by Jana DeLeon
“Yeah, that’s it,” he said. “So I went down and signed and that was it.”
“And you didn’t find it curious that she was going to leave you money even though you had no relationship?” I asked.
He took one hand off the gun and pointed his finger at me. “Listen here, I raised that girl best I could after her momma took off and left us. I don’t know why she did half the things she did so I ain’t trying to answer for her. All I know is she’s gone and I’m due that money. Weren’t no clause that said we had to have dinner every Sunday or fish together or anything else. She wanted me to have the money and I intend to have it. Now you get back in your vehicle and go tell the insurance company that. They best not think they can get away with keeping my money. I had people try that before. I know my rights.”
He raised the gun again and aimed it right at me. “Go. I ain’t got no use for private investigators or women round here. And don’t come back unless you got a check.”
“Thank you for your time,” I said and we headed back to the SUV. Silas kept the shotgun trained on us until we were out of sight. He didn’t turn to go back into the house until we were pulling away. I noticed his limp had gotten worse.
“You were a heck of a lot nicer than I would have been,” Gertie said. “What a—”
“I think we all know what he is,” Ida Belle interrupted. “But it was a smart move mentioning that insurance companies hire investigators.”
I grinned. “I’m learning from the best. I didn’t lie. I just stated a fact and he assumed the insurance company had hired me.”
Gertie nodded. “One day, you might give me a run for my money.”
“I’m pretty sure you will always be the reigning champion of misdirected conversation,” Ida Belle said.
“So Silas appears as mean as Nickel described,” I said. “And Lord is he a big dude.”
“I bet I can guess why Molly’s mother ran off,” Gertie said. “With all his ‘no use for women’ and that attitude, it doesn’t take a genius to figure the score.”
“No,” Ida Belle said. “It’s not exactly an uncommon situation, but I always have trouble when a woman leaves her kids behind. If a man is so bad you have to run from him, why leave your children there to take up the slack you left behind?”
Gertie shook her head. “It’s a sad state of affairs. Maybe Angel can fill in some holes. What time do we meet with her?”
“Not for another couple hours,” I said.
“So what are we doing now?” Gertie said. “There’s this party shop near Bourbon Street that has these blow-up man dolls. I was thinking—”
Ida Belle cringed so hard she hit one of the holes without slowing and we bounced a good foot out of our seats.
“I think we should hunt down that apartment manager and see if maybe Dexter left anything behind,” I said.
“As mad as he is, he’d probably give us everything Dexter owned for twenty bucks,” Ida Belle said.
I nodded. “And my guess is if Dexter did leave anything behind, he’ll make a move to go collect it now that he’s out of jail and can’t get back in Molly’s house.”
“You think he was living with Molly?” Gertie asked.
“Hard to say,” I said. “Molly didn’t strike me as the type that would let a man move in on her space but then she might have loved the guy.”
“I don’t see how she could,” Gertie said.
“I didn’t say it was healthy,” I said. “But these cycles of abuse tend to repeat, right? You said rumor was Molly’s husband tuned her up and that’s ultimately why she killed him. My guess is her father did the same thing and she fell into the same situation because it was familiar.”
“Except it looked more like Molly was beating up Dexter, not the other way around,” Gertie said.
“But I think Dexter would have gotten in any licks he could,” I said.
Ida Belle nodded. “It’s a frustrating thing to watch as it’s repeated, but Fortune’s right. I’m willing to bet Angel says as much when we talk to her. Tell me where the apartments are.”
I gave her some general directions toward the area and would narrow it down when we got closer. Traffic was surprisingly light and we made it across downtown and into the Ninth Ward in about thirty minutes. I took one look at the apartment building and looked at Gertie.
“Bring your purse this time,” I said before we climbed out.
A bar and a bail bonds business were directly across the street, which usually indicated trouble. Two empty spaces were next to the bar and then there was a small convenience store that cashed checks, and some sort of church. All of the businesses had bars on their windows and doors.
The office for the apartment building was toward the back of the property. It had a tree on top of the roof, which at first, I figured was from recent storms, then I realized it was mostly rotted through and might have been sitting there for years. I could only imagine why they hadn’t been cited, and my imagination currently ran to payoffs that were considerably less than the cost of removing the tree. Likely, it was the only thing keeping a flood of rain from coming inside.
We headed for the office and I held my hands on my hips as I walked inside. To strangers, it looked like a mad woman walk. To people who knew better, it allowed me to access my pistol in seconds. Bells rang over the door as we walked in and a guy stepped out of an office behind the counter.
Six foot three. Two hundred sixty pounds and most of it solid. Shaved head. Piercings in his lip. So many tattoos he looked like a mural. No hindrances that I could see except his taste in artwork. Threat level high in an enclosed space. Much lower out in the open and if he didn’t have a gun. If this was Winky Bear, I could see how he pulled off the nickname without getting any grief.
He never said a word. Just stood at the counter, staring at us, arms crossed in front of his chest. Obviously, Mr. Bear didn’t feel the need to have his hands in a ready position.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Fortune Redding. If you’re Winky Bear, I spoke with you earlier about Dexter Nutters.”
