by Shari Hearn
“The Sheriff. You broke into Cootie’s house. You should leave the investigating to the law.”
“Now, Barb, hold on a minute,” Ida Belle said.
Barb’s eyes widened as if she saw something off to my right. Gertie noticed Barb’s interest and peered in the same direction. Barb smiled and returned her cell phone to her pocket. “Okay, maybe I won’t call the sheriff. But don’t be surprised if I ask a favor of you someday.”
“Like what?” Gertie asked, still scanning the area around me.
“I don’t know, maybe someday I’ll want to become part of your little club.”
Gertie’s face blanched. “The Sinful Ladies Society?”
Barb nodded gleefully, casting a maniacal glance to my right. Suddenly, it felt as if a swarm of mosquitoes were feasting on my arm.
“I could be Marge’s replacement.”
Gertie gasped, and Ida Belle swore. I got a chill as a sudden gust of wind blew the sycamore leaves.
Barb got in her puppet’s face. “What do you think, Cloris? We’d have banana pudding every Sunday. Do you want me to be a Sinful Lady and replace Marge?” She moved her hand to make Cloris nod. “Marge’s replacement. What a great idea.” She smirked at us and demanded we leave through the back gate, laughing maniacally as she and her puppet went back in her house.
“You’re not going to let her be a Sinful Lady, are you?” I asked.
Ida Belle shook her head. “She was just trying to torment us.”
Chapter Nine
MARGE
“IT’S NOT YOU SHE WANTS to torment. It’s me.”
Marge could feel her ghostly energy giving off sparks. The girls couldn’t hear or see her, but they felt those sparks. All three of them had been swatting at themselves as if they were being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Marge had been snooping around the sheriff’s station when she had had a hunch her friends needed her help. Miss Mellette had called her hunches, “ghostly premonitions,” and said they were common for young ghosts still tethered to the living world. Unfortunately, Marge had arrived too late.
“You know what was really weird,” Gertie said to Ida Belle and Fortune. “Barb was watching TV, then acted as if someone were talking to her. Then she got up and ran for the door. I think it may have been help from...” Gertie looked around and whispered, “the other side. I’d like to know who it was. Don’t you?”
Ida Belle shook her head. “I think Barb is a mean old cuss with astute hearing.”
The three left the yard, closing the gate behind them.
Gertie was onto something, Marge thought. Any number of spirits could have alerted Barb to Ida Belle and Fortune climbing her tree. Marge needed to set him... or her... straight.
It didn’t take long to find the culprit. There, sitting next to Barb on her sofa, watching Wheel of Fortune and eating from a bowl of ghostly popcorn, sat the spirit of Elder Sheriff Lee.
“Picnic Basket Case,” Barb screamed at the TV set. “Picnic Basket Case, you moron!”
“What are you doing here, Elder Sheriff?” Marge demanded.
Barb yelped and drew back. As used to ghostly sightings as Barb was, Marge figured, it must still be jarring when ghosts popped up in her living room. After collecting herself, Barb muted the TV.
“You ghosts have no boundaries.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with the very dead Elder Sheriff Lee,” Marge pointed out.
“I’m allowing him one episode of Wheel before I boot him out. My thanks for alerting me to your lawbreaking friends.”
Marge ignored her and stared at the dead former sheriff, who’d been her father’s friend growing up.
“You can glare at me all you want, Marge Boudreaux. But the law’s the law. I was duty bound to report a trespassing to the homeowner.”
“My friends were just trying to right a wrong.”
Elder Sheriff Lee stood from the sofa. “Darlin’, you do realize who you’re talking to. I had to put up with you three gals interfering in police business the second y’all came back from the war. It’s just gotten worse. You’ve run roughshod over my son for more than forty years, and I see how those three run circles now around Deputy LeBlanc. It’s embarrassing. No wonder I can’t cross over into the light. I still have to help maintain law and order here in Sinful.”
Elder Sheriff Lee suddenly shifted his focus back to the TV set. “Aretha and Benjamin Franklin.”
Barb stood and pointed to him. “Out! I told you not to yell out an answer. I hate that!” She turned to Marge. “You can skedaddle as well. From now on, my house is off limits to ghosts.”
