Swamp Santa (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 16)

by Jana DeLeon

  “That’s true,” Ida Belle said. “Except Margaret said the Santa didn’t ask for payment after the event. Said the company would send a bill. She thought it was odd so she called the number but it was no longer in service. So she took to the internet to track down the company and it never existed.”

  “What in the world?” Gertie asked.

  “It gets worse,” Ida Belle said. “Margaret said that night after the event, someone broke into the photographer’s studio.”

  “Was anything missing?”

  “Everything’s digital these days,” Ida Belle said. “But someone accessed her computer. She can’t tell what was done because they reformatted the hard drive afterward so no one can access the history.”

  “What does it mean?” Gertie asked. “I’m completely lost.”

  “I’m afraid I am as well,” Ida Belle said. “I could have written off their Santa bailing for the casino but combine that with the fake company and the photography studio break-in, and it’s just too much to ignore. Especially given the lengths the imposter went to in order to play Santa here. I can’t help but think it was the same guy.”

  “I agree,” I said. “I just wish we knew why it’s happening. Hey, do you have Rollie’s number?”

  “Sure,” Ida Belle said. “We have to coordinate with him on the Santa thing. But why? I don’t know if he’ll talk to us about his attacker. Carter probably already read him the riot act.”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with his attack,” I said. “At least not that Rollie will understand. I want you to ask him if he won a free stay at a casino in New Orleans.”

  “Oh!” Ida Belle said. “Smart. But I think we ought to do it in person. At least then, if he’s hedging, we’ll be able to tell.”

  Gertie nodded. “That way we get our answer whether he tells us or not. And he’s more likely to say something he shouldn’t with a sympathetic audience in front of him.”

  “Do we have a valid reason to pay him a visit?” I asked.

  “He was injured and we have food,” Gertie said. “That’s all we need.”

  “Good, then that’s on the list,” I said. “Who was the photographer for your event?”

  “The same one as the other event,” Gertie said. “She’s new to Mudbug and has been doing all the holiday events for the surrounding towns.”

  “Is her studio in Mudbug?” I asked.

  “Yes, but it’s not a separate building. She turned the garage in the house she’s renting into her studio,” Gertie said, then gasped. “Oh Lord! I guess she wasn’t home when the break-in occurred. What if she had been? That could have turned out really bad given how Rollie was handled.”

  “Then we’ll be thankful she wasn’t,” Ida Belle said. “But what is he after? The only things on the studio computer are pictures.”

  “Pictures of kids,” Gertie said. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d cut off some delicate parts.”

  “But it wasn’t just pictures of kids, right?” I asked. “It was pictures of the entire event.”

  “That’s right,” Ida Belle said. “She took pictures and video of the performances and moved around before and after the different performances taking candid shots of the attendees.”

  She stopped talking and her mouth formed an O. “He was looking for someone.”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “But why all the secrecy?” Gertie asked. “Why not just show up at the events himself and see if the person he was looking for was there?”

  “Because maybe the person he was looking for doesn’t want to be found,” I said. “And if they saw him, they’d take off.”

  “Like an abused wife or adult kid who ditched a crappy parent,” Ida Belle said. “That would make sense. Playing Santa, he could be right in the middle of things but the person he was looking for would never be the wiser.”

  “That’s way too stalker for my taste,” Gertie said.

  “Which is probably why he’s dead,” I pointed out.

  “Good riddance,” Gertie said. “I mean, I know Carter has to figure out what happened because that’s his job and all, but do we care?”

  Ida Belle frowned. “I’m more than a little irritated that someone’s shady behavior caused me to spend half the night in the ER. Not to mention the undue amount of attention I received for it. Given that it’s Christmas, I would normally let it go…in the spirit of the season. But what if this isn’t over? He was looking for someone. Who? And are they still in danger? Or was he the only person looking for them?”

  “So someone in Sinful might still be in danger,” I said.

  “Or Mudbug,” Gertie said. “Or I suppose any of the other towns he might have hit up. We don’t know that it was only these two. He might have had more on his list for later on as well.”

  “But he was killed here,” I said. “So that’s where the trail ends.”

  “Oh!” Gertie’s eyes widened. “You’re right. But if we have no idea who he was looking for, we can’t warn them. That’s bad.”

  Ida Belle said. “It’s worse than bad. We don’t even know the identity of the dead man, which might give us a clue as to who he was looking for.”

  Gertie clapped. “I love a good puzzle.”

  “This isn’t a puzzle,” Ida Belle said. “This is a black hole.”

  “I have to admit, I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I said.

  “Until we know who he is, we can’t figure out who he was looking for,” Gertie said. “Not like they’re going to up and volunteer that when they’re probably the one who killed him. So motive is out but we’ve still got opportunity.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Of course, it would narrow down things to know how the cyanide was administered, but I suppose we could start with opportunity.”

  “And by start, you mean with a list of everyone who worked at and attended the Christmas event?” Gertie asked.

  “So it’s not a short list,” I said. “But we can narrow it down.”

  “You’re assuming we could even come up with a comprehensive list of people who were there,” Ida Belle said.

