by Jana DeLeon
“It’s not anchored,” Gertie said. “This is bad.”
I nodded, the impact of her words not lost on me. If something had happened—an injury, a mechanical problem—and someone had given Molly a ride, they would have towed her boat. And if that wasn’t possible, she would have secured it. Ida Belle had told me the make and model before we set out, and I’d been in Louisiana long enough to know a boat like that ran upward of sixty grand. No one was going to leave sixty grand floating loose.
“What’s that on the side?” Gertie asked. “Is that blood?”
Gertie had barely finished the sentence before I jumped onto Molly’s boat and hurried to the back edge where the dark stain was. I dipped one finger in it and nodded.
“It’s blood,” I said.
“Jesus!” Gertie said. “We need to dive in. She could be down there somewhere.”
“No,” I said and held up a hand to stop her from leaping into the bayou. “We don’t know for sure the blood belongs to Molly, and even if it is hers, it’s been here a while.”
I spotted a mark in the inside hull and squatted to get a closer look. “There’s a hole here. Looks recent.”
“Bullet hole?” Ida Belle asked.
I frowned. “Could be. Is there an exit on the opposite side?”
“Not that I can see,” Ida Belle said.
I took out my phone and took a snapshot of the hole. It looked like a bullet hole but had left a slightly imbalanced tear in the metal that caused more of a rip on one side. But then, it might also be a puncture from a gap hook or even a sharp anchor tip. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but it didn’t look good.
Ida Belle and Gertie both frowned at me as I stood. I didn’t have to spell it out to them. They knew the score. If Molly had been shot and fallen overboard, then she’d been down there too long to think she’d be catering Ida Belle’s or anyone else’s wedding.
“The hole could be from something else,” Gertie said. “Maybe she fell and hit her head and went over the side. She might have walked up the bank and could be lying in the grass, injured.”
“If she’d fallen in the water, she’d have pulled herself right back into her boat,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve seen her lift a full keg of beer like it was a pillow. I don’t think pulling in her own body weight would faze her.”
“No,” I said, “but she could be confused or have an injured arm or shoulder. We should check the bank but first, I need to call Carter.”
“Crap,” Gertie said. “He’ll probably be mad.”
“I think he’ll be worried first and mad later,” I said and dialed.
I heard a boat engine cut out as Carter answered his phone. I told him what we’d found and then handed the phone to Ida Belle to give directions. When she was done, she passed it back to me.
“I’ll be there in about ten minutes,” he said. “Don’t move until I get there and don’t go onto that boat again. Don’t leave your boat. And definitely do not go into the water. That area is full of gators.”
He disconnected and I relayed the message. Gertie sat on the bench and sighed.
“I knew I should have brought a casserole,” she said.
“They’re not all casserole eaters like Godzilla,” Ida Belle said.
“If Godzilla can be trained, the others probably can too,” Gertie argued.
“Now she’s the alligator whisperer,” Ida Belle said. “Do I need to remind you that Godzilla ate a guy at Fortune’s house?”
“He was a bad guy,” Gertie said. “He didn’t count.”
“I think Wildlife and Fisheries might have a different opinion on that one if they ever got wind of it,” I said.
“Well, at least we can see if she’s collapsed somewhere on the bank,” Gertie said.
“Because that one went so well for you the last time,” Ida Belle said.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
Gertie could be right. It was possible that Molly had cracked her head on the boat, fallen over the side, and then crawled up the bank and passed out. Unfortunately, that would indicate a head injury and that was never a good thing to wait on. I grabbed a pole we used to push the boat around and poked the bank to make sure it was real ground and not floating grass disguised as land. When I was satisfied that I had a good landing pad, I sprang from the boat and onto the bank.
“Go back toward the lake,” Ida Belle said. “The tide’s been going out for hours. It would have taken her that direction.”
I nodded and headed down the edge of the bank, scanning the ground for Molly and the edge of the bank for any sign that a person had traveled up it. I had to stop several times to scan an area around flattened grass, but never saw any sign of Molly, blood, or anything else that would indicate a person-sized object passed this way. I was probably thirty yards away from the boat when I found a large depressed area of grass at the edge of the bank that led into taller grass to my right. I stepped onto the grassy trail and pushed forward into the thicker brush.
I heard the rumble before I saw it, but unfortunately, I’d already taken that last critical step.
The gator was at least twelve feet long and was in the center of a small clearing. His head was lifted, his mouth open, and he stared right at me. I considered pulling my pistol, but I knew there was no way I could get off a shot that would kill the gator. Not from this angle and not with a nine-millimeter. I took one slow step backward, then another. The gator tossed his head from side to side and I took another step, praying that he was posturing and as soon as I vacated his sunning spot, he’d let my trespass go.
No such luck.
Before I could take another step, he launched forward at a speed that people wouldn’t think possible from something so large and long. Except for people who’d been in a footrace with an alligator, of course. I whirled around and set off at a dead run.
“Gator!” I yelled as I went.
I saw Gertie toss a rifle up to Ida Belle, who stood on her seat and took aim.
