by Jana DeLeon
Gertie nodded. “The person she was when Palmer hired St. Ives would have gone along with his plan just to get the money. But the newly religious one would have told the truth about Palmer’s father.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t kill his mother,” Mannie said. “It’s not like dude has a conscience.”
“I’m sure it crossed his mind,” I said. “But it didn’t have to come to that because then Brandon went to jail in New Orleans and Palmer got another hit in CODIS.”
“So he approached Brandon with his plan when he got out of jail,” Ida Belle said. “And Brandon, having no money, no prospects, and a healthy fear of the cops, probably agreed to everything. And I bet it was Palmer who supplied him with that photoshopped picture.”
I nodded. “If he recovers, I think that’s exactly what he’ll tell us. I struggled from the beginning trying to figure him out, but I was right about this—he was lying and telling the truth. I just couldn’t separate the two. And although the best of criminals can fool the best of detectives, I couldn’t quite cast him as the mastermind behind all of this. I never thought he had the backbone, for one.”
“So where did Amber come into this?” Gertie asked.
“According to Amber,” Carter said, “Palmer busted her on a string of home robberies, but he said he’d make the whole thing go away if she helped him with a problem. And if she didn’t help, then he’d make sure she went down for far more than just the home robberies. The first thing he had her do was get close to Brandon. He didn’t trust that Brandon would hold to the deal and needed someone on hand to report back if it appeared Brandon was getting cold feet.”
“Then Palmer would have threatened him with a frame-up job the same way he did Amber, I’m sure,” Ida Belle said.
Carter nodded. “Brandon never knew about Amber and Palmer’s connection. He thought they were dating and that she’d dumped him when he left with the carnival again. She told him she was leaving town and wouldn’t be back.”
“Which is why he was surprised to run into her at the diner,” Ida Belle said.
“Exactly,” Carter said. “Palmer had heard the colonel didn’t have long, so he had her on-site near the fair in case she needed to step in again with Brandon.”
“So when Brandon escaped after Palmer killed Whiplash, he called Amber, begging her to help and not realizing she was the enemy,” I said. “She said she had a place he could hide and took him to Francine’s camp to wait on Palmer to handle things.”
“Then why did she shoot him?” Deputy Breaux asked.
“I think she saw us following her,” I said. “She couldn’t afford to wait on Palmer or Brandon might get a chance to tell us the truth, and the truth would have eventually implicated her. She’d set up her arrival in Sinful to appear as if she was running from something, so she figured she’d take that same line and claim Brandon was abusive. That way, he went down for the murders and she got away clean.”
Carter nodded. “Palmer also had her following St. Ives.”
“I wonder what tipped St. Ives off,” Gertie said.
“My guess is St. Ives saw Palmer in his police uniform,” I said. “Someone like St. Ives would already have a healthy distrust of the police given the job he did, and it would have hacked him off to have a cop pull a switch on him.”
“So he went digging and figured out what Palmer was really up to,” Ida Belle said. “But how did Palmer know to start following him?”
I shook my head. “I can only speculate that the day St. Ives saw Palmer, Palmer also saw St. Ives. So he put Amber on his trail.”
“And she followed him to the fair, where Emmaline was,” Carter said. “She notified Palmer and when he saw St. Ives go into the funhouse after Emmaline, he got the key from Brandon—who’d lied about having a copy—and ducked in the back to get St. Ives before he could warn my mom.”
“That was another thing that got me onto Palmer as the ringleader,” I said. “The way St. Ives was stabbed was either a huge amount of luck from an amateur or the precise action of someone who’d been trained to dispatch someone with a knife. Palmer wanted to be Special Forces, so he went through training. He would have had the knowledge to make that kind of death blow.”
“Do you think Emmaline saw him?” Deputy Breaux asked.
“No,” I said. “But I think she heard the commotion and came back to see if someone needed help, so Palmer clocked her to give himself time to get away.”
“How did Whiplash get into the mix?” Mannie asked.
“I think Whiplash saw Palmer go into the funhouse,” I said.
“He was blackmailing Palmer?” Gertie asked. “Then why was he doing Palmer’s dirty work?”
“My guess would be a mutual fear of what the other might do,” Carter said. “Whiplash could report what he saw to the police, but he might not be believed. Still, Palmer would come under scrutiny at a time when he was trying to keep himself completely free from any suspicion regarding the case. He couldn’t afford the state police asking questions. By the same token, Palmer had the means to frame Whiplash. My guess is Palmer promised Whiplash money and no repercussions as long as he did whatever Palmer needed.”
