by Jana DeLeon
“So the smell in Ida Belle’s SUV had nothing to do with a report of someone in a dark-colored SUV stealing garbage last night?” Carter asked.
The three of us immediately shifted to our confused and slightly disgusted expressions. It was easy enough. I just thought about how bad the SUV smelled the night before and everything fell into place.
“Why would someone steal garbage?” I asked.
“That’s a great question,” Carter said. “And I was really hoping to get an answer to it.”
We all looked at one another and shrugged.
“Paparazzi?” Gertie suggested. “They steal garbage. I’ve seen it on TV.”
“In Sinful?” Carter asked. “Whose garbage would be of interest to them here?”
“There are plenty of interesting people doing fascinating things in Sinful,” Gertie said.
“Uh-huh,” Carter said. “And I’m looking at three of them. So if I check your trash cans, I won’t find anything in them that belongs to Marco Gilley?”
Gertie frowned. “I don’t think the paparazzi would be interested in Marco’s trash, and I’m certainly not. Feel free to check my cans but all you’re going to find is a mess of junk mail, some empty milk cartons and a couple of cans.”
Carter stared at her for several seconds and I could see the indecision on his face. I knew he wanted to call her bluff, but the thought of digging through garbage made the whole idea less desirable.
“Oh hell,” Ida Belle said, “give the man some gloves and send him out to the curb before trash pickup comes by.”
I struggled to maintain a straight face. What was she doing? I looked over at her and she gave me a barely imperceptible shake of her head. I had to assume she’d clued in to something that I hadn’t. Gertie grabbed a pair of latex gloves from a drawer and handed them to Carter.
“There’s only one bag,” Gertie said. “I cooked mostly from frozen stuff this week, so not a lot of trash.”
Carter hesitated a second, then took the gloves and headed out the front door. I waited until the door had closed behind him to speak.
“I hope you have a good explanation for having Marco’s trash,” I said, “because my imagination is shot.”
“Don’t be silly,” Gertie said. “I didn’t put Marco’s trash in my can. It smelled to high heaven for one, and you never know when someone might come by and dig through your garbage.”
“Like the paparazzi?” Ida Belle asked, and grinned.
Relief flooded through me. “So where did you put it?”
“Celia’s can,” Gertie said. “It will stink so bad, she’ll have to bleach her can.”
“Was Marco’s name on anything?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Gertie said. “Her trash was already at the curb, and she won’t notice the stench until she brings in the empty can after pickup.”
We looked out the front window and watched as Carter opened the lone garbage bag and dug through it. It didn’t take long before he pulled off the gloves, added them to the bag, then retied it and put the entire thing back in the can. Gertie opened the front door as he approached.
“Well?” she asked.
“It was just what you claimed,” he said.
“So you have incorrectly accused us of something we didn’t do,” Gertie said. “Don’t you think you should apologize?”
Carter gave her a look that clearly said “hold your breath.”
“I accused you of something I’m still pretty sure you did,” he said. “I just don’t know why or where you hid the evidence. But since it’s low on my priority list and breakfast is high, I’m going to head home for a shower and then to the café. If you three could manage to stay out of trouble long enough for me to get my day started, it would be highly appreciated.”
We watched as he pulled away, then headed back to the kitchen for coffee.
“Spill it,” Ida Belle said. “What the hell happened?”
“Mostly like I told Carter,” Gertie said, “except I left out the part about how the garage reeked of fish even after I was done cleaning. I cracked the garage door at the bottom and left the back door open to draw some air through there but it must have attracted the cats. Then they got inside the garage and smelled what I was cooking for Godzilla and all hell broke loose.”
“So many cats,” I said. “Where did they all come from?”
“All around,” Gertie said. “I recognized a few from the neighborhood. Others were probably feral. I hope no one peed.”
“If they peed in here, you might as well burn the house down,” Ida Belle said.
