Gators and Garters

by Jana DeLeon

  Gertie nodded toward my glass of tea that had just been refilled. “You’re improving. I told you your taste buds would eventually adjust.”

  “To the food, maybe,” I said. “But not that atomic, fireball, nuclear explosion version of your cough syrup. I don’t know how people drink that and still breathe.”

  “You can’t right away,” Ida Belle said. “That’s the fun of it.”

  “That one taste left my lips numb for a week,” I said. “I’ll stick to the mild version from here forward and I’ll be giving you the side-eye every time you ask me to test something. I’m smelling everything first. If my eyes water, it’s a no.”

  Ida Belle grinned. “Give it forty years or so. Everything on you gets a little numb and you’ll welcome that additional kick.”

  “Well, that means I’ve got forty years to prepare,” I said. “Get my affairs in order, prepare a will, find someone to take the cat.”

  “Merlin isn’t a real magician,” Gertie said. “I don’t think he’ll be around in forty years.”

  “No, but I’ll probably always have one,” I said. “I kinda like them. They’re ornery and independent and don’t listen to a thing I say.”

  “So they remind you of yourself?” Gertie asked.

  “A little bit,” I said. “You have to respect a ten-pound animal that has convinced humans to wait on them for no apparent payoff.”

  “The payoff is no retribution,” Ida Belle said.

  The waitress came back with our large order of beignets, and silence ensued until we polished off the last bite of greatness. Then we spent the required five minutes popping our shirts to rid ourselves of powdered sugar remnants and once the table was cleared, Gertie pulled the books out of her handbag and we all took a copy to inspect.

  As we flipped through the pages, we came upon page after page of financial and banking information for the catering company. I was starting to wonder what the point was of collecting all these months of activity when I found a letter in the back of the book I was checking.

  “Jackpot,” I said.

  Ida Belle and Gertie looked up expectantly.

  “It’s a letter from a large catering outfit with multiple locations,” I said. “They’re thanking Dexter for the financial statements and will make an offer when their appraiser is finished reviewing the paperwork.”

  “Molly would never sell her business,” Ida Belle said. “She quit cage fighting for that business. Besides, you met her and you see the numbers. Molly wasn’t just good at cooking, she loved it. And her income was great. Why sell off when she’s just getting started and she’s winning out of the gate?”

  “I know,” I said. “It makes no sense unless Dexter thought that whole ‘I’m a partner’ claim was really going to fly.”

  “Well, if he did, then twenty bucks says he produces some trumped-up set of documents to stack his claim against Ally,” Ida Belle said.

  “Look at this,” Gertie said and passed us a couple sheets of paper. “It’s charts of all the waterways surrounding Sinful. And there’s a big X on Molly’s place.”

  “Dexter wasn’t from there, so he’d need a way to learn the bayous if he planned on pulling off a boating accident,” I said. “I’m making a copy of these and keeping them for myself.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Ida Belle said. “The main channels are right but at least a third are wrong. The weather changes a lot of things. But if you make a copy, I’ll mark it up for you.”

  “Do you really think Dexter is stupid enough to think this half-baked plan would work?” Gertie asked.

  “Yes.”

  Ida Belle and I both answered at once.

  “Me too,” Gertie said. “Which makes me even more angry. Still, you’d think he would have given it a little more time—convince Molly to let him help with setup and other things so that people saw him. At least then, when he claimed he was a partner, people would back him up in saying he was helping with their event.”

  “Stupid people aren’t always the most patient,” I said.

  “Or…” Ida Belle held up a photo of Dexter and a woman. A woman who wasn’t Molly.

  “Who wants to place bets that Dexter promised this woman something that required money?” Ida Belle asked.

  “That’s a sucker bet if I ever saw it,” Gertie said. “That woman is too good-looking and way too young for Dexter. And Lord knows, she wasn’t with him for his winning personality.”

  Ida Belle flipped the photo over and sighed. “No name on the back. Why can’t people go back to old-school ways, like listing people, locations, and dates on the back of photos? It would make this so much easier.”

  “I wish there were a way to find her,” Gertie said. “I’d love to know if she knew about Molly. I’m guessing that’s a big fat no.”

  “Or Dexter passed her off as his business partner and made sure the two were never in the same place,” Ida Belle said.

  “We might be able to find her,” I said.

  “How?” Gertie asked.

  “After we talk to Angel, we’ll hunt up that bar that Dexter frequented,” I said.

  “You want to stroll into a bar in that part of town?” Ida Belle asked.

  “We’re armed,” I said. “And probably far more dangerous than any of the patrons. They just don’t realize.”

  “And because they don’t realize, that’s why we could have problems,” Ida Belle said.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Are you seriously suggesting that I back off of something just because there’s risk involved?”

  “Not at all,” Ida Belle said. “I’m suggesting you weigh the risks of going to a NOLA jail against my upcoming wedding. There’s not a big margin for error there.”

