Gators and Garters

by Jana DeLeon

  “You think she was referring to Dexter?” I asked.

  “That’s what I thought at the time,” Angel said.

  “But not now?” Gertie asked.

  “Well, now that I know about this insurance policy and Silas, I have to wonder,” Angel said.

  “Do you know if Molly had a will?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Angel said. “About a month ago, she asked me a few questions about how that sort of thing was done. My husband and I thought we needed to get everything legally set because of the baby so she knew we’d been through the process. I encouraged her to look into it because of the business and the equity in the house. Plus, her van and one of her boats were paid for.”

  “Did it seem like she was going to pursue it?” I asked.

  Angel shook her head. “I can’t say for sure. I admit I pushed a little, which isn’t always the smartest route with Molly, but it was because of what happened with Johnny. He didn’t have a will and Silas ended up getting everything as next of kin. I knew she wouldn’t want that.”

  “Nickel said you and Johnny were dating,” I said.

  She gave me a sad smile. “You could say that. We were engaged when he disappeared.”

  I felt my heart tug for her. First her fiancé and now her best friend. No one deserved that much pain in such a short amount of time.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gertie said and shook her head. “I can’t imagine how difficult that was. I mean, it’s hard enough when someone you love passes but when you never really have an answer—”

  Gertie glanced over at me. “Sorry.”

  I waved a hand in dismissal. “My father was a federal employee and disappeared on a work trip,” I explained. “But that was a long time ago. I was only a kid.”

  “But you know how it is,” Angel said. “The not having answers can eat you up if you let it. You have to finally get to the point where you accept they’re never going to stroll back through the front door, and then you can move on with your life. But it’s always there somewhere in the back of your mind. The what-if.”

  I nodded. “That’s true.”

  “Nickel tells me you made a good life for yourself in Sinful,” Angel said. “If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t look like a CIA agent.”

  “Trust me,” Gertie said, “she’s the bayou version of Lara Croft.”

  Angel smiled. “That’s what Whiskey said and Whiskey doesn’t talk nice about anyone. That’s why Nickel figured if anyone could help, you could. He also figures half the men in Sinful are afraid or in love with you, maybe both.”

  “Probably right,” Gertie said. “Both things. But Fortune’s heart belongs to Carter.”

  I felt a blush creep up my neck. “Yes, well. If I have to pick one, I’d prefer scared. Trust me when I say that one relationship with a man is quite enough to handle.”

  “I think most women feel that way,” Angel said. “It’s a shame Molly didn’t trust herself to find a good man. I can’t help but think everything would have been different if she hadn’t hooked up with Dexter.”

  “If I told you that Dexter found a document in Molly’s handwriting stating that she was leaving the catering business to a friend of mine, and he went nuts, claiming that Molly had promised the business to him…what would you say to that?”

  “No way!” Angel’s eyes widened. “Molly would never leave her business to Dexter. She loved that business more than anything. It was her salvation. Dexter couldn’t even cook toast without burning it. What would he do with a catering business?”

  “Sell it, maybe?” I suggested.

  Angel frowned. “I hadn’t thought…I was just thinking about the actual day-to-day work of the business, but I suppose it might be worth something to somebody interested in getting started or an existing company looking to expand. Surely Dexter wouldn’t be stupid enough to think if he killed her that he’d get her business based on his word.”

  “Killing her might not have been planned,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe he just got mad and it happened. We saw them both earlier that day. Molly had just worked him over in the cage and he didn’t look none too happy about it. Maybe temper got the best of him and now he’s trying to salvage something from it.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me,” Angel said. “He’s definitely a hothead. If you don’t mind my asking, who did he claim Molly left the business to?”

  “Ally Lemarque,” I said.

  “That name sounds familiar,” Angel said. “Oh, she’s a baker, right?”

  “Unofficially, she provides baked goods all around the area,” Gertie said. “But she’s hoping to open her own bakery soon.”

  Angel nodded. “I remember Molly talking about her now. She said she’d brought her food to an event and they’d insisted she take a small dessert tray of Ally’s goods home with her. She claimed it was the best sweets she’d ever had.”

  “The thing is, Ally had only spoken to Molly a couple times and it was only in a professional capacity,” I said. “So she barely knew her and has no idea why Molly would leave her the catering business, assuming that’s all legal and aboveboard.”

  Angel shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t do it, and Molly knew that. I’m sure she wanted it to go to someone who loved and appreciated food as much as she did. Molly wasn’t a complex person. Not really. If you understood where she came from and what she lived through, then she wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

  “So the phone call is why you don’t think this was an accident?” I asked.

  “That’s actually the least of the reasons,” she said. “Molly was an excellent boater and after what happened to Johnny, she was extra careful about everything. She went over every square inch of her boats every single time she came back to the dock.”

  “How was she as a swimmer?” Ida Belle asked.

