Resurrection in Mudbug

by Jana DeLeon

  Colt stared across the street at Shirley’s Cadillac. “Have you ever had trouble with your car before?”

  “Not at all. I’ve had that car almost fifteen years and hardly ever a problem. Certainly nothing like this. Why?”

  “Just thinking out loud,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. “You think someone could have pushed my car into the street to get me out of the building?”

  “Well, your car has never taken a jaunt by itself before and the one time it does, the key is missing. The odds of the perpetrator just happening down the sidewalk at the exact moment that your car pulled a Christine are pretty slim.”

  Shirley’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. “That means the killer was in this office, right here in this space. Oh God, I feel faint.”

  “Don’t go getting all dramatic.”

  “Colt Bertrand! After what happened to Duke, you have the nerve to accuse me of dramatics? I’m beginning to understand why our new game warden is so frustrated by you.”

  He held in a sigh. “I’m just saying, if he’d wanted to hurt you, he wouldn’t have staged the incident with the car to get you out of the building.”

  “So you’re saying that a cold-blooded murderer cared about me so much that he decided not to stroll into the sheriff’s department in broad daylight and shoot me at my desk before stealing the key. Yeah, I can see how that would have been the better option.”

  Colt closed his eyes and counted to ten.

  “No,” he said when he opened his eyes. “I’m saying that if he’d wanted to kill someone, he would have waited until midnight and shot Eugenia at her desk before stealing the key.”

  Shirley paled. “Oh, well then why not do that? As horrible as it is, it seems easier than what he did.”

  He drummed his fingers on the desk, a million options rolling through his mind. “I don’t know. Maybe he needs the key before tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d be well on my way to solving this case.” He blew out a breath. “You’ve got your pistol, right?”

  Shirley pointed to the desk. “In my purse, as always.”

  “Take it out of your purse. Put it somewhere you can easily reach in a matter of seconds.”

  Shirley’s eyes widened. “You don’t think he’ll come back?”

  “I doubt it, but I want you to be ready if he does.” He grabbed his keys off Shirley’s desk. “I’m going out for a while. Lock the door behind me. Until further notice, anyone who needs something can knock.”

  He left the sheriff’s department and strode off in the direction of the hotel. Jadyn probably hadn’t had enough time to cool down, but that didn’t matter. He needed every detail he could get out of her about the shooting and about the incident with Shirley’s car.

  Maryse was behind the lobby desk when he walked in the hotel. He gave her a nod. “Good to see you, Maryse,” he said. “How’s Luc doing?”

  “He’s fine,” Maryse said with a cheerful smile. “The DEA manages to interrupt our dinner at least three nights a week, but that’s just more ammunition for my argument about not learning to cook.”

  He nodded. “I remember those days well. I thought I’d never make it through a sit-down meal again. Hey, I don’t mean to be short, but I really need to talk to Jadyn. Is she upstairs?”

  “I don’t think so. Mildred said she was working.”

  Colt frowned. “Can I talk to Mildred?”

  “Sorry. She went shopping for hotel supplies. That’s why I’m covering the front desk.”

  Colt reached inside his jeans pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed Jadyn’s number, but it only took a second for the call to flip straight to voice mail. He disconnected without leaving a message and dialed Mildred’s number, but it rang until voice mail finally kicked in.

  “Mildred’s not answering her phone,” Colt said. “Any idea why?”

  Maryse frowned. “It’s pretty loud at the warehouse. If she’s got it in the bottom of that giant purse of hers, she may not hear it ringing. Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Colt reassured her before she launched into panic mode. “I just need to go over some things with Jadyn and was hoping Mildred knew what area of the swamp she was headed to.”

  “I wish I could help. If I hear from either one of them, I’ll have them give you a call.”

  “Great. Thanks.” He headed out of the hotel, waving one hand over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him. Something was wrong. He was sure of it. Just as certain as he was that Maryse didn’t know anything about it, which made the situation very interesting. The brainy botanist was one of the most intelligent people he’d ever met, but she sucked completely at lying.

  Whatever Mildred and Jadyn were up to, they hadn’t bothered to fill Maryse in on it. Otherwise, she would have started to panic when he couldn’t reach them. And Mildred not telling Maryse the juicy details was odd.

  So odd he wondered what the hotel owner was up to.

  But something else was bothering him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on…something about the boat. They hadn’t found any identifying marks and one shrimp boat pretty much looked the same as another, but something about it seemed off. Something besides the obvious.

  He started back to the sheriff’s department, then changed direction and headed for the garage. Maybe another look at the boat would make something click.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Maryse frowned as Colt left the hotel. He’d tried to act nonchalant, but Maryse had seen that tension in Luc’s shoulders and neck enough to know that something was wrong. When Mildred called her this afternoon, she’d thought it a bit strange that the hotel owner needed to go shopping when Maryse knew she’d been the week before. She’d hauled at least ten boxes into the storeroom of the hotel.

