by Jana DeLeon
“Oh good,” I said. “Because while I’m really good at lying—I mean really, really good—I don’t want to do that with you. But I do reserve the right to leave things out. For your own good.”
“I assume you’re talking about that whole treading-on-Carter’s-toes thing that you, Ida Belle, and Gertie do. I get it. I can’t be in trouble if I don’t know anything. More importantly, I can’t get you into trouble.”
She frowned. “But can you at least tell me if you’re finding anything about Hooch? I know that’s probably where you were last night. I don’t need the details. I just want to know that you found something, anything. I’m sorry. I’m going on and I’m putting pressure on you and that’s not fair.”
I sat down at the table next to her. “I was a CIA agent. Trust me, there is no way you can ever put as much pressure on me as the federal government.”
“Ha! Yeah, I suppose the rest of us are amateurs facing that comparison.”
“Well, they have had a lot of experience. Anyway, to answer your question, we have discovered some things that need further checking but we don’t have anything concrete just yet.” I reached over and squeezed her arm. “We’re not going to give up until we figure this out. Neither is Carter.”
She nodded. “I know. I’ve got the best people in the world looking out for me. It will all turn out just fine. I know that, but I can’t stop worrying about the what-if.”
“Leave the worry to me.”
“You eat worry for breakfast.”
“Exactly. And speaking of which, would you like some?”
My cell phone rang and I checked the display. Ida Belle.
“I’m on my way to pick you up,” Ida Belle said. “Margarita and Junior are at the café.”
“Great!” I jumped up from the table. “Gotta run. It’s one of those things I can’t talk about. Help yourself to anything. I’ll be back later.”
I ran upstairs and threw on clothes and shoes and grabbed my gun and hauled butt downstairs. Ida Belle was just pulling up in my driveway and I yelled a goodbye to Ally before hurrying outside. Gertie was in the back seat but her smell had carried all the way up to my sidewalk.
I wrinkled my nose and made a face.
“She smells like a French whore,” Ida Belle said. “Did you have to bathe in perfume?”
“It was either that or smell like tomato paste,” Gertie said.
“Perhaps Italian whore would be more appropriate,” I said. Gertie was indeed a fairly awful combination of obnoxious perfume, tomato paste, and the faint whiff of skunk.
“I’ll have to put an air purifier in this vehicle to get the smell out,” Ida Belle said.
“Oh, stop your whining,” Gertie said. “Just roll down all the windows and drive like you usually do. The smell will flee out of terror.”
I grinned. “If you went just a little faster than that, you might be able to turn back time to before Gertie got sprayed.”
“You two are hilarious this morning,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve already filled Gertie in on the drilling company letter and the rock through Ally’s window. I heard Carter was at your house earlier. Did he find out anything?”
“Do those followers of yours report to you every time Carter’s truck is in my driveway?” I asked.
“Just when they think I need to know,” Ida Belle said.
“Oh, well, as long as they have a reason for being nosy tattletales,” I said.
“They’re Southern women,” Gertie said. “They don’t need a reason. So did he find out anything or not?”
“Of course not,” I said. “Everyone was asleep. So what’s the play on Margarita and Junior?”
“We go to eat,” Ida Belle said. “Gertie and I exclaim over not seeing them in forever and proceed to pump them for personal information just like any other self-respecting old Southern woman would do.”
Gertie nodded. “Sometimes the stereotypes come in handy.”
“Okay. Then you take the lead. I’ll just watch the reactions. If someone’s lying, I’ll know.”
Ida Belle parked and we headed into the café. I let out a sigh of relief that I’d called it correctly. Without banana pudding on the menu, Celia’s group had opted out of eating lunch there. With all her current issues with Gertie, it was probably better that they didn’t occupy the same space for a while, especially after Celia had attended a religious ceremony.
I scanned the patrons and spotted an older woman and young man I didn’t recognize sitting at a table against the wall. The other customers were giving them sideways glances but going out of their way not to make eye contact, so I figured that had to be them.
Middle-aged woman. Five foot six. A hundred forty pounds. No obvious physical ailments but horrible muscle tone. Face stretched too tight. Lips too big. Makeup too dark. Clothes a little too tight and too low. But prettier than I’d expected. No threat at all.
Male. Early twenties. Five foot eleven. A hundred eighty pounds. No obvious physical ailments. Excellent muscle tone. Mismatched socks. One red logo. One green logo. Could probably hold his own in a basic street fight, but no threat to me.
Ida Belle and Gertie strode right up to the table and gave them smiles.
“Margarita,” Gertie said. “It’s been too long. You look great.”
Margarita looked up at us and smiled. “Ida Belle and Gertie. I never thought I’d see you two again and yet here we are. You two haven’t changed a bit. How are you?”
“Doing well,” Ida Belle said. “You’re looking good yourself. I take it your time after leaving Sinful has been good.”
“The best,” she said.
Gertie looked at Junior. “I haven’t seen you since you were a boy, and now here you are all grown up. I’m really sorry about your father.”
Junior looked down at the table and nodded before looking back up at us. “Thank you.” He seemed more embarrassed than upset.
