by Jana DeLeon
“This is pretty,” I said.
“Rollie’s got a green thumb,” Gertie said. “I’ve been trying to get him to enter some of his roses in flower shows for years, but he won’t do it. Too many people.”
We knocked on the door and a couple seconds later, it opened.
Five feet ten. Two hundred sixty pounds, most of the extra in his belly. Introvert’s habit of glancing at a person, then looking down. Easy to see how Cooke got the advantage. No threat unless armed and actually looking at me before firing.
And his poor face and head.
The bruises had already set in on his jaw and both his eyes. His nose was still swollen and there was a lump at his hairline. Cooke had really done a number on him.
Rollie didn’t look overly thrilled at the idea of company but he didn’t look irritated either, so that boded well for us. Gertie held up the aluminum pan.
“I brought you a chicken casserole,” she said. “We figured you might have a headache and not want to move around. It’s frozen, so you can heat it up whenever you’re ready.”
Rollie perked up when he saw the casserole. Score another point for Gertie’s cooking. The entire town must be hooked on it.
“That’s so nice of you,” he said, and gave me a curious look.
“I’m so sorry,” Ida Belle said. “This is our friend, Fortune Redding. She’s a new addition to Sinful.”
“Oh, right,” he said. “The CIA agent. I’ve heard about you.”
“I get that a lot,” I said.
“Would you like to come in for tea?” he asked, clearly finding no good reason to avoid social niceties. “I just brewed a batch.”
“That would be great,” Ida Belle said as we followed him to his kitchen. “We won’t keep you long. You need your rest. We just wanted to make sure you were okay after that unpleasant business with that fraud of a Santa.”
Rollie shook his head as he served the tea, then took a seat. “It’s certainly not the kind of thing you think of happening. I keep asking myself what in the world could he have been up to? Then I hear he died and I figure karma came back on him.”
“It wasn’t karma,” I said. “He was poisoned.”
Rollie’s eyes widened. “What? Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I said. “Cyanide. And as Ida Belle had given him mouth-to-mouth, she got to spend a good portion of her night in the ER making sure she didn’t contract any of it from him.”
“Good Lord Almighty,” Rollie said, his body language and facial expression shifting from reserved to sympathetic and open. “I’m sorry that happened. Here you are, trying to do something good and that’s what comes of it.”
“Same could be said for you,” Gertie said. “You volunteer to be Santa every year. I’m sure you never figured on being attacked for it.”
“True,” he agreed. “So who poisoned him?”
“No one knows,” I said. “Carter is investigating, of course, but he’s got to figure out who the guy is first. You didn’t recognize him, did you?”
“Not at all,” Rollie said. “That whole time I was locked up in the closet, I figured it was one of them home invasion things like I see on the news sometimes. When Carter let me out and told me what had happened, well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. It just didn’t make any sense. None of it. And now that I find out someone killed him, it just gets stranger.”
“Indeed it does,” Ida Belle agreed.
He blew out a breath. “I guess I should feel sorry the man’s dead, but I can’t work up to it. Given the way he went about things, he couldn’t have been up to any good.”
“We definitely agree with you there,” Ida Belle said. “But we’re also worried.”
He scrunched his brow. “Why? The man’s dead.”
“Yes, but if he was after something or someone, a Sinful resident might still be at risk,” Ida Belle said. “There could be others besides him. Or he could have backup. I know it sounds dire, but I just don’t feel right about all of it. It’s too odd. Even for Sinful.”
He frowned. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“Did he say anything while he was here?” Ida Belle asked. “Anything that might give you an idea why he was doing this?”
“No,” Rollie said. “He didn’t say anything when he was knocking me around. Although I have to admit, after a couple of blows to my head, I don’t remember anything until I woke up in that closet, all tied up.”
Gertie flashed an angry look at me and I shook my head. Rollie was lucky he hadn’t sustained serious damage due to the beating. I found myself thinking, once again, that the world might be a better place now that Cooke was gone.
