by Shari Hearn
Ida Belle nodded. “That makes sense.” She stood and walked over to Philomena’s stuffed dog still standing by the window, its glass eyes staring at a tree outside. “Will you be taking Archie with you?”
Philomena shook her head. “Oh my, no. As I said when you visited before, I never wanted him stuffed in the first place.”
Ida Belle nodded as she petted his fur and inspected both sides of the stuffed dog. “Your husband did a good job. Though to be honest, I’ve never known a stuffed animal to have his paws fitted with wheels.”
Philomena made a face of disgust. “Wade often engaged in sick humor. He thought it would be funny to wheel Archie down the street for a walk and see the expressions on the neighbor’s faces. You’re welcome to take him home if you like.”
“Sure. He might come in handy,” Gertie said as she stood and sat next to Marge.
“How so?” Philomena asked, giving her a tired smile.
Gertie lifted her brows. “Well, I could take him out one night when I knew a certain old snoopy woman was parked nearby to have a cigarette and make her think I was someone else. Especially if I put on a wig to alter my appearance. Would come in handy if I’d planned on murdering someone.”
Philomena’s smile faded.
Marge nodded. “Lucky for you that Dolly and Paul got the ball rolling by arriving before you and having an altercation with your husband, disabling him.”
Ida Belle pointed to a bald spot on the dog’s side. “I notice there’s some missing right here. Must have ripped off when you pulled Archie up after he tipped over on a fallen tree branch.”
Philomena took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ida Belle noted how her voice had just gained in strength.
“Sure you do,” Marge said. “We found a bunch of white fur by a downed tree branch near the rental. The same spot where Gertie’s granny saw a woman standing. A woman who looked like Bonnie Cotton.”
“Granny Magoo said there was a white dog with her who tumbled to the ground,” Gertie added, leaning in toward Philomena’s chair. “You remember my Granny Magoo. She used to take you home from that Canasta group you belonged to. Every Tuesday night promptly at 10:15, passing the rental house on her way to your house. And you two would stop and have a smoke on that street to give her car time to air out.”
Ida Belle wheeled the stuffed dog around so that it was pointed toward Philomena. “And guess what? We had the dog hair analyzed. The analyst said it had been treated.”
Gertie nodded. “At first I thought that meant the dog’s hair was dyed. But animal hides have also been treated. That’s what taxidermists do. Tan the hides before they’re stuffed.”
Philomena pursed her lips. “What are you insinuating? That I killed my husband? Dolly Harkins admitted to you that she and Paul shot Wade.”
“Once,” Marge said. “They shot him once. You just happened upon them at the house and finished up after they left.”
“And you believe that?” Philomena asked. “Do you know how crazy this sounds? I have leukemia. I’m dying. I don’t have enough energy to cook, and you think I dragged that stuffed dog to the woods next to that rental house and killed my husband with a nail gun?”
“It would be crazy if you were really sick and actually did have no energy,” Ida Belle said.
Philomena pursed her lips. “Not that I have to answer to you, but if you like you can speak with my doctor. You met him recently, remember? Dr. Lansing?”
“Yes we do,” Ida Belle said. “In fact, we saw him at the hospital today. In his orderly scrubs. Standing with a group of real doctors.”
Marge nodded. “Working around doctors, he’d know how to impersonate one.”
“What?” Philomena asked. “You’re not making any sense.”
“We spoke with the real Dr. Lansing,” Ida Belle said. “Old guy in his sixties. Your phony doctor is really Ken Malone. An orderly. We lost sight of him after his meeting with the real doctors broke up, so we had the nurses call for him over the loudspeaker.”
“Big surprise,” Gertie said. “He never showed. But those nurses sure had a lot to say about him. None of it good.”
Philomena stood and gave a weak laugh. “Is this some kind of joke? You’re mistaken. I go for chemotherapy treatments at the hospital. Dolly would take me and so would some of the other ladies in Sinful.” She pointed at Gertie then Marge. “Ask your mothers. Both of them have taken me.”