Margarita gave her son a sympathetic look. “Junior is having trouble figuring out what to feel, I’m afraid. He didn’t have a relationship with his father to speak of. Hadn’t even spoken with him for probably ten years or better, but you don’t get to pick your parents, and blood is blood, so…”
Gertie nodded. “Still a loss.”
Junior squirmed. “I just want to get this over with, you know? And get back to my job. I know how to handle things there.”
“What do you do?” Ida Belle asked.
“Junior works construction,” Margarita said. “He’s the youngest foreman at the company.”
“That’s great,” Gertie said. “Are you still painting? You were quite the artist, even as a young child. Such great perspective and use of color.”
Junior blushed a bit. “That’s awful nice of you to say. I still paint some, but I don’t have as much time for it now.”
“Junior’s done some simply beautiful paintings for my house,” Margarita said, and pulled out her phone. “Here’s one hanging in my dining room, and this one is over the fireplace in the living room.”
I leaned and looked at the pictures. I was no art expert, but I liked what I saw. One was a landscape of a beach with seagulls flying in the distance and seashells in the foreground. It was very serene. The other was of the French Quarter. The detail was so elaborate, it almost looked like a photograph rather than a painting.
“Those are incredible,” I said. “You are very talented.”
Junior barely mumbled a thanks and dropped his gaze down to the table. Margarita looked up at me and frowned.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My name is Fortune. I’m a friend of Ida Belle and Gertie.”
She gave me a nod.
“And what about you?” Gertie asked Margarita. “How have you been? Is there a new Mr. Margarita?”
“Definitely not,” Margarita said. “Hooch pretty much put me off men forever. Do you know he never paid a single dime in child support? Owes me more money than he’s probably made in the last ten years. When I left here, I swore I would conce
ntrate on raising my son and I did. Now that he’s on his own, I suppose I have the time to pursue someone else, but honestly, it just doesn’t appeal.”
Ida Belle nodded. “There’s a lot worse things than being single.”
“Being married to a cheater is one of them,” Margarita said.
Gertie’s eyes widened. “Hooch cheated?”
“As often as he could find someone willing,” Margarita said. “The last one was the final straw. Some cocktail waitress in the French Quarter. He didn’t even bother to hide it. Used to come home reeking of cheap perfume.” She gave Gertie a quizzical look and sniffed.
“I’m sorry,” Ida Belle said. “We had no idea. You were right to leave. For that and a lot of other reasons. I suppose you’re here to take care of the service and settle up the property and stuff?”
Margarita frowned. “That’s the goal, but it seems we’re on hold for a bit until Deputy LeBlanc deems it okay for us to enter Hooch’s house. I don’t expect he’s got anything worthwhile inside, but we still have to get a look at it before we can list it for sale. As for the service, it will be the cheapest one that can be arranged. Lord knows, Hooch spent every dime he made, so no counting on help on that end. And I’m not going to let Junior pay for some expensive funeral. My boy works hard. Hooch doesn’t deserve a cut of his earnings.”
I looked over at Junior, who started to say something, then must have thought better of it and just shook his head and looked back down at the tabletop again.
“Maybe you’ll luck out and he’ll have money stuffed in his mattress,” Gertie said.
Margarita laughed. “The only thing Hooch is likely to have stuffed in his bed are dirty clothes. The man was always a pig.”
I remembered Gertie’s comment about the dirty underwear in the covers of Hooch’s bed. Apparently, some things never changed.
“Maybe he struck oil,” I said. “Isn’t that a thing down here? You have to excuse me, I just moved here from up north.”
“Best I remember,” Margarita said, “that patch of land Hooch lived on was so small you could spit from one side to the other. If there’s oil, it probably wouldn’t be enough to refill the reservoir on my Cadillac.”
“Oh well,” I said. “You can always hope.”
“I’m all out of hope when it comes to Boone Carre,” Margarita said. “I was out of hope the day I left him and I had no interest in generating any more. My boy and I just want to get this mess taken care of and get on with our lives the way they’ve been for years now—without any thought of Hooch.”
“I don’t blame you,” Ida Belle said. “Well, if there’s anything we can do, please let us know. Everyone in Sinful knows your history. They’ll do you right down at the funeral home. I know it’s not much, but we still try to take care of folks down here.”
“Thank you,” Margarita said. “You ladies were always kind to me, even back when I didn’t have a lick of sense.”
“You were young and had your reasons for the choices you made back then,” Ida Belle said. “Sometimes we have to work with what we’ve got until we figure out something else.”
Margarita stared at her for a moment, and I wondered if she was remembering that young girl, fleeing an abusive father. Only to hook up with an abusive, cheating husband.
Finally, she nodded. “I’m just glad I figured out something else before I raised my son to be like his father.” Her eyes clouded with tears and she sniffed. When she glanced across the table at Junior she sobered, pulling herself together once more.
“Well, we’ll let you get back to your breakfast,” Ida Belle said. “And please, let us know if there’s anything we can do.”
“Of course,” Margarita said.
We headed to our usual table in the back and I realized that everyone in the café had stopped talking to listen to the exchange. I hazarded a guess that as soon as they left the café, cell phones would be buzzing.
