by Jana DeLeon
Chapter Twenty-Three
After my phone call with Morrow, Carter headed out with a thermos of coffee and a sandwich bag of cookies. It wasn’t the best breakfast, and I’d even offered to cook him some eggs, but he’d said he’d grab something from the café later on. After he left, I knew I was in trouble. I wanted to clean something. I never wanted to clean anything unless I was avoiding something worse. In this case, thinking about the potential attack on world leaders and thinking about my father. I didn’t even have space left to not dwell on the whole Katia situation.
I had emptied the contents of the refrigerator onto the counters and was scrubbing the shelves when Ida Belle and Gertie made their way into the kitchen. They took one look at me and Gertie shook her head.
“She’s cleaning,” Gertie said. “This isn’t good.”
“Or she’s really, really hungry,” Ida Belle said, sifting through the goodies on the counter.
“Eat anything you want,” I said. “That was my plan. Then I have less to put back in the fridge.”
Gertie frowned. “Yeah, but I’ll be doing more laundry on all those new clothes I’d need if we ate all of this.”
“Your pants have elastic waist, don’t they?” Ida Belle asked.
“It’s not only about fitting into pants,” Gertie said. “It’s also about how I look in the nude.”
“God willing, no one is going to see you in the nude anytime soon,” Ida Belle said. “Now, grab a fork and dig in.”
“I guess it is months until bikini season,” Gertie said.
“It’s decades past bikini season for some of us,” Ida Belle said.
I finished up with my cleaning session, grabbed a fork and a pan of blackberry cobbler, and sat at the table with Ida Belle and Gertie.
“Is Carter still sleeping?” Gertie asked.
“No,” I said. “He came and went a little while ago. He’s hoping to catch a nap later today, but with everything going on, who knows.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Between the car explosion and Godzilla’s midnight snack, I’ll bet he’s used up all of his creativity brain cells.”
“Are they going to drag the bayou for the bodies?” Gertie asked.
I nodded. “The game warden is coming in with some men to help. They’ll do a surface search as well as a drag. What are the odds that they find anything?”
“Slim to none,” Ida Belle said. “Godzilla took that guy off to store for later. The one Carter shot would have been swept into the lake. After that, who knows where he could wind up. But it won’t take the critters long to pick the bones.”
Gertie nodded. “This is a really good place to hide a body.”
“Oh well,” I said. “We probably couldn’t have ID’d them anyway and ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who they were. We already know why they were here.”
“That’s two down last night and we’re not sure how many on the highway,” Ida Belle said. “You’d think they’d back off, right?”
“And they might,” I said. “I talked with Morrow this morning. He said my father was spotted in DC.”
“Do you think the right people heard the call?” Gertie asked, looking excited.
I nodded. “There’s no doubt in my mind that information has filtered back to all interested parties, including my admonition that while I’d dispatched a couple of bad guys, I hadn’t seen or heard from my father.”
“Do you think it’s enough to draw them off?” Ida Belle asked.
“I think it’s enough for them to back off at least,” I said. “If they revert back to observation only, then we only have to wait this out nine more days.”
“Lord, it’s like I’m five years old and waiting for Christmas Day,” Gertie said. “Nine days can’t pass soon enough.”
“And in a complete turn of events, Carter divulged some information on the Katia case,” I said. “Not much that we didn’t already know—Larry being intel and Katia’s company being under investigation—but he talked to some former neighbors and some of the women seemed to think things weren’t right in the house. One suggested that perhaps it was a domestic abuse situation. She said she recognized the look on Natalia’s face as she’d worn it herself for years.”
“That is interesting,” Ida Belle said. “And something we had already considered, but it holds more weight coming from others who probably had them under observation for longer than we have.”
“So what do we do?” Gertie said.
“I honestly have no idea,” I said. “I think this is the part where we have to do what the police do—sit and wait.”
“I’m horrible at sitting and waiting,” Gertie said.
“It’s not my strength either,” I agreed. “Unless, of course, I’m aiming.”
My cell phone rang. Mannie.
“How are things there?” he asked as soon as I answered.
“We had a little excitement last night,” I said, and gave him a summary of the Great Alligator Takedown.
“You know, just when I think things can’t get any stranger, you manage to top yourself.”
“Technically, that one’s all on Godzilla.”
“The fact that you’ve named an alligator is enough.”
“Good point,” I said.
“Please tell me your security camera captured all of it,” he said.
“It did and it was quite the show, which we enjoyed one viewing of before deleting. Having evidence around that would conflict with whatever Carter files in his report isn’t a good idea.”
He sighed. “You’re right, but I mourn the loss.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Did you see anything while roving around Sinful last night?”
“Apparently not the good stuff,” he said. “But I did see something odd. I went out to that motel to check in on our friend Fedorov. When I exited the highway, I saw a car getting on and I swear it looked like Larry Guillory driving.”
“Older-model white Accord?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“What time was that?”
“About nine thirty.”
I frowned. Not long after we’d left Phyllis’s house. But what would Larry want with Fedorov?
“Did you try out the laser?” Mannie asked.
