by Jana DeLeon
“Okay, but I want to throw the first firecracker.”
“Of course. It’s your stash.”
Gertie grinned. “I knew these things would come in handy when I bought them.”
“Let’s just hope all this handiness yields us some answers, and that neither the deputy nor Sheriff Lee gets too ambitious and hurries. I really don’t want to get shot at again. It’s getting old.”
“That seems a strange complaint given your chosen profession.”
“Then maybe I’m getting old.”
“You’re not getting old,” Gertie said. “You’ve just got more to lose.”
I frowned. It was a valid point and one I might have to think about later…when I wasn’t worried about being shot at again. I lifted the binoculars and scanned the tree line, then spotted Ida Belle inching up to the edge of the woods directly behind the window she was going to enter through. She gave me a thumbs-up. I dropped the binoculars and watched as Sheriff Lee made his way around the corner of the building and started walking our direction.
“Wait until Sheriff Lee gets to the middle of the building, then set one off,” I said.
Gertie ripped a firecracker off her pack and readied her match, grinning like a five-year-old at a birthday party. We watched as Sheriff Lee’s horse plodded along, then finally he reached the halfway point.
Gertie lit the firecracker, then tossed it. It set off a good pop and Sheriff Lee stopped the horse for a second, scanning the woods. Gertie lit a second one and threw it, and Sheriff Lee zeroed in on the sound and started toward us at a faster clip. The deputy came around the building from the front, and Sheriff Lee pointed to the woods where we were hiding.
“One more,” I said.
Gertie stuck the match and lit her firecracker, then tossed it. We waited for the impending explosion, but nothing happened.
“Must have been a dud,” I said. “Try again.”
Gertie nodded, lit another firecracker and threw.
And that’s when everything went horribly wrong, as only Gertie could manage.
“You threw the match,” I said, starting to panic. “Where is the firecracker?”
Gertie jumped back, looking down at the ground. “I dropped it.”
I spied her open handbag and heard a fizzling sound.
“Abort!” I yelled and shoved Gertie in the direction of the boat.
I took off down the tree line toward Ida Belle, in case she didn’t hear me. Barreling through the brush, arms in front of my face, I didn’t even take a second to find the easiest path. All I had time to do was pray that Gertie was giving it her best and was out of range for whatever was coming next.
A second later, all hell broke loose.
Chapter Five
The explosion was definitely not caused by firecrackers. Whatever Gertie had in that handbag caused such a blast that it could probably be heard back in Sinful. I rushed to the edge of the woods, praying that neither Sheriff Lee nor the deputy was near the handbag, and peered out just in time to see Sheriff Lee’s horse tender his one-second notice.
The startled animal whirled around so fast, I’m surprised he didn’t break his ancient legs, then he set off at a dead run directly at the deputy. The deputy leaped to the side but the horse still clipped him in the shoulder and sent him slamming into the turf. Sheriff Lee had completely given up on the reins and was leaned forward over the saddle, his arms wrapped around the horse’s neck. If he remained seated, it would be a miracle. If the horse didn’t have a heart attack, it would be a miracle.
Given the determination and rate of speed that the four-legged law enforcement officer was moving, he probably wouldn’t slow until he reached his stall or keeled over. I just hoped Sheriff Lee survived to tell the tale. I whirled around and continued running for the spot where I thought Ida Belle had been waiting but saw movement out of the corner of my eye and slid to a stop in horror as I saw Ida Belle’s legs disappear over the window ledge of Hot Rod’s shop.
I yanked out my phone and sent her a text.
Get the hell out of there. The deputy has probably already called in the armed forces.
I watched the window, waiting for her to swing her legs back out, but no movement was forthcoming. I waited another extremely long ten seconds, then when I heard sirens in the distance, texted again.
5-0 on the way. Have to find Gertie and get out of here.
