by Jana DeLeon
In Sinful.
It didn’t exactly add up.
“I know you don’t like cops,” I said, “and I can appreciate that. But you don’t really think Carter will arrest you without good reason, do you?”
He shrugged. “Carter’s all right. He’s always played things fair as far as I can tell. But it’s not up to him, is it? Carter gathers information. The DA decides whether or not to file charges. And with my record, how do you think that’s going to pan out for me?”
“Maybe not good.”
“Exactly. You know my situation. Even if they can’t make anything stick, I don’t have the money for bail. Not for a murder rap, and that’s assuming the judge would even set bail. And if I’m locked up, then so is the bar, which means no money coming in and no one to take care of my pops.”
“What about Nickel?” In addition to being Whiskey’s brother, Nickel was co-owner of the bar.
“Nickel’s doing two months on a probation violation. Again.”
I blew out a breath. Whiskey’s situation was fairly grim. With his prior record and his threat against Venus the night she disappeared, he was a prime candidate for the DA to target. Whiskey’s father had cancer and needed the money and care his son provided. Locking Whiskey up might mean an actual death sentence for his father.
“I got money to pay you,” Whiskey said. “I ain’t asking for nothing for free.”
“It’s not about the money,” I said.
“You’re not worried about pissing Carter off, are you? Because you didn’t strike me as the type to care what no one else thought.”
“That’s fairly accurate. But it’s not the reason for my hesitation. I guess I’m afraid to take the case because a lot is riding on it and I might fail.”
“Then all we can say is we gave it our best shot. Those two ladies you run around with know most of what goes on in this town and probably suspect a lot of what they don’t see outright. And I figure with your background, you won’t shy away from trying to corner a killer. That’s as good a bet as I can make.”
“You promise you won’t shoot me if I don’t figure out who killed her?”
He smiled. “I know your type. You’re like a dog with a bone. If you can’t figure it out, then no one’s going to. And no way would I pull a gun on you unless I’m a good hundred yards away and your back is turned.”
“Okay, then consider yourself a client.” I reached across the table and extended my hand and he shook it. “I’ll put together a contract for you to sign and figure out a retainer. I can drop by the bar with it tomorrow, if you want.”
“Sounds good.” He rose from the table. “I’m sorry about the creeping around. Probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done given your former profession.”
“Probably not the smartest thing to do given that this is Louisiana and most people are armed to the hilt.”
He grinned. “That too. I’ll see you tomorrow. And thanks for doing this.”
“No problem. Oh, and Whiskey? You’re not the last person to see Venus that night.”
“I’m not?”
I shook my head. “Whoever killed her was.”
Chapter Eight
I jumped out of bed the next morning, practically giddy. I even hummed while I was making coffee. Then I felt just a tad guilty because my happiness centered on my new case, which centered on an innocent man potentially being brought up on a murder charge. The guilt, however, was temporary and then I was back to humming.
After Whiskey had left, I’d showered and gone to bed, but I hadn’t slept. Instead, I’d rolled around questions and scenarios and wild thoughts for hours before finally drifting off. But the one thing I’d decided I was set on was Whiskey’s innocence. Not that I didn’t think he was capable of throttling someone to death—especially someone who dipped into the till, his wallet, the bar’s inventory, and a customer’s pants—but I simply couldn’t picture him killing a woman. It was quite sexist of me, but I had a feeling that despite hiring me, Whiskey wasn’t exactly the most progressive male in Sinful.
And why would he hire me if he’d done it? There was no way he’d be clever enough to cover it up. His past arrests were a testament to his inability to avoid detection. And those were for relatively minor things like poaching. No way had his IQ jumped up ten points just because his girlfriend went fishing in another man’s pants.
On paper, Whiskey looked good for it, but that’s where it ended. At least, that’s where it ended for me. The DA was a whole other story. I had a feeling that his take would be a lot different from mine, which meant the first order of business was to find another suspect. It might not prevent the DA from filing charges, but it could buy a delay. Any delay allowed us more time to get to the truth.
Once the coffee finished, I took the entire pot into my office, along with a stack of cookies. Breakfast wasn’t for two more hours and no way I was going to make it until then. I’d just scarf down the cookies and coffee while drawing up the contract, and then I’d have a jog to work them off before I headed to the café to load up on something that would almost certainly require another round of jogging.
I made it to the café at 8:59, paperwork on my passenger seat and jog complete. I couldn’t wait to tell Ida Belle and Gertie that we had a case. They were already inside, occupying our usual table in the back corner. Ally waved at me as I walked in, and then she headed for the kitchen. She knew what we all drank, so the only thing she needed from us was the breakfast order, which varied some depending on café specials and our general mood. I varied mine some based on the amount of exercise I’d done, but as I’d put in three miles this morning, I felt an order of blueberry pancakes was in my immediate future.
Ida Belle and Gertie both greeted me as I sat and I gave them both a once-over. Ida Belle didn’t look quite as tense as she’d been the day before, but Gertie looked a wreck. She’d rolled her hair but hadn’t made it all the way around picking it out. Two giant rollers remained on the back of her head. She’d put green eye shadow on one eye and blue on the other, which would work fine in a café in New Orleans but stuck out a little in Sinful.
