by Shari Hearn
“Now we don’t need them.” Gertie’s voice took on a wistful tone. She gazed at Ida Belle. “When did that happen?”
Ida Belle shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
* * * * *
We gave ourselves an hour to shower and change clothes before reconvening at Ida Belle’s dining-room table, now functioning as command central.
Although Gertie’s fake funeral had only lasted a half hour before we detected the bomb, plenty of people at the funeral shot photos and videos before and during the service. Since we had planted the idea of us sifting through information and videos for the ATF to the people at the after-party, we had a treasure trove of texts and videos to sort through. Ida Belle’s job was reading texts. Gertie was responsible for examining photos and videos.
My job involved sifting through the debris we collected behind the rec center. I may not have been an explosives expert, but I’ve had to make my own bombs on numerous occasions, so I was probably the closest to an expert Sinful had. And by looking at a few pieces of the bomb itself, I could tell one thing…
“This is homemade.”
Gertie’s face blanched. If this bomb had been the work of an expert, there was a likelihood of it coming from the man who had a contract out on me. But no pro made this bomb.
“It was meant for me,” Gertie said.
“Most likely. And he didn’t do a great job of putting the bomb together.”
“How so? It exploded, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, but believe me, that explosion could have been much worse. And from what I saw, the top of the casket wasn’t in that bad of shape, meaning the force of the blast went down, not up. I would have positioned it so the force of the blast would go upward, into the intended victim’s body. And, from what I observed at the bayou, that explosion didn’t have a lot of power behind it. Whoever made this didn’t read the instructions very well.”
Ida Belle and Gertie got up from their chairs and crowded around me.
“Granted, I don’t have much to work with, but I would bet whoever planted this bomb was hasty and cheaped out. A professional hitman would take his time and go for top-of-the-line materials. And I would also bet that whoever planted it was within a hundred feet when he remotely set the timer to start the countdown.”
“Which meant he would probably have been close enough to show up in the pictures and videos many people were taking while standing in line,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie waved her hand in the air like an excited student. “There’s a park bench right outside the rec center.”
“Check all the footage people sent to Ida Belle,” I told Gertie. “And wear your glasses.”
Gertie pursed her lips and slapped her hands to her hips. “I can see just fine.”
“I’ll do it,” Ida Belle said.
I wasn’t taking any chances. “You both do it. One and a half sets of eyes are better.”
They scurried back to their chairs. Ida Belle pulled hers next to Gertie in front of the laptop. “She was insulting you, in case you were wondering,” Ida Belle said.
I brought up Facebook on my own laptop, then slid it over to Gertie. “Log me into your Facebook page. I want to check your Sinful friends to see if anyone posted a selfie while standing in line.”
She reached over and typed in her user ID. “Don’t look,” she said to Ida Belle as she typed her password.
“Ida Belle stop looking? That’s your password?”
“I knew you’d look.”
I sighed. “You do realize the brain doesn’t register negative words like don’t, right? All it hears is look.”
“Well, thank you for sharing that with me in that snarky way of yours, Fortune,” Gertie snapped as she typed her Facebook password before passing my laptop back to me.
I stared at the computer screen as Gertie’s Facebook homepage began loading.
“And, Fortune?”
“Yeah?” I said, still focused on the screen.
“Don’t look.”
I looked up and found Gertie’s middle finger extended inches from my face. With a smug look plastered on her face, she went back to her video scan as someone knocked on Ida Belle’s front door.
“Ida Belle? You in there?”
Carter.
“Operation Lawman,” Ida Belle said, as she and Gertie sprung into action.
I quickly put the debris back in the paper bags. Gertie threw a knitting basket over to me and I stuffed the bags under the half-finished potholders. Ida Belle collected all our pages of notes and shoved them under the padded table protector. Gertie’s fingers typed at breakneck speed.
“Ida Belle?” Carter called out again.
“Be right there, Carter.”