“Dropped you off,” Marge emphasized. “They’d all take themselves out to lunch and pick you up in front after your treatment was over. You’d go twice a week at lunchtime. If you ask me, the only treatment you got was a quickie with your boyfriend in a supply closet.”
Ida Belle looked down at the stuffed dog. “What do you think about all this, Archie?”
“He’d think you girls went snooping where you shouldn’t have.”
The voice belonged to Ken Malone. At the moment he stood in the archway to the kitchen. Dressed in a suit. Pistol in hand.
“Ken, don’t be stupid,” Philomena said.
His nostrils flared. His eyes shifted over each of the girls. “We’ve gone too far to go to prison.”
Philomena got up from the chair. “And how do you think we’ll get away with killing three girls?”
“By the time their bodies are found, we’ll be in Mexico.”
He moved further into the living room, toward Ida Belle, pointing his gun at her. “You need to go join your friends on the sofa.”
Ida Belle ignored him and focused her attention on Philomena, hoping that would draw Ken closer to her. Where she wanted him. “Why’d you kill your husband? Why not just divorce him?”
“And let him walk away with half that should be mine?” she said bitterly. “If I’d left our business decisions up to him, we’d have been broke.”
“You owe them no explanation, Philly,” Ken said.
Philomena waved him off and continued. “I told him what to invest our money in. Our stock portfolio is something to be envied. There was no way I was going to split that with him fifty/fifty. When I overheard him and that bitch Dolly Harkins plotting my demise, I knew that Ken and I had to act. Wade deserved what he got.”
“Philly, shut up,” Ken said, moving closer toward Ida Belle.
Philomena shook her head. “I knew you three were smart enough to figure out Dolly Harkins did it. I never thought you’d make the connection to me.”
Ken took a step closer to Ida Belle and jabbed the gun her way. “I said go sit on the sofa with your friends.”
Now was the time.
Ida Belle glanced over at Gertie then Marge. The years they’d spent working together in dangerous situations taught them many things, such as how to read one another. A blink of the eyes. Licking of the lips. All were signals. Ida Belle’s was her lifted brows. Gertie’s signal back to her was a sniff. Marge bit her upper lip. They were now in sync. Ida Belle had signaled first. It was her move.
She placed her hands on the stuffed dog. “Look, I don’t have a weapon or anything. I’m going to do exactly as you say. Just don’t hurt my—”
Ida Belle noticed the ‘abort mission’ hand signals both Marge and Gertie were sending her. Unfortunately, the signals came just as she’d pushed the stuffed dog across the floor toward Ken and dove to her left. While making her move, she caught a brief glimpse of Walter as he burst into the living room from the hallway, his gun drawn as he rushed Ken.
“Drop it!” Walter ordered, tackling Ken just as Archie slammed into him, causing him to loosen his hold of Ken, whose gun had been knocked from his hand. As Ken dove for his weapon, Walter reached out and grabbed the man’s legs and pulled him back just as he was within inches of reaching his gun.
Ida Belle pulled herself up from the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Philomena inching her way toward Ken’s gun. Ida Belle whipped out her pistol from her waistband and pointed it at her. Marge did the same.
“I w
ouldn’t try it,” Ida Belle said.
“What she said,” added Marge.
They both glanced at Gertie, expecting her to do the same. Gertie shrugged. “Eloise is stuck between my boobs,” she whispered. “Long story.”
Walter cuffed Ken and stood. Took a card from his shirt pocket and read Ken his rights. He then pulled his attention to the three of them. “What in Hades are you three doing here?”
“We had a theory and came here to question Philomena. See how she’d react when we accused her of murder,” Ida Belle said. “As you can see, we were right.”
“If we were right about her, we were going to call you,” Marge said.
“Wrong order,” Walter shot back. “You should have called before you set foot in this house.”
“From what? Our shoe phones?” Gertie asked, rolling her eyes.
Walter cuffed Philomena and read her rights then turned back to them. “There’s a pay phone on Main Street. Better yet, you could have stopped in the station and shared your thoughts with the sheriff.”
