Swamp Team 3 (A Miss Fortune Mystery)

by DeLeon, Jana

  Just when I thought we were toast, Ida Belle yelled, “Hold on!”

  And she drove straight off the road and into the swamp.

  The initial drop from the road into the marsh was enough to vault my stomach up in my throat. Then the bike slammed down onto the ground and jarred my spinal cord so hard I would probably come out of this a half inch shorter. The truck skidded to a stop at the edge of the road and I heard Floyd yelling. Then he backed up and continued down the road. If Ida Belle’s shortcut turned out to be a bust, Floyd would be waiting at the edge of town, ready to mow us down.

  The bike bounced along at a much faster clip than I’d imagined Ida Belle would be able to manage, and I found myself grudgingly giving her credit for her driving ability. I’d worked with professionals who wouldn’t have been able to negotiate a motorcycle in this terrain, and definitely not at the speed she was managing.

  I looked over Ida Belle’s shoulder, trying to gauge how close to the highway we were, but I was sorry I did. Nothing but inky blackness stretched in front of us, and the motorcycle’s headlight didn’t illuminate more than five feet in front of us. Panic coursed through me. No way did she have the terrain memorized, and unless she had infrared vision, she couldn’t see any farther than I could, so that meant she was completely winging it. It was a wonder she’d made it this far.

  My mind raced for alternatives to the death trip we were currently on, but with no place to hide, no other means of transportation, no bullets, and likely no cell phone service, I couldn’t think of a single viable option. Just when I was about to give up all hope, the motorcycle launched upward and into the air, slamming into pavement when it dropped.

  The highway!

  In the distance, I could make out lights from downtown Sinful. If we could get into town, we would be safe. I whipped around to check behind us and saw the truck turning onto the highway about fifty yards behind us. It was a good distance, but was it enough? Ida Belle had the throttle pegged but every time I glanced back, the truck had closed in by ten yards or more. With Sinful still fifty yards in the distance, we weren’t going to make it.

  With thirty yards to go, and the truck bearing town on us, my hopes of a narrow escape started slipping away. Then without warning, Ida Belle made a sharp right turn and drove off the highway and down a slope into a rice field. I remembered a farm that sat just on the edge of town and hoped it wasn’t owned by the kind of farmer who shot first and asked questions later. As we raced along a row in the rice field, I saw the truck fading into the distance and my spirits shot up.

  Then an ear-shattering boom of thunder shook the earth and rain plummeted from the sky as though it was the end of days. The drops were huge and at the speed we traveled, pelted my skin like rocks. With her visor and leather jacket, Ida Belle was in much better shape than I was. With the way I was dressed, I may as well be riding naked through a hailstorm. I held one hand over my eyes and squinted over Ida Belle’s shoulder, happy to see we were drawing near lights, probably from the farmhouse. That meant we were west of downtown and headed toward my neighborhood.

  And that’s when the first shot rang out.

  It whizzed right past my head, so close that I could hear the rush of air breaking, even wearing a helmet in the downpour. “Someone’s shooting at us!” I yelled.

  As Ida Belle made a hard right, a second shot shattered the headlight on the motorcycle, pitching us into complete darkness. But that didn’t slow Ida Belle down any. I only had two options left: let go and face the gun-slinging farmer, or pray. Given my outfit and the fact that I was deep in the Bible Belt, I figured God would come a lot closer to understanding my situation than the farmer.

  Before I could even get out the first word of prayer, the motorcycle broke through a thin plywood wall and the air exploded with chickens. Feathers and hay swirled around us, and I covered my face with one arm as the squawking, frantic birds flapped their tiny wings in a desperate attempt to get out of the way. Seconds later, we broke through the opposite side of the coop, Ida Belle never slowing.

  I heard a yell and looked over to see a woman run out the front door of the farmhouse, shaking her fist at us. Ida Belle made a hard right up a slope and we launched up and onto a side street in my neighborhood.

