by DeLeon, Jana
I strained to make out the license plate on the boat, or any other discerning characteristic, but it looked like every fishing boat in Mudbug. I stopped jogging and leaned over to catch my breath. Chasing him was no use. He had the motor at top speed and at the moment, I couldn’t have caught a tortoise.
As soon as I could breathe normally, I hoofed it back up the trail to Maryse’s cabin and walked through the front door. Everything looked the same as it had that morning, but without the ability to open cabinet drawers, I couldn’t be certain that nothing was missing or even worse, that nothing new had been introduced. Someone had managed to poison me in my own brandy snifter—and despite Harold being the obvious choice, I still didn’t think it was him.
Which led to a rather interesting and disturbing line of thought. If it wasn’t Harold, that meant either someone had found a way around my security system to deliver the poison cocktail, or it was someone who had been invited into my house. Neither option gave me the warm fuzzies.
I stepped into Maryse’s bedroom, and that ragtag cat of hers sprang up from the bed and bounded out the window as if on fire, further cementing my belief that cats could see me. I scanned the tiny bedroom and bath, but again, didn’t see anything out of place.
But I knew something was wrong.
You know how people say they have a bad feeling about things? Well, this one wasn’t just bad—it was overwhelming. I went back outside to sit and wait on Maryse to return. I had to find a way to convince her to stay out of the cabin.
I had barely taken a seat at the dock when Maryse pulled up. She wasn’t pleased to see me and was even less impressed with my edict that she shouldn’t enter her cabin. It took some convincing, but finally, she looked a bit worried, then went straight to upset thinking that infernal cat of hers was still inside. I assured her that he’d bailed out the window when I appeared. I can’t believe that raggedy cat is her biggest concern.
Maryse finally got into work mode and pointed out that if someone had rigged the cabin, opening the front door would probably be the thing that set it off. She came up with a bizarre but impressive idea to open the front door with a rubber bullet, while we were safely hidden on the other side of the embankment.
Holy crap—the damn thing blew up!
I knew it couldn’t hurt me, but I dropped to the bottom of the boat and covered my head with my hands as glass and wood flew everywhere. When the last piece plopped into the bayou, I peered over the embankment and almost passed out. The entire cabin was leveled, not a single piece of a wall still standing. Even the cast-iron tub had disappeared.
Maryse stared at the disaster first in horror, then shock, then she got mad. She beat the embankment and screamed. She’d so clearly lost her mind that I stepped away from her, tripped over the edge of the boat, and plopped down on top of the bayou, where I bobbed up and down in a sea of wood shards.
Then Maryse yelled at me that it was all my fault for leaving her the land. That insurance couldn’t replace the few mementos she had of her mother.
I couldn’t say anything.
She was right.
Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Eleven
Wherein Helena gains another warm body
What an unbelievable day!
I figured after the explosion that someone would make Maryse go to the hospital, so I headed that way. I managed to hitch a ride to a gas station near the hospital but the driver was headed for New Orleans, and I needed to go right, so I started walking again. After all the walking, running, and falling I’d done in the last couple of days, my feet were killing me. I found myself dreaming of Dearfoam slippers, and I never thought I’d say something like this, but I’d kill for a pair of running shoes.
And just like that, a brand-new pair of Nikes appeared on my feet! Wow!
I spent the rest of the walk silently willing myself into a pair of yoga pants and T-shirt, but the stubborn pink suit remained firmly attached to my body.
I arrived at the hospital just in time to see Maryse catch that cad doctor in a storage closet with the underage daughter of Mudbug’s meanest loan shark. The whole thing was so funny, I laughed until my sides hurt. Maryse didn’t find it near as entertaining as I did, but then, she’d basically had her bad taste in men flung in her face in a way that she could no longer deny. Maybe this would be a wake-up call for her to take a closer look at the men she attempted to pair up with.
I followed her back into the lobby, where she demanded another doctor, then proceeded to explain the situation to that really cute scientist working in her office. He seemed as amused as me and asked why she’d dated him. When Maryse asked how he knew about the date, he said quite calmly that he’d heard me say so.
Holy crap!
Aside from waking up dead, I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised. I still had no idea why Maryse could see me, but at least we had a connection through Hank. I have never met this guy before and don’t know a thing about him. My mind immediately launched into ways I could utilize him, but then he insulted my suit—like I’d had a choice in the matter—and I lost interest in being around him.
Since it was obvious that Maryse had a bodyguard—and one more capable of handling bad guys than me—I decided to head to the beauty shop and see what the gossip was about the will-reading.
Tongues wagged some about my gifts to the orphanage and the town of Mudbug, but the big topic of discussion was my cutting Hank and Harold out of everything. It made me happy that all of the women agreed with my decision, although some of the comments about my selection of husbands and child-rearing abilities were rather insulting. Unfortunately, they weren’t untrue, so I really had no room to complain.
But the one thing no one ever mentioned was the possibility that I’d been murdered, and that surprised me just a little. Usually when someone with money died, everyone was a suspect, but in my case, everyone seemed quite willing to believe the coroner and go on with life. Which made me wonder whether they had that much respect for the coroner or whether they didn’t care all that much that I was gone.