Ida Belle leapt out of her chair and rushed into the kitchen, running back into the dining room with a plate filled with cookies that she set on the table, and then ran to the front door. Gertie swung her laptop around so I could see the screen as well.
Ida Belle took a moment to catch her breath, then opened the door. “Hey, Carter.”
Carter looked around her and spotted Gertie and me at the table.
“I thought I’d find you all together. No one answered my knocks at Gertie’s or Fortune’s.”
“Brilliant police work,” Ida Belle said, smiling. I rolled my eyes. Jeeze, even the Sinful village idiot could see behind that one.
“Hello, Carter,” Gertie waved.
“You’re the one I’m looking for, Gertie.”
I whispered in her ear, “Remember, you’re still shaky from almost being blown to bits in a casket.”
“Right,” she said, wringing her hands. “Did you catch him?” Her voice now shook.
I shot her a don’t-go-overboard look.
“Not yet,” he called from the doorway.
“Well, come on in,” Ida Belle said, ushering him in. “We have chocolate chip cookies.”
Carter stepped inside and strode over to the dining table.
“Fortune,” he said, nodding to me.
“You can kiss her if you want,” Gertie said, offering me up like I was a used car he needed to take for a spin.
“I’m on duty.”
“Didn’t stop you earlier today.”
I flashed her the dirtiest look possible.
“Not that I remember much about the kiss. I was traumatized. Still am.” Gertie held out the plate of cookies. “Cookie?”
Carter looked down at the plate. “They’re shaped like coffins.”
“They were from my funeral after-party. We have some skeleton-shaped ones if you’d prefer those.”
I snatched a cookie from the plate. “Hopefully you’ll catch a break in the case soon.”
Carter arched an eyebrow. “My job would be easier if Ida Belle hadn’t announced to all the funeral attendees that they should give all their tips and videos to her first.”
“I did that?”
“Yes, I believe you did.”
“I think maybe those people misunderstood Ida Belle,” I said. “If you ask me, some of those people seemed like they were hitting the cough medicine a little early, if you know what I mean.”
“Stay out of the investigation,” Carter said. His eyes bore into me and damned if my brain didn’t send signals to all parts of my body. Parts I’d rather it would have ignored at the moment. Nothing Carter did could take the sexy out of his eyes.
But sexy eyes or not, I had a mission. Help identify the bomber before Carter was forced to bring in the ATF. “What makes you think we’re inserting ourselves into this investigation?”
“Are you watching everyone’s videos? Trying to spot a potential suspect?”
Something caught my eye next to my laptop. I had forgotten to put away one of the bags of debris into the knitting basket. Gertie noticed it too.
“Don’t look!” Gertie shouted, shielding her laptop screen with her hands.
Carter looked down at Gertie’s screen. “Take your hands away, Gertie.”
“Fi
ne then, I’ll add sound. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Gertie turned up the volume to the most god-awful scream I’d ever heard. While Carter directed his attention on Gertie’s screen, I slid the bag from next to my laptop and dropped it under the table.
Gertie continued with her distraction. “You remember my great-niece Fran, don’t you? This is the video of her giving birth to her first child. I was sharing this little miracle with Fortune. Since I was almost killed today, I thought it would be nice to be reminded of something good in the world. To get my mind off things.”
I forced myself to look at Gertie’s screen. My stomach lurched. I would have rather taken on Ahmad than watch a video of a baby being born.
“Oh looky,” Gertie said, clapping. “The baby’s head is pushing through.”
Carter sighed. “Turn that thing off.”
Gertie pressed pause, freezing the image on the screen.
“Off, not pause.”
She clicked the video off.
Running low on patience, Carter took a deep breath. “If you think that video is going to send me screaming out of here, you’re wrong. I’ve helped deliver babies. Four to be exact. Now, if I were to go snooping on your computer, would I find videos and photos of your mock funeral today?”
“Well, why not?” Ida Belle said. “It’s her funeral. Of course she wants to remember it.”
“It’s evidence. And you had no right to tell people to filter it through you. I could charge you with obstruction of justice.”