Just when I was getting ready to go through the window and haul her out myself, she poked her head out and did a flip-roll over the sill and onto the ground. If I hadn’t been so anxious to get away, I might have taken a second to be impressed, but we didn’t have that kind of time. We’d have to high-five over it later. Hopefully, not in a police lineup. I stepped out of the woods and motioned to Ida Belle to hurry, and she ran for the tree line.
“What happened?” she asked as she stepped into the brush.
“Gertie,” I said.
That’s all the explanation she needed. She nodded and we set off in what I hoped was a diagonal path straight to the boat. The brush was thicker going than coming, and with one arm clutching the binoculars that I still wore around my neck, that left only one arm to block my face. I knew my forearms and hands were going to show signs of a foliage attack. If it had been winter, and I hadn’t been shedding my clothes in front of the local law enforcement, it might not have been a problem, but since neither of those was the case, I was going to have to invent a story for the scratches. One that didn’t involve Hot Rod, automobiles, or my being anywhere but my own backyard.
A bead of sweat fell into my left eye and I reached up to swipe it, which just happened to be the same time the woods ended and the bank began. I shot off the edge of the bank, which was about two feet above the water line, and hit the water, making a splash like an orca. I came right back out as fast as I went in. It probably looked like video on reverse. No way was I spending time in any murky water in Sinful. Some gator craving a casserole might settle for a lean CIA agent.
Ida Belle paused long enough to watch me run on water, then pointed down the bank where Gertie was limping toward the boat. We had missed the mark by about twenty yards, which wasn’t bad considering we were in panicked flight, had no path, and were trying to keep from being eaten alive by the brush. I grabbed the binoculars, which hadn’t fallen off during my free fall, and we took off again.
We hoofed it down the bank and Ida Belle jumped into the boat, narrowly missing Gertie, who was already in place at the bottom. I untied the line and jumped in, then leaped into my seat and grabbed the armrests as Ida Belle launched us away from the bank. About two seconds later, I started breathing again and realized I’d been holding my breath since I’d gone into the water.
Ida Belle glanced over at me and frowned, probably wondering why I was gasping for air now when it was flowing across my face at a good forty miles per hour. She pointed at the highway up ahead and I lifted the binoculars, thankful they were military grade and could take a dunking. I could hear the sirens, but with all the water and flat land surrounding us, it was difficult to pin down the direction of the noise. I hoped it was coming from the east, which meant we were in the clear to pass under the highway.
But we were never that lucky.
I spotted Carter’s truck speeding down the highway straight toward us. I hit Ida Belle’s arm and tapped the top of my head with my left hand and pointed toward Sinful. It was the motorcycle rider’s signal meaning law enforcement was ahead. Since Ida Belle had taught me that signal herself, I knew she’d get it.
She scanned the bank, looking for a hiding place, but on both sides, the trees had disappeared and made way for long stretches of marsh grass, which provided no hiding place at all. I lifted the binoculars and checked again and waved my hands, gesturing her to the bridge. If we turned around, Carter would see us. Our only chance was to make it under the bridge before he got close enough to notice us.
Ida Belle nodded and gave the boat that last bit of juice she’d been holding
in reserve, and we flew toward the bridge. I could see Carter’s truck without the binoculars now but it was still a tiny blip. No way he’d be able to identify us yet, and we were almost to the bridge. There was just the small problem of stopping.
Usually stopping involved coasting to a dock or bank or occasionally, running up a bank, if the situation called for it. It wasn’t as if the boat came equipped with brakes. But even though we were drawing dangerously close to the bridge, Ida Belle showed no signs of slowing. Gertie looked back at me, her eyes wide, and I shrugged. At the rate we were moving, we were going to shoot out of from under the bridge just in time for Carter to get an excellent look at us.
I shouldn’t have underestimated Ida Belle.
When we were ten feet from the bridge, she cut the boat hard to the right, and it was all I could do to hang on to my seat. We went sliding across the top of the water sideways, and Ida Belle killed the engine just seconds before the side of the boat slammed into the bank below the bridge.
