by riley blake
“Well?” Ida Belle asked.
“The ladies starring in the show are running from someone.”
“You mean the actresses?” Ida Belle asked, seeking clarification that I’d later want, too. Even though I hadn’t acted like it since taking up residency in Sinful, I was still a trained CIA assassin extraordinaire.
So Extreme.
Clearly I’d spent too much time with Gertie and Ida Belle.
“Actresses? I guess that’s what you’d call them,” Celia said. She was one of those women who couldn’t stand to give anyone else credit.
“Since the cameras were following them around and they were posing for photographers all over town, they’re famous in my book.”
“They aren’t yet,” Celia pointed out.
“Stick to the point, ladies.” Ida Belle issued an obvious nudge.
“Let’s not waste time by pretending the two of you don’t solve crimes.”
“What kind of crimes?” Ida Belle wouldn’t reveal her true face that easily.
“Whatever are you talking about?” Apparently Gertie wouldn’t either. “Celia, why are you here?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
“Oh boy,” I muttered, sitting on the floor with my back against the wall. At this rate, I’d be here all night.
“Just spit it out!” Ida Belle should’ve left off the moonshine. She’d had too much to drink and Celia could rub Ida Belle the wrong way even when she was sober.
“The three women are sisters,” Celia said. “They’re wealthy. They each have grown children. A few years ago, their sons put a plan in motion to start taking everything the women had. They wanted to strip them of their material means so they could put them in nursing homes and gain access to their fortunes.”
“That doesn’t explain why they’re here in Sinful,” Gertie pointed out.
“Or why you’re coming to us with any of this,” Ida Belle added.
“Marsha, Megan, and Cindy are my cousins. The books are based on their lives, not yours. I helped them write each and every chapter, every last word.”
I yawned. This was getting deep.
“You mean you were smart enough to do that?” Ida Belle asked. “Who would’ve thought?”
Celia said, “I’ll get to the point.”
“Please.” Ida Belle wasn’t exactly the happy hostess.
“Marsha, Megan, and Cindy…well, they’ve vanished.”
Now, Celia had my attention.
“What do you mean, they’ve vanished?” Gertie asked.
“We were supposed to meet at Francine’s tonight and when they didn’t show, I went to the home they’re renting. The door was standing wide open. Furniture was turned over and glass was everywhere.” She wailed then and it sounded like a howling wind. “I even found a bloody handprint on the doorjamb!”
“Okay that’s it,” I said, pushing the door open and crawling out of the confined space. “This is definitely a job for the Geritol Mafia but before they can dust off their crime-stopping capes, you need to calm down and start at the beginning.”
Ida Belle sneered. “Says the woman who was supposed to stay hidden until the bitter end.”
“Never say die until the dirt is on the grave,” I said, turning to Celia. “Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Chapter Four
An hour later, we entered the small rental cottage and found everything in meticulous order. The home was too organized and the stench of bleach filled the air, a fact Gertie and Ida Belle must’ve noticed as well. They hadn’t stopped sniffing.
“Where are the toppled chairs and tables, shattered mirrors, and broken knickknacks?” Ida Belle asked.
“I’m more interested in the bloody handprint.”
“Careful, Fortune,” Ida Belle warned. “You’re sounding like a CIA agent all over again.”
I faced Celia and feigned tremendous angst. “Just warn me before we see the bloody wall. I’ll prepare myself.”
“Much better,” Ida Belle muttered, walking around in a circle. “I don’t see anything that stands out as unusual.”
“And the place isn’t at all like you described,” Gertie added.
“But it was…just like I said. The whole place was wrecked!”
About that time, an arm-locked couple bounced in the house and came to an abrupt halt. All the color washed out of their cheeks.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The young man threw his arm behind him, flattening his palm on the woman’s hip and pushing her back.
“We’re unarmed,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Grandmas aren’t packing either.”
“You’re walking a thin line, Fortune,” Ida Belle said.
