Jana DeLeon - Miss Fortune 05 - Gator Bait

by Jana DeLeon

  “We’re taking a walk,” Ida Belle said.

  “Without shoes?”

  “It’s good for the arches.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “They don’t know that! Get a move on before this becomes an episode on Cops.”

  I stepped onto the sidewalk and rounded the corner next to Ida Belle, trying to appear as if we were on a nonchalant stroll around the neighborhood…without shoes. But the scene in front of us precluded any requirement for being calm.

  Gertie was running down the sidewalk in the opposite direction screaming bloody murder. Tiny was locked in on her from half a block away and closing the distance fast. Agents Riker and Mitchell both whirled around and stared at Gertie, probably in an attempt to figure out why she was running. Tiny shifted his gaze to Riker and altered course. For a split second, I figured he deserved being hit by the oncoming tank, but I was more worried about what might happen to Tiny if he made it undeterred to Riker.

  “Dog!” I yelled as we broke out in a run. It wasn’t the most descriptive warning but it was easier to belt out than “slobbering man-killer.”

  Riker whirled around, his eyes widening at the approaching Tiny, and yelled at Mitchell to get back into the car. Mitchell spun around and with only a glance at the dog, ran for the car and jumped in the driver’s side, then scrambled to the passenger’s seat before Riker leaped in and slammed the door. Tiny skidded to a stop next to the car and jumped up on the driver’s door, shoving his face against the window, still clutching the shoe in his giant jaws.

  I grabbed Ida Belle’s arm and slowed to a stop about twenty yards from the car. “We can’t just run up there.”

  Ida Belle glanced at the jumping, growling Tiny, then looked back at me. “Right. But we have to do something.”

  I looked down the street in time to see Sheriff Lee rounding the corner at the end headed straight for Gertie, who was still at a dead run. But instead of the ancient horse he usually rode, he was perched atop something smaller and with long gray hair.

  “Is that a burro?” I asked.

  Ida Belle’s eyes widened. “What the heck?”

  Gertie hit the brakes and tried to stop, but she tripped over a lip in the sidewalk and went sprawling right into the burro, then hit the pavement, her tutu skirt flipped up over her back, exposing her camouflage underwear. Tiny swung his head around to see what all the racket was and launched off the car door, setting off down the sidewalk toward the burro-Gertie wreck at high speed.

  I took off running again, no idea what I was going to do, but no way could I let Tiny maul an old woman or a cute furry animal. Riker and Mitchell jumped out of their car as I sped by. Riker yelled something, but I didn’t slow down enough to make it out. I shouted at Gertie, who looked up and saw the speeding Tiny.

  She grabbed the burro’s halter, struggling to get up, and then the burro caught sight of the rapidly approaching dog. The burro yanked his head up so hard that he dragged Gertie completely upright. Sheriff Lee clutched the saddle horn, swaying like a drunk and yelling at everyone to calm down. Clearly, he hadn’t noticed the real threat.

  Tiny dropped the shoe, letting out an ear-splitting bark, and Sheriff Lee’s head whipped around. His eyes widened and he began to yell even louder. Gertie scrambled on top of a transformer that wasn’t tall enough to save her from a Chihuahua, but at least it got her out of the line of sight. The burro locked in on the dog and reared up. I cringed, expecting Sheriff Lee, who I suspect was born somewhere around the Mesozoic Era, to launch off the back of the burro and break into a million pieces, but he flung his arms around the burro’s neck and managed to maintain his seat.

  Unfortunately, there was no time to admire Sheriff Lee’s neck-hugging ability, because as soon as the burro’s feet hit the pavement, he took off like a rocket. Tiny, who’d just reached the rearing beast, spun around and set out after him, both of them racing straight toward me. I whirled around so fast, I was pretty sure I gave myself a bit of whiplash, and sped back toward the car, wishing I’d concentrated more on interval training.

  I needn’t have bothered with any of it. The burro sped past me, Sheriff Lee still clinging to its neck and the dog right on its heels. Riker and Mitchell jumped back into the car as the burro barreled straight toward them. Just when I thought the burro would veer right or left to avoid the car, the situation went from bad to completely absurd.