“That’s me,” he said. “I guess you didn’t give him the right message.”
“I haven’t seen Mr. Nutters,” I said. “He was being hauled to jail the last time I laid eyes on him.”
“Well, he’s out now,” Winky Bear said. “In fact, you just missed him. Showed up here about fifteen minutes ago, wanting to get some things he’d left behind. I told him when he came up with the rent, he could have his things. I got rights, you know.”
“Of course,” I said. “I can’t imagine the difficulty of your job dealing with people like Dexter.”
He tilted his head and gave me a long stare. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re not exactly the kind of woman that gets tangled up with Nutters.”
He didn’t ask a question, but I knew it was implied.
“I’m not tangled up with Dexter,” I said and pulled out my ID. “I’m a private investigator and these two ladies are my assistants. Let’s just say some of Dexter’s behavior has caused my client to suspect he’s up to no good, and they asked me to check him out.”
Winky Bear snorted. “If Nutters is breathing, then he’s absolutely up to no good.”
“I don’t suppose you’d fill me in on what kind of no-good behavior you’re aware of, would you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Hell, why not. We aren’t friends and I never liked the guy, but you know, rent money’s rent money. I can start with you’re not the first people to come looking for him. Bill collectors come here on the regular. That was my first sign that rent was probably going to come up missing but I didn’t have any legal grounds to evict him until he skipped. And then there was this one cat came by yesterday, looked like he’d been pumped up with air, you know the type? Like he was birthed by a gym and steroids?”
We all nodded.
“A friend of Dexter’s?” Ida Belle asked.
“Dudes like Nutters don’t have friends,” he said. “My guess is the
guy was his pusher.”
“He was doing drugs?” Gertie asked.
“Steroids,” I said. “Right?”
“Good call,” Winky Bear said. “The guy comes in here thirty pounds lighter six months ago and then puts all that weight on in muscle? Come on. Not that it helped with all that flab around it.”
“I suppose he needed the muscle for his job,” I said.
Winky Bear laughed. “Job? Nutters didn’t have a job to speak of.”
“I thought he was a cage fighter,” Ida Belle said.
“He wishes,” Winky Bear said. “From what I heard, he did two bouts and got his butt kicked so hard in the first thirty seconds that no one will even give him another shot. I did my rounds in the cage back years ago. You can’t just bulk up and win. It takes some actual ability and hard training.”
“Did you know his girlfriend?” I asked. “Molly Broussard?”
He shook his head. “Not personally. By reputation, I did a little and I saw some of her fights on YouTube. Now that was a woman with some talent. It’s a shame she quit fighting. I think she could have been a regional champion at the least.”
“Have you heard that Molly has disappeared?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Some deputy called me earlier asking questions about Nutters. Hey, do you think he did something to Molly? Because I can’t imagine he could take her without a gun.”
“We don’t know exactly what happened to Molly,” I said. “But Dexter has claimed that he was helping her with her catering business and that she was going to make him a partner.”
Winky Bear stared. “That’s some fine fiction right there. Look, Dexter couldn’t manage to pay his bills even when he had money. And Lord knows, he didn’t have the palate for good food or wine. I’ve seen what he drank—rotgut whiskey, and always cramming a hot dog in his mouth.”
He must have caught our expressions at his choice of words like ‘palate’ and grinned. “I’m a bit of a foodie. I try to eat at one high-end place a month. There’s some fine eating in NOLA but Nutters wouldn’t know it from a microwave dinner. Does that sound like someone who could be a partner in a business furnishing quality food?”
“Not to me,” I said. “But I’m just working with what I’ve been given. That’s why we’re here. No one really knows anything about Dexter, so I’m trying to get a feel for him. Understand what kind of man he is.”
“He’s no man,” Winky Bear said. “He’s a chronic loser who bounced from woman to woman, getting them to foot his bills. I don’t have any idea why Molly would take that sort of thing on. I know she had her history and all with that murder rap but she just didn’t strike me as that stupid. Still, I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”
“Anything else you can tell me?” I asked. “You said he didn’t have friends. What about relatives?”
“None that I’m aware of but if he had any, he’s probably tapped them all out for cash and they avoid him now.”
“What about hangouts?” I asked. “The bar across the street maybe?”
“Used to, but the owner banned him. Caused too many fights. He’s a regular at the bar around the corner now. The owner there can handle a scuffle.”
“What’s it called?” I asked.
“The Bar,” he said, then laughed at my expression. “It’s a really classy joint.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “So Dexter came by earlier to collect his things. I don’t suppose you’d consider selling them to me. I’m not paying his rent for them, but since you’re unlikely to collect from him, anything is better than nothing.”
He frowned. “Why in the world would you want to pay for that box of trash? The furniture, such as it is, comes with the rental. So do the dishes and pots and pans. This place was a motel before the owner turned it into apartments, so they just left the stuff in it that it had before. The only thing Dexter had was some cheap clothes, a couple books, bathroom stuff, and a bottle of Jim Beam, probably the only decent thing he owned. And since I already drank it, there’s nothing left that amounts to anything.”
“So twenty bucks and I take it off your hands?” I asked.
