Louisiana Longshot

by Jana DeLeon

  When the preacher started praying right after the song ended, Gertie leaned over and whispered, “Get ready.”

  I pulled my tennis shoes out of my purse and happily pulled off the heels I’d been wearing. Twenty seconds later, I was ready for action.

  “We ask these things in Your name,” the preacher said.

  “Now,” Gertie whispered.

  “A—”

  I was out the door before the “men” even dropped. The door to the Catholic church flew open as I dashed out into the street, and Gertie's nemesis, Celia, barreled outside. The mid-morning sun hit her straight in the eyes, but she never slowed, running blindly down the sidewalk at a clip much faster than I ever would have imagined.

  But it was nothing compared with me.

  I could hear Gertie cheering behind me as I lifted the skirt of my dress and leapt over a snow cone stand. I slid a foot or so on the dusty sidewalk, then regained my footing just in time to push open the door to Francine's and bolt inside. Celia huffed in a couple of seconds later and stood there, panting and glaring.

  A big woman, probably about fifty, with a ton of blond hair piled on top of her head raised one eyebrow. “Looks like somebody done hired a ringer. You ain't even winded, girl.”

  “Not a bit,” I agreed.

  Celia narrowed her eyes at me as Gertie came trotting into the restaurant, the smile on her face as wide as the Grand Canyon.

  “Now,” Gertie said to Celia, “don't you be giving my friend the stink eye just because you spent all that money on those shoes and you still aren’t getting any pudding.” She turned to the woman with the hair. “Francine, we'll take a table for eighteen.”

  “Right this way, Ms. Gertie,” Francine said and grabbed a stack of menus.

  I followed Francine and Gertie to a stretch of two long tables placed in front of the plate-glass storefront.

  “I suppose you’ll all be starting with the pudding?” Francine asked.

  Gertie nodded and Francine walked through double doors at the back of the seating area, presumably to serve up eighteen orders of banana pudding.

  “We’re eating dessert first?” I asked.

  “Of course not. We’re just ordering dessert first so they don’t run out. Francine can only fit about twenty-five in her fridge. Celia’s got fifteen in her crew.”

  She looked positively giddy delivering that last statement, and I had to wonder what Celia’s crew would have in store for her when they realized the Nikes hadn’t done the job. I was, however, interested in seeing how they determined which crew members got the remaining pudding.

  Gertie insisted I take the seat at the head of the table, as the “guest of honor.”

  “Are sixteen more people really coming?” I asked. I hadn’t seen Gertie talk to anyone at church.

  She nodded. “All the Sinful Ladies will be here shortly.”

  “Did they skip church?”

  Gertie looked horrified. “You can’t skip church and then eat out. Why, the whole town would talk about you for a month.”

  “Don’t tell me they’re Catholic.”

  “Heavens, no.” Gertie laughed. “The things you come up with. Those of us that don’t sing in the choir have church duties. I was let off duties today as I was bringing a guest.”

  I was just about to ask Gertie about her earlier cryptic comment concerning Marie killing her husband when a shadow fell across the table. I looked up into the frowning face of Deputy LeBlanc. One glance at Gertie told me she wasn't the least bit happy to see him.

  “Morning, Ms. Gertie,” he said. “How are you today?”

  “Fine, thanks,” Gertie replied, but she didn't meet his eyes and her lips were drawn in a taut line.

  He ignored me completely, which was fine by me.

  “You were around when Harvey Chicoron disappeared, right?”

  “You know I was.”

  “They never found any sign of him, right, except for that missing money thing?”

  Gertie pursed her lips. “You're the police. I imagine the reports have all the information you can find, and I'm certain you can read as I taught you all four years of high school.”

  “I've been through the reports, but I wanted to get the local take on the situation.”

  “He's gone, and no one knows what happened. Not much more to it than that.”

  “There’s always more to it than that. When a person disappears, you should really take a closer look at the person. For example, was he well liked?”

  “You know good and well he was the orneriest man in town.”

