Happy Birthday, Marge

by Shari Hearn

  Eleanor beamed as I shared with her the stories of Marge’s family’s involvement in the Revolutionary War, most notably Captain Isaiah Boudreaux, Marge’s fifth great-grandfather, who met with George Washington himself to go over war strategy, and Pierre Robichaud, who was a Minuteman.

  “Robichaud,” Eleanor said, touching Robichaud’s name in the family tree as if touching the man himself. “That’s one of the names we have in common. He would be related to me, then.”

  I nodded. “Marge’s family has a long military history going back to the Anglo/French War in the 1200s. And she did her ancestors proud by serving her country as well.” The guilt of lying to Eleanor about being related to her was starting to dissipate. So what if I wasn’t who she thought I was? The family stories I was sharing were real and meant the world to Eleanor.

  “I think Marge has an artist’s rendering of Robichaud,” I said, reaching for the box of artwork and photos. A sheet of paper slipped to the floor as I pulled out a stack of old photos and drawings. I split the stack and handed half to Eleanor and half to Barton. While they browsed what I had given them, I retrieved the sheet of paper from the floor and found that it was a detailed account of research taken to locate the marriage records of one of Marge’s ancestors. A receipt was stapled to it from the genealogist who Marge had paid to help her in her research. I felt a chill run through me. The name was Gus Westerfield. Business address was in Lake Charles. The same name and town as the gun dealer who was murdered. The same one who had sold a gun to the Hoovers that was then later sold to Marge. Whose file was stolen.

  I refolded the Westerfield papers and put them back in the box.

  “This is so wonderful of you to take the time to go over this with us,” Eleanor said.

  Barton Gidley reached over and patted my hand. “You’re doing a good thing, kid.”

  I caught sight of his cane leaning against the sofa and it made me think of Ahmad, who used a walking stick with a hidden sword inside.

  “Is this the drawing of the Minuteman?” Eleanor asked, taking me out of my thoughts.

  “Oh... oh yeah.” I thought of what Bea had said earlier about Marge not mailing her DNA sample. “Did you mention earlier that you were connected to Marge through her DNA sample?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Eleanor said. “We hired someone to do research for us, and he suggested I take a test. One of my matches was Marge.”

  I stood.

  “Is everything okay?” Barton asked, standing as well. Without the aid of his cane to help him, I noticed. Not that that was unusual. He had the use of the arm of the sofa to propel him upward. But still...

  “I think I forgot something upstairs. I’ll be right back.”

  I shuffled in Barton’s direction and he moved aside to let me pass, again without the use of his cane. I hurried up the stairs to Marge’s room.

  Bea had said Marge put the test results in her bedside table drawer. I opened it and saw a couple pairs of reading glasses and a book about a CIA spy. I reached my hand back in the drawer and found that the back panel was missing.

  Pulling the table out, I noticed several items scattered on the floor against the wall: The back panel, which appeared to have broken from the drawer; a couple pill bottles; and a small mailing box, about three inches wide and an inch deep, preaddressed to a DNA testing company. It must have been pushed through the back when Marge shoved the book in her drawer.

  Marge had never sent her sample. The Gidleys were lying.

  There was a knock at the door. I looked over. Barton and Eleanor stood in the doorway, stepped in the room and locked the door behind them. In one smooth movement, Barton withdrew a sword from inside his cane.

  Chapter Twenty

  Marge

  BARB SHOOK HER HEAD again, then scraped her fork along the top layer of Marge’s three-tiered birthday cake, gathering a forkful of frosting and sticking the sweet glob into her mouth.

  Marge had tried threatening. She’d tried begging. But Barb still refused to inform the others, who were under a tree arguing about rawhide bones with Celia, that Fortune was in trouble.

  “You’re just setting me up, Marge Boudreaux. You want to make me look like a fool.”

  “I don’t have to try. You do a good job of that on your own.”

  Carter’s phone rang and he stepped away from the group, toward Marge and Barb. He raised his brows as he took in the mess Barb was making with the cake.

