by Hearn, Shari
We snuck around the side of the cabin and came to the back door. I didn’t like it, yet here I was, ready to make the drop on a gang of moonshine-guzzling men who had possibly terrorized a group of older women. For the first time since I came to Sinful, I was wishing we had called Carter. Not because I was afraid of being shot at by one of these yahoos, but because I was afraid Ida Belle had every intention of shooting first and asking questions later.
Ida Belle reached into her purse and pulled out a fat set of keys. “Flashlight,” she whispered. Gertie shined the light on the keys. Ida Belle picked through them, before settling on one that she slid into the lock.
“You know, it’s not too late to call Stinky up and ask for a meeting,” I whispered to Gertie.
“We are calling on him. In the only way Stinky respects.”
“Weapons out, ladies,” Ida Belle whispered as she quietly pushed open the door. Gertie went next, and I brought up the rear. As we crept through the darkened kitchen toward the living room, it occurred to me that the light reflecting off the front window would create a mirror effect.
“They’ll see us in the window,” I whispered to Gertie.
Ida Belle looked back at me, smiling. “That’s what we’re hoping for.”
I followed her gaze and saw a man with his back to us staring at Ida Belle’s reflection in the window.
“Who the hell is that outside staring at us?” the man asked. All the other men, five in all, stood and faced the window.
Thank God for stupidity.
“Now,” Ida Belle said.
We rushed into the room with our weapons drawn.
“I want a word with you, Stinky,” Ida Belle said.
Unfortunately, what they lacked in brainpower they made up for in speed. As the men whipped around to face us, each one had his pistol drawn.
Five men, varying height, weight and hair color. Armed with assorted weaponry. Threat level: Dangerously High.
“Well, I-da Belle,” Stinky said, spitting out her name like rancid chewing tobacco.
Stinky was the shortest in the group, standing at just under 5’3”, wearing khaki cargo shorts and a Hawaiian-print shirt with huge sweat stains circling his armpits.
Ida Belle and Stinky stared daggers at one another, until Ida Belle finally spoke. “How’s your daddy doing, Stinky?”
“His cholesterol’s giving him problems, but other than that, as cranky as ever.”
“He needs to stop eating sausage and cheese.”
“I’ve been tellin’ him.”
“We’ll be sure to bring over a chicken casserole this week,” Gertie said. “And a nice green salad.”
“He’d appreciate that.”
All the while we kept our weapons drawn on one another.
“I hear your niece has gone off to college, Bill,” Ida Belle said to one of the other men.
Bill smiled. “First in the family.”
“Good for her.”
This had to be one of the strangest showdowns I’d ever been involved in. “Okay,” I said, “I know this is the South, and you have a thing about manners and all, but I’m tired and I want to go home to bed, so could we just commence kicking some butt and get out of here?”
Stinky eyed me with contempt. “Yep, I heard you were hangin’ out with a Yankee. She’s cute and all, but she has a mouth on her. So, Ida Belle, you want to tell me why you interrupted my poker game? The one I was about to win?”
“The hell you were,” a tall, skinny man standing next to him said. He then let his eyes tiptoe over me, from top to bottom, and flashed a wide, yellow-toothed grin at me. “And I don’t mind my women mouthy.”
“Why’d you do it, Stinky?” Ida Belle asked, her steely gaze, as well as her gun, directed at him.
Stinky shrugged. “You have to be more specific, old lady. Cheat on my girlfriend? Lie on my taxes? Steal from the church collection plate?”
Two of his boys laughed. The other two cast their gazes anywhere but at us. They almost looked afraid. What was up with them?
“I can understand destroying our still. You’ve always wanted a piece of our business. But you traumatized three friends of mine, and knocked another one down and broke her ankle. Did it make you feel like a big man to do that?”
“What the hell?” he asked. “First off, you were the ones who came in and destroyed my still. I found that out when I went to the swamp to brew some sauce today. In fact, I paid a visit to your house tonight to have a little discussion myself with YOU, but you weren’t home. So I hope you don’t mind, but I watered your roses while I was there. Got a little on your door and windows too.”