Ida Belle caught my glance and waved a hand. “Don’t bother. I’ve already told her and she refuses to wipe it off.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to get it on in the first place?” Gertie asked.
“Why is that?” I asked. “You look like you fought a war last night.”
“If it was War of the Words, then I did,” Gertie said.
“Was Francis feeling chatty?” I asked.
“That bird started quoting Bible verses at midnight. I swear, he knows more of them than I do. And at the end of every one, he does this huge squawking ‘amen.’ I’d barely manage to doze off, then scramble back up thinking I fell asleep in church.”
“Surely he didn’t do that all night,” I said.
She shook her head. “When he ran out of verses, he started preaching…in Latin. He also knows a ton of hymns. He can’t carry a tune though.”
I grinned. “Maybe he’s just going for the ‘make a joyful noise’ thing.”
“Nothing about a bird singing at 3:00 a.m. is joyful,” Gertie said.
“I told you that bird was a bad idea,” Ida Belle said.
“Did you cover his cage before you went to bed?” I asked.
“No,” Gertie said. “I turned out the lights. It was plenty dark.”
“Not dark enough for an animal that belongs in a jungle,” I said. “Jungles don’t have red lights on alarms and street light trickling through blinds. Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s pitch-black.”
Gertie’s eyes widened. “You’ve been in a jungle at night?”
“It was work related,” I said.
“Ah,” Gertie said. “So tossing a blanket over his cage will keep him from evangelizing all night?”
“I can’t make any promises,” I said. “But it certainly wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.”
“I’ll get my darkest, heaviest blanket,” Gert
ie said. “And leave it open in the back for air flow.”
“Did you see much wildlife when you were on your business trip?” Ida Belle asked.
“A ton,” I said. “But when you’re alone and on foot, it’s a bit scarier than sitting in one of those Hummers and looking at everything through thick glass.”
“At least you were armed,” Gertie said.
“Yeah, but I was also supposed to be silent,” I said. “Shooting before you’re supposed to tends to draw attention. I walked right up on a den of tigers one night. Thank goodness, they’d just finished devouring something huge. I think they were all half asleep and too lazy to move.”
“Wow,” Gertie said. “That’s so cool. I mean, in a could-have-gone-horribly-wrong sort of way. You never told us you’d been anywhere but the Middle East.”
“Because she’s not supposed to tell us anything at all,” Ida Belle said.
“It was just the one trip,” I said. “Sometimes odd allegiances are formed among certain people. A road trip can offer up a two-for-one.”
Ally slid coffee in front of all of us and gave us a huge smile. “It’s great to see you ladies this morning. Gertie, I’m sorry about your turkey getting away. I wish I could have seen it but we were short at the café and I couldn’t ask off.”
“It worked out much better for the turkey,” Gertie said. “He didn’t have to face Ida Belle.”
Ally’s smile faded. “Probably also good because that whole other thing wouldn’t have come to light if you hadn’t pushed over that basketball goal.”
“I assume Venus is the big topic of the morning,” Ida Belle said.
Ally nodded. “People aren’t talking about much else.”
“And what are they saying?” I asked.
“That Venus was bound to come to a bad end with the choices she was making,” Ally said. “That there’s no shortage of people that she ripped off, lied to, or otherwise put in the red.”
“And since the leopard doesn’t change its spots,” Ida Belle said, “I’m sure she took her show to New Orleans and collected a number there as well.”
Ally’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t even thought about that. Maybe someone followed her here. Maybe it’s not…you know.”
I nodded. We got it. Ally didn’t want the killer to be a local.
“Well, ladies,” Ally said, forcing a smile again. “The special today is a four-cheese quiche. Until they’re gone.”
Ida Belle raised an eyebrow. “Fancy.”
Ally blushed a bit. “It was my idea. I’ve been playing around with them some. I mean, if I ever get my bakery going, I figure it’s a good idea to offer something with a little protein in it. People can’t live off muffins and croissants alone.”
“Speak for yourself,” Gertie said.
“I’ll try the quiche,” I said.
“I figured you’d go for the blueberry pancakes with all that jogging you did this morning,” Ida Belle said. “Saw you pass my house three times.”
I grinned. “I’m getting those too.”
“I’ll try the quiche as well,” Gertie said. “And a slice of banana nut bread.”
“I’ll have biscuits and gravy,” Ida Belle said.
Ally took the orders down, flashed us a final smile, and hurried back to the kitchen.
Ida Belle looked over at me as I dumped sugar and cream into my coffee. Might as well live it up.
“You look peppy this morning,” Ida Belle said. “I guess you got a full eight hours.”
“Not even close,” I said. “I had a late-night visitor and then I couldn’t sleep.”
Gertie grinned. “I don’t think sleep is the point of a booty call.”
“It wasn’t Carter,” I said.
Gertie’s eyes widened. “You had another guy sniffing around?”
“In a manner of speaking,” I said. “And he was interested in my services but only in a business capacity.”
I told them about Whiskey’s visit.