  “Hmm. So, no one liked him?”

  “You know they didn't.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Including Marie?”

  Gertie huffed. “I expect Marie had her hands full.”

  “I don't want to know what you expect. I want to know if Marie liked her husband.”

  There was dead silence for a long time, and I looked back and forth from Gertie to Deputy LeBlanc. The tension was thicker than the banana pudding Francine slid in front of me, and I couldn’t help but notice that as soon as she placed the last bowl on the table, she took off for the kitchen as if there was a fire that needed attending.

  “I already said no one liked him,” Gertie said finally.

  Deputy LeBlanc nodded. “He inherited oil wells from his parents, right? So that means Marie came into quite a comfortable living when he didn’t turn up.”

  “I don’t ask people about their finances. It’s rude.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Did she offer the information?”

  “No,” Gertie snapped at him. “Marie never told me about her finances. Are you satisfied? Because you’re ruining my Sunday dinner.”

  He studied her for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “I’m done for now, but I may be by later after I study those case files again. If I have any more questions, that is.”

  He looked over at me and nodded. “Ma’am,” he said and strolled out of the restaurant.

  “What the hell was that about?” I asked. “You could have drowned a herd of elephants in the undercurrent between the two of you.”

  “He knows I won’t lie on Sunday. I tried to dance around the questions, but he still managed to get some information out of me.”

  I nodded, now understanding Gertie’s less-than-direct answers. “So, how much money did Harvey have?”

  Gertie cocked her head. “Now, you just heard me say Marie didn’t tell me about her finances.”

  “I know, but I figure someone else did.”

  She laughed. “It’s a good thing Carter isn’t as shrewd as you are.”

  “So you do know?”

  “Of course. Marie told Marge and Marge told me and Ida Belle. Harvey sold those oil wells years ago, and his parents owned a ton of real estate, but as soon as he was officially declared dead, Marie got control of everything—all ten and a half million.”

  “Holy shit!”

  Gertie popped me with her napkin. “No biblical cursing on Sundays.”

  “Ouch,” I rubbed the red spot on my forearm. She must have been hell as a high school teacher. “Ten million is a lot of reasons to want a jackass dead. Is that why you think she killed him?”

  “That and another reason, but I won’t talk about it. I have to discuss it with the society ladies. We have to plan how to handle this before it gets out of control.”

  She waved a hand toward the window. “Here they come now.”

  I looked outside and saw a crowd of gray-haired women bearing down on the restaurant.

  Sixteen of them, probably from the Jurassic period. Fourteen wearing glasses and seven with hip replacements. Based on skin tone, high blood pressure was running rampant.

  “Why don’t any of your husbands come to church?” I asked. “Or is that some kind of rule, too?”

  Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “You can’t be a member of the Sinful Ladies Society if you have a husband. The original members, like me, are all old maids. We’re fin
ally starting to allow widows in, but their husbands have to be dead for at least ten years.”

  “Why ten years?”

  “Seems to take that long to deprogram them from silly man thinking.”

  “So Marie’s not a member?”

  “Not yet, but she can petition in another five years.”

  “If she’s not in prison.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Gertie said, and although her voice sounded confident, her expression gave her away completely. Gertie was worried.

  Ida Belle plunked down in the chair next to me and gave Gertie a high five. “Good job beating the Catholics to the ringer,” she said as she smiled down at the huge bowl of banana pudding on the table in front of her. “I’ll bet Celia’s kicking herself for buying those expensive shoes.”

  “If she’s not kicking herself,” Gertie said, “her husband will be when he sees the bill for the shoes and has no banana pudding.”

  Ida Belle nodded, then looked down the table. “It’s time to remember our manners. Everyone, this is Marge Boudreaux’s niece. She’s the reason you all have banana pudding today, so remember to say a special prayer of thanks for her tonight.”

  The ladies broke out in a round of enthusiastic applause. Across the café in the corner, Celia and her crew turned to glare.

