by Jana DeLeon
“I appreciate that,” Carter said. “And I’ll get back with you about a search. Do you need me to call the paramedics?”
“No. I’m fine,” Percy said. “Just need to put something on these tape burns. I assume these two won’t be out to terrorize me again?”
“I don’t think they’ll be out anytime soon,” Carter said. “Breaking and entering, assault…should hold them long enough to find even more things to charge them with.”
Percy nodded and looked over at me. “What were you doing here?”
“I’m a private investigator and I’m working this case,” I said, figuring the basics without mentioning my client would do. “Ida Belle and Gertie work for me. Given certain things we’ve discovered, we were afraid you might be in danger, so we drove over to check on you.”
Percy was confused but only shrugged. “None of that makes sense, but thank you.”
I figured we’d done all we could for the night and pretty successfully, I might add, but as I turned to Carter to tell him we were taking off, I noticed a bulge in Catfish’s waist.
“He’s got a weapon,” I said and yanked up his shirt. But it wasn’t a gun that I found stuffed in his pants. It was a paper bag.
I pulled it out and opened it up, figuring maybe we’d lucked out and found what they’d been searching for. I peered inside, expecting to find documents or a murder weapon, as it was too heavy to be just a flash drive, and was stunned to see a stack of cash inside.
“It’s money,” I said. “Hundreds. Lots of hundreds.”
“Don’t touch it,” Carter said. “You want to tell me where you got this?”
Catfish just glared.
“You are in a heap of trouble,” Carter said. “I suggest you start answering my questions. Did you steal this from Percy’s house? Is this what you’ve been looking for?”
More silence.
“My buddy with the NOLA PD is going to love hearing about your arrest,” Carter said. “He’ll love it even more when I tell him that given the way you taped up Percy, he could push for an attempted murder charge.”
Catfish finally came alive. “Man, I ain’t trying to murder nobody. Can’t nobody pin that on me.”
“Can’t they?” Carter asked.
Catfish stared at him, trying to figure out whether or not he was bluffing. But Carter didn’t bluff. Finally, Catfish blew out a breath.
“I found it on the floor at the front door,” he said.
“A bag of money?” Carter asked. “Just sitting on the floor next to the door. And you expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth!” Catfish insisted.
Percy frowned and stepped closer, studying the bag. “Is there something printed on the bottom of that bag?”
I turned the bag over and saw a stamp. “Says Calico Feed Store.”
Percy’s jaw dropped. “That’s my money. I knew she’d done it!”
“Done what?” Carter asked.
“Venus,” Percy said, his teeth clenched. “I had ten thousand dollars in that feedstore bag tucked in my safe-deposit box. When I went to add some to it earlier this year, it was gone. That bank manager tried to tell me that no one could access the box but me. But given that my money was gone and I didn’t take it, I don’t see how that’s the case.”
I remembered the gossip Dorothy had been spreading about Percy getting sideways with the bank manager. Apparently, it was true, and now we knew why.
“Was Venus on your account?” Carter asked.
“Hell, no,” Percy said. “But that don’t mean she couldn’t find the key. There was this guy who worked down there…maintenance or something. He was always sniffing around. He could have helped her.”
“You know his name?” Carter asked.
“Bart something,” Percy said.
“Did you ask the manager to check the security tapes?” Carter asked.
“Of course I did,” Percy said. “She said the thing was broken and hadn’t been recording. That all the tapes were static. I had to push her but she finally admitted that no one had checked them for a month. Some manager she is. I’ll see her fired over this.”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet,” Carter said.
“That’s easy to say when it’s not your money,” Percy said. “And I can prove it’s mine. Never trusted banks. I wrote down the serial number of every bill in there. Should have buried it in the backyard.”
“Bring me that list of numbers tomorrow,” Carter said. “And I’ll see what I can do to expedite getting your funds back to you.”
Percy gave him a nod, then turned around and stalked off. I could see his jaw flexing as he turned and figured Catfish was really lucky that Percy wasn’t armed.
