Murder on the Sinful Express

by Shari Hearn

  His brows shot up again.

  I turned to Madigan. “I feel there’s something you’re not sharing with the group. Something involving you and Anna.”

  She shook her head.

  I persisted. “I think she was covering up when she chewed you out over the cart. The two of you were whispering before that. What was it about?”

  “It might help to get it off your chest,” Gertie said gently.

  The tears started pouring from her eyes. Gertie opened her arms. “Awww, come here.”

  Madigan began sobbing and fell into Gertie’s arms. After a minute, she began sniffing. She lifted her head and looked into Gertie’s eyes. “Anna’s such a poopy head.”

  Gertie patted Madigan’s back. “I know. She’s the poopiest. Has been for quite some time. And I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to hurt her.”

  Madigan pulled away from her. “I’m not the one who hurt her. She’s the one who threatened to hurt me.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  Walter cleared his throat. “Maybe I’d better leave.”

  Madigan shook her head. “No, it’s okay, you can stay. You’re a good man, Walter.”

  I pulled out a chair for Madigan at the lunch table and she sat. Gertie and I took seats as well. Walter leaned against the counter.

  “So how did Anna threaten you?”

  Madigan began wringing her hands. “She started making threats a week ago. I kind of took money from the petty cash box. Now before any of you begin to think I’m a thief, I can explain. We were taking up a collection for Claire’s sister, who’s going through chemo in Texas. I went to my purse and found out I forgot to transfer my wallet from one purse to the other. I knew we had the amount I wanted to donate in petty cash, so I went and got it and then the next day I replaced it. Only Anna happened to catch me here in the staff room when I got the cash box open. She snapped a picture of me. I tried to explain what had happened, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she was going to tell Lucy and Lucy would fire me. Unless...” She looked at me. “Unless I provided her with your DNA.”

  “My DNA?”

  Madigan nodded. “She and Miss Celia were out to prove that you were somebody other than Sandy-Sue Morrow. I thought it was silly, I mean, I don’t think you’re some spy or criminal in witness protection, but those two ladies are hell-bent to prove you are. Miss Anna wanted to take your DNA and Marge’s and send it to a lab to see if you and Marge were really related.”

  My body went cold. Harrison and Director Morrow had covered the fingerprint angle, but private DNA labs were another thing altogether.

  Madigan started tearing up again. “I tried to warn you to leave town.”

  “That note about leaving Sinful came from you, didn’t it?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. Anna said there’d be hell to pay if I told you about it. I didn’t want them to cause you any trouble, but I didn’t want to be fired either. I love my job as a library assistant. Sure Lucy can be a pill, but I like the book club and I get to help kids pick out books. And someday I’ll finish my online courses and become a real librarian.”

  Gertie removed a mini packet of tissues from her purse and handed it to Madigan. She pulled a tissue out and dabbed at her eyes. “I went to your house. I was going to pretend I was just visiting, then use your bathroom and nab your hairbrush or something. But you were gone. I walked around the side of your house and noticed an upstairs window open, so I climbed the tree next to it and went inside. I saw you had two toothbrushes, so I took one and gave it to Anna.”

  Carter hadn’t taken his toothbrush after all. It was Madigan Cookie had seen leaving through my window. With Madigan’s new hair color and hairstyle, it would be hard to tell us apart from a distance. I smiled.

  “Oh sure,” Madigan said. “Laugh at me.”

  “I’m not laughing at you, Madigan. The toothbrush you gave to Anna was Carter’s.”

  “Carter’s? But...” Her face changed. “Oh... he has a toothbrush at your house.”

  Probably not what she wanted to hear.

  “Yes,” I said, “we have toothbrushes at one another’s houses.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m happy for you.”

  “I don’t get it,” Gertie said. “How’d they get Marge’s DNA?”

  Madigan shrugged. “I guessed which room was Marge’s and found a brush in a drawer and gave them that.” She sniffed back her tears. “I just wanted to keep my job.”

  Gertie patted her hand. “You should have come to us and let us know she was threatening you. We could have taken care of Anna.”