“I don’t know him,” Gertie said. “Shoot the sucker!”
Chapter Five
I could hear the gator closing in on me as I approached the boat. Just another ten yards and please God, don’t let me trip over anything. If I went into the water, it was all over but the funeral. I was about ten feet from the bank when Gertie yelled, “Jump!”
I took two more steps, then launched into the air, using every inch of muscle in my legs to propel me up and out. I heard the gunshot and more yelling from Gertie but it was as though everything was in slow motion. I couldn’t have been in the air more than a couple seconds, but I swear, I had time to look and consider every blade of grass and every drop of water beneath me. The side of the boat was closing in but not quickly enough.
I wasn’t going to make it!
I hit the water right in front of the boat, my hands clutching the side as I fell. I pulled myself up and flung my body over the side so quickly, my moves would have made a cat jealous. I hit the bottom of the boat and rolled to a stop before sitting up. Gertie and Ida Belle stared down at me and Gertie laughed before patting the top of my head.
“You came up so fast the top of your head’s not even wet,” she said.
“Where’s the gator?” I asked.
“He went in right behind you,” Ida Belle said. “Sorry. I didn’t have line of sight.”
“At least you slowed him down long enough for me to jump,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I felt his breath on my leg.”
“I’m pretty sure you did too,” Ida Belle said.
“He was a big one,” Gertie said. “I wish you could have bagged him. We could have fired up the grill big-time.”
“I’m just happy we’re not firing up the coroner’s office,” I said. “I didn’t see any sign of Molly as far as I made it. Do you think she could have drifted farther than that before reaching shore?”
“Anything is possible,” Ida Belle said. “But if she was conscious, she would have tried to get onshore as soon as possible
so she could try to get back to her boat and in the worst case, it makes it easier for people to find you when they come looking.”
“Well, that’s not a good place to take an unwelcome nap,” I said. “There were a lot of smaller trails out of the water and onto the bank and they all looked fairly recent. This place must be popular with the gators.”
Ida Belle gave me a grim nod, then pointed. “There’s Carter.”
I sighed. “And me dripping wet and Gertie still damp.”
“Wet T-shirt contest, remember?” Gertie said.
“You’re not even wearing a shirt,” I said. “I’m never going to hear the end of this.”
“Sure you will,” Ida Belle said. “You’ll do something worse and this will all be forgotten.”
“Always the optimist,” I grumbled.
“More of a realist,” she said.
Carter approached in his boat and gave us all the once-over. I’m sure he’d only needed a couple seconds to take in the condition of Gertie and my clothes and the fact that Ida Belle was holding a rifle to know we’d ignored his directive.
“I thought I told you to stay put,” he said.
“Gertie fell in before we got here,” I said. “There was a situation with a snake, and clothes had to be sacrificed.”
“I fully expect an overboard incident with Gertie in the boat, and I’m not touching the whole clothes-snake thing,” he said. “I was referring specifically to you.”
“We were afraid Molly had fallen overboard, cracked her head, and might have crawled up a bank,” I said. “The sooner you get to a head injury the better.”
“I take it you didn’t find anything?” he asked.
“A sunbathing alligator,” I said. “He was not happy to be interrupted.”
Carter sighed. “These banks are dangerous. This whole area is dangerous.”
“I heard it was good fishing here,” I said.
“Of course it’s good fishing here,” Carter said. “Which is why the alligators love it.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Didn’t quite put that one into perspective.”
He looked up at Ida Belle. “Did you tag him?”
“No line of sight,” she said.
“Well, at least that’s one set of paperwork I don’t have to worry about,” he said. “Did anyone step onto Molly’s boat besides Fortune?”
“Just me,” I said. “But as soon as I spotted the blood on the side, I called you.”
“Really?” he asked. “The very second you spotted it?”
“Well, I might have checked the blood to see how old I thought it was,” I said. “It’s not overly fresh but with this heat…”
Carter stepped from his boat to Molly’s and went to inspect the blood. He squatted down and looked closely at the side, then touched a bit with his finger.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Gertie asked.
“It’s not good,” Carter said.
He pulled out his phone and made a call requesting a forensic unit, two boats to make drags on the bayou, and as many people as could volunteer to do a search. He slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket, then scanned the bottom of the boat. I had no idea what he was looking for, but he must not have found it because his frown got bigger and he opened the bench chest to look inside.
A couple seconds later, he pulled out an anchor and I saw his jaw flex.
“Is there blood on it?” I asked.
“Can’t say,” he said. “And even if there was, we wouldn’t know that it’s Molly’s. For that matter, we don’t know that the blood on the side of the boat is Molly’s. It could be from fish.”
“Then where is Molly?” Gertie asked.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
It was 8:00 the next morning before I crawled out of bed. Even Merlin’s complaining about his late breakfast hadn’t fazed me. After ten minutes of opera yowling and one run across my forehead, he’d probably decided I was dead. I suppose I was lucky he didn’t start eating me. I had read up on house cats. You didn’t want to die alone with one. Not if you weren’t going to be missed for a while.