Note to self: don’t smell Ida Belle’s roses.
“What are you talking about?” Ida Belle asked. “I didn’t mess with your still.”
“The hell you didn’t.”
Gertie shook her head and sighed. “Stinky, use your brain. How old do you think we are? Wait, don’t answer that. Do you really think us old gals were out traipsing through the swamp and taking hammers to your still?”
Stinky waved his gun at her. “Makes as much sense as me and my boys here roughing up one of the Sinful Ladies. We’d have all the white hairs in town after us if we did that.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Ida Belle asked.
“Maybe ‘cause you’re an old cuss whose judgment’s startin’ to go bye-bye. I don’t deny that I have a history of thievery. Have I stolen from you? Yep. In fact, I took one of those little stone frogs from your front yard last month and gave it to one of my girlfriends.”
“I knew that was you.”
“Yep. And take a look at the floor you’re standin’ on.”
I looked down. It didn’t match the crappy cabin at all. It was some of the nicest-looking bamboo flooring I’d ever seen. My condo back in DC had bamboo flooring, but not as nice as this.
“Yep, I stole it,” Stinky said. “From a new office building going up in New Orleans. Stole a stack of it. And this shirt I’m wearin’?”
Gertie leaned in and squinted to get a better look. “I thought that looked like Walter’s.”
Stinky nodded. “He had it hangin’ out to dry back of his store. Mine now. So I’m no stranger to stealin’. But I wouldn’t hurt a little old lady. ‘Ceptin maybe Ida Belle.” He pointed his pistol at her. “The crap you’ve given me these past few years, I am findin’ it real hard not to pull this trigger.”
I yawned. “Would someone just shoot someone and get it over with, please?” I looked at Ida Belle. “They said they didn’t do it. Let’s go home and go to bed.”
“Well, Stinky said they didn’t do it. I didn’t hear from anyone else,” she said.
Gertie pulled in a deep breath and blew it out. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Ricky Mason.”
One of the men who’d been darting his eyes looked up at Gertie with a sheepish look on his face. “Yes, ma’am. I just don’t have much to say.”
“I was your homeroom teacher in junior high, wasn’t I, Ricky?”
“Yes, ma’am, you always did right by me.”
“Ahh, shit, Ricky, don’t go all soft now,” Stinky said.
Ricky turned his gun on Stinky. “Don’t swear around a teacher, you shithead.”
“I’d say she stopped being your teacher the second she pointed a gun in your face.” Stinky shot a look at Ida Belle. “Not fair bringing Gertie, Ida Belle.”
Gertie stared at Ricky. “Did anybody you know visit our still and harm any of our Ladies?”
Ricky looked at the other man who had been staring at the ground.
“Keep your eyes on your own paper, Ricky. I mean, look at me, Ricky.”
Ricky looked at Gertie. “No, ma’am. It’s just… Me and Scott might have… borrowed your Caddy for a few hours last week, however.”
“Were you the ones who returned it all washed and detailed?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “Popped for the banana cream pie air freshener, too.”
“I
thought that’s what that was. Well, I may have borrowed a few things in my day, too, so I’ll let it go this once. So… do I want to know what you borrowed it for?”
“No, ma’am, I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“Enough said.” Gertie turned to Ida Belle, whose once-fiery eyes now had the look of a beloved home that had been reduced to ashes. “I don’t think they did it.”
After a round of, “Say hello to your mama for me,” we headed back to my Jeep.
“Okay,” I said as I belted myself in. “We’ll go home and get some sleep and then we’ll regroup at noon. Put our heads together and come up with another suspect.”
“No, we won’t,” Ida Belle said from the darkened backseat.
Gertie and I both turned in our seats and faced her. Ida Belle was not a woman who allowed herself to cry, at least not in the five weeks I’d known her. But I could tell that if Gertie and I weren’t in the car, she’d be bawling her eyes out.
“Honey, we’ll find him.” Gertie reached back and patted Ida Belle’s knee.
