Swamp Team 3 (A Miss Fortune Mystery)

by DeLeon, Jana

“That might be reason enough.”

  “Ha. You got a point there. But still, I can’t think of anything to be gained. I don’t know her mother’s financial situation but I don’t think she has much to speak of besides that house.”

  I nodded. “That’s my understanding as well. And if someone were looking to kill Ally to inherit, the last thing they’d do was burn down the only asset she had.”

  “Exactly. But what other reason could there be?”

  “I have no idea. Ida Belle, Gertie, and I ran through every possibility we could think of this afternoon but Ally can’t come up with a single reason someone would be out to get her. We’ve decided to go with the ‘completely insane attacker’ idea for the time being.”

  “Given the lack of facts, it seems the only possibility, but then that doesn’t really narrow down your suspects—not if you’re assuming it’s a Sinful resident.”

  “We thought we’d start with Floyd Guidry.”

  Walter raised his eyebrows. “He’s certainly got the backbone for it, and the anger issues.”

  “That’s what I hear. We’re going to try to establish opportunity tomorrow—”

  Walter held up a hand. “The less I know, the better. Carter was in here earlier stomping around and muttering about the three of you and a bobcat. I didn’t even ask.”

  “Floyd has a pet bobcat, and I’m not going to share how I know that.”

  “That’s probably best.”

  “Anyway, Floyd wasn’t the reason I stopped by. I have a personal project that I want to work on tonight, and I’d like you to keep it between the two of us.”

  “I’m intrigued. What’s the project?”

  I glanced behind me to make sure the store was still empty, then leaned across the counter. “Did you hear about the creeper at my house last night?”

  Walter nodded. “Carter mentioned that as well. Said you threw a cat on him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The creeper threw my cat on him. Anyway, I don’t know what the guy was up to—maybe it’s related to the fire, maybe not—but I have this feeling that he’ll come back.”

  “And you want to catch him?”

  “Not necessarily.

  Walter’s eyes widened. “You don’t want to kill him, do you?”

  “No! At least, not until I know what he’s up to. Then I reserve the right to change my mind.”

  “That seems reasonable.”

  I grinned. Even though every minute of my existence in Sinful, I felt like a fish out of water, I had formed a huge appreciation for Southern practicality. “I was looking more to mark him.”

  “Paint gun?”

  “I was thinking something that lasts a bit longer and can’t be washed off. What can you tell me about shooting someone with rock salt?”

  Walter gave me an approving nod. “You’re thinking the salt will scare him off from whatever nefarious thing he has planned and give him some marks you may be able to see the next day or so.”

  “That was my thinking, but I’ve never shot rock salt. Would it work?”

  “If you’re within thirty feet of him or so, it should leave some good red marks, maybe break the skin a place or two.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  He reached beneath the counter and pulled out a box of shotgun shells. “It so happens, I keep a few in stock. For my better customers, of course.”

  I pulled one of the shells out and studied it. It didn’t look any different from a regular shotgun shell. “You do good work. This looks factory.”

  Walter blushed at my praise, the red tips of his ears almost glowing against his silver hair. “Oh, everyone around here knows how to load shells.”

  “I bet they don’t like this. If you were thirty years younger, I’d marry you.”

  His blush deepened. “It so happens there’s a version of me in town who is a bit younger. I’m not admitting to thirty years.”

  “I think the bobcat incident might have killed things on that front,” I said.

  Walter shook his head. “If a couple of scratches and a little trespassing scares the boy off, he wasn’t worth your time in the first place.”

  I smiled. “How come you’re so reasonable and he’s so…not?”

  “Well, I don’t have anything to prove professionally, don’t need to defend my manhood, and I’m not trying to impress a young lady.”

  “Then maybe he should take a job here with you and stop trying to impress ladies. I’m not touching the manhood thing. That’s just asking for trouble.”

  Walter started chuckling, then slapped his knees and laughed so hard tears formed in his eyes. “By God, you are just what that boy needs,” he said when he’d finally regained control.