Gertie dismissed him with a wave. “A lot of good that would have done. Sheriff Lee just puts his fingers in his ears and hums whenever we come near.”
“So what brought you here?” Ida Belle asked.
“Seems I had the same theory you had,” he said. “Miss Dolly kept bawling about how they’d only shot Wade Guillory once in the foot, and I got to wondering if she was telling the truth. Then I wondered how she could have messed with Philomena’s medicine and it have had no effect on her. I thought I’d come over and ask the grieving widow a few questions. Then I saw the Wienermobile parked out front, so I snuck in through a back window.” He nodded toward the guns Marge and Ida Belle held in their hands. “Do you mind putting those away before the sheriff gets here?”
IDA BELLE STOOD WITH Gertie and Marge, smiling with satisfaction as Deputy Broussard pulled away from the curb in his Sinful Sheriff’s cruiser, Philomena and Ken both handcuffed and yelling at one another in the back seat. Sheriff Lee shook his head as he hopped on his horse and followed Deputy Broussard back to the station.
Luckily, Walter received full credit for closing the case. Philomena and Ken had both blamed each other for masterminding the plot, which had been weeks in the making. Their plan hadn’t called for death-by-nail gun, but after seeing Paul and then later Dolly run from the house, Philomena and Ken realized they’d stumbled onto an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.
Walter finished wrapping crime-scene tape around the porch, blocking entrance to Philomena’s house, and joined the three under Philomena’s pepper tree.
“Unbelievable,” Walter said as he approached them.
“Not really,” Gertie said. “A little sickly makeup and clothes three sizes larger can make a lady look like she’s sick and losing weight. It’s no wonder everyone believed she had leukemia. Having Ken pretend to be a doctor who made house calls just added credibility to the lie.”
Walter frowned. “That’s not what I was referring to.” He turned to Ida Belle and wagged his index finger at her. “I forbid you from doing anything dangerous like that again!”
Ida Belle could feel her face flush. That’s always how she reacted when anyone used the word “forbid” around her. Especially a man, though she wasn’t too keen on women forbidding her to do anything either. She took a calming breath and folded her arms. “You do, do you?”
Marge and Gertie folded their arms as well.
“And who got the confession out of Dolly which then led to suspicions about Philomena?” Marge asked.
Walter held up his hands. “And I gave you all proper credit to Sheriff Lee for that.”
“That explains that constipated look he had,” Gertie said.
“Maybe that look had more to do with the fact you stole the Martin brothers’ Wienermobile and drove dangerously on Branley Road to get Dolly to confess,” Walter said. “We’re all lucky that Dolly didn’t take her confession back. She could have clammed up and claimed you coerced a false confession from her.” He sighed. “But what really bothers me is that you all could have gotten hurt. Either on Branley Road or when you confronted Philomena. Not to mention the way you were driving on the water the other night.”
Walter directed his focus toward Ida Belle. “Honestly, what am I going to have to do to get you to stop doing these dangerous things? Marry you and keep you busy having a house full of kids?”
Ida Belle glanced at Gertie and Marge, their eyes as big as saucers.
“Excuse me?” Ida Belle said.
“I’ll ask one more time. Ida Belle, will you marry me? Be my wife. Have my kids. Stay out of danger?”
She pursed her lips.
Walter gave her a puzzled look. “Now is where you’re supposed to say ‘yes.’”
“Were you not listening when we had our discussions about marriage and kids?” she asked him, referring to the umpteen talks they’d had on the subject.
He scratched his head. “Well, I happen to think you’re wrong. Now is the time to think about this seriously.”
Marge whistled.
Walter pointed his finger at her. “Now don’t you start with your women’s lib stuff.”
Gertie shook her head.
“Do you have something to say?” Walter asked.
“Yep,” Gertie said. “You’d better check the bottom of your shoes. You’ve stepped in so much crap, it would take Gill months to identify it all.”
