Mischief in Mudbug

by Jana DeLeon

  “You go get the window,” Maryse said. “I’ll get the rest of the boxes out of the line of fire.”

  Sabine hurried up the stairs and into the already darkening attic. She felt the wall for the light switch, certain they’d left the light on when they’d gone after Helena. She found the switch and flipped it up and down. Nothing. Great. “Maryse,” she yelled down the stairwell. “Can you bring me the flashlight from the storeroom, please?”

  “No problem. Be there in a minute,” Maryse yelled back.

  Sabine inched into the room and started shuffling toward the tiny stream of light coming in the open window. She’d made it halfway across the room when lightning flashed across the sky and through the open window, striking a metal rack against the wall. Sparks flew from the rack as the sound of thunder exploded around her. Sabine lurched backward and tumbled over something big. The large object rolled with her and they both crashed to the floor, Sabine’s head banging against the hardwood planks.

  Sabine had no idea how long she’d been out when she felt heat on her face. Opening one watery eye just a bit, she saw a single beam of light that seemed to stretch out infinitely in front of her. Oh my God. I’m dead. She clenched her eyes, squeezing the tears out, then opened the lids again.

  And saw Helena Henry leaning over her, encased in the beam of light.

  “I am dead!” Sabine cried.

  “Oh, give it a rest,” Helena said. “You’re just as alive and strange as you were ten minutes ago.”

  Sabine struggled to rise from the floor and felt a hand on her arm.

  “Don’t move yet,” Maryse said. “You must have banged your head good. You were out completely.”

  Sabine stared into the darkness behind the beam of light. It sounded like Maryse, but that couldn’t be if she was dead. Suddenly the attic light flickered on and a dim glow filled the room. Sabine blinked twice and looked up at Maryse’s worried face. Relief washed over her and she laid her head back down, hoping the dizziness would pass soon.

  “I thought I was dead,” Sabine said. “The flashlight looked like a hallway…you know like those stories you hear from those people who died, then returned. And then I saw Helena. Jeez, I must have banged my head hard.”

  Maryse peered down at Sabine and bit her lip. “You saw Helena?”

  “Yeah, but I must have imagined it, right?”

  Maryse motioned behind her and a couple of seconds later, Helena Henry stood right next to Maryse, peering down at her.

  “Oh, no,” Sabine said. “It wasn’t my imagination. I see her…but what the heck is she wearing?” The hair was the same, all poufy and gray, and the streetwalker makeup looked just as it had in the coffin. Unfortunately, Helena’s outfit matched the makeup. The leather bodysuit, complete with cone bra, stretched in directions it wasn’t intended to, straining to hold in all of Helena. It was a partial success.

  Maryse grimaced. “Helena’s going through an unfortunate rebellious phase in her fashion journey through the ages.”

  Sabine blinked again and stared at the ghost. “What year did we all dress like hookers?”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!” Helena bitched. “I am not dressed like a hooker. Didn’t you people ever watch MTV? I’m wearing a Madonna outfit.”

  “From the nineties, maybe, but that’s questionable,” Sabine said and rose to a sitting position.

  “I’m working my way through the generations.” Helena crossed her arms and glared.

  Sabine looked over at Maryse. “Thank God I missed hair bands of the eighties.”

  “The seventies weren’t any better.” Maryse leaned in a bit and whispered, “Cher.”

  Sabine rubbed her temples and groaned.

  Maryse placed her hand on Sabine’s arm. “Do you think you can get up? We still need to call the police, and I’ll bet you’d like an aspirin about now.”

  Sabine moved her head from side to side. “I think so. I don’t feel dizzy, anyway.”

  Maryse offered her hand and helped pull Sabine into a standing position. She felt a rush of blood into her head and pressed at her temples. “An aspirin is sounding better and better.” She looked over at Helena and blinked. The cone bra was starting to blur. She stared harder but the ghost began to slowly fade away, until nothing was left at all.

  “She’s gone,” Sabine said.

  “Who’s gone?” Maryse asked. “Helena’s standing right here.”

