Hurricane Force (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 7)

by DeLeon, Jana

  Too nice.

  I totally wanted to shoot her.

  “I think the husbands are safe,” I said. “Anyone who’d cheat on his wife is not someone I’m interested in spending time with.”

  Gracie nodded. “Isn’t that the truth?”

  “Well,” Gertie said, “there’s that and then there’s the part where she’s dating Carter.”

  “Ohhhhhh.” Gracie’s mouth formed an O. “He’s so handsome and so mannered. His mother did a great job raising him.”

  I nodded.

  “So Brody,” Ida Belle said, shifting the conversation, “you must have been surprised when your old high school buddy turned up.”

  “Even more surprised when he turned up dead,” Gertie said.

  Ida Belle elbowed her in the ribs as Brody ran one gloved hand over the top of his head.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was pretty surprised all the way around. Still not sure what to think of it.”

  Gracie, who’d been frowning ever since Ida Belle had dropped the Max bomb, shook her head. “I know exactly what to think of it. Max married that horrible woman and she made his life miserable. I don’t know why he wanted to come back here after he got away.”

  “Maybe because it’s still where he considers home?” I suggested.

  Gracie sniffed. “I’m sure there’s some truth to that. I suppose if I moved away from Sinful, no place else would ever feel the same to me, even if I lived the rest of my life there. But look what it cost him. Nothing is worth dying over, especially Celia Arceneaux.”

  “You don’t think he came back because of Celia, do you?” Ida Belle asked. “Lord, I figured that ship had sailed years ago, and after how mean he was to her at the café…it sure didn’t sound like a man trying to make amends for a bad decision.”

  “Heavens!” Gracie said. “I don’t think he was here to win back Celia’s heart. I’m not even convinced she has one.”

  “Me either,” Gertie grumbled.

  “Then I don’t follow,” Ida Belle said.

  Gracie sighed. “He was killed in Celia’s house. There wasn’t any power and they’re about the same size. Obviously, someone thought he was Celia.”

  I considered this for a moment. As far as theories went, it was a fairly interesting one and not easy to completely dismiss. I didn’t think it was correct, but it was an angle I hadn’t previously considered.

  “But who would want to kill Celia?” I asked.

  Gertie snorted. “Who wouldn’t?”

  Gracie nodded and I held in a smile. For someone who claimed to avoid negativity, Gracie was a big fail when it came to Celia.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, there’s probably plenty of people who wouldn’t shed a tear if Celia was gone, but there’s a big gap between hating someone, or even wishing them dead, and actually killing them.”

  It was a mantra I’d spoken more than once and thought about all the time, especially given my profession. But civilians always seemed a bit taken aback at it. Gracie was no exception.

  Her eyes widened and she stared at me for several uncomfortable seconds. “I guess I hadn’t considered it all the way through,” Gracie said.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Gertie said. “You can’t fathom actually killing someone, which is a good thing.”

  “That’s true,” Gracie said, “but I still think Celia had more enemies in this town than Max. He’s been gone for over twenty years. Why would someone wait all this time to settle an old score with him?”

  “Maybe it’s the first opportunity they got,” Ida Belle said. “He did disappear.” She looked over at Brody, who’d been quiet during our entire exchange. “Did you get a chance to talk to Max when he returned?”

  Brody didn’t answer for a couple of seconds, and I started to wonder if he’d even heard the question. Finally, he came out of his stupor and nodded. “Briefly.”

  Gracie frowned. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Because it wasn’t worth telling,” Brody said. “He was coming out of the café and saw me across the street. He came over to say hi but before we could get past the small talk of how many years it had been and the storm that was coming, he got a phone call and excused himself. He said he’d swing by later to catch up, but I guess he didn’t have time to make it by before the storm.”

  And now he wouldn’t be making it by at all. Brody frowned and looked down at the ground.

  “Did you ever hear from him?” Gertie asked. “I mean, after he disappeared?”

  Brody nodded. “He called right after he left and told me he’d finally gotten the courage to break loose. Said he wasn’t looking back. I told him I was happy for him and to keep in touch.”

  “But he didn’t?” Gertie asked.

  “No. That was the last I ever heard from him,” Brody said. “Until two days ago.”

  I watched his face closely as he talked. If he was lying, he was doing a good job of it. His voice and expression seemed slightly sad and a little troubled.

  “It’s a shame Celia came between you two,” Gertie said. “If Max had never married her, he might have had an entirely different life. And a longer one.”

  Brody nodded. “Different perhaps, but probably not much better. Max was always looking for the cool ride and everything that went with it. I think the only thing that would have made him truly happy was having an art career.”

  I seriously doubted it. After all, it appeared Max had indeed had an art career, and a fairly successful one. But it was also probably what got him killed.

  “Anyway,” Brody said, “I best get back to it.”

  “Would you like some help?” Gertie asked.

  I mentally shouted “Please say no” over and over again.

  Gracie shook her head. “We’ve only got the front yard left to do. Someone else could probably use your help more. We didn’t get much damage. We were lucky.” She smiled. “But it was so nice of you to stop by and volunteer. And it was nice to meet you,” she said to me.