Gertie was practically bouncing in her seat before I finished. If she’d been capable of doing cartwheels, I’m pretty sure she would have done a round right there in the middle of the café.
“We have a case,” she said gleefully.
Ida Belle had perked up a little at the introduction of a case, but she looked a bit more reserved about the prospect than Gertie.
“You think it was a good idea to take the job?” I asked her.
“If you’re asking me if I think Whiskey killed Venus, then the answer no,” Ida Belle said.
“Why not?” Gertie said. “He’s capable. I believe he’s capable, anyway.”
“I have no doubt that he’s capable,” Ida Belle said. “But if Whiskey had done it, he’d have weighted the body and dumped it in the bayou. He wouldn’t have left it at a construction site, hoping no one poked around in the dirt before pouring the concrete.”
“That’s a really good point,” I said. “I think most people around here would know that a bayou dump is the way to go.”
“So you think it’s someone from New Orleans,” Gertie said.
“Or someone who didn’t have access to a boat,” I said. “Or didn’t have the physical ability to haul a body around that way.”
“Or someone who didn’t have the time to do things right,” Ida Belle said. “The construction site could have been the easy and most efficient option, even though the risk of discovery was greater.”
“So maybe someone who would have been missed,” I said. “Especially as it was the middle of the night.”
Gertie sighed. “That puts us right back to everyone as a suspect.”
“Except Whiskey,” Ida Belle said. “He had the time, the knowledge, and the physical ability to do it right and I have no doubt that if he ever does kill someone, that’s exactly how he’ll handle it.”
“So we all agree he’s good as a client?” I asked.
They both nodded and Ida Belle frowned.
“Hiring you might have been the smartest thing he’s done in years,” Ida Belle said. “When the DA gets a look at him on paper, he’s going to salivate.”
“Yeah, I figured,” I said. “On paper, he’s the perfect fit.”
“Carter won’t let them railroad the wrong man,” Gertie said.
“Carter only has so much control,” Ida Belle said. “Carter investigates, but the DA is the one who pulls the trigger.”
“He does seem to have an itchy trigger finger,” Gertie said. “So what’s our first step?”
“Find another suspect,” I said. “Or several suspects. We need to create enough doubt that the DA can’t focus on Whiskey without a good defense attorney presenting other viable options.”
“Where do we start?” Gertie asked.
“We need to create a profile for Venus,” I said. “Which I see as two parts. The first is figuring out everything she was up to in Sinful. The second part is finding out why she came back.”
Gertie clapped. “Road trip!”
“Sinful first,” I said. “Then we’ll tackle New Orleans.”
“What do you need from us?” Ida Belle asked.
“A list of people to start with,” I said. “Anyone that Venus had dealings with after she came back. And anyone who knew her reasonably well. I need insight as to what made her tick so we can figure out what kind of scams she might have been running.”
Ida Belle nodded. “She wasn’t what you’d call close to people, and it’s going to be harder to get some of them to talk straight now that she’s dead. But we can probably get a few to offer up the ugly truth. I suppose we have to start with Percy.”
“Taking into account opportunity, he’s the first potential suspect on my list,” I said. “And given the situation with Gertie’s locket, I don’t figure we’ll have to dig too deep to come up with motive.”
“You don’t really think he’d kill his own daughter for hocking his stereo equipment or something, do you?” Gertie asked.
“Sometimes it’s not the last th
ing that a person did,” I said. “It’s the culmination of all the crap they’ve done. The stereo, or whatever, is simply the final straw.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Given the choice of body placement, this doesn’t strike me as a premeditated sort of thing. Seems more like something done in a rage and then the killer had to scramble to cover it up.”
“I agree,” I said. “Which is both good and bad. Good in that it shoves the door to the suspect list wide open. Bad in that narrowing down that list to people that a defense attorney could make a doubt stance on is going to take a lot of legwork.”
“My legs needed work anyway,” Gertie said.
“I’ve got to drop off the paperwork to Whiskey after breakfast,” I said. “Maybe you two can put your heads together and tap into your sources and put together a list of people to start looking at.”
“And I’ll pull out a casserole and get it ready for a visit with Percy,” Gertie said.
I lifted my coffee mug in the air. “To our first official case.”
Gertie nodded. “Hopefully, our client won’t go to prison.”
“Maybe you should put that on the business cards,” Ida Belle said drily.
“If we do, we should leave out the ‘hopefully,’” Gertie said.
“There might be a legal problem with that if we fail to deliver,” Ida Belle said.
“Please,” Gertie said. “We always deliver.”
“Speaking of delivery,” Ida Belle said, “when are you going to deliver the news of your client to Carter?”
I grimaced. “I guess I should do that before I head over to the Swamp Bar, right?”
“Carter needs to put on his big-boy panties,” Gertie said. “This is bound to happen again.”
“Are you volunteering to speak to him about his undergarments?” Ida Belle asked.
“Heck no,” Gertie said. “The only woman that needs to speak to a man about his personals in the woman he’s sharing a bed with.”
Ida Belle looked at me and grinned. “Looks like the panty discussion is all on you.”
“And I’m really looking forward to it,” I said as I rolled my eyes. “This time and every time in the future.”
