Swamp Spook

by Jana DeLeon

  “I agree,” Gertie said. “It doesn’t make sense, but no one knows her well enough to posit a theory on why that was the case.”

  “So the locals only saw her very limited public persona,” I said. “She didn’t have any friends locally? No one she had coffee with or talked about books or anything?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “That had to be a lonely life,” I said. “I mean, her husband was considerably older, so I can’t imagine they had a lot in common in most areas, and it sounds like he spent most of his time in New Orleans. I totally get that Sinful isn’t exactly an urban mecca of entertainment, but even one friend to have a nice lunch with would be better than sitting in that empty house all the time.”

  Gertie nodded. “I would think so. She had Meg to tend to for several years, of course, and I’m sure that kept her busy if not necessarily satisfied. But even after Meg went off to college Francesca never changed her routine. She went into New Orleans with Garrett on the rare occasion but the rest of the time, she stayed here.”

  “And based on her comments, I assume she has no servants here?” I asked.

  “She has a cleaning crew once a week,” Ida Belle said. “And lawn people, pool service…the usual sort of domestic help, but all contract to the best of my knowledge. No one is full time. The hired help usually wags their tongues at the café. I suppose a pretty, rich woman who lives like a hermit is as good a topic as any around here even though there’s not much to tell.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe she’s a huge introvert or agoraphobic. Maybe she just likes her own company. Apparently, it’s worked for her all these years, so who am I to judge?”

  “What was your take on her response to Garrett’s death?” Gertie asked.

  “She seemed genuinely surprised,” I said. “She could be a really good actress, of course. I’m skilled at reading a lie but only from otherwise normal people. If they’ve made a lifetime habit of it, it’s easier to pull it off.”

  “And the conversation about the meds?” Ida Belle asked.

  “That was interesting,” I said. “If we assume foul play and her as the culprit, then why insist he was taking his meds? Why not simply say he was a stubborn old fool who did what he darn well pleased?”

  “That would make more sense,” Gertie agreed. “At that point, and given the autopsy results, it all would have ended with Wilkinson’s phone call to her.”

  “And it probably still will,” I said. “At least as far as law enforcement goes. There’s nothing to suggest his death was anything untoward except for the assurances of a widow and the suspicions of a doctor, who might be covering his own guilt for getting the diagnosis wrong. Even the governor can’t force the police to investigate a crime that doesn’t appear to exist.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about any official investigation,” Ida Belle said. “The state police will be more than happy to drop that line of inquiry, but the mystery of the beheading remains.”

  “Which we’re still completely clueless on,” I said. “And somehow it didn’t seem right asking Francesca who she thought might want to cut off her dead husband’s head and parade him around town.”

  “Probably would have gone against Southern death manners,” Gertie agreed.

  “Not to mention I doubt she has a clue,” Ida Belle said. “I can’t picture her sawing off a head, much less carting the body to the festival.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think Francesca had anything to do with his after-death adventures. For starters, she has no motive for doing so. What would be the point? And second, you said she wasn’t directly involved in town events, so she wouldn’t have been aware of what the maze contained, much less the clothes on the dummy.”

  Gertie nodded. “I think we all agree that Francesca is out on the beheading, but that still leaves us with a long list of people who had the knowledge and access.”

  “Just not a motive,” Ida Belle said.

  “But what is the motive?” I asked. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. I mean, if we knew why someone did it, wouldn’t that tell us who did it?”

  “Probably,” Ida Belle said. “But I’m at a complete loss. I can’t see what the act accomplished.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s good. So let’s think about that for a minute. What happened because of the body being in the maze?”

  “The autopsy,” Gertie said. “But that’s a nonstarter.”

  “It got Fortune a visit to the sheriff’s department and scrutiny from the state police,” Ida Belle said.

  “Which then called Carter’s competency into question because of his relationship with me,” I said.

