by Jana DeLeon
“And I assume he took it in stride,” Gertie said, “because it’s not like he hasn’t had a lifetime of dealing with Ida Belle as experience.”
“I’m sure that didn’t hurt my case,” I said, “but yes, he was all calm about it, and really happy that I’m going to be staying.” I smiled. “I really like Walter. I mean really, really like him.”
Gertie nodded. “He’s a good man. Ida Belle is a fool. But that discussion hasn’t gone anywhere the last fifty years and isn’t going anywhere today.”
“I never said he wasn’t a good man,” Ida Belle objected. “Walter is one of the best ever made, which is exactly why I’m not burdening him with my nonsense.”
“That’s probably the one thing you’ve said about him that makes sense,” Gertie said.
“I decided I preferred burdening you,” Ida Belle said to Gertie.
Gertie shrugged. “That’s a two-way street.”
“Some days it sure doesn’t feel like it,” Ida Belle grumbled. “Feels more like I’m standing in a one-way trucking lane and the convoy is bearing down on me.”
The description was so accurate, I had to laugh. Gertie was an awesome woman and a great friend, but she should come with safety warnings. And her purse should be banned from the planet.
“So what about Ally?” Gertie asked. “You were over there a long time. We couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Since we never heard sirens, we were leaning toward good.”
“It went well,” I said. “She was surprised, of course. Of all the people I’d gotten close to, she was the only one who had no idea at all. But she took it all well and didn’t even bat an eyelash at all my lies. She was more worried about my safety.”
“Ally is a class act,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie nodded. “And one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “I’m lucky to have her as a friend, and I’m really glad she doesn’t hold grudges. It was kinda interesting watching things click with her after I told her the truth.”
“What things?” Ida Belle asked.
“Jumping out of a dead sleep with my pistol at ready,” I said. “Insisting she stay with me when she had a stalker. We spent the whole evening going over the events of the past two months, with her speculating what we were really up to and my role in it, and with me neither confirming nor denying. She has a good imagination. She made us all sound like superheroes.”
“Hell, we are superheroes,” Gertie said.
“Do not give her a good reason to buy us capes,” Ida Belle said. “She’s been harping on it the entire time you were gone.”
“You wear capes with tights,” I said. “I’m totally out of that one.”
“So is Gertie,” Ida Belle said. “For all our sakes.”
“I’m totally going as Wonder Woman for Halloween,” Gertie said.
“Really? Guess Fortune and I will be ‘going’ as vacationers then,” Ida Belle said. “Complete with remote location.”
“You’re going where as Wonder Woman?” I asked. I had picked up on a lot of oddities attributed solely to Sinful during my summer stay, but I had a feeling that was only the tip of the iceberg.
“There’s a huge costume party in the park, complete with a terror-filled maze made of hay bales,” Gertie said. “The streets surrounding the park are completely closed off. There’s food trucks and a band and a costume contest. It’s a wild party.”
“How wild can it be in a town that’s dry?” I asked.
“The Sinful Ladies have a cough syrup booth,” Ida Belle said. “And pretty much everyone brings their own flask.”
I had a feeling that most of the residents had a flask on them every day, not just Halloween. I was positive they were all armed. It didn’t sound like the safest event I’d ever attended, but the “wild” part was probably accurate.
“Look,” Gertie said, pointing to a boat anchoring about fifty yards away.
I looked over to see a stout woman with a braid of black hair hanging halfway down her back. She hefted the anchor like she was throwing a Kleenex, then proceeded to pull out five rods and position them in holders all over the boat.
Midforties. Five foot ten. Two hundred forty pounds and a lot of it muscle. Probably hell in a close-quarters fight. Outside, I’d outrun her.
“Uh-oh.” Gertie pointed to a boat approaching the woman. “That’s Hooch.”
I looked over.
Fifties. Five foot eleven. Two hundred fifty pounds. Mostly flab. No danger at all to the woman he was approaching.
“What’s a Hooch?” I asked.
“Second place,” Ida Belle said.
“Who’s the woman?” I asked.
“First place,” Gertie said.
I clapped my hands. “Oooooh, fish fight!”
“My money’s on Dixie,” Ida Belle said.
Before I could even get out a question about the Southern naming convention, Gertie jumped up and shoved her binoculars at me as Hooch pulled up alongside Dixie’s boat. “You can read lips. Tell us what they’re saying.”
“They’re angled from us,” I said, “but I’ll give it a whirl.”
“Fill in anything you miss,” Gertie said. “Trust me, this is not going to be an advanced conversation.”
“Okay, here we go,” I said. “Starting with Dixie.”
“Go away. This is my spot.”
“You know damned good and well I always fish here.”
“Not today. Today it’s mine.”
“I don’t see your name on it.”
“Wouldn’t matter if it was since you can’t read.”
“You uppity cow. Why don’t you get out of that boat and bake a cake or something? You and that gun-toting old crow are ruining everything in this town.”
I glanced over at Ida Belle, who raised her hand. I kinda figured.
“Dixie again,” I said.
“It’s not our problem you can’t win a contest.”
“If this town was run right, you wouldn’t even be allowed to enter.”
