by Cheever, Sam
“Yeah. I wonder what they were looking for.” Surely they didn’t know about Felonius and my childhood game.
“That’s a great question. I doubt they expected to find your father hiding inside that mattress.”
The surface of the mattress rippled again and a tiny face with a long, twitchy nose and round black eyes poked out, staring at us. The mouse seemed to think it could glare us away. “It appears somebody thought it was a good idea to hide inside the mattress.”
Cal grinned. “You ready to go?”
Reluctantly I followed him out of the room. “Where next?”
“I was going to ask you that. I guess we can ask Sheriff Lee if there have been any Bubba sightings.”
“Or random Russians milling around.” I nodded. “That makes sense.”
Something crunched under my shoe. I looked down and saw the glass from the alligator aquarium Gertie and Ida Belle had overturned to distract Rouse. It gave me an idea. “Did you look in the aquarium?”
He frowned. “What’s left of it, you mean? I gave it a quick look. I didn’t dig through the gator scat though.”
Grimacing, I walked around the kitchen table and eased closer to the overturned aquarium. A horrible stench surrounded it and I covered my nose and mouth. “Ugh! I can’t believe he lived with these things.”
“I can’t disagree. But you’re probably smelling the remains of their dinner. Apparently they didn’t finish eating before this happened.” He indicated the broken glass on the floor.
Since a half rotted mouse was stuck to the bottom of the aquarium I realized he was right. “Ish!” There was no way I was digging around in that mess to look for clues. Sighing, I turned away. “You’re right. Nothing there.”
My foot bumped the corner of the aquarium and pain shot through my big toe. I hopped around, swearing for a minute before propping my toe on a chair and examining it. Of course it was bleeding. “I should have known better than to wear flip flops.”
Cal handed me a square of white cloth. “Here, wrap this around it.”
I took his hanky and thanked him. A moment later my toe was firmly wrapped and the size of a good club. I carefully lowered it to the ground and started to hobble away. “Let’s get out of this place, it’s depressing me.”
“Wait.” Cal crouched down and reached toward the aquarium, tugging at something trapped under the metal corner. He pulled it free and held it up. “Was this here before?”
It was one of my father’s golden coins. My pulse eased up a notch as I shook my head. “No. The floor was clear when Gertie and Ida Belle overturned the aquarium. Do you think it could have been inside?”
Cal shook his head. “Unlikely. It was trapped under the aquarium.”
Excitement made my skin prickle. “That’s it! That’s the clue we’re looking for.”
Cal handed the coin to me. “Okay. But what does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “But I’m thinking our next stop should be Gordon’s Pawn Shop.”
###
Gordon’s Pawn Shop was close to Francine’s Diner, and close enough to both of Sinful’s churches to make it handy for the faithful to pawn gramma’s silver and then duck into one of the houses of God to drop a fiver into the collection plate.
The last time Cal and I had come to Sinful looking for my father, Gordon’s was one of the first places we looked for information. Mostly because he seemed to be the main repository for the gold coins Felonius Chance was using to live on.
Like that previous time, we were entering the cool, dimly lit environs of the pawn shop just fifteen minutes before closing time. And if there was anything Pim Gordon took more seriously than his next meal, it was closing time.
“Well if it isn’t the tragedy twins, calamity and mischance. Good to see you again, folks.”
I glanced down the long, narrow store for the massive, rosy cheeked head but didn’t see it. Movement along the left side of the store, which was lined on three sides by cloudy glass display cases, drew my gaze to the owner of Gordon’s.
Pim Gordon’s massive head was sticking up above the glass. His dark beady eyes shone with good humor as he nodded a greeting. “What brings you two back to Sinful?”
I returned his smile. “Hey, Pim.” Reaching over the counter I clasped his fleshy hand. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He shook his big head and offered a hand to Cal, who took it with a stern expression that told me he hadn’t appreciated the “tragedy twins” reference as much as I had. “After thirty years in Sinful I’d believe just about anything,” Pim responded. “Try me.”