  Madigan’s eyes grew wide. “What do you mean, ‘taken care of?’”

  “Not poison her,” Gertie said. “Ida Belle and I have known the women in this town all our lives. It’s possible we might have a little dirt on Anna she wouldn’t like to be shared.”

  Walter snorted. “It’s possible?”

  Gertie flashed him her famous three-finger salute, then looked back at Madigan. “There’s a photo of Anna at Homecoming Weekend of 1981. She’s doing the tango. If we reminded her of that weekend, there’s no way she would have gone to Lucy about seeing you with the cashbox.”

  “I don’t see how a picture of her doing the tango would have made her back down.”

  Gertie smiled. “It would if she was doing the tango with a man not her husband. In a hotel room. With no clothes on.”

  “Oh. How did you—”

  “Don’t ask. My point is, we could have helped.”

  “But now I’ve just made things worse,” Madigan said. “I know some of the clues are pointing to me, but I wasn’t the one who did it. Yes, I was near Anna’s house when Trixi said I was. I was there to put the toothbrush in Anna’s house, in a cookie jar in her kitchen, just like she told me to when I talked to her at the bingo game. She even told me where she left her key, under the mat. And sure I took a piece of cake home. I didn’t ask for it, but Trixi insisted. And I ate it. I didn’t put something in it to poison Anna.”

  “I was wondering how you knew to look under Anna’s mat to find the key,” I said.

  “Why did you go to Anna’s house last night?” Gertie asked.

  “I went there to get the toothbrush back. I certainly didn’t want the sheriff to find it and discover I’d broken into your house. As far as I know, Cookie is the only one who saw me leaving your upstairs window. Thank God no one believes her.” Madigan sighed. “Anyway, I was too late. The toothbrush was gone.”

  “Celia must have taken it,” Gertie said. “That’s why she was there last night.”

  “Probably so,” Madigan said before blowing her nose. She hung her head. “I should have never agreed to be Anna’s spy. Now it looks like I did it! I’m going to have to give all this up and go to prison!” She swung her arms wide and accidentally knocked her opened purse off the table with her left hand, spilling her purse’s contents on the floor.

  “For Pete’s sake. That’s the second time today my purse spilled all over!”

  Gertie and I got on our knees and helped Madigan round up the contents from her purse. I saw a small glass vial, half-filled with a greenish liquid and held it out to her.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It came from your purse.”

  “I’ve never seen it before,” she said.

  I placed it on the table and Gertie unscrewed the cap and smelled it. “Smells like syrup.”

  “Syrup?” Walter asked. “Here, let me see that.”

  Gertie handed the vial to Walter and looked at me. “Green? Smells like syrup?”

  “Sounds like antifreeze,” Madigan said.

  Walter sniffed it. “Yep, smells like antifreeze.”

  “And it came from your purse,” I said to Madigan.

  She held her purse to her chest. “But like I just said, I’ve never seen it before. And why would I have a vial of it in my purse?”

  “You did offer to get Fortune’s coffee this morning,”
Gertie said.

  “I topped it off, that’s all I did, remember? I didn’t even get a cup poured for myself because clumsy old Trixi dropped the coffeepot in the sink. Managed to knock my purse to the ground as well. That woman’s a walking disaster.” Madigan’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you think I was going to poison Fortune’s coffee? Why would I do that?”

  Gertie and I exchanged glances. “Because she’s with Carter?” Gertie said.

  Madigan frowned. “I have my own Carter. Grover LeMelle.”

  “Toothpick LeMelle?” Walter asked.

  “Grover is in the middle of a transformation, thank you very much,” Madigan snapped. “I may have at one time crushed on Deputy LeBlanc, but ever since Grover started making some changes, all of my focus has been on him.”

  I delicately reminded Madigan that just days ago she had taken a photo of Carter without his shirt on.

  “A selfie! His chest just happened to photo bomb me!” She sighed. “Okay, so I take photos of Carter.”

  “Photos? As in you’ve done it before?”