  Mildred rarely took a shopping trip outside of the one day a month she had allocated. Sure, things like hurricanes might disrupt the normal schedule, but that wasn’t the case now. And then there was the feeling…that strange feeling she’d had all day that something was off. She’d thought it had something to do with her current lab experiment, but that had actually proven a success for a change.

  The “Back in 15 Minutes” sign was on the front desk when she’d arrived, and Mildred was already gone. Everything had seemed in order as she’d driven down Main Street, but she couldn’t shake the niggle of fear in the back of her mind. Fear that she had no basis for.

  She drummed her fingers on the counter and chided herself for not getting out of her lab more. When she got involved with her experiments, the entire world could vanish and she’d walk out without knowing a thing. Something was going on with Jadyn. She could feel it in her bones, but the very person who usually kept her informed was either so engrossed in a toilet paper sale that she couldn’t hear her cell phone or she was knee-deep in something she had no business wading into.

  Before she could change her mind, Maryse put the “Back in 30 minutes” sign on the front desk and hurried across the street to Bill’s. The evening crowd wouldn’t start filtering in for a bit, so it ought to be fairly empty. If anyone besides Mildred knew the local gossip, it would be Bill.

  She stopped short in front of the door to the bar, unable to force her arms up to push the door open. Her hands were clammy and her fingers ached from clenching them as she’d walked across the street.

  It’s just a building.

  She started to run back across the street and forget the whole thing, but then she remembered that look on Colt’s face when he hadn’t been able to reach Mildred on the phone. What if Mildred was in danger? For all intents and purposes, Mildred was her mother. If she could walk inside that bar for anyone but herself, it would be Mildred.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. Bill was wiping down the counter and looked momentarily surprised to see her. He quickly recovered, then smiled and waved her over. “You’ve picked the best time to come in…before the ave
rage IQ of the place gets significantly lower.”

  She forced a smile, knowing that’s what he was trying to get her to do. “Maybe I should stick around for a while then, and raise the average a bit.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid the odds are stacked against you. Do you want something to drink? I got a new wine the ladies seem to like. Said it tastes fruity.”

  “No, thanks.” She pulled herself up on a stool and glanced around the bar. The only occupants were a couple of old fishermen sitting in the far corner. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but is something wrong in Mudbug?”

  Bill frowned. “That’s a bit of a loaded question given everything that’s happened today.”

  Maryse’s pulse quickened. “That’s the problem. I’ve been in my lab all day—cell phone turned off, no television. I stopped by the hotel, and everything looks like normal, but something feels wrong.”

  Bill nodded. “Like the air is filled with a negative charge.”

  Maryse stared. “Yeah, that’s it exactly. So I’m not imagining it.”

  “I’m afraid not. You sure you don’t want that drink?”

  “Yeah, maybe I should,” Maryse said. Being inside the bar was stressful enough, but she already knew that whatever Bill was about to tell her, it was going to make sitting in the bar seem like a stroll in the park.

  Bill served her a double shot of scotch then started to talk about the rumors flying around town about Duke and the way he’d died. The longer he talked, the bigger sips Maryse took of the scotch. When he finally finished, the glass was empty.

  “I can’t believe it,” Maryse said. “Of all the horrible things that have happened in this town, that has to be the worst. You’re sure this hasn’t been blown out of proportion?”

  Bill nodded and poured himself a scotch while giving Maryse another shot. “I thought the same thing at first, but my cousin works for the coroner and she confirmed it. Said the coroner passed out cold at Duke’s house and Colt threw cold water on him to wake him up. Said when he got back to the office, he was so pale it looked like all the blood had left his body.”

  “Wow.” Maryse was completely out of words. If Duke’s death had affected the coroner that harshly, then it must have been as bad as the rumors said.

  “So you want to tell me why you came in here for the local gossip instead of asking Mildred?”

  “She’s not at the hotel. I’m supposed to be covering the desk while she’s out shopping, but I couldn’t stand that overwhelming feeling that something huge was happening and I was in the dark. I don’t know when Mildred will be back, and I didn’t want to wait for answers.”

  Maryse left out the part where Mildred wasn’t answering her phone and Jadyn was MIA. The longer she thought about those two things in relation to Colt’s visit and what Bill had told her, the more she was convinced that Mildred hadn’t gone shopping at all.

  She only hoped that whatever Mildred had gotten involved in, it didn’t put her at risk of ending up like Duke.

  ###

  Marty was closing the garage bays when Colt walked up and pulled down the remaining open door.

  “You look like a man doing some heavy thinking,” Marty observed. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Too many things to mention, and I couldn’t talk about most of them even if I wanted to.”

  Marty nodded. “Rumor mill’s running. I got a good idea what’s eating at you. Anything I can do to help?”

  “Maybe. We didn’t find anything yesterday when we searched the boat, but I can’t shake the feeling that I missed something.”

  “You want to take another look?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “’Course not.” He waved Colt to the office door and they stepped inside the garage.

  “Do you have time to look with me?” Colt asked.

  Marty shrugged. “I got the time…just don’t know how helpful I’ll be. I’m not trained like a detective or nothing.”

  “No, but you know all the boats in this area.”