I turned away from the miracle of life horror show and glared at Carter. “The videos are digital, Carter. No one’s stopping anyone in Sinful from sharing them with you as well.”
“You’re right,” he said, casting his eyes toward me.
I never noticed he had curly lashes. I made a note to myself to check those out the next time I kissed him.
“But half those people said they already sent their stuff to Ida Belle, and if I want it, get it from her. So now I’m telling all of you, send me everything you have. Is that clear?”
We mumbled our agreement.
“Oh, and you three wouldn’t have left the swamp today with any bomb debris, now would you?”
“What do we look like? The bomb squad?” I asked.
“Honestly, Fortune, sometimes I don’t know what to think. I’m bringing it up because I thought there’d be more debris scattered around where you three were located.”
“Well, who knows, maybe some opposable-thumbed raccoon made off with some of the debris. Maybe the same raccoon that broke into Marge’s house my first week here.” I hated lying to him. But with my cover just one ATF investigation from being blown, I saw no other choice.
“But I’m sure some will wash up on the banks somewhere.” That part was actually true. When we finished solving this case, we planned on re-scattering the debris around the swamp.
Carter sighed and picked up a couple cookies from the plate. “Then I guess I’ll leave. You enjoy the birth video of Gertie’s great-niece… what’s her name again?”
“Fran,” Gertie said.
Carter nodded. He winked at me, which kinda felt like a kiss, then headed for the door. He opened it and turned around once more to us.
“By the way, Gertie, if you’re going to pull up a YouTube video of a woman giving birth and claim it’s your great-niece Fran, you might want to double-check the nationality. The last I remember, Fran is not Chinese.” He smiled and closed the door behind him.
“Chinese?”
“Well, I didn’t have time to double-check. Who knew he’d get past the birth canal and look at her face.”
Ida Belle sat and continued scrolling through her text messages from funeralgoers. “That man of yours is getting more onto us every day.”
“My man? Carter’s not my man. He’s a man I had a date with. I’m sure he has a whole list of women he’s interested in dating.”
I waited for Ida Belle or Gertie to contradict me, but instead they continued their work.
“I mean, I would expect him to see other women. He knows I’m only in Sinful for the summer.”
Again, no response. I could feel my pulse pick up. “His mother’s probably mentioned him dating other women, right?” A wave of heat traveled from my neck and spread out over my cheeks. I did not just do that. I did not just fish for reassurance about my standing with Carter.
Gertie’s bottom lip quivered. They were playing me.
“It’s eating her up inside, Ida Belle. Maybe we should reassure her so she can go back to work.”
Ida Belle nodded. “He’s not interested in anyone else.”
“Like I care,” I said. “Can we please get back to work?”
But inside I had suddenly become a multiple personality. One of me was insulted they would think I cared if Carter was interested in other women. Another me was a giggly girl dancing inside myself. Not sure what kind of dance, but it involved some hip and butt action. But then giggly girl gave way to reality me. I’d never had a man who made me feel the way Carter did. What would happen at the end of the summer if we got more serious? Would we go through some big breakup? There was no way I was going to become the type of woman who sat around crying in her ice cream after a breakup. Of course, I never believed I would have been the type of woman fishing for reassurance about a man, either.
“Fortune, you okay?” Ida Belle asked. “Looks like something put the fright in you.”
I shook my head. “No no, I’m fine. I want to catch this guy, that’s all. Let’s get back to work.”
While Gertie and Ida Belle focused on texts and videos sent by funeralgoers, I spent the next hour scrutinizing Gertie’s Facebook friends. My hope was that some of them posted photos of the funeral or the line outside the rec center that would yield some clues.
“So far I’ve counted eighteen selfies of people in front of your fake dead body in the casket.” I clicked on Dora Dubois’s page where she had posted a group selfie of the Sinful Splits in front of fake-dead Gertie with a smile on her face. “You’re laughing in Dora’s picture.”