  “You don’t have to make it sound so nefarious. I only snap pictures of Carter when he’s wearing something I think would look nice on Grover. And once when Carter started parting his hair on the other side and I thought Grover might consider the same change. Or when Carter switched to a new brand of jeans.” Madigan lifted her chin. “I didn’t do anything to Anna. And I don’t know anything about that vial of antifreeze. For all I know, it’s yours and you just tried to plant it in my purse. Why? I don’t know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a moment to collect myself and go back to that room and let them all know I had nothing to do with Anna’s poisoning.”

  She stormed out of the staff room.

  “Carter should have put a stop to Madigan’s crush way back when,” Walter said. “He never took it seriously because he saw her like a little sister. Trust me, it’s a hard conversation to have, but necessary.”

  Gertie snorted. “You say it like you’ve had that conversation more than once.”

  “In fact, I have,” Walter said. “I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve had to turn several women away.”

  “Which ones?” I asked.

  He cocked his head. “The ratio of single women to available men in this town has always been about three to one. So take your pick.” He held up his hand and counted with his fingers. “Kitty Dubois, Opal Rogers, Ginny Nickerson, Delphine, her mother, Cookie.”

  “Cookie?” I said. “She’s just shy of a hundred.”

  “She’s a cougar,” Walter said. He counted some more. “Bea, Babs, Trixi.”

  I pointed to Gertie. “See. I told you Trixi had a thing for Walter.”

  Gertie turned to Walter. “How did I not know Trixi had a thing for you? I know she does this little tiger growl thing when she’s around you, but I didn’t know she actually had a thing for you.”

  He nodded. “She’s been trying to get together with me for decades. And every time I have to tell her my heart belongs to Ida Belle. She had to move away because she said she couldn’t stand not having me. And then she’d get married, her husband would die, or she’d get divorced, and she’d come right back here calling on me. Her latest husband died just five months ago. Got a call right after the funeral. I had to tell her once again I was holding out for Ida Belle.”

  “Does Ida Belle know this?” Gertie asked.

  He shook his head. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her. I don’t want her feeling pressured. I want her saying ‘yes’ to my proposal because she wants to marry me, not because she thinks she’ll lose me to someone else.”

  Gertie lifted her brows.

  Walter shrugged. “Someday she might surprise you by saying ‘yes.’”

  “Sure thing, Walter,” Gertie said before turning back to me. “Should we get back to the group?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. I want to take another look at all the clues. Something’s eating at me and I’m not quite sure what it is.”

  Gertie and I left the staff room. I glanced out the front window and noticed Cookie sitting in her wheelchair under an oak tree on the library lawn.

  Now I knew what was bugging me. “Wait,” I said to Gertie, “I want to ask Cookie something.”

  She nodded and we rushed outside and approached Cookie, who was retrieving a pack of cigarettes from a fanny pack in her wheelchair basket, as well as a lighter. She looked up at us. “You tell my daughter I’m smoking and I’ll kill you.”

  “Duly noted.” I knew she meant it. “Is your hearing aid turned up?”

  She nodded and lit her cigarette.

  “I just realized why you accused me of poisoning Anna.”

  “I said you were crawling out your window. Didn’t you hear me the first time?”

  “Turns out it wasn’t me. It was Madigan. So I can see why you accused me. But it got me wondering. Why did you think Trixi was also in on it?”

  “Why do you care what I think? No one else does.”

  “Now, Miss Cookie,” Gertie said, “it’s not that no one else doesn’t care, it’s just that sometimes your manner is a little abrasive.”

  Cookie pulled in a drag of cigarette and blew the smoke at Gertie. “Bitch.”

  Gertie fanned away the smoke. “See? Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

  I knelt in front of her wheelchair and looked her in the eye. “I care what you have to say. Why did you say Trixi also murdered Anna?”

  “I hear things.”

  Gertie snorted. Cookie shifted her eyes up to her. “You know how I can hear things?”

  “I guess with a hearing aid. Which you never seem to want to turn on.”

  Cookie smiled.

  “Unless it’s turned on and you just want to annoy people,” I said. “And maybe hear things they think you’re not hearing.”

