Happy Birthday, Marge

by Shari Hearn

  Gertie crossed her arms. “Just for that little parting shot at Marge’s towels, I ought to make you sit in the back seat. But since I’m in a charitable mood, I’ll sit back there.”

  I held up my hand. “Not so fast. What’s wrong with the front seat?”

  “Nothing.”

  Since I was inches from the back door, I placed my hand on the handle and called dibs. “Nope. Back seat’s mine.”

  Gertie glanced at Ida Belle and sighed.

  “She’s onto you,” Ida Belle said.

  Gertie rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll sit in the front, you big baby.”

  Gertie climbed into the front passenger seat. I opened the back door to find Bones sprawled over my seat, his tongue hanging from his mouth, drool pooling on the leather.

  “Oh come on!”

  Bones opened one eye. Blinked. Then shut it.

  Gertie turned around in the front seat and faced us. “I offered.”

  “He flashed us those sad eyes earlier,” Ida Belle said, “as if he knew we were going to go sprinkle some of Marge in the park, so while you were on your date, we went in and got him.”

  I squeezed into the oh-so-roomy four inches of seat space that Bones so generously left me, his rawhide bone poking at my hip. I picked it up to toss it on the floor.

  “Don’t do that,” Ida Belle said, looking at me in the rear-view mirror. “We have Marge hidden inside.”

  I inspected the rawhide bone in my hand and noticed that it appeared to have been sliced in half and glued back together.

  “We cut it in half and hollowed it out,” Gertie said. “Then put her ashes inside and glued it back together. We thought it would be nice if something of Bones was buried with Marge.”

  Mercifully, the park was only a ten-minute drive from my house. I shifted as Bones’s drool soaked through my yoga pants.

  Ida Belle turned right at the corner of the south side of the park and eased to a stop under a canopy of oak trees. After making sure no one was around, the three of us hauled out the bench. We decided to open all the windows and keep Bones inside. Actually, Bones decided for us. He wouldn’t budge.

  “Keep the drooling to a minimum,” I said to him before shutting the door. Ida Belle took one end of the bench and I the other and we followed Gertie, who clutched a flashlight in one hand and a bag containing a trowel and the converted rawhide bone in the other. She pointed the flashlight toward the ground to keep the illumination to a minimum. All we needed was for Carter to drive by the park and see a light streaming through the trees.

  “Meteor,” Gertie said as she glanced up into the night sky. I still hadn’t gotten over the fact that in Sinful the night sky was so dark that we could actually look up into the sky and see a meteor. In DC I’d be lucky to see a handful of stars.

  “Marge used to love to observe the night sky,” Ida Belle said wistfully. “If she were alive, she’d be on her roof just so she could get a few feet closer to the stars.” She sighed. “Damn shame.”

  “Yep,” Gertie said, her voice cracking. “The tree she used to like is around here somewhere.”

  Ida Belle directed us to hang a right and we walked several more minutes before she and Gertie agreed we’d come to the right tree. We lowered the bench to the ground several feet from the trunk. Ida Belle reached up and felt some of the leaves. “For some strange reason, Marge took to this tree. When the park was being renovated, the city wanted to have it removed.”

  “More like Celia and her crew wanted to have it removed because they knew it was Marge’s favorite,” Gertie said. She handed the flashlight to Ida Belle, lowered herself to the ground and started digging the hole for the bone. She chuckled and looked up at us. “Remember when Marge had me chain her to it to protest the removal?”

  Ida Belle smiled and nodded. “Marge only intended on chaining herself for a few hours, to rally support for a ‘no’ vote. Instead, she ended up chained to it for two whole days.”

  “Two days? Why that long?” I asked.

  “It took a certain numbskull two days to find the key she’d lost,” Ida Belle said.

  Gertie scooped a trowel full of dirt and flicked it up at Ida Belle. “I didn’t lose it. I accidentally baked it into a casserole I made for Marge. On the second day of her protest she ate the piece with the key. Nicked a tooth, but it also set her free, so she forgave me.”

  I opened my mouth to speak when Ida Belle slapped a hand over it. She shut off her flashlight and motioned with her head toward the south side of the park. We could see another flashlight in the distance.