  The burro ran right up to the back of Riker’s car and jumped onto the trunk. Without pause, he climbed from the trunk onto the roof and stood there, glaring down at the confused rottweiler.

  Chapter Eight

  I could see Riker and Mitchell yelling as the roof of the car started to sag. Ida Belle ran up beside me, gaping at the scene in front of us.

  “I called Walter,” she said. “Tiny listens to him.”

  “I hope he gets here before the roof collapses or Riker starts firing.”

  I’d barely finished my sentence when Walter’s truck squealed around the corner. I pulled out my cell phone and texted Gertie to get the hell out of here before Riker made her. She waited until Walter parked before climbing off the transformer and hobbling around the corner and out of sight.

  Walter jumped out of his truck, looking more than a little startled at the sight of Sheriff Lee and the burro on the top of the car. After a couple seconds of jaw-dropped staring, he whistled and called Tiny. The dog, who had both feet on the trunk of Agent Riker’s car, gave him a sorrowful look but finally relented and climbed into Walter’s truck.

  As soon as Walter slammed his truck door shut, Riker jumped out of the car and stared in dismay at the collapsed roof. “Get that beast off my car!”

  Sheriff Lee looked down at him, completely unfazed. “Who the hell do you think you’re yelling at? You should learn some respect for your elders and for law enforcement.” He pulled his badge out and flashed it at Riker.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Riker looked fit to be tied. “Is everyone in this town crazy?”

  “That’s a loaded question,” Ida Belle said, “and probably not one we have time to delve into at the moment. Sheriff Lee, I don’t think that roof is going to hold much longer. Let’s get you off of there before you and the burro need knee replacements.”

  “Hhhmmph,” Sheriff Lee grunted. “Had both knees done three times already and my darn hip twice. Ain’t looking to do either again.” He picked up the reins and gave the burro a kick. The animal swung his head over to peer at the barking rottweiler in the truck, but must have decided it was safe to leave the questionable safety of the roof because he took a step down on the hood and continued onto the street.

  Riker stared at his demolished car in dismay. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  “Not me,” Sheriff Lee said. “I’m here on official business. You’ll have to take that up with the mayor…as soon as we have one, anyway.”

  “The election!” Ida Belle grabbed my arm. “I have to go vote.”

  “No one is going anywhere,” Riker said, “until I get this sorted out. Who does that dog belong to?”

  “My nephew,” Walter said. “Deputy LeBlanc.”

  Riker’s eyes widened a bit. “Is he normally running loose in the street threatening citizens and…” He looked over at the burro and frowned. “Donkeys, or whatever the hell that is?”

  “No,” Walter said. “He’s usually penned up in the backyard, but I suppose he found a way out.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” Riker asked, then pinned his gaze on Ida Belle and me.

  “How should we know?” Ida Belle asked.

  Riker shifted his gaze to only me. “I thought you were the girlfriend. You should have been able to control the dog. Why were you running from it?”

  Riker’s scrutiny had me squirming internally but I hoped I looked every bit the innocent damsel that I was pretending to be. “Hello? Is anyone listening? It was a first date. I haven’t been in his house. I’ve never met his dog. We’re not sleeping together.
And everything in this town is strange.”

  “That’s a bold statement coming from a woman with no shoes on. What are you two doing here, anyway?”

  “We live here,” Ida Belle said. “Couple blocks over.”

  “And you thought you’d walk past the deputy’s house with no shoes on? At the exact moment a dog came running up with a shoe in its mouth?”

  “What’s your point?” I asked. “The shoe doesn’t belong to one of us or we’d be wearing its partner.”

  “Besides,” Ida Belle said, “if that dog had wrangled a shoe off of either of us, we’d probably be missing a leg up to the knee.”

  Riker didn’t look as if he believed a word we’d said, but he had no proof that we had on shoes prior to now, and he couldn’t exactly argue with Ida Belle’s missing leg theory. “I’m supposed to believe that story?”

