Swamp Spook

by Jana DeLeon

  “Plenty of drama when Meg was a teen, though,” Gertie said. “She ran away a couple times. No one was supposed to know, of course. Francesca tried to pass it off as Meg visiting some cousins, but one of the ladies who used to keep house for them had already let the cat out of the bag. Garrett hustled her back home and everyone pretended things were normal, but…”

  “Any speculation as to why she ran away?” I asked.

  Gertie shrugged. “The usual? Mad at her parents? Didn’t like the rules? A boy?”

  Ida Belle nodded. “It’s hard to say, and nothing concrete ever surfaced.”

  “Not even from the housekeeper?” I asked.

  “She was fired right after the runaway story leaked, even though she’d been with the family for years,” Gertie said. “I’m sure she knew things, but she clammed up after that. Died a couple years later.”

  “Probably paid off to keep quiet,” Ida Belle said. “Rich people don’t like their dirty laundry aired.”

  “I suppose not,” I said. “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. If Garrett died of natural causes, then who gets the plantation isn’t relevant. And it doesn’t sound like the wife or the daughter is a good candidate for such an extreme practical joke—assuming that’s what this was.”

  “I have no idea what this was,” Ida Belle said. “In fact, this might be the first time in my life that I can’t even work up a decent guess.”

  Gertie nodded. “I can’t come up with something good either, and you know how fanciful I can be.”

  “I guess the good news is we’re not on the hook for a murder,” Ida Belle said.

  “No,” I said. “But I can’t imagine that the good citizens of Sinful will look kindly on the beheading of one of their own, even though he was already dead.”

  “And a douche,” Gertie said. “But I see what you’re saying. Carter still has to find out who stole the body and cut off the head. And unfortunately, you’re the new girl in town. Celia and her crew already dislike you and I imagine others are wary of you.”

  “Especially given your past,” Ida Belle said. “Because of Hollywood, everyone thinks CIA agents are all hired killers.”

  “But that’s sorta what I was,” I said.

  “Yes, but they don’t know the details,” Ida Belle said. “They’re just going to make assumptions.”

  “And gossip about those assumptions,” Gertie said. “We have a saying in the South—over time, gossip becomes the gospel.”

  I sighed. “I’m never going to be a regular resident, am I? I’m always going to be the Yankee killer.”

  “You will be as long as Celia is around,” Gertie said. “The good news is, she’s quite a bit older than you, so you’ll get some peace when she dies.”

  “But demons never die,” I pointed out.

  “There is that,” Gertie said. “But you can’t let Celia and her absurd group of no-life-drama llamas allow you to question your choice to live here. Most people who know you like you. The trouble all comes from that one small group and most everyone else doesn’t like them.”

  “But they’ll still listen to them wag their tongues,” I said.

  “Of course,” Gertie said. “Gossiping is practically the national pastime around here, especially when it’s too hot to fish or there’s nothing in season to hunt.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ida Belle said. “They can’t do anything to you, even with their talk. The people who believe them wanted to believe in the first place. Everyone else will consider the source and it will go in one ear and out the other.”

  “But in the meantime,” I said, “Carter still has to do his job, and he can’t show any bias.”

  “I imagine it’s not going to be all that pleasant for either of you,” Ida Belle said. “But you two knew the score when you decided to keep this relationship going. It was never going to be smooth sailing.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I was really hoping for more calm than not. Heck, I’d even settle for choppy waters, but this complete submarining is exhausting.”

  “This too shall pass,” Ida Belle said. “I have no idea what’s going on, but as soon as the news that the body was Garrett’s makes its way around, I’ll start my inquiries. If anyone can ferret out a motive or two, it’s my ladies.”

  I nodded and slumped back in my chair. Everything they’d said made sense, but I couldn’t stop that niggling doubt in the back of my mind that somehow this was all going to blow up in my face.

  “There is one positive out of all of this,” Gertie said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I suppose we’ll have a good excuse to miss church today,” she said.

  I sighed. “Because we’re being questioned as suspects in a fake murder and a real beheading. Pastor Don will probably offer up today’s collection for bail and perform an exorcism.”

  “Baptists don’t really do exorcisms,” Ida Belle said. “We leave that sort of thing to the Catholics.”

  “Well, it’s the one thing Celia hasn’t tried on me yet,” I said.

  “She tried it on me,” Gertie said.

  I stared. “Should I even ask?”

  Gertie smiled. “I had Shorty, the butcher, help me rig some lines between the oak trees on her property. Then I put on white makeup, fangs, and red contacts and had him hoist me up in front of her window.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” I asked.

  “Because she’d just been to see Salem’s Lot. The liar,” Gertie said.

  “I don’t know it,” I said.

  “Vampire flick,” Ida Belle said. “On television in the late ’70s. There was a theater showing about ten years ago during some film festival in NOLA.”

  Gertie scowled. “She always called Ida Belle and me heathen for watching horror movies, then she sneaks off to New Orleans with her cousin to see a Stephen King film, no less. One of the Sinful Ladies happened to be at the same showing and told on her. When I heard about it, I decided a little lesson in hypocrisy was in order.”