My hip crashed into the armrest and I knew I was going to have a good bruise tomorrow, but Gertie was probably going to be in worse shape than me. She slid across the bottom of the boat and banged into the side. I sucked in a breath, waiting for some indication from her that she was alive, and finally it came. In the form of a middle finger.
I heard Carter’s truck approaching and several seconds later, it roared over the bridge above us. Ida Belle waited until we couldn’t hear the engine any longer, then told me to grab the pole and push us around. I hopped off my seat and grabbed the long pole we kept in the boat for maneuvering and managed to get us turned back into the right direction. Once the pole was secured and I was back in place, we were ready to leave.
And then Ida Belle’s phone rang.
“It’s Myrtle,” she said, and answered.
She couldn’t have heard much, but she shoved the phone back in her pocket, fired up the boat, and floored it.
“Deputy Breaux is on the way to your house,” Ida Belle yelled as we barreled down the bayou.
Crap. I should have known we’d be first on the list of suspects for the blast. There was rarely an explosion or fire or even gunshots that didn’t involve one of us. The only plus was that Deputy Breaux was a lot easier to fool than Carter. I think it was because he was young and slightly afraid of all of us. And he had that whole Southern-raising, respect-your-elders thing going on with Gertie and Ida Belle.
Still, we needed to get to my house before Deputy Breaux did. If he spotted us in the boat, then Carter would assume the explosion was us and we’d be in hot water. And I might have to go back to sleeping alone some nights. Which would suck because for the first time in my life, I was actually enjoying sharing my space. Not all the time, which is why I was glad we had separate places, but sometimes it was nice.
Ida Belle knew the score, and she used every trick in her airboat sleeve to get us to my house as quickly as possible. I didn’t see any sign of Deputy Breaux when we approached my back yard which was a good thing. Ida Belle cut her speed a little but still launched the boat halfway up the bank. I jumped out of my seat and hauled Gertie up from the bottom before we’d even slid to a stop, and all of us ran away from the bank as fast as our legs would carry us.
Then I remembered I was soaking wet and stopped.
“I’m wet,” I said. “And we have scratches all over us from running through the woods. Deputy Breaux isn’t clever, but he’s not blind.”
“I got this,” Gertie said, and ran for my shed. “Turn on the water hose, Ida Belle!”
Apparently, Ida Belle understood what was going on because she ran for the hose and starting unreeling it, tossing it all into the yard. Gertie came running back with a shovel, hedge clippers, and pruning shears and handed me the clippers.
“Chop those bushes,” she said, “from behind.”
I grabbed the clippers and squeezed in between the bushes, their prickly branches scratching my arms all over again. And that’s when it all clicked. Gertie started with the pruning shears on the front side and Ida Belle watered the beds to the side of us. I hacked a bunch of small limbs off the back of the bushes and flung them around so that it looked like a lot of work had already occurred.
Not a minute later, I heard Deputy Breaux calling out for me.
“In the backyard,” Ida Belle yelled.
When I saw Deputy Breaux round the corner, I stepped out of the bushes. He looked at us, then at the bushes, and frowned.
“Why are you trimming those in the middle of the summer?” he asked.
“They’re growing too close to the house,” Gertie said. “I kept offering to do it for Marge in the winter, but you know how stubborn she could be about accepting help. They’re scratching the paint off the siding.”
Deputy Breaux nodded and focused in on me. “Why are you wet?”
“I had a bit of a time with the hose,” Ida Belle said, “and Fortune got the worst of it.”
I shrugged. “Probably did me a favor. It’s hot as heck. What can we do for you? I assume you didn’t come by to see our riveting morning of bush trimming.”
“No, ma’am,” Deputy Breaux said, and blushed. “There was, uh, a situation at Hot Rod’s place a bit earlier.”
“Hot Rod’s still in the hospital, right?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Deputy Breaux said. “It didn’t involve him. But there was gunfire and an explosion in the woods near his shop.”
My expression immediately morphed into my incredulous look. “An explosion? Of what? For what purpose?”