  “Deputy LeBlanc,” he said into the phone. “That’s right. I called earlier. Gidley. Barton and Eleanor. They rented a car and I’d like to know if the license they used is legit.”

  “Those are the people I told you about!” Marge said to Barb. “The Gidleys. They’re going to harm Fortune.”

  Barb stopped eating and focused on Carter, who nodded while listening to the caller.

  “Yeah, I’ll hold.”

  Marge pointed her finger at Barb. “If you don’t tell him about Fortune, I will send every spirit I know your way. You will never know a moment’s peace.”

  “Is she really in trouble?” Barb asked.

  “Yes.”

  Barb sighed and stepped toward Carter. “Excuse me, Deputy LeBlanc.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “WE’RE NOT GOING TO beat around the bush,” Barton said as he and Eleanor crossed further into the room. He tapped the floor with his cane, and I noticed the impression his cane made in the carpeting matched what I had noticed in the dirt outside of the Hoover’s back door. “My wife and I deal in antique weaponry. We sold a Colt Dragoon to a Mr. Westerfield in Lake Charles. He, in turn, sold to the Hoovers who sold to Marge. We want it back.”

  “Don’t deny having it. We know it’s here,” Eleanor said. I noticed her purse was opened at the top. Her hand was resting inside of it, no doubt clutching a gun.

  I held up the box with the DNA sample inside. “And is that how you knew Marge was researching her family tree and was going to send in a DNA sample? Did Mr. Westerfield tell you that before you killed him?”

  Barton smiled. “Amazing the information you can get out of a man when you use him as a human pin cushion. We not only found out that Gus had sold the Dragoon to the Hoovers, but that Marge Boudreaux had purchased it. Upon further questioning from my sword, we also learned that Miss Boudreaux used Mr. Westerfield’s services as a genealogist.”

  “According to the file we took from the Hoovers, we found that Marge had died and you were here handling her estate,” Eleanor interjected. “The genealogy made for a nice cover story. Poor me, desperate for family.” Eleanor laughed.

  “The file also referred to materials for a gun vault the Hoovers sold to Marge several years back,” Barton added. He looked toward the closet. “A vault to be built in a closet.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What’s so important about that gun you’d kill to get it?”

  Barton frowned. “Unfortunately, we recently learned that the gun in question had been used in a crime before we made the sale.”

  “Our grandson. The idiot,” Eleanor said. “He killed the ex-boyfriend of his new girlfriend. He thought he buried the body where no one could find it. He was wrong.”

  “We need to destroy that gun so that it can never be linked to the murder.”

  “The idiot,” Eleanor said again. “He’s in jail on another matter, a minor incident, but detectives are looking at him for the killing as well. Only, they’re missing a murder weapon.”

  Barton rolled his eyes. “He bragged about the Colt Dragoon to several of his friends. How our daughter ever popped out such a stupid boy is beyond me.”

  “He could rot in jail as far as I’m concerned,” Eleanor said, “except that, well, we may have run afoul of the law ourselves in the past. Not to mention that we have a way of procuring weapons that could land us in a heap of trouble.”

  “You steal them.”

  “And we’re very good at what we do,” Barton said, “though it’s not hard to steal from small, historical muse
ums. The security is just awful at some of those places. When we replace what we’ve taken with a cheap replica, the theft usually isn’t discovered for years. Greatly padded our retirement savings.”

  Eleanor nodded. “We can’t let our grandson’s stupidity ruin our plans or shed light on some of our other... endeavors. It’s that simple.”

  Barton pointed his sword my way. “I want to assure you that no harm will come to you as long as you open your aunt’s vault and hand over the Dragoon. You do that and we leave.”

  Of course, I knew he had no intention of letting me leave this room alive. I knew too much about their crimes.

  “We need you to open that vault. Now.”

