by Hearn, Shari
“Dear, Lord, don’t tell me she’s a Yankee?” Miss Gertrude asked, shaking her head.
Ida Belle nodded. “She was born that way.”
“We still love her though,” Gertie added.
Miss Gertrude rolled her eyes. “Well, I guess somebody has to.” She slapped her thighs. “So, ladies, we have a small problem.” She nodded toward Brittany and Jenny. “The two girls here agreed to deliver Millie for a rather generous sum of money. I discovered she stole something of mine and I wanted it back. Everything worked smoothly until y’aaaall interfered. So tell me something.” Miss Gertrude glared at Gertie. “Why did you spread it around that camp you were me?”
“Um… well… you see…” Gertie took another sip. “Some of those women… If you’ve ever watched any of those prison shows…”
“I’m familiar with prison,” Miss Gertrude said.
“She didn’t want to be some gal’s bitch,” I said.
“I told her it wasn’t a great idea, but she insisted,” Ida Belle added.
Miss Gertrude frowned at Ida Belle. “What do you know, anyway? When I was in prison no one messed with me. Seems like a brilliant plan.”
Gertie beamed at the compliment. “You’re who I always dress up as at Halloween.”
“Yes, I’m quite familiar with your Halloween parties.”
“How?” Gertie asked, stunned.
“When Jenny called and told me someone arrived at Camp Happy Frog parading herself as me I did a little research. Found your Halloween party videos on your Facebook page.” She scowled at me. “You, I couldn’t find much on.”
Lucky for me the real Sandy-Sue Morrow was a very private person. After coming into contact with all the creepy men following her on the beauty pageant circuit, she had stopped all her social media activity, which proved a blessing for me.
Miss Gertrude shot a look at Ida Belle. “You I saw in the Halloween videos. You and a fellow came as Bonnie and Clyde.”
Ida Belle nodded. “My friend, Walter.”
Miss Gertrude took a sip of her coffee. “Well, now that we’ve established y’all’s fascination for celebrated bank robbers, let me ask my next question. What were you looking for in the office when Jenny caught you snooping around?”
“My purse. We needed my gun because we thought Jenny killed Star—” Gertie put her hand over her mouth.
Crap. Obviously they were responsible for Starlight’s death. Now that they knew we knew, they’d kill us for sure.
Except, no one made a move. Miss Gertrude dismissed Gertie with a wave of her hand. “Millie killed her. My plan had been for Jenny to bribe Starlight to go home for the three days of the camp. But Starlight had a few secrets herself. One, she was the niece of a New Orleans crime boss, the same family that owns the dummy corporation running the camp and a few other facilities. Second, she was greedy. She demanded five times the amount Jenny was going to give her. Jenny wouldn’t give it to her. Starlight pulled out her twenty-two and requested it again. That’s when Millie showed up and shot her. Made Jenny clean up the blood and bury her. Trust me, serving as a camp counselor at one of her uncle’s camps was just the beginning for Starlight. Eventually she’d move up the ladder. The loss of Starlight is no tragedy for the world.”
Miss Gertrude’s gaze fell upon her coffee cup. She blinked, as if stunned at its emptiness. “Sweetie…”
Davy was trained well. He rushed over and filled her cup from the carafe. She thanked him by giving him a hard slap on his perfect butt. He then leaned in and blew on the coffee to cool it, all the while staring seductively into Miss Gertrude’s eyes.
I had to look away at this point. Miss Gertrude and Gertie looked so much alike that an image of a naked Gertie and naked Davy flashed in my brain. I glanced at Ida Belle, whose gaze was locked onto the ceiling fan overhead, her face frozen in a grimace. Gertie stared at Miss Gertrude and Davy, a grin plastered on her face.
Miss Gertrude turned back to us and continued, “Where was I? Oh, yes… aside from the shooting of Starlight, this whole thing was like a choreographed dance. One that I created. I heard through the grapevine Millie had one of my maps, a very special map stolen from me over twenty years ago. She was looking to get a crew together to pull off something I had put a lot of research into discovering. So I did a little digging into Millie’s background. She wasn’t well loved. Especially by her family, at least those she hadn’t yet killed.”
