Collard Greens and Catfishing

by Kelsey Browning

  They power-walked across the lawn and finally caught up with the golf cart, parked next to what looked like a cattle trough full of water and apples. The Wicked Witch of the West was dumping another bag of Gala apples into the tub.

  “Damned woman,” she was muttering to herself. “How many people does she think will stick their heads in here for a piece of fruit? Hell, none when there are popcorn balls and caramel apples on the treat table.”

  “Abby Ruth?” Maggie said, her voice low as though she were approaching a mountain lion with a thorn in each paw.

  The witch spun around, almost dislodging the fake animal clinging to her left shoulder.

  Sera clapped a palm over her gaping mouth. “It is you.”

  The view had been enjoyable from the back, but the front? Well, it was a masterpiece. Abby Ruth not only wore the sweeping black cloak and pointy hat, but her makeup was perfectly applied. A layer of green covered her from her hairline all the way down her neck. But it was the hooked nose and the raised mole on her chin that really did the trick.

  Sera dug around in her skintight ninja suit and pulled out a phone. The camera function whirred and the flash blipped.

  Abby Ruth lifted her chin and pointed a green finger in Sera’s face. “If I find that on Facebook later with my profile tagged, I just want you to remember that I know where you sleep.”

  “You can’t blame me for wanting to save this for posterity.”

  Suddenly, the stuffed winged monkey perched on Abby Ruth’s shoulder started chattering, and Maggie jumped back. “That thing’s alive.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Abby Ruth said, her voice a tired drawl.

  “Where in the world did you get it?”

  “Same place all this—” she swept a hand down her Wicked Witch of the West get-up, “—came from. I’ll give you two guesses.”

  “Angelina,” Sera said.

  “You got it in one.”

  Oh, Maggie had only believed she knew the extent of Abby Ruth’s sacrifice for her and Summer Haven. Abby Ruth might be maddening at times, but she was as true a friend as Sera.

  The monkey reached under Abby Ruth’s hat, tilting it to one side, and began picking through her hair. Every so often, he brought his hand to his mouth as if he were eating what he’d found.

  “I can’t convince him I don’t have fleas.”

  “He’s certainly attentive,” Sera said.

  “He’s also incontinent,” Abby Ruth remarked.

  Fluurp. A sludgy mess of brown goo oozed down Abby Ruth’s shoulder.

  A nervous chuckle worked its way up Maggie’s throat. There was absolutely nothing right about this scenario, so she yanked the hanky from its secure place between the girls and dabbed at Abby Ruth’s shoulder. At close range, she and the monkey did have a gamey smell about them.

  “Where did he come from?” Sera asked.

  “Apparently, Angelina is on the board at the zoo. She wrangled some rent-a-monkey deal with her connections at a wildlife place near Atlanta. You wouldn’t believe the forms I had to sign to take possession of this flea-obsessed, Depends-needing chimp.”

  Maggie tried not to smile, but this was the best thing that was likely to happen tonight. “I guess this was Angelina’s way of getting a little something out of this deal.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised to find she has a Chinese water station and thumb screws in the basement of her house. That woman has a flair,” Abby Ruth said, then waved a hand. “But Angelina was just a cog in a bigger plan tonight. Have y’all come across Friar Tuck yet?”

  “Darn,” Maggie said. “We were hoping you’d spotted him.”

  “I have a feeling he’ll wait until closer to sundown, when more people are here and he has a better opportunity for camouflage.”

  “Until then, can we help you with anything?” Sera asked.

  “How are you with setting up tie the tail on the donkey?”

  “How hard can it be? And I think it’s pin the tail on the donkey.”

  Abby Ruth pinned them with a this-is-the-seventh-circle-of-hell stare. “Oh, no. It’s tie because Angelina insisted we play with live donkeys.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  An hour later, twilight had fallen and the B&B’s backyard was a wild crush of kids brandishing glow sticks and adults enjoying Halloween punch. The costumes ranged from uninspired—one guy draped in a white sheet—to incredible—a woman dressed as Carmen Miranda, complete with fresh fruit piled on her head.

