Fortune Hunter

by Jana DeLeon

“No alarm?” I asked.

  “No security system,” Ida Belle said, “but Nolan has one of those buttons on a necklace that he can press to call the paramedics. They responded quickly, thinking it was for Nolan, of course, but he sent them upstairs and they promptly called for the police.”

  Gertie shook her head and sniffed. “That’s awful. Gail was such a nice woman, and I actually mean that. I’m not just saying it because she’s dead.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “She was nice for real. No put-on.”

  “Do the police think it was a robbery?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what they think,” Ida Belle said. “Carter was there, of course, but he hasn’t typed up any reports yet. If he’s got any ideas, they’re all in his head. Myrtle got most of the story from the paramedics, and then she overheard Carter telling some of it to Deputy Breaux.”

  “I don’t think Gail owned any valuable jewelry,” Gertie said. “At least, I never saw her wearing anything valuable. Even her wedding ring is a plain gold band. And no one is foolish enough to keep cash in their house these days. Not enough cash worth killing over, anyway.”

  I frowned. “Well, there has to be something. Genuinely nice women don’t get murdered over nothing.”

  “That’s what worries me the most,” Ida Belle said.

  “We need more information,” Gertie said.

  “We should have some later on today,” Ida Belle said. “Marie is a large donor to the charity that Gail administered. Gail helped her find the home Charlie is in. She’s been friends with them for years and knows Nolan’s personality and his disability as well as anyone in Sinful. She went over first thing this morning to help Nolan. He’s going to need someone to lean on, both physically and emotionally.”

  Marie was one of Ida Belle and Gertie’s best friends and Charlie was her autistic brother. She was perpetually nice and always worried about things being right and fair. She was also the candidate who called for the audit of the mayoral election. If the vote was found to be fraudulent, then Marie would be the new mayor of Sinful. The city probably couldn’t do any better, at least in my opinion.

  “I’m glad he’s got Marie,” I said.

  “I’m glad we’ve got Marie,” Gertie said. “I know we have this catfish thing going on, but I think murder trumps it.”

  “The police might solve it before we even get all the facts,” I said, hoping it was true more than actually believing that would be the case. Facts tended to make their way to Ida Belle and Gertie on the express train, and no way were they going to leave this one alone.

  “It would be nice,” Ida Belle said, “but I’m not counting on it. I expect Carter will be by here any minute now, reminding us to mind our own business.”

  I held in a sigh. She was probably right.

  I rose from the table to pour myself another cup of coffee. I’d barely gotten two sugar packs poured in when I heard the rap on the door. I knew that knock. I looked over at Ida Belle and Gertie and the sigh I’d held in earlier escaped.

  “I’ll get it,” Ida Belle said. “You sit back down and drink your coffee.”

  She headed out of the kitchen and I sat down again. The expression on my face must have reflected exactly what I felt because Gertie reached across the table and squeezed my arm. “Don’t let him get to you,” she said. “At the very least, don’t let him see that he is.”

  I smiled and nodded. Gertie was right. No way was I letting on to Carter how bad I felt about our breakup. My life and my feelings were no longer his concern.

  A second later, he walked into the kitchen behind Ida Belle and I felt my smile slip for just a second, then I forced it back on. Not a big toothy grin sort of smile, but a small pleasant one. The kind reserved for when you’re trying to be polite and don’t really want to be.

  “I see you’re all up early,” Carter said. “No surprise there. I suppose you’ve already heard about Gail Bishop.”

  We all nodded.

  “So tragic,” Gertie said. “Gail was such a nice woman and now, poor Nolan on his own again.”

  “Yes, it’s all extremely unfortunate and unpleasant,” Carter agreed. “It’s also a police matter and a serious one, so I expect you to stay out of it. I mean it. This was a callous crime. Whoever did it wouldn’t think twice about popping off any of you three to cover his own ass.”

  All of a sudden, my forced pleasantness vanished and I just felt tired and angry.

  “We’re not stupid, you know?” I said. “In fact, I’m certain you know we’re not stupid because you know more about us than anyone in this town. Are you stopping by anyone else’s house to tell them not to butt their nose into your investigation, or just the people who might figure it out before you do?”

  Gertie sucked in a breath.

  Carter’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped a bit. Of all the things he’d expected me to say, that apparently wasn’t on the list.

  “I’m tired of this entire song and dance,” I said, unable to stop now that I’d gotten the rant started. “Before you knew my true identity, I had to pretend to be some helpless, ignorant female, as Gertie and Ida Belle have done for years. Well, now you know the truth and I’ll be damned if I’m going to continue acting like something I’m not. At least not in front of you. You can arrest me if you’d like, or handcuff me to my couch, but what you cannot do anymore is condescend to me. Or them.”

  I rose from the table and stomped out of the back door and onto the lawn. I didn’t stop stomping until I reached the edge of the bayou that ran behind my house. I could feel the heat on my face and struggled to get control of my emotions. I stared out at the moving water. It seemed so peaceful. The entire town did, really. Yet so many bad things had happened. So many secrets exposed. So many lives ruined.

