Murder on the Sinful Express

by Shari Hearn

  Francine came over with our orders, chicken-fried steak for Gertie and fried oysters for me, and set them on the table. She leaned back slightly and scrutinized us.

  “Something wrong?” Gertie asked.

  Francine smiled. “You’re up to no good.”

  I shrugged. “We’re just having dinner.”

  “Uh-huh. Where’s Ida Belle?”

  “Sorry, but that’s on a need-to-know basis.” Gertie picked up her napkin and stuffed it in the collar of her blouse.

  “I hear you and the book club are investigating The Case of Anna and the Baked Potato.”

  I picked up my fork. “Any information you’d like to share?”

  She grabbed a chair from an empty table next to us and took a seat. “Now that you bring it up,” she said quietly. “Anna stopped in for lunch after the first day of your book club. I heard her making a few calls. You know I’m not one to snoop, but the way she was acting, all secretive-like, I couldn’t help listening. This is a restaurant, not her office, so I figure if I hear something she doesn’t want me to hear, it’s her own damn fault.

  “First call was a message she left on Mindy’s phone. She said something like, ‘Mindy, no one will believe you. Your letter will just come across as desperate. You’ll be a laughingstock.’ She said she was going to share it with the world. The next one was to Celia. I know because she said, ‘I put the screws to the little b-word, Mayor.’ She said Celia should have what she wanted soon.”

  Francine saw me eying the salt and gave me the stink eye. She continued, “Later, when I came to give Anna a refill of coffee, I heard her on the phone again. Caught her in midconversation, saying she wanted to see the newspapers for June, so I figured she was talking to the editor at The Sinful Times. She said it might be worth their while, because she was looking into something and could have a scoop. Or two. She emphasized ‘or two.’ She then hung up. I thought it was all rather peculiar.”

  Not that Francine was a snoop, mind you.

  Gertie picked up her fork. “Thanks, Francine. We’ll present it to the group. Did you want to be an anonymous source?”

  Francine shook her head. “Tell everyone it came from me. Maybe they’ll think twice before coming in here and yakking on the phone.” She stood. Looked at me. “I salt everything perfectly.”

  I waited until she had disappeared into the kitchen before giving my French fries a shake of salt. “What do you think Anna’s phone call was about?”

  “You came to Sinful in June. Could be about you.”

  “There was an article about me in the paper?”

  Gertie nodded. “You tossed your heels in the bayou. The editor didn’t take kindly to you polluting our waterways.”

  “Has the editor actually smelled your waterways?”

  Gertie waved me off.

  “What else happened around here in June?”

  Gertie took a bite of her chicken-fried steak and thought a moment. “Madigan was hired at the library in June. There was a little blurb about that in the paper.”

  “Anything about Mindy?”

  “Not that I recall. But I can get one of the Sinful Ladies to go to The Sinful Times office and find out.”

  Gertie’s phone rang. She checked the display and then picked up the call. She listened a moment. “Good. We’ll meet you at your house. I’ll have Francine whomp up a to-go box for you.” Gertie hung up. “Mindy also uses the same size foil squares. Ida Belle’s on her way to Anna’s to set up the video camera in her tree.”

  Hopefully the perpetrator would heed my warning about leaving evidence behind and go back to double-check when it was dark. That’s where the infrared, night-vision camera pointed toward Anna’s back door would come in handy. Anna’s property was private, with trees and thick bushes surrounding her yard, so there was plenty of cover for anyone wanting to break into her house. We’d be at Ida Belle’s, watching the feed on her computer screen.

  Gertie and I left Francine’s. I could see Mindy waiting by the tree for an informant who would never show. We rushed back to Ida Belle’s with an order of red beans and rice and alligator sausage. When we arrived, the laptop sitting on the dining table was displaying the camera feed.

  “By the way,” Ida Belle said, turning the laptop toward us, “I entered Anna’s house and checked out her foil situation. She uses the roll, not the sheets.”

