Gators and Garters (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 18)

by Jana DeLeon

  “I’ll certainly try,” I said. “But you know I can’t promise anything, just like you can’t promise how many beers you’ll sell on Saturday night down at the bar.”

  Nickel shook his head. “You’ll do it. Whiskey says you’re smart as hel—heck. And Whiskey don’t go around bragging on people.”

  “You said you didn’t want Whiskey to know about this,” I said. “Why not?”

  Nickel shrugged. “I figured he wouldn’t want me messed up in something like this, especially with police circling around. I’m trying to keep my nose clean and butting in on something like this isn’t smart for a guy in my position. If the cops knew I was friends with Molly, they might make something of it.”

  “Where were you when Molly went missing?” I asked.

  “Right where you guys found me when you was looking for her,” he said. “I didn’t know she was gone until you guys showed up and even then, I didn’t think nothing about it. Figured Molly had got hot over something and went for a ride to cool off. I never figured…”

  He stopped for a minute to cough, then took a swig of beer and I could tell he was trying to maintain his tough-guy persona. “Anyway, you see how I wouldn’t want to draw attention to myself. My record…being in the same location…it don’t look good. I promised Whiskey I was going to do everything straight when I got out last time. It’s a promise I intend to keep.”

  “Okay,” I said. “As a professional, I observe the rules of client confidentiality. No one will know you’ve hired me unless you tell them.”

  Nickel’s relief was apparent. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. Do I sign a contract or something?”

  He pulled a wad of hundreds from his pocket. “How much do I give you? I have two thousand here but I can get more.”

  We all stared.

  “I promise I didn’t take it from the Swamp Bar,” he said, reading our minds. “I sold my Harley.”

  “You loved that bike,” Gertie said.

  He shrugged. “It’s just a bike. I can get another one. But whoever did this to Molly has to pay.”

  “I’ll take a thousand dollars on retainer,” I said. “Let me go print up a contract. It will only take a minute.”

  As I headed for my office, warring emotions coursed through me. Excitement over a new case. Sadness that the case involved the death of someone I think I would have really liked if I’d had the opportunity to get to know her. Anger at whoever had taken her away from the people who cared about her. And just a tiny bit of resignation over having to tell Carter that I had an official reason to be in the middle of his investigation.

  But of all the things I felt, a desire for justice was at the top of the list.

  Nickel signed the contract, collected a receipt for the retainer, and then headed off. I wanted to question him more but Whiskey had called looking for him, so he needed to get back to the bar before his excuses ran out. We promised that if it ever came up, we’d tell Whiskey that Nickel had been out that day looking for Molly same as we were. It was sort of true. He’d been looking to find her killer, anyway, by hiring me.

  The back door had barely closed behind him when Gertie threw her hands in the air.

  “All that running and sweating and getting burned by metal and Nickel had her name all along,” Gertie said.

  “Don’t forget the bear,” Ida Belle said.

  “Or the giant rats,” I said. The nutria had still been the worst part of the day as far as I was concerned.

  “I think those nutria are going to be the least of your worries,” Ida Belle said.

  I blew out a breath. “Yeah, Carter isn’t going to be happy, but it is what it is. We both know that my work might overlap his. As long as I don’t break the law, it’s not his concern.”

  “Ha!” Gertie said. “If you didn’t break the law, Carter would hold a mirror in front of your mouth to see if you were still breathing.”

  “I attempt to follow the rules,” I said. “Sinful just makes it hard.”

  Gertie nodded. “That reasoning has been the primary defense in a lot of court proceedings.”

  “How’s it working out for people?” I asked.

  “Better than you might think,” Gertie said. “But I don’t know that you’re going to be able to pull off the uneducated fisherman routine as well as others.”

  “That might be a stretch,” I agreed and grabbed my cell phone. “Let me try this Angel and see if we can arrange to talk. I figure this is best done in person. I want to get a look at her face and how she acts.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “Hard to get a read on people you don’t know over the phone.”

  The call went to voice mail, so I left a message. Nickel had said Angel worked as a waitress so there was a good chance she was at work, it being well into dinner. Hopefully, she’d call me back by tomorrow morning and I could line up an interview.

  “I just can’t believe how all this turned out,” Gertie said. “Never in a million years would I come up with Nickel and Molly as friends.”

  “Me either,” I said. “It does make me wonder about something, though.”

  “What’s that?” Ida Belle asked.

  “Nickel telling Molly about Dexter hitting on other women,” I said. “I’m sure she knew he wasn’t making it up, so why keep that guy around?”

  “No idea,” Ida Belle said.

  “Maybe so she could whup up on him in that cage,” Gertie said. “He was mad as heck when we saw him at her house the other day. I bet given an opportunity, he’d return the favor.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But then we’ve only seen him twice and he was angry both times. For all we know, he might sing opera while petting kittens every night.”

  Gertie giggled. “Now there’s an image. You definitely have a way with tall tales. Another forty years or so, and you won’t be the newcomer anymore.”

  “Another forty years in Sinful and I’ll probably be locked in a padded room,” I said.

