by Jana DeLeon
“That’s breaking and entering,” Ida Belle said.
“Technically, I wouldn’t have to break anything,” I said. “She wouldn’t even know we were here.”
“What if she comes back while we’re inside?” Ida Belle said. “The only window is the one next to the front door.”
“True,” I said. “But there’s only one entrance into the hotel parking lot. Gertie, head around front and watch the entrance. There’s a breezeway two rooms up that you can use. If you see Starlight’s car turn in, call and we’ll get the heck out.”
“Why do I have to stand up front and watch for the car?” Gertie said. “I want to not break and enter too.”
“Because we might have to run,” I said. “We don’t just have to get out of the room. We have to get far enough away that Starlight can’t recognize us. And we can’t leave Ida Belle’s SUV parked close, either, because she might recognize it from Percy’s house.”
“Fine,” Gertie said. “I’m a little sore from chasing that turkey anyway.”
She set off for the front of the motel and Ida Belle moved her SUV to the back of the parking lot behind a panel van. By the time Ida Belle got back, Gertie texted me that she was around the building and the entrance was clear.
We donned latex gloves and I made such quick work of the door with a credit card that Ida Belle shook her head in dismay. We stepped inside and closed the door behind us. The shades were drawn, making the aging room so dark we couldn’t see. I felt around on the wall and found the light switch. The dim lighting wasn’t much better but at least we wouldn’t trip over anything.
“Not much of a housekeeper,” I said. I thought I was messy, but Starlight had managed to make a motel room she’d occupied for a day look as though she’d been hosting frat parties for a month. Every flat surface contained a beer can. The bed was unmade and clothes were scattered across it and the floor. Bras hung from the knobs of the dresser. The sink in the bathroom had a layer of makeup dust on it so thick it would probably take a sandblaster to get it off.
“You know,” Ida Belle said as she lifted a corset to get a look at what was on the desk underneath it, “there are times when these gloves serve a much bigger purpose than not leaving prints.”
I kicked a pair of panties off a box on the floor and grimaced. “Definitely.”
I flipped back the covers of the bed and frowned. “Here’s something I didn’t expect,” I said as I lifted an iPad. “I didn’t take Starlight for the tech type.”
I pressed the button to wake it up and was surprised to see no password was required.
“Guess she’s not the tech type,” Ida Belle said. “I think you’ve discovered her main use for the tablet.”
A video of hot naked men filled the screen, the Play button just waiting for someone to press it. “Gross,” I said, and flipped to the main screen. “Let’s see if she has this linked to her phone.”
I accessed messages and smiled. “Bingo.”
Ida Belle leaned in and we scrolled through the messages until we found a number assigned to someone called Catfish.
“Bet that’s her biker dude,” Ida Belle said. “Doesn’t look like she ever deletes anything either.”
“First, I’ll go back to May, when Venus arrived in Sinful,” I said, and scanned the messages until I found what we were looking for.
Catfish: Did you find that little bitch?
Starlight: The Florida motel was a dead end. No one here has seen her.
Catfish: Then look somewhere else.
Starlight: Do you know how many motels are in Miami?
Catfish: Do you think I give a shit? She’s a problem and I don’t have to remind you that she’s YOUR problem.
Starlight: Don’t you think if she had anything, she would have already asked for money?
Catfish: I’m not waiting around to find out. Find her now. So I can make her disappear for real.
“Well, that’s direct enough,” Ida Belle said.
“Why Miami, I wonder?”
“To lead them in the wrong direction? The last place Starlight would assume Venus would go is back to Sinful, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to hedge her bets.”
I scrolled through more messages. “Looks like Starlight struck out in Miami and got called back to New Orleans. Look!” I pointed to a message from May. “She found her!”
Starlight: Got a call from an old friend. Said she’s working at a bar in Sinful.
Catfish: Thought you said she wouldn’t go there.
Starlight: Never figured she would.
Catfish: Get there now and make sure.