  Maggie nursed a tiny cup of punch because she needed her wits about her, but Sera had insisted a tad of alcohol would calm Maggie’s crackling nerves.

  She was watching Hollis Dooley bob for apples. He’d almost fallen in once, but had insisted on a second chance. Now, Abby Ruth was fishing his false teeth out of the water with her broomstick.

  “Maid Marian, you’re looking lovely tonight,” a male voice said from behind Maggie, and she whirled around to find a hooded, not-at-all-rotund Friar Tuck making a low bow.

  This is it. I’ll finally see his face.

  But when Tuck untucked from his bow, Maggie was disappointed to find he was wearing one of those rubber masks. She had to give him kudos for finding one with that funky fringe of brown hair, though. “Friar Tuck, you’re looking very…brown…this evening.”

  It was hard to find a decent compliment for a man wearing a burlap robe and rope belt.

  “Brought you something,” he said.

  “You did?” Maybe he really did like her. I mean, she’d fudged her picture, so maybe he’d been afraid to use his real one.

  He extended his hand. “Give me your wrist.”

  A niggle of self-preservation made her hesitate. She glanced around, praying Sera was nearby, then raised her arm toward him.

  He tucked a hand into his robe and pulled out a lovely purple length of rope tied into one of those pretty heart knots, like the ones he’d used to secure the legs of his beekeeping outfit.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Tied it myself,” he said, wrapping the homemade bracelet around her wrist. In a few tugs and twists, he had it secured.

  She held it up to admire his handiwork. “I love it. Thank you.” Her heart was filling with second doubts about him. She wished she could just tell him to run, so that she might be able to pursue more little moments like this with him.

  Maggie scanned the landscape, looking for either Sera or Abby Ruth. But Abby Ruth was no longer by the apple trough. She’d probably had to take the monkey for a potty break.

  “Would you like some punch?” DanTomTuck asked her.

  She surreptitiously dropped the plastic cup she’d been holding behind her back. I’ll make up for it by doing trash duty later. “I’d love some, but please let me come with you.” That would give her an opportunity to find her girls.

  “Maggie?”

  She turned to see Bruce Shellenberger, the IT guy, standing there all dressed up as a geek, although it wasn’t much of a stretch except for the black glasses with the tape on them. “Hi, Bruce.”

  Friar Tuck stopped and looked at her, then toward Bruce. How did you introduce two men when you’re on a date? This was a first for her.

  “IT Guy meet Friar Tuck.” That would have to do for now. “We were just going to get some punch,” she said to Bruce.

  “Well…have fun. I just wanted to say hello.” He backed away, looking uncomfortable, making guilt crawl over Maggie. He was such a nice guy, and she’d just blown him off.

  “Let’s get that punch,” DanOfYourDreams said.

  Maggie was following her “date” to the refreshments table when a handsome cowboy reached out from another group of people and grabbed her arm. “Maggie?”

  What was it with men tonight? Everywhere she turned, they were pursuing her. And the last man she wanted following her was Teague. That man showed up at the most inconvenient times. As if he had a nose for trouble or something.

  “Well, don’t you look like a real Texan?” she said che
erfully.

  “And you…you’re a…”

  “You might be looking for the word wench.”

  He averted his gaze from the expanse of her cleavage. “You want to introduce me to your friend here?”

  And Lord, Friar Tuck began fidgeting as though he’d swallowed a cistern full of water, and there wasn’t a rest stop for miles.

  “Teague, this is…Friar Tuck.”

  Teague reached across to shake the man’s hand, but before he could make contact, the friar turned tail and took off in a dead run.

  “What the hell?” Teague asked.

  “He’s kind of shy,” Maggie improvised. Where oh where were her girls when she needed them?

  Abby Ruth pushed through the crowd, her monkey clinging with both hairy arms around her neck. “Did I just see Friar Tuck make a break for it? We’ve got to catch him. C’mon.” She grabbed Maggie’s hand and pulled her in the opposite direction from Tuck’s flight.

  “He went the other way.”