  Gertie stood, holding the trowel like a knife and whispered, “Do you think it’s the Sword Man?”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “Carter said the burglar was moving west.”

  “He also said he thought something wasn’t adding up.” I pulled my nine millimeter from my waistband. Ida Belle did the same.

  Gertie held up the trowel. “I’d love to get a whack at this guy.”

  The light had shifted direction and was now moving toward us.

  And then we heard a voice. A very familiar voice.

  “Who’s a good boy, Coco?”

  Celia.

  A petit “whoof-whoof” followed.

  “What’s she doing here?” Gertie whispered.

  Ida Belle pursed her lips. “No wonder her lawn still looks nice. She brings her new dog here to do his business.”

  Celia spoke again. “This way, my little fluff bunny. Mommy’s tree is this way.”

  “It’s every woman for herself!” Gertie whisper-shouted as she hopped on the bench, grabbed a low-hanging branch and scrambled up Marge’s tree. Ida Belle and I dove behind a hedge just as Celia and her little fluffy dog stepped off the path and approached the bench. From behind the hedge, we watched as Celia stopped directly below where Gertie had wedged herself in the tree. She shone her flashlight on the ground next to the bench and cocked her head.

  “Hmmm, something’s odd.”

  Her dog Coco sniffed around the bench.

  My eyes widened as I spotted it the same time Coco did. The rawhide bone containing Marge’s ashes, on the ground next to the hole that Gertie had been digging. Celia shone the light on it.

  “Why look, Coco, it’s your lucky night. It looks new, too. Someone’s dog must have been in the process of burying it. It’s yours now.”

  Chapter Eight

  Marge

  THE GHOST SAT ON A thick branch in the tree next to Gertie, who clutched at the trunk while looking down in horror at the scene below them. Celia’s dog Coco clamped his tiny mouth around the big rawhide bone and lifted it from the ground.

  After hoofing it for hours back to Sinful, Marge had arrived just in time to see The Swamp Team Two Plus One sneaking into the park with her bench.

  She had tried to warn them that Celia was lurking about, but that not-being-able-to-communicate-with-the-living thing got in her way once again. As the three of them scrambled to hide from Celia, Marge had headed up the tree with Gertie.

  Marge shook her head. “I don’t know why you chose to climb a tree. That’s not one of your better skill sets. How many trees have I seen you fall out of in your lifetime?” More than Marge could remember.

  Celia shone her light back on the bench and shook her head. “I don’t remember a bench in front of my tree.”

  “Your tree?” Gertie whispered to herself.

  That was another thing Marge had tried to tell them. This wasn’t the tree Marge had chained herself to way back when. It was the tree Celia had designated as her own and on which she had carved her name.

  “Let’s go home so you can enjoy your new bone, Coco,” Celia said, picking up Coco with the huge bone clenched in his jaw.

  Marge sighed. “And my ashes are now going home with Celia and her dog.”

  Fortune and Ida Belle waited a couple of minutes after Celia left before coming out from behind the bush. They rushed to the tree as Gertie was sliding down the branch toward the trunk.
r />   Ida Belle waved her hands. “No, just wait.”

  “You’d better get out of the way,” Marge said. “She’s likely to—”

  Gertie slid out of the tree and crashed into Ida Belle, knocking her to the ground.

  “Crash into you,” Marge said, finishing her thought.

  Fortune, who’d barely missed being knocked down herself, helped to disentangle Ida Belle and Gertie.

  “I said wait,” Ida Belle whispered to Gertie.

  “Celia’s dog has Marge,” Gertie said. “We have to go get that bone.”

  Ida Belle held her finger to her lips. “Shhh. Celia’s neighbor told me Coco often sleeps outside in that fancy doghouse she bought him. If we’re lucky, tonight he’ll be outside with his new bone and we can go over the fence and get it from him.”

  Resting her head in the palm of her hand, Gertie muttered, “I let Marge down.” She ran her hands down her face. “This isn’t even her tree. And we’ll probably get arrested for trying to bury Marge’s ashes on public property.”

  “Arrested?” Fortune asked. “How would Celia even know some of Marge was hidden in the bone?”

  “We inscribed Marge’s name on the outside of it. And we wrote a little tribute to her on a piece of paper that we stuffed inside with Marge’s ashes.”

