Sinful Alibi

by Shari Hearn

  “He could have hurt you,” her father said.

  Gertie held up her handgun. “Meet Eloise.”

  Her mother gasped. Her father looked impressed.

  Granny Magoo laughed, holding up her shotgun. “I knew you took after me.”

  “Mother,” Gertie’s own mother said, addressing Granny Magoo. “Don’t encourage her.” She shook her head. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go to Vietnam. You were surrounded by bad influences.”

  Gertie ignored her mother and scanned the area where she’d brought down the thief, noticing what looked like a paper bag caught in the middle of the bushes. Retrieving it, she opened it up and pulled out a baseball cap and held it up to the light.

  Atlanta Braves.

  Gertie joined the others on the porch. “Isn’t this the cap Dolly Harkins left for you on your picker’s route?”

  Her grandmother took it from her and nodded. “I left it in a bag on the chair.”

  “Why did you do that? I thought you liked it.”

  “I did,” Granny Magoo answered. “But Dolly called and said I took the second bag by mistake.”

  “She did?” Gertie asked.

  Granny Magoo nodded. “She called before I went to bed. She said she put the cap in a bag and set it outside of her house because she was going to send it to her brother. Said I shouldn’t have taken it. If she didn’t want me to take it, she should have written on the bag. How can I tell what’s left for me and what’s not? Next time I see her, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”

  “You will not, Mama,” Beatrice Hebert warned. “She’s coming to dinner soon with her sister and nephew Gill. For Gertie’s sake, I hope you’ll be civil to her.”

  Gertie was about to protest that she had no intention of having dinner with Gill, his mother and his Aunt Dolly when the realization hit her. Gill’s aunt was Dolly Harkins. Dolly, the one who kept insisting that Bonnie Cotton was having an affair with Mr. Guillory. Dolly, the one who kept insisting it was Bonnie Cotton who had killed Guillory. Dolly, the one who’d had a beef with Mr. Guillory but then forgave him and now worked taking care of his sick wife. Or had she forgiven him? What if Dolly were tending to Philomena just to get close to her enemy?

  “Why would someone want to steal a baseball cap?” Gertie’s father asked.

  Gertie looked at him. “Good question, Dad.” The intruder seemed to ignore everything else on the porch and went straight for the rolled up bag. She turned to Granny Magoo. “Did Dolly tell you where to leave it?”

  Granny Magoo nodded. “She said leave it on the chair next to the porch swing. She said she’d come by sometime tomorrow morning to pick it up. Which is today. But she wouldn’t come by at 2:30 in the morning.”

  “No,” Gertie agreed, “and that wasn’t Dolly I was chasing. I believe it was a man.”

  “Well, we should call the sheriff,” Beatrice said. “Let him know there’s a porch thief running around.”

  Gertie nodded. “Good idea, Mama, but since I was the one running after him, I think I should do it. You and Daddy go back to bed now and I’ll do it at first light.”

  They all filed back inside the house. Her mother glanced down at the pistol in Gertie’s hand. “Where did you get that?”

  “Military. They give everyone a pistol when they leave the service. Even women.” She was surprised how quickly she came up with the lie.

  “They didn’t give me one when I left the service,” her father said.

  “New policy,” Gertie lied. “The world’s gotten more dangerous. Army knows that.”

  “A word of advice, honey,” her mother said. “Men don’t really care to date a woman who’s packing. It makes them nervous.”

  “I can attest to that,” her father said.

  “You’d do well to get rid of it.” That was her mother’s parting word of advice before she and her dad shuffled back upstairs.

  Gertie kissed her granny and said goodnight.

  “Aren’t you coming up?” Granny Magoo asked.

  “In a minute.”

  Granny Magoo shuffled toward the living room. “By the way,” she said on her way out of the kitchen, “Eloise is a dumb name for a pistol.”

  “I like the name,” Gertie said. “Nobody expects an Eloise to be a threat. She can slip under the radar. There’s power in that.”

  Granny Magoo thought a moment. “Makes sense. And you can keep it as far as I’m concerned. During Prohibition, I used to provide security for your grandfather when he’d deliver his hooch to New Orleans. Sometimes a man does appreciate a woman who’s packing.”