  Sabine clenched her eyes shut for a moment, then looked again. Nothing. “I can’t see her anymore. What does that mean?”

  Maryse slowly shook her head. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. Let’s get out of here.”

  Sabine stepped forward and looked down at the trunk that had caused her fall. It was flipped over backward, the contents spilled out onto the floor. “Guess that was one way to get that thing opened.”

  “Yeah,” Maryse agreed, “but not exactly what I was shooting for. Don’t worry about the mess. I’ll pick it up later.”

  Sabine started to move, but then something within the scattered hats and ancient purses caught her eye. She leaned over a bit, straining to focus in the dim light.

  “What is it?” Maryse asked.

  “There’s something in the bottom of the trunk.” Sabine knelt and reached inside the trunk for the object. It felt like paper wedged into the bottom of the trunk. Sabine gently worked the paper from side to side, careful not to tear it. Finally, it came loose and she pulled it out.

  Maryse leaned over to see. “It’s a diary page. See the date at the top? She’s talking about the crop prices dropping.”

  “A diary? My aunt didn’t keep a diary.”

  “That you know of,” Helena pointed out. “It’s a generational thing. Lots of women kept diaries during the Vietnam conflict. All the men going off and us left here to manage. Some took comfort in writing it all down.”

  “Did you keep a diary?” Sabine asked.

  “Hell, no,” Helena said. “Put all your feelings down on paper just so someone can get a hold of it later and pass judgment? I don’t think so. I was damned happy when Harold went off to serve…not so happy that he came back. How would that look to people if I’d written all that down?”

  “If they knew Harold, it would look really smart,” Sabine pointed out.

  Maryse leaned over and peered into the trunk. “Is there more? I mean there can’t be only one sheet. And how did it get wedged in the bottom? I thought it was solid.”

  “Good question,” Sabine said. She stuck her hand into the trunk and slid one long fingernail into a gap between the bottom and the side. “There’s a false bottom. It must have come loose when I fell. Let me see if I can work it out.” She stuck another fingernail in the gap and gently pulled on the bottom. It held firm for a moment, then broke loose from the sides of the trunk. A stack of journals fell out on top of it.

  “Holy crap!” Maryse said.

  Sabine stared at the books. “I can’t believe it. All those years and I never knew she kept a diary. But why would she hide them like this? Why not tell me before she died?”

  Maryse shook her head. “I don’t know. But I think we ought to take them all downstairs and find out.” She picked up one of the journals and flipped through the hundreds of pages of handwritten text. “It may be, Sabine, that your aunt knew more about your family than she admitted.”

  Sabine nodded and started to gather up the journals. She’d already had the same thought. It was the next thought that worried her. If her aunt knew something about Sabine’s family, why had she hidden it from her all these years?

  Late that night, Sabine grabbed a bottled water and two more aspirin from the kitchen, then crawled into bed with the book she’d been trying to finish for two weeks. It had been a long and exhausting day, what with the break-in, the absolutely useless time spent with the local police, and then the trip to the hospital that Maryse had insisted on to check out her head. She’d tried to nap that afternoon with limited success and had instead spent a g
ood portion of the time scanning through some of her aunt’s journals. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found anything of relevance, but the logical, systematic way her aunt had documented such a volatile time in history made Sabine think that had her aunt been born in a different era, she would have made a great scientist, or maybe even a detective.

  She propped herself up with a stack of fluffy pillows and snuggled into the pale pink sheets and comforter, figuring she had twenty minutes tops before sleep caught up with her. She opened the book and started at the marked spot. The hero had just saved the heroine from a killer and his arms were still wrapped around her. A fleeting image of Beau Villeneuve clutching Sabine and moving in for a kiss flashed through her mind. Where the hell had that come from? She lifted her water and took a sip. Like she needed a roadmap to answer that question. Beau Villeneuve was quite frankly the best-looking man she’d come into contact with in…well…forever.

  And she couldn’t have met him at a worse time.