  “Once Coco gnaws through it, Celia will find it,” Gertie added.

  “Not if we get it back first,” Fortune said.

  Minutes later the Swamp Team Two Plus One Plus Ghost were quietly heading down Celia’s alley toward the back of her house.

  Movement up ahead made them freeze. They took cover behind trash cans and watched as Scott Hoover opened his back gate and placed a trash bag inside his trash can. As soon as they heard his back door close, they moved forward. Celia’s backyard was illuminated with her porch light. The ladies crept along the neighbor’s back wood fence, Ida Belle taking the lead. She peeked around the fence, then turned back and whispered to the others, “Celia’s standing at the back door.”

  They heard Celia imploring Coco to come inside and sleep with “mommy” tonight. The dog had brains, Marge gave him that. He just sat in front of his large doghouse that resembled a Swiss chalet, his small paw resting on top of the rawhide bone. He picked up the bone in his mouth and disappeared inside his doghouse. Celia gave up, closed the door and turned off the porch light. The ladies waited several more minutes until all the lights in Celia’s house were turned off before speaking.

  “You two distract Coco,” Fortune whispered. “I’ll go get the bone.”

  “No,” Gertie said firmly. “It has to be me. I need to do this for Marge.”

  Ida Belle shrugged. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.” She nodded to Fortune. “You and I will distract Coco with one of Bones’s treats.”

  Fortune ran her hand along the chain-link fence. Alerted by the noise, Coco’s head popped out of his house. She waved the dog biscuit through the fence, whispering loudly to Coco, “Coco, over here.”

  While Gertie slipped inside Celia’s backyard through the gate and headed toward his doghouse, Coco ran to the fence. But instead of taking the dog biscuit, he became focused on Marge.

  “What’s he staring at?” Ida Belle asked.

  Fortune scanned the area. “I have no idea.”

  Coco growled.

  “It’s me,” Marge said. “Some dogs don’t like ghosts.”

  Coco lunged for the fence and began barking.

  “Now you decide to bark?” Ida Belle said. “Shhhh.”

  Gertie, who was kneeling on the ground in front of Coco’s doghouse, looked over and put her finger to her lips.

  “Coco, shhhhh,” Fortune said, waving the dog biscuit at him. “Look at the yummy treat.”

  “You want a piece of me, Coco?” Marge taunted him. She looked at Ida Belle. “I’ll get him to chase me. Gertie will have one minute to get the hell out of there before I circle around and have Coco chase me back here.” The ghost stared at the dog and said tauntingly, “Your mama Celia is so ugly the tide wouldn’t even take her out.” Then she started running.

  The dog took off for the gate Gertie had left unlatched and ran down the alley, hot on the ghost’s heels.

  Chapter Nine

  WE STOOD STARING AT Coco as he ran down the alley, struck momentarily by a dumbfounded paralysis. “What the hell?” Ida Belle whispered.

  I started to run after him, but Ida Belle grabbed my arm. She placed a finger to her lips and nodded to Celia’s back door. Lights had been turned on inside. And now, the light above the back door. Gertie, who’d been kneeling in front of Coco’s doghouse with her arm reaching inside to retrieve the rawhide bone, turned her head toward us, panic on her face. She scrambled inside the doghouse. Celia stepped out onto the back patio, wearing a robe and slippers. Ida Belle and I scooted to the edge of the fence, taking cover behind the neighbor’s trash cans, peeking around the corner to keep track of the unfolding events.

  “Coco, is that you?” Celia called out. “What on Earth has gotten into you?”

  She crossed the patio and onto the grass, coming to a stop in front of Coco’s Swiss chalet. “Baby, are you okay?” Celia eased onto her knees in front of the entrance to the doghouse and reached her hand inside. “There you are, baby.” It appeared she was petting him, or rather, Gertie, who must have butted her head into Celia’s hand. “Come on out and tell mommy what the racket was all about.”

  She pulled her hand out and clapped. “Come on, Coco. Did that rawhide bone give you a tummy ache?”

  A high-pitch whine emanated from inside the doghouse. Ida Belle shook her head and rolled her eyes. We were doomed.

