by Jana DeLeon
I swallowed the rest of the cookie, downed half my glass of milk, and hit Reply.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
A vacation sounds like a wonderful idea. Let me know if you find anything interesting. I might want to try it out when things settle down here. Yuck on the auditors. That doesn’t sound fun at all. Hopefully they’ll finish up soon and you can move on to bigger and better things.
I’m glad your dad is improving. Complaining is usually a sign that someone is on the mend. Well, time to feed the animals. Good luck with the vacation hunt.
I hit Send and reached for another cookie. I knew Harrison was doing everything he could to locate Ahmad and the mole, but I couldn’t help but wish I were there helping. Surely two of us working on it would be more efficient. On the other hand, a moving target was more of a hindrance than a help. But it still grated. This was my life and my career on the line.
I took another bite of the cookie and frowned, contemplating my own line of thought. At one time, the idea that my career could be in jeopardy would have sent me into a tailspin of anxiety and despair. I was only my career. Fortune Redding, the person, didn’t exist other than to fill that role. But ever since I’d arrived in Sinful, I’d started to wonder just how much living I’d been missing out on. Granted, with the recent burst of criminal activity here, I hadn’t really had time off the job, per se, but there was downtime in between emergency investigations that I enjoyed. I really liked eating breakfast at the café and chatting with Francine and the regulars. I liked hanging out with Gertie and Ida Belle watching television, even though Gertie had exposed me to things I might have to bleach my eyes to forget. I loved lying in my hammock in the backyard and reading a great book, and if two months ago, anyone had told me I’d think that, I would have shot them for being stupid.
I wanted the problem with Ahmad to be over. Wanted it more than anything. And I wanted the mole identified and put on trial for treason. But when I thought about returning to my quiet, organized condo in DC, I didn’t feel the anticipation I thought I would. If I was being honest with myself, the thought felt kind of lonely.
I sighed and polished off the cookie. The frustrating reality was that coming to Sinful had changed it all. And while I wasn’t even ready to consider ditching everything I’d spent a lifetime building, I wasn’t eager to jump back in where I’d left off, either.
The doorbell rang and I slammed the laptop shut, then jumped up from the table, happy for the interruption. What I would do when the Ahmad threat was over was something I needed to spend some time thinking seriously about, but it didn’t have to be now. Today, we had bigger fish to fry. I hurried to the front door and opened it to let Ida Belle and Gertie inside.
“I hope you have coffee,” Gertie said. “I overslept and I can’t seem to get moving.”
“Actually,” I said as I headed for the kitchen, “I haven’t put any on yet, but what I have to show you might get your blood pumping.”
I stopped short at the back door and looked back at them. “Are you ready for the surprise?”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, get on with it,” Ida Belle said. “I haven’t had breakfast yet.”
I flung open the door and stepped outside, the two of them trailing behind me.
“Ta da!” I said and waved a hand at the bayou.
“Holy crap!” Ida Belle clutched her chest and for a minute, I was afraid she might have a heart attack. She shoved me out of the way and headed across the lawn. I grinned at Gertie and we hurried after her.
Ida Belle stopped short at the boat and gave it a long, lingering once-over, then she ran one hand gently across the side. I smiled. “Are you going to pray to it or ask it on a date?”
“Maybe both,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie nodded. “Totally over the coffee thing. This is awesome.”
“This is more than awesome,” Ida Belle said. “This is glorious.”
“I don’t really care how you managed this,” Gertie said, “but it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t ask—how the heck did you manage this?”
Ida Belle whipped around to stare at me. “You didn’t steal it, did you?”
“What? Of course not,” I said. “How would that help matters? It so happens I have a legitimate lease on this boat.”
Ida Belle raised an eyebrow. “You leased a boat between last night and this morning? You wouldn’t even know where to start with such a thing.”
I handed her my lease papers and she glanced them over, her eyes widening when she got to the note. “Bob Hebert? As in—”
I nodded. “They paid me a visit last night. Broke into my house, helped themselves to my chocolate chip cookies, darned near broke my kitchen chairs, and proceeded to tell me how much they hated meth.”
“But only a few people know that explosion was a meth lab,” Gertie said. “How did they find out?”
“They have a friend down at the hospital lab…or more likely, someone at the lab who owes them money. Whatever. I didn’t ask and it doesn’t matter. Whoever it was told Big and Little about the leg, and they got riled up over the thought of meth production in Sinful. They want the town to remain unspoiled, or relatively unspoiled.”
“Or only as spoiled as they intend to make it,” Ida Belle said. “Which, admittedly, hasn’t really caused problems. The people they service would have been in trouble without their help, and some people actually bailed themselves out of the hole by borrowing from them and paying it back.”
Gertie nodded. “Georgia Fontaine spent so much money on infomercials that she knew Wilfred would divorce her if he saw the credit card bills. The Heberts lent her the money and she paid off the credit cards before he ever saw them.”
“How did she pay back the Heberts?” I asked.
“Well, for starters, she sold the stuff she bought, although that didn’t bring enough to repay the loan. You know how resale value is, and Georgia has simply horrible taste, so nothing went for top dollar. So she took her engagement ring to New Orleans, had a fake made up to match, and hocked the real one.”