“No. Vivvy’s sister said she was going to tell Carter. Maybe we should just let him handle the investigation. We’ll lie about working at the still, say we were camping.”
“Why?” Gertie asked.
“Because Betty was right. I have no business sending anyone into harm’s way.”
“Vivvy knew the risks of working the still. She’d be the first to tell you that.”
Ida Belle ignored her. “And maybe Stinky had a point too. Maybe my judgment’s off. We could have been shot back there.”
“But we weren’t,” I said. “That was the most polite group of lowlifes I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, but you never know. They’d been drinking. And, let’s face it, they’re not Mensa material. One of them could have accidentally shot us. I had no business asking you two to go into that situation.” Ida Belle stared out of the Jeep. Moonlight reflected in the moisture forming in her eyes. “We need to call a meeting of the Sinful Ladies Society, Gertie. I think it’s time I stepped aside.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Merlin
I obeyed Lula Mae’s orders and remained inside Fortune’s house, forbidden from interfering in the search for Buffy and the other missing cats of Sinful. I glanced at the clock; it was past midnight. Three hours I’d been sitting at Fortune’s bedroom window, not really knowing what I expected to see out there in the darkness. What I’d hoped to see was an army of cats mobilizing. But Dill’s house was about fifteen minutes away, tucked along the bayou. If there was any mobilizing by the SFL, it’d be over there, and not here.
I jumped down from the windowsill and stretched, antsy for one of those fancy scratching posts of Lula Mae’s to dig my claws into. Fortune’s bed post would have to do. Claws extended, I was about to make my first swipe, when I heard her Jeep pull into the driveway out front.
From what I’d seen, Fortune’s night had been filled with drama as well. Soon after I came home from Lula Mae’s I spotted her, Ida Belle and Gertie helping a woman from the airboat into her Jeep. I was eager to find out what had caused them to cut their overnighter short.
Racing down the stairs, I met her at the front door.
“Hey, Merlin,” she said, reaching down to pet me.
“Yeah, yeah, cut to the chase,” I meowed. “So what was the deal with that lady you were helping into your Jeep? Did something go wrong at the still?”
“Let’s go to bed,” she said, scooping me up into her arms.
“Bed? I can’t sleep. Do you have any idea the night I’ve had?”
She started up the stairs. “You wouldn’t believe the night I’ve had.”
“Well, join the club, sister. Buffy’s missing.”
“Someone raided the still, and now Ida Belle’s all shaken up.”
“Did you hear me? Buffy’s missing!”
She scratched under my chin. “You’re talkative tonight. I wish you could understand what I’m saying.”
“Oh, I understand plenty. You’re the one who’s linguistically challenged. The cats of Sinful are in trouble!”
We reached her bedroom at the top of the stairs. She dropped me on the bed and took off her clothes, letting them fall in a heap on the floor.
She yawned. “I’m going to take a shower. Be back in a bit.”
I waited until she closed the bathroom door before jumping down to inspect her pile of clothing. Something about them intrigued me, loads of competing smells. A little bayou, lots of human sweat, and something I just couldn’t put a digit on. I moved in closer to sniff. I smelled cats. So many different cat scents that I had trouble distinguishing between them. And another smell as well.
Crap! It’s catnip! Not much of it, but somewhere today Fortune had come in contact with the exact strain she brought home earlier, except with one difference. The bag of catnip she tried to entice me with was dried. This smell was younger, meaning it was a fresh plant. How could this be possible?
I had become so entranced in the smell of Fortune’s clothes that I lost all track of time, and was surprised to see her entering the room, smelling like soap and wearing a robe.
“They must stink, huh?” she said, looking down at me.
“Yes, indeed they do. Where’d the catnip smell come from?”
She gathered up her clothes and threw them in the hamper, then changed into bedclothes.
“The catnip! Where did it come from?” This time I added a tail switch.
“What’s got you all upset?” she asked. “I’m the one who had a day. Some goon raided the SLS still and broke an old lady’s leg. I had to practically carry the woman back to the airboat. If I lie down on my bed would you make like a massage cat and walk on my back?”