Elder Sheriff Lee reached for his ghostly cowboy hat from the coffee table. “I need to go on patrol anyway.” He nodded to them. “Ladies.” He slapped his hat on his head and walked through the front wall.
Marge wasn’t finished yet with Barb. “You are not going to be a Sinful Lady.”
Barb laughed. “I just wanted to see your head spin around like in The Exorcist.” She sneered. “But who knows, maybe I’ll work my way into their hearts.”
“That’ll never happen. You’re not SLS material.”
Barb’s eyes squinted. Her face became an angry shade of red. “Gertie suspects I can talk to you. Something she’d like to do herself. If I wanted to, I could use that to worm my way into the SLS. Once inside, I could be a spy for Celia. She might not be mayor anymore, but I’ve heard she’s hell-bent on destroying the Sinful Ladies. Remember that the next time you decide to haunt my house. If you don’t want me to make life hell for your friends, you’ll make yourself scarce.”
“Why are you so vindictive?”
Marge already had a pretty good idea. When Barb’s father had found out his young daughter could see dead people he exploited her, offered her services for payment. Marge couldn’t imagine being a child forced to talk to ghosts. “I know you don’t see your talent as a gift, and you explained to me why, but you’ve got it and can’t ‘unget’ it. Maybe someday you’ll put it to good use and do something nice for someone for a change.” She headed for the door. Before sliding through it, she glanced back at the TV. “Bea Arthur as Maude.”
Barb wailed as Marge stormed through her door.
“That one’s a nut job, that’s for sure,” Elder Sheriff Lee said, now perched on his ghost mule, ready to go patrol Sinful, a job even death didn’t end.
“You have any idea who killed Cootie Bates?” Marge asked him.
He shook his head. “I know they found a size fourteen Irish Setter boot print in the mud along the bank facing the spot where Cootie was fishing. A cigarette, too, as well as some shell casings. The victim texted his friend Redneck at four a.m. wondering if he’d overslept. Said he’d go out in the lake without him. Cootie’s body was found by some fishermen at six thirty. So time of death is anywhere in between. And I know who two persons of interest are. Bruno Guerin and Jolene Stark.”
“That’s crazy,” Marge said. She had known them both and couldn’t imagine either one of them capable of murder.
Elder Sheriff Lee shrugged. “They both left threatening messages on Cootie’s phone. Bruno’s wife apparently was seeing Cootie when they separated for a spell. He threatened Cootie to stay away from her. And get this, Jolene had several calls back and forth between her and Bruno. The Mudbug Sheriff thinks maybe they were in on it together. Maybe Jolene was afraid Cootie might reveal something to her children.”
That last bit of intel was news to Marge. She felt sick. “The Swamp Team Three has to find the real killers.”
“No, what they need to do is stay out of it. Leave it for the professionals.” He tapped the mule with his foot. “Come on, girl.”
Dead sheriff and mule headed down the street. Out of habit, Marge shouted at him to watch out for the car that sped through him and his mule without stopping.
Marge knew there were some decent deputies over in Mudbug but nobody with Carter’s experience and smarts. However, he was off the case, and Deputy Brea
ux and Sheriff Lee were basically Frick and Frack. In her mind, interfering in this case was a necessity.
“Marge!”
She shuddered. It was Miss Mellette. Her ghostly mentor’s spirit appeared, and she wasn’t alone, one hand gripping Cootie’s upper arm.
Crap, Marge thought, I forgot about Cootie.
Miss Mellette scowled at Marge. “Somehow Mr. Bates was under the impression if he concentrated on a nice memory, he would travel easier on the physical plane.”
“I tried what you said, Marge,” Cootie said. “I thought of a time Jo and I were on Hound Dog Island together. Only I didn’t end up following the real Jolene, I ended up on Hound Dog Island with a vision of a young Jolene. Like I was reliving the memory. Now, I didn’t mind because we used to have intense make-out sessions, but I need to help you figure out who killed me.” He glanced at Miss Mellette. “Lucky for me, Miss Mellette heard me cussing while I was swimming back here.” He shook his head. “One would think you purposefully led me astray, but I know you wouldn’t do that, now would you?”