  Sabine was pretty sure he didn’t buy into the psychic connection, but she might have still made a run at him had her situation been less complicated. She set her book on the nightstand and sighed. Who are you kidding? You’ve never made a slow stroll at a man, much less a run. Twenty-eight years in Mudbug, Louisiana, and she’d spent most of her time trying to talk to dead people instead of the living. And then when she finally got the opportunity to talk to the dead, she was saddled with Helena Henry. Not exactly what she’d had in mind.

  Beau Villeneuve was just another piece to the puzzle that wasn’t going to ever form a clear picture. Sitting across from him in the café, she’d felt a tug that she’d never felt before…a desire to know this man, inside and out. But with her life hanging in the balance, the last thing Sabine was going to do was complicate an already impossible situation by developing feelings for a man she might not be around to see grow old. It wasn’t fair…not to her and especially not to him. She turned off the lamp and lay down, hoping she dreamed about anything besides death, ghosts, family, and the good-looking man who would never know she was interested.

  It felt like she’d barely fallen asleep when Sabine bolted upright in her bed, her pulse racing. There was noise downstairs in her shop. She glanced at the alarm clock and saw it was just after midnight. Much, much too late for anyone to need anything legitimate. And with the attempted break-in that morning, she wasn’t about to take any chances. She eased out of bed and pulled open her nightstand drawer. Within easy reach and already loaded rested the nine millimeter she’d purchased years before.

  Mudbug might be a small town, but Sabine was a single woman living alone. Residents of Mudbug may call her crazy, but no one was going to call her stupid. She lifted the pistol from the drawer and crept out of the bedroom. The stairwell door creaked just a bit as she eased it open, and she froze. The only sound she could hear was the ticking of the old clock in her living room.

  Then she heard rustling downstairs and knew whoever it was hadn’t fled. Which wasn’t good. When faced with the possibility of a homeowner in a small town in Louisiana, most thieves would flee—unless they were on drugs. But then, most thieves didn’t try to break into buildings in broad daylight, either, even if it was the back door.

  Unless theft wasn’t their primary objective.

  Clutching the pistol, she crept down the stairs, hoping they didn’t creak under her weight. She reached the bottom without incident and peered around the corner into the shop. A silhouette stood silently by the cash register. She squinted in the dark, trying to make out the figure, and as her vision shifted just a bit, she realized the person wasn’t trying to break into the register, as she’d originally thought, but was instead writing something on the pad of paper she usually kept under the counter.

  Now or never. Please God, don’t let him have a gun, too.

  She took a deep breath and tightened her grip on the pistol. Her heart pounded in her chest, making the silence seem ever more sinister, more empty. With a silent prayer, she flipped on the shop lights and stepped around the corner, her gun aimed directly at the figure. It took a moment for her to focus and realize that the man standing at her counter was someone she knew.

  “Jesus, Hank! You scared the shit out of me. What in the world are you doing in my shop in the middle of the night? For that matter, what are you doing in Mudbug at all?”

  Hank Henry, disappearing husband extraordinaire, remained frozen in surprise and fright, his hands in the air. Finally, he found his voice. “You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”

  “No…well, probably not.” Sabine looked closely at him, trying to figure out what he was up to, but all she saw was the good-looking guy Maryse had been unfortunate enough to fall for and marry.

  He stared a moment more, then apparently deciding she probably wouldn’t shoot him, he lowered his hands and sucked in a breath. “Jesus yourself, Sabine. I already got shot once in the last month. I’d really like to avoid it again if I could.”

  Sabine tried to hold in a smile but only partially managed to. Hank, in an unusual fit of heroism, had taken a bullet that wasn’t meant for him. It had definitely improved his rating with Maryse and Sabine, but Hank was far from out of the woods. There was still that two-year disappearance, and Sabine wasn’t yet ready to forgive Hank completely for all the trouble he’d brought to her friend…bullet or no.

  “Well, if you stop putting yourself in situations to get shot, you might have a better chance at keeping your innards intact,” Sabine said. “You darn near bought it.”