“We hated the bitch,” Brittany said.
“She killed our granddaddy, chopped our aunt in two, and set our mama up to be arrested,” Jenny added.
“I arranged everything about this operation,” Miss Gertrude said. “The two ladies who were supposed to join her? My moles. They suggested she hide out at Camp Happy Frog, per my instructions. We wanted Millie hiding out there so she’d be seen by the other campers. And we wanted Jenny seen.”
“So there’d be witnesses who would tell law enforcement they saw her,” I said. Now it made sense. “You wanted them to eventually find Millie’s body and think her granddaughter did it.”
Miss Gertrude nodded. “My organization has a wonderful… relocation program, for lack of a better name.”
“You’ll give Jenny and Brittany new identities.”
“We get to start all over,” Brittany said. “Miss Gertrude’s going to send me to nursing school.”
“Am I not wonderful, y’aaaaall?” Miss Gertrude said with a shrug, a broad smile forming on her face. “And smart, if I don’t mind bragging on myself. We rented this vacation home for the summer. Paid in cash. With Millie’s name on the lease. Nothing will be traced to me, especially after the gators have their way with her body.”
She took a deep breath and let it escape. Her smile disappeared. “At least, that’s the way it should have gone down. Until you two started causing problems and forced me to speed up my timetable.” She turned and glared at Ida Belle. “Then you showed up as well. What the hell’s going on with you ladies? I want the truth.”
Miss Gertrude reached into her purse and pulled out a set of windup teeth. She wound them tight and held them up. “I told you everything. Now you have until the teeth stop to tell your side of the story.” She set the chattering teeth on the table.
Ida Belle set her cup down. “We were investigating the company running the camps. We wanted to tie it to the judge who sent Fortune and Gertie there. I stayed at a motel close by so I could help them dig up dirt. When I saw them in the boat with Millie and Jenny, I decided to follow them. And that’s the truth.”
Miss Gertrude glared at Gertie.
“Word,” Gertie said, watching as the teeth began to slow.
“What about you, Yankee? You agree?”
I nodded.
“So what you’re telling me is the three of you, with one of you pretending to be me, happened to have the rotten luck to step into this hornet’s nest at the worst possible time?”
“You have no idea how often that happens,” I said.
Ida Belle frowned. “Yep.”
“Word times two,” Gertie said, taking a sip of her coffee.
Miss Gertrude pulled in a deep breath, then blew it out. “Well, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“What you’ve heard?” Gertie asked.
“We have some mutual… acquaintances,” Miss Gertrude said. “People who know a bit about what goes on in Sinful. About your little club, the Sinful Ladies…” Miss Gertrude snapped her fingers, trying to remember.
“Society,” Ida Belle said. “And whom might that be?”
I sighed. “Big and Little.”
Big and Little were the local mob leaders. We had given one another mutual assistance while trying to solve a couple of recent crimes in Sinful.
“Please don’t tell us Big and Little own Camp Happy Frog,” Gertie said.
Miss Gertrude laughed. “Hardly. They were given a chance to participate in opening new facilities. They declined. Running prisons to hold your enemies isn’t a good business pla
n. But I am curious, Yankee, how you knew I was talking about Big and Little.”
“The airboat. It’s exactly like the one they loaned us for the summer. I recognized the sticker of the company it came from.”
Miss Gertrude smiled. “Well, give this girl a gold star.” Her smile turned into a frown. “For some reason, those boys like you.”
“They won’t let you kill us,” I said.
The teeth stopped chattering.
“No, they won’t,” Miss Gertrude said, pursing her lips. “Not that I would. I’m a respected businesswoman now. But it doesn’t mean I overlook transgressions against me. And my punishment can be quite harsh. Today, however, you get a pass.”
“You’re going to let us go?” Gertie asked.