  “Oh my goodness,” Celia said. “Coco, you come out this instant so I can check you over.”

  She reached inside with both hands. Within seconds she screamed and yanked her hands out, staring at her right hand.

  “You bit mommy!”

  “Oh dear Lord,” Ida Belle whispered.

  We heard Coco barking in the distance, the barking getting closer. Celia jumped up and squinted in the darkness, noticing the opened gate. Soon Coco was running toward us, then past us, then inside the gate, as if chasing after something. He ran inside the open back door.

  Celia’s jaw dropped. “Coco?” Her eyes darted down toward the doghouse, no doubt realizing that whatever had bitten her wasn’t her beloved Coco. She screamed and shot back inside the house, slamming the door behind her.

  “She’s going to go call the sheriff’s office,” Ida Belle yelled to Gertie. “Get out now!”

  Gertie backed out of the doghouse, clutching a rawhide bone, then sprinted toward the back gate.

  “Run,” she screamed as she passed Ida Belle and me. Ida Belle took off. I started running and then stopped, remembering the bag that Scott Hoover had stuffed in his garbage can. I had a hunch and ran back and felt the outside of the bag.

  Shredded paper.

  I grabbed it and joined Ida Belle and Gertie at the SUV. Gertie shoved the rawhide bone into her purse. “I may need a rabies shot after biting Celia.” She glanced at the bag I was carrying. “What’s that?”

  “The bag that Scott Hoover threw out. It feels like shredded paper.”

  “You’re not going to try to piece all that back together, are you?” Ida Belle asked.

  I shook my head. “But in case my theory of this case turns out right and there’s something up with them, the evidence might be in this bag.”

  “Carter should arrive at Celia’s in about five minutes and then at one of our houses in about a half hour,” Ida Belle said to Gertie. “We need to come up with a solid story.”

  “My house,” I said. “Blowing up balloons and decorating for Marge’s party tomorrow.”

  When Carter arrived at precisely forty-seven minutes later, he found us talking like drunk chipmunks. A couple dozen helium balloons bobbed along the ceiling.

  “You wouldn’t have been around the mayor’s house an hour ago, would you?” he asked wh
en I let him inside.

  “Celia’s house?” I asked, à la Alvin Chipmunk. “Not me.” I looked at Ida Belle and Gertie (who both had just taken a mouth full of helium). “We’ve been here all night, right gals?”

  “Indubitably,” Ida Belle said. “What about you, Gertie? You’ve been here all night, haven’t you?”

  Gertie didn’t answer.

  “Gertie?” Ida Belle asked again.

  Gertie ignored her.

  “Gertie!” Ida Belle yelled in her Chipmunk voice.

  “O-kay,” Gertie said, laughing.

  Yeah, we practiced it. Gertie and Ida Belle then launched into the Chipmunks’ Christmas song, Gertie singing the part about wanting a Hula Hoop™.

  Carter waited until they finished the song. He tried not to react, but I did see his lip quivering. He cleared his throat. “Cute,” he said. “But someone was hiding in her dog’s doghouse and bit her. So, in addition to putting in extra patrols, I now have to go back to the station and write up a report about Celia’s attacker.”

  I felt bad for him, I really did, but I couldn’t let down my guard. We’d been preparing for Marge’s party all night and that was the story I was sticking to. My guilt drove me into the kitchen to cut him a slice of Ally’s peach pie to take to the station for a late-night snack.

  My voice had returned to normal as I walked him out to his truck.

  “Any new leads on the sword burglar?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I called the sheriffs’ departments along the highway moving west. Aside from that one burglary in Pollard, nothing. I’ll be heading to Lake Charles early tomorrow morning to get a look at the scene of the murder of Gus Westerfield.”

  “You’d best get home then and get some sleep.”

  “I was all set to do that until Celia called.”

  “I have more pie in the house. You want some?”

  He smiled. “That wouldn’t be a guilt offering, now would it?”

  I felt myself crumbling. It was all I could do not to confess. Luckily a noise from the darkened sidewalk distracted us. I subtly reached behind and touched the gun in my waistband. Carter placed his hand on his weapon holstered around his waist. We both relaxed as two figures stepped into the light of the streetlamp. The Gidleys.