  I was tired of it all. Tired of pretending to be something I wasn’t. Tired of being who I thought I was. Tired of not knowing what I wanted. Tired of caring what other people thought. And most of all, tired of being judged for the things I’d done.

  “Are you all right?” Ida Belle’s voice sounded behind me.

  I started to say “yes” but then decided there was no point in lying. “No.”

  “I don’t blame you,” she said, and stepped up beside me. “I wasn’t either.”

  I looked over at her. “What do you mean?”

  She looked out over the water for a while and I could tell her mind was somewhere else. At first, I thought she wasn’t going to answer, then finally she spoke.

  “When I first came back from Vietnam, I thought I was going to live happily ever after, so to speak, but I was never able to slip into it. Oh, everyone thought I should be thrilled to be back from that hellhole and grateful that I’d returned alive and in one piece. I was, and I wasn’t. You see, the young woman who came back from the war was a lot different from the young woman who went to war.”

  I nodded. That was always the case.

  “I went,” Ida Belle continued, “because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to save our American soldiers, and I knew I had the intelligence to do more than wrap wounds or clean bedpans. And I was right. I was very good at what I did, just like you, and with that knowledge comes a feeling of strength and…I don’t know how to describe it exactly, so I’ll just say purpose.”

  “That’s a good way to describe it.”

  “I thought you might agree. I believe that women like us are not made like other people. Gertie, for all her common domestic pursuits like knitting and baking, still doesn’t have that average manner of thinking that drives most women to normal lives. Even successful career women mostly go on to have husbands and children and barbecues with family. But women like us can’t ever wrap our minds around such a life of simplicity.”

  “We can’t let go of that part of us that wants to do something bigger than we are. That thing that makes us who we are.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “It’s our nature that makes us so good at what we do. It saves the lives of many and improves the lives of so
many others, and most will never know. It’s like a drug, almost, the knowledge that you make a difference to so many just because you’re the best at what you do. You feel as if you were born for this thing and this one thing only.”

  “Yes! That’s it exactly.”

  “Then one day, we’re faced with not doing it any longer. Not being who we inherently are. And that’s the worst day of our lives because it makes us question every choice we’ve ever made and will ever make. Because we start to wonder if we’re real or simply a well-oiled machine.”

  I felt the tears well up and I nodded. “How do I know the answer?”

  “It will come. I promise you that, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it to be true. It takes time, and that part is like death to people of action. But one day, you’ll know the truth, and it will be so obvious that you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it to begin with.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder.

  “You’re a person born with purpose, Fortune Redding.”

  * * *

  I spent a long time standing there staring at the bayou. The answers Ida Belle told me would come never materialized, but then I hadn’t figured they would. They weren’t simple questions, so I couldn’t expect simple answers. I finally headed back inside and found a note from Gertie saying they would be back at lunch to talk things out. Gertie was bringing a chicken casserole.

  I smiled. As they would say in the South, Gertie was such a “dear.” She knew I coveted those casseroles we’d delivered the day before and now she was going to go home and boil chicken, mash eggs, or whatever else was required, just to perk up my mood. I’d never met people like them before and I was fairly certain I never would again. They understood me like no one else ever would, and that made for strong bonds. I’d never imagined having friends like this, but now that I did, I couldn’t imagine not having them.

  I put on my tennis shoes and a ball cap and headed out to run. The exercise yesterday had done me good. My muscles complained a bit because I’d lain off exercise for so long, but once put in motion, they settled back into normal performance. I set out at a good pace around the neighborhood. I could have jogged down one of the farm roads that led into the swamps, but I liked seeing what was going on.

  Mr. Hartwell waved at me from atop his new riding mower. Mrs. Hartwell stood on the front porch yelling as he lost control and ran over a patch of her gerbera daisies. Mrs. Boudreaux of Perkins Street—I had to label them by street since Louisiana produced Boudreaux like it did mosquitoes—was painting the rocking chairs on her front porch a bright blue. They looked good against the bright white siding on her house.

  “Looks great!” I called out as I ran by.

  She looked up and waved. “Come by and sit in a couple days.”

  It was the sort of invitation people in Sinful made every day. It didn’t matter to Mrs. Boudreaux that I’d only spoken to her once and that was at church when I’d accidentally stepped on her foot. I’d complimented her, and that required an invitation to chat. Some days, I found it charming. Other days, I found it intrusive.

  Today, I didn’t think about it at all. My mind kept going back to Gail Bishop. Who would want to murder someone like Gail? By all accounts, she was a nice woman, and nice women rarely had enemies. Sometimes people were jealous, but it took a lot more than a little envy to resort to murder. And poor Nolan. He’d been so irritated with Celia and so pleased with himself for tripping her. It probably wasn’t something Gail would have done, but despite her niceness, I don’t think she minded overly much.

  What would Nolan do now? Was he dependent on Gail to manage day to day or was he capable of doing it alone? Ida Belle and Gertie should be able to fill me in on all of that at lunch. I didn’t think Nolan’s disability had anything to do with Gail’s murder, but in order to work on theories, I needed to know the entire picture. So many things that had happened in Sinful had roots in the past. I’d learned quickly that the more you knew about someone, the more likely you were to figure out what was going on. The less you knew, the more likely you were to step right in it.