Marge shook her head. “You know, Cootie, I’m new at this ghost business myself, so I probably just got mixed up. What I meant to say was, make sure you don’t focus too strongly on a memory or you may end up reliving it.”
Cootie nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
Miss Mellette rolled her eyes.
“It turned out okay in the end,” Cootie said. “It gave Miss Mellette and me a little time to get to know one another.” He slapped her ghostly butt, prompting more than a few sparks of energy to fly from the top of her head. “I’m going to love having her as a ghost teacher. I promise to be a good boy. Or maybe not.” He winked at a fuming Miss Mellette.
Marge ignored her ferocious look and focused on Cootie. “Maybe you’d better curtail your activity here on the physical plane until you learn how to navigate your energy.” She tipped her head toward Miss Mellette. “You have the best teacher right there. If I need to ask you more questions to help solve your murder, I’ll come find you.”
Miss Mellette folded her arms. “I thought you were working on your addiction to the world of the living.”
“I am, Miss Mellette. But Cootie was murdered, and friends of mine might be unjustly accused. I keep thinking, ‘What would Jesus say?’”
Miss Mellette had used that phrase quite often in class, most notably during the Chocolate Soufflé Disaster of 1959 when Ida Belle and Celia battled it out during Classic French Desserts Week. Shameless, yes, but Miss Mellette’s sigh said it might be working.
“Just this one case, and I’ll get back to my addiction issues,” Marge promised, hoping her aura wasn’t betraying her itty bitty lie.
A strange smile crossed Miss Mellette’s face. “You’re right.” She turned to Cootie. “In fact, Mr. Bates, I don’t think your soul will move into the light until your murder is solved. Trust me when I say, it will be best for all of us if you leave us and go into the light.”
That we can agree on, Marge thought.
Cootie wrapped his arm around Miss Mellette. “You are one fine lady.”
“As quickly as possible,” Miss Mellette added through gritted teeth while removing Cootie’s arm. She directed her next words to Marge. “How nice of you to volunteer to work with Cootie to solve his murder. He’s all yours.” She reached over and touched her shoulder. “Tag. You’re it.”
Marge stammered in protest as Miss Mellette vanished in a puff of shimmering energy.
“You know, if she just had a bigger rack on her, she’d be a fox,” Cootie said. “So where do we start, Partner?”
It was the word “partner” that gave Marge the memory of heartburn.
THE UNLIKELY “PARTNERS” made a quick stop at the Sheriff’s Department and listened in on the last half hour of Bruno Guerin’s interview with Deputy Breaux.
Bruno admitted to leaving a warning on Cootie’s phone, which, he added, a good number of men in Sinful had at one time or another.
“True,” Cootie said proudly.
“Just giving him a friendly reminder my Ivy was off limits now that me and her got back together,” Bruno said.
Cootie shook his head and said to Marge, “I remember getting his call. I couldn’t believe he was still telling me to stay away from his wife. Ivy and I haven’t had a fling for about ten years. Ivy’s messing around with someone but not with me.”
Bruno pointed to Deputy Breaux, making a point. “Trust me, if I wanted Cootie dead, he’d be dead.” As soon as it came out of his mouth, Bruno’s face blanched. “You know what I mean.”
“What do you mean? Because, you know, he is dead.”
“I know,” Bruno said, mopping the sweat from his brow. He looked at the recorder propped up between them on the table. “Could you erase that part?”
Deputy Breaux shook his head. “’Fraid not. Not allowed to do that.”
“You know, I wasn’t the only one who had a beef with Cootie. The night before he died I stopped in at the Swamp Bar for a beer. I was in the john and heard Cootie arguing with Bobby Wells outside. Cootie said if Bobby did it again, he was going to go to the sheriff.”
“Did what again?” Breaux asked.
“Hell if I know. I was only in the john for a minute. Not like I was reading a magazine in there.”
Marge turned to Cootie. “What were you arguing about?”