Her phone signaled an incoming text, and she pulled it from her pocket and grinned. “Marie says a gang of cats attacked Celia when she was taking a bag of garbage out ten minutes ago.”
“Don’t tell me she’s up a lamppost again,” I said.
“Nope. A tree.”
I stared. “If someone calls Carter about this, he’s going to dig through her trash.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Hurry!” Ida Belle said, and ran out the front door. Gertie and I scrambled behind as she jumped into Gertie’s ancient Cadillac. We barely got the doors closed before she took off down the block. Two streets over, she turned and I saw the garbage truck ahead of us.
Ida Belle pulled up behind the truck and ran over to the driver. I saw her gesturing toward Celia’s street and then hand the driver some money. He leaned out the window and gave Ida Belle a high five before pulling away.
“What did you tell him?” I asked as she got back into the car.
“I told him we’d played a prank on Celia and put fish heads in her trash. But I needed him to break route and pick up her street now or we’d get busted. I gave him a twenty for the trouble. He gave me a high five because he can’t stand Celia.”
“I know we should stay away,” I said, “but I have to see Celia up the tree.”
Ida Belle grinned and directed the car toward Celia’s house.
The trash truck was picking up her can as we rounded the corner, the strong winds lifting some of the paper and cardboard and blowing it out into the street. A dozen cats milled around her front lawn, hissing at the truck as it took away their prize while some chased the flying fragments. When the truck set the can back on the ground, the cats swarmed it, knocking it over and scrambling in and out, fighting over the tiny space. I scanned the yard and spotted Celia sitting on a branch in an apple tree about twenty feet away.
For a woman who’d had her undergarments on display way more times than I could count, I’d have thought Celia would have learned to never leave the house unless fully clothed, maybe even wearing two pairs of underwear and a pair of overalls on top of a whole other outfit. But no. Instead, she’d elected to take out the trash in her bathrobe. Now she sat on the branch, looking like a chubby wildcat in her leopard-printed robe.
As soon as she spotted us, she started yelling.
“Maybe we should leave,” I said.
“Too late,” Gertie said, and pointed at Carter’s truck rounding the corner.
“Might as well get out and video it then,” Ida Belle said. “You never know what might be useful later on.”
We climbed out of the car and started up the sidewalk. Carter pulled to the curb, got out of his truck, and stared at us. “And what, exactly, are the three of you doing here?” he asked.
“We heard Celia was up a tree,” Ida Belle said, “and I want video in case I need to blackmail her at some point.”
“And you knew she was up a tree how, exactly?” he asked.
“Marie,” Ida Belle said.
“She said Celia was attacked by a roving gang of cats,” Gertie said. “I bet it’s the same ones that tore up my house.”
“You think the cats have formed a gang?” Carter asked.
I pointed to a pack of them fighting in and around the trash can. “They are acting like a bunch of thugs.”
Carter looked at the empty trash can, then back at us. “Gee. I wonder wha
t attracted those cats to Celia’s trash?”
We all shrugged.
“Stop your gum flapping and get me out of this tree,” Celia yelled.
“And I want them arrested,” Gertie grumbled. “You know it’s coming.”
“She’s waiting to see if she makes it out of the tree fully clothed,” I said.
Gertie nodded. “It’s harder to be taken seriously when your bare butt is showing.”
Ida Belle whipped out her phone and started to record as Carter approached the tree. “Why don’t you just climb down?” he asked.
Celia glared at him. “What do you think I am? A monkey?”
Ida Belle reached over with her free hand and clamped it over Gertie’s mouth. “Don’t answer that.”
“I know you three are responsible,” Celia continued to rant.
“Sorry,” I said, “we’re not capable of herding cats. Carter can attest to that. This roving band of trouble attacked Gertie before they attacked you. Why do you think we’re all out here this early in our pajamas?” I looked over at Gertie. “And dressed as a nun?”