  “That’s true enough.” He headed to the back bay where the boat was stored.

  “What can you tell me about the boat?” Colt asked.

  Marty walked the length of it and looked underneath, then straightened back up. “It’s an older model—looks like seventies construction. Pretty good maintenance, though, except for a hard hit on the front left. My guess is a stump.”

  “Is that what made it sink?”

  “Yes and no. The original impact looks to be a couple years old, and it would have taken on water after that but it wouldn’t have been anything a bilge pump couldn’t handle. But if the boat was twisted by the storm, that would have been enough to widen the crack or split it further than it was to begin with.”

  “Any idea at all who this might belong to?”

  Marty shook his head. “Heck, most of the boats in Mudbug were built in the seventies. People here can’t afford newer models and there’s no need as long as the old one is serviceable. Most of the younger shrimpers got their boats handed down from their fathers.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d recognize an engine if you worked on it?”

  “Probably, but I haven’t worked on a shrimp boat in years. The locals all handle their own engine work. Sometimes they’ll swing by here for me to change a propeller. It’s easier since I got the lift at the dock. Saves them trailering the boat to work on it.”

  Marty stepped around to the back of the boat and frowned.

  “Do you recognize the propeller?” Colt asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve done two of ’em just this week, but that’s not what I’m looking at.”

  Colt stepped beside him and stared at the back of the boat. “What then?”

  “The paint doesn’t match. I mean, it’s all white, but look at the paint on the top of the hull versus the bottom.”

  Colt looked closely at the paint. “You’re right. The bottom is faded. The top looks like it was done recently?”

  Marty nodded. “There’s only one reason I can think of to paint just the top of the hull.”

  “To cover the name of the boat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have a grill around back, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Charcoal or gas?”

  Marty drew himself up straight. “No self-respecting Cajun grills with gas.”

  Colt smiled. “Great. I’ll be right back.” He hurried out the back door of the garage and grabbed a piece of charcoal from the edge of the grill. The center pieces would collapse too easily, but this one should work fine.

  When he came back inside, Marty looked at the charcoal in his hands and raised his eyebrows. “Should I even ask what you’re going to do with that?”

  “You can watch,” Colt said and started lightly rubbing the charcoal along the top edge of the boat. “Whoever covered the name didn’t sand this down first. Some of the lines left by the previous lettering have created ridges in the paint. I’m hoping this charcoal will expose enough so that we can read the name.”

  Marty grinned and stepped closer to the boat. “For a minute there, I thought you had gone crazy and was going to ask me to make you supper, but this is right smart.”

  “We’ll see,” Colt said, praying that enough of the lettering showed.

  When he got to the far edge of the boat, he took several steps back and looked. Marty stepped back with him and narrowed his eyes.

  “Is that a p?” Marty asked, pointing to the first letter.

  “It looks like it. Maybe p then r, but I can’t make out the next one.”

  “Is that one big word or more than one, you think?”

  Colt frowned. “Probably more than one, unless it’s a name.” He didn’t bother to say that the reason for his assessment was the unlikelihood of a Mudbug shrimper christening his boat with a four-syllable name.

  “That’s an f,” Marty said. “In fact, that looks like ‘fish’ to me.”

  Something clicked in Colt�
��s mind. “Pro Fisherman.”

  “Yeah!” Marty said, getting excited. “I think you got it.” Then his smile disappeared. “That’s Junior’s daddy’s old boat.”

  “I know,” Colt said. “I thought his daddy retired.”

  Marty nodded. “Several years ago, as a matter of fact. Bad knees.”

  “Did he sell the boat?”

  “No. Far as I know, he gave it to Junior. He already had his own, of course, but when shrimp’s running hot, he’d let someone run this boat for a cut of profit.”

  Colt sighed. Everything had come full circle right back to Junior.

  “Marty, let’s keep this between you and me for now.”

  “No problem. I’ll get a rag and wipe that charcoal off before I head home.”

  “Thanks,” Colt said and left the garage.

  Had he underestimated Junior Thibodeaux? Was all that bumble and bluster a convenient cover for intelligence and cunning? He blew out a breath. Jeez, he didn’t think so, but he’d seen stranger things before.

  He started his truck and pulled away from the garage. Apparently, he needed to have yet another conversation with Junior. The disgruntled shrimper lived in a shotgun house a couple of blocks off Main Street, so a couple of minutes later, Colt pulled into his drive behind his truck. He tried the front door, but no one answered, so he stepped around behind the house to the garage.

  The main garage door was down, but the side door was unlocked. He stuck his head in and yelled, but given that the lights were off, he didn’t expect an answer. When he returned to the front of the house, he tried the front door one more time before leaving, but finally decided that either Junior wasn’t home or he was so drunk he didn’t hear Colt knocking. Most likely, he headed to Bill’s for happy hour.

  Colt hopped into his truck and drove back to Main Street. First he’d check the bar for Junior, then he’d see if Jadyn had returned to the hotel. After that, he was going home for a hot shower and a cold beer.

  It had been an extraordinarily long day.

  Chapter Eighteen