  Hank swallowed. “Yeah, I can see that. Damn, Sabine, what are you doing with a nine? That’s a helluva gun for a chick.”

  “I’m a helluva chick, Hank. You still haven’t answered my question—what are you doing in my shop and how did you get in?”

  “I still have a key from back when I was with Maryse.” He pulled it from his pocket and slid it across the table to Sabine, a sheepish look on his face. “I need to talk to you, but couldn’t risk being caught by the Mudbug cops. I haven’t exactly got all my past transgressions worked out. Although, the way things look now, I would probably have been safer with ole Leroy.”

  Sabine had to laugh. Deputy Leroy Theriot was more likely to shoot himself in the foot than actually apprehend a criminal. “You ever thought of using a phone?”

  “Yeah, but this was sorta important and I felt kinda funny doing it over the phone. Please, Sabine, I need to use your restroom first, but then I really need to talk to you.”

  Sabine sighed. “Restroom’s on the far right wall. The break room is through the door behind the counter. Meet me in there when you’re done. I’ll make some tea.”

  Hank relaxed a little and headed off. Sabine stepped into the break room and pulled a box of decaffeinated tea from the cabinet. It was far too early for coffee and if she could hear whatever Hank had to say and get rid of him soon, there was still a chance of sleeping again. She nuked two cups of water in the microwave and dipped the tea bags in them until the water turned a deep, rich brown. Sabine took in the sweet smell of cinnamon and spice and smiled.

  She had just set the cups and sugar on a tiny table when Hank entered the room. She motioned to the other chair and he took a seat, reaching for the cup of tea and the sugar spoon almost immediately.

  “Thanks for the tea, Sabine. And I’m really sorry I scared you. That’s not what I was trying to do. I thought I’d make it here before you went to bed, but I got held up. So then I thought I’d just leave you a note and hide out somewhere around town until you woke up and could meet me.”

  “And what is so important that you risked the Mudbug police department and a nine millimeter bullet?”

  Hank looked down at his cup. “I heard about the cancer.”

  Sabine froze. “How? No one is supposed to know.”

  “I was in that attorney’s office, Wheeler, when Maryse called trying to hunt me down.”

  Sabine stared at Hank. “Maryse told you about my cancer?”

 
Hank looked stricken. “Oh, crap, you didn’t know. She probably didn’t want to get your hopes up in case she couldn’t find me or something. Shit. I can’t seem to do anything without causing trouble.” He sighed. “Maryse didn’t tell me. She told Wheeler to explain why she needed to find me. I guess he thought I wouldn’t do the right thing if I didn’t have all the facts.”

  Sabine rolled this over in her mind, trying to bunch all the facts together into something that made sense, and all at an hour she should have been curled up in her bed not thinking at all. “So Wheeler told you everything, and then you came here. Why, exactly?”

  Hank grinned. “Well, cousin, I thought if we were a match, I would give you some bone marrow.”

  Sabine sat back in her chair, stunned. She stared at Hank Henry, the most selfish, most irresponsible person in the world, and tried to come up with any reason whatsoever for this charade. Hank just stared back, the grin still in place, his expression completely sincere. Well, that tore it all.

  She felt the tears well up in her eyes and reached for a napkin. “I can’t believe you’d do that for me, Hank.”

  Hank looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh, hell, it’s nothing but a test for now. We don’t even know if I’m a match or if you’ll ever need me. You’re a really good person, Sabine. You’ve always looked after Maryse, and I know neither of you believe me, but I do care about her.”

  Sabine sniffed. “Just not enough to be her husband.”

  Hank sighed. “I’m not in any shape to be anyone’s husband. I’ve got too many issues, Sabine. All I could do is bring her down. And the reality is, I care about Maryse a lot, but I don’t love her like that DEQ agent does.”

  “How do you know about Luc?”

  “I’ve seen them together out on the bayou, but they didn’t see me.” Hank smiled. “They look good together, Sabine. Right. Like two pieces that fit perfectly together. And after everything I put her through, I’m really glad she’s happy.”