  “What’s your name, hon?” one of the little old ladies asked. “I want to make sure I get the right name to God.”

  “Her name is Sandy-Sue,” Ida Belle said.

  I cringed and my back stiffened from my butt cheeks all the way up to my neck. “Actually,” I said before I could change my mind, “everyone’s always called me Fortune.”

  “Really?” Gertie said. “Why?”

  “Well…” I fidgeted in my chair, trying to think up something that worked besides the truth. Telling them it was short for “soldier of fortune”—due to my mercenary tendencies—probably wouldn’t project the right image.

  “It’s okay, dear,” Gertie said. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”

  A lightbulb popped on. “That’s okay. It was something my mother called me. She used to always say I was going to be worth a fortune someday—you know, with the beauty pageants and such. She really expected me to be an actress or model. I guess the nickname just stuck, and now, I’m not used to answering to anything else.”

  I was shocked at how easily those lies rolled off my tongue. I hadn’t even come close to retching despite the fact that I’d used “beauty pageant,” “actress,” and “model” in the same delivery. But even more shocking was the ladies’ reactions. No one looked even remotely surprised at my expected success based on beauty. They just nodded and smiled like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  An optometrist could make a killing in this place.

  “How come Francine hasn’t brought the list of specials over yet?” Ida Belle asked. “Is she drinking again?”

  Ida Belle craned her neck to look over Gertie into the kitchen. Gertie dropped her gaze to the table, not saying a word.

  “I don’t know anything about the drinking part, although I’m not opposed,” I said, “but she probably held back since Deputy LeBlanc was over here grilling Gertie about your friend Marie.”

  The ladies went instantly quiet and stared at me. I hadn’t commanded this much attention since I’d stolen that drug lord’s golden retriever.

  “Carter was in here?” Ida Belle asked.

  I nodded. “Asking if Marie liked her husband and how much money she inherited—”

  Ida Belle’s eyes narrowed. “What did you tell him?” she whispered to Gertie.

  Gertie paled and bit her lower lip.

  “She didn’t tell him anything,” I volunteered. “She worked around everything except what he already knew, and did a good job of it being that she has that whole lying-on-Sunday rule.”

  Ida Belle frowned. “Which Carter is well aware of.”

  “So, is anyone going to tell me exactly what I stepped in the middle of yesterday?” I asked. The more information I could get, the better situated I’d be to avoid the entire mess.

  Ida Belle glanced at the other ladies and shook her head. “Now’s not the time or place.” She lifted her hand to wave at Francine, who hovered in the kitchen doorway. “We’re ready when you are, Francine,” Ida Belle called out.

  The other ladies immediately launched back into the conversations they’d been having before my announcement. Gertie looked over at Ida Belle and opened her mouth to say something, but the tiny shake of Ida Belle’s head made her clam right back up.

  But was it because of the other ladies or me?

  Chapter Six

  The rest of lunch was completely uneventful. All of the ladies split immediately after, claiming knitting, letter writing, and book reading that needed to be done before they returned for evening church service, but I had the sneaking suspicion they might be secretly meeting up to discuss the whole Marie situation.

  I was happy to be left out of it all, so I waddled home after consuming chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes with cream gravy, something called “fried okra,” God knows how many dinner rolls, and a big bowl of the best banana pudding I’ve ever had in my life. Gertie had promptly pointed out that compared with the refrigerated, whipped cream stuff I’d eaten before, it was the only banana pudding I’d ever had in my life.

  Regardless, I hoped I wouldn’t be in Sinful for very long. That sprint from the church to the café in no way covered the calories consumed. In fact, I might have to exercise until October to burn off the calories I’d just taken in. I figured I’d start on Monday.

  The Sinful Ladies had been a study in psychology all themselves. Out loud was a lively conversation about the sermon, the pudding, and the latest in fabric down at the general store, but the sideways looks, slight nods, and almost imperceptible shaking of heads belied an entire other conversation happening that I wasn’t privy to. I wondered if Gertie had shared her theory about Marie killing her husband with the rest of them. Something must have been said, because the subject of the bone never came up, and in a town as small as Sinful, that had to be the biggest news of the moment.