  Her smile widened. “It’s my super power.”

  “Why you sneaky old broad,” Gertie said.

  “Takes one to know one,” said Cookie, taking another puff from her cigarette.

  “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “Squeaky shoes.”

  “Squeaky shoes?” Gertie asked. “You mean Trixi’s shoes?”

  In the time it took for Gertie to ask her question, Cookie had started to doze off. “Miss Cookie. Wake up.” Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. Her fingers, though, were clenching the cigarette, not relaxed at all. “You’re faking it.”

  She opened her eyes, pulled in some smoke from her cigarette and blew it out. “Another little trick. You wouldn’t believe the things people do around you when they think you’re asleep.”

  “Miss Cookie, stop playing with us,” Gertie said. “Where’d you hear Trixi’s squeaky shoes?”

  “The afternoon before Anna came down sick. I had a hankering for a Spitfire.”

  “Spitfire? Is that some kind of moonshine?” I asked.

  “It’s a tomato,” Gertie said. “Heat-tolerant. Grows well in Louisiana. Anna grows them.” She pointed at Cookie. “You steal tomatoes from Anna?”

  Cookie nodded. “I waited until she left her house for bingo at the senior center before making my move. I wheeled up her driveway through the back gate and onto the back patio. Then I stashed my chair behind a tool shed and walked with my cane to the side garden. Then I heard that damn squeak on the back patio.”

  “Did you see Trixi?”

  Cookie shook her head. “I stayed in the garden. The squeaks stopped for a few minutes, then I heard them again on the back patio.”

  “Maybe she went inside Anna’s house,” I said to Gertie.

  She shrugged. “That would explain the squeaks going away and then returning when she came back outside.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “We have no evidence she went inside. Just that her shoes stopped squeaking before starting up again. Besides, why would she want to hurt Anna?”

  “Bigger fish,” Cookie said.

  “What?” I asked. And t
hen I remembered. “That’s right. Anna told me she might have bigger fish than me to investigate.”

  Cookie chuckled. “You probably didn’t notice me sitting nearby in my chair.”

  I hadn’t. In a way she’d make a pretty good operative.

  “But why would Anna think Trixi is a big fish?” Gertie asked. “What made her think that? What would Trixi have done to be worthy of being called a big fish?”

  I tried to think back a few days. “Trixi was in the staff room, carrying the mugs. She had half of Anna’s cake on the tray and Anna said she was going to take a slice home.”

  I shut my eyes to think of any other details. “Trixi sneezed,” I said, opening my eyes. “Anna said to Trixi, ‘you have a peculiar sneeze.’”

  Gertie nodded. “I remember Trixi sneezed when she walked into the group room at the start of the book club. It did sound odd.”

  Cookie flicked the ashes of her cigarette into an empty Pepsi bottle in her basket. “Now, remember back ten years. June to be exact. Shelley Gaudet, an old friend of mine, said she heard someone sneeze at the barn hours before the fire.”

  “The fire at Miller’s barn?” Gertie asked.

  I looked questioningly at Gertie. “The barn where Trixi tripped over the space heater and set it on fire?”

  Cookie nodded. “Ten years ago. Shelley told Sheriff Lee that she went to the barn earlier to look through the tools for sale. She wondered if someone had been hiding in the horse stall next to her because she heard a sneeze. A real peculiar sneeze. She wondered if someone was sensitive to the salve she was wearing.”

  “What did Sheriff Lee say?” I asked.

  “He said Shelley should leave the investigating to the lawmen,” Cookie said.

  Gertie rolled her eyes. “Emphasis on men. You know, I remember reading in The Sinful Times that Shelley thought someone had been hiding.”

  “That’s the June Anna was referring to,” I said. “Not June of this year, but June of ten years ago. Trixi is the bigger fish Anna was talking about.”

  Gertie blew out a breath. “All of us did wonder why Trixi tripping on that space heater would cause such a fire to spread so quickly. It was sitting on dirt, not near any hay. We wondered if there was some accelerant nearby.”