  “Well, you know all the volunteers,” I said. “And we could ask your ladies to help us flesh things out—where everyone was at what time.”

  “Oh goodie!” Gertie said. “Another case.”

  I shook my head. “Not another case. We have no client. This is just us poking our nose into police business, and you know how everyone but the three of us feels about that.”

  “Bunch of stick-in-the-muds,” Gertie said. “Fine. So we’ll be quiet about it. We can do quiet.”

  Ida Belle stared. “You just acquired a bird that repeats everything you say. How is that quiet?”

  “So we don’t talk business at my house,” Gertie said. “Not like I’m going to bring Francis over here. Especially with Merlin on a tear.”

  Ida Belle looked at me. “I noticed a scratch at your hairline.”

  “I slept through his breakfast,” I said.

  Ida Belle nodded. “And you two wonder why I have no pets.”

  “I don’t wonder,” I said. “And let the record state that I didn’t actively seek a pet myself. Merlin moved in and I’m afraid to kick him out.”

  “Makes sense,” Ida Belle said. “So how do we approach this non-case? I suppose we could talk to Rollie first. He probably doesn’t know much but maybe Fake Santa said something while he was shoving him in the closet. Maybe he’ll be outraged enough to talk, even if Carter told him not to.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “So yeah, might as well start there. What do you bring for a drop-in after an assault? Does a casserole work for that too?”

  “My casserole works for everything,” Gertie said.

  “She’s right,” Ida Belle said. “Gertie is pretty much famous for two things—causing trouble and her casseroles. People probably tolerate the first mostly because of the second. I’d bet she provides the entire town with at least one meal per year.”

  “O
kay, then we grab one of your creations and pull a drop-in on Rollie.” I stared out the window for a moment, watching the tide rolling in on the bayou, and suddenly a thought hit me.

  “I’m an idiot!” I half yelled, startling Gertie a bit.

  Ida Belle raised one eyebrow. “I’m not going to come right out and disagree until I hear what occurred to you, but in general, I’m going with you’re not.”

  “Fake Santa didn’t drop in from the sky,” I said. “All we need to identify him is his license plate.”

  “Holy crap!” Gertie said, now yelling herself. “That’s genius.”

  Ida Belle frowned. “Except there weren’t any other vehicles in the parking lot when we left the school. And we were the last to leave.”

  “You’re sure?” I asked.

  She nodded. “It’s a constant habit of mine…looking at cars. I can’t help but to notice one. Old cars, new cars, fast cars, slow cars. It’s an addiction, really. Trust me, the parking lot was empty.”

  “Maybe he had an accomplice,” Gertie said. “A getaway driver.”

  “And he got away when Fake Santa died?” Ida Belle said. “Not much of an accomplice if he didn’t even call for help.”

  “Let’s back up a bit,” I said. “Who let Santa into the cafeteria?”

  “Since my group furnished the bulk of the snacks—thanks mostly to Ally and her incredible skills—Celia’s group was responsible for organizing that end of things.”

  “So one or more of her people would have let Santa in and told him where to set up?” I asked. “I wonder why they didn’t notice that it wasn’t Rollie? Wouldn’t they have talked to him?”

  “They probably would have tried,” Gertie said. “But remember, Rollie wasn’t much of a talker with adults. Just kids. I think he found them less judgmental. He’s kinda an odd duck.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “You’ll see when we visit him. I don’t think he’s ever been tested, but I’d guess he’s a genius. People with those huge brains sometimes have a problem with social skills.”

  “But they would have noticed if he had someone with him,” Gertie said.

  “I don’t think he had an accomplice,” I said. “It doesn’t fit. Fake Santa went to great lengths to get into the event in disguise. We have to assume that’s so he couldn’t be recognized, which means we also have to assume that someone is on alert.”

  “The person he’s looking for,” Ida Belle said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “So if he had an accomplice, that’s a strange person hanging around who no one knew and given Rollie’s hermit tendencies, it would be unlikely he would have acquired a friend.”

  “Maybe he waited in the car,” Gertie said.

  “And left when he saw the ambulance?” I asked. “They took Santa out in a body bag. He’d have no way of knowing who was in it unless he asked someone. And if some strange guy was sitting in a car at a children’s school, wouldn’t someone have mentioned it?”

  “Definitely,” Ida Belle said. “Sinful residents jump on a new face right away, and a stranger lurking around kids wouldn’t have made it five minutes without someone asking them who they were.”

  I nodded. “So if there wasn’t a vehicle in the parking lot, he either parked somewhere else or used a car service.”

  “The second doesn’t seem likely,” Ida Belle said. “If you check around, you can get car service out of New Orleans to drive you to Sinful, but it’s hard to get them to come out here for a pickup. And if he had someone waiting, they would have come looking for him.”

  I put my hands in the air. “So there’s a vehicle somewhere. We just need to find it. I say we check the streets near the school before we head over to Rollie’s. Because if Carter hasn’t thought of it already, he will.”

  Ida Belle jumped up. “And he would have the car towed. We’ll clean up that mess in your living room later.”

