by Jana DeLeon
“I don’t see the bees,” I said, and Ida Belle cut the hose off.
Gertie rolled onto her back and blew a stream of water out of her mouth. She was soaking wet and covered with mud, given that Willie’s property didn’t have grass to speak of. Just weeds and dirt.
“Are you all right?” I asked, scanning her face and arms for stings. For the most part, bee stings were only an annoyance, but some bees were highly poisonous and too much of any bee sting could be a problem. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything given the layer of mud that covered most of her exposed skin.
“I think I’m okay,” Gertie said. “How badly am I stung?”
“I can’t tell,” I said. “You’re too muddy. Can you stand?”
I extended my hand and helped her up, then Ida Belle turned the hose on her again, this time with a little less force, and rinsed off the worst of the mud. I looked closely as each bit of skin was exposed, and was relieved when I didn’t see any welts. Only a couple of small red dots.
“I don’t see much,” I said. “Did you feel them sting you?”
“Heck yes,” Gertie said. “Right on my arm. I was bending down to look under the back of the house when they flew out and attacked me.”
I frowned and bent over, staring in the dirt. Finally I spotted what I was looking for and started to laugh. “That wasn’t bees. It was flies. Look.”
Ida Belle and Gertie bent over to see the trio of huge flies I was pointing at.
“Deerflies,” Ida Belle said. “They bite hard. They were probably clustered when you bent over.”
Gertie stared at the ground, clearly disgusted. “I darn near ran myself into a heart attack over deerflies?”
“If you—” Ida Belle started to speak, and Gertie put a hand up to interrupt her.
“If you tell me this wouldn’t have happened if I had decent glasses,” Gertie said, “I’m going to take Fortune’s gun from her and shoot you.”
“Now that you’ve said it,” Ida Belle said, “I guess I don’t have to. Can we please get out of here now? Someone might be close enough to have heard Gertie screaming like a banshee.”
Gertie’s eyes widened. “The auction flyer!”
She reached into her blouse and dug around far too long for my comfort, then produced the folded paper, which was surprisingly dry given the drenching Gertie had gotten with the hose.
Gertie grinned. “It was tucked underneath—”
“Stop!” Ida Belle said. She grabbed the flyer from Gertie’s hands and pointed to the Jeep.
We hurried back to the Jeep and took off down the trail as quickly as the bumpy path allowed. I kept to the speed limit through town, but as soon as we were out of sight of the main drag, I punched the accelerator and headed up the highway. I needed to get home, sit down at the kitchen table, and sort all of this out.
In some way I couldn’t see, all of this had to make sense.
Chapter Fourteen
We stopped at what was probably one of the last pay phones left on earth. I scanned the area for cameras and people, but it was an old industrial area and mostly empty. I called and reported Willie, wearing latex gloves of course, then we headed back to Sinful.
We were all quiet on the drive home. My mind jumped between the key and the car thieves and my problems with Carter. I couldn’t seem to focus on one thing, and I knew that had to change. I needed to get home, take a cold shower, and get myself focused. There was no way I would come up with a solution with everything roaming around in my head all at once. I needed to pick one thing and concentrate on it until I had a solution.
As I pulled into Gertie’s drive, Ida Belle’s cell phone rang.
“It’s Myrtle,” she said, and answered.
I watched Ida Belle’s face shift from pensive to worried, but all she did was mumble “uh-huh” so I had no idea what was going on. Given Myrtle’s position with the sheriff’s department, it could be anything.
“Thanks,” Ida Belle said. “I really appreciate it.”
She hung up the phone. “Myrtle got a call at the sheriff’s department from one of my neighbors. It seems there was a black sedan parked on my street most of the morning. Two men inside and they were just sitting there.”
“Did she dispatch someone?” I asked, surprised that they had risked watching Ida Belle’s house in broad daylight. That was either ballsy or desperate.
Ida Belle nodded. “With the Hot Rod investigation going on, the only person available was Sheriff Lee. That darned horse of his is still refusing to come out of the barn, so he walked over, but by the time he got there, the car was gone. Ralph verified what the other neighbor said, though.”
“Ralph?” I asked.
“He lives on my street,” Ida Belle said. “He said he didn’t recognize the car and didn’t get a look at the people inside.”
“Did the neighbor get a license plate?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ida Belle said, “and they ran it but it doesn’t exist.”
“That’s not good,” Gertie said.
“No, it’s not,” I agreed.
“Stolen and fake plates?” Ida Belle asked.
“Possibly,” I said. “Gertie, take your shower or whatever and pack a bag. Our cover is blown with Carter, so you might as well stay with me. If someone goes looking for Ida Belle, they’d probably check your place, too. I don’t want you here alone.”
“If Carter hadn’t made me get rid of Godzilla,” Gertie said, “that wouldn’t be a problem.”
I couldn’t think of a single argument because in a ridiculous sort of way, she had a point.
“All interest in attack alligators aside,” I said, “I’d rather have you at my house. Besides, we have a lot of things to go over, and I’m going to need to talk it through. I think this is the most confused I’ve ever been. Nothing makes sense.”
