by Jana DeLeon
“I really appreciate what you’re doing,” Angel said. “It’s important to me and Nickel. More important than you’ll ever know.”
“Well, I can’t do anything to bring her back, but I can certainly try to bring her justice.”
“I’m not interested in justice, Ms. Redding. I’m interested in retribution.”
Two hours later, Ida Belle, Gertie, and I were in her SUV and NOLA-bound. They hadn’t so much as blinked when I’d told them that Carter was still looking into things. That didn’t mean he was calling it homicide but it was sketchy enough to commit more time to.
After getting Molly’s father’s name from Nickel, we’d managed to locate an address for him, and the old boy was still kicking. And I did mean old boy. Molly had been in her early thirties. According to the information I could drum up on the internet, her father was over seventy. And either he didn’t like change or he didn’t like to spend money because according to the property tax rolls, he’d inherited the property from his parents. I assumed it was the house Molly grew up in.
Dexter Nutters had been a bit harder to get a fix on. I’d found an apartment address, but the manager had told me, not so politely, that Nutters had run out on rent and if I saw him I was to tell him that Winky Bear never forgot a debt. The man I’d spoken to sounded like a heavy metal singer, practically growling into the phone, so I was sorely tempted to make a drive by the apartments and see what a man called Winky Bear but with a voice like thunder looked like. But our first stop was Silas Broussard, Molly’s father. We’d already seen the document leaving the catering business to Ally, but we didn’t know who the rest of Molly’s belongings would go to. Without a will, next of kin stood in line, and as far as we knew, that meant Silas. Since I was certain Ally hadn’t killed Molly to inherit, I was moving on to the next in line.
“Carter’s probably notified Molly’s father, right?” Gertie asked as Ida Belle hurtled us down the highway at one and a half times the speed limit.
“I’m sure he has,” I said. “He had Angel’s number and I’m sure she could provide his name and address, especially as he hasn’t moved since birth.”
Gertie nodded. “A lot of those old bayou people are like that. Sometimes multiple generations live out their lives in an old shack on a single plot of land. Heck, some never even leave their local town. There are people living out in the bayous around Sinful that have never even been to New Orleans.”
I couldn’t imagine hiding away from the world, but then I’d traveled a lot of it and not the pleasant places, either. I could handle whatever was thrown at me. But for a hermit type, who’d never been out of the weeds, so to speak, a place like New Orleans was probably overwhelming. Quite frankly, based on some of the things I’d seen overseas in the sandbox, electricity could be overwhelming. A cell phone was straight-up the devil.
“I was going to try to get more information about Silas from Nickel,” I said, “but he couldn’t talk last night and I couldn’t reach him this morning.”
“Which means he’s probably got Whiskey within listening distance,” Ida Belle said.
“More likely, he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet,” Gertie said. “It’s not afternoon.”
“That’s true,” Ida Belle said. “I forget these bar owners keep late hours working and sleeping. And Nickel wasn’t ever one to turn down a beer. I can’t imagine him working in the bar is the best idea for keeping him straight, but I don’t see that Whiskey has a choice in the matter, either.”
“Has their father signed the bar over to them yet?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ida Belle said. “You’d think he would have done everything up legally when he first got sick but he’s a stubborn old cuss.”
“So based on the very limited information we have on Silas, what do you think we’re walking into?” I asked.
“Someone who shoots trespassers on sight,” Ida Belle said. “We’re gonna need to park right in the middle of the driveway or dirt patch or whatever serves as parking and walk with our hands in clear sight as we approach the house.”
“Yep,” Gertie said. “And if there’s a warning shot or even an indiscernible yell or grunt, we get the heck out of there. I’d sooner mess with gators than one of those rooted-in Creoles.”
“I really hope he doesn’t shoot,” I said. “I’m not interested in killing anyone today. Well, most days, really. Unless they’re bad guys and they start it. Then I’m good.”
Ida Belle grinned. “As long as you have your standards.”
“I’ve had to get a bit more stringent being a civilian and all,” I said. “The CIA was surprisingly lenient when I had a few more hits than assigned. Of course, they sent me in dens of the worst criminals on earth, so it wasn’t like I had to discern the nice florist from the mix and make sure he didn’t take a stray bullet.”
“Our legal system definitely gets in the way sometimes,” Gertie said. “Makes everything harder and takes more time. The Old Testament was a lot more immediate.”
“Well, it’s been a while since God burned bushes and parted seas,” Ida Belle said. “I think we’re going to have to work this without hoping for a lightning strike to come down on the bad guy.”
“Probably so,” Gertie said. “But I’ve still got hope.”
My cell phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket. “Carter,” I said, hoping he didn’t lead off the conversation by asking what we were doing.
“Hey,” Carter said when I answered. “Where are you?”
I smiled. This one I could answer. “We’re on our way to New Orleans. Last-minute wedding stuff. What’s up?”
“There’s a video online of you three with the bear ripping the door off the van.”
“Yeah, Gertie was videoing.”
“You were in a stolen van!”
“No one knows that. Maybe we had permission from the owner to borrow it.”