  “Olympic good. Silas used to make Johnny and Molly swim back and forth across the channel, even when the tide was at its strongest. He said everyone living on the water needed to know how to handle it. Honestly, I think he was just being mean but it didn’t turn her off from it. She had a gym membership somewhere close to the city. She drove in a couple times a week to use the pool and if she had time, she’d drop by for a visit. An hour of laps was her regular workout.”

  I watched her face as she delivered that information. She was so certain, so earnest in her words, that I had no doubt she believed something had happened to her friend besides a tragic accident. But was that correct or were she and Nickel just refusing to believe that the same fate could befall two people they cared about? Which made me wonder…

  “Do you think Johnny’s death was an accident?” I asked.

  Her eyes widened a bit, then she stared at the floor, not speaking for some time before she finally looked back at me. “Honestly, I have my doubts there as well. I know what it looks like. I never got over Johnny’s death—and I guess that’s true enough on some level—so you think I refuse to believe that Molly could go the same way. But that’s not it. You see, I know Johnny would have never taken his boat out that day. I told the cops that but no one believed me.”

  “Because of the storm?” Gertie asked.

  Angel nodded. “And because there was no point. Johnny was a businessman. Shrimp wouldn’t have been running in that kind of weather. Every commercial shrimper knows it and said as much. No smart shrimper would waste his energy and gas on a trip out to make no money.”

  “Maybe he didn’t think the weather was going to be as bad as it turned out,” I said.

  “Johnny was never wrong about the weather,” Angel said. “It was kind of eerie, actually. The forecasters would all say one thing and Johnny would laugh and call them fools. He was never wrong. Not one single time. Got to be the standard around the dock for the others to go out based on his call. Besides, we lived together then and I’d talked to him that morning before I left for my shift. He told me he was going to work in the garage that day on an old lawn mower. Why would he lie about that?”
/>   “So what do you think happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is a fisherman was leaving the docks when Johnny showed up, and he said Johnny was getting on his boat as the fisherman drove off. It was already starting to rain. The sky was already black. You see why it doesn’t make sense?”

  “Did the fisherman talk to him?” I asked.

  “No. He only saw him from a distance, but he recognized Johnny’s truck and his rain slicker. He had one with fluorescent purple stripes. Molly had given it to him. She loved the bright colors and he was so pleased with the gift that he wore it despite the ribbing he got from the other guys.”

  “And he was alone?” I asked.

  Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I know. It sounds like exactly what the police said—he got caught out in the storm and something bad happened. They found his boat the next day and a piece of the slicker caught in a nearby buoy.”

  “Would he have been wearing a life jacket?” I asked.

  “There were two missing from his boat,” Angel said. “They found one some distance away from the buoy.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said, and I meant it. I could see how much Johnny’s death still hurt her even though she’d moved on with her life. But I could also see how his death might have influenced her beliefs concerning Molly’s disappearance.

  But just because it could have influenced her didn’t mean it had.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We climbed back into the SUV, all silent for a bit as Ida Belle exited the parking lot. We’d gotten a lot of information in one day and we needed time to process it all. Sometimes typing it up helped me piece things together. Sometimes I just got a wrist cramp out of it and zero inspiration.

  “I’m confused,” Gertie said.

  “Me too,” Ida Belle said. “And I hate to say it, but I’m not completely sure there’s a crime here.”

  “You think Nickel and Angel are projecting?” I asked.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if they were,” Gertie said. “I mean, who could blame them after going through what they did with Johnny? Especially Angel. They were practically married. I can’t imagine losing the man I love and not even having a body to bury.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “Me either. But it’s no wonder she wouldn’t want to do it again. She wants answers.”

  “And someone to blame,” Gertie said.

  “Yes,” Ida Belle agreed. “After meeting Silas and hearing about the childhood those two had, I can’t really blame her for wanting their lives to mean more. To know that they weren’t just two people who made bad choices that cost them everything.”

  “What do you think?” Gertie asked me.

  “I agree with you and Ida Belle,” I said. “But then there’s strange things, like the insurance policy Silas thinks he’s cashing in on. And Dexter trying to find a buyer for the catering business. I didn’t think Molly would be interested in selling even before we talked to Angel, but I’m doubling down on that now. You heard her. She said the business was Molly’s salvation. You don’t just let something that important go. Not for any amount of money.”

  “So we keep digging?” Ida Belle said.

  “We have to,” I said. “If this was an accident, we’re going to have to figure out how to prove it.”

  “How in the world can you prove an accident that happens with no witnesses?” Gertie asked.

  “By proving the only people who benefit from Molly’s death couldn’t have done it,” Ida Belle said. “I think that’s as close as we can hope to get.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s going to be harder than proving someone did it,” Gertie said. “Especially if no one has alibis. And even if we started asking questions, I doubt Dexter and Silas are going to offer up where they were and what they were doing when Molly disappeared.”

  “Dexter was at the house when we left and when Carter went to check on Molly,” I said. “So we know he had opportunity.”

  “Unless he went somewhere in between,” Gertie said. “But then we’d need corroboration.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “As for Silas, it’s possible he wasn’t playing hermit in his shack at the time Molly made that call.”