  Barton could be an excellent swordsman, but I had had advanced training against sword attacks and was younger and probably quicker in my reflexes than fifty-something Barton. I had strength and agility on my side. His wife, Eleanor, however, was another matter, and that gun she had in her purse caused me some concern. I remembered Gertie’s dream and her warnings about being shot. I’d fought two people at once before, but Eleanor could get off a lucky shot. Lucky shots were just as deadly.

  A memory popped into my head. I was ten and it was several years before my father died. On one of his rare visits home he was teaching me how to kick box. The lesson of the day was, “let your opponent think he won.” I’d learned the lesson the hard way that day and I was hoping to give the Gidleys that lesson as well. My father hadn’t given me much in life but grief, but at times like this his advice would pop in my head. It was usually right.

  “No more time for deciding, Miss Morrow,” Barton said, holding up his sword. “What’ll it be? Are you going to cooperate?”

  Sometimes “yes” is quicker than “no.” I looked at him, tried my best to look scared. “You bet.” I held up my hands. “You just tell me what to do. Just keep that thing away from me.”

  He smiled. “I want you to tell us how to open the vault.”

  “There’s a lever. It’s on the floor. Just let me do it. It’s kind of tricky.” I went for the closet. Eleanor stopped me.

  “Not so fast. You might have a weapon stashed in the closet. Or an alarm. Let me do it.” She opened the sliding closet door.

  I turned to Barton. “May I just point to where it’s located?”

  He nodded. I stepped forward and pointed into the darkened closet. “There, in the right corner.” Eleanor, with her hand still inside her purse, stuck her head inside and looked.

  Perfect.

  I twisted around at my waist toward Barton. “You won’t believe all the stuff she has in there.”

  He craned his neck to look.

  Now, I heard an internal voice say.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Marge

  MARGE FELT POWERLESS waiting for the others to get the message and come searching for Fortune. She’d tried producing another gust of distracting wind, but all she was able to muster was a weak puff. She had even tried walking through Barton and Eleanor, but they had been so focused that her ghostly energy hadn’t distracted either one of them.

  Giving in so quickly to Mr. Gidley’s demands didn’t seem characteristic to the Fortune she’d observed the few times she’d been back for a visit. But when she saw Fortune’s hand on the sliding door with Audrey’s head in just the right spot, she knew Fortune was going to fight back.

  In that instant, all hell broke loose.

  Fortune slammed the closet door into Eleanor’s head while propelling her right foot into Barton’s stomach as he raised the sword. Eleanor fell to her knees, screaming. Barton gasped for air as he fell back onto Marge’s bed, the sword flying from his hand and landing inches away from him. As Fortune turned toward Barton, Eleanor turned as well, still on her knees. She pulled the gun from her purse.

  “She’s got a gun!” Marge yelled. She moved toward her to try to use her energy to stop Eleanor from firing. Fortune made a feint to the left, then to the right. A shot rang out.

  “Noooo!” Marge screamed.

  Fortune slumped to the floor. Eleanor moved in close and kicked at the girl.

  Marge was sure Fortune was dead. But this gal wasn’t ready to join Marge in the afterlife. Her leg shot up and she kicked Eleanor’s gun hand, grabbed Eleanor’s ankle and yanked her to the ground, slamming her fist right in Eleanor’s face. Blood spurted from the older woman’s nose.

  “Holy crap!” Marge shouted. “That’s gotta hurt.”

  Fortune stood and looked down at Eleanor, who appeared unconscious. “You missed.” She reached down and picked up Eleanor’s gun. “Just FYI, don’t be too quick to shoot. Your opponent may be faking you out by feinting to the left. Bitch.”

  Barton stirred on the bed. He grabbed the sword and sat up.

  “Bring it on,” Fortune said.

  Fortune and Barton’s attention turned to the door as they heard the doorknob jiggle. Before Fortune could speak, Carter slammed into the room, having used his body to force the door open. He saw Barton on the bed with the sword and hurled his body into him, propelling them both over the bed and slamming into the wall.

  Gertie and Ida Belle ran in after him, their weapons drawn. “Call 9-1-1,” Fortune said to them as she ran to Carter and Barton. Barton appeared to have been knocked unconscious. Carter was moaning.