“The owner is missing.”
“Which means no one can prove that we didn’t ask beforehand.”
“I give up. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I had to turn Dexter loose. Jails are full and the DA said he’ll probably walk with a fine or minimal probation at best. Bail was so low, Tiny could have paid it.”
Tiny was Carter’s rottweiler.
“Well, crap,” I said. “I was hoping he’d be visiting with you a bit longer than this. Did you call Ally?”
“First thing,” he said. “And I gave Dexter a very stern warning before I let him go. She’s at the café working today but this evening, we’ll all be taking a pass by her house to make sure Dexter isn’t as stupid as I think he is.”
“Can he get back into Molly’s house or is it considered a crime scene?” I asked.
“You know I can’t tell you—”
“I just want to know if it’s likely he’ll still be in the area or if he’s going to have to head back for the rock in New Orleans he crawled out from under,” I said. “I think Ally would feel better if she knew he wasn’t in the same parish any longer.”
“Okay then,” Carter said, apparently mollified. “Dexter has no rights to Molly’s home. He’s not on the deed or any of the utilities. He doesn’t receive mail there that I could find, and his driver’s license still shows a New Orleans address. I took his house key and told him I’d be changing the locks.”
“And he didn’t give you grief?” I asked.
“He groused about his personal belongings, and I told him I was happy to make him an appointment to collect them when an estate attorney and someone from the sheriff’s department could escort him and would let him know when that could occur.”
“You need to call Ally back and tell her all of that,” I said. “Trust me, she’ll rest a lot easier knowing Dexter is probably back in NOLA.”
“You’re right. Should have thought of it myself. Maybe I’ll just have a late breakfast and tell her in person.”
“Thanks,” I said and disconnected.
“So Dexter is free and loose,” Ge
rtie said. “I wonder if he’s going to try to head back to that apartment he used to rent.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Winky Bear is a silly nickname but the dude sounded like a demon. Dexter isn’t the best of fighters, so if I were him, I’d just lie low until I could get some new friends and a new line of work. I don’t think that cage wrestling is going to pay the rent.”
“Do you think he’ll be stupid enough to razz Ally again?” Gertie asked.
“I hope not, but just in case, I’ll have her stay at my place tonight,” I said.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Gertie asked. “If you stayed at her place, you could take out that idiot if he shows up.”
“I don’t need the hassle, especially over someone like Dexter,” I said.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll show up at your house and Godzilla will take care of him,” Gertie said.
I shook my head. “Godzilla hasn’t been back since he ate that guy. Maybe he’s full.”
“Or has indigestion,” Gertie said. “Godzilla should be pickier about his diet. Eating terrorists can’t be good for his stomach.”
“Worked out great for the rest of us, though,” Ida Belle said.
“There is that,” Gertie agreed. “So you’ll let Carter know Ally is staying at your house for the night?”
“Definitely,” I said. “I still want them patrolling her house tonight but the sense of urgency is different if she’s not actually there.”
Gertie nodded. “Sure as you don’t tell him, he’ll show up at your place in the middle of the night and scare ten lives off of Ally.”
“He always texts first if it’s the middle of the night,” I said. “If I don’t answer, he doesn’t stop by.”
“I thought he had a key,” Gertie said.
“He does,” I said. “But he also dates a woman who is former CIA, sleeps with a gun, and has an itchy trigger finger when it comes to being ambushed.”
“Smart man,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie shook her head. “If you two are ever going to live together, you’re going to have to figure that one out. The man can’t sleep in his vehicle every time he has to work late and you’ve fallen asleep.”
I felt my neck tense. “We are not moving in together.” I looked over at Ida Belle. “You know I blame you for this. Before you agreed to marry Walter, no one was pushing me toward anything permanent.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Ida Belle said. “After thirty or forty years, most people won’t bother you anymore.”
“Great,” I said. “Something to look forward to.”
“I think we’re coming up on the exit,” Ida Belle said. “Can you check?”
I pulled out my phone and checked GPS. “Yep, take the next exit, then head south. It’s another ten miles to the town Silas lives in and his house looks to be a little south of that.”
“Ha. Town,” Gertie said. “You just wait.”
Gertie was right. The town consisted of a convenience store that also served as a bar and a church. Two old men sat outside the store on rusted metal chairs, staring as we drove past. Fortunately, Ida Belle’s tinted windows allowed me to do all the looking I wanted while no one else could see who was inside the vehicle.
“That’s it?” I said. “Where do kids go to school?”
“They’re bused to the nearest school,” Gertie said. “Assuming they get to go to school. A lot of these embedded Creoles don’t come out much and they don’t like their family to, either. Before I retired, I used to volunteer with a reading program over summers. We set up shop in places like that convenience store and taught people how to read—kids and adults. There’s less distrust when it’s a lone woman in your local hangout.”
“Well, let’s hope Silas thinks the same about three women,” I said.
“I imagine he’ll think we’re a waste of time, but not a threat,” Ida Belle said.
All of a sudden, Ida Belle slammed on the brakes. “Crap,” she said. “I think that was our turnoff. Let me back up.”