  This took Gertie by surprise. “Granddaddy was a hooch runner?”

  Granny Magoo’s eyes widened. “Forget I said anything. Goodnight.”

  Gertie made a mental note of asking Granny Magoo about the secret life of her grandfather, who she’d thought all her life was pretty dull, but for whom she now had a greater fascination. For now, though, she had a job to do. Once she heard Granny Magoo trudging up the stairs, Gertie turned off the light and sat down at the kitchen table. It was a longshot, but in the event whomever dropped the bag came back for it, she’d be ready for him.

  She sat in the dark thinking about the cap.

  And about Dolly.

  The revelation that Dolly was Gill’s aunt changed things. If Gill was involved in the murder, was Dolly helping him? Tomorrow at first light she would make a call. But not to Sheriff Lee, who was dead set on fingering Louanne for the crime. She’d call Ida Belle and Marge. It was time they find out just what Dolly knew and what type of woman she really was.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  GERTIE WOKE TO FIND her face flat against the linoleum tabletop, her pistol resting inches from her hand. A glance at the clock told her she’d only been asleep for half an hour, though the pain in her neck and back felt like she’d been frozen there all night. Gertie lifted her head and groaned as she slowly stretched her neck.

  “You’d better be glad it was me who found you and not your mama.”

  Gertie moaned as she turned her head toward Granny Magoo’s voice.

  “Me, I don’t mind a woman sleeping with a gun. Your mama... well, she has a different idea about how her baby daughter should comport herself.”

  The aroma of fresh coffee made its way to Gertie’s brain. “Want some, need some,” was all she could manage.

  Granny Magoo poured her a cup, added a little cream and sugar, then set the coffee in front of her. Gertie slugged some down and felt her brain slip into first gear.

  “You didn’t go back to bed last night, did you?”

  Gertie shook her head. “I wanted to be closer to the door if he came back. I meant to go to my bed sometime around 4:30, but I was too tired to even walk up the stairs.”

  Granny Magoo sat at the table with a cup of coffee. “You think he was here just for the baseball cap?”

  Gertie nodded. “I was watching through the door. He went right to the chair.”

  “How would he know it was there?” Granny Magoo asked. Gertie stared at her, lifting her eyebrows. “Oh. You think Dolly told him to come get it.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

  Granny Magoo took a sip of coffee, then asked, “Why would she do that? She said her brother left the cap at her house and she needed to send it back to him in the morning mail.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a lie. She’s hiding something, and I wouldn’t be surprised if her nephew Gill is involved.”

  Granny Magoo glanced up at the clock. “There’s one way to tell. Dolly said she was going to come by to pick up the bag on her morning walk. She usually walks around this time. If she comes by to pick it up, then she wasn’t in on it. If she already knew the thief was going to take it during the night, then why bother showing up?”

  Gertie considered that logic. “You might be right.” Gertie got up from the table. “Mama’s sewing room has a better view of the back porch. Let’s go wait.”

  Gertie and
Granny Magoo moved into the sewing room and pulled up two chairs in front of the window, but back far enough that they couldn’t be seen by anyone on the outside. Several minutes later, Dolly appeared around the corner of the house.

  “There she is,” Granny Magoo whispered. “See, I told you. She has no idea that a thief was here during the night. She thinks it’s still on the chair.”

  But instead of going up the stairs to the back porch, Dolly walked cautiously toward the bushes off to the side.

  “Well, isn’t that interesting,” Gertie whispered to her grandmother. “How do you think she knew to check the bushes? Because the intruder dropped the bag behind the bushes, that’s why. And I bet he didn’t want to come back and face me, so he called her and told her to come get it.”

  “That bitch,” her granny whispered. “Don’t tell your mother I swore.”

  “Hell no,” Gertie said, continuing to watch as Dolly frantically looked under the porch and around the rose bushes, finally giving up her search and leaving the yard. Gertie smiled. “She sure had a worried look on her face.” She turned and faced her grandmother. “If you ask me, Miss Dolly was there the night Wade was killed.”

  Granny Magoo’s jaw dropped.