“Absolutely not. There has to be a connection here, Fortune. You didn’t smell what I just smelled. Somehow the catnip’s involved in your tragedy. I think we’re looking for the same man!”
“Okay, no more meowing, Merlin. I have to go to sleep. If you’re going to squawk, take it outside.”
“You bet I’ll take it outside. I have to get this information to Lula Mae.”
“Merlin…”
“Pleasant dreams, Fortune. I have cats to save.”
* * * * *
The heat of the day had surrendered to night, the asphalt of the street no longer roasting my paws. But the mosquitoes refused to sleep and one just kept buzzing at my ear, and as hard as I tried I couldn’t make it my snack. Stupid thing was just too quick. I passed the tree where Chompers had me trapped earlier, and soon came upon Lula Mae’s house. I knew she wouldn’t be there. She liked to do recon work at night with Spoolie, and would no doubt be huddled with members of the SFL in front of Dill’s house, watching for any sign of the missing cats, my Buffy among them. I was hoping Lula Mae had left behind a soldier who would pass on information about the exact location of the operation.
There, on a small brick wall next to Lula Mae’s azalea bush, and licking his paws like the lazy cat that he was, sat Frizzy Joe. His human caretakers named the long-haired silver tabby Frizzy Joe because his coat looked as if he stuck his paw in a light socket. No matter how much spit he applied to his fur, it never would lie right.
Frizzy Joe growled the moment I entered the yard.
“It’s me,” I said. “Merlin.”
“Oh, Merlin… hey. I thought you were that pesky raccoon that’s been lumbering around here,” Frizzy Joe said, going back to his grooming.
Lumbering was putting it mildly. Whoever coined the phrase, “survival of the fittest” never met a raccoon. Good thing it was the evolutionary ladder and not the evolutionary treadmill or those ugly creatures would never have survived.
“So…” Frizzy Joe said, taking a break from his licking. “You seen my latest movie on the big screen?”
The big screen Frizzy Joe was referring to was YouTube. It seemed every day his humans were posting some lame video of his antics, whether he was just staring into space or chasing a piece of stri
ng. Embarrassing, really, but not to Frizzy Joe, who was convinced that Hollywood was going to come take him away from the swamps and to a mansion in Beverly Hills.
“No I haven’t, FJ.”
“A compilation of my greatest hits. From my first yawn as a kitten to that bit I did with a dust ball last week. Dear God, where do I come up with them?” He yawned and licked his paw.
I nodded in agreement. The way Frizzy Joe was talking to me it was apparent he wasn’t told of my orders to stand down. “I heard there was an operation underway.”
Frizzy Joe nodded. I asked for the details and he spat out all the info. Literally. That’s the thing I hated most about Frizzy Joe, cat just couldn’t keep his spit contained. Almost like a dog in that respect. But his spit takes earned him more than ten thousand “likes” last week alone, so someone out there thought it was cute.
My lungs burned as I zipped through the backwoods of Sinful toward Dill’s house, dodging the occasional stray dog and alligator hunting along the bayou. Soon I came to the fork in the road where FJ said I should hang to the left, Dill’s house, located not far after the split. A human eye couldn’t see what I could—about a dozen cats hiding in the dark night, in trees, behind bushes, underneath cars, though maybe the glow of some of the cats’ eyes would catch their notice. I’d been told my green eyes glowed at night. That, combined with my black coat, made me look like a pair of walking eyeballs. In short, there was no way I was going to slink up to this crowd unnoticed.
“Merlin!” It was Lula Mae’s voice.
I looked up and saw the SFL Supreme Commander perched in a tree a few feet away.
“I confined you to your quarters, soldier. What are you doing here?”
I jumped up on the tree and climbed to a branch near hers. “Fortune came home early this morning with particularly smelly clothes.”
“I’m not surprised. Humans stink. What’s that got to do with the price of kibble in China?”
“The SLS still was raided earlier today and one of their Ladies was injured. And when Fortune came home she had the distinct smell of Dill’s catnip on her clothes.”