  “Well, what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Gertie asked.

  My cell phone signaled an incoming text and I frowned.

  “Looks like I’ll be filling Carter in on my new case,” I said. “The basics, at least. He’s on his way over now.”

  Ida Belle popped up. “That’s our cue. If he says anything about the van, tell him I meant what I said about making good on it. Seems even more important now if Ally really is inheriting the business.”

  “And see if you can find out if there was a will,” Gertie said. “And whether the blood on the anchor was Molly’s and how old it is. And if—”

  Ida Belle yanked Gertie’s arm. “Carter is two minutes away from this house and the last thing he wants to see right now is the three of us together.”

  “Fine, fine,” Gertie said. “But only old people have dinner and turn in at this hour.”

  “Well, it’s too late in life to make me into one of those bar whores,” Ida Belle said.

  “I have a good stereo system, plenty of wine and food, and we can talk about your honeymoon,” Gertie said.

  “Woman, no one is talking about my honeymoon. Not even me and Walter to each other.”

  I laughed as they headed out the back door, probably hoping to skirt the front of the house as Carter was walking in. Ida Belle was so done with wedding stuff I hoped she still showed up for the actual event. Carter called out from the front door and I told him I was in the kitchen. He had a key and could use it any time, but he persisted in the belief that warning an armed woman before entering her house was the right call. I was offended by his lack of trust at first until his mother told me he did the same thing at her house. Since I knew Carter had nothing but respect for Emmaline, I couldn’t exactly hold a grudge.

  He walked into the kitchen, his pace a bit slower than usual, and I could see the tired and sad in his expression. I pointed to the chair as I rose, and he slumped into it while I grabbed him a beer and a container of Ally’s cookies. He took a drink of the beer but barely glanced at the cookies. I
didn’t even have to ask. I already knew.

  “You talk to the DA yet?” I asked. The DA was young and enthusiastic, which was good, but sometimes all that enthusiasm was tough when you were a cop with few to no leads.

  “I tried to get away with an email,” he said, “but my phone rang about two seconds after I sent it.”

  “Murder cases are big feathers in DA hats,” I said. “I don’t suppose he’s planning on hanging out in a small area any longer than he has to. The more he can beef up his résumé beyond assault and poaching, the better.”

  “I know, but it still seems wrong to be so excited about other people’s loss, not to mention the victim. I mean, the funeral home benefits when people die but they don’t seem eager about it.”

  “Probably because they have no intention of pulling up stakes for a bigger market and the added benefit of not having to seek out business. The clientele is kind of built in. But I get your point. I’m really sorry about Molly. I only just met her yesterday but I liked her.”

  He nodded. “I only knew her from a couple events she catered. She wasn’t much on law enforcement, as you can imagine, but she allowed as how she’d heard I was one of ‘the good ones’ so she would probably let me eat without arm wrestling her for the privilege.”

  I laughed. “That sounds like her. And you’re lucky your reputation preceded you. You’re no lightweight but I’d put my money on Molly in an arm-wrestling match.”

  “So would I.”

  “Listen, I know your day sucked probably more than mine even, although you didn’t get chased by giant rats.”

  “I’d think the bear would have been a larger concern.”

  “I suppose in the bigger scheme of things, she was. But only if you’re assuming death is the bigger scheme.”

  “I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.”

  “Anyway, I know your day sucked and tomorrow’s probably not going to be any better, but I have to tell you something that’s not going to help.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then sighed. “You have a new case and it’s something I’m not going to like.”

  “We have the same case and it’s definitely not something you’ll like.”

  “What? Someone hired you to look into Molly’s death? Who? And we haven’t even announced that it was suspicious.”

  “You know I can’t tell you who, but let’s just say it’s someone who knew her better than we do and was already suspicious.”

  “If you know someone who has information about Molly’s disappearance, you can’t withhold it.”

  “My client doesn’t know anything about her disappearance except to believe it wasn’t an accident.”

  “And obviously they don’t think I can handle it. Is it that woman Molly called?”

  I stared silently at him.

  He sighed. “You’re right. I don’t like it.”

  “It’s not the first time and it’s not going to be the last time our jobs cross paths.”

  “Yeah, but this one is different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s too many unknowns. Molly, Dexter, the whole Ally inheriting thing, and just the way it all went down. Unexpected death always stinks but this one has a particularly foul odor to it. There’s so much undercurrent, I don’t know that there’s a bottom.”

  I nodded. On the surface, it didn’t seem difficult. A cheating louse of a boyfriend and a woman who’d already sent the last man who crossed her to the cemetery. Molly’s statement to her friend right before her demise. If this were a television episode, it would be a short one. The cops would round up the boyfriend, and because the criminal was always an idiot, he’d have left evidence that tied him to the crime, then they’d cut to the last scene where he confessed. On the surface, Dexter fit the bill. And maybe it was that simple. Heck, I hoped it was. Everyone who cared about Molly would still be sad and angry, but they’d be sad and angry with answers, and that was a world of difference.