  I said a quick prayer that Floyd had no idea who I was and where I lived, and counted every second of the dash to my house. The farmer would be certain to call the police, and Swamp Team Three was Carter’s first choice to check out when odd things happened in Sinful. I had no doubt that he’d be banging on my door tonight, and it would be a miracle if we could pull off a cover story in time.

  We were soaking wet, covered in feathers, and beneath the domestic fowl look, I was still dressed like a streetwalker. Ida Belle, at least, could shed her clothes and helmet and would be able to pass for normal…as normal as things got, anyway. But short of being sandblasted, I wasn’t sure there was any hope for me.

  As we rounded the corner to my house, I saw the garage door open and Gertie standing in my driveway, frantically gesturing us inside. Ida Belle flew into the garage and slid to a stop next to my Jeep. Gertie yanked the garage door down and before I even stepped off the bike, Ally fired up a Shop-Vac and started sucking the feathers off my arms and shoulders.

  Ida Belle jumped off the bike and started pulling off her clothes and replacing them with her sweat suit that Gertie had placed on the toolbox. Steam rose from the motorcycle, and slightly charred chicken feathers were stuck to at least half of the engine. The odor they put off had me choking. Gertie grabbed a tarp from a shelf and tossed it over the steaming mess of metal.

  “I guess the farmer called the sheriff’s department?” I asked as I tugged off my helmet.

  Gertie nodded. “Myrtle said a call came in that a giant chicken rode a motorcycle through the coop and off down the street. She called me before she called it in to Carter.”

  I stared, wondering which was more unnerving—that the farmer thought a giant chicken was riding a motorcycle, or that Gertie had apparently known what had happened and was prepared to handle it. “And so you ran out into the garage to ready a tarp, a change of clothes, and a Shop-Vac?”

  “Of course,” Gertie said.

  “But how did you know that’s what you needed to do?”

  “Oh, well, there was this one time in junior high school when Ida Belle and I stole Sammy Crawford’s minibike…took us hours to pick the feathers off by hand. I always keep a Shop-Vac handy now. Just in case.”

  “Just in case you decide to drive a motorcycle through a chicken coop during a rainstorm?”

  “Yes,” Gertie said.

  I opened my mouth, but I was completely out of words. Ally stopped vacuuming for a couple of seconds and shoved a glass of Sinful Ladies Society cough syrup into my hand. “It’s not worth trying to understand,” she said.

  I chugged back the shot of whiskey in one gulp.

  “You need to get out of those clothes,” Gertie said. “Cutting the shoe strap will probably be easiest.”

  “It was for the other one,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, you can cut off the entire mess.” I pointed my finger at Gertie. “You and I need to talk. You sent me to that bar dressed like a hooker on wet T-shirt contest night. And don’t you dare try to pretend you didn’t know.”

  Ally sucked in a breath and stared at Gertie, her eyes wide. “You didn’t?”

  “Well, of course I knew,” Gertie said. “How’d you do?”

  Ida Belle yanked what was left of my sash out of the back of my top and waved it in the air.

  “I knew it!” Gertie said and gave Ida Belle a high five.

  I glared at Ida Belle. “I wondered why you had nothing to say about my outfit. You were in on this the entire time.”

  Ida Belle shrugged. “We needed you to get enough attention to loosen lips, and if we’d told you ahead of time, you would never have gone in.”

  “Damn right I wouldn’t have. I single-handedly set women back fifty year
s tonight.”

  Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “You’re trying to catch a criminal, not make a political statement. Besides, the people in that bar formed their opinions on women years ago. Your boobs aren’t going to make a difference one way or another in regards to women’s rights.”

  “What about my rights? What about my humiliation?”

  “That’s just a bonus,” Gertie said.

  Before I could respond, she bent over to cut off my shoe. I stumbled to the side as my foot slipped out of the heel and grabbed on to Ida Belle to steady myself.