A vehicle sounded behind us and we turned to see Deputy Breaux hurrying over. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I was on another call.”
“Anything important?” Carter asked.
Deputy Breaux hesitated as he glanced at us. Then he gave Catfish a good once-over, clearly confused about what had happened here.
“Let’s get this guy in your car,” Carter said, noticing the deputy’s hesitation. They secured Catfish in the patrol car before they both headed back over to where we were standing.
“So?” Carter asked Deputy Breaux. “The other call?”
“Jeff Breaux tried to kill himself,” he said.
“What?”
“No! Is he all right?”
“How?”
Ida Belle, Gertie, and I all spoke at once.
“Took a bunch of sleeping pills, looks like,” Deputy Breaux said. “Musta changed his mind, because he called 911 but passed out before he could say anything. I startled the heck out of Melanie, banging on the door in the middle of the night, but the paramedics got him sort of conscious. They’re taking him to the hospital.”
“He was in the Swamp Bar tonight,” I said.
“Really?” Carter said. “That doesn’t sound like Jeff.”
“He was drunk,” Ida Belle said. “Really drunk. And saying that Whiskey should be getting a medal and such. I think the discovery of Venus’s body brought back some bad memories for him. The night she disappeared was the night Melanie miscarried.”
Carter sighed. “He was really torn up about that.”
“They both were,” Gertie said. “Anyway, Bart Lagasse took him out of the bar and said he’d get him home.”
Carter frowned. “That’s two times Bart Lagasse’s name has come out of people’s mouths tonight. I know he did maintenance at the bank for a while. They fired him, of course. He can’t hold a job for any length of time.”
“Maybe you should talk to him,” Ida Belle said.
“Oh, you bet I’ll bet talking to him,” Carter said. “About Jeff. About this money. About a lot of things.”
“There’s something else you might mention,” I said and repeated my conversation with Misty about Venus and Bart talking in the parking lot after Whiskey had fired her.
Carter’s jaw clenched and I could tell he wasn’t happy that someone else was looking good for Venus’s murder. Especially when he had Starlight and Catfish all wrapped up in a neat little bow.
“Did Melanie go with the ambulance?” Gertie asked.
Deputy Breaux nodded. “She didn’t look so good. I asked if there was anyone I could call but she said no. I just waited until they left, then hurried over for this call. What exactly happened here?”
“All I know,” Carter said, “is that this guy and Starlight broke into Percy’s house, tied him up, and taped his mouth shut. I need you to get Starlight out of the bedroom. Bring your handcuffs. She’s currently tied up with a lamp cord.”
“Sir?” Deputy Breaux looked confused.
“We’ll figure it all out later,” Carter said. “Let’s just get these two into jail and then we’ll sort it out.” He looked over at us. “I’ll need to talk to you guys first thing in the morning.”
I nodded and we headed for Ida Belle’s SUV.
&nb
sp; “Okay, so that wasn’t weird at all,” Gertie said as we pulled away.
Ida Belle nodded. “That was out there, even for Sinful. You’d think it was a full moon with all the crazy behavior going on.”
“What about the money?” I asked. “You think Venus got Bart to help her steal it from the safe-deposit box?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Ida Belle said. “And since you’re not supposed to keep cash in there, Percy didn’t have a leg to stand on with the bank.”
“When he coughs up those serial numbers and proves Venus managed to get her hands on his money, there’s going to be hell to pay down at the bank,” Gertie said. “Rumor has it that manager’s been on thin ice for a while now.”
“I wonder where Venus had the money hidden,” Ida Belle said. “Clearly somewhere good enough that they didn’t find it last time.”
“That Catfish doesn’t strike me as all that intelligent,” Gertie said. “We’re supposed to believe he found a bag of cash on the living room floor? He should have just said it was his.”
“And probably would have if Fortune hadn’t spotted it,” Ida Belle said. “I mean, I don’t think for a minute that Carter or the DA or anyone else with a brain would buy that Catfish stuffed a bag of hundreds in his pants and then went to do some breaking and entering, but like Gertie said, clearly, he’s not all that intelligent.”