“That’s what Big and Little have requested. They also asked that I pass on a request to you. More like a directive. You’ll tell no one you saw me. If you’re questioned by the police about Millie’s appearance at the camp, you’ll say she and her granddaughters disappeared on a boat and you tried to follow, but lost sight of them and went back to the camp. End of story.”
She ran her fingers through her hair. “I did the world a favor shooting Millie.” Apparently it wasn’t end of story. “I hope I don’t have to worry about you three. Especially you,” she said, glaring at me. “Big and Little have taken to all three of you, amused that one of you looks like the great Miss Gertrude. But, you,” she said, wagging her finger at me. “You’ve impressed Big and Little, Miss Librarian. So much so they offered you a job in their organization. You’d only be the second woman with a job offer. The first being me.”
Gertie and Ida Belle both shot looks my way. I hadn’t told them of Big and Little’s offer. “I declined,” I said.
Miss Gertrude raised her eyebrows. “It’s not easy to impress those boys, especially for a woman. And a librarian, no less. And that intrigues me, makes me think there’s more to you than meets the eye. Now, Big and Little, they don’t care about how a simple librarian can be so accomplished. But for me, someone like you is a big question mark. I hate question marks. So know this—mention me to anyone and I’ll move heaven and earth to learn all I can about you. Don’t think I can’t do it.”
I tried not to react. But even a nonreaction is a reaction. And she knew it. She smiled. “Good. We understand one another. You’re now free to leave.”
We stood.
She glanced at Lance and snapped her fingers. “Give them back their weapons, honey. And before the chopper arrives,” she kicked off her sandals and held her feet up, “my doggies are yapping. They could use a nice hot oil rub.”
“My doggies are yapping too,” Gertie said, shooting a hopeful look at Lance.
Miss Gertrude whipped her head around and glared at Gertie. “I suggest you rub them when you get home. Oh, and next Halloween, darlin’, go as Tweety Bird or a Smurf or something. Don’t go as me.”
“I’ll give it some thought.”
Miss Gertrude frowned.
“I’ll help her make a pirate costume or something,” Ida Belle said. She nudged us toward Lance, who held our weapons out to us. I took Gertie’s gun and gave it to her.
“I’ve missed you,” Gertie said, stroking the gun. Lance handed her enormous purse over and she slipped the gun inside.
We were inches away from the sliding glass door when Jenny laughed. “She did do a good imitation of you, Miss Gertrude, except when she pretended to decode the map. She went nuts. Said something wild about a ladies’ club in Lafayette and a meteorite.”
“Let’s hurry,” Gertie whispered, opening the door.
“Waaaaiiiit!” Miss Gertrude screamed.
Crap. We stopped and turned toward Miss Gertrude.
“Well, that certainly does sound crazy, doesn’t it?” Gertie asked. “I mean, a meteorite? How stupid is that?”
“I want you to forget you ever saw my map.”
“That won’t be hard. She has a horrible memory,” Ida Belle said.
“Who are you again?” Gertie asked Miss Gertrude.
“You say ‘hi’ to Big and Little for us,” I said, scooting Gertie and Ida Belle out the door.
Once outside we ran down the path to the water, picking Gertie up after she tripped over Millie’s body, and hopped in one of the motorboats. Ida Belle started the motor and we tore off down the bayou. It wasn’t until we were sure Miss Gertrude hadn’t changed her mind and sent her boys after us that we could finally breathe.
“We dodged another bullet,” I yelled above the sound of the motor.
Ida Belle nodded. “This was a close one.”
Gertie touched my face where she’d slapped me earlier. “I’m sorry I had to hit you.”
I dismissed her with a wave. “Forget about it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I ever will.”
Chapter Eleven
The police greeted us as we stepped off the dock at Camp Happy Frog, our return complicated by their impression that Gertie was the infamous Miss Gertrude, something the other campers still thought.
After clearing up the confusion about Gertie’s true identity, we were herded into the administration building where we gave our statements and learned what had gone on in our absence. Not long after we’d left with Millie, some of our fellow campers had grown suspicious when the woman they thought was Starlight failed to return to lift the order of cabin confinement. They banded together and stormed the administration building, only to find the mess we left in the office. One of them called the police who made a gruesome discovery when they went searching the camp’s grounds. The real Starlight’s body buried in a shallow grave near her cabin.