  Gertie frowned. “You think someone’s out to get Carter?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, putting him under the scrutiny of the state police with the governor breathing down their backs has the potential to go south really quickly.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “If his competency is brought into question, then people might call for his dismissal.”

  “And he wouldn’t stand a chance at being elected when Sheriff Lee retires,” I said.

  “So who wouldn’t want Carter to be sheriff?” Gertie asked. “I mean, Celia is the obvious choice, but no matter how much I’d like to find her guilty of something, there’s no way she cut off a head.”

  “She could have hired someone to do it,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe not cut off the head but just put the body in the maze so she could yell at the governor about it. The person she hired might have taken it a step further.”

  “Maybe,” I said, although it didn’t feel right. “Who else wants Carter out of the Sinful law enforcement business?”

  “All the criminals in Sinful,” Gertie said. “The town was a bit of a mess before Carter came back home. Sheriff Lee did his best, but Deputy Breaux doesn’t have the experience to handle things, and the guy Carter replaced was just biding his time until a position in a bigger city came open.”

  “That’s true,” Ida Belle said. “It wasn’t the big stuff, mind you, like the things we’ve run into lately. More along the lines of the normal stuff—poaching, small-time drug dealing, vehicle and boat theft—the sort of things that a certain element saw as their regular employment.”

  “Until Carter cleaned things up,” I said and sighed. “I’m guessing the number of people who fit that description is larger than I’d like.”

  “Pretty much most of the regulars at the Swamp Bar,” Gertie said.

  I frowned. The regular crowd at the Swamp Bar was mostly of questionable reputation. It was likely that any of them were capable of sawing off a head and putting a body in a maze, but not without information on the maze and access during setup.

  “We need to put together a list of everyone who was working setup on the maze,” I said. “I still think that’s the key to narrowing the suspects down.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “Well, we can kill two birds with one stone. Garrett’s daughter organizes all of the festival volunteers.”

  “Then it’s time we pay her a visit,” I said, and looked at Gertie. “How’s your casserole supply?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Meg Roth lived in a cottage a couple blocks from Main Street. It was one of those gingerbread-looking sorts of places, painted a sky blue with white trim and a box of flowers lining the front porch. A wooden swing completed the picture. And it was a pretty one. Just not one I imagined most twenty-six-year-old young women were interested in inhabiting.

  “I don’t want to offend anyone,” I said, “but this looks like a house her grandmother should be living in, not someone in their twenties.”

  Gertie nodded. “It does look like it was stamped out of a Dr. Seuss book. She inherited the house from her great-grandmother. It was the one thing she owned free and clear from the family trust. She purchased it for her maid so she could have her own space.”

  “She must have really liked her maid,” I said.

  “Velbeena came to her from
an orphanage at age 16,” Ida Belle said. “The great-grandmother was barely 19. Velbeena tended to her until she passed at age 70, then died a couple weeks later herself. The family buried her in their cemetery.”

  “Is Meg a trust fund baby?” I asked, trying to get a feel for the woman I was about to meet.

  Gertie shook her head. “She has a fund that her father controls. He could have turned it over when she was twenty-four, but he elected to remain in charge. I think he gives her enough to get by but not enough for fancy living.”

  “Seems rather rude given that he’s set up a woman closer to his daughter’s age than his own in the height of luxury in the family home,” I said.

  “You’re not the only person who feels that way,” Ida Belle said. “A lot of people around here don’t agree with the way Garrett handled Meg, but he always insisted that she had to grow up before he entrusted her with a large sum of money. I’ve seen young people get a lot of money and it’s rarely turned out well, so it’s hard to argue with him.”

  “So since her father was stingy, does she work?” I asked.

  “Something with computers, websites I think, but a lot of her time is spent volunteering,” Gertie said. “Charities, churches, natural disaster teams. She’s good at organization. Very precise. Everyone’s happy to have her.”

  “You said she went off to college, right?” I asked.