“Of course we aren’t,” Gertie said. “And the question you asked is the same one we have for you.”
“He’s the director,” Celia told us.
“Producer,” he snapped. “And who I am doesn’t matter. Who are you?”
Ida Belle didn’t introduce herself. Instead, she said, “We’re looking for Marsha, Megan, and Cindy.”
“Why are you looking for them here?” He held his position as if he didn’t quite trust us.
“We were told there was a break in,” Ida Belle said, glaring at Celia.
The young woman stood on her tiptoes and whispered something in the producer’s ear. “Right.” He laughed. “My friend and I were under the impression that Sinful had real cops who carried guns, flashed their badges and everything. I don’t suppose any of you have proper identification that would suggest you’re with the local sheriff’s office?”
I blew out a frustrated breath. I knew where this was heading.
To make matters worse, a car came to a screeching halt right outside. I peered around Gertie. Correction. It was Carter’s truck.
“Brace for it, Fortune,” Ida Belle said. “I don’t think you’ve been gone long enough for Deputy Carter LeBlanc to miss you.”
“Nope.” Gertie turned to the door as soon as Carter entered with his weapon drawn. “And that man’s heart hasn’t had time to grow fonder in the short time that you’ve supposedly been away.”
####
“I want answers, ladies!” Carter rarely raised his voice but when he did, I found him sexy in a disconcerting sort of way. “Where have you been?” He glared at me through steely eyes. “Did you know these two told me you just up and left?”
“She can explain that,” Gertie assured him.
“Throw your friends under the bus much?”
Gertie looked like I’d stomped all over her feelings but the little woman was a bit theatrical at times. She quickly rebounded when Carter said, “I ought to haul you all off to jail.”
“Whatever for?” Gertie asked.
“I agree, Carter,” Celia said. “You should.”
Stepping in front of Ida Belle before she decked Celia, I said, “You really do enjoy collecting enemies. Don’t you?”
“What makes you think we were ever friends? Have you forgotten how we met?”
“Beating you to the pudding when I first moved here ranks up there with my proudest Sinful moments.”
“And you haven’t raced me since,” she pointed out.
“Is this about revenge?” I asked.
“No! I’m worried about my missing cousins!”
“Could someone tell me what’s going on here?” The producer ignored us and turned to Carter. Apparently he expected the man in the room to know more than anyone else. There was a reason for the Geritol Mafia and it boiled down to the local PD’s incompetence, but I didn’t see any reason to blurt that out at the moment.
“I’d like to hear this myself,” Carter said, showing his hand as much as his fragile feelings. “But don’t believe a word that comes out of their mouths. They’re in a secret society and apparently that gives them carte blanche and excuses them from telling the truth.”
“Are you really making this about us right now?”
“No.” Carter
smirked, yanking out his handcuffs. “This is about breaking and entering. In Sinful, that’s a crime.”
“It is in Hollywood, too,” the producer said.
I rolled my eyes, thrust my arms forward, and waited for my new shiny silver-colored bracelets.
“Carter LeBlanc, if you put those cuffs on her, so help me…”
“Believe it or not Gertie, but I am here to help you,” Carter said, pasting on a grin and turning to the producer. “I’ll call their families and make sure everything is taken care of if you won’t press charges.”
“No harm done,” the producer said, checking me out and not in a manner that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. “Next time, just knock.”
“We will,” Ida Belle bit out, apparently under the impression that I couldn’t defend myself.
It was a nice gesture.
I turned to Celia. “I don’t know what you’re up to but if you’re genuinely concerned for your cousins then maybe you should let Carter know that now.”
She smiled, lifted her brows, and then tilted her head at the far corner of the room. There, in a barely visible location, was a camera like those I’d seen on many reality television shows. And thanks to the blinking red light, it was a pretty good bet that those cameras were rolling.