  “Fortune?” I heard a woman’s voice call out.

  I slowed to a walk and looked at the park in the direction of the call.

  The young woman I’d met in the General Store the day before waved at me from a swing set. Penelope, but she’d called herself something else. A fruit. Apple. Pear. Peaches! That was it.

  I started to wave and continue on, but then changed direction and headed into the park. Peaches and I were probably two of the last people to see Gail alive. She would want to talk about it, and in doing so, might give me a lead. You never knew what gossip was making it through Sinful, and the younger crowd probably had different tidbits to share than Ida Belle’s older contacts.

  “Nice day for the park,” I said as I stepped up.

  Peaches’ baby was in a swing made for infants and she was pushing her gently. The baby let out a happy scream every time the swing went forward.

  “She loves it outside,” Peaches said. “I have a hard time with her when it’s raining.”

  “Ought to be even more fun when she starts school.” I could remember being cooped up inside every day when I wanted nothing more but to be outside in the sunlight. I usually turned my frustration and boredom into causing trouble.

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” Peaches said. She was silent for several seconds. “Did you hear about Gail Bishop?”

  I nodded. “It’s hard to believe.”

  “I said the same thing! I was telling Brandon—he’s my husband—that I just saw her yesterday at the General Store. I never thought…”

  “Of course not. How could you?”

  “Yes. I suppose that sounds silly. You can’t just look at a person and know they’re going to be murdered. Still, if it had been someone like Celia Arceneaux, I would have been shocked but not surprised. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

  “It does to me. I only just met Gail yesterday, but she didn’t strike me as the type of person who incited people to violence.”

  “Not at all! She’s one of the nicest people in Sinful. I’ve worked with her a couple of times on charity events. Between her job in New Orleans and Nolan, she didn’t have a lot of time to spare, but she always helped when we had something going on in town, even if it was only for an hour or two. She spent all her time taking care of other people. Why in the world would someone want to harm a person like that?”

  “It doesn’t seem to make sense,” I said. “Does anyone have ideas?”

  Peaches shifted her gaze to the ground. “Oh, well, I couldn’t say.”

  Another thing I’d learned is that in the South, “I couldn’t say” often meant “I’ve heard things I shouldn’t repeat because it’s crass.”

  “I don’t mean evidence,” I said. “That’s for the police to handle. I just wondered if anyone had been talking. I know it sounds rude of me to ask, but I know so little about Gail and about Sinful as a whole.” I paused for a moment for dramatic effect. “It makes me a bit…uneasy, I guess you’d call it. Living alone and not knowing what happened.”

  “Oh, of course! I understand that completely. When my dad passed, my mom decided to sell her house and move to one of those retirement condos in Florida. I was seeing Brandon and working at the café. We were starting to get serious and I didn’t want to leave, so I stayed in the house until it was sold. It took some getting used to. Things you never heard when another person was around seemed to materialize as soon as the sun went down. Nothing ever happened, but I knew if someone wanted to do something, I’d be an easy target.”

  I nodded. “That’s it exactly. If only I knew that it was for a specific reason, that couldn’t apply to me. It sounds so selfish, but fear isn’t always rational, is it?”

  “No. I have the most horrid fear of spiders. Hate them really. Most of what we have here can’t really hurt you, but there’s something about them that just creeps me out. Every time I see one, I ye
ll for Brandon and he comes with the flyswatter.”

  She stared at me for several seconds and I could see she was trying to decide whether or not to share the gossip she’d heard. The whole “girlfriends have to stick together” must have won out because finally she let out a breath.

  “I wouldn’t want you to repeat this, of course,” she said.

  “Of course. It’s for my own peace of mind and that’s it.”

  She looked around—I assumed to make sure no one was in hearing distance—then leaned closer to me. “The rumor was she was having an affair.”

  Of all the things I’d expected to hear, that one wasn’t even on the list. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I know. It sounds ridiculous. I mean, Gail? She wasn’t unattractive, but she would hardly stand out in a crowd.”

  “Pleasant but unmemorable.”

  “Yes. I mean, I know average-looking people have affairs too, but I just can’t see it, you know? She just didn’t strike me as the type.”

  “It does sound rather unbelievable. Did you hear it from a reliable source? And what was their source?”

  “I heard it from a friend, and I think she said she heard it from Florence Thompson. My friend cleans house for her.”

  Florence Thompson was a name that was vaguely familiar. The image that came to mind was that of a very tall, thin woman with a dour expression. Like her underwear was too tight.

  “I wonder who Florence heard it from,” I said.

  “My friend didn’t say. For all I know, neither did Florence.”

  “Probably not. Well, if that’s true, then this may turn out to be a crime of passion. I guess that lets me out of the victim pool.”

  “Really? Because I heard you were seeing the yummy Carter LeBlanc.” She grinned.

  Yummy? I tried not to cringe.

  “We spent some time together,” I said, “but ultimately, it didn’t work out.”

  Her expression fell. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought you would have made a cute couple. Girls have been throwing themselves at Carter ever since he got back to Sinful, but you’re the first he seemed interested in.”