  “Somehow, I doubt that. So how much for the ammo?”

  He grabbed a handful out of the box and sat them on the counter. “On the house…with the condition that you come back tomorrow and tell me what happened.”

  “Deal. If anything happens.” I hopped off my stool. “And Walter, not a word to Ida Belle.”

  He shook his head. “I may be in love with the woman, but I’m not blinded by it. My lips are sealed.”

  “Then here’s hoping I see you tomorrow.”

  I slipped the shells in my purse and headed out of the store, where I ran right into Carter.

  “Oh crap,” I said.

  “Do you always exit buildings without looking?”

  “Sorry. I was looking in my purse.”

  “Uh-huh. I just spoke to one of Ally’s neighbors. She said she saw three women speeding down the block in Maisey Jackson’s car.”

  I stared at him for a couple of seconds. “Sooooooo, you should ticket Ms. Jackson for speeding?”

  His jaw flexed. “Mrs. Jackson’s been in the hospital for a week now.”

  “Someone stole her car? Wow. Is that a problem here too?”

  “You know good and well who stole her car.”

  “Look,” I said, starting to get bored with the whole cat-and-mouse thing. “I have a Jeep, so I have no reason to steal someone else’s car. If you want to help people, then I suggest you contact this Mrs. Jackson and assist her with the insurance claim.”

  He frowned.

  “What?”

  “The car was returned,” he said, and I could tell how much those words irritated him.

  “So it wasn’t stolen.”

  “Of course it was stolen.”

  I threw my hands in the air. “What kind of thief returns what they stole? Look, with the arson, creepers, bobcat owners, and car thieves, it sounds like you have a lot to do. I’m going to head home and check off the only thing on my list, which is keeping Ally safe and secure inside my house.”

  I whirled around and headed to my Jeep. When I turned around to climb in the driver’s seat, the sidewalk was empty. I felt momentary regret that I’d intentionally provoked Carter to anger. It wasn’t nice, and normally, I didn’t do that sort of thing to people I liked.

  Unfortunately, I liked Carter too much.

  And that was something I needed to correct before things got messy. And the easiest way I knew how to do that was to make him stop liking me.

  ###

  Around 11:00 p.m., I poured Ally into bed and pretended to turn in myself. Instead, I pulled on black sweats, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and black shoes, secured a 12-gauge with strap from Marge’s secret weapons stash behind a hidden panel in her closet, then headed downstairs and unlocked one of the windows in the living room to give myself a backup plan in case the doors weren’t an option when I returned.

  The creeper wasn’t likely to try to the front of the house, where he could be seen by neighbors across the street. If he was smart, he’d head to the back of the house as he had before, but tonight I had the benefit of moonlight to help illuminate the backyard. I figured the creeper had probably been trying the windows on the back of the house when I startled him. This time, I planned on giving him an even bigger surprise—one he’d never see coming.

  I sl
ipped out the back door and locked it behind me, slipping the key into my pocket, then skirted the side of the house and crawled through an enormous hedge and into my neighbor’s side yard. Ronald J. Franklin Jr. was an odd-looking man with a long beak nose and frantically moving limbs. Gertie said he looked like Ichabod Crane, but I had no idea who that was.

  His oddities didn’t end with his looks. From an upstairs window, I once watched him dancing around his backyard in full ballerina dress—female, not male—while waving a stick with a long streamer. I decided he was on something really good and much stronger than Sinful Ladies Cough Syrup, which was basically cherry flavoring and homemade Everclear. At least, I hoped he was high on something because…well, damn.

  He was also the neighbor who lived with one finger on speed dial for 911. I had no doubt that every call the sheriff’s department had received on me, about occurrences at my house, had been made by Ronald. But his roof was the best line of sight I had, and by God, I was using it.