I trudged into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee, then flopped into a chair. Carter had finally called off the search at 3:00 a.m. and was planning to regroup this morning. But we all knew the score. It was no longer a search-and-rescue mission. It was a recovery and in one of the worst environments possible.
The two boats had dredged the channels in the area surrounding where we found Molly’s boat and at the opening of the lake for hours without success. But it wasn’t an easy job. So many things were submerged in the water that they had to constantly stop and untangle nets before starting again. It seemed a tedious and never-ending process.
After Gertie was properly dressed and could take in a full breath again, we were assigned bank lookout but under no circumstances were any of the volunteers to leave their boats. It was pitch-dark with no moon and the area was full of hungry gators. We used spotlights and poled our way slowly along the bank. If we spotted an area that looked as if a person could have passed that way, then we were to alert Carter and he would access the ground with Deputy Breaux. Ida Belle and Gertie showed me the gator claw marks to look for, and all of the breaches of the bank from the water that we found contained them. That would probably have been good information to have had earlier that evening before I ran the thirty-yard dash while chased by a man-eater.
By the time we got back to my house, we were all exhausted and sad. I had just met Molly but I had liked her. And I hated that right now, everything was a big unknown. Had someone been chasing her? Had he caught up with her and hit her over the head with the anchor before dumping her into the bayou? Or had she been talking in generalizations to her friend and then had a tragic accident? While I didn’t envy Carter the job he had in front of him, my curiosity wanted those answers as badly as he did.
I grabbed two coffee mugs and poured them both almost to the rim. No creamer, milk, or sugar for me. Today was straight-up caffeine day if I planned to move beyond the kitchen. I had just sat down when I heard my front door open and Carter called out.
“In the kitchen,” I said and he appeared several second later.
“Did you know I was coming?” he asked, pointing to the two cups.
I shook my head. “Despite all the conspiracy theories, the CIA didn’t teach psychic perception. I poured two for myself, figuring it was going to take at least that to get me back out of this chair.”
“Good idea,” he said and grabbed two cups for himself.
He filled them up, then sat across from me. “I hate this,” he said.
“Me too. I hated it in the sandbox and I hate it here. People need a body. They need a coffin or an urn. Something.”
Carter nodded and gave me a sympathetic look. “You thinking about your father?”
“Not really. Well, maybe he’s crossed my mind. The first time, I buried teeth. It’s hard for a teenager to wrap their mind around a death when all you have to go on is a couple of molars.”
“But you did it.”
“And then he came back. And look how fabulous that was.”
“The two of you saved this country and others from a serious breach of national security and God knows how many people from being assassinated—important people.”
“I know. But it still sucked. I’d put all that behind me. And now it’s all right there again.”
“Do you think Morrow is still looking into his second death?”
I shrugged. The official narrative was that my father was spotted on the deck of a boat just seconds before it exploded. Of course, his body wasn’t recovered because due to the blast, there wasn’t much left over the size of a quarter. And retrieving any body parts from an ocean explosion was mostly a fool’s mission. But a couple weeks after his ‘death,’ I’d received a gift that I was certain had come from him. I’d told Carter, Ida Belle, and Gertie about it because someday, he might be the catalyst for trouble again. But I hadn’t told
Morrow. I didn’t agree with the way my father had handled things but I couldn’t fault his accomplishments. I was sure he figured ‘dying’ was the best possible outcome for both of our futures. And he was probably right.
“If Morrow’s looking into anything, he’s not telling me about it,” I said. “But I’m sure at some point Jesus Redding will rise once more and we’ll get to play ball all over again.”
“Hopefully, next time he can leave you out of it.”
“As long as I’m his daughter and he’s breathing, I’ll always be in it.”
Carter frowned. I knew he wasn’t happy about the situation. Neither was I. As long as my father was alive, there was always that chance that something would surface again and drag me back into my former life. It didn’t mean I was going to spend my time looking over my shoulder. Neither was Carter. We were both trained professionals. If anything was off, we’d know it long before it was visible. I had to believe that intuition would alert me if things ever shifted. Otherwise, every day would begin with a cloud over my head, and that’s not the way I chose to live.
“What’s the plan for today?” I asked. “Are we going on land since it’s daylight?”
“No. I know no one wants to hear this but I’m going to do a couple more drags of the lake at the opening of that bayou and some surface scouting, but then I’m calling it.”
“Is that going to fly?”
“Yeah. No one likes it but everyone knows the score. Molly isn’t the first person that’s come up missing in those bayous and she won’t be the last. She’s not even the first this year. I’d say we haven’t found a body over half the time in circumstances like these. It’s hard but it’s reality.”
“What about the anchor? They’re testing it, right?”
“You know I can’t comment about that,” he said.
I sighed. “Your job and your ethics really get in the way of all the good gossip. But have it your way. When you start an investigation, we’ll all know it was murder.”
“I’m really hoping it wasn’t. This town has had enough bad things happen lately. It would be nice to have something be just a tragic accident.”