Chapter Five
“You’ve been had.” Carter unlocked the cuffs and carefully removed them from my wrists. He then turned to Ida Belle. “And I never thought I’d say that to you, the so-called president of the Sinful Ladies Society.”
“Let it go.” Gertie warned Ida Belle as soon as she opened her mouth. A rebuttal never fell from her lips.
The sheriff entered then and he looked worse for the wear. We turned our heads and followed him as he walked to his desk and slowly took a seat. After a few exaggerated sighs, he grunted. “Well, Ida Belle… Gertie…and…you.” He shook his head twice. “You are the real problem in this bunch but how much of one is still up for debate.”
Sheriff Robert E. Lee folded his hands over a stack of papers. “I guess it’s too much to ask why you would’ve gone to a stranger’s home.”
“Celia said—”
He put up his hand. “I’m asking Ida Belle.”
I didn’t sulk but felt like it. I also felt like spouting off about my position with the CIA and the fact that I wouldn’t have been in Sinful, Louisiana—or the States for that matter—if an arms dealer hadn’t ordered an ‘off with her head’ hit and threw in a few million for kicks.
“Ida Belle? Want to tell me why you were at the rental house right off of Main?”
“I didn’t know it was rented.”
“Perfect,” he muttered. “Exactly what I wanted to hear since the house doesn’t belong to you.”
“Dana Perry owns it,” Ida Belle said. “Her mother and I are friends.”
“Actually, the house was recently sold. It belongs to me,” the sheriff said. “And at the moment, we aren’t friends.”
“Now come on Robert. That’s a bit drastic.” Gertie sat in the chair across from the sheriff’s desk. “Why if you’d owned that house ten years ago, we would’ve been grilling burgers out back and having potluck dinners.”
“Celia set you up.”
“What?”
He leaned forward, unclasped his hands, and said, “She set you up, Gertie.” He lifted his head. “All of you. You’ll be on the new show. You may have heard of it—Bayou Babes, a production that will bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars to our Southern Louisiana town!” He slammed his fist against the desk.
I jumped. Ida Belle didn’t budge. Gertie scooted to the edge of her chair. “If we were filmed without our knowledge, there’s a slight problem here.”
“Is there now?” Sheriff Robert E. Lee didn’t really present himself as the original one might have. I’d always imagined the real McCoy—or Lee, as the circumstance suggested—as a distinguished gentleman. “As much as you enjoy attention, I would’ve thought the forthcoming show would’ve had you and Ida Belle dancing in the streets.”
Carter tapped me on the shoulder. “He only referenced Ida Belle and Gertie for a reason.”
“Point made.”
“He’s trying to say you aren’t approachable.” Gertie turned her head to her shoulder long enough to explain. “In case you missed the part where you were insulted.”
“I didn’t miss that part.” And I wouldn’t forgive Carter for hauling us in like common thugs.
“Robert, we should go back and have a look around. The whole place smelled like cleaner.”
“Did it, Gertie?” He seemed unmoved. “Perhaps it had something to do with us preparing the house for our renters. We washed the walls with bleach!”
“Well that explains things then,” I muttered, embarrassed.
Ida Belle said, “If we owe you an apology, you have one.”
“From all of us, of course,” Gertie added.
“Agreed.” Apparently the sheriff didn’t care what I said or thought. He didn’t acknowledge the apology. At the moment, I didn’t care much for his little powwow, but thanks to the upcoming television production, I had to sit tight and listen. If the cameras had recorded our latest caper, I needed to figure out how to break in and retrieve the evidence. I couldn’t have my face splattered all over promotional trailers for a new TV show.
As I contemplated a forthcoming crime, I came to terms with another possibility. The footage was likely on someone’s computer by now. I was starting to think I’d been around Ida Belle and Gertie long enough to believe technology was a thing of the future, a future I’d yet to experience. Now a Sinful resident, I was trapped in the past, living in a town that looked like it was created straight from a storybook, complete with pastel homes, white-picket fences, winding paths, and brick roads.