  “It was nice to meet you too,” I said and turned to walk away before she could launch into happy land again.

  We hopped into my Jeep and pulled away. “Wow,” I said. “You weren’t kidding with the nice thing. Until she went all Exorcist over Celia I was certain she was a Stepford Wife.”

  “Excellent movie references,” Gertie said. “And very accurate choices.”

  I glanced in my rearview mirror. “Looks like they’ve shifted from horror to drama.”

  Gracie’s big smile was completely gone and her face was contorted in obvious anger. She was shaking her finger at Brody, who managed to look both aggravated and resigned at the same time.

  “I wonder what that’s about?” I asked.

  “My guess is that Gracie didn’t know about Max’s phone call to Brody when he disappeared,” Ida Belle said.

  “What difference does that make?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t make a difference,” Gertie said. “It’s just something Brody had that he didn’t share with Gracie. She thinks everyone should be an open book, especially when they’re married.”

  “No one is an open book,” I said, “and until we can read minds, no one will be.”

  I meant what I said. I didn’t think it was reasonable to think that someone should share their every thought with you, even if you were in a relationship. But the whole scene had struck a nerve. The things I was keeping from Carter were so much bigger than a two-minute conversation with a friend twenty years ago. In reality, almost everything Carter knew about me was a lie, even my appearance.

  Ida Belle glanced back at Gertie, but neither of them said anything. They didn’t have to. I knew they were both thinking about my own duplicity and how Carter would handle the truth when he finally got it. I was discovering that the downside and the upside of having friends was sometimes the same thing. I couldn’t hide things from them anymore. In such a short amount of time, they’d learned my tells…figured me out. Heck, they may know me better than I k
new myself.

  I sighed. Some days, it wouldn’t take much.

  “What happened to make Gracie hate Celia so much?” I asked. “It seems out of character with the rest of her.”

  Ida Belle frowned. “You know, we never figured that out. It was back when they’d all just finished high school. We used to see the four of them running around together—fishing, lunch at the café, road trips to New Orleans—and then one day Gracie was walking down the sidewalk on Main Street and Celia was coming in the opposite direction. I saw Gracie freeze and her face flushed red, then she crossed the street and never looked Celia’s direction again.”

  “And she hasn’t ever since,” Gertie said, “except to scowl.”

  “We did some poking around,” Ida Belle said. “No good reason except idle curiosity, but it was something odd and you know how we like to figure out odd.”

  “You like to have all the pieces to the puzzle of Sinful,” I said.

  “Yes,” Ida Belle said. “I suppose we do. At one time, I thought we did, the important ones anyway. Lately, I see how foolish we were to believe we could really know what goes on with people when we’re not watching. The irony, of course, being that Gertie, Marge, and I have kept our true selves hidden from the people of Sinful all our lives, but it never occurred to me that other people were doing the same thing.”

  “You thought this was a simpler place that you could take at face value,” I said, “or close to face value, anyway.”

  “Not face value so much,” Ida Belle said. “After all, there’s affairs and unexpected pregnancies and addiction problems—all sorts of things people try to keep hidden. But I never figured the people here for the big-ticket items, you know?”

  Ida Belle sighed. “It was shortsighted of me. As long as people are involved, the chance of corruption is always present. Sinful is hardly Nirvana. It’s certainly not exempt from things that are happening in the rest of the world.”

  I nodded. “I think a lot of people, even you, would be surprised at just how much is going on right beneath your nose. Criminals evolve just as any other successful business does. If they weren’t getting better at what they do, they wouldn’t still be in business.”

  “Speaking of criminals,” Gertie said, “what did you think of Brody as a connection to Randal?”

  “He appeared to be telling the truth about Max,” I said, “but then, if he’s been in contact with Max all these years and living with Gracie, he’d pretty much be an expert at deception. In a lot of ways, Gracie makes the best cover. Who would suspect Brody of being involved in anything bad when he’s married to the Pollyanna of Sinful?”

  “I agree,” Ida Belle said. “Brody is still on the table as a suspect. So where do we go from here?”

  “Continue with the canvassing for now,” I said. “Gracie’s theory that Celia was the target was an interesting one. I want to know what other people think. And I want to know if anyone else talked to Max or saw him talking to anyone else.”

  “I think we should split up,” Ida Belle said. “We can cover more ground that way. Let’s pick a block, then you and Gertie can cover one side and I’ll cover the other.”

  I pulled around the corner and stopped at the curb. On both sides of the street, people were working in their yards. “Does this work?” I asked.

  “It’s as good a place as any,” Ida Belle said.

  I followed Gertie to the left side of the street and we started working the crowd. We helped move a couple of heavier branches, but mostly people appreciated the offer of help but didn’t really need it. Everyone seemed shocked at Max’s return and even more so at his murder. No one else shared Gracie’s theory that Celia was the intended target, but a few hinted that Celia might have been the shooter.

  Toward the end of the street, we saw Belinda Hinkley stacking branches and some shingles at the curb for trash collection. Landon sat on the sidewalk with a young boy, probably ten, looking at a book.

  Belinda looked up as we approached. “What brings you out this way?” she asked.