Ida Belle nodded. “I agree. I have yet to come up with a single theory that checks all the boxes. We need to brainstorm this until we figure it out. Fortune’s house is the easiest to defend given the location of all the upstairs windows, and besides, she’s got Marge’s secret artillery if we need it.”
“Not to mention that Carter will probably be lurking somewhere nearby, waiting for us to do something he can arrest us for,” I said. “So we’ve got backup, whether we want it or not.”
“I have a casserole we can heat up,” Gertie said.
“Only if it’s not fish,” I said, the memory of Gertie’s horrible creation for Godzilla still lingering in my nostrils.
“It’s chicken,” Gertie said as she climbed out of the Jeep. “I’ll put together some things and be there in about an hour.”
Ida Belle looked over at me as Gertie walked away. “The casserole is already made and she needs an hour to put things together? We need to search anything she brings into your house.”
“Definitely.” I pulled out of Gertie’s driveway and headed around the block toward Ida Belle’s street, looking up and down the roads as I went. I figured the guys in the black sedan were long gone, at least for now, but I knew I had to check or it would be nagging at me the rest of the day. Ida Belle didn’t even ask what I was doing. She silently scanned the streets along with me until we reached the end of the neighborhood.
“They’re not visible,” Ida Belle said, “but I don’t think for a moment that they’re gone.”
“No. They probably saw your neighbors peeking at them through the blinds and decided it would be wise to vacate until dark. They’re sitting still somewhere, and I’d bet they’ll be back tonight, probably once they think everyone is asleep.”
“And when they don’t find me here…”
“We’ll be ready for them,” I said.
“Maybe we should stay at my house instead,” Ida Belle said. “It would be a shorter wait.”
“No. You were right about the advantages my house has, and there’s that whole police backup thing. I’m not overly happy with my situation with Carter right now, but relocating to your house woul
d just be out of spite for me and would reduce our safety. I’m not irritated enough to decrease our chances of catching these guys.”
Ida Belle sighed. Not an exasperated sigh but the kind of sigh you let out when you’re resigned to something crappy that you can’t change. I knew her frustration wasn’t over just her own situation but the problems it had caused my relationship.
“What would you do?” I asked quietly.
“It doesn’t matter what I would do. It’s your life and you have to live with the consequences.”
“I’m not putting you on the hook for the outcome. But as someone I respect and trust, I’m asking you what you would do if you were me.”
Ida Belle stared out the windshield for a while.
“I’d be true to myself,” she said finally.
It was an answer and yet at the same time, it wasn’t, because it didn’t tell me exactly what choice to make. But I understood her point. I had to figure out what constituted the “me” that I couldn’t live without.
One more thing I had zero answer for.
An hour later, we were all parked at my kitchen table. Gertie had put together sandwiches as she’d miscalculated her casserole supply, and Ida Belle had dumped some chips and salsa in bowls and retrieved us all a much-needed beer. I was making notes on my laptop about everything we’d found.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Gertie asked. “Putting it all in writing like that? I mean, what if someone else sees it?”
“By someone, I assume you mean Carter?” I asked.
Gertie nodded. “He is the first one that comes to mind when I consider access to your home and the person who would be the most upset about us finding a dead man and taking evidence from his house before calling in an anonymous tip.”
“It’s a risk I have to take,” I said. “There’s too much going on, and we have to figure out which parts of this mess tie together and how. I can’t do that with it all roaming around in my mind. I thought seeing everything typed out might help.”
“I’m good with whatever you want to do,” Gertie said. “But I felt I had to say something because you’re the one with the most to lose.”
I looked over at her and smiled. “You’re a good friend.”
“The best,” Ida Belle agreed.
“Oh sure,” Gertie said. “You say that now, but you searched me like you thought I was ISIS when I walked in with that box.”
“We were worried you might have more in it than just food,” I said.
Gertie shook her head. “Then you’re going to have a heart attack when you search my overnight bag. I’ve got it locked in the trunk for safekeeping.”
I made a mental note to go light on the beer lest I forget to frisk Gertie’s bag later on. I scanned all my notes and then looked up.
“There is a whole lot going on here,” I said. “I think we need to tackle one thing at a time and flesh it out rather than running all directions and not making enough progress on anything to figure this out.”
Ida Belle nodded. “That sounds reasonable, but where do we start?”
“The key,” I said. “Everything centers on the key. Everything we’ve found so far points toward Willie and the Seal brothers looking for it before they went to prison. So they get out of prison and are looking for it again. Maybe with each other. Maybe not.”
“Which means it could have been any of them who attacked Hot Rod,” Gertie said.
“Yeah, but someone killed Willie,” Ida Belle said. “And if the Seal brothers are still walking around, my money’s on them.”
“That’s the logical answer,” I said. But somehow it felt as if there were more to it.
Ida Belle studied me for a couple seconds. “You think we’re missing something.”
I shook my head. “I just don’t know.”
“What about Willie’s time of death?” Gertie asked. “Couldn’t that tell us whether he was at Hot Rod’s shop or not?”