I dug the gold coin out of my purse and held it up. The overtaxed, armless chair he was sitting in creaked dangerously as he leaned over the counter and took the coin from me. “You want to pawn this?” He laughed his breathless laugh. “Don’t Indianapolis have no pawn shops?”
I shook my head. “I’m looking for Bubba again, Pim. Or…” I skimmed Cal a look. “My father, Felonius Chance.”
Pim’s dark bead eyes widened and he guffawed. “Tragedy strikes again.”
Shaking my head I grinned. “He’s disappeared again and I thought he might come back to Sinful.”
“Whatever for?”
I shrugged, not wanting to try to explain a childhood game or a gut feeling that might be way off. “He promised me he wouldn’t disappear again without contacting me. Sinful was the best place for him to leave me a message. He’d know I’d come back here looking for it.”
Though the big man seemed doubtful, he handed the coin back to me. “What can I do for you?”
Cal placed his hands on the glass countertop. “Have you seen Bubba…erm…Mr. Chance in the last couple of days, Mr. Gordon?”
When Pim shook his head his belly wobbled like Jell-O in a gymnast’s hand. “I haven’t seen him or his gold. Sorry I couldn’t help.” He shoved against the counter and started a sideways roll on creaky wheels toward the door at the far end of the shop. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m closing in eight minutes and I have to finish counting up the cash drawer.”
I fought disappointment and turned toward the door, feeling like I might cry. The game I’d played with my father when I was young had been a much simpler animal.
“Wait!”
I turned as Pim slammed the countertop with his big hand, causing the entire length of the glass case to wobble on its metal legs. “I almost forgot. I did get an envelope a couple days ago.” His head disappeared below the countertop and then reemerged as he slapped a manila envelope onto the glass.
I hurried over and looked down at the envelope. The return address read only, Bubba and it was addressed to me, via Pim Gordon.
“I almost threw it out until I remembered who Miss Chance was.” He grinned, showing an abundance of tiny white teeth.
Cal looked over my shoulder. “There’s no postmark.”
“It was on the floor when I came in one morning. He’d apparently slipped it through the mail slot.” He shook his buffalo sized head. “I’d forgotten about it until just now.”
I picked up the envelope and offered him my hand again. When he took it he squeezed it, holding it for an extra few seconds. “I hope it helps, darlin’. I feel bad you have to keep chasin’ your daddy like this.”
The warmth in his bead-like eyes told me he was sincere and, to my horror, tears welled in my eyes. “Thanks, Pim. Maybe I’ll see you again before we leave.”
He nodded, his gaze sliding to the ancient clock above the door. “Three minutes until closing time, folks. You’d best be hittin’ the sidewalk.” He shoved himself away from the counter and rolled on his way, never looking back. I figured my threatened tears had scared him off.
“Bring that with,” Cal told me softly, placing a hand in the center of my back. “I’ll buy you dinner at Francine’s.”
Sniffling softly, I nodded and followed him out of the shop. I perked right up when I spotted a big old Cadillac, its bumper tied on with rope, pa
rked in front of the diner.
Gertie was at Francine’s. And where Gertie was, Ida Belle most surely was too.
It would be good to see my new friends again.
CHAPTER THREE
They were sitting at a back corner table of the diner with Fortune. The younger woman was facing the door and I thought her smile tightened a bit on seeing Cal and me walk into Francine’s.
My step faltered as her gaze locked onto mine but, to my credit I manned up and kept moving forward. Gertie’s head turned in our direction and she grinned. “Felicity!” Jumping up from her seat, the white-haired firecracker hurried toward us, arms outstretched. “It’s so nice to see you again.” She gave Cal a slightly predatory smile and inclined her head in his direction.
“Gertie,” he said by way of greeting before scanning Fortune a look.
I bit back a jolt of quick jealousy and approached Ida Belle. She frowned slightly as she stood up and patted me on the arm. “Just couldn’t stay away could you?”