“We knew that as soon as we heard he’d hooked up with Starlight,” Gertie said.
“True.”
Gertie sobered. “You better call Marie and see if she can help with Melanie and Jeff tomorrow at the hospital. Jeff’s parents are still out of town, right?”
Ida Belle nodded. “I’ll call her first thing in the morning. Assuming the hospital releases him, they’ll need a ride home. If they decide to keep him, Melanie will still need to come home and get some clothes and she’ll need company. We’re a little booked with giving police statements and running bars.”
“I had no idea Jeff was so depressed,” Gertie said. “I just thought he was having a drunken pity party and he’d work off his headache, then move on. I guess he still hasn’t gotten over losing the baby.”
“He was a wreck that next morning when we picked them up at the hospital, remember?” Ida Belle said.
“How could I forget?” Gertie asked.
“He doesn’t have any other family nearby?” I asked, remembering that Melanie didn’t have any left.
“Jeff’s family isn’t that big and the rest gravitated off to college and jobs in the city,” Ida Belle said. “His parents moved to New Orleans when their import/export business took off and they travel out of the country a lot.”
“I really hope this stress doesn’t cause Melanie any problems with her pregnancy,” Gertie said. “I’d hate for her to lose this baby too. Maybe the overdose was accidental. I mean, Jeff was really drunk and he’s not much of a drinker.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I think you’re probably right, especially since he called for help. I can’t imagine him taking his own life with the new baby on the way. He probably just didn’t realize how many he’d taken.”
“I almost took a handful of blood pressure meds once when I was working on a new batch of Sinful cough syrup,” Gertie said. “Lucky for me, it was a box of Tic Tacs. Had fresh breath for days.”
Ida Belle looked over at me. “You’re awfully quiet. You should be happy. Tonight’s debacle should be enough for the DA to let Whiskey go.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “But he’s still not completely off the hook. Not until a case is built against Starlight and Catfish. And I’m not sure that’s going to be a slam dunk.”
“Why not?” Gertie asked.
“Because something doesn’t feel right,” I said.
“You don’t think they did it?” Gertie asked.
“I’m not convinced they did,” I said. “That ten thousand dollars gave Percy a lot of reasons to throttle Venus. And since we’ve already agreed that no one had better access to pack up her things and ditch the car that night, I still can’t eliminate him.”
Ida Belle frowned. “I don’t want it to be Percy, but I agree it looks sketchy. Especially now that we know about the money.”
“I want it to be Catfish,” Gertie said.
“I think we all want it to be Catfish,” Ida Belle said. “But we can’t do business based on what we’d like. The truth is the only thing that sets Whiskey free for good. Otherwise, this whole mess just hangs over everyone’s head. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but that girl caused so much trouble when she was alive. I really don’t want her lingering forever from the afterlife.”
Gertie sighed. “So what’s our next step?”
“Shower and bed,” I said. “We try to sleep, have breakfast, and go give our statements down at the sheriff’s department. Then I guess we have to take a closer look at Percy and Bart Lagasse. If Bart helped Venus get Percy’s money, then he knew what she had. He might have killed her for it, then couldn’t find it.”
“He’s definitely foolish enough to make the mistakes we’ve seen,” Ida Belle said. “But if he got the money out of the box, he could have just kept it then.”
“And Venus would have turned him in,” I said. “My guess is she said she’d give him a cut, but if all 10k is in that bag, then it’s just another scam she ran. A man with his temper has limits. She might have hit his.”
Ida Belle dropped me off at my house and I gave them a wave as I headed inside. For the first time in a long time, I was utterly exhausted. Running the bar had been both easier and harder than I’d thought it would be, but combine that with hunting down potential murderers in the middle of the night and I was done in. I thought briefly about the uneaten lasagna, but couldn’t bring myself to care. Instead, I headed upstairs, took a hot shower, and poured myself into bed.