“You checked a calendar lately? Women had rights before you were born.”
“Not in Sinful they didn’t.”
“Well they do now. Adapt or move. You can start with your boat.”
“You gonna make me?”
Dixie reached into her jeans and pulled out a .44 Magnum. Holy crap!
Chapter Three
I couldn’t make out anything after that. Hooch turned fifty shades of red, then threw his hands in the air and shook his fist at Dixie. A couple seconds later, he started his boat and drove away, giving her the finger as he went. I could see plastic wrappers flying out of the back of his boat.
“He’s totally littering,” I said.
“He doesn’t care much about the environment,” Ida Belle said. “Hooch doesn’t care about much of anything except his next drink.”
“And beating you and Dixie?” Gertie said.
I looked down at Gertie. “Is Dixie related to you?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Gertie said. “Why?”
“You have similar taste in weapons,” I said.
“You mean gross overcompensation?” Ida Belle asked.
“I am not overcompensating for anything,” Gertie said. “I merely like large, long things that pack a punch.” She started giggling hysterically.
Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “Well, I guess the show is over. Looks like Dixie is moving as well.”
Gertie frowned. “You think she decided the fish aren’t biting here?”
“Maybe. Or maybe she noticed us and wants more privacy.”
“Privacy for what?” I asked, wondering if Dixie had some trade secret on how to attract the winning fish. If so, I hoped it didn’t involve nudity. The last thing we needed was Gertie getting ideas. None of us needed a free case of beer that badly.
“So she can cheat,” Ida Belle said.
“She cheats?” I asked.
“There are only two types of fisherme
n,” Gertie said. “Dead and cheaters.”
Since Gertie was always fishing, I was intrigued. “Exactly how does one cheat—bring a fish from a market?”
“Not anymore,” Gertie said. “They check the temperature. Even if you thaw it out, it’s easy to tell that it was frozen and has been dead a while. But there’s all sorts of other ways. Like putting lead in the fish so that it weighs in heavier. Or buying from a fish farm and keeping them in a live trap until the day of the tournament.”
“Seriously?” I asked. “For a trophy and a rod and reel?”
“For a trophy and bragging rights,” Ida Belle said. “Granted, the big tournaments pay out big cash—some of them tens of thousands and more—but fishermen would cheat simply for the right to say they won.”
“Last big tournament, Hooch got caught trimming the tail on a fish,” Gertie said. “He got tossed out and Dixie won.”
“Why on earth would you trim the tail?”
“If there’s lots of categories, it puts the fish in a different slot,” Ida Belle said. “The fish appears to be in a smaller length category but weighs more than other fish that are really that length. This is a small tournament so the type of fish is limited and the biggest one wins.”
I shook my head. “All of this for a trophy and bragging rights? I’ve seen less dedication on CIA missions.”
“Fishing is serious business in southern Louisiana,” Gertie said.
“I’m not required to do it, right?” I asked. “I mean, there’s not some law that says once I own property here, I have to become a fishing cowboy or I’ll do jail time.”
“That hasn’t been a law like that since Brody Hawkins,” Gertie said.
“I’m almost afraid to ask. Who is Brody Hawkins and why were the laws changed because of him?”
“Brody was the best cheater in Sinful,” Ida Belle said. “He moved here from Florida where he used to run a fishing charter. He was determined to retire and never look at a fish again. Then he spent a weekend in jail for not fishing in the tournament, so he decided to put it back on the town.”
Gertie nodded. “Brody proceeded to enter every fishing tournament within a day’s driving distance, and he won them all. I mean, hands down, biggest fish, and not a single person could figure out how he did it. He’s been dead for over a decade, and we still don’t know. He took that one to the grave.”
“Anyway,” Ida Belle said, “since Brody was upsetting half the state, they changed the law about fishing so all the other cheaters had a fair chance.”
Only in Sinful could that sentence make sense. I was just about to ask how Gertie planned on cheating when a giant boom carried across the lake, making the water vibrate.
I immediately dropped out of my seat and into the bottom of the boat, pulling out my pistol as I went, then popped up to peer over the side, gun perched on the edge of the boat. I looked over at Ida Belle and Gertie, who hadn’t moved so much as an inch and were watching me with slightly amused expressions.
“Sorry,” I said, and rose back up. “Sometimes I forget I’m not in Iraq. But that was an explosion. Someone’s still?” A lot of Sinful locals weren’t interested in making a drive to pick up their alcohol, so they resorted to the old-fashioned way of moonshining. Not everyone was competent at it, and explosions were a semi-regular event.
Gertie shook her head. “Fishermen.”
“Good God!” I stared at her. “Isn’t that taking things too far? I mean, I know people want to win but they’re not blowing up the competition to do it, are they?”
“No,” Ida Belle said. “They’re blowing up the fish. Drop a charge into the water, it kills a bunch of fish, and they float to the top. Then you pick up the big ones that don’t have blast damage and it saves you hours of actually fishing.”
I narrowed my eyes at Gertie. “You don’t have any dynamite in your purse, do you?”
“I always have dynamite in my purse,” Gertie said. “But I only brought my duffel today.”
