by Jana DeLeon
“It’s probably not sitting under some branches in the woods,” Gertie said. “All sorts of hunting seasons opened up the last few months. Hunters will have been across every square inch of woods around here. If anyone had seen it, they’d have reported it.”
“Has to be in the bayou,” Ida Belle said. “It’s the only place people aren’t going to get in for a closer look. Boat hits something solid, you just assume it’s a submerged tree or piece of a broken wharf…that sort of thing. With all the lack of maintenance and hurricanes, there’s a ton of stuff shifting under that water. You don’t stop to take a closer look.”
“Okay,” I said. “So where can someone get a car into the bayou where it’s deep enough to sink under the water and won’t be an obstruction? It’s not like he could have sent it down a boat ramp. That would have been caught.”
“Sure,” Ida Belle said. “A boat ramp’s the only place people worry about clearing submerged items. The problem is finding a place where you can get close enough to the bayou to send a car into it. Most roads end well before the bayou begins and the trees are usually too thick to fit a car between.”
“What about a camp?” I asked. “Some of the camps are accessible by cars. Is there one with enough clearance to drive around behind the cabin and into the bayou? And with water deep enough to get rid of a car?”
Gertie and Ida Belle stared at each other, as if they were sending data between two computers. Finally, Gertie nodded.
“There’s several that meet the driving criteria part,” she said, “but we’d have to check on the depth of the water. The Swamp Bar is one of them, of course.”
“But if we accept that Whiskey didn’t do it then it wouldn’t be there,” I said.
“Unless someone wanted to frame him,” Gertie said.
“That’s a risky proposition,” I said. “There’s always people in and out of that bar. And I’m not sure Whiskey leaves much except to fish.”
Ida Belle nodded. “It’s definitely risky, but if we’re going to be thorough, we have to check it out.”
“Okay. You said there’s a couple other spots?” I said.
“I can think of four more,” Ida Belle said. “Two that have a bit of an overhang. Would be easy to put a board on the accelerator and send a car off it.”
“I know the two she’s got in mind,” Gertie said. “Water’s fairly deep past those overhangs.”
“Good,” I said. “Then we’ll start with those. Who owns them?”
“One of them belongs to Pastor Don,” Ida Belle said.
“And the other?” I asked.
Ida Belle and Gertie exchanged looks.
“The other belongs to Nickel,” Gertie said.
I sighed. No matter how I tossed things, they came back around to all fingers pointing at Whiskey.
“We’ll start there,” I said.
Thirty minutes later, we were loading my airboat. I’m not sure if I was excited that we might find the car or worried that we might find the car. Locating Venus’s vehicle at Nickel’s camp was no different from finding it at the Swamp Bar. I had pulled out my new toy at the house and Ida Belle had been so excited that for a minute she looked as if she were going to bounce like Gertie. It was a handheld underwater metal detector. The kind the SEALs used, and if there was a quarter in the bayou, it would let us know.
“But the bayous are loaded with trash,” Gertie said. “It’s going to pick up every beer can from here to Mexico.”
“I can set the tolerance so we only get large, dense items,” I said. “We’ll still pick up submerged boats and other larger structures that might be there, but it will ignore the smaller items.”
“And what then?” Gertie asked. “You’re not going to jump in like you did that one time. Remember how that turned out.”
“I remember,” I said. The last time I’d thought it was a good idea to take a dip in pursuit of evidence, an alligator had decided that pursuit of me was a good idea. It had put an end to my ideas of swimming in the local waters but did have me thinking about putting in a pool.
“I have an underwater camera as well,” I said. “But if the water’s too muddy, we’re not going to be able to make out much.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will be clear,” Ida Belle said. “That’s assuming we find anything in the first place.”
I nodded. “I know interviewing people would probably be a better use of our time, but I just can’t shake this thought.”
“If it’s got a hold of you then that’s what we need to pursue,” Ida Belle said. “You’ve got good instincts. We need to trust them. I’m not saying they’ll always be right, but we’re not the police. We can afford to make mistakes.”
“Except with alligators,” I said. “Which is why no one is going in the water.”
“Why did you look at me when you said that?” Gertie asked. “I have no intention of going in.”
“You rarely do,” Ida Belle said. “But then, there you are.”
“That last fall off the pier wasn’t my fault,” Gertie said. “Those boards were rotted.”
“You intended to go into the water in Florida,” I said. “And ended up topless and facing a murder charge.”
“Good point,” Ida Belle said.
“That was an extreme situation,” Gertie said. “I’m telling you, I’m not even going to get near the edge of the boat except to get in. Well, and out.”
Ida Belle didn’t look convinced. I figured it was the “out” part that she was sketchy on, but it was as good as we were getting.
“Let’s worry about things if they happen,” I said. “I know that sounds odd coming from someone who used to have to time even her breathing on the job, but this is a new day and a new occupation. Sometimes you just have to play it by ear.”
Ida Belle nodded and secured the equipment in the storage bench. Gertie climbed in and onto her padded seat in the bottom of the boat in front of the bench, I took the passenger’s seat, and Ida Belle took over the driver’s chair. Technically, it was my boat, but Ida Belle was a better driver and more importantly, she knew where we were going. Work was all about efficiency, especially when you were charging your client by the hour.