We slid into our seats and waited until a server took our drink order to start talking.
“Well, that was interesting,” Gertie said, her voice low. “Did you know Hooch was cheating?”
Ida Belle shook her head. “I had no idea. He must have kept it in New Orleans. If he’d had a run at anyone in town, we’d have heard about it.”
“If he’d had a run at anyone in town, they’d have told him to stick it,” Gertie said.
“All the more reason to take that show on the road,” Ida Belle said. “He could tell whatever lies he wanted in New Orleans.”
“You definitely can’t blame her for leaving,” I said.
“So you think she was telling the truth?” Gertie asked.
“About that? Sure.”
Ida Belle narrowed her eyes. “But you don’t think she was telling the truth about everything.”
“She was lying about not dating,” I said.
“I figured as much,” Gertie said. “The surgery, the makeup, the clothes. A woman doesn’t bother that much unless there’s a man in the picture.”
“But why lie about it?” I asked. “She left Hooch forever ago.”
“Probably doesn’t want Junior to know,” Gertie said. “Young man, feeling his oats. He’d probably have something to say about anyone his mother was interested in. I’ve seen it over and over again with the widows here in Sinful when they take up dating again.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Grown sons can be horrible babies about their mothers, especially when it comes to men and the possibility of sex.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “I can see Carter being a total pain if Emmaline dated. She doesn’t, right?”
“She’s gone out a time or two with some old college friends from New Orleans,” Gertie said. “But she hasn’t dated anyone seriously since Carter’s dad died.”
“Hence why Carter is still walking around free and carrying a badge,” Ida Belle said. “I pity any man who attempts a romantic relationship with Emmaline.”
Gertie sighed. “It’s a shame, really. She’s a beautiful woman and such a great person. She deserves someone special in her life besides her son.”
“I imagine if Emmaline decides she wants some company, she won’t have any trouble making it happen,” Ida Belle said.
“Someone please warn me if you even get an inkling that’s going to occur,” I said. “I’ll go on extended vacation or something.”
Gertie nodded. “You don’t want to have to back up Carter when he declares no one is good enough for his mother. I understand.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to have to back up Emmaline and tell Carter it’s none of his business.”
Ida Belle raised an eyebrow. “Smart. But since Emmaline’s potential dating future is not on our current agenda, can we get back to the business at hand?”
“I think our business just came to a dead end,” I said. “At least on this end of questioning. If Hooch had an oil deal in the works, Margarita didn’t know anything about it.”
“I agree,” Ida Belle said. “If Hooch really had something of value, he didn’t let on about it to his son. Junior would have told his mother. That’s where his loyalty lies.”
“So what now?” Gertie asked.
“Ricky Marks is the only real unknown,” I said. “I think it’s time we found out a bit more about him.”
Gertie immediately brightened. “So we’re going to the Swamp Bar?”
“Well, you already smell like you’re going,” I said. “It would be a shame for all that perfume to go to waste.”
Chapter Twenty
It was close to 9:00 p.m. when I jumped in Ida Belle’s SUV for our trip to the Swamp Bar. Carter was working late again, and since Ally was staying with me, I didn’t have to worry about him dropping by later on. I’d spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out another way to get information on Ricky Marks, but the Swamp Bar was his only known hangout. If we wanted to get eyes on him, that would be the most likely place. Especially as we couldn’t exactly drive out to his rented farmhouse
in the middle of nowhere and proceed to quiz him without looking a tiny bit suspicious.
Since Ricky was young and to the best of our knowledge, single, Gertie had suggested I wear something sexy and play the half-drunk bar patron and see if I could get him talking. I figured pretty much everyone in Sinful knew I was dating Carter by now and even if Ricky wasn’t up on the local gossip, someone in the bar would warn him off. Instead, I wore jeans, a sports bra, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. Not even remotely sexy, but I could fight or run in them quite nicely.
“Ally okay?” Ida Belle asked as I climbed in the passenger’s seat.
I nodded. “She knows better than to ask anything. She’s watching a movie right now and has promised to lock up everything before she goes to bed. She’s got a pistol with her in the living room and one in her bedroom.”
“You don’t think anyone’s going to bother her at your place, do you?” Ida Belle asked.
“It would be stupid to,” I said. “But Sinful has coughed up a big share of stupid.”
“That’s true enough,” Ida Belle said.
“The bigger question is what about Carter?” Gertie asked. “Are things still tense between the two of you?”
“It’s gotten a little better,” I said. “But then, we’ve hardly seen each other, so that’s kinda the default. Plus, his mind is 100 percent on the case, so that doesn’t leave him as much time to be irritated at me.”
“He’s going to need stock in Xanax if he continues to let you bother him,” Gertie said.
“He’ll get used to it eventually,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve been friends with you for a hundred years and I haven’t shot you yet.”
“That’s because I’m superhuman,” Gertie said. “Stronger than steel. Faster than lightning.”
“So fast a skunk in a wardrobe got you,” Ida Belle said.
“That was a fluke,” Gertie said.
“You have an awful lot of fluke for a superhuman,” Ida Belle said. “In fact, one might argue that you have an awful lot of fluke for a regular human.”