After giving our statements we called Carter and told him the same story we told the police, the story supplied to us by Miss Gertrude. That we’d originally been snooping around because we suspected Judge Renaud of sending people to Camp Happy Frog in return for Caribbean trips, then found evidence someone may have hurt the real Starlight, so we followed Millie and her granddaughters in the boat, then lost track of them.
Carter gave me a good chewing out about following them, then made me put him on speakerphone so he could chew out Gertie and Ida Belle as well. No telling what he’d say if he knew the real story. Which he never would.
I still felt a twinge of guilt hiding our dealings with Miss Gertrude, because I suspected her current “legitimate businesswoman” status included some not-so-legitimate shady dealings with Big and Little. However, after the police informed us of all the crimes Millie had committed, and the many dangerous criminals she’d double-crossed, I realized Millie would have eventually ended up as gator food. Miss Gertrude just hastened her demise.
Carter dropped his own news. It seemed we weren’t the only ones who suspected Judge Renaud of taking kickbacks for sentencing people to Camp Happy Frog. In fact, Carter had been working with the FBI for the past six months, and had been the one to initially call them with his suspicions about the dirty goings-on at the company and their ties to the judge. Her arrest was imminent.
“What?”
“You knew?”
“How?”
He sighed into the phone. “I am in law enforcement. I’m trained to notice discrepancies. Or have you all forgotten that?”
Gertie crossed her arms. “And you sent us to that camp anyway? Knowing they were a bunch of crooks?”
“Yes, because the judge ordered it. At that moment the FBI hadn’t arrested her, so I had to follow her orders.”
“Well thank you for the heads-up,” Gertie said. She flipped a bird at the phone.
“You’ll get your money back,” he said.
“Oh, damn straight we will. With interest. Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit.”
“What was that?” Carter asked.
“Something only Fortune and I understand,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle leaned into the phone. “So what about Celia? Any possibility she was also on the take?”
“’Fraid not,” Carter said. “But
I told her how bad it looked that she went straight to a crooked judge about Gertie and Fortune, so she’s forgiving the fine against your friend Donna for playing pinball on Sunday.”
“Well, that’s good news.”
In light of all that had happened, the rest of our three-day anger management intensive was canceled. We stepped out of the administration office to find our fellow campers lined up to take the bus back to their homes. The dirty looks they shot our way told us they had since discovered the truth, that Gertie was not Gertrude Roy. If Gertie and I hadn’t been granted permission to ride back to Sinful with Ida Belle, I would have offered to walk the one hundred miles back rather than face the wrath of these women in a hot, cramped bus. Gertie sighed as we passed their line. She stopped and turned to them.
“I guess the police told you I wasn’t Gertrude Roy,” Gertie said. “I do want to apologize for insinuating—”
“Insinuate this,” Cyn said, holding her hand up and flipping Gertie the bird. She was soon joined by the other women, who all gave Gertie the middle finger salute.
“Oh, we found a pair of your underwear,” Dee said, pointing to the frog welcome statue. Someone had placed them over the frog statue’s head like a shower cap.
Ida Belle rushed over and snatched the panties off the statue. Gertie yanked them from her hand, her face as red as the hearts on the undies.
“I knew those were yours,” Ida Belle said, laughing. “That’ll teach you not to put your name and address on your waistband.”
“Can we leave already?” Gertie hissed. She stormed ahead of us back to Ida Belle’s car.
* * * * *
Two hours after returning home I sat at my kitchen table sipping a beer and relaxing before Ida Belle and Gertie arrived for dinner.
My phone vibrated with a text from Carter.
I’m on my way. Prepare your lips for a workout.
I was about to text some sexy response when I heard knocking at the kitchen door. Through the sheer curtains I could see Gertie and Ida Belle standing outside, their arms full of grocery bags.
I jumped from my chair and let them in.