He waved her off. “It was nothing. Bobby’s too cheap to renew his license plates every year, so he steals someone’s tags and sticks them on his plate. This year he did it with the tags on my old Chevy truck. I don’t drive it often, but hell if I want to get pulled over for not having a current sticker. I told him to stop being so cheap and pay for his own. Told him I was serious and next time he did it I’d go to the sheriff. He apologized, said he wouldn’t do it again. We were good after that.”
Marge’s attention returned to the interview when she heard Jolene’s name. Bruno confirmed that she had come to his office on Main Street the day before Cootie was killed. “She wanted to use my services as a big game hunting guide. That’s not a crime, is it?”
Deputy Breaux studied him, narrowing his eyes. “It is if she wanted you to hunt Cootie and kill him. Is that the big game she wanted you to hunt?”
“Deer, you moron,” Bruno said, exasperated. “For her oldest son as a Christmas present. You’re a real pinhead, you know that, Breaux? Can I get home to dinner now? Geez. Why isn’t Deputy LeBlanc doing this interview?”
“Deputy LeBlanc is engaged in other police matters.”
Marge couldn’t help but snort. If being “engaged in other police matters” meant listening as Midge Allair complained about her neighbors, then he was very much engaged. When she and Cootie first walked into the station, Carter had been cornered by Midge over by the coffee machine. Today Midge was griping about cars parked on lawns. Carter’s numerous eye rolls and glances toward the interview room said he’d been itching to be in there doing real police work. Having to recuse himself from Cootie’s murder investigation must have been eating at him something fierce.
Marge dropped Cootie off at his house just before sundown, helping him move through the door and into his living room.
“I’ll pick you up for your memorial service tomorrow,” she said, turning to go back outside.
“You’re not going to stay with me tonight?” he asked.
“And do what?” Her memory of heartburn came back.
He flashed her a pair of puppy eyes. “This is my first night being dead. I don’t know what to do.”
“Go upstairs and go to bed like you always do.”
“We can sleep?”
“If we want, sure. We’re energy. It helps to get some rest. So... go rest.”
He gazed around his living room. “Is this still my house?” His eyes glistened as the reality was settling in. “Since my sister died, my brother’s the only kin I have. He’ll sell everything I own and buy himself a new boat or something.”
“Yeah
,” Marge said quietly. “Yeah, that probably will happen.”
“How’d you feel when you saw your niece move in?”
She didn’t correct him about Fortune’s true identity. It was a long story and the less time she spent with Cootie, the better. “In the beginning it was hard.” Being a control freak, it had bothered Marge at first when Fortune made herself at home. She’d move a trophy on the mantel to make way for her beer and then wouldn’t move the trophy back to line up with the others. Changed her favorite radio stations in her Jeep and wouldn’t wash the Jeep as often as Marge had. But the more she came to know Fortune, the more she grew to like her. At least Fortune kept the trophies on the mantel. And she took care of Marge’s gun collection and respected her military service, even pressing her old uniforms. The real Sandy-Sue would probably sell her uniforms to a thrift store and they’d end up as some kid’s Halloween costume. Now the thought of Fortune NOT living in her house was unbearable.
Cootie sighed. “I bet my brother Billy will get rid of my favorite coffee mug.”
Marge could feel herself beginning to soften toward Cootie. Sure, he was a sexist blowhard while alive. Right now, though, he was a lost, baby ghost. She remembered her first night feeling lost in the “neither-here-nor-there.” If Miss Mellette hadn’t taken her under her wing, she would have just walked aimlessly around Sinful. Maybe become one of those pathetic ghosts who’d get stuck in a memory and keep repeating the same scenes over and over. Maybe I should stay here with Cootie tonight, she thought.
Cootie sighed again, lost in his remembering. “That mug of mine is a marvel of mug engineering. Swimsuit model. ‘Cept when the mug gets hot her swimsuit disappears. I have a whole set, though I’m partial to the blondes.”
Then again, I have a “comfort you can count on” mattress waiting for me at home.
“I’ll be back tomorrow to pick you up for your memorial.” She started for the door and thought a moment. “You said you altered Jo’s painting. Where is it?”
He pulled his eyes to the mantel. Above it hung a painting of a girl being held by her father while feeding a horse. The girl looked somewhat familiar. “Is that Jolene as a little girl?”