“That would explain why they were working together, despite their clear animosity for each other,” Ida Belle said. “But I doubt Whiplash ever had a chance of making it out of Sinful alive. Neither did Amber. Palmer couldn’t afford a lifetime of walking liabilities.”
“Agreed,” Carter said.
“So why break into Emmaline’s house?” Little asked. “And who do we think did that?”
“I think it was Brandon,” I said. “Based on his speed, it wasn’t Palmer or Whiplash, and the guy was too large to be Amber. My guess is Palmer was driving the getaway boat. As to why, it’s not a pleasant thought, but I think he broke in to make sure there weren’t large enough fragments in Cam’s ashes to do a DNA test. That’s why the rest of the house was tossed with no apparent objective. He wanted it to look like a break-in.”
“I guess that’s something he couldn’t exactly pay St. Ives to do,” Ida Belle said.
“No,” I agreed. “And I’m sure it was in Palmer’s plans to do it all along but with the colonel falling ill quickly and St. Ives cluing into his scam, he had to make it happen sooner rather than later.”
“That would explain why the pearls were missing,” Gertie said.
“Exactly,” I said. “It just added to the narrative that it was an opportunistic thief.”
“I can’t believe Godzilla showed up and saved the day again,” Mannie said. “Talk about a stroke of luck.”
“The bear was a stroke of luck,” Gertie said. “Godzilla was a little more calculated. I had a chat with Francine on my way over here and she admitted she’d taken him café leftovers on the regular, which explains why he was hanging around.”
Carter looked dismayed and I laughed.
“Hey,” I said, “at least that keeps him out of my backyard, which means no more drama with Ronald.”
“There is that,” Carter conceded.
Big Hebert cleared his throat and everyone looked his direction. “I can’t begin to tell you how impressed I am with what you’ve all accomplished here. There were so many pieces and misdirection that I’ll be the first to confess, it was all a jumble of nothing to me. You should all be very proud. Two people’s lives were saved, an evil man will rot in prison, and Emmaline will never have to consider that her husband was anything but the loving husband and father she always believed he was.”
I smiled. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A week later, we gathered in my backyard for a celebration. Emmaline was out of the hospital and back to 100 percent. She’d finally remembered that night at the fair and it had gone exactly as I’d thought. She’d heard what sounded like a strangled cry and went back to see if someone needed help, but before she got to St. Ives, Palmer had knocked her on the head. She never saw him.
&nbs
p; The missing carnival manager had been found. He’d been on a bender in the casinos and was shocked and more than a little worried that two murders had occurred at the carnival in his absence. Brandon had pulled through and was slowly recovering. He still faced some serious charges once he was released from the hospital, but between him and Amber, most of my suspicions had been verified—at least the stuff they were privy to. Amber was trying to cut a deal in exchange for testimony against Palmer, but the fact that she’d shot and almost killed Brandon was still going to rack her up some time inside.
The good news was that Amber’s and Brandon’s stories matched up, so between that and the rest of the evidence piling up, Palmer was looking at a nice long sentence. Palmer, of course, was still denying everything, even though there was actual video of him shooting at me as he was fleeing.
“Where do you want these?” Ally asked, holding up a platter of cookies.
I took one look at the tray and my mouth started to water.
“I’m tempted to say in my office where no one else can have any,” I said. “But I guess the end of the table is good.”
Ally grinned and headed off for the table where Emmaline and Gertie were putting out fixings for hamburgers and yummy sides. Ida Belle and Walter were at the grill, arguing over the right way to cook burgers. I was in such a good mood, I’d invited Ronald, who I figured would either be rearranging the food ‘correctly’ or giving a running commentary on what everyone was wearing, but he surprised me by being right in the mix with Ida Belle and Walter, informing them both they were incorrect about how to grill the perfect burger. He was even wearing an apron and a chef’s hat—but he claimed the apron was only because his dress was couture. It was an interesting look, given that he had chosen combat boots for footwear, but I’d long since given up understanding Ronald and his wardrobe choices.
Big and Little were already in a spot under the tree. Carter and Mannie had hauled out my recliner again and now they were toting in cases of beer. Deputy Breaux was setting up chairs for the rest of us. I was feeling so charitable, I’d even invited Maisey and she’d been kind enough to come clothed.