We set off down the bayou until we hit the lake, then Ida Belle skimmed across the southern edge until she located the channel she was looking for. She made a hard right, the airboat gliding across the surface as if it were glass, then set off down a fairly wide bayou. The terrain on the side went from marsh grass closest to the lake, to marsh grass and a couple of scraggly trees, then eventually to cypress trees lining both sides of the bank.
I couldn’t help but smile. The sun was out, the bayou was smooth, I had on shorts, T-shirt, and tennis shoes, and I was getting paid to do this. It was a far cry from my previous working conditions.
Gertie pointed at a glint of metal in the distance and as we approached, I could see the sun reflecting off the tin roof of a camp that was located on an overhang that sat about eight feet above the bayou. A steep, narrow path led from the overhang down to a small dock on the bayou. Ida Belle slowed the boat to a crawl and we approached the dock.
“This is Nickel’s place,” Ida Belle said. “It’s a little more remote on the driving side of things than Pastor Don’s, so I figured we’d start here first. The road to Pastor Don’s has a couple of permanent houses on it. This one doesn’t.”
I nodded. The killer had less chance of being seen on the route to Nickel’s, which made it the better choice. People in Sinful didn’t keep banker’s hours. You never knew who might be wandering around during the night. Not to mention that the sound of an approaching car on a road with no through traffic was the sort of thing that got people out of bed to take a look.
Gertie opened up the storage bench as Ida Belle killed the engine and I jumped down from my seat to get the radar ready. I’d already adjusted the settings at my house, so it was really just a matter of putting the strap in place and firing it up.
“Where shoul
d I look?” I asked.
Ida Belle pointed up to an area of the overhang about thirty feet away from the dock.
“The road dead-ends right in front of the camp,” she said. “But he cleared a larger area in order to haul the water tank off to the side. You could easily fit a car through the opening, even with the water tank in place.”
Gertie grabbed a long cane pole and stuck it in the water, directing the boat toward the area Ida Belle had indicated. Fortunately, the tide was barely moving, so that made things easier. When we were within ten feet of the spot Ida Belle had indicated, I turned on the radar and leaned over the side of the boat and waited for the magic to happen. The screen was mostly a blurry gray, but if something large and solid appeared, it would register as darker black and should have more clarity of shape than the smaller debris that the radar was picking up.
We moved along for a good ten feet when I caught the edge of something on my screen.
“Wait,” I said. “Stop here and move us out by a couple feet.”
Gertie dug the pole into the water and directed us back a bit, then she went to give it another shove and the pole dropped straight down, sending her plunging into the bottom of the boat. I managed to grab the pole and Gertie popped back up.
“Got deep,” she said. “I didn’t hit bottom, even falling.”
Ida Belle consulted the depth finder. “Look like a good twenty foot drop here. Probably only six feet or so before.”
“I have something,” I said, staring at the large black mass on my screen. “It’s big and boxy.”
Ida Belle came over to look and nodded. “Doesn’t look like the shape of a boat. No narrowing at either end. Could still be a shrimping barge, though.”
“Let’s see if we can find out,” I said, and grabbed the underwater camera. “Do you think you can get me close to the back end using paddles?”
“Tide’s not going out yet,” Ida Belle said, “so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
She and Gertie each grabbed an oar and took opposite sides of the boat, directing it per my instructions. When the radar indicated I was at the back of the structure nearest the overhang, I dropped the camera in the water and let it sink. Ida Belle tossed the anchor and I heard it splash into the bayou behind me.
I watched the screen, trying to locate the structure in the murky water, but so far, I’d only managed to spot the occasional fish that swam right up to the camera to inspect it, probably attracted by the lights. Still too high, I thought, and lowered the camera more. When I was about ten feet down, I stopped and moved it a bit from left to right. Then I caught sight of something lighter-colored in the distance.
“Pull the anchor and move us forward maybe two feet,” I said.
I watched the screen as we moved forward until the lighter-colored object finally came into focus.
Bingo. It was a license plate.
Chapter Twelve
I captured a screenshot of the license plate and pulled out my phone.
“Carter,” I said when he answered. “We found an abandoned car. Can you run the plate?”
I gave him the plate number and waited. A couple minutes later, I heard him curse.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Who does the car belong to?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Here’s how this works,” I said. “You tell me who the car is registered to and I’ll tell you where to find it. I mean, you could probably find it on your own, but with everything else on your plate and all…”
Ida Belle gave me a thumbs-up.
He sighed. “The car belongs to Venus.”
Jackpot.
Ida Belle motioned for me to hand her the phone.
“You’re going to need a strong wench,” she said to Carter. “And a barge large enough to haul a car.” She gave him the coordinates of where to find the car.
He was still swearing when she handed the phone back to me, grinning.
“Tell me you did not get in the water,” he said.
“Not even a finger,” I said. “Even Gertie has managed to stay topside.”