  “Hmmm.” I considered this. She was right, of course. If I got into a scuffle, whoever started it wouldn’t fare as well. Once the police found out I was former CIA, they would probably take me in just because it was a good time to razz a Fed. And an ambitious DA could sit on it for a bit, trying to make me sweat. I wouldn’t shed even one drop of perspiration over sitting in jail. I’d sat in way worse places. But if I missed Ida Belle’s wedding, that could lead to trouble I might never get out of.

  “Okay,” I said. “So we check it out and at the first sign of trouble, we scoot. And if the people there clearly aren’t willing to talk to us, same thing. I have a feeling a couple of twenties might grease up lips and if we can get there before the regulars arrive, we can hit up the bartender before it gets crowded. If the bartender doesn’t know anything about Dexter, that would mean Dexter just drank quietly and then went home. I have a hard time believing that.”

  “I think that’s a good compromise,” Ida Belle said. “I’m sorry this wedding of mine is causing such a shift in our norm.”

  “Hey, at least it’s not the Swamp Bar,” I said. “How bad can it be?”

  Angel had arrived at her apartment just minutes before we did and excused herself to change into her uniform as soon as we were done with introductions. We took a seat in her living room to wait and about five minutes later, she popped back in wearing a black skirt and white button-up shirt.

  Five foot ten. One hundred eighty pounds. Based on the strain on her skirt and shirt, both of which looked fairly new, I’d say the weight gain was recent. Based on the five million pictures scattered around the living room, I’d put that weight gain down to her having a baby.

  “Thanks so much for meeting me here,” she said as she hurried into the kitchen. “Do you ladies want anything to drink? I only have unsweet tea and water, I’m afraid. Still trying to take off the baby weight.”

  “How old is your baby?” Gertie asked.

  “Eight weeks,” Angel said. “My husband works on the rigs and is offshore right now. On days when I have school and work, the baby stays with my in-laws. They’ve been an enormous blessing in that regard.”

  Ida Belle grinned. “But not necessarily in others?”

  “Well, you know how it is,” Angel said. “O
ne man, two women. Even if one of the women is his mother, it can get crowded.”

  “I waited to get married until his parents were dead,” Ida Belle said. “Saves some trouble.”

  Angel laughed. “Well, we sort of put the cart before the horse with our son, so I didn’t want to wait quite that long. When did you finally get married?”

  “A week from Saturday,” Ida Belle said.

  “Oh, well, congratulations,” Angel said.

  “Molly was supposed to cater my reception,” Ida Belle said. “I can’t tell you how sorry we are. I know it must be taking a toll on you, especially with a newborn.”

  Angel nodded and I could see the tears in her eyes. “It’s been horrible. Aside from when she went to prison…well, and jail, Molly has always been there for me. Ever since we were babies. We were practically raised together. My mom and her mom were friends and then after Molly’s mom took off, mine took her under her wing best she could. Silas was worse than worthless.”

  “We talked to him earlier,” I said. “And yeah, he isn’t exactly the smile-and-handshake type.”

  Her eyes widened. “You talked to Silas? I mean, he actually said something besides ordering you off his property?”

  “He thought I was from the insurance company,” I said. “Naturally, I didn’t correct the assumption, and what we got from him is that he thinks there’s an insurance policy on Molly and she named him the beneficiary.”

  Angel shook her head. “No way. No way in hell. Not ever. Molly hated him. He beat their mother until she fled and then he turned it on his kids. My mom called social services a couple times, but Molly and Johnny lied to get sent home.”

  “Why would they lie?” I asked.

  “I asked her the same thing, and she said some places are worse and at least here, she had me,” Angel said. “It broke my heart then, and I was only a kid myself, but now that I’m an adult and have my own child, I look back and I swear I’d like to kill him.”

  “I can understand that,” Gertie said.

  “Is Molly’s mother still alive?” I asked.

  Angel shook her head. “Me and Molly looked for her after Molly started her catering business. I think she wanted to find her and let her know that despite being left to deal with Silas, she still came through good. That he hadn’t beat her down even though he’d tried. But she’d died a year or so after she left. Another man. Apparently one with a stronger punch.”

  “When Molly married, rumor has it she got herself back into the same situation she’d grown up with,” I said.

  “That marriage was a huge mistake,” Angel said. “But Molly wanted out of that house so bad she was willing to believe Damon’s lies, even though I think she always knew the truth. I think she believed if she managed to get away then she could break off without her dad trying to drag her back. But as long as she was there, he wasn’t going to let her leave.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How could he force her to stay?”

  “Molly was only sixteen when she married Damon,” Angel said. “Twenty-five when she killed him. That’s a decade of taking a beating from lousy men.”

  “Holy crap!” I said. “Sixteen.”

  “That’s horrible,” Gertie said. “I didn’t realize…”

  “It’s a lot more than horrible,” Ida Belle said. “We knew Molly had been to prison for killing her husband and rumor lent to the abuse, but we didn’t know she’d put up with him for that long.”

  Angel sighed. “It was such an unhealthy relationship. They’d get into it and it would finally get so bad that Molly would leave, but then a couple months later, Damon would convince her that he’d get help or whatever. But every time she went back, it was eventually worse than before. I tried so many times to get her counseling, offered her a place to live or every cent I had so that she could leave town and find somewhere to start over, but nothing worked. She always ended up back there, in an even worse situation. Until…”

  “Until she wasn’t,” Ida Belle said.