I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
Chapter Twenty-One
Given all the activity the night before, I figured I’d be able to sleep in, but by 8:00 a.m. my mind was racing and wouldn’t allow my tired body to lie still any longer. Plus, I was starving. I threw back the covers and headed downstairs to fix up a quick prebreakfast snack before my real breakfast at the café. I got a text from Ida Belle while I was eating toast over the sink—less cleanup that way—letting me know that she and Gertie were awake and ready to meet whenever I was.
I texted back that I’d be at the café in fifteen minutes and headed upstairs to dress. Ida Belle and Gertie were already at our usual table in the corner when I arrived, and Ally stuck a cup of coffee in front of me as soon as I sat down.
“I heard you guys ran the Swamp Bar last night and foiled a robbery at Percy’s house,” Ally said. “That’s a lot to put into a single night. Do you want me to run an IV of this stuff? Or, if you don’t like needles, Francine is stocking energy drinks now.”
I smiled. “I think the coffee will do for now.”
We ordered breakfast and Ally went off to the kitchen.
“Did you guys hear anything about Jeff?” I asked.
Ida Belle nodded. “Marie said he’s awake and told the doctor he thinks he remembers taking a bunch of aspirin. That’s the best possible explanation for a bad scenario. He could have died, but at least it wasn’t intentional.”
“So he says,” Gertie said. “But according to Marie, Melanie is still worried. She said he hasn’t been himself lately, been sleeping a lot, not interested in watching sports or fishing.”
“Sounds like a classic case of depression,” I said.
Gertie nodded. “Marie said Melanie is feeling responsible as it was her sleeping pills he took. She didn’t think keeping them in the same cabinet would be a problem.”
“Hopefully, the new baby will shake him out his funk,” Ida Belle said. “Anyway, Marie said they’re releasing him this afternoon so he’ll be home for Thanksgiving. His parents fly back in Thanksgiving morning. I think that will do him some good.”
“It’s a relief to know he’
s okay,” I said. “I felt somewhat responsible since he got drunk at the bar. Maybe he’ll lay off the alcohol for a while. He doesn’t seem a good candidate to take up serious drinking.”
“Definitely not,” Gertie agreed. “So, did you solve this mystery in your sleep?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “I’m not sure I even solved lack of sleep in my sleep.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I never did get into a deep slumber. Everything was surface level. I feel like I dreamed all night but I can’t remember them. Just tiny bits of anxiety and frustration are all that remain.”
“Yeah. Same for me,” I said. “I think we have so many angles to consider right now that our minds are finding it hard to sort it out. I was thinking after we talk to Carter that maybe we should take a break from investigating and put everything on paper. Maybe tack sheets with different points on my kitchen wall. I read somewhere that seeing things in writing sometimes prompts a different line of thinking.”
“Sounds interesting,” Ida Belle said. “Why not.”
“I’ll try anything to get better sleep,” Gertie said. “Between running the bar, clobbering bad guys with my purse, and Francis citing the Florida penal code all night, I am beyond scattered.”
“You were beyond scattered before,” Ida Belle said. “But that bird is going to be the death of you.”
“At least I’m keeping up on Bible verses and Florida criminal law,” Gertie said.
“Neither of which help in our current line of work,” Ida Belle said. “Unless you have the opportunity to pray for someone who’s being extradited to Florida for prosecution.”
“It’s better than me taking up singing with him,” Gertie said.
“True,” Ida Belle agreed and then looked at me. “Have you heard anything from Carter this morning?”
“Not even a text,” I said. “I imagine he’s as busy and as exhausted as we are. Maybe more. I wonder if he’s even been home since arresting Catfish and Starlight.”
“He hasn’t,” Ida Belle said. “Myrtle sneaked outside and gave me a call earlier. He’s been there all night. Catfish and Starlight aren’t saying much that she can tell and Carter looks frustrated as heck. And apparently, Catfish and Whiskey tried to go at each other between the bars when Whiskey figured out why they were in jail. Carter had to shift them around and put Starlight in the middle.”