“Yep. Used it on Larry and Natalia last night,” I said, and filled him in on the conversation.
When I was done, he whistled. “Looks like our friend Larry is in this up to his neck.”
“He’s definitely up to something. Did you find out anything on Fedorov?”
“Very little. He’s a Russian national and has worked for the company for fifteen years. Transferred to the New York office from Moscow ten years ago. Other than that, he’s a blank slate.”
“Amazing how many people who work for that company have an aversion to social media, right?”
“Any developments with your father?”
“According to Director Morrow, he’s been spotted in DC.”
“So maybe you’re off the hook.”
“I hope so. That alligator can only hold so many bad guys.”
He chuckled. “I’ll check in later. Tell Ida Belle her guest accommodations are excellent and I appreciate the loan.”
I repeated Mannie’s conversation and Gertie shook her head.
“We should have stuck around Larry’s house last night and followed him,” she said.
“Don’t you think he would have noticed?” Ida Belle asked. “Not much traffic around here that time of night. And even less exiting the highway for that hotel. Heck, Larry already thinks we were spying on him and he didn’t seem all that stable last night. If he caught sight of us following him, no telling what he’d do.”
“She’s right,” I said. “Larry is hostile and a potential killer. We can’t follow here like we can in a city.”
“We need those trackers like what was on Ida Belle’s car,” Gertie said. “Then we could follow people.”
“You need to know who you’re following and the time a
nd ability to get the tracker on the car,” I said. “I doubt we could have managed the installation on Larry’s vehicle. Not with that security camera up front.”
“Then let’s be proactive,” Gertie said. “Let’s just put a tracker on everyone in Sinful. That way, when someone is doing a dirty later on, we’re ready.”
Ida Belle and I stared at her.
“Yeah, that’s a little too Cold War Russia for me,” I said.
“It’s too everything for me,” Ida Belle said.
“Well, we have to do something about Larry,” Gertie said. “Why would he be going to see Fedorov if they weren’t in cahoots?”
I frowned. “That’s a good question.”
I grabbed my phone and called the motel, then asked for Fedorov.
“I’ve been calling him since yesterday and he doesn’t answer, but I’m sure he was staying there. Can you call his room?”
The clerk did so and came back on the line.
“I’m sorry, but he’s not answering,” he said.
“Look, I know this is asking a lot, but could you send someone to check his room? He’s a diabetic and he never remembers to take his meds. He missed a very important appointment this morning and I’m afraid something is wrong.”
“Lady, I don’t get paid to babysit.”
“I guess I could send the police. They’ll break down the door, of course, and sometimes they notice other things when they’re on a call…”
“Let me get my keys. What’s your number?”
I gave him my number and disconnected.
“I guess we’re in the sitting and waiting mode again,” Gertie said, and sighed. “This detective work isn’t nearly as exciting as it looks on TV.”
“Nothing is as exciting as it looks on TV,” Ida Belle said. “That’s why it’s fiction.”
Ten minutes later my cell phone rang and I could barely make out what the clerk was trying to say because of his breathing. Finally, he managed a coherent statement.
“Your friend is dead!”
“Oh no! Are you sure? Did you call for an ambulance?”
“Look, lady, I’m not doctor but there’s a bullet hole right through the middle of his head. That’s dead and no ambulance is going to fix it. What the hell do I do?”
“Call the police,” I said. “Make sure no one else goes in the room and write down everything you touched when you went in.”
“Yeah, yeah…I can do that.”
The call disconnected and I looked at Ida Belle’s and Gertie’s shocked faces. They’d been able to hear everything.
“Dead?” Gertie said. “Larry must have killed him. But why?”
I shook my head. “Maybe because Fedorov knew Larry had killed Katia?”
“But if Katia had gone rogue and Fedorov was sent to deal with her, why would he care if Larry did the dirty work?”
“He wouldn’t,” I said. “And he wouldn’t let on that he knew about it, either.”
“Which means Larry must have seen Fedorov in Sinful sometime that night,” Ida Belle said.
“And Fedorov saw him,” I said. “If Larry thought there was any chance Fedorov knew he’d killed Katia, he couldn’t afford to let him leave and tell what he saw.”
It sounded right but felt wrong. But I couldn’t figure out why.
Ida Belle’s phone rang and she cringed. “It’s Phyllis.”
“Answer,” I said. “You can ask her about Larry’s movements last night.”
Ida Belle answered but couldn’t even get a word past hello in before Phyllis started shouting.
“I could hear them screaming,” she said. “Then there was a loud crash and she ran out of the house and tore out of here like a crazy woman. Then Larry comes out of the house a couple minutes later, blood all over his face! He got in his car and drove off after her. He’s going to kill her! I knew it. She found out about—”
Ida Belle hung up and we all jumped up from the table.
“We have to find Natalia before Larry does,” I said.
“But we have no idea where she’s going,” Gertie said.
“She’s in a car,” I said as we jumped into Ida Belle’s SUV. “And there’s only one way out of Sinful. Head for the highway.”