  “Exercising is hard to believe?” Ida Belle asked. “You’ve heard of exercise, right?”

  “Walking barefoot is good for the arches,” I threw in.

  Walter covered his mouth with his hand and coughed. I could tell he was trying not to laugh. No doubt he figured we had something to do with Tiny’s being loose.

  Riker stared at me in disbelief. I knew wanted to say something about how stupid that statement was, but he must have decided it would be a waste of time. “Fine. Who was that woman the dog was chasing? The one who whistled?”

  “Crazy Annie?” Ida Belle said. “She’s not all there.”

  “I don’t care about her mental state,” Riker said. “I want to talk to her.”

  “Good luck with that,” Ida Belle said. “She can’t talk, hence the whistling. The last time someone tried to talk to her, she screamed until the paramedics came and sedated her. Look, all this has been far more interesting than our walk usually is, but we’d like to get going. I’ve got to go vote.”

  “And I’m hungry,” I said. “All this excitement has done a number on my metabolism and my feet. I think I need to soak them.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “Soak them in salt water, then cover them with lotion and wrap them in hot, damp towels.”

  “Oh, that sounds wonderful.”

  “Enough with the feet,” Riker said. “I don’t know what you are up to, but I don’t buy for a minute that you were out for some barefoot stroll. If I find out you’re helping Deputy LeBlanc withhold information, I’ll have you all jailed in New Orleans until you decide to talk.”

  “Road trip!” Ida Belle stuck her hand up and I gave her a high five.

  Riker shot us a disgusted look before yanking a piece of paper out of his pocket and shoving it at Sheriff Lee. “This is a warrant to search Deputy LeBlanc’s house. He’ll need to replace the lock and maybe the front door once we’re done.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Walter said. “I have a key. I’m sure my nephew would appreciate arriving home from the hospital with his home still intact.” Walter stressed the word hospital and gave Riker a dirty look before pulling the keys from his pocket and heading for the front door.

  Ida Belle and I took advantage of the lull and hightailed it away from the angry Feds.

  “My house,” Ida Belle said. “I have to grab some shoes and go vote.”

  I hopped off the sidewalk and onto the grass. “This cement is getting hot.”

  “I know. It was all I could do to stand there pretending this barefoot thing was normal.” She hopped into the grass next to me. “So did you find anything?”

  “There were bayou maps on the kitchen table and a pad of paper, but he hadn’t written anything on it or the maps.”

  “Damn. What about his computer?”

  “His laptop was on the table and he had a Word doc open, but it only had one thing typed on it.”

  I told her the strange notation.

  “He shouldn’t have been there,” Ida Belle repeated. “That’s it?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, it’s not much to go on.”

  “No, but it tells us two things—he’s male, and Carter saw someone in a place he wasn’t expected to be.”

  “Out in the lake? But if Carter knew him, he’s local. Why would a local on the lake raise so much as an eyebrow?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was supposed to be at work or out of town. Or maybe he was doing something on the lake that he wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Like poaching or something?”

  “Sure, poaching oysters or something like that.”

  I frowned. “Would someone really try to kill Carter over poaching? It seems kind of extreme.”

  “I agree. But what if Carter went out to check on the poaching, or whatever, and got in the way of whatever the ATF is here about.”

  “So it was a wrong-place-wrong-time sort of thing? Do you really think it could be that simple?”

  “There’s nothing simple about it,” Ida Belle said. “Something bad is going on in Sinful. Something worth killing a law enforcement officer over. You realize what that means?”

  “They wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone else.”

  “Yeah.”

  It was only one word, but it contained all of the gravity of the situation.

  “There’s something else,” I said. “Someone beat us to the house. I’m certain it had been searched already.” I told her about the dishrag and the missing fingerprints.

  “What do you think he was looking for?” Ida Belle asked.

  I shrugged. “Maybe the same thing we were—some indication that Carter was onto him?”

  “He would have had to break in. Did you find any sign of forced entry?”

