by Jana DeLeon
Gertie’s chute deployed and she instantly righted and slowed. I waited another couple seconds, getting as close as I safely could, then deployed my chute. I looked down and saw we were still drifting slightly toward downtown. So far, no gusts. I hoped Gertie had realized she was far away from the landing zone and was prepared to direct the chute, but given her questionable vision and refusal to upgrade her glasses, that was a big if. For all I knew, everything looked like a big brown and green blob to her. But even Gertie’s crap vision wouldn’t fail to miss buildings once they started rushing toward her.
We were about a hundred yards from the ground when the first gust hit. It pushed us both over the middle of the bayou that ran parallel to downtown. Given the local wildlife, that wasn’t optimum. But the real danger was that the current would grab the chute and pull her under before she could release herself from the harness. I had to be ready for a water recovery and hoped someone with a boat readily available was watching and could help out.
We were only seconds away from landing when the next gust hit, lifting us both up a little and pushing us into downtown. The bayou disappeared, and the steeple of the Catholic church rose in front of me like a giant skydiver-catching rod. I saw Gertie grab for the toggles to change the direction of the parachute and held my breath as she narrowly missed catching herself on the structure. I cleared the building and scanned the grounds behind the church for a clear landing path.
Unfortunately, the grounds weren’t empty, as normal. In fact, they were full. People, tables with food and drinks, chairs, tents, and one of those bouncy houses. It was some sort of party and it was a big one, with at least fifty adults and children occupying a relatively small space.
And we were only seconds from plowing into all of them.
Someone on the ground yelled and pointed at us and people began to scatter. Unfortunately, no one knew which way to run, so they tumbled over one another and didn’t manage to get out of the way. Gertie was coming in too fast to make a calculated landing and I could tell by the way she was yanking on the toggles that she was having trouble controlling the direction of the chute.
Even worse, there were power lines behind the church grounds. One good gust would put her right into them. There was no way I was going to catch her dangling in the air, so I did what any former CIA would do. I yelled a warning for those below, then released myself from my chute and dropped into the bouncy castle.
Fortunately, kids were just starting to enter the castle when I dropped, so I didn’t take any of them out with my fall. But as my weight connected with the giant pocket of air, the castle bowed and sent two of them tumbling backward out the entrance. I bounced once and did a roll, then sprang up and leaped over the fallen kids and ran after Gertie.
She was only fifteen feet or so above the ground and coming in hard. A table with a banner that read First Communion and held a giant cake and two punch bowls was directly in her path. I ran as fast as I could but before I could reach her, she collided with the cake and wrapped her arms around it. It was the body’s natural response to falling to attempt to grab on to something to stabilize you, but the cake was no match for a grown adult hurtling from the sky.
The entire cake came off the table along with Gertie and hit Celia Arceneaux right in the face, knocking her to the ground. Gertie released the cake on impact and reached for the next solid object in sight.
A nun.
She grasped the shoulders of the woman’s habit, and I figured she’d take them both down. But at that moment, a big gust of air caught her parachute and launched her upward…still clutching the nun’s habit.
I leaped onto the table that had held the cake and jumped as high and as far as I could, trying to grab hold of Gertie’s feet before she could do any more damage. But I was short about two inches. I hit the ground and rolled, then bounced back up in time to see the habit slide over the nun and lift off with Gertie.
I shut my eyes for a second, not wanting to see a nun in her delicates, or even worse, commando. Then I stared in surprise when the habit revealed bike shorts and a Van Halen T-shirt. The one with the toddler angel smoking a cigarette. The nun screamed bloody murder, and I yanked the tablecloth from the table behind me and tossed it to her before sprinting off after Gertie. I had to catch her before she hit the power lines.
Fortunately, the gust that had taken her skyward disappeared and she started to drop again. As long as another gust didn’t materialize, she was going to miss the power lines, but not by much. She’d dropped the habit and was back to trying to direct the chute, but I don’t think it was doing any good anymore as she was close to the ground.
Cemetery ground.
I turned up my speed to the final notch, trying to get close enough to help break her fall or prevent her from crashing into one of the mausoleums, but I couldn’t reach her in time. She hit the side of one of the large cement structures face-first, and the parachute looped over the cross on the top, leaving her dangling on the side like a sack of potatoes.
Gertie groaned as I rushed up and helped her turn around so she was facing out.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, scanning her up and down. “Is anything broken?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “But the day’s not over yet.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” I asked as I worked on the straps to free her from the harness. “We’re going straight home and you’re going to sit in a recliner for the next forty years, even if I have to handcuff you to it.”
“There’s a problem with the mausoleum,” Gertie said.
“No way you damaged this thing,” I said. “It’s concrete and has been here for at least a hundred years.”
“A hundred and fifty-two years. It’s Celia’s family crypt.”
I stared at her in dismay.
She grinned, then started to laugh. “She’s going to kill me. Oh my God. What are the odds? I stripped a nun and desecrated Celia’s family crypt all in one swoop. That’s got to be a record, even for me.”