Starlight: And if she is?
Catfish: I’ll take it from there.
I scrolled through the rest of the posts, but there was nothing that made reference to Venus or Sinful. I flipped over to location history and scanned the dates.
“She was here,” I said. “Two days before Venus was killed. Would Starlight know about Nickel’s camp?”
“Rumor has it she took a tumble with him for a bit. Wouldn’t surprise me if they used the camp.”
“What did Venus have that was worth killing her over?” I asked. “It was clear in these messages that Catfish wanted her dead.”
“Drugs? Weapons? Who knows?”
My cell phone rang and we both gave a start.
Gertie!
“She just turned in the parking lot and she’s hauling booty,” Gertie said. “Get the heck out of there.”
I tossed the iPad back on the bed and flung the covers over it, then bolted out the door behind Ida Belle, who’d already taken off. I paused only long enough to turn the cheap doorknob lock and pull the door shut behind me, then I sprinted for the back of the parking lot where Ida Belle had secured her SUV. When we climbed inside the vehicle, I saw Starlight entering her room.
“At least she’ll never notice we were there,” Ida Belle said. “Not with that mess. Do you still want to talk to her?”
I shook my head. “No. She’ll just tell more lies. We know more than we would have ever gotten out of her. She wouldn’t buy the Southern sympathy requirement like Percy so no use tipping our hand.”
Ida Belle nodded and pulled away. As she began to round the end of the motel, I glanced into the passenger-side mirror and saw Starlight rush out of her motel room and jump in her car.
“Crap!” I yelled. “She’s coming! Get out of here before she sees your vehicle.”
Ida Belle punched the gas and we slid out of the corner and shot off into the front parking lot. I managed to dial Gertie during the mad dash and yelled “Hide” before Ida Belle slammed on the brakes behind two huge pickup trucks. My phone flew out of my hand and hit the dashboard.
“Where’s Gertie?” I asked as I straightened myself out.
“There!” Ida Belle pointed. “Running from the entry.”
Gertie must have headed for the entry to wait on us, but unfortunately, it offered no place to hide. No pretty brick columns. No trees. Not even a skinny bush. So now, she was running for the front of the motel. I looked over to the right and saw Starlight’s car rounding the corner of the building. Gertie must have seen it too. A man who’d exited the office climbed into his car, and a second later, Gertie opened the passenger door and dived inside. Starlight went flying by and squealed out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.
“She jumped in the car with a strange man,” Ida Belle said, incredulous.
“She improvised,” I said.
“That guy could be a serial killer,” Ida Belle said. “Oh my God! He’s pulling away!”
Chapter Seventeen
“Holy crap!” I yelled as the car pulled out of the parking space and took off toward the rear of the motel. Ida Belle put her SUV in Reverse and floored it, launching me forward into the dash. I pushed myself back in my seat and pulled out my pistol as she made the turn backward out of the row of cars, then put the SUV in Drive and punched it again.
We rounded the corner of the motel
and I pointed at the car disappearing around the back row. “There!”
Ida Belle whirled around the corner, took off for the other car, passed it completely, then did a sliding stop right in front of it. I jumped out and ran to the front of the car, my pistol trained on the guy inside. Gertie climbed out of the vehicle, looking more than a little stressed.
“Are you crazy?” she yelled at the driver.
I motioned for him to exit the vehicle and he slowly climbed out, his hands over his head.
Fiftyish. Five foot seven. A hundred eighty pounds. A lot of scar tissue. Might have wet himself.
“Are you cops?” he asked, his voice cracking. “I swear I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
“You took off with this woman in your car,” I said, lowering my pistol.
“I didn’t take anyone off my car,” he said. “She was in it.”
“He thought I was propositioning him,” Gertie said. “Just because I jumped in his car and then knelt down on the floorboard.”
I raised one eyebrow.
“She’s not a hooker,” I said to the guy.
“So she’s not a looker,” he said. “I’m not that picky. Is that a crime?”