“Oh well,” Ida Belle said. “I guess we couldn’t really expect that he’d give you a rundown of his plans. But we figured it didn’t hurt to ask. It worries us that someone might be in danger.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “Worries me too now that I know more about it all.”
“This whole Christmas show thing has been a doozy,” Gertie said. “And after all that trouble my bird created, I bet there’s some people wishing I’d taken that free trip to the casino that I was offered.”
I looked over at Gertie and held in a smile. Great segue.
“You got one of those too?” Rollie asked. “I figured it was bull. I mean, I wouldn’t have gone anyway…not my thing, you know?”
I looked over at Ida Belle, who raised one eyebrow. Bull’s-eye. I’d bet anything Cooke had been the ‘contract’ Santa at the other celebration. His plan had worked on Mudbug’s usual fill-in but hadn’t worked on the introverted engineer. So Cooke had reverted to plan B. The gap between the two plans was rather disconcerting, even for me. Offer a guy a free trip to a casino or beat a guy unconscious and lock him in a closet. Cooke was either a sociopath who got off on that kind of thing or was really desperate for a paycheck. Or maybe the paycheck was big enough that he didn’t care what it took to earn it.
I was hoping for one of the first two options, because the third presented a whole other set of problems. Where there was one Cooke for hire, there would be others. And among some in our society, ethics had an inverse relationship with money offered.
Chapter Six
After finishing our business with Rollie, we headed back to my house so I could draw up a contract for Big Hebert and get it emailed. While I worked on that, Ida Belle and Gertie attempted to get my living room back in order. The entire process had been made even more difficult by Merlin, who’d apparently held a party while we were gone. Ornaments and tinsel were scattered all over the house. And he still hadn’t eaten his breakfast. He was really on a tear. I made a note to sleep with my bedroom door closed that night.
I had just emailed the contract when Mannie called.
“I’ve got the address,” he said. “Sorry it took a bit to track it down. His credit is crap, so he’s got some weekly motel rental.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said. “You barely took an hour. Given his living situation, I’m surprised you got an address at all.”
“I have my ways.”
“Hmm. I wonder if Carter has the same ways you do.”
“I doubt it.”
“Then we might beat him to the scene.”
“There’s a chance of that, but given the situation, it’s going to be considered a crime scene. Are you sure you want to risk taking a look?”
“Are you?”
“Sure. But I’m not sleeping with the deputy.”
“Ah. Good point. I suppose we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t find out.”
“You have a strange way with relationships.”
“No. I have priorities. My priority is to my client and I can’t talk about work that I’ve been hired to do.”
He chuckled. “Let me know how that one plays out in the long run.”
“Let me worry about the long run. Where do you want to meet?”
“I’m on my way to pick you up now. Give me ten. The motel is just
outside of New Orleans, so we have a bit of a drive.”
“Don’t want to ride with Ida Belle?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
I could practically feel him smiling as he disconnected. I closed my laptop and headed into the living room to fill Ida Belle and Gertie in on the living quarters situation.
“That’s great!” Gertie said. “Since Cooke is such a loser, everything important should be right there in that motel room.”
Ida Belle nodded, but I noticed her excitement level wasn’t as high as I expected.
“You all right?” I asked her.
“I was just wondering what you plan on telling Carter,” she said. “I know you’ve got the client confidentiality card to play, but you and I both know that Carter’s going to have a fit when he finds out who your client is.”
“Maybe. Probably.” I threw my hands up in the air. “What do you want me to say? This is my job and this is me. It’s not like he didn’t know what he was getting into.”
“That’s true,” Ida Belle said. “But what is he going to think when he finds out you withheld big information pertinent to his murder investigation? Confidentiality aside, he’s going to feel betrayed. We can assume Carter has identity from the ME because as a PI, Cooke’s prints should have been on file. But unless there was something in the car to tip them off to where Cooke has been staying, we probably got that bit of information before he did.”
I sighed. “So you think we shouldn’t do this?”