“You didn’t desecrate it. You couldn’t even put a scratch on this thing.”
“I’m hanging on her family’s tomb in what Celia would consider my underwear.”
I paused. “Point taken. Let’s get you out of here before she shows up.”
“Too late.”
I turned around and saw a blob of white, silver, blue, and pink icing barreling toward me. Her face was completely covered, only her eyes and mouth showing, but there was no doubt it was Celia. Even before she opened her mouth.
“You have taken your hatred of me and this town to a whole new low,” Celia said. “I expect you to treat me with disrespect as you don’t seem capable of anything else, but to ruin a children’s party is too much, even for you.”
“Well, they are Catholic children,” I said, but my joke was completely lost on the raging Celia.
I looked behind her and saw a weary-looking Carter headed our way. Celia pointed at us and yelled at Carter. “I want them both arrested for assault and destruction of private property. This is the last time Gertie and her whore bring ruin down on this town.”
Carter stepped up to the mausoleum and lifted Gertie up so I could release her from the harness, then set her on the ground.
“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?” he asked.
There was an intake of breath and all the women gathered behind Celia made the sign of the cross. Carter didn’t look the least bit contrite.
“We were skydiving,” I said, “and there was a miscalculation with the drop.”
“Bomber Bruce?” Carter asked.
I nodded.
Carter shook his head. “You missed his place by a good five miles. That’s not a miscalculation. That’s a screwup of the first order.”
“It was my fault,” Gertie said. “I thought he told me to go, but apparently I was wrong.”
“Didn’t you look out the plane before jumping and think for one moment, ‘Maybe this isn’t right’
?” Carter asked.
I pointed to my eyes and inclined my head toward Gertie.
“I can see just fine,” Gertie protested.
“You jumped over downtown,” I said.
“Dressed in her underwear,” Celia said. “She should be arrested at once for public indecency.”
“This is a costume,” Gertie said. “Not underwear. And it’s perfectly legal to wear it in public. Perhaps not the best choice for a religious celebration, but I didn’t know I’d be crashing your party. Literally.”
Carter closed his eyes, and I could see his lips moving. Either he was praying or trying to talk himself out of arresting us or just shooting us on the spot. Finally he looked up. “I have a murder to investigate. I do not have the time or inclination to deal with the fallout from your absurd choice of activities and the mistakes that ensue from there. Will you please both, for the love of God, go home and stay there?”
“For how long?” Gertie asked.
“Until I retire,” Carter said.
“You’re not going to arrest them?” Celia asked, her outrage clear.
“Accidents, even stupid ones, are not criminal,” Carter said. “The DA would laugh me out of the sheriff’s department if I even suggested he bring charges against them for crashing a party and ruining a cake.”
Celia pointed at me, her hand shaking. “She assaulted children.”
“I did not touch a single child when I landed,” I said. “They just bounced a little.”
“Was anyone hurt?” Carter asked.
“That’s not the point,” Celia said. “For Christ’s sake, they defrocked a nun!”
Carter stared at Celia for a moment, probably trying to figure out the inherent meaning of her comment since the literal one probably wasn’t computing. Then he looked over at me. I shrugged.
“Did you undress a nun?” Carter asked.
“Not me,” I said, and pointed to Gertie.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Gertie said. “I was just trying to grab on to something to keep me from flying off again and the habit just kinda went up when I did.”
Carter stared at her silently for a couple seconds. “Was the nun, um, underneath…”
“She had on clothes,” I said.
“Thank God,” Carter said, and looked over at Celia. “Would the nun like to press charges?”
“Sister Mary Catherine left the event in disgrace.”
“Probably that Van Halen T-shirt she was wearing,” I said.
Carter’s bottom lip quivered. “The one with the baby angel smoking?”
“That’s the one.”
“Look,” Gertie said. “I’m sorry I crashed into the party. It wasn’t my intent. I will pay for everything I damaged and will furnish another cake and whatever else is needed to redo the entire shindig.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Carter said. “Celia, send the bills to Gertie and she’ll be happy to promptly pay them.”
“And what about the buffoon that allowed them to jump out of his plane?” Celia asked. “Surely he has some responsibility here.”
“Do you want me to have him pay for the damage instead of Gertie?” Carter asked.
“No! I want them both to pay and the whore and that witch Ida Belle. I know she’s in on this too.”
“I was not in anything, except the bayou.” Ida Belle’s voice sounded behind Carter, and I peered around to see her walking up, soaking wet.
I figured she would drop after me but when she hadn’t appeared in the cemetery, I thought either she’d decided against it or hadn’t been taken by the wind like Gertie and me. Apparently, it was the latter and Ida Belle had landed in the bayou.
“Well, I’m not making all of them buy you cake,” Carter said. “So pick one and let’s get on with this. I have serious work to do. I’m not wasting any more time on this nonsense.”
Celia whirled around to face him and glared. “You consider the taxpaying citizens of Sinful a waste of your time?”