I heard a commotion coming around the side of the house and Gertie perked up as Jeb and Wyatt rounded the corner. Jeb was using a cane and limping but he was up and around, which was a good sign. His face lit up in a huge smile when he saw Gertie and she hurried over to greet him. Wyatt rolled his eyes at me and grinned and I waved him over.
“Come on,” I said. “I want to introduce you to Big and Little Hebert.”
Wyatt’s eyes widened. “Big Hebert is at your cookout? What did you do?”
I grinned. “I entertain him with my refusal to play by the rules, and sometimes he helps me in those pursuits.”
“No lie?” Wyatt said and grinned. “You might just be the coolest person I’ve ever met. If I were thirty years younger…”
I laughed and hauled him over for introductions.
“When are those burgers going to be ready?” Carter asked.
“As soon as these two get out of my way,” Ida Belle said.
Walter and Ronald looked at each other and shook their heads, their expressions ones of long suffering. But the burgers finally came off the grill and everyone filled their plates. The conversations were all over the place but mostly about what had happened the previous week. Jeb and Wyatt had gotten a recounting from Gertie last week, but they both enjoyed hearing all the details again and from the different perspectives.
“So did the police ever figure out who Rupert St. Ives really was?” Mannie asked.
“As a matter of fact,” Carter said, “I got a call on my way over here. Rupert St. Ives was really Rupert Ackerman and he was a former British cop. He was dismissed for ethical reasons and came to the US when he couldn’t get another position in the UK. He had a house in Mississippi.”
“So, Carter, does that mean you’re a rich man now?” Wyatt asked.
Carter laughed. “I suppose I was for a day or so.”
“What do you mean?” Wyatt asked.
“I didn’t feel right keeping the money,” Carter said. “Especially not with all the problems it caused. I did buy myself a new truck. I figured that was just making things right since the money is why my old one was destroyed. But I donated the rest of it to veteran charities in the area. It was the colonel’s money and I think he would be fine with where it ended up. The debt he thought he owed was to my dad, not me.”
Wyatt’s eyes misted just a bit. “Well, isn’t that just a fine thing. A fine thing, I tell you.”
“The people here are some of the best that you’ll ever meet,” Big Hebert said. “I’m thankful all the time that the ATF stored evidence that Fortune wanted to search in my warehouse. Otherwise, we never would have met.”
“I’m thankful you didn’t shoot me for breaking and entering,” I said.
Big Hebert shrugged. “Like I said—it was the ATF’s property.”
Everyone laughed.
I rose from my chair. “Well, if we’ve all had our fill of food and conversation, we’re going to end the night with some entertainment.”
Everyone looked a little surprised and confused, and then Ida Belle realized Gertie was no longer there. Neither was Ronald.
“That strange neighbor of yours isn’t going to sing opera again, is he?” Ida Belle asked. “Because I’m pretty sure we’re all armed and half drunk.”
“No,” I said. “Ronald is helping Gertie with her costume.”
Carter’s eyes widened. “No!”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “She’s going to perform close to the bayou, so if she lights herself on fire, we’ll just push her in. And Mannie is passing out fire extinguishers.”
Carter looked over at Ida Belle. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry about?” Ida Belle said.
“Because I blamed a lot of Fortune’s shenanigans on you and Gertie,” he said. “I might have been wrong.”
Ida Belle laughed. “You have no idea.”
Ronald ran out into the yard close to the bayou and everyone turned his direction. He waved his arms to quiet us down and I realized he was now wearing a flame-retardant car racing suit instead of the dress and apron. The chef’s hat was still in place. I had to smile. He was finally catching on. Kinda.
“Without further ado,” Ronald said, “I present to you Gertie, the fire-breathing dragon!”
Gertie came from behind us in her full dragon glory. I have to say, the costume was rather spectacular, and I was really hoping I didn’t have to shove her in the bayou. I would hate to ruin it. She pulled out her jewel-encrusted vial and took a swig, then lifted a clawed hand up and blew out a three-foot flame.
Everyone cheered.
When she took the second swig and started to lift her arm, Ronald moved in front of her holding a stick with marshmallows on it. I jumped up but it was too late. Gertie let out the stream of fire and Ronald’s marshmallows went up in flames. So did his chef’s hat.
Just another day in Sinful.
More tales with Fortune and the girls coming later this year.