  We hurried out and headed for the middle school, doing a quick check of the parking lot there first, but it was empty as Ida Belle had declared. Then we started circling the streets surrounding the school, starting with one block away. We had just turned on a street with houses that backed onto the school playground when we saw Carter parked at the curb, leaning against his truck and staring right at us.

  “Crap,” I said. “I know that look.”

  “He beat us,” Gertie said, and sighed.

  He walked toward the SUV as we approached, and Ida Belle rolled down the window. “Can I help you, Officer?” she asked politely.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You can go home and wrap gifts or strings lights or watch Christmas movies. Basically, anything but interfere in my investigation.”

  “You found the vehicle, didn’t you?” I asked.

  His expression shifted from slightly annoyed to blank, but he didn’t say a word.

  “He found it,” I said. “Won’t you at least tell us who the guy is? We’re going to find out eventually.”

  His jaw twitched. “You’ll find out when I’m ready to make a public statement concerning the case.”

  I smiled. “He doesn’t know. What happened? The car was stolen?”

  He turned around and walked back to his truck, climbed inside, and drove away. Ida Belle pulled over to the curb and parked.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  “I’d still like to get a look at that vehicle,” I said. “At least the license plate would tell us if it was stolen, which at least gives us an area to start looking.”

  “It will be at the impound,” Gertie said. “Even if we could just waltz in there and snap a picture, we wouldn’t know which license plate to take a picture of. And they’re not going to tell us.”

  Ida Belle looked at me and smiled. “She’s right. They won’t tell us anything, but they might tell the property owners.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “The impound doesn’t own the property,” Ida Belle said. “They lease it. The property owner would have the right to go onto the property and in this case, I bet they could convince someone to tell them what vehicles were towed in since last night.”

  I knew Ida Belle had investments, but I’d always thought they were mostly stock market. “Don’t tell me you’re the property owner?” I asked.

  Ida Belle shook her head. “But the owners are friends of yours. The Heberts own the property.”

  Gertie perked up. “Oh, that’s right!”

  I stared at her. “Law enforcement leases their impound lot from the Heberts?”

  That was wrong on so many levels I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. The Heberts had several legitimate businesses that they operated and filed taxes on, but everyone knew that their real income was from the sort of things the IRS never heard about. As far as I knew, they didn’t participate in any hard-core criminal activities. No gunrunning or drugs. In fact, they had an issue with both. But they did dabble in loan-sharking and bookmaking and probably a host of other items that kept them in the know among criminals. Of course, I knew those lines of work were necessary for the other role they played—federal informants. But no one else was aware of their duplicity, which is why Carter still believed the worst of them and everyone else in the area steered clear unless they were foolish enough to do business with them.

  “How the heck did it happen that the Heberts are leasing to law enforcement?” I asked.

  “Now that’s an interesting story,” Ida Belle said. “Apparently, an accountant for the state had his hand in the till to cover his gambling debts, so he wasn’t paying the property taxes. He was also ditching the late notices when they came in. By the time his boss found out about it, the property was up for auction and the Heberts had the winning bid.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “The Heberts held the accountant’s gambling debt.”

  Ida Belle grinned. “Well, there was no evidence of that at the time, and since the accountant had a heart attack and died right after the auction, no one is ever likely to ever prove it.”

  “
You have to give them props for flair,” I said. “So why didn’t the cops just move the impound lot?”

  “Too much money to rebuild,” Ida Belle said. “Concrete isn’t cheap, then there’s all the fencing and the security required. And since the budget was already stretched and the government was trying to downplay their screwup, they weren’t about to ask taxpayers for the dollars to build a new lot when leasing was way less.”

  “I’ll bet the Heberts laugh every month when they get that lease payment,” I said.

  “Probably. So anyway, that’s why I figure you can get the information, because the guys working impound aren’t likely to tell the Heberts no. But I guess I’m wondering what good you think it will do. If you don’t think Carter got anything out of it, what can we hope to find?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d still like to know what he knows.”

  Ida Belle started up her vehicle and pulled away. “Then I guess we’re paying the Heberts a visit.”

  “Oh goodie!” Gertie bounced up and down in her seat and clapped. “I just love the Heberts.”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “Said no one in Sinful ever.”

  I laughed. I kinda loved the Heberts too.

  Chapter Five

  I have to admit, I was more excited about visiting the Heberts than I probably should have been and far more excited than Carter would have liked. He still had trouble deciding what he should think about them. He was grateful that they’d helped me at a pivotal point in my life, and one could have argued had helped save it. Their right-hand man, Mannie, had actually saved Carter’s life. So he was grateful and felt indebted, but since they were technically on the wrong side of the law, he was also conflicted.

  Because I was now a free agent, I could cavort with all manner of people without concern about what they were doing when I wasn’t around. My life had gotten a lot more interesting since I stopped caring about following the rules. I mean, I hadn’t exactly been successful at rule following when I was with the CIA, but I’d cared more about it then. Now I figured my code of ethics was strong enough that the occasional departure from the letter of the law wasn’t that big a deal. Especially if it helped me nab bad guys.