I laughed. “Sinful is strangely addictive.” I forced myself to look at Fortune. “Hello, Fortune. It’s nice to see you again.”
“Felicity.” She gave Cal an assessing look, like she was cataloguing his attributes. He stood there, letting her read him, his expression impassive. Then she smiled. “What brings you two back to Sinful?”
I looked at Ida Belle because anybody with half a brain knew she was the ringleader. “I actually came to find my father.”
Gertie dropped heavily into her chair. “Again?”
“He skipped out on witness protection,” Cal told them.
Ida Belle shook her head, the steel gray poodle curls on her head dancing with the movement. “Men are just stupid.”
Fortune and Gertie nodded in obvious agreement.
Cal lifted a midnight eyebrow and Ida Belle shrugged.
“Until proven otherwise,” she amended.
I figured that was the biggest concession Cal was going to get from her.
“What can we do to help?” Gertie asked.
“You don’t really think he’d be dumb enough to come back to Sinful?”
I scanned Fortune a look. “It’s hard to explain.”
Ida Belle grabbed a chair from the table next to them. “Sit. Explain. If Swamp Team 3 is going to leap into action we need more information.”
Fortune looked for a moment as if she would argue but apparently decided against it, slamming her mouth closed.
Cal took a chair at the table next to theirs and, when Francine came over to take our order, ordered coffee. I ordered a diet cola and then I attempted to explain my reasoning for coming to Sinful. I followed up by telling them about the coin Cal and I had found at the cabin. I looked at Ida Belle. “Do you remember seeing anything on the floor before you turned that gator container over?”
She shook her head.
Gertie frowned. “I’d have remembered seeing a gold coin on the floor. Maybe it was inside the aquarium.”
Cal sipped his coffee and settled it back to the table. “Given its location, I doubt the coin was in the aquarium when it was turned over. It had to have been put there afterward.”
“So you were right.” I looked at Fortune. “About your dad coming here.”
Though I still had my doubts I nodded. “I think he’s been here and I think he’s trying to lead me to something. I just need to follow the trail and hopefully I’ll find him again.”
Gertie smacked her hand on the table. “Treasure hunt!”
Fortune’s lips quirked up in a grin. “Sounds like more fun than our usual missions.”
Ida Belle pursed her lips thoughtfully. “He left you a gold coin to tell you what exactly?”
I had a palm to face moment. “Ugh! I totally forgot.” Reaching into my gator purse, I pulled out the manila envelope. “We went to Gordon’s because that’s where Bubba always pawned father’s coins for him.” I laid the envelope on the table. “He gave us this.”
Fortune leaned forward, her hands stretched out in front of her. “Don’t open that.”
We all stilled, blinking at her like she was an escaped vampire bat from the rodent house at the zoo.
She flushed a little. “I mean. I read somewhere that you should never open an envelope that had a vague or missing return address on it.”
Cal’s dancing eyebrow did another high kick. “You think there’s a bomb in there?”
Ida Belle and Gertie shared a look. “She’s right. You just never know when terrorists are gonna strike.”
Fortune shrugged. “You always think it’s gonna be fine until someone starts shooting.”
“Or bombing,” Gertie added helpfully.
I cleared my throat. “I think we’re okay. This doesn’t feel heavy enough for a bomb.”
“It could be Ricin or Anthrax.”
Cal narrowed his eyes. Gertie covered her lips with her hand and Ida Belle cleared her throat.
I grinned. “Really?”
Fortune shrugged. “I read a lot of thrillers.”
I picked up the envelope and shook it. It didn’t sound like granular, horrific death to me. “I think it’s just paper.”
Fortune lifted her hands as if to say, I tried. You’re on your own now.
I ripped the top off the envelope and everybody at the corner table slowly leaned away as if expecting something horrible to shoot out of the envelope. I reached inside and tugged a thin, yellow piece of paper out of it.
Swamp Team 3 leaned back in. “What is it?” Ida Belle asked.