I was mollified for a second, then I remembered who I was dealing with. “Do you have dynamite in your duffel?”
Gertie sighed. “Only two sticks.”
“So there are only two completely illegal explosives on my boat?” I asked.
“Technically, three,” Gertie said. “I have a grenade.”
“Hand them over,” I said, and stuck out my hand. “You’ll have to find another way to cheat. I am not going to jail on my first official full day as a Sinful citizen.”
“It’s going to happen sooner or later,” Gertie said. “You should consider getting it out of the way.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not going to happen sooner or later.”
Ida Belle raised an eyebrow. “Because you intend to be a law-abiding citizen?”
“Because I don’t intend to get caught.”
“That’s my girl.”
Gertie grumbled but dug the dynamite and grenade out of the duffel and handed them to me. I secured them in the bench storage and locked the padlock that only I knew the code to.
“You think we should move?” Ida Belle asked.
Gertie looked over to where Dixie had been anchored and frowned. “Maybe. If Dixie picked the spot, then it must have something going on. She’s only been wrong once—last year—but that was the day she had a heart attack so we all gave her a pass.”
“That so nice of you,” I said, briefly wondering what had happened to give a woman in her forties a heart attack. Then I remembered it was Sinful and the options were unlimited.
Gertie picked up the binoculars and scanned the lake. “I don’t see Dixie anywhere. Let’s go ahead and move.”
Gertie and Ida Belle reeled in their lines, I pulled up the anchor, and Ida Belle moved us forward until we reached the spot where Dixie had been. I waited for the nod from Gertie, then tossed out the anchor again.
Gertie leaned over the side of the boat and studied the water. “It’s clearer here. What’s the depth?”
Ida Belle checked the depth finder. “Eight feet.”
“I see minnows all over,” Gertie said. “I bet she baited the water to bring them in.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Hard to find a spot this clear, too. That Dixie sure knows her coastline.”
“I’m surprised anyone knows it better than you,” I said.
“I know it better for hunting,” Ida Belle said. “Fishing is more Gertie’s thing than mine. And it’s pretty much what Dixie lives for.”
“I guess we all need something to live for,” I said. Even if it was smelly fish. “So are you going to cast a line or just gaze into the water?”
“You know,” Gertie said. “Given how clear the water is here, I think I might switch things up.” She opened up her duffel bag and started digging around. I hoped to God she didn’t have any other explosives that I should have confiscated.
It was worse.
She rose up grinning from ear to ear and holding a speargun.
“I’ve been wanting to test this baby out ever since I bought it on eBay,” Gertie said. “These conditions are perfect.”
Ida Belle stared at her in dismay. “That does it. I’m taking your computer away.”
“You are not going into the water with that thing,” I said.
“Why not?” Gertie asked as she put the gun down and reached into her bag of tricks again. “I have a mask and a small tank. The water is hot as heck, so I don’t need a wet suit, and I’m wearing my Playboy Bunny bathing suit under my clothes.”
“Let me shoot her with that gun and save us all the horror,” Ida Belle said. “You know that’s where this is going.”
“You are not parading around my boat in a Playboy Bunny bathing suit,” I said.
“You two are horrible prudes,” Gertie said.
“No,” Ida Belle said. “We’re just looking forward to lunch and don’t want anything interfering with our enjoyment of it.”
Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. I’ll wear a T-shirt over it. Sati
sfied?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I don’t care if you’re wearing a tuxedo. I still don’t think you with a speargun is a good plan.”
“Why not?” Gertie asked. “Look how long that thing is. It’s not like I can shoot myself with it.”
“If there’s a way,” Ida Belle said, “you’ll find it.”
“And you can shoot someone else,” I said.
“You two will be in the boat,” Gertie said. “You’re perfectly safe.”
I looked over at Ida Belle, who shook her head. We both knew the only way we were assured of safety was if we pulled up anchor and left once she was in the water.
“She’s going to do it regardless of our opinion,” I said. “Did you bring a medical kit?”
“Always,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve also been taking some EMT courses online.”
The fact that her statement not only made sense but actually made me feel better was scary. Especially since I was no longer a CIA agent on a mission. This was a fishing tournament, for goodness’ sake. Only Gertie could make it an event requiring emergency medical care.
Gertie pulled off her pants and blouse and sure enough, she had on a black bathing suit with the Playboy Bunny emblem cut out in the middle of the chest. The back came complete with a poufy tail. Ida Belle winced and Gertie gave her the finger before pulling a white T-shirt out of her duffel and pulling it on.
“This is just going to weigh me down, you know,” Gertie said.
“If that T-shirt is the difference between you staying afloat and drowning, then we’ve got way bigger problems,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie pulled on the tank and put her mask and regulator in place, testing the airflow. Then she sat on the side of the boat, gave us a thumbs-up, and flipped backward over the side. She surfaced a couple seconds later and pulled out the regulator.
“I forgot the speargun,” she said.
“This is going well,” Ida Belle said as I handed her the gun. “You want to take bets on how long before she shoots the boat?”
“Will that thing pierce the hull?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, but just in case, we should probably put our cell phones in waterproof cases and haul out some life jackets.”