“Make it fifty and I never saw you, much less sold you his stuff,” he said.
“It’s a deal,” I said and pulled the money out of my wallet. I also handed him a card. “I know the official story is that we never met, but if you can think of anything else about Dexter that I might find interesting, please give me a call.”
He took the money and the card and stuffed both in his jeans pocket. “Give me a minute. It’s in the storeroom.”
He was back a couple minutes later with one medium-sized box of stuff. He hadn’t lied. Homeless people had more belongings. I wondered if the bulk of his possessions were at Molly’s house but figured there was no way I’d get that information out of Carter. Winky Bear insisted on carrying the box to Ida Belle’s SUV and then we were on our way.
As Ida Belle drove, Gertie poked around in the box that was on the seat next to her. “This stuff isn’t worth fifty cents,” she said. “Fifty dollars was highway robbery.”
“He could have held out for more,” I said. “He knew we wanted it. The why doesn’t matter to him. He just figured it was a way to make up some lost revenue, but in this case, in his pocket and not the apartment’s.”
“He definitely didn’t like Dexter,” Ida Belle said. “I’m sure he got a kick out of selling his things.”
“So what’s in there?” I asked.
“Some crappy clothes,” Gertie said. “I mean really crappy and worn. A toothbrush and a bar of soap. No toothpaste, mind you. A pair of ratty tennis shoes and some books.”
I frowned. “Did Dexter look like the kind of guy who reads books?”
“Not even remotely,” Ida Belle said.
“What kind of books?” I asked.
“Old hardbacks,” Gertie said. “I mean really old. The kind that didn’t come with a paper jacket.”
“Collectibles?” I asked, wondering if maybe the books were worth something and that’s why Dexter wanted them back.
“No way,” Gertie said. “I don’t recognize the names of any of the authors. Heck, one of them is a book on human anatomy from the early 1900s.”
“Flip through the books.”
Ida Belle and I both spoke at the same time.
“Okay, okay,” Gertie said. “You don’t both have to bark orders at the same time.”
I looked back as she took one of the books and thumbed through the pages.
“There’s paper in here,” Gertie said. “Stuffed between the pages.”
“Bingo,” I said. “We just found Dexter’s hiding place and the most likely reason he wanted his stuff.”
“This looks like a financial statement,” Gertie said as she unfolded one of the papers. “For Molly’s catering company.”
She handed me the sheet and I scanned it. “This is from two years ago, but wow! Molly was making a serious profit. Twenty grand in one month.”
“What month?” Ida Belle asked.
“June,” I said.
“Weddings.”
Ida Belle and Gertie both replied.
“Still,” Ida Belle said. “That’s a good net. But then Molly didn’t have employees. I think she was mostly a one-woman show.”
“You forgot about her partner Dexter,” Gertie said.
“Molly might have let him haul containers of food around,” Ida Belle said, “but I guarantee you she wouldn’t trust anyone else to prepare it. When I talked to her before she went to jail, she told me she was going to have to find an employee or two who was good enough or she’d never be able to scale up the business.”
“Here’s a couple more months,” Gertie said. “If Dexter has these, do you think that might mean he wasn’t lying about Molly claiming she’d cut him in?”
“If he was legitimately in line to partner with her, why would he be hiding those financials in books?” I asked. “More likely he managed to access compute
r files or lifted copies from Molly’s office and hid them here, figuring no one would ever check.”
“But if he wasn’t going to be a partner, why take financial statements?” Gertie asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe just to try to figure out how much money Molly had. Maybe that was his end game—hit her up for funds.”
“I wish we knew more about their relationship,” Gertie said. “I can’t help but think knowing the bigger picture where they were concerned would bring some things into focus.”
I nodded. “And that’s what I’m hoping Angel can provide. Along with filling in some details about Silas.”
“We’ve got about an hour until we meet with Angel,” Ida Belle said. “You guys want to stop for a bite of lunch?”
“Heck yeah!” Gertie said. “I’m starving and there’s no better place to fill an empty belly than New Orleans.”
“I know a great place for po’boys close to Angel’s apartment,” Ida Belle said.
“The one with fried crawfish?” Gertie asked.
“That’s the one,” Ida Belle said and Gertie clapped.
“Do they have beignets?” I asked. Ever since my first introduction to the squares of powdery yumminess, I tried to have some every time I came to NOLA.
“Everyone has beignets,” Gertie said. “The Catholic church probably uses them for communion.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Then we’ll have some lunch and thumb through those books to see what else Dexter was hiding.”
I smiled as Ida Belle drove. So far, it was a good day. We had picked up some information on Silas and Dexter and even though it was only pieces right now, I had a feeling we were moving in the right direction. And we were about to partake of po’boys and beignets. The only pallor over the day was the reason for our investigation, but I’d made a deal with Nickel and I was going to see it through.
Molly’s killer would pay.
Chapter Twelve
The po’boys exceeded expectation. I usually went for the fried shrimp but this time, Gertie talked me into the fried crawfish po’boy and it was excellent. A little bit spicier than the shrimp but after eating Gertie’s cooking, I was used to worse. I only put down six glasses of iced tea to get through the sandwich, which was better than usual.