  “Come to think of it,” Gertie said, “the first time I met her she was quick to let us all know she had an alibi. Said she was watching The Birds on TV. Except, when she talked about it, she mentioned the cat winning in the end. There was no cat. I thought it was odd at the time but just let it go.”

  Granny Magoo pursed her lips. “I’ll tell you why she thought a cat won in the end. Because she called me the morning after it aired and asked me what I thought about watching the movie on TV versus the Mudbug theater. She does that with our book club as well. She won’t read the book and then asks my opinion about it so she can act as if she read it. I’m tired of it. I knew right then she never saw it. Not on TV or the big screen. So I made up the stuff about the cat. Told her The Birds was the funniest movie I ever saw.”

  Gertie nodded. “She just wanted you to give her the details so she’d have an alibi for that night.”

  Granny stood. “Let’s go get her.”

  Gertie shook her head and gestured for her granny to sit back in her chair, which she did. “No. She’ll just come up with some lie. The girls and I can get it all out of her, but we need to know more about Dolly. What are her weaknesses?”

  Granny leaned in as if she were revealing national secrets. “She’s a terrible hooker. I never told her this, but I pity any baby that ends up with one of her blankets. In fact, that’s why I no longer go to Sinful Hooker meetings. I can’t stand watching her make a mockery of a great art form.” Granny sat back with a satisfied look on her face.

  Gertie reached over and patted her granny on the hand. “I hate to break it to you, but being a terrible knitter is not a weakness. I’m looking to get her to confess what she knows. So I have to torture her a little. For some people it’s nails down a blackboard. For others, it’s playing music they hate really loudly. What’s going to make Dolly crack and start blabbing all she knows?”

  Granny Magoo cringed. “What exactly did you do in the Army?”

  “Clerk typist,” Gertie said. “But I’ve read lots of spy novels.”

  Granny thought a moment. “Well, she gets carsick if you go too fast. Not the throw-up kind of carsick, but more of a panicky state.”

  Gertie smiled. “Really.”

  Her grandmother nodded. “She only drives around Sinful except when she takes Philomena for her treatments in Lafayette. And that’s only because it’s during the week and traffic on the highway is light and she can go slow. She refuses to drive anywhere on the weekend when traffic is heavier. Mudbug Market has their best sales on the third Saturday of every month, so I take her. But I have to go at a snail’s pace, or she panics.”

  “Third Saturday? That’s today.”

  Granny Magoo nodded. “I’m supposed to pick her up at noon.”

  “You won’t be doing that. Seems you’ve taken ill today.” Gertie raised her brows and smiled. “But luckily your granddaughter and her friends will take your car and drive her instead. Only your car is going to have a problem with the gas pedal, and we’ll have a devil of a time slowing it down.”

  “She’ll panic,” Granny Magoo said.

  Gertie grinned. “I certainly hope so.”

  IDA BELLE AND MARGE arrived at the Hebert house shortly after 7:00, eager for coffee, breakfast and a rundown of what had happened with the baseball cap thief and Dolly’s subsequent search for the cap in the bushes. This was exactly the break they needed, Ida Belle thought as she dug into Granny Magoo’s famous waffles and sausage.

  “I hope your mom wasn’t mad I called so early,” Gertie said as she set two mugs of steaming coffee on the kitchen table. “My parents usually get up around 8:00 on Saturday, so I wanted us to have a little time to strategize before my mama sticks her nose in our business.”

  Marge dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand. “She was already up.”

  “Though she did tell us to remind you of the proper time to begin phone calls in the morning,” Ida Belle said.

  “Nine o’clock,” Granny Magoo said as she brought a plate of waffles to the table and sat, joining the girls. “So we should be expecting Dolly to call at nine on the dot. If she’s going to call.”

  “Oh, she’ll call all right,” Gertie said. “She and her co-conspirator need that cap back.”

  “And you think her partner in crime is Gill?”

  Gertie nodded. “He fooled us with that timid exterior of his, but I bet you he helped her murder Guillory and was our thief last night. We just need her to confess her part and point her finger at him.”

