by Jana DeLeon
“I guess I better bring the bottle to the table,” I said and got up to grab it off the counter.
I poured another round for the two of them and took a sip of mine. They started on the second round slower than the first, which was a relief as I’d only bought one bottle. But no one seemed eager to talk, and I was practically itching for someone to break the silence.
“Okay,” I said finally. “You know I like a little peace and quiet more than most, but this is so uncomfortable I might have to list my house and move.”
“I’m sorry,” Gertie said. “I’m sitting here stewing over my necklace, even though I know it’s a waste of time. I can’t change the fact that Venus stole it right off my neck or that it’s sitting in a sandwich bag in the sheriff’s department.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I think both of those things suck,” I said.
Gertie gave me a grateful smile. “They do. But I think I’m focusing on them to ignore the real problem.”
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“That she didn’t notice Venus stealing it.” Ida Belle finally broke her silence.
“Oh.” I slumped back in my chair. I hadn’t even thought of that angle but I could totally see why she was stewing over it. I would be too.
“I just hate admitting that I might be slipping,” Gertie said. “I know I always joke about being young and living to be two hundred, but things like this just highlight what a far-fetched fantasy I’m pushing.”
“You need to give yourself a break,” Ida Belle said. “Did you think Venus had turned over a new leaf and was living on the straight and narrow?”
“Of course not,” Gertie said.
“And did you really think she was happy to see you and that show of affection was genuine?” Ida Belle asked.
“No,” Gertie said. “I thought she was prepping me for something else. Maybe hitting me up for money or asking me for help with a job.”
“Exactly,” Ida Belle said. “You thought she was working an angle because as long as Venus was conscious, she was working an angle. You just didn’t clue in that it was an immediate one. You thought she was putting out a marker that she was going to try to call later on.”
Gertie brightened a little. “That’s exactly right. So maybe I’m not losing it altogether. I just miscalculated her target and the speed she intended to acquire it. That sounds much better than ‘she got one over on me because I’m getting old.’”
Ida Belle gave her hand a squeeze. “If age is really a mental state, like some believe, then you’re still a teenager. Your body might not have gotten the message, but there’s nothing wrong with your mind.”
Gertie smiled. “By God, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. And I’m not sure where you were going with that whole body thing. I’m practically a Ninja Warrior contestant.”
“And she’s back,” Ida Belle said.
“Darn tootin’,” Gertie said. “So now that things are back in line with me, let’s address the elephant in the room. You can’t just deliver a statement like ‘I didn’t say no’ and then refuse to talk about it.”
I nodded. “I gotta go with Gertie on this one. You watch television with us. You know how we hate a cliff-hanger.”
Ida Belle’s lips quivered. “I suppose I don’t want to be responsible for you two tossing and turning tonight.”
“So spill,” I said. “Did you set a date?”
“Nothing like that,” Ida Belle said. “I didn’t say yes. I just didn’t say no, either.”
“What does that even mean?” Gertie asked.
“It means I told him I’d think about it,” Ida Belle said as she rose from the table. “I’ve got to drop off some spare boat parts to Scooter. You want to leave now, Gertie?”
“No,” Gertie said. “I think I’ll stick around for a bit longer. Drink some more of Fortune’s whiskey and maybe talk her into breaking out those brownies again.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Then I guess I’ll see you two tomorrow. We’re still doing breakfast, right?”
“Nine o’clock at Francine’s,” I said.
She headed out of the kitchen and Gertie and I stared at each other until we heard the front door close.
“What the heck?” I asked as soon as the door clicked shut.
Gertie shook her head. “I’m as confused as you are.”
“You think she might really go for it this time?”
“I can’t imagine that she would…not after all these years. But then, Ida Belle would never play with Walter’s feelings, either. So if she says she’s thinking about it, then that’s what she’s doing. But I have no guesses as to why now or what the outcome will be.”
“Well, if you don’t know, there’s no way I’m figuring it out.”
“Thank goodness no one will be hiring us to solve this mystery.”
Carter had invited me over for dinner the week before, and despite the fact that he looked as though he’d rather be napping in his hammock than cooking, he did a fine job grilling up some pork chops and baked potatoes. Since he always bought pork chops that looked as if they’d been cut from a dinosaur, both Tiny and I were stuffed by the time we piled the dishes in the sink. Carter carefully avoided any talk of Venus but I could tell that another murder in Sinful was weighing on him. We watched a little television and called it a night fairly early.
After the amount of calories I’d consumed at dinner, I should have been halfway into a food coma by the time I got home, but instead, I was restless. I tried watching television but kept getting up and walking into one room or another, then glancing around, looking for something to do. Unfortunately, I’d been on a cleaning and organizing kick lately and everything was pretty much set. Finally, I plopped down at the kitchen table with my laptop, somewhat concerned that the lack of a load of laundry was now a disappointment.