  “The wheels are this way, though.” Abby Ruth swung into the golf cart’s driver’s seat, and Maggie gathered her skirt and dove into the other side.

  Teague dashed up. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “No time to talk, Tadpole.” Abby Ruth gunned the accelerator and clipped Teague before he could jump out of the way.

  “What if he’s hurt?” Maggie asked.

  “That boy is tough. In fact, I probably should’ve hit him right on. That would’ve put him out of the action for sure.”

  “Pretty sure that might’ve also put you behind bars for assaulting a police officer.”

  Sera came running toward the golf cart. Like the physically talented woman she was, she grabbed the pole that held up the cart’s roof and swung herself onto the back where the golf bags were normally stored. “I spotted him. He took off across the Broussards’ lawn.”

  Oh, no. Their plan to keep him contained wasn’t working.

  Abby Ruth put on the lead foot and tore right through a prickly hedge. When they came out the other side, Sera was hanging on by her fingernails, but she was grinning wide.

  “There he is,” Maggie yelled. “On the other side of the rose garden.”

  No skirting the edges of the concrete-edged flowerbed for Abby Ruth. The tires hit the barrier at a slight angle, and the cart went airborne by at least a foot. When they hit the ground again, the monkey let out a high-pitched squeak. Abby Ruth barreled on, flattening what Maggie was pretty sure was a rare hooligan rose.

  She started calculating reparations in her head.

  Oh, forget reparations. Once Angelina learned they were responsible for murdering her flowers, there wouldn’t be enough money in the world to guarantee that Summer Haven would pass her inspection.

  “Shoot,” Sera hollered from her vantage point of peering over the cart’s roof. “He just scaled the fence.”

  Angelina had a dainty white picket fence separating her yard from the neighbor’s.

  “Hang on, gals.” Elbows out, Abby Ruth gripped the steering wheel, and Maggie grasped the cupholder with two hands to keep from tumbling out of the cart.

  No angling involved this time. The cart careened into the pickets head-on and took out a good six feet.

  “Duck, Sera,” Maggie called.

  Sure enough, the pickets slid up the plastic windshield and flew over the top of the cart. When they cleared into the next yard, Friar Tuck looked as though he was having a little trouble with his own skirt, stumbling and staggering as he tried to head toward the river.

  Abby Ruth adjusted the cart’s trajectory to cut off the guy. He juked left, which was his fatal mistake. His foot caught in his long hem, and his arms windmilled as he tried to catch himself. Unfortunately for him, Angelina’s neighbors had installed an oval-shaped koi pond.

  Sploosh. In he went, face first.

  Abby Ruth stomped on the brake, locking it down to the floor and stopping the cart on a dime.

  Maggie and the others poured out to surround the flailing friar.

  “We need to get him while he’s down,” Abby Ruth ordered.

  “I’m on it,” Sera scrambled into the water with him. Maggie waded in after her.

  Shoot, they needed to assemble some kind of bad guy takedown emergency kit for these occasions. Then again, what else did a girl need other than her own duct tape and a crazy Texan with a big black gun?

  Abby Ruth was locked into her make-my-day stance, her pistol trained on their guy. Maggie and Sera yanked at his sopping robe while he flapped his arms and finally flopped over to face them. His mask was pushed up just enough so his eyes weren’t aligned with the eye holes.

  With a quick yank, Sera pulled off his rope belt and held it out to Maggie. “Want to do the honors? You’re kind of an expert at tying up the baddies.”

  She was, wasn’t she?

  Maggie squatted down in the water while Sera held his hands in her strong grip. With a few deft moves—unders, overs and crosses—Maggie tied him up in a perfect stevedore knot.

  “I didn’t mean anyone any harm.” His words were muffled by the rubber mask.

  Maggie’s heart ached for the guy. He seemed so sad and sincere, but darn it, he had hurt someone. Her. If only her pride.

  The sound of footfalls came from behind Maggie, and Teague drew up short beside her, followed by Bruce and a few other people in costume.

  Teague pushed his cowboy hat back on his head a bit. “Just when I think you gals aren’t stirring up trouble anymore, I find you with a man of the cloth hog-tied in a fish pond. Ladies, what in hell is this all about?”