  “Look, nothing about Sinful has been face value since I arrived,” I said. “Including me. And definitely nothing about my life prior to Sinful was face value, not even my personal life. If I was a regular everyday joe PI then I could see where you might be concerned about how I’d fare with a case like this, but that’s not me. I’m trained for subterfuge. Heck, it might even be in my DNA.”

  He still didn’t look happy but he couldn’t argue. The reality was, I was probably better equipped to handle the twists and turns that Sinful crime threw out than a lot of law enforcement officers who had grown up in the area. And I knew Carter had no issue with pride when it came to me solving a case before he did. Carter loved me but more importantly, he respected me and my skills. The only thing that had him frowning was worry. Would this be the time someone got the better of me? If things got sketchy, would he be able to intervene?

  Carter might have been more advanced than the small-town bayou norm on what he thought women were capable of, but when it came to his own woman, the desire to be the protector was in constant conflict with his desire to let me be me. I could appreciate his dilemma but it was something he was going to have to figure out. Still, I found his worry to be endearing and not suffocating. He loved me and wanted to keep me from harm but no way was he going to suggest I drop the case. That ranked as high as taking a bullet for me from a guy like Carter, who was the natural-born hero type.

  He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Be careful. I know I always say it and I always mean it, but something about this one bothers me.”

  “It’s a potential homicide. It’s supposed to bother you.”

  “I mean more than most. There’s something wrong with it. More wrong than usual.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  I nodded, completely understanding what he felt but couldn’t explain. People like Carter and me had instincts about certain things. And if he thought something was amiss, more than what was visible, then I’m sure he was right.

  “So we both watch our backs,” I said. “And you keep Deputy Breaux in the loop. No playing James Bond, loner spy.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “Oh, my back is always watched.”

  “I know. It’s the two watching it who worry me the most.”

  Chapter Ten

  Carter only stayed long enough to finish off my leftovers, then he headed home for a shower and some sleep. We’d both decided to reschedule steak grilling for a better night. Neither of us was much in the mood for talking and given we’d been at odds most of the day, I figured we could use a break. We didn’t spend every night together anyway and I was perfectly fine with that. I still needed my space and I assumed Carter felt the same way. Neither of us had been looking for a relationship when we’d met and although I don’t think either of us could have picked a better match, the reality was our relationship was going to be an ongoing negotiation, probably for the rest of our lives. Or at least until one of us retired.

  I actually slept decently for a change and even beat Merlin out of bed, which made him purr with excitement over the possibility of having breakfast a bit early. I indulged since he’d slept quietly rather than subjecting me to a night of pacing the halls or pouncing on threads on the comforter. As I put on coffee, I thought about Walter and Ida Belle. There was another relationship that was perfect and yet fraught with difficulty—mostly because of Ida Belle. Walter was the easiest-going man alive. And then I thought about Carter and me. Carter definitely was not the easiest-going man alive, or even second easiest. And I rivaled Ida Belle in stubbornness, so our future was likely to be even bumpier than Ida Belle and Walter’s.

  But it was still doable. And anything worth having was worth working for, right? Director Morrow always said that to me. He was talking about the job, of course, but I supposed it could apply to most anything in life. I was just sitting down to my first cup of coffee and a slice of toast when my cell phone rang. It was barely 8:00 a.m. so I
figured it was Ida Belle, Gertie, or Carter, but was surprised when I saw Angel Denis’s number come up on my display.

  “Hello,” I answered. “Ms. Denis?”

  “Please call me Angel. I hope I didn’t wake you. I’m taking some classes at the university and have to leave in a few minutes, but I didn’t want to wait until after…”

  “No worries. I was just having some coffee. Thank you for returning my call.”

  “So does this mean you took the case?”

  “Yes. And I’d love to talk to you and get more information. No one around here knew Molly all that well and I’m hoping you can fill in the blanks about her personal life.”

  “And that’s important?”

  “Unless a crime is random, who the victim is almost always indicates why they were killed.”

  “That makes sense.” Angel sniffed and I immediately felt guilty. I’d started right in on my desire for information and hadn’t even thought that this woman had just lost her best friend.

  “I’m really sorry for your loss,” I said. “I just met Molly a couple days ago but I liked her. I wish I’d gotten a chance to know her better.”

  “Thank you. Molly was…something else.” She let out a single laugh. “She was tough but kind and had worked hard to get her life together. I was proud of her and she was happy, for probably the first time since I’ve known her. This is all so unfair.”

  “It is. Do you have time today to talk to me? I can come to New Orleans if that makes it easier on you.”

  “That would be great. I only have an hour or so in between classes and my last one ends about two hours before my shift at the restaurant. I could talk to you in between classes or before I go to work.”

  “Let’s do it before you go to work. I don’t want to interrupt your studies.”

  And that would give me time to track down information on Molly’s father and Dexter Nutters, both of whom were in the New Orleans area. We could make a day of investigating in the city.

  “I really appreciate what you’re doing,” Angel said. “It’s important to me and Nickel. More important than you’ll ever know.”