Ida Belle tore through downtown, collecting a couple of dirty looks and the finger as she blew by, but as far as I was concerned, there were no casualties so no harm, no foul. We hit the highway and I grabbed the binoculars but couldn’t spot Natalia’s car anywhere.
“Keep driving,” I said. “She can’t be that far ahead.”
I pulled out my cell phone and called Carter but it went to voice mail. I cursed and left a message but I couldn’t give him any more information than what we had. I looked again and spotted a car that might be Natalia’s several miles up the road.
“There!” I said.
Natalia was pushing her econobox to the limit but it was no match for warp speed on Ida Belle’s SUV. I stopped looking when the speedometer passed 130 and just prayed that none of the local wildlife chose that moment to cross the road. I scanned the highway again for Larry’s car but didn’t see it.
“She’s turning off,” I said, and pointed as Natalia’s car barreled off the highway and onto the service road, kicking up grass as she ran off the exit lane a bit.
“Where the heck is she going?” Gertie asked.
“I thought you could tell me,” I said as I texted the exit number to Carter. “What’s that way?”
“A couple of camps and an old marina,” Ida Belle said.
“Escape by boat,” I said. “That’s the best bet in these parts. Hard to follow if you don’t have one and hard to find if you don’t know those channels like the back of your hand.”
“You can bet Larry doesn’t know them at all,” Gertie said. “I’ve never even heard him mention fishing.”
“Where is Larry?” Ida Belle asked as she took the exit. “I figured he would be right behind her.”
A thought occurred to me and I turned around with my binoculars just in time to see Larry’s car come over a rise in the highway.
“He doesn’t have to keep up,” I said. “He’s got a tracker on her car. That’s why he didn’t go after her last night.”
“You think so?” Gertie asked.
“If he takes this exit we’ll know for sure,” I said. “No way he had a visual on her when she left the highway.”
“Well, he didn’t count on us being in between,” Ida Belle said. “At least we’ll be able to get to her before he does.”
“And then what?” Gertie said. “Do we hold him off until she gets away?”
“Seems like the best plan,” I said.
Ida Belle turned onto the road Natalia had used and we bumped along the dirt and weed path.
“The turnoff for the marina is just ahead,” Ida Belle said. “But I don’t see Natalia’s car anywhere. And everything’s so dry I can’t tell which way she went.”
“Do the camps down here have docks?” I asked.
“Probably,” Ida Belle said. “I haven’t been down these channels in a while though. I have no idea what kind of shape they’d be in. For that matter, I don’t know that the marina is functional either.”
“I fish this way sometimes,” Gertie said. “There’s docks at all of them. They’re rickety but they exist. All Natalia needs is deep enough water and a place to jump in from. It’s not likely she has designer luggage to worry about.”
“Take the turn for the marina,” I said, praying that I was making the right decision.
Ida Belle hung a hard right and Gertie and I held on tight. A couple minutes later, she slid to a stop in a small clearing in front of the bayou. Several dilapidated piers stretched out along the bayou. But there was no sign of a boat or Natalia.
“She must be using one of the camps,” Ida Belle said as she turned around and headed back for the road.
“I hope Larry hasn’t caught up with us,” Gertie said, echoing my thoughts.
My phone r
ang and I checked the display, hoping it was Carter, but it was the nurse who’d taken care of Natalia after her attack. I braced myself to keep from bouncing and answered the call.
“Ms. Redding, this is Gilda Jackson. You had some questions about Natalia Guillory?”
“Yes, Ms. Jackson. Thanks so much for calling me back.”
“Is this a good time?” she asked. “You sound a little strained and it’s a bit loud.”
“This is fine,” I said. “My friend’s vehicle has a loud engine is all. But I’m not driving so I’m okay to talk.”
“I’m not sure you’re okay to ride,” Gertie said as we hit a large hole in the road and both went flying off our seats.
“I just wanted to know if you observed anything odd while you were caring for Natalia,” I said. “I’m a private detective and there’s some question as to whether the attack on her and her sister was random or not.”
“You think someone was after her?”
“Yeah, pretty sure.” Especially as we’re hoping to keep him from killing her right now.
“That’s horrible,” Gilda said. “I do remember the girls. Hard not to, such pretty young women and an awful tragedy like that. We lost the sister before we could even get her to surgery. There was so much blood we couldn’t even tell how bad off they were until we removed the hair. But the sister’s gash was so deep that she’d lost too much blood. That poor woman fell apart when she found out her sister hadn’t made it. Then her memory being off—I really felt for her and her husband. I can’t imagine waking up one day and not knowing my family or having one of my family wake up and not know me. It was hard all the way around.”
When you’re nearing the end, always go back to the beginning.
I sucked in a breath as Gilda’s words registered and then everything lined up, just like a winning pull on a casino slot. But surely, that couldn’t be? Could it? But it was the only thing that made sense.
“Gilda, I’m so sorry, but we’re having some car trouble and I’m going to have to call you back.”
I disconnected and made a mental note that I owed the poor woman a call and an explanation as soon as this was over. I hoped that explanation didn’t include another body.