“Was anyone hurt?” Gertie asked.
“Was the shop hurt?” Ida Belle asked. “All those cars…”
“No one was hurt,” Deputy Breaux said. “That we’re aware of, anyway, and the shop wasn’t damaged. We don’t know what caused the explosion or why it was set off.”
A wave of relief rolled through me when I heard that no one was injured. I’d been worried about the sheriff and his horse ever since I’d seen them pull their racehorse maneuver.
“That’s good that no one was hurt,” I said, “but what can we do for you?”
He shuffled his feet and stared down at the ground. “Deputy LeBlanc suggested I see what you ladies were up to.”
“I see,” I said. “Something happened that Carter has to deal with, and he automatically assumed it was us. If an explosion were out of the ordinary for Sinful, I could see where he might be upset, but there’s been an awful lot of that sort of thing recently.”
Deputy Breaux nodded. “Mostly since you came to town.”
I held in a smile. The deputy wasn’t the sharpest tack in the box, but he was far from stupid. He knew Ida Belle, Gertie, and I got up to all sorts of things we had no business being in the middle of, but he was too polite to come right out and accuse me of anything.
“That’s fair enough,” I said, letting him off the hook. “But this time, it wasn’t us. We’ve been right here hacking bushes all morning.”
“I’ll let Deputy LeBlanc know,” he said. “Good luck with your gardening.”
We waited until Deputy Breaux rounded the corner before smiling. “Nice work,” I said to Gertie.
“I have my moments,” Gertie said.
“Oh, you definitely have your moments,” I said. “Like that handbag explosion. What the heck was in that handbag? And please tell me there was nothing in it that could identify you, assuming there’s anything left that’s not in a million tiny pieces.”
“I would never carry my license in my handbag,” Gertie said. “I’m not even sure I know where it is.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You failed the eye test and your license expired.”
“That’s why you made an eye doctor appointment,” Ida Belle said.
“Whatever,” Gertie said, and Ida Belle and I both smiled.
“So anyone want to head into the air-conditioning for a beer and a recap of the morning’s events?” I asked.
“We can’t,” Gertie said. “W
e have to chop up these bushes some more. You know Carter will check, and this isn’t ten minutes worth of work.”
Ida Belle sighed. “I hate when she’s right about things that involve lawn work in hundred-degree heat and eighty percent humidity, but she’s right. Get to hacking. I’ll turn some of the dirt over with the shovel. We can update as we work. You can start by telling me how Gertie’s handbag ended up being an incendiary device.”
I relayed the situation to Ida Belle, who stopped digging and shook her head at Gertie. “That handbag is going to get us all killed one day.”
“Technically speaking,” I said, “that handbag won’t.”
“I’ve got backup,” Gertie said.
“Of course you do,” I said. “So what kind of explosive were you carrying in that bag? And don’t tell me more fireworks, because I kinda know the difference.”
“There might have been a stick of dynamite in it,” Gertie said.
“What the heck?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Ida Belle and I both yelled at once.
“I shouldn’t even bother asking why,” Ida Belle said, “but why in the world did you have a stick of dynamite in your purse?”
“I must have forgotten it in there from the last time I went fishing,” Gertie said.
“You fish with dynamite?” I asked.
Ida Belle shook her head. “That’s why you’ve had such big hauls lately. If Carter catches you, he’s going to put you under the jail.”
“Given that her current pastime is blowing up the bayou for a slab of trout,” I said, “it’s not the worst idea I’ve heard today. And that’s saying a lot.”
“Everybody fishes with dynamite,” Gertie said. “It’s too hot to sit out there all day.”
I stared. “If everyone fishes with dynamite then I’m moving back to DC this afternoon.”
“Everyone does not fish with dynamite,” Ida Belle said. “Only a few do.”
“A few? What’s a few?” Two sounded like too many to me, especially when one of them was Gertie. “And where is everyone getting this dynamite? It’s not like you can pick up some sticks at the General Store.”