“Good. That’s good,” he said, and I could tell he was relieved. “It’s going to take some time for me to put that kind of equipment and men together. The car’s not going anywhere, so you guys clear out before someone sees you.”
I knew exactly what his worry was. Now that Venus’s body had surfaced, the killer might worry that the car would be found as well. It was highly unlikely that any forensic evidence would be present after being underwater this long. But with all the news reports about cold cases being solved by new technology and then the blatant exaggeration and misinformation bandied around social media, the killer might have different thoughts on the subject.
I glanced up at the overhang and saw a flash of blue. It was gone so quickly that the average person would have dismissed it as a chance of light or their eyes playing tricks on them. But I knew better. I was trained to observe and record everything. Something blue was moving on the overhang, and since I wasn’t aware of any blue animals, I could only assume it was a person.
The tide had started to go out during my phone call to Carter and the boat had drifted within five feet of the dock. Before Ida Belle and Gertie could ask me what I was doing, I climbed into the driver’s seat and jumped out of the boat. I heard the gasp behind me but I didn’t have time to explain. I took the small dock in two strides then scrambled up the narrow steps to the top of the overhang.
I didn’t see anything behind the camp, so I ran around, scanning the woods as I ran. When I got to the front, I heard a vehicle start up in the distance and peel out in the gravel. I sprinted up the road, but when I broke free of the thick trees, it had already disappeared around a bend about a quarter mile away, leaving only dust to let me know it had passed that way.
I turned around and hurried back to the boat before Ida Belle and Gertie attempted to follow me. They’d pulled the boat right up to the dock in my absence and Ida Belle was on the dock, preparing to head up the steps when I called out for her to wait. She looked up and I could see the relief on her face when she caught sight of me.
“Thank goodness,” Gertie said as I followed Ida Belle back into the boat. “We didn’t know what to think. Why did you take off like that?”
“I saw something move in the woods above us,” I said.
Gertie’s eyes widened. “And you think it was the killer?”
“It wasn’t Nickel,” I said. “So unless anyone else had good reason to be out here and even better reason to run when I chased them, then yeah, it’s possible.”
“Could have been kids looking for a place to party,” Ida Belle said.
“Or someone who heard Nickel was locked up and was looking for something to steal,” Gertie said. “There’s been a rash of break-ins lately.”
My shoulders relaxed a bit. “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. Either of those are probably just as logical as what I was thinking.”
Ida Belle glanced up at the overhang and frowned. “But your initial thought isn’t completely far-fetched. Now that the body has been found, I suppose the killer is panicking.”
“But coming here is stupid,” Gertie said. “Even if the car had somehow surfaced, what were they going to do about it? And honestly, what difference does it make if it’s found now? Carter already has the body.”
“Maybe there’s something inside that could point to them,” Ida Belle said.
“Like what?” Gertie asked.
“A piece of clothing, jewelry, a pen,” I suggested. “Something that could have fallen when they were in the car and they didn’t realize was gone until afterward.”
Gertie stared into the water and shook her head. “How scared does someone have to be to consider diving in there and trying to find a tiny object in a car that’s been submerged for months?”
“Pretty scared, I’d think,” Ida Belle said. “If it was the killer up there, then that lends more support to our crime-of-passion
theory.”
“And by someone who wouldn’t stand out as the obvious choice,” I said.
“So someone who wasn’t planning to kill someone, did,” Gertie said. “Then they rushed to hide it and did a pretty good job until my turkey caper uncovered it. Now they’re thinking they didn’t do such a good job covering things up as they thought and they came to make sure the car was still unexposed.”
“Which makes them panicked and dangerous,” Ida Belle said. “If it was the killer, and he saw us down here, then he’ll know exactly what we were doing.”
“He won’t know who we’re working for,” Gertie said.
“It will get around eventually,” I said. “There were a couple guys in the Swamp Bar when I was there earlier. You know how things make the rounds here.”
“So what now?” Gertie asked.
“I give Carter another call,” I said, “and let him know that someone has to sit on this car until he can get it up. You’re armed, right?”
Ida Belle pulled a .45 from her backpack, a compact nine-millimeter from her ankle and a knife the size of the Mississippi River from her back. I didn’t even want to think about how she sat with that thing back there.
Gertie opened her purse and smiled. “Let’s see, I’ve got—”
“No!” Ida Belle and I both spoke at once.
“It’s probably better if I just get a ‘yes’ and not an inventory,” I said. “Definitely better if Carter doesn’t know.”
“Okay, but you guys are missing out on some cool stuff,” Gertie said. “I found this former prepper online who was selling off everything.”
“Why is he no longer a prepper?” Ida Belle asked.
“His mother told him he couldn’t have all that stuff in the house anymore,” Gertie said.
“How old was he?” I asked.
“Thirty-two,” Gertie said.
“His mother needed to tell him he couldn’t have himself in her house anymore,” Ida Belle said.
“That’s pretty much what happened,” Gertie said. “She said he had to cut his hair, get a job, and pay rent. He figured since he’s been on a run of bad luck that if things go down, it will be while he’s at work. Therefore, there’s no point in prepping anymore.”