I shook my head. “All that because she couldn’t say no to the television?”
“Oh, well, Georgia’s never been able to say no. How did you think she ended up married to Wilfred? The man has more hair on his body than bigfoot.”
Ida Belle sighed. “Georgia and her bad hairy taste aside, how did the whole issue of the boat come about?”
I gave them a recap of the entire conversation with Big and Little, then finished off with Ally’s announcement of the boat. “So I looked outside and darn if it wasn’t parked here all pretty with the lease under the storage bench. It even had that note with it, so it looks legit.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I have to admit, I’m impressed. I’m certain Big and Little are experts at running books and loan-sharking, but I never took them for big thinkers. You realize that makes doing business with them an even riskier proposition than before, when we thought they weren’t as clever.”
“I know,” I said, “but so far, they’ve been straight with us. I don’t pretend for a minute that things couldn’t change. As soon as we serve no benefit to them—be it for delivering drug dealers or even just entertainment value—they could easily become a problem.”
“But you’re willing to gamble it?” Gertie asked.
“I think so,” I said. “I’m pretty good at reading people, and I don’t think they have an ulterior motive.”
Ida Belle nodded. “If you’re satisfied, then so am I. And I have to be honest, it would be foolish to look a gift boat in the mouth.” She placed her hand on the boat as if she were afraid it was going to spirit away.
“I don’t suppose either of you know how to drive this thing?” I asked.
Gertie opened her mouth to reply and Ida Belle slapped one hand over it. “Don’t even think about it,” she said. “This baby is all mine.”
“Ally’s meeting with her contractor and then heading to New Orlea
ns for the day. Carter is parking at Walter’s for a television coma marathon. I saw we hatch a plan, put together supplies, and get a move on.”
We all turned around and headed back toward the house.
“Can the plan include breakfast?” Gertie asked. “Because I’m starving.”
“As long as you’re cooking,” I said. “Otherwise, I can offer you cereal and Pop-Tarts.”
“You got bacon and cheese?” Gertie asked.
“I think so. Ally’s been doing the shopping.”
Gertie nodded. “Omelets it is.”
I looked over at Ida Belle. Her expression looked like she’d won the lottery. Then a sudden flash of memory ripped through me—the Corvette, the motorcycle—Ida Belle and speed were a dangerous combination.
“Can we say grace before breakfast?” I asked as we walked inside.
Gertie looked confused. “Sure, but you’ve never asked to pray before.”
I shrugged. “I guess I figured we could use all the help we can get.”
Gertie opened the refrigerator and took out ingredients. I headed upstairs to put on jeans and tennis shoes. My rubber boots were in the laundry room. I’d grab those on the way out. You never knew what you might step in on the bayou islands around here. Sometimes even the mud smelled like poo and it clung like glue, making it almost impossible to clean off of anything but rubber. And I even had to use an ice scraper on the boots.
By the time I got back downstairs, Gertie was already serving up omelets. I slid into my spot at the table as Gertie placed the plate in front of me.
“Are you ready for grace?” she asked.
“Yes, but can you do it? It’s not in my wheelhouse.”
“Sure,” Gertie said. “Bow your head.”
I bowed my head and waited for Gertie to get on with the praying.
“Dear Lord, we thank you for this day, good food, better friends, and the fact that Ida Belle and I have outlived so many people we didn’t like. We’re hoping you give us a few more. Please help us track down the meth dealers and run them out of Dodge before Big and Little Hebert turn the town into showdown at the OK Corral. And if you have some spare time after handling all that, could you please see to it that Ida Belle doesn’t injure anyone with the boat—including scaring people half to death—and that it doesn’t sink before we’re done addressing this issue. Amen.”
I looked up and saw Ida Belle frowning. I held in a grin. Gertie might seem woolly-headed at times, but she clued right in on my prayer request.
“Let’s eat,” I said and grabbed the saltshaker. “Have you heard anything from Myrtle?” Myrtle was a card-carrying member of the Sinful Ladies Society and ran the office down at the sheriff’s department, shifting from paperwork to dispatch when they were shorthanded. Carter was careful not to allow her access to things we were poking into, but others weren’t as diligent. From everything I’d heard about Nelson, I couldn’t imagine he had one careful bone in his body, which meant Myrtle could be a great source of information, assuming Nelson gathered any.
“Yeah,” Ida Belle said. “She’s fit to be tied with Nelson lording over the place. The idiot has already ordered new office furniture complete with a five-thousand-dollar chair covered in alligator skin. The taxpayers are going to have a stroke.”
“Did he say anything about investigating the explosion?” I asked.
Ida Belle snorted. “Please. Myrtle asked him if he wanted her to get the sheriff’s boat gassed up so he could take a look, and he told her he wasn’t interested in hassling people over moonshine.”
“But he can’t be sure it was moonshine unless he looks,” I argued.
“You and I know that,” Ida Belle said, “but Nelson is beyond lazy. Myrtle said he spent all day yesterday alternating between eating funnel cake and sleeping on a cot in the jail.”