Celia glared at Gertie. “Bad enough you make a mockery of women everywhere, but now you’re mocking my faith. God is going to send lightning down on you.”
“Maybe if I stood under that tree,” Gertie said, “he’d take out that branch you’re sitting on and solve two problems at once.”
“Deputy LeBlanc?” A man’s voice sounded from next door and I looked up to see him step through the shrubs and into Celia’s yard.
Fiftyish. Five foot eleven. Two hundred pounds. Decent muscle at one time but had gotten lax. Based on the dirty look he shot at Celia, she was the only one of us at risk.
“Carl,” Carter acknowledged. “Got a bit of an issue here. I don’t suppose you have a ladder I could borrow?”
“If it means she’ll go inside and stop her yelling, I’ll climb up it and carry her down myself,” he said.
I heard a crack—not a loud one, but definitely not something occurring in nature—and looked up at Celia just as an apple above her head dropped. She’d glanced up at the sound herself and the apple hit her right in the middle of her eyes. She yelled and let go of the limb, pitching forward onto the lawn. I saw movement at the shrubs and glanced over just in time to see a teenage boy, who looked familiar, slip a BB gun in the bushes before stepping forward.
“Maybe she died,” he said.
Celia scrambled up from the ground, covered in dirt and leaves, and glared at the teen. “Your uncle should teach you some manners.”
“I have manners,” he said. “I just don’t waste them on people like you.”
“Now, Jordan,” Carl said, although I could tell he didn’t exactly disagree with the teen’s sentiment.
Jordan. Carl. That’s why the teen looked familiar. He was the busboy at the café that Celia had accused of stealing her purse during the alligator incident.
Jordan threw his hands in the air. “What? You want me to feel bad that the old biddy fell? She shouldn’t climb things if she can’t get down, and I think everyone in town knows how that turns out. If she could keep her clothes on and her mouth shut, you might be able to sell the house. But no, everyone finds out who lives next door and the offers leave the table.”
He whirled around and headed back into the bushes, snatching the BB gun on his way. Carl gave Carter an apologetic look. “He’s a little frustrated. I have to sell the house in order to get money for his college. Can’t afford a place in New Orleans and here and tuition.”
“He’s a hoodlum is what he is,” Celia said.
“My nephew is a good kid,” Carl said. “He just doesn’t like you and I can’t say that I blame him. Maybe if you cleaned up around your place more often, it wouldn’t attract animals. The place has smelled of something rotten for days.”
“Something died under my house,” Celia said.
“Shame it wasn’t something inside,” Gertie mumbled.
Celia glared at her, then trained her stare on Carter. “Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to arrest these people?”
Carter’s jaw twitched and I knew he was already maxed out on nonsense. Not a good sign as it was barely 7:00 a.m.
“No!” he said, so loudly Celia’s eyes widened. “I’m not arresting anyone, including you. I want all of you people to go home, get dressed, and I don’t want a single 911 call because of you again today. Not even if you’re being murdered. Am I clear?”
Celia was pissed but smart enough to know when to keep her mouth shut. She whirled around and stomped off to her house. Carter looked at the three of us. “I mean it,” he said, and nodded to Carl before walking off. Carl gave us a weak wave, then headed back through the bushes.
“Well, I guess the show is over,” Gertie said. “Let’s get the heck out of here.”
We headed back to the car and as I started to climb in, I saw a piece of white cardboard lodged under the wheel. I reached over and pulled it out, then hopped inside the car.
“Look at this,” I said and pointed to the red stamp on the cardboard.
“It’s says Francine’s Café,” Gertie said. “That’s a bacon box.”
“What’s it doing under the wheel?” Ida Belle said.
I pointed down the street at the pieces of trash blowing around. “I noticed paper flying out of the truck when he picked up Celia’s garbage.”
“Did we miss it when we searched Marco’s garbage?” Ida Belle asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “If we were just depending on Gertie’s sketchy eyesight, it would be one thing, but we all looked at the stuff from the back of your SUV.”