  “Yes and no. She went to university in New Orleans but lived in Garrett’s condo. His requirement,” Gertie said. “I think she got a business degree and worked for a couple years for her father, but then she quit it all and came back here. She’s never really said why and trust me, plenty of people have asked. All she’ll say is it ‘didn’t suit.’”

  Ida Belle snorted. “Didn’t suit. Didn’t suit whatever man dumped her is my guess.”

  Gertie sighed. “I hate to agree with Ida Belle and her ‘men are evil’ stance, but I’m afraid she might be onto something in this case. She had that look that young girls get when they’re moping around over a romantic entanglement. And she still doesn’t date, even though some of the local young men have tried.”

  “And the guy?” I asked.

  Ida Belle shrugged. “There were rumors, of course. A bit older man that Garrett didn’t approve of.”

  “Naturally,” I said. “Why would he approve of an older man and a younger woman?”

  “Yes, the hypocrisy is firmly in place,” Ida Belle said. “The rumors also had the man in the wrong social and economic class for Garrett’s tastes as well. Anyway, my guess is Meg came home after it ended to nurse her wounds and she simply hasn’t decided what to do with her life.”

  “She was never much of a go-getter, I’m afraid,” Gertie said. “A completely average student. Nice enough, but no keen interest in anything in particular, so it didn’t really surprise me when she came back to Sinful. She has her little place here and enough money to live alone. A couple of her high school friends are still here, so there’s also that familiarity.”

  “She has no direction because she had no raising,” Ida Belle said. “Garrett had plenty of money but no time, and my guess is Francesca bought things to occupy Meg rather than learning how to be a mother. And with her being so young when her mother died and the situation with Francesca happening so soon afterward, the townspeople indulged her more than they should have.”

  “I get that,” I said. “People were overly kind to me for years. Always complimenting me and bringing me gifts. I couldn’t do any wrong, which trust me, wasn’t even remotely the truth. At one point, I did rotten things simply to see how much I could get away with.”

  Gertie frowned. “And likely in an attempt to get your father’s attention. I’m sorry, Fortune. We didn’t think about the parallels between your life and Meg’s. If it’s uncomfortable for you to talk to her, Ida Belle and I can do it.”

  I smiled at her and reached back to squeeze her arm. “You’re a good friend. But I admitted to myself long ago that my father’s interest in me was only cursory. It sucks, and every now and then, it hurts just a little, but I finally decided it was his loss.”

  “That’s absolutely true,” Ida Belle said quietly.

  I knew from the limited amount of personal information I had on Ida Belle’s father that he was a hard man and like my father, had wanted a son and not a daughter. But we’d both managed to come through it as strong, successful women. Meg would be fine. And I hated to admit it, but her dad’s death might just be the catalyst she needed to let go of the comfortable, easy route and branch out into a life outside of Sinful.

  “Well, let’s go see if Meg can tell us anything,” I said.

  We headed up to the front door and knocked. It was silent inside, and I was about to decide that no one was home when the door swung open and a young man looked out at us.

  Midtwenties. Six foot two. Two hundred ten pounds. Excellent muscle tone. Nose had been broken a couple times. Probably a good barroom brawler. Wouldn’t stand a chance against a martial artist.

  “Hello, Kevin,” Gertie said and held up the casserole. “We were hoping to visit for a few minutes with Meg and pay our respects. Is she home?”

  Kevin nodded. “Yes, ma’am. She’s sitting in the kitchen. I was just trying to get her to eat something. She hasn’t wanted to, but my mom always said it’s important to keep your strength up when things are tough.”

  “Very true,” Ida Belle said. “Have you been checking on Meg?”

  Kevin blushed a bit. “Yes, ma’am. I was working on festival stuff when all this happened, and she’s taking it hard. I’ve been worried about her but she doesn’t really want to talk about it. Maybe she’ll feel better talking to you ladies.”

  “Perhaps so,” Gertie said. “But you’re a good friend and a good man to try to help.”