“Someone should have closed the door and locked him in,” Gertie muttered.
“Well, if he spends all his time sleeping, he won’t be in our way,” I said. “Hopefully Marie’s audit will be over soon, and Nelson will be following Celia out the door.”
Gertie held up crossed fingers.
“So did you come up with a plan?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ida Belle said. “We’re going to take the boat out to where the explosion happened and see if we can find a clue.”
I’m not sure what I expected. Realistically, there wasn’t anything else to do but poke around, which was the whole point of the boat. But I guess I was hoping they’d have something more. “That’s it?”
Gertie put her plate on the table and took a seat. “We can stop and talk to any fishermen we see—ask them who they’ve seen in that area lately.”
“That won’t seem suspicious?” I asked. “What if it gets back to Carter that we were asking questions?”
“We won’t ask them about the explosion,” Ida Belle said. “We’re not fools. We’ll say we had some problems at the Sinful Ladies Society cough syrup manufacturing site and want to know if they saw anything that can help.”
“Exactly,” Gertie said. “And because it’s moonshine, it falls under Sinful code of silence.”
“Is that one of those weird Sinful laws?” I asked.
“No,” Gertie said. “That’s Southern law. You don’t ever rat out a man’s moonshine operation. You’re better off sleeping with his wife.”
Ida Belle stopped eating for a moment, her fork frozen in midair, a piece of omelet dangling from it. “You know what? Sheriff Lee’s still is in the same area as the explosion.”
“Does that make a difference?” I asked, not sure where she was going with that bit of information.
“Only in the sense that we can ask him who he’s seen in the area,” Ida Belle said.
“Do you really think we should question the sheriff?” I asked.
“He’s not the sheriff anymore,” Gertie said. “And besides, he’d have to remember we talked to him before he could cause us any trouble with it.”
Hmmm. She had a point. Sheriff Lee’s memory was longer than his brother’s, who still couldn’t remember who I was despite spending a good twenty minutes in a boat with me only days before, but the good sheriff was light years past his best time of mental acuity.
“He’d also have to remember if he saw anyone to be helpful,” I pointed out the flaw in their argument.
Gertie sighed. “True.”
“Then I guess we have a plan,” I said. “Do you guys need to go home and grab rubber boots or something?”
They both stared.
“We keep rubber boots in the trunk of Gertie’s car,” Ida Belle said. “No good Southerner is caught without access to rubber boots.”
“Or firearms,” Gertie said. “Besides, your message said you’d solved the boat problem, so we dressed for the event, and I grabbed my emergency boating backpack.”
“What exactly does an emergency boating backpack contain?” I asked.
“Bottled water, flare gun, hunting knife, tool kit, small hatchet, protein bars, fishing line, rope, plastic cups, and a bottle of champagne.”
“You lost me at champagne.” And “small hatchet” was a bit concerning.
“For if your boat breaks down,” Gertie said. “Do you want to wait for rescue drinking water or champagne?”
She had a point. “I have a box of Wheat Thins. Haven’t even opened it yet.”
“Oh, that would go nicely. We should throw it in.”
“If you two are done with the grocery part of the morning,” Ida Belle said, “I’d like to get going.”
She looked entirely too energetic for this early and I was glad breakfast had been relatively light. I had a feeling the airboat ride was going to be more like a roller coaster and less like a pleasant drive in a Cadillac.
“Last potty break before we leave,” Gertie said and headed for the downstairs bathroom. I put the plates in the dishwasher and five minutes later, we were headed for the boat.
Chapter Six
“I call s
hotgun,” Gertie said.
“No way,” I said. “Ida Belle needs a navigator with good vision, and don’t even start with that lie about you not needing new glasses. Besides, it’s my boat.”
“She’s got you on both counts,” Ida Belle said. “Besides, the last thing we need is for you to fall off the seat and break a hip or something.”
“Breaking hips is for old people,” Gertie said. “I have decided that I am middle-aged.”
“Ha!” Ida Belle said. “Middle-aged for what, a tortoise? Your walking speed would indicate that’s the case.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sheriff Lee and his brother probably owe Moses a trip charge, so it’s not exactly impossible.”
“Either that, or they’re zombies,” Gertie said. “Like real sophisticated ones. Not like those idiots in The Walking Dead.”
“Even if Gertie’s mind is middle-aged,” Ida Belle said, “her hips are still ancient and she has a tendency to land on them, so my point still stands.”
“But—” Gertie started.
I held up a hand to stop the argument. “Just get in the boat. Even if you have the hips of a twenty-year-old, what you will never have is your name on the boat lease. My boat. My seat.”
“Fine,” Gertie said as she climbed into the boat and flopped down on the bench in the middle. “But you could at least let me give it a whirl on the way back.”
Ida Belle rolled her eyes and stepped into the boat.
“Tell you what,” I said as I untied the boat from the docking post, “if you’re good while we investigate, I’ll let you sit in the big-girl seat on the way back.”
Gertie shot me a dirty look.
“Hey, you’re the one who wants to be thought of as young,” I pointed out. “I just deducted a few more years.”