  “No, but I couldn’t check the front windows or door with Riker and company out front. That has to be where he entered. No one would be foolish enough to attempt the backyard with Tiny on duty.”

  “Except us,” Ida Belle said.

  “We’re special,” I said.

  “We have to figure this out fast,” Ida Belle said, “but I have no idea where to look next.”

  “If Deputy Breaux can get Carter’s boat up, maybe it will tell us something.”

  Ida Belle gave me a single nod and we picked up our pace.

  It sounded good, but I couldn’t help feeling the boat was a real long shot. I didn’t know how deep I dived to rescue Carter, but I did know it wasn’t the bottom of the lake. I had my doubts they could even get the boat up from the bottom, and even if they managed to, I wasn’t convinced it would give us answers that led anywhere.

  But I’d get those answers. If it was the last thing I ever did.

  ###

  While Ida Belle went to snag a pair of shoes, I called Gertie and asked her to pick us both up at Ida Belle’s house. She pulled up at the curb a couple minutes later, just as Ida Belle emerged wearing a pair of navy flats that didn’t quite match her turquoise-and-black dress.

  “I know,” she said as she grabbed her purse. “I threw my only pair of black shoes in the bayou. Unless you count my motorcycle boots.”

  “Probably not a better look than the navy.”

  As I reached for the door, Gertie burst inside. We both stared at her in dismay.

  “Why didn’t you change clothes?” Ida Belle asked.

  The dress was bad enough before, but apparently Tiny had gotten a piece of the tutu skirt. A big hunk was missing out of the back, exposing Gertie’s camo underwear.

  “The zipper is stuck,” Gertie said. “I think it got stripped when I jumped onto the transformer.”

  “So cut it off,” Ida Belle said.

  Gertie looked horrified. “I’m not going to cut up my homecoming dress.”

  Ida Belle threw her hands in the air. “High school was barely invented when you bought that dress. Put it out to pasture where it belongs.”

  Gertie put her hands on her hips. “All I want is one day in the dress. Then I’ll store it so that I can remember it when I’m old.”

  “You’re old now!” Ida Belle said.

  Gertie stalked past her. “I have to pee.”

  She st
omped down the hall, the tutu swinging back and forth over the camo undies.

  Ida Belle sighed. “She could have at least changed underwear.”

  “Look at the bright side,” I said. “If Celia’s downtown, we can get Gertie to stand in front of her.”

  Ida Belle’s lower lip quivered and I could tell she was trying not to smile, but finally, the mental picture of Celia staring at Gertie’s underwear-clad bottom shining in Celia’s face won out and she broke out in a grin. “That would be stellar.”

  “What would be stellar?” Gertie asked as she entered the living room.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just talking about the election.”

  “Let’s go grab Fortune some shoes,” Ida Belle said, “and get to the church to vote.”

  “You vote in the church?” I asked as I followed them outside. “Doesn’t that go against the whole separation of church and state thing?”

  “We used to vote at the library,” Gertie said as we climbed into her car. “But they only have one bathroom—for men and women. The Catholics put in new bathrooms with five stalls each a couple years ago.”

  “Show-offs,” Ida Belle grumbled.

  I started to ask why the Baptists didn’t put in more restrooms, but decided against it. Everything in Sinful had some convoluted and often completely illogical reasoning behind it. Asking questions about how the town operated was like asking why Santa Claus was late delivering gifts.

  We made a quick stop at my house and I snagged some sandals, then Gertie directed her car downtown. I did a double take when we inched to a crawl blocks away from Main Street to avoid the sea of people walking in the middle of the road. And everywhere I looked, there were more. People on the sidewalks. People on lawns.

  “Where did all these people come from?” I asked.

  “There’s thousands of houses out in the bayous,” Gertie said. “Most of them aren’t much to speak of, but people live in them.”

  “A lot of the men work construction in New Orleans or on oil rigs in the Gulf,” Ida Belle said. “When they’re home, they tend to prefer their recliner, beer, and television remote. They’re not out much for us regulars to see.”