“Is something wrong with your hearing?” I asked and pointed to my ears.
His eyes widened. “Oh. Yeah, I’m probably getting some of this wrong. I can’t hear well out of my left ear and none out of my right. I’m a dynamite technician.”
“Really?” Gertie perked up. “I should get your number.”
“A shed full of lumber?” he asked, looking confused.
“Never mind!” I yelled. “You can go!”
He looked back and forth between us, the bewildered look firmly in place, but must have finally decided it was no longer worth the effort. Shaking his head, he climbed into his car and drove away.
“Good God, woman,” Ida Belle said. “One day, you’re going to give me a heart attack. And I don’t mean one of those couch-recovery kinds where everyone has to wait on you and you give up beer and bacon. I mean the straight-to-the-grave kind.”
Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “You exaggerate.”
“What if he’d left the parking lot?” Ida Belle asked. “Headed for the highway?”
“He’d have had to be in a Learjet to outrun your SUV,” Gertie said. “Combine that with Fortune’s shooting ability and I have a feeling he wouldn’t have gotten far.”
“I give up!” Ida Belle threw her hands in the air and climbed back into her vehicle.
“We should probably get out of here,” I said to Gertie. “Before someone calls the police about our parking lot car chase, complete with my holding that guy at gunpoint.”
We hopped into the SUV and Ida Belle took off, as ready as I was to be rid of the motel. I heard the click of Gertie’s seat belt and smiled. At least she was learning. If my reaction time hadn’t been so good, I might have gotten a bruise or two when I hit the dashboard. As it was, I’d had a split second to get my arms up and brace myself for impact.
“Well, don’t keep me hanging,” Gertie said. “If I don’t get to do the fun stuff, the least you can do is fill me in on it right away.”
“You were just kidnapped by a strange guy in a sketchy motel parking lot,” Ida Belle said. “How much more fun stuff do you require in a day?”
“That wasn’t fun,” Gertie said. “It was a little creepy actually.”
“A little?” Ida Belle asked.
“Let’s move on,” I said. “It’s not the first time someone has mistaken Gertie for a hooker and probably won’t be the last.”
“That’s true,” Gertie agreed.
I gave Gertie a rundown of what we’d learned and she shook her head.
“Can’t say it surprises me that Starlight would side with a man over her own daughter,” Gertie said. “Also can’t say I’m surprised that Venus would be foolish enough to get sideways with a motorcycle gang. She never knew when to stop pushing.”
“But the weird part is, why is Starlight here now?” I asked. “If she or Catfish or both killed Venus because of something she took from them, they would have taken it back when they packed her luggage.”
Ida Belle frowned. “You’re right. That doesn’t make sense. Unless what they were looking for wasn’t there. Maybe that’s why Starlight is here now insisting on her half of Venus’s belongings. She thinks they missed something.”
“I’m sure that’s possible,” I said. “Especially since they would have been hurrying to pack up and get out of Percy’s house. But still, why would they think Percy would find whatever it is now? And if he did find money or guns or drugs or whatever else they might be looking for, wouldn’t he turn them over to the police?”
“Maybe not money,” Gertie said. “I think Percy is honest, in general, but if he found a cash stash that he believed belonged to Venus, he might feel justified in keeping it for all the trouble. Plus, he would have figured it was ill-gotten gains, so not like the police would return it to whoever she scammed, even if he turned it in.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I have to agree with Gertie on that one. If Percy found a pile of cash and thought it would just sit in an evidence warehouse somewhere, he might not be inclined to go the legal route.”
“But if it’s something as simple as cash, why the big rush now?” Gertie said. “And if they’d been poking around Sinful all this time, someone would have noticed.”
“I don’t think they’re here for money,” I said. “It’s not worth risking exposure to a murder investigation. And Starlight hasn’t been here except for back in May, just before Venus was killed, and now.”
“But now that Venus’s body has been discovered,” Ida Belle said, “there will be an official investigation. So now they’re trying to find whatever it was that they didn’t find back then.”