Maybe I’d do some online shopping. I needed a filing cabinet for when I finally had enough clients to create files. So far, my only detective work conducted as a pro had been when Carter asked me to launch an investigation when he got kicked off a case by the state police. But since that was an unofficial, off-the-books, no-invoice sort of deal, I still didn’t have a file for my yet-unobtained cabinet.
Ida Belle had assured me the business would come. People just needed to wrap their minds around me being a former CIA agent and not the librarian they’d thought I was, and then the phone would start ringing. Of course, she’d also informed me that I’d probably get a lot of calls for lost reading glasses, missing cats, and sketchy husbands, but I figured that was par for the course for a place like Sinful. It couldn’t all be high crime, and I didn’t want it to be. I just wanted puzzles to solve. They didn’t need to have a deadly component to occupy my mind.
I located a cool four-drawer that was a good match for my other office furniture and stuck it in my shopping cart. Now I just had to decide on file folders and hanging files. Did I want standard beige folders and green files or did I feel whimsical and thus should order the multicolored ones? Since Gertie had volunteered to help me with any of the administrative sort of stuff, I decided to go with the multicolored and located a set with bright pink, turquoise, purple, green, and a yellow so bright you could probably see it from space.
I was just finishing up my purchase when I heard a noise in my backyard. Noises at night weren’t unusual. I did live on a bayou and all manner of critters roamed around at night. But this was different. Something large had brushed against the side of my house. And it was too high up on the wall to be a dog.
My back porch light wasn’t on. I’d stopped turning it on a while back when I realized all it did was call to every bug on the bayou and ask them to hang out on my porch. I stepped into a crunch of dead bugs every morning when I’d go outside with my coffee. Or worse. Sometimes the small bugs attracted larger bugs, like huge spiders. Or snakes. Since I wasn’t interested in hosting a nightly party on my back porch or walking out to the remains of the night the morning
after, I had made the executive decision to leave the backyard cast in darkness.
That meant peeking through the blinds wouldn’t yield anything except tipping off whoever was back there that I’d heard them. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I grabbed my nine-millimeter off the kitchen table and hurried out of the kitchen and to my front door. I suppose I could have just opened the back door and yelled at whoever was lurking around, but I didn’t like peepers and preferred to scare them into never creeping around my property again. I found that a gun leveled at their forehead tended to do the trick.
I hurried around to the rear of the house and paused at the corner, listening. I heard footsteps going up my porch steps and slipped into the hedges that lined the back wall of the house and crept toward the door. The sliver of moon provided just enough light to cast a dim glow around the shadowy figure standing on my porch.
Six foot two. Two hundred twenty pounds. Probably male. Never going to lurk around my property again.
I crouched at the edge of the porch, then sprang up, leveling my gun at the trespasser.
Chapter Seven
“There’s a gun pointing directly at your chest,” I said. “I suggest you don’t move.”
Normally, I’d go for the headshot. That was sorta my training. But since I wasn’t sure I needed to kill anyone, I figured I’d be conservative about things. A red dot on a chest was easily seen by the target and let people know you meant business.
“Whoa!” he said, his hands flying up in the air. “Don’t shoot. It’s Whiskey. From the Swamp Bar. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Whiskey?” I said.
I stepped out of the bushes and squinted into the dim light. The build was right and the voice sounded familiar. I hit the tactical light on my pistol and lifted it to his face. A very concerned-looking Whiskey held one hand over his eyes and left the other one in the air.
I lowered my gun. I knew Whiskey was capable of being a threat but I couldn’t imagine that he had a problem with me.
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “You could have been shot.”
“I’m definitely crazy,” he said. “Ask most anyone. And I’m starting to see the seriousness of the coulda-been-shot thing.”
“What the heck are you doing lurking around my house at 11:00 p.m.?”
“I needed to talk to you but I didn’t want to wake you up. I was trying to see if you were still up. I couldn’t get away from the bar earlier, but things finally slowed down and I was able to run off the few regulars that were still there and close up early.”
“Have you heard of a telephone?” I asked. “It’s this cool invention that allows you to talk to people without getting shot.”
“Yeah, maybe that would have been a better choice.”
I shook my head. “Well, you better come inside before Ronald notices and launches another campaign to get me arrested or figures out some way to sue me for having guests after his bedtime.”
Whiskey laughed and followed me around to the front door and then inside. “That dude is a piece of work. You know he came into the Swamp Bar one time.”
I came to a dead stop and turned around and stared. “No.”
Whiskey nodded. “Swear to God. Came in dripping wet. At first, I thought maybe a storm had come up and got him in the parking lot, but I looked outside and it was still clear as day.”
“So…?”
He grinned. “Said he’d heard it was wet T-shirt night, and as he’d never been to a wet T-shirt party, he thought he should go and check it off his bucket list.”
“He did not!”
“I couldn’t make something like that up. Even when I’m drunk, I’m not that creative.”
“And how did he react when you explained what wet T-shirt night really was?”