  Angel nodded. “I was shocked when it happened. I think because Molly had never really fought back. Even after she took up cage fighting. She’d tear people apart in the ring but in her own home she stood there and took it, never lifting a finger.”

  “What made that change?” Gertie asked.

  “She told me that on that day, everything shifted and came into focus,” Angel said. “She said she looked him right in the eye and told him that he’d best make his next hit a good one because it would be the last one he got in. He laughed at her and backhanded her right across the cheek. Then he grabbed her and started to choke her and she reached out and snapped his neck.”

  “How long was she in prison?” I asked.

  “Two years,” Angel said.

  “Why?” I asked. “He’d been beating her for almost a decade.”

  “But she never reported it,” Angel said. “Never went to the hospital.”

  “But he’d hit her just that night,” I said.

  “And she’d had a fight three hours before,” Angel said. “The prosecution claimed she got her injuries from the match. Unfortunately, that bruise on her cheek wasn’t the only one, so they easily created doubt. Johnny and I told that sorry excuse for a public defender everything we knew, but the word of a brother and best friend don’t hold up so well in court. And given her current profession, the jury wasn’t lenient.”

  “They didn’t believe that someone capable of fighting like Molly hadn’t defended herself before then,” Ida Belle said and shook her head. “And then when she finally did, they felt she went too far.”

  Angel nodded. “Exactly. So Molly went from the prison of her childhood to the prison of her marriage to an actual prison.”

  “I wouldn’t wish that journey on anyone,” Gertie said. “But it certainly produced an amazing woman. Anyone who could overcome all of that is someone who should be admired.”

  “You got that right,” Angel said. “Everything she’d gone through and Molly was finally where she deserved to be. Successful, happy, not worrying about money or a loser guy. Well, for a little while, anyway.”

  “Dexter,” I said.

  Angel blew out a breath. “I think the worst fight we ever had was over him. I could tell after thirty seconds that he was no good. Rarely had a job, always bumming money, always an excuse for why he couldn’t help with something around her house, even though he was practically living there. I always felt he was using her. Honestly, I don’t even think Molly liked him all that well.”

  “Then why did she keep him around?” I asked.

  “The devil you know,” Ida Belle said.

  Angel nodded. “I think that’s partly it, although I don’t think Dexter was foolish enough to try to hit her. I know they did their cage fighting but Molly could still kick his butt. Ultimately, I think it was a lack of self-esteem.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Molly wasn’t what society considers a pretty woman. She was tall and big. She never wore makeup or girlie clothes. She had that crazy hair that she loves. I think she thought no good man would be interested. That men like Dexter were all she could get so she’d just have him around for what it was and not consider that she could have so much more.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Gertie said. “Maybe with more time, she would have gotten that part of her life as straight as her career.”

  “That was my hope,” Angel said. “I mean, look, I’m no wilting flower. I’m a tall girl and not a skinny one either, but I didn’t settle. I found an even taller and bigger guy and probably just gave birth to a future NFL linebacker. He was such a big boy that the doctor brought me a trophy the next day. Natural birth.”

  Ida Belle, Gertie, and I all cringed a little and Angel smiled.

  “He’s worth it,” she said. “So what else can I tell you to help?”

  “Tell us about the phone call Molly made to you right before she disappeared,” I said.

  “Yeah, that was o
dd,” Angel said. “Ever since our falling-out over Dexter, Molly hasn’t so much as mentioned him to me. I figured she knew where I stood on the matter and also knew I was right, even though she wasn’t ready to admit it. So saying nothing meant she didn’t give me the opportunity to start in again on the subject.”

  “You don’t need an opening to intervene when your best friend is making a huge mistake,” Gertie said. “I butt in all the time and most of them are barely acquaintances.”

  “Lord, isn’t that the truth,” Ida Belle said.

  “I know,” Angel said. “And normally I would continue to push, but our big blowup was only a couple weeks ago, and I couldn’t get her to answer her phone for days after that when I called. I know Molly. You have to let her sit with things a while, cool down and think about them rationally. She was a very logical person unless she was thrust back into her past. Then emotion took over and there was no arguing with her at that point until she came out of the weeds.”

  “What time did she call?” I asked.

  “A little before three thirty,” Angel said.

  “And she called to complain about Dexter?” I asked.

  “I assume so,” Angel said. “I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. There was engine noise and the phone was cutting out a bit, which is why I figured she was on her boat. Cars sound different and even on the roads in Sinful you can get a decent cell phone signal.”

  “What could you make out?” I asked.

  “She said something about not wanting to relive the past and then ‘that man’s going to kill me’ and then ‘hold on,’” Angel said. “The engine stopped, and I could hear rustling—like things being moved around. I kept calling her name, asking if she could hear me, but the signal was breaking up like crazy. I’d just get pieces of sound, then nothing for a few seconds. Then I heard her scream and the phone went dead. I called and called after that, but it went straight to voice mail.”

  “Like it had been turned off,” Gertie said.

  “Or thrown overboard,” Ida Belle said.