“Not really,” I said. “Stiffness in the body was dissipated, which normally takes a day or more but in this heat could have happened faster.”
“So he could have been killed three days ago or last night?” Gertie asked. “That sucks.”
“What about flies?” Ida Belle asked. “Don’t they tell you something about time of death?”
“Sure,” I said, “but I’m not a forensics expert. I don’t know how to estimate time of death by the amount of or stages of larvae, and temperature and exposure affect everything.”
Ida Belle sighed. “So we still can’t narrow it down.”
“I can’t,” I said. “The coroner probably can but I don’t think they’ll be calling us with that information.”
“So for now,” Ida Belle said, “we work the theory that either the Seal brothers got the information on the location of the SUV from Willie then killed him, or the three of them boosted the SUVs from Hot Rod’s shop and had a falling-out later. Maybe because they didn’t find what they were looking for. Maybe for another reason.”
I nodded. “I think that’s as good as we can do for now.”
“I think we need to find out more about the Seal brothers,” Ida Belle said.
“I agree,” I said. “Any ideas on that?”
“We should speak to Lucinda,” Ida Belle said. “Ralph won’t talk, but if anyone knows the dirt about those boys it will be her.”
“Then let’s pay Lucinda a visit,” I said.
As I was about to stand, my cell phone rang, and I frowned when I looked at the display. “It’s Little,” I said, and answered it.
“Miss Morrow,” Little said, “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No,” I said. “Your timing is great. Is anything wrong?”
“I’m afraid so. We picked up a notice on police channels that a Willie LeDoux has been found dead in his home. I know you were trying to track him down, but it appears someone has beaten you to it.”
I started to talk but then couldn’t decide what I would say. Did I tell Little we had already searched the cabin or did I protect our cover? Turns out I didn’t have to decide, because Little spoke for me.
“I assume your hesitation in reacting is because you were the anonymous tipster that called in Willie’s unfortunate circumstances,” he said.
“I, uh, might know something about that.”
“Big and I suspected as much,” he said, and I could practically see him smiling when he said it. “Did you discover anything that identifies the men who attacked Hot Rod?”
“I’m afraid not. We found an auction flyer that had Ida Belle’s SUV on it, though. We think that was how Hot Rod acquired the vehicle. Willie had the flyer stuffed between the pages of a magazine.”
“That’s interesting,” Little said. “So Mr. LeDoux had knowledge of where the SUV was located, which means he could have been the person who attacked Hot Rod.”
“Yes, but then there’s a question of who killed Willie.”
“And given his colorful pursuits,” Little said, “his death might have been because of the key or something else entirely.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll do some more asking around about our friend Mr. LeDoux and see if someone else had a reason to prefer him out of commission. I assume you had no luck with the key?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Aside from Willie, who couldn’t talk, and the auction flyer, there wasn’t much to find. Definitely nothing the key would fit. We know Willie worked with the Seal brothers in the past, and they’re our best suspects now, but like you said, Willie probably had dealings with plenty of shady types.”
“And that complicates things,” Little said. “Unfortunately, inquiries as to the Seal brothers’ whereabouts have also turned up nothing. It’s as if they walked out of prison and vanished.”
Which was interesting in and of itself, because most people who were released from prison went looking for money, either from people who owed them before or an easy crime to pick up some walking money. Whi
ch brought me right back around to the key. Maybe it was that simple.
“Thanks for trying to run them down,” I said. “If you come up with anyone else Willie might have been involved with, let me know. Maybe the next guy will still be breathing.”
“I can’t make any promises there,” Little said. “I doubt Mr. LeDoux spent a lot of time in the company of suburban dads or your average office worker.”
“Probably not.”
“It goes without saying that you need to watch your back,” Little said. “If you want assistance in that regard, all you have to do is call. I can provide Mannie at your disposal as long as you need him and in whatever capacity.”
“I appreciate it, but we’re good for now.”
“Very well then. I’ll be in touch when I have more information.”
I disconnected and filled Ida Belle and Gertie in on the conversation, then we headed out for a chat with Lucinda.
Despite the heat, Lucinda was out front doing something to flowers in her beds. Gertie called it deadheading, but that didn’t sound right. I suppose I could have asked for clarification, but then I was afraid someone might ask me to help do it. Lucinda looked up from her flowers as we climbed out of my Jeep and waved at us.
“You’re just in time to save me from heat exhaustion,” she said. “I made a fresh batch of sweet tea this morning. Let’s go inside and have some.”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. I still thought Louisiana heat combined with the ridiculous humidity the state managed should be illegal. The only other time I’d experienced something like it was on one mission in the Brazilian rain forest. The dry heat of the desert was much kinder to equipment and my lungs.
We headed inside through a pleasant living room painted a muted shade of green and down the hallway to a kitchen off the back of the house. The kitchen was not muted at all. It was bright yellow with blue and yellow decorations. Lucinda motioned to the kitchen table, and we took a seat on white farmhouse chairs with blue plaid seat cushions.
“I like your kitchen,” I said.