  * * *

  Teague might have come to the party as a Texas Ranger but the last thing he’d planned or wanted to do was work. These women thought they could just run all over his county doing whatever the hell they pleased.

  “You should cuff him,” Abby Ruth said, standing over the guy in the pond, her gun never wavering from the friar’s forehead.

  “That might be a little dicey,” Teague said, “since I have no idea who he is or what he did.”

  “We don’t know who he is either,” Sera said. “But it’s probably about time we found out.”

  About time? That insinuated these ladies had been chasing this guy for a while now. Shit.

  Teague leaned over to check out the guy’s hands. They’d tied him up something good. So well that he wasn’t worried the guy could get loose.

  Sera reached down to grab the guy’s mask, and Teague had a Scooby-Doo déjà vu moment. If it weren’t for those meddling kids…

  She yanked it up his face to reveal…

  “Deputy Barnes!” the three women said in perfect tandem.

  Good Lord, these three women were a massive stitch in his side. He reached over to pull his deputy out of the water.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Tadpole.”

  “Aunt Bibi, this is Barnes. I know the three of y’all like to think you’re some crime-fighting trio, but this man is an officer of the law. You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t press charges against you.” He shot her a hard look. “Speaking of, I could do the same.”

  “Starting talking, lover boy,” Abby Ruth demanded, raising her chin and giving Barnes her raised eyebrow look.

  Barnes exercised his right to remain silent.

  “You heard me.” Abby Ruth kicked at Barnes’ sandal. “You owe us a hell of an explanation.”

  “Can you blame a man for wanting to find the love of his life?” Barnes asked, casting a longing glance at Maggie.

  Maggie’s expression closed up, became almost as mean as Abby Ruth’s. “I thought you liked me, but you’re nothing but a liar.”

  Oh, Lord. Were they gunning for Barnes because he had a thing for Maggie? No, it wasn’t exactly normal, but a May-December romance wasn’t illegal.

  “Maggie, you have to understand—” Barnes reached out with his tied-up hands, but Maggie stepped back.

  “All I have to understand,” Maggie said, “is that you’re a fraud.
Probably committed fraud too.”

  Teague’s ears went supersonic at that. “What’s she talking about, Barnes?”

  “Ole Barnes here started a dating site called The Perfect Fit,” Abby Ruth said, “and created tons of male profiles trying to troll for women.”

  Oh, hell. Teague had hoped this was just a case of overactive hot flashes. But seeing as he’d been poking around on that site himself, there was obviously something to the grannies’ takedown.

  “Charged a hundred dollars a pop for women to register,” Sera added.

  “I only paid twenty,” Teague blurted before he thought better of it. By Abby Ruth’s evil grin, she’d already been aware of that little fact.

  “And then,” Abby Ruth said, “he had the nerve to boot people off the site.”

  “I can explain.” Barnes shook his head. “I made sure every penny went back to the ladies by way of the money spent on the date or gifts. Those I didn’t take on a date got big gifts. Just ask Sera and Abby Ruth.”

  Abby Ruth twirled a whoop-dee-doo finger in the air. “I got cube steak. Trust me, I’d’ve rather had the money.” She glanced over at Teague. “Come to find out, he was putting up fake pictures and false information. He was behind over fifty of the profiles in that database. Ain’t that right, Deputy?”

  Teague wasn’t an expert on fraud, but this dating thing was hinky all around, what with those fake charges on Sue Ellen’s credit card.

  “Jesus, Barnes, what have you done?” Teague asked his deputy. Likely his former deputy now.

  “I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”

  Yeah, tons of criminals said that. “I didn’t know you were such a computer whiz.”

  “I’m not,” Barnes admitted. “My nephew James was working on website design for a computer science project in school. I talked him into setting it up for me.”

  “And then you ran the whole thing?”

  “No way. I’m not that smart,” Barnes said. “But please don’t make trouble for James. He has a real chance at a scholarship to UGA when he graduates next year.”

  What a holy mess. “What do you know about extra credit card charges to people who registered on that site?”