  “Since we got lucky with the storm, we’re making the rounds,” Gertie said. “Seeing if anyone needs help.”

  “I got lucky as well,” Belinda said. “Lost a few shingles and some small branches but nothing hard to fix. My garden is a bit flooded, but since I raised the beds this year, I think everything will be all right.”

  “That’s good,” Gertie said. “So far, it seems like everyone has made out okay.”

  “Everyone but Celia, I suppose,” Belinda said.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I suppose a dead man in your house isn’t common hurricane fare.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Belinda said. “Plenty of people die in a big storm, but most of them weren’t murdered.”

  Since Belinda seemed chatty and clearly had an opinion on things, I figured I’d just come right out and ask. “Who do you think killed him?”

  She blinked. “Celia, of course. It’s no secret she hated the man, and after that scene at the café, who could blame her? She’s been waiting a lot of years to settle the score with Max, and she finally got her chance.”

  “I suppose you could be right,” I said. “He was in her house.”

  Gertie shook her head. “I don’t know. Do you really think Celia’s capable of killing someone? She’s a bitch, but I always saw her as weak at the core. More of a bully who couldn’t back it up.”

  “Under normal circumstances,” Belinda said, “I’d agree with you, but these circumstances are far from normal, especially for Celia.”

  Okay. Clearly the entire thing was outside of the norm. Women’s husbands generally didn’t disappear without a word and then reappear in a local café decades later as if that were normal. But I got the impression Belinda wasn’t talking about Max at all. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I think Celia was really in love with Max,” Belinda said. “I think he may be the only person she’s ever loved besides Pansy. Hate is a strong emotion, but it’s nothing compared to loving someone. That kind of love can make a person capable of all sorts of things they wouldn’t normally be able to do, especially if it turns against you.”

  I looked over at Gertie, who frowned, apparently considering Belinda’s theory. I wasn’t certain I believed that completely. I mean, I believed that a person who hated violence could kill to protect themself or someone else, but I couldn’t stretch my mind to imagine being so emotionally devastated by a man that I would want to kill him, much less after a twenty-year gap.

  I looked at Belinda. “So you’re saying that at a certain point, you believe emotion can override character?”

  “Not quite that,” Belinda said. “I think that strong emotion coupled with the wrong situation can lead to tragedy. For all we know, Max broke into Celia’s house to steal something he fancied belonged to him. Between Max’s return and that comment he made at the café about Pansy’s parentage, Celia’s emotions had to be out of control compared to her norm. If she was at home and thought he was an intruder, I think that even once she realized it was Max, she still would have taken the shot.”

  “So you’re saying with her emotions riding high and then confronted with what she thought was a burglar, it might have overwhelmed her to the point that all logic fled?” Gertie asked. “I guess I could see that. Celia’s so used to being in charge of everything, but most especially herself. In a compromised mental state, she might have acted out of character.”

  “But you saw her after she went into her house,” I said. “She came back outside and passed out on her porch.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to believe she’d done it,” Gertie said, “and then couldn’t face the reality. Remember, she sent Norman to check on her house instead of going herself. Maybe she was hoping it was all a bad dream.”

  “That’s not a compromised mental state,” I said. “That’s serious delusion.”

  “I don’t pretend to know what happened,” Belinda said, “but I stand by my suspicion. If Celia is so in
nocent, why is she hiding? No one’s seen her since she left her house that day.”

  “Carter knows where she is,” I said. “If she’s trying to hide from the police, she’s not doing a very good job.”

  “She’s hiding from judgment,” Belinda said. “Which is futile. It will come soon enough and in a big heap. If you two will excuse me, I have a pot of stew on the stove that I need to check.”

  She headed inside and I looked over at Gertie. “What do you think about her theory?”

  “I think it’s an interesting one, and I don’t disagree that a compromised mental state could make even the most docile of people a killer.”

  “But?”

  “But it still feels wrong. Maybe it’s because I’ve known Celia all my life, and even though she’s a huge pain in the butt, I don’t want her to be a murderer. Or maybe I’m just an old fool who still wants to believe that character can’t be compromised over something as foolish as a man.”

  I started across the lawn for the sidewalk. “Do you think Belinda’s right about Celia being in love with Max?”

  Gertie frowned. “I’d never really given it any thought. Celia’s behavior toward things she likes and dislikes has always looked similar to me. She’s not a happy person at her core. But I suppose Belinda could be right.”

  “Which means we might have to change our perspective and put Celia back into the suspect pool.”

  “Unless Carter has witnesses to clear her.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Wanna see my book?” The boy who was sitting with Landon held up a book as we stepped onto the sidewalk next to them.

  I looked down and smiled at him, then zeroed in on the book and felt my pulse spike just a hair. “That’s a great book,” I said. “Can I see?”

  He nodded and I took the book from him and looked at the coins, labeled and carefully placed in their respective slots. A history of the origin of the individual coins was contained on each page. I flipped the pages slowly, carefully inspecting the coins until I found one that looked like the dies in Max’s apartment.

  “This one is really cool,” I said and pointed to it.

  The boy and Landon leaned over to look. Landon shook his head. “I don’t like that one,” he said. “I like the one with the horse.”