“Then where did it come from?” Gertie asked.
“With this wind, it could have come from anywhere on this street and maybe even the next,” Ida Belle said.
I shook my head. “But you diverted the truck to this street, which means he hadn’t done the ones on either side before he got here. I don’t think the box would have traveled two blocks, even in this wind.”
“That’s true,” Ida Belle said.
“I hate to say it, but Jordan lives right next door to Celia,” I said.
“True,” Gertie said, “but Cora lives on this street too. And I heard yesterday that she brought two dozen bacon-wrapped shrimp to the Catholic church dinner on Sunday. Besides, whoever stole the food could have put the containers in someone else’s trash just like we did.”
I nodded. “Maybe we should take a closer look at Cora and Jordan.”
“Breakfast first,” Gertie said. “I’m starving.”
“First, we change clothes,” Ida Belle said.
“Oh yeah.” Despite the fact that I was seated in a car with a woman wearing a bathrobe and curlers and another dressed like a nun, I’d completely missed that. I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but it probably wasn’t anything good.
“Okay, so we change clothes and meet at the café in twenty,” I said, wondering if a day in Sinful would ever start normally.
I smiled. I was sorta hoping it wouldn’t.
The café was fairly quiet but it was early. Ally had the day off but I saw Cora carrying a tray and gave Ida Belle a nod. It was as good a time as any to chat her up. I didn’t expect her to fess up to stealing, especially while she was on shift from the place with the missing merchandise, but people often revealed things in random conversation that they didn’t think about.
“Good morning, Cora,” Ida Belle said as she stepped up to our table.
“Morning, ladies,” Cora said with a smile. “I heard there was a fuss down at Celia’s this morning.”
“Good news travels fast,” Gertie said.
“Well, when you live down the street and your husband mostly works from home,” Cora said, “you tend to hear about things. Especially when they’re odd. Did she really get attacked by cats?”
“That’s what she said,” Ida Belle said. “By the time we got there, she was already up the tree. There were cats fight
ing in her garbage though.”
“I’ve never seen cats do that,” Cora said. “I mean, not a bunch at one time.”
“They seemed to be fighting over a bacon box,” I said. “You’d think at her age and with her physical condition, Celia would be watching what she ate a little more.”
The smile faded from Cora’s face and she glanced back at the kitchen, then looked back at us, but I noticed she didn’t meet my eyes. “I better get moving,” she said. “What can I get you ladies to drink?”
We gave our drink orders and Cora hurried away. “That was interesting,” I said.
Ida Belle nodded. “Definitely. But why would Cora steal food? It doesn’t make sense.”
“There’s a lot of pressure over at the Catholic church,” Gertie said, “especially on the wives of employees. They pay them squat but judge everything they contribute. If it doesn’t meet the grade, then people start talking.”
“Over what you bring to church dinner?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” Gertie said. “They once fired a piano player for bringing store-bought rolls.”
I stared. “You’re kidding.”
“She only brought one pack, you see. It’s not enough to just make something good. If you’re getting money from the church in any form, the parishioners expect you to bring a lot of it as well.”
Ida Belle frowned. “I can see where that might be a problem. A music director’s position can’t possibly pay that much. And Celia serves on the church board.”
“Of course she does,” I said. “But bacon is only half the problem. Isn’t shrimp more expensive?”
Gertie nodded. “But I happen to know that Cora’s husband played the piano down at the shrimp house for the mother of the owner. It was her eighty-fifth birthday.”
“What the heck does that have to do with anything?” Ida Belle asked.
“If you’d let me finish,” Gertie said, “I know about it because Cora was excited that they traded shrimp for his time.”
“Heads up,” I said.
Cora headed our way with a tray and placed our drinks on the table. “Do you ladies know what you want to order?” she asked, seeming a bit hurried even though only three tables were occupied.