I suspected the latter. Bitches.
The biddies launched into a discussion of grandkids and I made my exit, not even remotely interested in teething rings and diaper coupons. I’d been gone from the hospital for a while and figured Luc would take Maryse to Mildred’s hotel. I didn’t think anyone would be foolish enough to take another swipe at her with so many people milling around, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Maryse was right about one thing—all of this was my fault.
Wherein Helena sits guard
It took a lot of looking through walls—sometimes at things I had zero interest in seeing—before I found Maryse. She was in bed and already asleep, either from drugs or sheer exhaustion. That raggedy cat of hers shot under the bed as soon as I walked into the room, so I headed back into the hallway, not wanting to set the cat off and awaken Maryse.
I slumped down on the floor across from her room and leaned against the wall. It was going to be a long evening and an even longer night, but I wasn’t moving from this spot. If anyone tried to come after Maryse, I would sound the alarm.
I stared at that wall all night—all two thousand hours of it. Several times, it crossed my mind to get up and work on ghostly things, but I couldn’t summon up the energy. Instead, I sat, stared, and thought, but I was no closer to figuring out this mess by morning than I had been the night before.
When I heard Maryse stirring that morning, I hid in the empty room next door until she headed downstairs. I hated to admit it, but I wasn’t ready to face her. For the first time in my life, I felt weighed down by guilt. The worst part was, I wasn’t trying to do any harm when I’d left Maryse the land. I’d actually thought I was doing something that both of us could appreciate.
But it was my fault that I hadn’t read the estate agreement since I was a teen. It was my fault that I didn’t ask Wheeler to dig deeper into the “what ifs.”
Bottom line—if anything happened to Mary
se, it was on me.
When I heard her head downstairs, I tiptoed down and peeked into Mildred’s office and saw the psychic nut, the hottie scientist, and Mildred all looking sheepish. Ha! they’d obviously been busted trying to plan Maryse’s life. My money was on my daughter-in-law making them all feel guilty before it was over.
She was an expert at handing out the guilt.
Since Maryse had more than enough guards and none of them were likely to leave her alone, I left the hotel. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the man who blew up Maryse’s house, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find him. I was fairly observant—well, except for the slight faux pas that I’d apparently allowed someone entry into my house to kill me. I figured I’d head to a couple of the boat docks and see if anything rang a bell on the boats. If I saw the man walking, something might click in relation to height, size, and gait.
It was worth a shot, anyway. And at the moment, it was the only thing I could think of to do.
Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Twelve
Wherein Maryse finally comes up with a plan
None of the overweight, half-limping, potbellied men I saw at the boat dock remotely resembled the man I’d seen leaving Maryse’s cabin. Over half the boat slips were empty, though, so I decided I’d probably arrived too late for the serious fishermen, and was instead left with all the rejects—hence the abundance of potbellies and complete lack of urgency to get on the water.
The tide was coming in, so I hopped on it and coasted downstream, taking an occasional pit stop to inspect fishermen tucked away in inlets.
Do you have any idea what those men do when they’re supposed to be fishing?
No wonder the half-ass restaurants in Mudbug stay so busy—no one’s bringing fresh fish home. Most of them were sleeping. Several were reading car or hunting magazines. A couple were reading—or looking at—the kind of magazines you don’t leave out on your coffee table, so I hurried on by. I’d seen enough of that in the hotel. A couple of them were listening to the radio, and only two were actually fishing.
But the best one was the husband of the beauty shop owner, who was making his own X-rated movie with the woman who used to babysit their daughter. If his wife hadn’t said such mean-spirited things about me, I might have been outraged, but I had bigger things to worry about than the poor choices of Mudbug husbands.
After several long hours of cruising the bayou, I grabbed a ride with one of the non-porn fishermen and headed back to the dock. Even though I knew she was surrounded by people who weren’t going to let anything happen to her, I wanted to check on Maryse. After all, someone had managed to poison me in my own house and get away with it. Whoever was behind this was clever, and while Mildred and the hottie scientist seemed like reasonably intelligent people—jury was still out on the psychic nut—neither of them was qualified to handle a murder investigation.
Maryse was back in her room with the hottie scientist. It was the only time I almost wished I’d caught someone in a state of undress—the scientist anyway, not Maryse—but of course, my boring daughter-in-law was just talking. She looked like a sad Walmart fashion model, but given that I was wearing a pink polyester suit with Nikes, I didn’t figure I had room to comment on her wardrobe choices.
That silly cat scattered as soon as I walked through the wall, then the hottie scientist started in on me, like I needed anyone reminding me that my decisions about the land could get Maryse killed.
I was a bitch. I wasn’t dense.
Maryse broke up the arguing before it got good and surprised the hell out of me by producing keys to the hospital that she’d taken off of Dr. Christopher as he’d fled the storage room. I have to admit, I didn’t think the girl had a sneaky, underhanded side, and I was more than a little thrilled to find out I’d been wrong.