The sign for the road, such as it was, was lying over in the weeds, the name painted on the wooden plank weathered so much that you could only make out a couple letters. But they matched the letters we were looking for, so we went for it. The road was as weathered as the sign and typical of the remote bayou locations I’d experienced around Sinful. It was basically dirt, with a little bit of rock thrown in and holes big enough to lose a tractor in. Ida Belle drove slowly, winding around the holes when she could and dipping carefully in and out of them when she couldn’t. I really hoped that Silas went for the waste-of-time option instead of the fire-first-ask-later option because no way could we speed out of there. A guy with a walker could get close enough to shoot a vehicle on this road.
The brush and trees finally parted and we found ourselves in a surprisingly large clearing. The house was barely more than the shacks people called camps, the roof sagging and much of the siding with paint peeling and some rotted wood along the eaves. The porch was the only thing that had seen a somewhat recent attempt at maintenance. At least one section of it sported planks that weren’t rotted and sagging like the rest of the house. Since it was the section right in front of the door, I assumed Silas didn’t bother with things unless it became absolutely necessary and then he did only the minimum required to keep it functional. An older-model black Dodge pickup was parked to the side of the house. It looked like it hadn’t had a good washing since it was purchased. I could see a small shed off to the right of the shack and off to the left was a chicken coop and a garden.
“Self-sufficient,” Gertie said. “Bet he doesn’t have electricity.”
“What about plumbing?” I asked, hoping that ramshackle shed wasn’t serving as a bathroom.
“No city service out here,” Ida Belle said. “He’d have a well. But there’s a hose rigged over the clothesline. Likely that’s his shower.”
“Is that an outhouse?” I asked.
“Could be,” Ida Belle said. “Wouldn’t surprise me. If the plumbing went to crap, a guy like Silas wouldn’t pay to have it fixed. He’d just go back to basics.”
“A water hose and an outhouse are not basics,” I said. “That’s primitive.”
Ida Belle shrugged. “He wouldn’t be the only one living that way out in these marshes.”
“How close is he to the bayou?” I asked.
“Maybe a hundred yards according to GPS,” Ida Belle said. “Might be able to get decent groundwater or he could have a cistern behind the house. From the deed, looks like he owns all the way back to the water.”
“Probably lives off those chickens, the garden, and fish,” Gertie said. “And I think that might be a peach tree back there that I can just see the tips of.”
“Great,” I said. The less people needed to interact with other humans, the more they seemed to resent interacting with humans.
Ida Belle insisted Gertie leave her purse in the SUV, just in case Silas decided we were armed and dangerous, and we climbed out. Of course, we were still armed and dangerous, but with any luck, he wouldn’t need to find that out. We walked slowly and with our arms and empty hands in clear sight of the house in case he was watching. We’d made it halfway to the porch when a man stepped out the front door, holding a shotgun.
Chapter Eleven
Silas Broussard walked to the end of the porch and glared at us.
Looked about eighty but I knew he was almost a decade less. Six foot five. Two hundred seventy pounds. He was definitely fitting a steak in his diet somewhere because that mass did not survive on lean meats and vegetables. Scar on his left elbow from an old break and his hip was higher on one side, indicating a likely back issue that had probably led to the obvious knee issues. It was clear to see where Molly had gotten her size.
“This is private property,” he said. “You best skedaddle.”
“Are you Silas Broussard?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why you ask? You from the insurance?”
>
Immediately, my radar went up. This was the first we’d heard of insurance, so I needed to play it smart and see what I could get out of him.
“My name is Fortune Redding,” I said. “I’m a private investigator looking into your daughter’s disappearance. Insurance companies often hire people like me in order to get enough information to process claims.”
“What about them?” He nodded toward Ida Belle and Gertie.
“They handle the paperwork,” I said.
He lowered the shotgun a bit to study me. From his expression, he wasn’t impressed.
“Molly ain’t disappeared,” he said. “She done gone got herself in trouble on them bayous like her brother. They ain’t the place for everyone. You gotta know what you’re doing or bad things happen.”
“Of course,” I said. “But I’ve been told that Molly did know what she was doing, and that she would have been extra careful given what happened to her brother.”
He shrugged and spit chewing tobacco on the dirt. “Guess that depends on who you ask. I tried to teach both of ’em how to survive without needing other people. It’s other people that brings trouble. But neither one listened. Took up with partners and Molly ran off with that crap she ended up killing. If they’d both listened to me and stayed put on the land that’s held my family for generations, they’d still be alive.”
“That’s quite possible,” I said. “When was the last time you saw Molly?”
He shook his head. “Can’t say as I know. Saw her right before she went in the first time. She called after she got out—claimed she was checking on me—but I don’t need no checking.”
“So you haven’t seen your daughter in years?” I asked. “Then why would she name you as a beneficiary on a life insurance policy?”
Gertie’s eyes widened a bit but both she and Ida Belle kept their expressions blank.
“Don’t got no idea,” he said. “I got a call from that agent telling me I needed to come down and sign some papers. Had to be in front of one of those people with the stamps.”
“A notary?”