“He turned white as a sheet, then beet red, then started gasping like he couldn’t breathe. I was about to call for the paramedics. I thought the dude was having a heart attack. Then he wags his finger at me, like I’m ten years old or something, and says he’ll pray for me.”
I grinned and waved him into the kitchen. “Beer?”
“I wouldn’t turn one down. It’s been a really weird day.”
I pulled out a beer for Whiskey and a soda for myself and took a seat across from him. I’d first come into contact with Whiskey during our investigative excursions to the Swamp Bar, but we’d never really had much to say to each other until recently. Of course, sometimes I’d been to the bar in disguise and most of the time, we’d had to run out of there before we had to fight or participate in a gun duel. And then there was the time Gertie stole a boat at the bar and led everyone on a merry chase. Whiskey still didn’t know who’d done it, though. Thank goodness.
Given that the limited knowledge I had of him mostly included illegal activities or the propensity for violence, I suppose I should have asked him to make an appointment and come back during daylight. But curiosity had overridden good sense. Whatever had him closing the bar early and lurking outside my windows had to be good. And I wanted to know what it was. Plus, even though Whiskey was a big guy, he wasn’t all that fast. I’d taken down bigger.
“So what did you need to talk to me about?” I asked.
“You’re one of those PIs, right?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you heard about Venus Thibodeaux.”
I nodded.
“Good. I need you to find out who killed her.”
I frowned. “Investigating murders is more of a police detective thing.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like cops.”
“I can appreciate that. But I don’t understand why you want me to investigate. What’s your interest?”
“Because I don’t want it pinned on me.”
“Do you have reason to think it might be?”
“You mean aside from Carter dragging me down to the sheriff’s department this afternoon and questioning me for a good hour?”
“But he didn’t arrest you.”
“No. But I think it’s coming.”
“I know Venus worked at the Swamp Bar and the two of you were, uh, involved.”
“Ha. Involved. Is that what they call it these days when someone’s taking you for a ride?”
“It is if everyone else thought you were dating.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, I guess so. Look, Venus was like sugar to a diabetic. You couldn’t help but want her, but she was toxic. I should have known better than to get hooked up with her. Hell, the truth is I did know better.”
“But you couldn’t resist.”
He gave me a sheepish look. “Guess not. Stupid, right?”
“Probably. Particularly in light of current circumstances.”
“Yeah. I wonder sometimes if Nickel hadn’t been in jail when Venus blew back into town, if he could have talked some sense into me. But as usual, he wasn’t around when things went sideways. He can’t seem to manage more than a few months out at a time before he screws up something and they haul him back to New Orleans for an extended visit.”
I frowned, feeling sorry for Whiskey. His situation would be a lot easier if his brother got his life straight. “So why do you think Carter is going to arrest you? Dating someone isn’t a crime, even if they’re not worth the effort.”
“I was one of the last people to see her the night she was killed. And I might have told her I’d strangle her if I ever saw her again.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate. Especially if it turns out she was strangled.”
“Carter wouldn’t say.”
“No. I don’t expect he would. Why did you threaten her?”
“Caught her stealing from the till, the customers, the stock. Pretty much had her hands in everything. I drew the line when I saw ’em on a customer’s pants. And she wasn’t looking for his wallet, if you catch my drift.”
“Wow. Okay. That’s pretty awful. Did anyone overhear your threat?”
“Everyone in the bar.”
I sighed. “Maybe next
time, you can think about that whole witness thing before you get going.”
“That would probably be a good idea.”
I wasn’t sure what was more disconcerting—that Whiskey was allowing me to point out just how foolish he’d been without even a hint of anger or argument or that he was certain he’d be in the same position again.
“So how are you sure she was killed that night?”
“Because they poured the basketball court the next day.”
“Well, that certainly narrows down time of death.”
He nodded. “I went by her dad’s place a couple days later when I didn’t hear anything from her. Still had her final paycheck to issue even though she’d probably lifted five times that from the register. He told me she’d cleared out while he was at work and sent a text saying she was going back to New Orleans.”
“And given what you know now, you don’t think that’s odd?”
“What do you mean?”
“If we assume Percy is telling the truth, then someone let themself into Percy’s house, packed up Venus’s things, and sent a text from her phone.”
Whiskey’s eyes widened. “The killer.”
“I can’t imagine it would be anyone else.”
He whistled. “Now that you lay it out, whoever it was had some seriously big balls. I mean, to stroll in that man’s house and take her things out. I know he was at work, but this is Sinful. I can’t believe someone didn’t see something.”
I nodded. That had been the one sticking point that had been bugging me as well. It was possible someone had sneaked in that night and packed up Venus’s stuff without waking Percy, but it wasn’t overly likely. Packing and toting luggage around made noise. Opening windows and doors made noise. Unless Percy slept like the dead, I found it hard to believe that had been the case. Which left a daytime visit and no witnesses.