  Kevin looked down at the porch. “Thank you. You can head on back if you’d like. I was just leaving for work.”

  “You still shrimping?” Ida Belle asked.

  Kevin nodded. “Still got my daddy’s boat. It’s a good rig. Hasn’t given me no trouble and keeps me in TV dinners and cable. Can’t ask for more than that.”

  He gave us a smile and headed off toward a battered pickup truck parked in the driveway. Gertie stepped inside, and we followed her down a hallway to the kitchen, where a young woman sat at a table in front of the back window.

  Twenty-six. Five foot eight. One hundred forty pounds. Fit with good muscle tone. Long limbs, so probably a fast runner. Weak wrists meant one punch would do her in. No threat to me but probably a huge emotional threat to the man who’d just left.

  Otherwise, Meg Roth was a pretty young woman with clear skin, green eyes, and glossy auburn hair. The hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she wore jeans and a navy long-sleeved T-shirt. Sitting cross-legged in the chair, she looked more like a college student than the lady of the house. She smiled when we entered the room and jumped off the chair to give Gertie and Ida Belle hugs.

  “I knew you guys would come,” she said. “I can always depend on you to follow the rules. I love your hat, Ms. Hebert.”

  “Thank you,” Gertie said and shot a triumphant look at Ida Belle.

  Meg looked over at me. “You must be Fortune. I’ve heard a lot about you but I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

  She extended her hand and I shook it. “I’ve seen you at church,” I said. “But I’m usually in the back pew and dash out afterward.”

  “For banana pudding,” Meg said. “One of my friends is Catholic. She hears all about it from Celia every week. Then we have a good laugh.”

  “Celia’s popularity knows no bounds,” Gertie said.

  “Please have a seat,” Meg said. “I made some lemonade earlier. Would you like a glass?”

  “Yes, but take a seat yourself,” Gertie said. “I’ll just put this casserole in your refrigerator and serve us all up a drink. You shouldn’t be waiting on people in your time of mourning.”

  The three of us sat down while Gertie star
ted the drink prep.

  “Mourning,” Meg said. “I think it’s more shock than anything. I’m still not sure I believe he’s gone. And the rest…well, I can’t even think about it without deciding it must be a nightmare and that any minute I’m going to wake up.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “I think everyone is having a hard time wrapping their mind around it.”

  “I keep reminding myself that it’s Sinful,” Meg said. “Birthplace of the bizarre. But this seems extreme, even for this town.”

  Gertie put the lemonade on the table and slipped into a chair. “I agree,” she said. “And it’s so much worse for you, Garrett being your father. How are you holding up?”

  Meg shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I mean, how am I supposed to be doing? When he died, it was unexpected but this other thing…what am I supposed to feel? Anger? Outrage? Scared? I mean, what is going on? Who would do something like that and why?”

  “It does seem to be a horrific act with no point,” Ida Belle said. “You haven’t had any trouble recently, have you?”

  “No,” Meg said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Ida Belle said. “I thought maybe it could be a horrible prank or a way of getting back at you for some perceived slight.”

  Meg sighed. “I spend most of my time in my house on my computer. I build websites for charities. I set up online donation sites for fund-raisers. I volunteer with the church and relief organizations if there’s a hurricane. How could any of that make someone angry enough to do something so awful?”

  “Maybe they weren’t mad at you,” Gertie suggested. “Maybe it was directed at your father or Francesca. I can’t imagine it’s easy for her, either.”

  Meg snorted. “Please. That witch has been waiting for him to kick the bucket since the day they exchanged vows. Being that she’s stupid and can’t do basic math, she probably never thought he’d make it this long.”

  “He was only sixty years old,” Gertie said.

  “Hence my basic math comment,” Meg said. “When she married him, he had to look like an old man. I mean, I see guys at church who are in their midforties and think ‘no way.’ Don’t ask me to believe she married him for anything but the lifestyle he could provide.”