“Of course I think we should do it,” Ida Belle said. “I’m just making sure you know what kind of aftermath you’re in for if Carter finds out you withheld information.”
“You and Mannie are like an echo chamber,” I said.
“Mannie’s worried about your relationship?” Gertie asked. “That’s sweet. I think Mannie is a really nice guy.”
“Except for the part where he’s a stone-cold killer, I would agree,” I said. “But all of you need to stop worrying about me and Carter. Let me worry about that.”
“So you’ve got a plan?” Gertie asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Don’t get caught.”
“Isn’t that always the plan?” Ida Belle asked.
“This time it’s going to work,” I said.
“Are we leaving Gertie at home?” Ida Belle asked.
Gertie gave her the finger and I grinned as I heard a honk in the driveway.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go find some clues.”
Ida Belle protested a bit about being a passenger but she knew better than to challenge Mannie over driving. There was no way she was winning that match. Plus, Mannie pointed out that the SUV he drove was equipped with bulletproof windows and doors. She grumbled something about needing to talk to Hot Rod as she climbed into the back seat and I shook my head. Before she was done with her SUV, it would be a rocket ship with tanklike protection disguised as a Chevy.
Mannie’s driving speed was on par with Ida Belle’s, which seemed to mollify her a bit, but I knew as soon as we got back, Hot Rod would be getting an earful since he built the Heberts’ vehicles and hadn’t offered her the same options. The drive itself was an interesting one. No one seemed to know what to talk about with Mannie in our midst so bouts of silence were broken by Gertie recounting tales of things Francis said and her latest desire for a flamethrower. That one actually got a response from everyone, and it was an overwhelming no. But I had a feeling the fire department would be getting a call to Gertie’s house sometime in the future. I just hoped she used it outside.
The motel that Cooke had been living in was off the highway about ten miles outside of New Orleans, which was a plus because at least we didn’t have to go into the city and deal with all the traffic that came with it. The downside was that it looked like the kind of place where you needed a car with bulletproof windows and doors.
“Cooke certainly didn’t spend his earnings on his living quarters,” Gertie said as we drove by on the access road to get a look at the place before approaching. “If it weren’t for the people standing around, I’d think this place was abandoned.”
“I’m pretty sure it should be,” Ida Belle said.
“Then where would all these fine, upstanding citizens stay?” Mannie asked. “Sometimes it’s better to have certain types collected in one place.”
“But why was Cooke here?” I asked. “He’s a PI, not a criminal. I mean, I know he crossed lines to do his job but that’s not gunrunning or drug dealing or the like.”
“I only met Cooke once,” Mannie said, “but my impression was he would stay in a place like this because this is what he was comfortable with.”
“You think he grew up in this sort of situation,” Ida Belle said.
Mannie shrugged. “It’s just an impression.”
“And probably correct,” Ida Belle said. “Fortune is able to size people up like that and she’s usually right. We pay attention when she gets a feeling about something.”
“It’s an instinct I believe some people are born with,” Mannie said as he turned onto a side street just past the motel. “So how would you like to handle this?”
“I’d like to get into Cooke’s room and see if there are any records of who hired him and what he was hired to do,” I said. “But all the rooms are in full view of the highway. No chance for cover.”
“It’s a gamble, for sure,” Mannie said. He turned into the parking lot from the rear entry and drove around to the front. “Let me go in the office and get the room number.”
“You’ve already done enough,” I said. “I can do it.”
“If it’s a young guy in there,” Gertie said, “Fortune is your best bet for getting information.”
Mannie grinned. “I can see where that would be effective, but cash works as well. Besides, no one can see inside this car. In the event that your deputy shows up, he won’t see you walking out of the front office.”
“He’ll see you,” Ida Belle said.
“Yes,” Mannie agreed. “But as I discussed earlier with Ms. Redding—I’m not sleeping with him. Be right back.”