  “So the foil definitely didn’t come from her house,” Gertie said as we took seats at the dining table. “Looks like Celia was right for once.”

  While Ida Belle ate, Gertie and I watched the laptop screen. It didn’t take long before we saw some action. A rustling of the bushes near the back gate.

  We expected to see either Madigan or Mindy creep around the corner of the house and come into view. Instead, we saw something much smaller.

  “Isn’t that Merlin?” Gertie asked, referring to my cat.

  “Looks like him.”

  “He really gets around.”

  We watched as he sauntered past the door. He stopped and looked straight at the camera, cocking his head.

  “What do you suppose he’s looking at?” Gertie asked.

  “Maybe the red glow of the infrared camera,” Ida Belle said between bites of sausage.

  Gertie leaned into the laptop. “I hope our perp doesn’t see the glow.”

  “It’s faint, and it’s up high. Cats have better vision. I don’t think our perp will notice.”

  “If she shows,” Gertie said. “Maybe the perp isn’t even in the book club. Maybe we’re wasting our time.”

  I kept my eyes on the screen. “All I know is there were some worried faces when I mentioned the part about leaving evidence behind. Even Celia’s face turned a little gassy.”

  “Celia’s face is always a little gassy,” Ida Belle said.

  We watched the screen as Merlin cautiously approached the tree, then moved out of the frame. After a few moments he reappeared, his face huge as he stuck his nose in front of the camera.

  “What’s he doing now?” Gertie asked.

  He reached his paw up and batted at the camera.

  “Oh crap, he thinks it’s a toy. I have a laser toy I use with him. He chases it all over the house.”

  He batted at the camera again, knocking it slightly to the right.

  “Hey,” Gertie said to the screen. “Stop that.”

  He batted it again, knocking the camera more to the right, reducing our view of the door.

  “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” Gertie said to the laptop.

  Merlin’s paw looked like the huge paw of a panther as it took another swipe at the camera. Our once-stationary scene was now replaced by a blurry jumble of branches as the camera tumbled through the tree, slamming into the grass.

  Gertie stood from the table and headed to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Ida Belle asked.

  “To go put the camera back in the tree.”

  “Let me finish dinner and I’ll go do it.”

  “Why? Because you think I’ll mess up?”

  “You do have a bad history with trees,” I said. “I’ll go put the camera back.”

  Gertie slapped a hand on her hip. “You both are treating me like I’m Hurricane Trixi. I think I can go put a camera in a tree without a major disaster.”

  She stormed out of the house. Ida Belle hopped up from her chair at the dining table.

  I motioned her to sit. “You continue eating. I’ll make sure she doesn’t break her neck.”

  Anna lived a couple blocks from Ida Belle, so it didn’t take long to walk to her house. We decided to enter the backyard from the east side of her property, the opposite end of the yard from the walkway leading to the back door. We didn’t want to risk running into our perp if she was in the process of entering or leaving.

  “I’ll give you a lift up and over the fence,” I told Gertie.

  She nodded toward a sycamore tree next to the fence. “Looks easier to climb the tree and drop over on the other
side.”

  Doubt must have filled my face. She frowned. “It’s a sycamore tree with low-hanging branches. I think I can handle it.” She pointed to one thick branch that went up and over the fence and dipped down on the other side. “Old Cookie in her wheelchair could zip over this thing.”

  Gertie chose one of the lowest-hanging branches and hoisted herself up, climbing one more level until she was on the branch that went up and over the fence. I followed as she shimmied along the thick branch and dropped the short distance to the ground.

  “I told you so,” she whispered as I joined her in the yard. “I think it’s time you and Ida Belle start giving me more credit.”

  We knelt on the ground and scanned the yard, looking for the red glow from the infrared camera. Anna’s house was elevated a couple of feet on pilings. I quickly spotted the camera several feet away under the house. “Right there,” I whispered, pointing to the red glow.

  But that wasn’t the only glow we saw.