“I have been discussing it seriously,” Ida Belle said. “You just haven’t taken me seriously.”
“Let’s have another discussion about the future, then. Tonight. My place. I’ll grill some burgers.”
Ida Belle smiled. “Not tonight. The three of us have some plans of our own to discuss.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe tomorrow?”
She shrugged. “I like my burgers well done and my beer cold. But my plans don’t include marriage and kids. If you’re good with that, I’ll bring a peach pie from the café.” She looked at Marge and Gertie. “Ladies. We have a house to go see.”
The three of them started toward the Wienermobile.
“Okay, we’ll table our marriage discussion for another night,” he called out to her. “And forget the kids. If you don’t want them, we won’t have them. But just so you know, I’m going to wear you down about this whole marriage thing. You just wait and see.” As they approached the Wienermobile, Walter called out again. “You do plan on giving that car back to the Martin brothers, don’t you?”
Gertie turned back toward him. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
THE THREE GIRLS STOOD outside the wrought iron fence surrounding the front yard and stared at the house Ida Belle’s great-aunt had left her. Ida Belle knew that one day they would each decide to buy homes that better fit their personalities, but for now, this big old Victorian was perfect.
“Welcome to our new house,” Ida Belle said as they opened the gate and stepped on the walkway leading to the porch.
“It has two porch swings,” Marge said in awe.
“There are plenty of bathrooms if you want to convert one to a darkroom,” Ida Belle said to her. “I know you’ve always wanted a home darkroom.”
“I don’t care if there are zero bathrooms inside,” Gertie said. “I’d gladly use an outhouse and a backyard hose for a shower to get out from under my mama’s wings.”
Ida Belle looked at the house and nodded. “I’d say it’s time for us to get out from everyone’s wings. Spread our own.”
“We’re free!” Gertie called out, holding her arms up toward the sky.
Ida Belle nodded. “Yeah, we are. But it can be hard for women like us, women who may not want to get married and have kids—”
“But want to fool around,” Gertie interjected.
“Or be able to have all the opportunities men have,” Marge added.
“All of that,” Ida Belle agreed, nodding. “After dealing with Sheriff Lee and Deputy Broussard these past few days, I’m con
vinced that women would do a better job of running this town.”
“You got that right,” Gertie said. “But fat chance of that.”
“If you ask me, we could run this town and the dimwit mayor and Sheriff Lee wouldn’t even know we were doing it,” Marge said, laughing.
“You read my mind,” Ida Belle said. Both Gertie and Marge laughed, until they noticed that she wasn’t joining in.
“Are you serious?” Marge asked.
Ida Belle nodded. “The letter from the attorney included a letter from my Great-Aunt Mabel. I didn’t know it, but she’d been married and divorced. She spoke of how hard it was for her after her divorce. She wanted to buy a house of her own, but she had a hard time getting a bank to loan her the money. Luckily an aunt of hers left her this house and the oil wells in her will, otherwise Mabel would have had to obtain a loan from the Chicorons. And for women, that loan came with higher interest.”
“That’s terrible,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle nodded. “That’s why she left me everything. So I wouldn’t have to go through what she went through. It got me thinking. For too long the men of this town have made it hard for women to live the kind of lives they’ve wanted to live. The men here have kept the women out of the decision making. We can all see what a terrible job they’ve done. The mayor’s corrupt and inept and the sheriff discounts what women have to say. What we need is our own special brand of women’s movement right here in Sinful.”
“I’ll start making signs,” Marge said.
Ida Belle shook her head. “This is still Sinful. Our movement needs to be a covert operation, like the one we just completed solving the Guillory murder.”
Gertie clapped. “I like it already.”
“But we can’t do it alone. So I say we gather like-minded women who don’t want to be constrained by a backward-thinking town.”
“We’d have to screen these women well,” Marge said. “We wouldn’t want some gal running to her husband and blabbing what we’re doing.”
“That’s why we restrict our group to unmarried women. A society of women whose minds haven’t become jumbled by their husbands.”