Maryse’s plan—and it was a good one—was to break into the hospital and get a hold of my medical records in an attempt to identify the poison used to kill me. She thought the type of poison would help narrow down the list of suspects. I was impressed.
Hottie Luc was not.
He argued that she could go to jail if caught. Maryse argued back that having people try to kill her and me follow her around the rest of her life were worse than jail. It was a fairly rude sentiment, but it worked with Luc, who apparently didn’t like having me around any more than Maryse did.
People in this town are so judgmental.
Then Luc hit me with the question that I’d been expecting since the beginning—why was I so certain when I’d willed the land to Maryse that she wouldn’t let the oil companies in and rake up the billions?
It didn’t happen very often, but I clamped my mouth shut, refusing to answer. Then he turned on Maryse, and I could tell he wasn’t going to let up until it made sense in his mind. I couldn’t really blame him for his persistence. It sounded crazy to give up billions of dollars to allow a stretch of dirty water and stinkweed to remain untouched.
Finally, I blurted out that Maryse wouldn’t allow the swamp to be altered until she found the cure for cancer.
She was shocked that I knew, but it hadn’t been hard to get the information from the university she used for testing—especially when I donated a lot of money. Luc seemed surprised, but he ceased all complaining about breaking into the hospital and instead shifted gears and insisted on driving.
Maryse yelled at us to get out so she could rest, and I thought I had a reprieve. Then Luc insisted I follow him outside and we discuss my idiot husband Harold and his so-called military service. The last person I wanted to think about was Harold, but I wasn’t willing to piss Luc off, as he was the only other person who could converse with me.
Luc told me that Harold had been bragging down at Johnny’s Bar that he’d been Special Forces during his time in the military. I laughed so hard, I think I got an aneurysm. Special Forces? The man could barely walk without tripping, and the one time I’d seen him fire a shotgun, he didn’t have it firm against his shoulder and gave himself a lovely black eye. I have no idea what Harold actually did during his time in the service, but I’d bet a million dollars it involved a toilet bowl brush.
Luc didn’t seem surprised at my answer. He told me to keep watch on Maryse—preferably without her knowledge—then said he had some things to do and took off. I watched him drive away and thought, once again, that there was more to the sexy scientist than what we could see. I just hoped whatever he was hiding didn’t hurt Maryse more than she already had been. Even the dead could pick up on the attraction between the two of them, although they appeared hell-bent on ignoring it.
I sighed and headed back into the hotel, hoping that this time Maryse had picked the right man.
Wherein Helena gets a new look
I lucked out! The salesman in the room next to Maryse’s left his television on the movie channel. I spent the entire afternoon watching an action marathon. Batman (the good ones with Christian Bale) and James Bond movies (the good ones with Daniel Craig). Hours of ass-kicking, heart-pumping, hot-man-onscreen entertainment.
And then it happened.
One minute I was wearing the hideous polyester and the next, I was clad in a black leather bodysuit. Badass!
I jumped up on the bed and bounced around in celebration, and then realized that leather bodysuits, while ultra-cool, don’t allow for good movement. I suppose if you wore it for a couple of weeks, it would loosen up some, but at the moment, I had serious binding in the armpits and the crotch—two areas you definitely don’t want binding in. Not to mention that walking around in a body armor of leather wasn’t something I had any desire to do in the heat of the Louisiana summer. Might as well stick with the polyester.
And no sooner did I have that thought than the polyester was back in place.
What the hell?
I lifted my arm to look and saw one black leather glove peeking out of the pink sleeve. I jumped off the bed and ran to the full-length mirror, then remembered I didn’t have a reflection. A pox on this death thing! I
leaned over and scanned myself and grew more confused. The pink suit was definitely back, but with the one black leather glove remaining. The Nikes were still in place, but now, I had tube socks in bright purple and lime green pulled all the way up to my knees.
Damn it! I’d never thought about tube socks!
Who the hell thought about tube socks after the early eighties? And what in the world was I going to do now? I couldn’t go in public this way. Even though Maryse and Luc were the only two people who could see me, I still had my pride. Okay, I had a little pride left, and it was fading fast, but I wasn’t about to let it slip away over tube socks.
Then the tube socks vanished.
I ran my gloved hand down my leg, but only cold skin met my touch. Weird. I hadn’t realized I was cold to the touch, but then, I hadn’t gone around touching myself either. I supposed that explained the chill some people felt when they were near me. I rose back up and realized the leather glove was gone, but I was now wearing a corsage of lilies.
Death was exhausting.
Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Thirteen
Wherein Helena touches something…at the absolute wrong time
As I didn’t want to startle Maryse and Luc at the hotel, I wore my standard pink polyester to the hospital. But as soon as I stepped through the car, I changed into my breaking-and-entering wear. I’d been practicing all afternoon and had sorta gotten the hang of it. At least, half of the time, things went right. Maybe less than half.
Whatever.
Rather than look impressed with my leopard-print, spandex bodysuit, Maryse looked like she’d eaten bad Chinese food. I should never have expected her to have any appreciation for style. She’d worn a cocktail dress to my will-reading, spent the rest of her time in rubber boots, and didn’t own underwear. What could she possibly know about fashion?