  I looped the 12-gauge strap over my shoulder and positioned the gun diagonally across my back, then grabbed one of the lower limbs of a giant oak tree and pulled myself up into the tree. I scaled the tree quickly until I reached the same height as his roofline. I stood on one wide branch that reached almost to his roof and crept out on it like a tightrope walker until I stepped onto his roof.

  I immediately dropped down on my knees and inched down the back side of his roof until I had a clear view of my backyard. I gauged the distance between my position and the back corner of my house at about twenty-five feet, allowing for the height. If he approached the house from the opposite side, I’d have to wait until he got two-thirds of the way in before taking a shot; otherwise, I ran the risk of only scaring him but not leaving anything for him to remember me by.

  Satisfied with my position, I loaded a shell and got into a prone position, the 12-gauge in ready position at my side. Now the waiting was all that was left. And the waiting was always the worst, but at least I had a time limit on this one. I was giving the creeper two hours to show up before calling it a night.

  To keep from dozing off, I launched into my usual routine of mentally reciting every weapon in my private collection back in DC. If I got to the end of the weapons list and the creeper still hadn’t shown, I’d move on to the disassembly-reassembly process for each of the rifles and pistols.

  It was close to midnight when I saw movement below me at side of my house. I reached into my pants pocket for the sight I’d removed from one of Marge’s rifles and took a peek. It was the creeper all right, makeshift ski mask in place. How many beanie hats did the guy own?

  I pulled the shotgun from my side and into a shooting position, but as I placed my finger on the trigger, a dark cloud rolled in front of the moon and the light disappeared, leaving me in the pitch black. It was only for a couple of seconds, but each one of them ticked by as if it were an hour. When the dim glow finally encompassed the yard again, I could just make out the back of the creeper as he inched around the corner and headed for the bushes that ran across the back of the house.

  Perfect!

  I sighted his rear and moved my finger to the trigger.

  Now or never.

  I squeezed the trigger and the boom from the shotgun shattered the utter silence of the night. A split second later, I heard yelling and knew my shot had been a good one.

  I lifted the scope again, expecting to see the creeper running the opposite way, but instead he whirled around and headed straight for me. And that’s when I realized he wasn’t wearing a mask. And he wasn’t the creeper.

  I’d just shot Carter.

  Chapter Eight

  I jumped up and ran across the roof in the opposite direction of my house. With any luck, the echo from the shot wouldn’t alert Carter that the shot came from above…at least not right away. If I could get to the other side of the house and find a way down, I could double back and sneak into my own house and pretend I knew nothing about all of this.

  I was almost to the opposite edge of the roof when the lights on Ronald’s back porch flicked on and I heard a gunshot.

  “Damn it!” Carter yelled. “It’s Deputy LeBlanc. Put that gun down.”

  I took a second to gauge the distance between the roofline and a branch of an oak tree, then jumped, praying the branch was sturdy enough to hold me. I overjumped and crashed into the trunk, but managed to get my hands up before my face collided with the thick bark. I could still hear Carter and Ronald arguing, so I wasted no time scrambling down the tree. The lowest branch was still a good fifteen feet off the ground, so I readied myself and jumped, prepared to roll when I hit the ground.

  Unfortunately, the strap from the shotgun caught on a limb behind me and instead of hurtling to the ground, I ended up hanging in the tree like a wind chime. I reached back, frantically trying to release the strap from the gun, but my weight had the strap and buckle pulled so tight I couldn’t.

  I heard running feet and my heart sank. Carter was finished with Ronald and back to pursuit. I kicked my legs out, thinking a swinging motion might dislodge the strap from the branch. As I swung out a second time, the strap came loose and I flew into a set of bushes.

  It took far less time for me to get up than it did to fall. I leaped out of the bushes as if they were on fire, grabbing the shotgun as I whirled around. Then I sprinted across Ronald’s front lawn and to my house, where I threw open the window I’d left unlocked earlier. I tossed the shotgun through the window, then dived in after it. I cleanly completed my somersault but as I started to rise, something hit me on the back of the head.