“Not at all,” Carter said. “But since one of those citizens is lying on a slab in the morgue, that takes priority over your fallen cake.” He looked over at Gertie. “I’m going to make a guess that skydiving was your idea, so you can foot the bill. I want all three of you to go home and I swear to God if I see you outside even checking your mail, I’ll arrest you on principle.”
He turned around and strode off, but I could tell by the set of his jaw when he left that his frustration with all of the ridiculous things that happen in Sinful—many prompted by Gertie—had reached a boiling point. It was probably time for the three of us to lie low.
Just as soon as we got Ally’s name cleared.
Chapter Twelve
Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to Carter, or he hadn’t cared, that since we’d jumped out of an airplane, we didn’t exactly have transportation home. I had no problem with the walk, physically, but I was less than thrilled about having Wonder Woman along for the stroll. I’d been stared at enough today. So we did what any trio of women who’d botched skydiving, ruined a children’s party, and defrocked a nun did. We went to the General Store to hit up Walter for help.
He was already laughing when we walked in the door, so the Sinful gossip train was clearly on the job. He took one look at Gertie and doubled over. Not the most polite of responses to a woman’s choice of wardrobe, but I couldn’t really blame him. When he finally came up for air, he leaned across the counter and drew in a big breath.
“Did you really undress a nun?” he asked.
“It was an accident,” Gertie said.
His eyes widened for a moment, then he started off on another round of laughter. I figured I had a couple minutes of shopping time while he pulled himself together, so I grabbed some snack stuff and a loaf of bread and hauled it all back to the counter. Walter was wiping his eyes with a rag, his face still red.
“Oh my God,” he said when he got another breath. “I thought I’d heard some stuff, and I have to admit, when this story came around, I didn’t believe it. Not all of it, anyway. But this has to be one of the top five Gertie mishaps in the history of Gertie mishaps.”
I looked over at Ida Belle, who shook her head.
“It’s probably top five of publicly known mishaps,” I said.
Walter pointed at me. “That’s valid. I imagine if I knew the details of the things you guys got up to when no one was around to report them, it would make all those ridiculous videos on YouTube look tame.”
“Or fit right in,” Ida Belle said. “While I can appreciate your desire to have a good laugh at our expense, and don’t blame you one bit, we’re here because we need some help.”
Walter reached under the counter and pulled out his truck keys. “I’ll have Scooter drop me off after work at Fortune’s to pick it up.”
I smiled. “I appreciate a man who assesses a situation and comes up with a solution before being asked.”
“Well, it was either that or sell you a tarp for the walk home,” he said. “But the laugh alone was worth the price of the truck borrow.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You got a whole lot of laughing in for one truck borrow. We may need some credit in our account.” I pointed to my items. “Ring me up and we’ll get out of here.”
Walter shook his head, put the items in a bag, and handed it to me. “On the house for ruining Celia’s day.”
“If I’d known you were giving away groceries,” I said, “I would have picked up steaks.”
“Freezer’s on the way out,” he said. “Might as well grab some for your grill. Your backyard might be the only place outside of your house that you’re allowed to go. I’ll be by this evening for the truck. If for some reason you decide to completely ignore Carter’s order and you’re not going to be home, just leave the key to the truck in the visor.”
“Thanks, Walter,” I said. “You’re the best.”
He smiled. “I keep saying that.”
I could hear him laughing again as we left th
e store.
We climbed into Walter’s truck and I looked over at the other two. “Did anyone leave anything at Bruce’s place? Wallet? Purse? Stick of dynamite?”
Ida Belle shook her head. “I know better than to bring things with me to a drop.” She looked over at Gertie.
“What?” Gertie asked. “Did you see my giant purse anywhere? Oh, well, technically I left my other clothes in the plane.”
“Hazard of jumping as Wonder Woman,” Ida Belle said. “I’m not going to risk sitting in jail overnight in order for you to retrieve a pair of slacks and blouse that you’ve probably had for longer than Fortune’s been alive. I’ll get my SUV tomorrow.”
“If it’s all the same,” I said, “I’d like to pass on the opportunity of spending another night in the sheriff’s department motel. Just did that. The room service is good but the beds are horrible, and I prefer to visit the ladies’ in private and when I want. Myrtle was great about giving us bathroom breaks, but the restroom at the sheriff’s department is still used mostly by men.”
“They have a cleaning service, don’t they?” Gertie asked.
“Yeah, but they come in the morning. We were there overnight. That’s a whole day of male usage. Besides, they have a Bible in there.”
Gertie nodded. “Reading material.”
“Bathroom reading material should be Guns & Ammo or Hot Rod magazine or for here, something on fishing. Who stays in the restroom long enough to read the Bible?”
“It’s probably Carter in there praying about you,” Ida Belle said.
“Good point,” I said.
I pulled into Gertie’s driveway and she climbed out. “I’ll do the shower and change thing and dig something out of the refrigerator, then I’ll head over to your place. I assume Carter won’t have a problem with us being in the same house as long as we’re inside.”
I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure Carter would prefer we reside in different states, but that’s not my problem. I’m starving too. Bring whatever you’ve got. It’s bound to be better than what I can come up with.”