  But what I found the most interesting was that they didn’t quiz me on me. I’d expected to be asked to go back to Genesis and talk about my life, and although I’d read all the files, I wondered if my basic knowledge would be enough to satisfy them. They looked completely innocuous, but then, I’d been undercover enough times to know that what you saw on the surface was rarely what went on below.

  Something was up in Sinful, Louisiana, and I’d bet my last box of bullets that these ladies were in the fat middle of it. But it wasn’t my problem, and I was going to make sure it stayed that way. Below radar. Just like Morrow had insisted.

  I spent the rest of the day unpacking the hideous suitcases and getting a lay of the house. Given that Deputy LeBlanc had a penchant for appearing uninvited, I figured burning the suitcases was probably a bad idea, so I stuck them in a closet in a spare room where at least I didn’t have to see them. That chore took only thirty minutes, and then I went to the kitchen to take stock of supplies.

  I opened the pantry and stared. Canned goods, dry goods, and preserves filled every shelf, staring back at me in neat rows with every computer-generated label facing directly out. I’d heard about this before with people who’d lived through the Depression, but Marge wasn’t quite old enough for that to have been the case. Then I remembered this was hurricane territory. Likely, every pantry in Sinful was fully stocked in case of inclement weather.

  I glanced once more at the neatly arranged goods and shook my head before closing the pantry door. Marge either had been really bored one day or had a touch of OCD. I opened the freezer and pulled out the one package inside. It was wrapped in freezer paper and had “Deer steaks” and a date written on it. I had absolutely zero idea how to cook a deer steak, but then I had absolutely zero idea how to cook most things that didn’t go in the microwave.

  Mayb
e Marge had a grill tucked away in that storage shed. Otherwise, I was going to have to come up with one or eat canned fruit and vegetables the entire time I was here. There was a pad of paper and pen next to the phone, so I wrote down “meat” on a clean sheet of paper. I wondered briefly if the general store carried packaged meat, or if I was going to have to kill something to get more protein, but I wasn’t going to dwell on it just yet.

  Even though I’d never killed anything besides a human.

  Which was interesting when I thought about it. I supposed for the vast amount of the population, and probably all of the population of Sinful over the age of five, the exact opposite was true. Except, perhaps, for Marie. I frowned when I remembered Gertie’s unease with Deputy LeBlanc’s questioning and the worry on her face when he walked out of the restaurant. But most of all, I remembered the absolute certainty on her face when she told me that Marie had killed her husband.

  He knows I won’t lie on Sunday.

  I stiffened. Did Gertie know for certain that Harvey had been murdered by his wife or was she just guessing? As much as I was trying to stay out of whatever was bubbling to the surface in Sinful, my thoughts insisted on turning back to that very topic. And if I knew one thing about myself, it was that my instincts were never wrong. Those thoughts were a warning.

  I trotted up to the bedroom and grabbed my laptop. It was time for a little more reconnaissance on Sinful, Louisiana, and its residents. I needed to know what I had stepped in the middle of.

  Before it blew my cover.

  I flopped down on the window seat and leaned back against the pillows propped against the wall. The laptop seemed to take forever to fire up, and I drummed my fingers on the keyboard. Before I launched a full-scale investigation into Sinful, maybe I should see if there was any word from Harrison about my return home. I was supposed to check in with him tonight anyway. Might as well do it now.

  Although Morrow had forbidden contact, Harrison had set up a fake email account for me that would make it appear as if he were corresponding with some girl in Idaho whom he met on the Internet. The whole thing sounded icky to me, but Harrison assured me that Internet relationships were the norm these days. It explained a lot about his attachment to his smart phone and aversion to going out in public, but I wisely kept those thoughts to myself, especially as Harrison was breaking protocol to give me updates.