  Pain exploded on my skull and in my eyes, and I heard the sound of ceramic shattering.

  “It’s me,” I hissed.

  “Fortune!” Ally’s voice was a mixture of frightened and bewildered. “I thought you were the creeper. Why did you come in the window?”

  I ran to the wall to push the window down and lock it, relieved that Ally hadn’t turned on any lights when she’d come downstairs to clock me. Dim light from the kitchen was the only light in the room. I’d no sooner clicked the window latch in place when I heard running in front of the house. “No time to explain. Answer the door and make up a lie about the vase. You never saw me.”

  I grabbed the shotgun and dashed upstairs, leaving Ally staring wide-eyed behind me. I pulled off my clothes as I ran, and by the time I got to my bedroom, I was down to sports bra, underwear, and socks. I yanked off the socks, pulled on yoga pants and T-shirt, and grabbed my headphones. I paused long enough to check myself in the dresser mirror and was glad I had. Several leaves and some small branches stuck out of my hair. I plucked them out, redid my ponytail, and prepared for the showdown that was about to come.

  I could hear Ally talking to Carter as I started for the stairwell.

  “I don’t know anything at all,” Ally said. “I was asleep and heard a gunshot. I could hear a commotion outside, but couldn’t see anything. I’d left my pistol and my cell phone downstairs, so I hurried down here to grab both, intending to call the sheriff’s department.”

  “So what happened to the vase?”

  “I didn’t want to turn on the lights and make it easier for someone to see inside. I thought I could make it to the kitchen in the dark, but I guess I don’t know the house as well as I’d hoped. I jammed my leg into that decorator table and wasn’t able to catch the vase before it hit the floor. Then you started knocking and here we are.”

  I pulled my headphones around my neck and skipped down the stairs. “What’s all the racket?”

  Carter looked up at me, his expression a mixture of incredulity and suspicion. “You’re telling me you’ve been upstairs sleeping this whole time?”

  “It’s after midnight. What am I supposed to be doing?”

  Carter narrowed his eyes at me. “You didn’t hear anything that just happened outside?”

  I pointed at the headphones. “Remember my problem with the frogs? I can only handle a few days of bad sleep be
fore I resort to these. They’re pretty good. I heard some noise downstairs, but it was faint. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I figured it was Merlin messing with something so I came down to check.”

  Carter looked back and forth between the two of us. I could tell he was caught in a struggle between wanting to believe us and thinking there was no way in hell that he could.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, figuring that’s the exact question an innocent person would have.

  Ally looked over at me. “Carter saw the creeper outside of the house, and there was a gunshot.”

  I widened my eyes, feigning a look of surprise. “He came back? Seriously? I didn’t think he’d be that stupid.”

  Carter blew out a breath. “Apparently, he didn’t get your memo on what constitutes intelligent behavior.”

  “So you shot him?” I asked. “Who is he?”

  “No. I didn’t shoot anybody. Someone else fired a shotgun, which is why I’m here.”

  “Wasn’t me this time,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back. “Hey, maybe it was the creeper?”

  Carter looked aggrieved. “At this point, it could have been John Gotti.”

  Ally frowned. “Isn’t he dead?”

  “Who’s John Gotti?” I asked. Gertie wasn’t the only one who could play the ignorance card.

  Carter sighed. “You swear neither of you saw or heard anything?”

  “Nothing beyond what I’ve already told you,” Ally said.

  I shook my head. “Not until I came downstairs and heard the two of you talking.”

  “Then I’ll let you get back to sleep. Make sure all the windows and doors are locked.”

  He looked so defeated, and I couldn’t stop the wave of guilt that coursed through me. When he turned around to leave and I saw the white marks on the back of his jeans, my guilt ticked up a hundred more notches.

  Ally closed the door behind him and locked it, then watched out the window for several seconds. Finally, she turned around and stared at me, hands on her hips. “What the hell is going on here? What did you do that I just lied about to cover up?”

  “I…uh, might have shot Carter.”