Gertie shook her head. “Starlight is seriously delusional if she thought Percy was going to let her go through his house like she had a warrant.”
“Or desperate,” I said. “None of this has felt very organized, but we know for sure Catfish wanted Venus dead. And he and Starlight doing the deed would also explain why the body wasn’t dumped in the bayou. No boat access, and I’m guessing Starlight wasn’t the fishing kind, so she wouldn’t be able to find her way around the bayous at night. Besides, there’s always the risk that things dumped in the bayou will surface, even if in pieces.”
Since my first day in Sinful had started off with my inherited dog pulling a piece of a murdered man out of the bayou, I had a firm grasp on just how possible that scenario was.
“No,” Ida Belle agreed. “They wouldn’t have risked something neither of them were familiar with, especially at night. That’s how you wind up crab bait. But like Carter said, the construction was visible to anyone who drove by during the day. With the forms in place and the rebar half done, anyone would have known the slab would be poured soon.”
“Why not just haul the body and the car away from Sinful?” Gertie asked.
“Because driving around in a car you don’t own—and my guess is that wasn’t properly registered—with a dead body in the trunk is just asking for trouble,” Ida Belle said.
I nodded. “All it would take is a traffic stop for a broken taillamp or expired registration and the gig would be up. They’d have no registration, no insurance card, nothing to prove they had any right to be in the vehicle.”
“I get it,” Gertie said. “Cops would have assumed it was stolen.”
I stared out the windshield, contemplating the even bigger question of the moment. Unfortunately, an easy answer wasn’t forthcoming on that one either. Finally, I blew out a breath and Ida Belle looked over at me.
“Trying to figure out how to tell Carter?” she asked.
“Sometimes I’m convinced we’re sharing the same mind,” I said.
“Just a similar way of thinking,” Ida Belle said.
“I hadn’t thought about the Carter angle,” Gertie said. “But we have to tell him. I mea
n, if Whiskey was in the clear for longer, then maybe we could run down this Catfish and figure out what he was looking for, but with Whiskey being arrested…”
“Carter can get information a lot faster than we can,” I said. “I know. And I’m going to tell him. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to phrase it.”
“I’d go with direct,” Ida Belle said. “If he’s focused on a little B and E after hearing what those texts said, then maybe he needs to hang up his badge.”
“I suppose the things we get up to don’t surprise him,” I said. “But I got the impression he was thinking I’d turn over a new leaf—maybe a legal one—when I became official.”
“Legal is overrated,” Gertie said.
“Says the woman who probably has a stick of dynamite in her purse,” Ida Belle said.
“Two,” Gertie said. “You should always carry backup.”
“You’ve got enough backup in that purse to arm a small country,” Ida Belle said.
“We’ll leave that tidbit out when we talk to Carter,” I said. “He’s perfectly happy with suspecting things where Gertie’s purse is concerned. Not so much with having actual facts.”
“That goes for two of us,” Ida Belle said.
I slumped back in my seat. “No use putting it off. Maybe Carter will let me talk to Whiskey while we’re there. I need to see about getting him an attorney.”
We pulled into town and Ida Belle parked in front of the sheriff’s department. We headed inside and saw Myrtle manning the front desk.
“You’re clocked in early,” Gertie said.
Myrtle rolled her eyes. “Carter finally issued that new guy a pistol, on a probationary deputy basis. First thing the fool did was shoot a hole in his pants and his truck seat. So instead of getting more help, which we desperately need, we’ve got one less because Carter had no choice but to suspend him for a week.”
“Deputy Breaux should send him a Bundt cake for making him look like Robocop,” Ida Belle said.
“Lord, isn’t that the truth,” Myrtle said. “Deputy Breaux is no Carter and not likely to ever be, but he’s reliable and trustworthy, and he doesn’t go shooting his gun off all willy-nilly. You guys here to see Carter or Whiskey?”