  “But unless someone saw him near Molly’s house, we can’t prove or disprove where he was, either,” Ida Belle said.

  I blew out a breath. “I hate to say it, but unless we can string all these incriminating pieces into a solid case, this might be the one that got away. Still, I’m not ready to throw in the towel. Not until we try to put those pieces together a bit better, and there are still plenty of angles to investigate, starting with finding out who benefits the most from Molly’s death.”

  “Who actually benefits or who thought he would benefit?” Gertie asked.

  “That’s a good point,” Ida Belle said. “If Dexter believed he’d get the business, that’s as good as him actually being the legal heir. At least from his point of view.”

  “He looked pretty convinced when he was at Ally’s house threatening her,” Gertie said.

  “He did,” I agreed. “Which is strange in itself. Angel outright said Molly would never have given Dexter an interest in her business and based on what she described, it seems like Molly might have been reconsidering her relationship with him altogether.”

  “Then why would Dexter think he was due?” Gertie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “And it wouldn’t do any good to ask. Even if he told us, we couldn’t believe him, but I might know a place where his lips would have been loose.”

  “The Bar?” Gertie asked, getting excited.

  “He does strike me as a big mouth,” Ida Belle said. “If he thought he was coming into something big, he wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about it. Especially if he’d been drinking.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Ida Belle nodded. “Then let’s head that way.”

  The Bar looked as unimaginative as its name. The old brick building it occupied was on the corner of the street and didn’t share walls with another business. Instead, it was located next to a cemetery. I wondered how many of its patrons were buried next door. There was a bit of concern about parking, and we ended up circling the block three times as we debated the merits of parking down the street so that Ida Belle’s SUV was protected against the potential for having to flee for our lives.

  Fleeing finally won out and Ida Belle pulled into a recently vacated space directly across the street. The number of cars parked nearby didn’t at all equate to the amount of noise coming out of the building and we all hesitated, staring at the place.

  “We manage the Swamp Bar all the time,” Gertie said. “How bad can it be?”

  “Don’t ask that,” Ida Belle said. “It’s like inviting God’s sense of humor while he’s angry. The outcome is never favorable for us.”

  “Well, there’s probably not an angry bear inside,” I said. “So that’s a plus.”

  The words had barely left my mouth when a man came hurtling through a window at the front of the bar and crashed onto the sidewalk. An even bigger man stepped up to the broken window and yelled something indiscernible at the one on the pavement.

  Fortyish. Six foot six. Three hundred pounds solid. Shaved head. Too many tattoos to count. No visible shortcomings. Lethal as heck if he wanted to be.

  “There’s your bear,” Gertie said.

  “Do you think that guy’s dead?” Ida Belle asked.

  “I hope not,” Gertie said. “It would mess up our questioning people if the cops show up.”

  “If the cops show up, there probably won’t be anyone left to question,” Ida Belle said. “It will look like a swarm of locusts leaving Egypt.”

  “Let’s go check,” I said. “I suppose we’re duty bound to call an ambulance if needed.”

  “If he’s dead can we hold off on the ambulance?” Gertie asked. “Just until the questioning part is over. And until I’ve had a chance to pee.”

  “You’re not go
ing to use the restroom in there and then get into my SUV,” Ida Belle said. “We should probably be entering the place wearing hazmat suits.”

  “I’m wearing pants,” Gertie said. “It’s not like I’m going to roll naked on the bathroom floor, then strip down again and rub over every inch of your seats like a cat.”

  “There is so much wrong with that visual that I’m hoping he’s dead so we can go ahead and leave and find a fast-food restaurant,” Ida Belle said. “Why didn’t you do this back at Angel’s?”

  “I didn’t have to then,” Gertie said.

  “You should have gone anyway,” Ida Belle said.

  “Now you just sound like my dad on every vacation,” Gertie said. “It didn’t work for him either, by the way.”

  “You need to have a checkup,” Ida Belle said. “This is getting to be a habit. Your parts are old. Get them checked out.”

  “My parts are fine,” Gertie said.

  “Sure they are,” Ida Belle said. “Your kidneys are clearly as good as your eyesight.”

  Refusing to step into the middle of that one, I headed across the street. As I approached Sidewalk Dude, he moved and groaned. Alive, at least.

  I peered down at him. “You want me to call for an ambulance?”

  His eyes jerked open and he forced himself into a sitting position. “Hell, no! Like I need more trouble than I already got.”

  “You’re bleeding from your side,” I said, pointing at the dark stain on his shirt.

  “I had my appendix removed a couple days ago,” he said. “Probably tore a stitch or something.”

  “Or something,” I said. “Maybe you should have that checked.”

  “My sister makes curtains for a living,” he said as he struggled to get up. “She can sew me up good as any doctor.”

  “And probably offers a variety of thread color,” I said. “It sounds like an excellent plan.”

  I shook my head at Ida Belle and Gertie, who’d come up after me and overheard the entire exchange. Sidewalk Dude headed down the street, leaning and clutching one side as he went. We turned back toward the bar and saw three guys staring at us from the broken window.