Before I could launch another argument, he hopped out of the SUV and headed into the office. In no time at all, he walked back out, frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as he climbed into the vehicle. “You couldn’t get the room number?”
“No. I got the room number,” he said. “But the clerk mistook me for the deputy he talked to about ten minutes ago, who was asking about Cooke.”
“Crap,” I said. “That’s Carter. I bet there was something in Cooke’s car that tipped him off to this place—matchbook, stamp on a room key, something.”
Mannie nodded. “So what do you want to do?”
I blew out a breath. “He was probably calling from Sinful, which means he’s a good forty-minute drive at least.”
“But he called ten minutes ago,” Mannie said. “So thirty minutes.”
“That’s if the clerk got the time right,” Ida Belle said. “Do we really want to roll the dice on the memory of a guy working in this place?”
“And that’s assuming he was in Sinful,” Mannie said. “If he was calling from the impound lot then he was only thirty minutes away.”
“Which leaves us with twenty at the most,” Ida Belle said.
“How much crap can Cooke possibly have in there?” I asked.
“He’s living there, so who knows,” Mannie said.
“I have to get in,” I said. “It’s the only way to get the information we need, because Carter is not going to share.”
Mannie nodded and directed the SUV along the front of the motel until he was at the end of the building. “It’s the last one on the top floor. Give me a few minutes. If you see your deputy pull up, then hop over in the driver’s seat and leave.”
I shook my head. “You’re not doing this for me. Big hired me to do the job.”
“I have to agree with her on this,” Ida Belle said. “Not just because she was hired to
do the job but because she’s the best person to do the job. Fortune has perfect recall. Something she sees that might not seem important ends up becoming the thing that triggers her to a solution later on. It’s like she collects all the puzzle pieces in her mind and then in the end, they all fall together while the rest of us just see this jumbled mess. She can’t put together the picture without seeing all the pieces.”
I could tell Mannie didn’t like it, but he understood. “Okay,” he said. “When we approached from the side street, I noticed a small window on the back of the rooms. Probably over the bathtub or toilet. But it’s high, and it’s small, and it’s a second-floor drop.”
“But it opens,” I said. “I noticed them as well. And it’s small but I would fit through it. A two-story drop isn’t a problem.”
“If you have to go that route, I’ll pick you up behind the building,” Mannie said.
“I don’t mean to be the pain in the rear here,” Gertie said, “but the clock is ticking.”
I held my hand back and Gertie slapped latex gloves, a credit card, and a screwdriver into my palm.
Mannie raised one eyebrow but didn’t say a word.
I hopped out and headed up the rickety stairs to the room, then made ridiculously quick work of the door. The inside of the room looked as if it had already been tossed and that wouldn’t have surprised me given the element lurking around outside, but since there was a bag of snacks on the dresser, I figured Cooke was simply a slob. Those snacks would have been long gone if someone had broken in here looking for stuff to lift.
The drawers in the nightstands and dresser were empty, which wasn’t surprising as it appeared everything was stacked on surface tops, the bed, or simply thrown onto the floor. Thank God for latex, I thought as I lifted dirty clothes to look beneath. The bathroom was tiny so it couldn’t hold much, and I didn’t find anything among the sparse toiletries that helped me fill in the blanks. I headed back into the bedroom to do a more intense search. I had only two options left. Either Cooke had hidden the important stuff or he’d had it in his car. I was really hoping for the first option.
I started with the bed, searching underneath the mattress, but came up empty. Then I removed the dresser drawers and checked to ensure nothing was taped on the bottom of them or behind them on the dresser. When I pulled out the lowest drawer, I hit pay dirt. A laptop lay on the floor beneath the drawer. I pulled it out and hoped that Cooke hadn’t password-protected everything. I didn’t know enough about him to guess passwords and didn’t have the time to get to know him. And while stealing the laptop would give me all the time in the world, I figured that was a line I couldn’t cross. Not if I expected Carter to ever speak to me again. It was one thing for me to have an investigation parallel to his. It was completely another to hinder his ability to do his job.