  “Tell me those are Merlin’s eyes staring at us,” Gertie said.

  “Since Merlin’s eyes are green and those are glowing amber, I’d say no.”

  “But they are cats’ eyes, right?”

  The eyes blinked, but didn’t move.

  “Could be. I’m not sure.”

  “I’m thinking of a number between one and twenty-five,” Gertie said. “If you can guess within three numbers of what I’m thinking, I lose and I have to go get the camera. If you’re more than three numbers away, then I win and you have to go get the camera.”

  I stared at her. “Why don’t I pick the number?”

  “Are you saying I’d cheat?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  The sound of the gate opening on the west side of the property made us freeze.

  “Someone’s coming,” Gertie whispered. “We need to get it on film. I’m going in.”

  Gertie stuck her legs under the house as far as she could and pulled the camera toward us with her foot. We heard the screen door open and noises of someone fiddling with the lock.

  I grabbed the camera and scooted over to where I could get a good shot of the person trying to break in, but without being seen myself. It was Mindy, wearing a backpack. She held her phone and watched her screen a moment. She then used her phone as a flashlight and shone it on the doorknob. She turned the flashlight off and fiddled with her phone another moment, turning on a video.

  “Is she watching a YouTube video on how to break into houses?” Gertie whispered.

  “Looks like it,” I whispered back.

  She finally was able to open the door using a butter knife she retrieved from her backpack. She entered and couldn’t have been more than two minutes inside when she reappeared. She gently closed the door and left through the gate.

  We remained on the ground in silence for several minutes, waiting to leave until Mindy had time to clear the area.

  “Okay, I think it’s safe to go,” I said to Gertie.

  “Just a second.” She took the camera and turned it on herself. “Hello, this is Gertie Hebert, cofounder and vice president of the Sinful Ladies Society. At 9:45 PM, Mindy Swenson used a butter knife to break in and enter the back door of one Anna LeJeune.”

  Two sets of eyes appeared under the house. “We need to go.”

  Gertie waved me away. “The perp was in Anna’s house for approximately two minutes, leaving said premises at 9:47 PM.”

  A third pair of eyes were added to the group under the house. And they were moving toward us.

  “Didn’t Mindy say something about a problem with skunks this year?” I asked Gertie.

  “Fortune, please, I’m recording.” She smiled at the camera. “This is Gertie Hebert signing off with a message. Crime does not pay. Butter knives should be reserved for buttering your corn, not breaking into houses.”

  She propped the camera up against a sprinkler head, pointed toward the door. “We should continue filming in case Mindy comes back.”

  The three pairs of eyes made their way to the edge of the house. I could now see they were attached to skunk bodies. I started crawling slowly backward. From what little I knew about skunks, they were nearsighted, so if you eased out of a location without causing too much attention you were fine. Fast movement startled them. And the last thing you wanted to do with skunks was startle them, unless you wanted to be sprayed with skunk gunk.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Behind you,” I whispered, crawling back at a slightly faster clip toward the sycamore tree by the back fence. “Skunks.”

  “What?” She looked behind her and yelped.

  I heard a rustling by the oak tree and looked over. Another set of glowing amber eyes peered at us. Bigger eyes. Eyes that were higher up off the ground.

  Oh crap. The mama skunk.

  Gertie cursed. She saw it too.

  “Whatever you do,” I whispered. “Don’t scream.”

  The skunk babies came out from under the house. Gertie was smack dab in the middle between mama skunk and her babies. Never a great place to be.

  I had managed to back up within several yards of the sycamore tree. The mama skunk started spitting and growling. It was each woman for herself now. I stood and leapt for the sycamore, hauling my butt onto a branch and over the fence.

  Gertie’s shriek pierced the quiet evening. I gagged as I caught a whiff. I heard her running toward the tree.

  “Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”

  She scrambled over the branches before dropping on my side of the fence.

  “It got me!” she screamed, coming toward me with her arms and hands stretched out.