I scanned it quickly. “It looks like a receipt for boat repair.”
The ladies shared a look. Gertie leaned in to see the receipt. “It’s not for Hebert Swamp City Airboats by any chance…is it?”
I glanced at the bold black lettering on the top. “It is.” Lowering the receipt, I looked at Gertie. “How’d you know?”
Fortune sighed. “Because that’s just how things roll in our lives.”
“I don’t understand.”
Cal’s phone rang. He stood up. “I’ll be right back. I have to get this.”
I nodded, my gaze scanning from one swampster to the next. “Tell me.”
“The Heberts are Sinful’s own version of mobsters,” Fortune explained.
I felt my eyes widening.
“Small time of course, but yeah.” Gertie nodded.
Ida Belle took the receipt from my hand. “If your daddy’s sending you to Hebert’s that means he’s taken up with a bad element, Felicity.”
Despair swirled through me, making my pulse spike. “Great.”
Fortune leaned forward, her gaze softening. “Look, Felicity. You seem like a nice person. You’re not your father’s keeper. Maybe you should just walk away now. Leave him to pay for his own mistakes.”
Tears burned my eyes and I blinked them away, shaking my head. “I know it’s not logical. But love is rarely logical. And I just need to see him. Make sure he’s all right. Then he’s on his own.”
Fortune held my gaze for a moment and then nodded. “Okay. We’ll help you do that. Maybe if we run interference you won’t get sucked down into the quagmire with your dad.”
Ida Belle and Gertie nodded.
The front door closed with a soft bang and we turned to find Cal striding toward us. His impossibly handsome face was filled with worry. “We’ve got to go back to Indy.’
I immediately rejected the idea. “I’m not leaving.”
He expelled a breath. “I don’t have a choice, Felly. An old friend has been arrested for murder and he needs me to come find the real killer. I can’t leave you here by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
“That’s not your decision to make,” I told him with a frown. “You go on, help your friend. I’ll be fine.”
“Felly…”
“Don’t worry, we’ll watch out for her,” Gertie assured him.
Cal’s sexy dancing eyebrows arched upward. “Yeah, why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”
###
We bumped along some back roads that I was pretty sure led directly to Mexico while I clutched the shoulder strap of my seat belt, looking for gators on the road ahead.
Fortune glanced over at me and cocked a brow. “What are you looking for?”
“Gators crossing the road.”
Fortune snorted. “I’m pretty sure gators don’t do that, Felicity.”
Ida Belle turned around. “You’d be wrong on that.”
Gertie turned too, and grinned in my direction for an over-long period of time. “Felicity had a bad gator-crossing experience the last time she was here.” While she had her eyes off the road, the big Caddy started swerving toward the swamp.
“Swamp!” I yelled.
Gertie swerved back to her lane, sending all of us bobbling around in the car like we had weighted bottoms and air-filled heads.
Completely ignoring my Louisiana Tourette’s, Fortune eyed Ida Belle, “Why would a gator cross the road?”
The old woman stared hard at Fortune for a beat and then her lips ticked up. “To get to the other side?”
Gertie and I chuckled.
Fortune shook her head. “Keep laughing, but don’t forget you need me to handle Big.”
I frowned, “Big what?”
“Big Hebert. Father of Little Hebert.”
I chuckled again, reasonably sure she was pulling my leg. But she didn’t appear to be laughing with me. “You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately.”
Gertie slowed the ancient Cadillac and turned into a lot filled with trailered boats covered in tarps. We headed toward a long building that was fronted in a lot of glass. Through the glass I could see a shallow-bowed boat with a giant fan on the back. I thought it might be an airboat but I’d only ever seen them in pictures.
Gertie turned the caddy around so that it faced the entrance and shut it off.
“What’s the plan?” Fortune asked.
Ida Belle eyed Gertie. “Gertie should stay in the car so she’s not tempted by any more inflatables.”
Gertie glared at Ida Belle. “I’m not gonna buy any more inflatable alligators. Been there, crashed that.”