  Ida Belle took a sip of coffee and glanced at the clock. “That gives us time to plan our strategy and map out a route for our wild ride with Dolly.” She took several more gulps of coffee, thinking back to that souped-up Plymouth she’d “borrowed” from her dad before they all left for Vietnam. She always knew where to take it. “Branley Road.”

  Granny Magoo dropped her fork to the floor.

  Marge whistled.

  Gertie picked up Granny Magoo’s fork, her eyes lit up as if it were Christmas. “We’re taking Dolly on Branley? Outtasight.” She retrieved another fork from the drawer and set it in front of her granny, who was still in a state of shock.

  Branley Road was to Sinful what the Autobahn was to Germany. A road where there were no speed limits, where boys became men and Ida Belle made babies of them all. Where the law tended to look the other way.

  Gertie crossed back to the stove and piled more hot waffles on a platter and brought them to the table, restocking Marge’s and Ida Belle’s plates.

  Marge’s face filled with concern. “A race on Branley? We don’t want to kill Dolly. We just want to shake her up a bit and get her to confess.”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “The racing doesn’t start till twilight. During the day, the road is filled with people wanting a speedy shortcut to Mudbug and points beyond. We won’t race. I just have to provide a scary ride for Dolly.”

  Gertie plopped back in her chair.

  “It would scare the heck out of me, I know that,” Granny Magoo said. “I love to put the pedal to the metal, but even I won’t touch Branley Road. Well, at least not since my hooch running days.” She stabbed her waffle with her clean fork. “You did not just hear me say that.”

  Gertie filled her plate with more waffles. “We have to go fast enough to make her believe the pedal is stuck and she has to confess her sins before meeting her maker.”

  “Can your Rambler hit eighty-five?” Ida Belle asked Granny Magoo.

  “Can a frog fart?” she asked, setting the cup on the table.

  “I don’t know. Can it?”

  Granny Magoo nodded. “I’m here to tell you it can.”

  Gertie shrugged her shoulders at Ida Belle. “Granny Magoo knows her frogs.”

  Several minut
es before nine the girls and Granny Magoo assembled in the living room to wait for Dolly’s call. At nine sharp, the phone rang.

  “Just act cool,” Gertie said as Granny Magoo picked up the receiver.

  “Why, hello, Dolly.” Granny Magoo listened for a moment and nodded to Gertie. “Yes, I know the baseball cap wasn’t where I said I’d leave it. Funny thing. Well, maybe not so funny. In fact, it ain’t funny at all.”

  Gertie made hand gestures for Granny Magoo to hurry with her point.

  “We had a prowler last night. Wouldn’t you know it, but he tried to steal the baseball cap.” Granny Magoo rolled her eyes. “I know, can you believe it? He didn’t get away with it. He dropped it after my granddaughter tried to apprehend him. Of course we still have it. No, no, don’t bother coming over to get it. Gertie will bring it by.”

  Granny Magoo explained to Dolly that she had taken ill, but that Gertie and her friends had to go into Mudbug anyway and would be happy to take her to the Mudbug Market’s Saturday sale.

  “Of course they respect the laws of the road and will go just under the speed limit.” Granny Magoo’s face fell. “What do you mean you’ll just skip shopping in Mudbug today? Don’t you trust my granddaughter?”

  Marge signaled Granny Magoo to cover the phone so Dolly couldn’t hear. “Tell her we’ll be picking her up in the Wienermobile,” she whispered.

  “What?” Ida Belle asked. “Dear Lord. You want to steal the Wienermobile?”

  “Not steal. The Martin Brothers told us we could borrow it anytime. This is anytime. I remember them telling us their schedule. They’ll be sleeping all day today to rest up for their Georgia tour as Wiener Ambassadors. Fine time to borrow it.” She looked at Granny Magoo and nodded her head.

  Granny Magoo took her hand away from the phone. “Hey, Dolly, feel like a ride in the Wienermobile?”

  They could hear Dolly’s excited voice coming from the handset. Granny Magoo gave Marge a thumbs-up. “Good. They’ll pick you up at noon. Yes, they’ll bring the cap.” She hung up the phone. “Good thinking, Marge.”

  “Bad thinking, Marge,” Ida Belle said. “The Martin brothers thought you were joking when you asked if we could borrow it.”