  “Carter!” Fortune screamed. He moaned again.

  “EMTs are on their way,” Ida Belle said.

  The ghost scrambled over to them, overcome with relief when Carter opened his eyes and smiled at Fortune. She looked up at the relieved faces of Ida Belle and Gertie. Marge knew they couldn’t hear her, but she spoke to them anyway. “She’s the Three in Swamp Team Three. She earned it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Marge

  THE FUNNY THING ABOUT those snippets of the future that ghosts get? They’re always subject to misinterpretation. Nothing illustrated that more to Marge than the sight of Fortune lying on a gurney being wheeled through a hospital corridor. What the snippet failed to show was that Ida Belle and Gertie were the ones wheeling her around.

  “He’s in room 307,” Gertie whispered to the “patient” on the gurney, Fortune. “Coming up to our right.”

  The ladies looked smart in their patient transport scrubs. They always did. Marge had donned one as well numerous times in the past. Dressing as various hospital personnel was the best way to sneak around in a hospital and gather intelligence.

  But intelligence wasn’t the reason for this visit. Carter had suffered a mild concussion after the head-slam into Marge’s bedroom wall. Since he’d suffered one recently, doctors thought it best to keep him in the hospital overnight for observation. By the time he was finally assigned a room, visiting hours were over. That didn’t stop Ida Belle and Gertie, however. It never did.

  They walked with confidence toward 307. Confidence has a way of making people not question someone’s right to be where they shouldn’t be. Confidence makes people not think twice about the two white-haired ladies in scrubs, one lugging a huge tapestry purse and the other a shopping bag dangling from her wrist.

  Stopping in front of 307, Ida Belle gestured toward a rolling multilevel cart containing trays of food, indicating that Carter’s dinner was being delivered.

  “We’ve got this,” Gertie whispered. They stepped inside the room to find a young nurse setting a tray of lousy hospital food in front of Carter, who was sitting up in the bed. The nurse cocked her head when Ida Belle and Gertie strode in with the gurney, Ida Belle blocking Fortune from her view.

  “Evening,” Gertie said cheerfully. “You’ve got a new roomie, young man.”

  The young nurse shot a quizzical look at them. “I believe the doctor ordered a private room for this patient.”

  Carter’s lip quivered as he suppressed a laugh. “It’s okay. Maybe a roommate would be good for me.”

  The nurse ignored Carter. “Are you sure you’ve got the right room number?”

  “307,” Ida Belle responded.

>   “There must be some mistake,” the nurse said.

  “These schedulers are such dimwits,” Gertie said, shaking her head. “This is the third time this month they’ve messed up.” She whipped out her phone from her uniform pocket. “They are going to hear from me. I already got one of them fired. Guess I’ll go for two.”

  “Who ARE you?” The nurse asked. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around before.”

  Ida Belle put her hand on her hip. “I could say the same for you.”

  “You did it again, you numbskulls,” Gertie barked into the phone. “Yes, it’s me, Gunny from Patient Transport. I hope you’ve saved enough for a rainy day, because honey it’s about to rain on your sorry butt.”

  Ida Belle looked at the nurse. “We’ll just wait right here until we’re given a new room assignment. Is that okay with you, or would you rather we clog up the hallway?”

  “I’m fine with it,” Carter said.

  “You might want to consider a career change,” Gertie barked again into the phone. “I hear Dead Animal Pickup is looking for new hires.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” the nurse said, rushing past them.

  “Close the door behind you, please,” Gertie said to her.

  After the nurse left, Carter shook his head. “Dear Lord, I’m an accessory.”

  Fortune whipped off the sheet and hopped off the gurney. “We want to make sure you’re okay and say goodbye.”

  “Please don’t tell me you stole those uniforms.”

  “Let’s just say we ‘procured’ them fifteen years ago,” Gertie said.

  “And are you going to tell me how you ‘procured’ that rawhide bone out of Celia’s purse?”