exploring tongue brushed his camera lens. Any second now Randall would get either (a) an unforgettable picture looking down a hungry python's gullet or (b) eaten.

Randall perspired, only partly because of the steamy jungle heat.

Ushti trembled, only partly because of the strain he exerted holding up Randall's weight.

The snake undulated closer and closer. Then —

BEEEEP! An electronic screech shattered the silence.

Randall cli-cli-cli-clicked the shutter desperately, trying to salvage a picture of the panicked python as it crashed downward, escaping to lower — and quieter —branches.

Ushti screamed curses in Swahili and nearly lost his grip on both Randall and the tree, because Randall was twisting his body wildly, trying to keep the retreating snake in focus.

BEEEEP sounded again. Having lost all hope of a Pulitzer-winning python portrait, Randall gradually went still. Furious at missing his shot, with a sigh, he jammed the now-useless camera inside his multi-pocketed safari vest and, with his freed hands, took hold of the nearest tree branches. He said to Ushti, in Swahili, Unless you want to talk to the She-Devil yourself, you'd better pull me up.

With one super-human effort, the guide hauled Randall into a sitting position on a stout branch.

BEEEEP. The guide and Randall exchanged a look — the look of men about to be guillotined.

She's trying to kill me, said Randall, in Swahili. Then, resigned to his fate, he held out his hand. The guide fished a mobile phone the size of a bread loaf out of his clothing (BEEEEP) and handed it to Randall, who answered it.

Hello, Meriweather, he crooned with exaggerated sweetness, so good of you to call, but there was really no need. I promised I would be there, and I will be there.

He listened to the caller briefly, then responded, Well, I don't actually have an exact arrival time yet. He looked down fifty feet to the ground. Everything's up in the air right now, but I'll be there. Don't worry, there's still plenty of time. I have to go now. The rhino is charging. He hung up before Meriweather could respond. He handed the phone back to his guide.

Ushti said, "If she truly wanted to kill you, Bwana, you would already be dead."

Hmh, Randall agreed.

The two men began their long climb down the massive tree.

Chapter 2: CUTLER RIDGE

In the small Miami suburb called Cutler Ridge, a gaudy neon sign flashed CUTLER RI GE TAT OOS above a plate glass window. A hand-lettered sign in the window read:

"If you're stoned, broke, or under 18,

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT."

Another poster in the window warned:

"NO CUSSING.

LADIES ON THE PREMISES."

At one of the two inking stations, a young woman was completing a complex and colorful tattoo on the broad back of a carefully coiffured man.

The woman was Lourdes (Lou) O'Malley, daughter of the shop's owner and the darling of myriad biker gangs who valued her artistry and discretion.

The man in the shiny black pompadour was Buddy Petruccio, a minor mobster with a major tattoo obsession. He also was a fan of Lou's work.

The tattoo was a curvaceous Lady Luck, posing like a pin-up girl dressed only in cleverly placed dice, playing cards, roulette wheels, and other gambling paraphernalia. The artwork covered Buddy's entire back, from shirt-collar level all the way down to his Italian designer slacks and alligator belt.

Lou lifted her needle and wiped away fresh blood with a cotton ball. She was tired, but satisfied with her product.

All done, Buddy.

Buddy rose to study himself in a full-length wall mirror.

Lou disposed of her supplies. She was particular about keeping everything in her shop hospital-sterile.

She's beautiful, Lou! Buddy exclaimed, admiring his Lady Luck in the mirror. Wait till the guys in Vegas see this baby!

Lou laid out non-adhesive gauze pads and medical tape, then gestured for Buddy to resume his seat at her station. She gently covered the newly applied section of Buddy's tattoo with gauze, to protect the fresh ink and keep errant blood from staining Buddy's clothes.

I'm sorry it took so many sessions, she said, but you can't rush these things.

Nah, it was worth it to get painted by the best. Thanks for working with my crazy schedule.

Actually, it worked out for me, said Lou. I'm only here occasionally now, and only at night. I've got a day job downtown.

Buddy slipped into his silk shirt and slid his eel-skin wallet out of his pocket. He peeled money off a flashy wad of bills and pressed it into Lou's hand. Keep the change, to show my appreciation for you finishing the job for me tonight, 'cause I'm going back to Vegas tomorrow.

Oh, you closed your deal, then?

Tight as a drum, Buddy quipped. See ya, babe. You're still the best. He scooped his expensive jacket from a chair and left the shop.

Lou slumped in her seat with a tired sigh, not particularly thrilled to be still the best at tattooing. Lou had dreams of a more respectable career. Tattooing ranked right up there with pole dancing on the Respectability Scale, in her opinion, and too many members of the general public felt the same way.

Yeah, I'm a great artist, she murmured to herself. The toast of society.

Chapter 3: PHOTOWORLD

The offices of PhotoWorld magazine were an architectural landmark in a dazzling, cosmopolitan megalopolis on the southeast coast of the United States. The bright, modern, chrome-and-glass lobby of the penthouse suite featured framed covers of past PhotoWorld magazines. They were stunningly lovely pictures from around the globe, many of them award winners.

At a pristine glass desk among costly floral arrangements, a sunny receptionist made an elegant first impression on