“The bowling league. They always tell dirty jokes to get me to laugh. Dora’s amazing. She must know a hundred jokes where the punch line is ‘Cool Whip.’” Gertie laughed and wiped at her eyes. “That’s why I have ice cream on my pie now.”
Clovis Allard’s page was next. A string of goofy selfies while standing in line. Clovis was 80 plus, with enough nose and ear hair to knit a decent-sized sweater. Too bad he couldn’t transfer those hairs to his wrinkled, bald head. But it was the shot of him taking a swig of Sinful Ladies Society Cough Syrup that caught my eye. Standing in line next to him was the Yankee hater, wearing a Sinful Sluggers baseball cap. And then another shot, one Clovis took just before going into the rec center. A shot of a juggler Gertie hired to entertain people in line while they waited. A few feet away, sitting on a park bench, was a man, his head tilted downward, wearing jeans and a baseball cap, same color as the one Fred was wearing. I downloaded the photo and enlarged it.
“Hey,” I said, swinging my laptop around so they could see the photo. “Remember that guy in Francine’s? The guy who said something about me being a Yankee?”
“Fred Barbaret?” Ida Belle asked.
I nodded. “He was in one of the photos standing in line. And I think this might be him again sitting on the park bench.”
Ida Belle looked at the screen. “Could be him. I’m not sure.”
“Wasn’t he wearing a Sinful Sluggers baseball cap?”
Gertie looked at the photo. “Yes, but every man who ever played on the Sinful Sluggers team owns a cap.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Why they wear them is beyond me. They’re the worst team in the adult league. No surprise, though. The Swamp Bar sponsors them, so the team’s always filled with a bunch of Swamp Bar losers.”
“We need to talk to Fred.”
Ida Belle dismissed me with a wave. “Fred’s harmless.”
“You d
idn’t see the way he looked at me.”
“He just has a bug up his butt is all.”
“Maybe he needs me to remove it.”
Gertie shook her head. “Can’t be done. Season five of Medical Mysteries. He was quite a local celebrity after the show aired. I have it on DVD if you’d like to watch.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather not.”
Gertie took a closer look at the image on the screen. “You know, come to think of it, he did call me a ‘Yankee lover’ last week when I bumped into him coming out of Walter’s. Then he started bragging about some Yankee he ran off the road the other day.” Gertie arched her brow. “You don’t think that’s why he tried to kill me. Because I’m friends with you?”
Ida Belle held up her hands. “Hold on. The person sitting on the bench may or may not have anything to do with it. And if he does, we don’t even know the man in the picture is Fred.”
I studied the photo. “Yeah, but if it is Fred, I bet at some point he would start bragging about it with a bunch of his buddies at the Swamp Bar. I need to get in there and listen in.”
“I don’t like where this is going,” Ida Belle said. “The last three trips to the Swamp Bar didn’t go so well. You’ll never be able to step foot in there without people clamming up. And since you’re the most famous Yankee in Sinful at the moment, I don’t think they’ll be rolling out the welcome mat.”
I knew she was right, but something about this guy said he was the one. I had to think of a way to get into the Swamp Bar and hear the scuttlebutt. Even if it wasn’t Fred, someone who played for the Sinful Sluggers sat on that bench. The perfect place to wait for the perfect time to remotely set the timer.
“I need to think,” I told Ida Belle and Gertie. “I’m going for a run.”
“It’s midnight,” Gertie said.
“Best time to think.”
* * * * *
Sinful became a whole different place after midnight. A little more… sinful. As I ran past Missy Labatt’s house I noticed her husband coming home after a night at the Swamp Bar. I also noticed Missy’s boyfriend sneaking out of a window on the side of the house. A few houses away, old lady Talbot sat in a rocker on her porch, smoking, thinking no one could see the red glow of her cigarette. Her husband had tried to ban smokers from serving as tithing collectors in the Baptist church. Word had it she spiked his evening warm milk with a sleeping pill so he wouldn’t awaken to find her smoking.