  I nodded. So far, it sounded perfectly reasonable, which either meant I really didn’t like Celia or Sinful was rubbing off on me.

  “So the next morning, I’m having coffee on my back porch, and Father Michael shows up with two altar boys,” Gertie says. “He pulls out his Bible and starts mumbling some crap you hear in the movies. Then he tosses some holy water on me, so I bolt up from my chair screaming bloody murder. Father Michael runs the two altar boys over trying to get out of my yard. He still crosses the street when he sees me coming.”

  “But this happened decades ago,” I said.

  “Gertie still hisses at him when he’s close enough to hear,” Ida Belle said.

  I grinned. “So what you’re saying is that no exorcism will be forthcoming.”

  “Not from Father Michael, anyway,” Gertie said.

  Ida Belle nodded. “One less thing.”

  Chapter Five

  It was after 10:00 a.m. before I got the call from Carter to come down to the sheriff’s department. His voice sounded grim. I’d expected frustrated, aggravated, and exhausted, but the level of discord that I heard in his tone was unsettling. Something was wrong. More wrong than the things I was already aware of.

  “Do you want me to bring Ida Belle and Gertie?” I asked.

  “No. I have to interview you separately,” he said. “It’s better if you’re not here at the same time. Can’t be any accusations of story collusion that way.”

  “Given that they were at my house for hours last night and again first thing this morning, isn’t it a little late to worry about that?”

  “I just need to do this by the book. I’ll call them down after I’m done with you.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes then.”

  I headed upstairs to change clothes. I’d already put on my regular day attire, but I had on my tightest sports bra and the underwear where the elastic was looser on one side. If this went way south and I ended up behind bars, I wanted
to be as comfortable as possible. Pulling that one side of my underwear out of my butt or shifting my boobs wouldn’t be a good look for a jail cell, especially if I wasn’t alone.

  I changed into my most comfortable sports bra and underwear, then decided to go ahead and switch out my current T-shirt for one of those lighter cotton ones. The last time I’d been in jail, it had been really hot. That draft that Myrtle always complained about had been the only refreshing air that had swept through there, and it hadn’t been enough. I briefly considered sandals but decided against them. It was hard to fight or run in sandals and in Sinful, you never knew what you might be pressed to do. I stuck with my good running shoes and decided if it got too hot, I’d just take them off.

  I glanced at my watch and realized I’d wasted the ten minutes I asked Carter for on my wardrobe alone, so I hurried downstairs and headed out. It had probably all been a waste of time anyway, I told myself as I drove. My fingerprints were on the hatchet, but I didn’t think for a minute it had actually been used to cut off Garrett’s head. That would be easy enough for a competent medical examiner to see. Of course, this was Sinful, and that’s where things got sketchy. I’d met the ME before. He looked older than Sheriff Lee and couldn’t figure out how to work his iPhone. It didn’t do much for confidence building.

  Gavin was at the front desk when I arrived at the sheriff’s department. He was new to the job and looking to make a good impression so he could advance to deputy one day. He was young and energetic and had a long way to go to the jaded and exhausted state he needed to dwell in to be a good cop.

  “Ms. Redding,” he said, jumping up from his desk when I entered. I wasn’t sure if that was out of respect or in case he needed to run, but it was unnecessary regardless.

  “How are you this morning?” I asked and smiled.

  “Fine, ma’am. I mean, not awesome because of the headless guy and all, but other than that, things are good.”

  “That’s great. Can you let Carter know I’m here, please? He needs to take my statement.”

  He nodded. “You found the body, right? Was the head really whacked off? I mean, that’s crazy. Who would do something like that? It had to be some demented serial killer, right?”

  “Well, since the man was already dead when his head went missing, I’m going to vote against serial killer. And serial practical joker isn’t on the table either, unless another headless body shows up.”

  His eyes widened. “You don’t think that’s going to happen, do you? Because my great-aunt died last weekend and they’re holding up the funeral so her brother can make it. If someone whacks off her head and puts her in a Halloween maze, she’ll come back and haunt us for sure.”

  I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the statement, but one look at Gavin told me he was completely serious.

  “I was joking,” I said. “Next time, I’ll warn you first.”

  “Oh, okay.” He didn’t look convinced, but he reached for the phone and called Carter. “He said to go back to his office,” he told me when he hung up

  I nodded and headed down the hallway to Carter’s office. I knew the building well. I’d been in it both invited and uninvited, while it was occupied and while it wasn’t. The door to Carter’s office was open so I didn’t bother with knocking. I strolled in and took a seat. Carter looked over at me and I froze. I was expecting exhaustion and irritation and maybe even a bit of resolution.

  What I saw was disbelief.

  He stared at me for several seconds, not speaking, until I couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “No.”

  My back tightened. Carter had stared at the decapitated body in the Halloween maze without even a hint of surprise, so I couldn’t fathom what had blown his mind.

  Maybe it was something personal. “Is your mother all right? Walter?”