“The producers wanted to know more about the women who inspired the books behind the show. They plan to end each episode with a clip from your lives. In other words, they’ll show their audience Sinful’s real Bayou Babes.” Sheriff Lee laughed. “You’ll be famous.”
“And you think this is okay?” I was boiling mad. Celia had lied all the way around just so she could trick us. I started to imagine death by strangulation. What I’d give to wrap Celia’s pearls around her throat.
Grief. I was more like Gertie than I cared to admit.
“Signs are posted at all the doors. Anyone who enters that house acknowledges that what happens there is being recorded for possible show episodes. By walking inside, you’re giving your consent.”
“Robert, we’ve been friends a long time,” Ida Belle began. “So you’ll have to forgive me when I call my attorney. I’m not going to be on TV. I have my reasons and you need to respect them.”
Gertie took a deep breath. I did the same, dreading what came next.
Ida Belle straightened her shoulders and marched to the door. “It will be a cold day in hell before that footage airs on any episode.”
###
“I sent you to a town where no one could find you and what do you do?” Director Morrow was furious and for good reason. For over a year, our arrangement had worked well.
“Sir, I can explain.”
“Don’t even try. Let me summarize. You walk into the home formerly owned by Marge Boudreaux, pretend to be her heir, settle into a quiet life, and what?” I could almost picture his puffy red cheeks swelling as he hesitated. “You blow the best cover anyone could possibly have by aligning yourself with a bunch of old women who control the town by slipping vials of moonshine in Sinful’s unsuspecting citizens’ hands!”
He knew about that? “They aren’t vials, Sir.” And the citizens were anything but unsuspecting.
“Excuse me?”
I cleared my throat. Since returning from the sheriff’s office, I’d spent the better part of an hour listening to Director Morrow’s rant. “I said, ‘They aren’t vials, Sir’ and they aren’t.”
“Listen to yourself, Redding! You’re siding with criminals!”
“No, Sir. Gertie and Ida Belle are friends and they are the kind of people who wouldn’t just hold a box of ammunition while I’m firing at the enemy. They’d pick up their guns and fight right beside me.” I let him stew on that. “Just saying… Sir.”
“Swell.” A beat later, he added, “You listen to me, Redding. I have half a mind to yank you out of there and bring you in. Then, you can fend for yourself!” He was all talk. Morrow had been a friend of my father’s. He didn’t agree with everything I did, but he wouldn’t hang me out to dry.
“Is there anything else?” I held my breath, hoping we were done here.
“What do you know about the three women posing as you and those ammunition-slinging old maids?”
My lips twitched. We were getting somewhere. “I haven’t seen them.”
“Fortune was supposed to disappear but then Celia set us up. We went to the house looking for the actresses but they were already gone. They probably didn’t have anything to do with this.”
That was my guess, too. Celia had looked for a way to cash in and likely promised to deliver us for a price.
I hoped she choked on hundred dollar bills.
“Tell me I’m not on speakerphone.”
“Director Morrow, meet Gertie Hebert.”
“Call me back when you don’t have an audience,” he snapped.
Before I could say another word, the phone went dead. Gertie shrugged. “His loss.”
Something told me the director probably didn’t see it that way.
Chapter Six
The next day, Ida Belle and Gertie met me in front of the sheriff’s rental home. We set up our lawn chairs, a boxed-style cooler, and bright orange umbrella right there on the well manicured lawn. Waiting for the producer and his young blonde friend to emerge, I had time to reflect on the last forty-eight hours.
Nothing added up. Celia trying to cash in was typical but I didn’t believe she’d helped those women write a book about their lives when the newspaper article had suggested otherwise. Plus, several of Francine’s patrons down at the café had mentioned reading the books. According to some, the café, General Store, and other businesses had been included. Then there were the close similarities between real people and fictional characters.