  “Stay away from me!” I yelled. “You’ll get it on me.”

  “Get it off! Get it off!”

  “I’ll meet you at Ida Belle’s,” I yelled to her as I took off running.

  I loved Ida Belle and Gertie. They’d become my family since I’d been forced to hide out in Sinful. But there was no way I was going down with the ship. I ran the two blocks to Ida Belle’s and found her waiting at her front door.

  “I have a hose, a few buckets and some hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap waiting out back,” she said. “What was she thinking screaming like that?”

  A minute later Gertie came barreling up Ida Belle’s walk, flailing her arms. “Shower! I need a shower!”

  “Oh dear Lord,” Ida Belle said, covering her nose with her arm. “Stop right where you are. You are not coming in my house without a wash down first.” She pointed to her back gate. “Backyard in that spot where the grass doesn’t grow. Gate’s open. Don’t touch anything.”

  Gertie rushed to the side of the house and through the opened gate.

  “And take your clothes off,” Ida Belle yelled to her as we followed. “We’ll need to bury them.”

  With our backs to her, we waited while Gertie stripped down to nothing.

  “Don’t anyone look,” she said.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” I answered with a hand over my nose. “I don’t need the nightmares.”

  A blouse whizzed inches past me. “Another snarky comment like that and you’ll have my skunky pants wrapped around your head.”

  “I hope Mindy cleared out by the time we left,” I said.

  “She lives around the corner in the opposite direction. Though she probably heard Gertie.”

  “I think my neighbors back in DC heard Gertie.”

  Gertie’s pants whizzed past, barely missing me.

  “Hopefully Mindy was focused on getting out of there and couldn’t place the voice.”

  “Incoming,” Gertie announced.

  Ida Belle leaned to the side as Gertie’s camo underwear flew past. “At least we have Mindy on film going in and out. It’s going to be hard for her to explain it away.”

  Gertie’s bra whizzed by and landed on her underwear.

  While Gertie gave herself several sponge baths of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and dish soap, Ida Belle and
I doused her clothing in the same mixture, then grabbed shovels and buried them.

  An hour and a few wash cycles later, Ida Belle directed Gertie to put on a heavy-duty, plastic trash bag that she’d cut with head and arm holes and follow a trail of plastic trash bags to her upstairs guest bath for yet another deskunking soak.

  I sniffed the air inside Ida Belle’s house. “That stuff really works. You should bottle it.”

  “I can’t. It’s good for bathing in, but it’s too volatile for storing. The baking soda and hydrogen peroxide will explode if capped up.”

  I tossed a glance upstairs. “Does Gertie know that?”

  “How do you think we found out?” She rolled her eyes. “Bones was always getting hit by skunks, so Gertie thought homemade deskunker would be a nice gift for Marge last Christmas. She bottled it up in a decorative jar and took it to Marge’s house on Christmas Eve. Damn thing blew up Marge’s tree and her Santa display. We were picking bits of angel hair and reindeer off the ceiling for weeks.”

  I nodded. “That explains the Santa head Merlin was playing with last week.”

  While Gertie was busy upstairs, Ida Belle and I sat at the dining table to continue watching the live video feed. We were treated to a surprise.

  “Is someone leaving Anna’s back door?” she asked.

  “Maybe Mindy forgot something.”

  Even with the night vision ability, it was hard to make out who was disappearing behind the bush next to the door and heading down the walk and out the gate.

  “Rewind the feed,” I told her. “See if we can get a good image of her face as she steps through the door.”

  She clicked the rewind icon and the live feed switched to the archival footage. The figure we had just seen disappearing behind the bush walked in reverse until Ida Belle froze the action just as the figure stepped outside the door and we could get a good look at her face.

  “Madigan.”

  Ida Belle rewound until she came to the spot where Madigan had first come into the camera’s frame. But it wasn’t from the side gate where we would have expected. Madigan popped from behind a tool shed in the corner of Anna’s yard.