  My question seemed to shake him out of his stupor. “Sorry. Yes. They’re fine. The problem is this case.”

  “I know it’s strange, even for Sinful, but there’s no hard evidence to tie me to the crime.”

  “It’s not that. There was an incident down at the morgue.”

  “Well, yeah. I assume bodies don’t go missing there every day.”

  “At the moment, the return of the body is a bigger problem.”

  “The whole head missing thing, right?”

  “That definitely wasn’t desirable, but the real problem is with Garrett Roth’s cardiologist, Dr. Wilkinson. Apparently, he was on vacation when Roth died, so when the ME called him in the middle of the night to come make positive identification on the body of a patient he didn’t even know had passed, things got a little testy.”

  “The ME didn’t call the family?”

  “He thought he’d spare them the horror of it.”

  “No one from Wilkinson’s office told him about Garrett dying?”

  “His flight landed at ten o’clock last night after a six-hour delay. He went straight to bed without checking messages.”

  “So what’s the problem? I mean, I get that he was on vacation and all, but Garrett had a heart condition and died of a heart attack. Why would Wilkinson get upset over that?”

  “Well, there was the part where he had to identify his patient by his severed head.”

  “Yeah. I see what you’re saying.”

  “Anyway, Wilkinson lost it when he saw what had happened and accused the ME of being a walking corpse who stopped breathing or caring years ago.”

  “Okay.” So far, that sounded fairly reasonable.

  “The ME took offense to those accusations and clocked him with a medical tray…the one with the head on it.”

  I straightened in my chair. “Wow. I guess that’s not one you hear very often at parties—‘I got clobbered with a severed head.’”

  “Wilkinson called the agency that regulates the ME’s office and every oversight agency for doctors and whipped them all into a frenzy.”

  “It’s not optimum, but maybe it’s better in the long run. The ME is at least a hundred years past his expiration date. They might need to insist he retire. Or at least demote him to something that doesn’t allow him access to severed body parts when he’s mad.”

  “That’s not the only call Wilkinson made,” Carter said. “You see, he’s also Celia’s doctor.”

  My stomach rolled. “Oh no.”

  “He knew she worked the festival and called her to find out what happened.”

  “And she gave him her sordid version of everything.”

  He nodded. “Including how the body-stealing psychopath was my girlfriend.”

  I slumped back in my seat. This, on top of the senator’s niece witnessing the fray, was a recipe for disaster for Carter. “When will the state police be here?”

  “This afternoon. I’m not to question anyone. Basically, I’m to sit on my butt and hands until they get here to take over.”

  “I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If Celia didn’t hate me so much she wouldn’t constantly be looking for a way to cause trouble.”

  “Celia’s feud with Ida Belle and Gertie stretches back to before either of us were born. You became a target simply by being friends with them.”

  “Yeah, but I made it worse by being myself.”

  He smiled. “Definitely. But Celia would have been trouble regardless, especially since she’s the one who actually pulled the head off the body. You were just an easy target this time and she’s not about to miss an opportunity to cause you problems.”

  “So what do I need to do?”

  I hadn’t even had lunch yet and I already felt defeated. And guilty. With the state police coming in and taking over, that made it look as if Carter couldn’t handle the job. And I had no doubt that if Sheriff Lee ever retired and Carter ran for the position of sheriff, this entire incident would be printed on bulletins and handed out to every voter in Sinful.

  He shook his head and looked down at the desk before looking back at me. I knew what was coming bef
ore he even uttered the words. “They’ve asked me to detain you for questioning.”

  Thank God I’d changed clothes.

  Since Gavin would be able to see when the state police arrived, and I wasn’t a big flight risk—at least in Carter’s opinion—he let me sit in the break room where I could watch television. The old metal chairs weren’t as comfortable as my recliner, but they were light years better than the sagging bunks in a cell. Smelled better, too, and at least I had access to snacks and drinks.

  I figured Carter would take my cell phone, but he surprised me by telling me to call Ida Belle and fill her in before he took it. He also said to tell her not to come down there because it would only cause more problems for both of us. I could tell she was angry when we got off the phone but she’d finally agreed to sit tight.

  “Is she going to stay put?” Carter asked as he slipped my phone in his pocket.

  “She said she was.”

  “I didn’t ask what she said. I asked what she was going to do.”

  I sighed. I was hoping he would miss that slight dodge.

  “I wouldn’t bet on her staying put,” I said. “It’s just not her style.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I wouldn’t stay put either.”

  He shook his head. “If you keep getting thrown in jail, I’m going to have to start charging you rent.”

  “Please. I should be charging you. My mere presence is classing the place up. Like acquiring art.”

  Carter shuffled his feet a bit and looked down at the floor. I tensed, wondering what the heck was coming next.

  “I don’t suppose you’d mind telling my mother that I didn’t have a choice,” he said.

  “You want me to run interference with you and Emmaline? I thought you were the alpha hero type.”

  “Not when it comes to my mother.”

  I grinned. This whole Southern mother thing was something psychologists should study. It was fascinating territory.