  Ally popped up from the floor. “That’s as good as I can get, but you should be able to rub the rest off with a towel.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “And make it quick. Carter won’t spend five minutes listening to Farmer Frank’s wife and her insane story. He’ll head straight here when he’s done.”

  “I’m more worried about Floyd showing up here,” I said. “He was trying to kill us.”

  Gertie’s eyes widened and Ally stiffened. Ida Belle gave me a shove. “We’ll talk as soon as you’re wearing something suitable. Right now, you look like a worker at the Chicken Ranch, on more levels than one.”

  Since Gertie had insisted on watching The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas the week before, Ida Belle’s comment wasn’t lost on me. “Fine,” I said, “but when I get back downstairs, the two of you are going to answer for a lot. And somebody light a candle or something. It smells like we’re burning down a KFC.”

  I dashed upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time now. Amazing what one’s feet could accomplish when they weren’t strapped to stilts. I raced into the bathroom and slid to a stop in front of the vanity, where I caught a look of myself in the mirror and for a split second, thought someone else was in my bathroom.

  My hair was still damp from the wet T-shirt event and I had to pull some feathers from the ends of the strands that hadn’t been covered by the helmet. Despite the helmet, most of the hair still stood out a good two inches from my head. My eyes looked like I’d been the loser in a bar fight. Black smudges of makeup circled both of them, with the remnants dripping down my cheeks like a scene from a bad horror movie.

  I turned on the shower and removed my holster and pistol before jumping into the stream of hot water with a bar of soap and a hunting knife. While I closed my eyes and let the soap lather go to work on my face, I carefully cut the clothes off of me with the knife, letting them drop into the tub as I went. When I was free from the last garment, I rubbed my face until my eyelashes were no longer sticking together.

  I jumped out of the shower and dried off as I hurried into my room to grab shorts and a T-shirt. I threw on the clothes, forced my wet hair into a ragged ponytail, then hurried downstairs. I flopped down on the couch and leaned back to catch my breath. My pulse was still racing from all the rushing around.

  Ally immediately leaned over and did some sort of swirly thing with my hair, wrapping it into a knot on the top of my head. “That looks neater. I baked chocolate chip cookies while you were at the bar,” Ally said. “I know you’re cutting back, but do you want some?”

  “Given that I’ve just gotten in an hour’s worth of aerobics,” I said, “I think I deserve it.”

  Ally grinned and headed off to the kitchen, returning a couple minutes later with a plate of cookies and a beer. I shoved an entire cookie in my mouth and sighed from the awesomeness. “Where are the trouble twins?” I mumbled while still chewing.

  “The candles weren’t making a dent in the burned chicken smell, so they opened the garage to air it out, and they’re hiding the motorcycle in your back hedges.”

  “Not the ones right along the back of the house?”

  Ally shook her head. “I told them not to. Our luck, Carter would decide he wanted to investigate the creeper while he’s here, and find the motorcycle. Then the whole gig would be up.”

  “The whole gig is up, anyway. He’ll know it was us. Two of us, anyway.”

  Ally grinned. “Or one of you wearing a snowsuit covered in feathers.”

  I laughed. “By the time Farmer Frank’s wife saw us, we probably looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man with wings. When I think about how she saw it and then what she said to Myrtle, it’s funny. But don’t you dare tell Ida Belle and Gertie I said so.”

  “No way. We can have a chuckle about it now, but the bottom line is that you both could have been killed.”

  “Yeah. That Floyd is a real hothead. I can’t believe he made such a big deal over that rickety fence of his. A good wind would have taken it out.”

  “A good wind already has. He keeps propping it back up.”

  “Then what’s his major malfunction?”

  “I don’t think he likes women much.”

  “The bartender at Swamp Bar said he likes to slap them around.”

  “Really?” Ally asked. “That doesn’t sound like the kind of information a bartender would volunteer about one of his regulars.”

  “I told him I was looking for Floyd, but I don’t think I fit the profile for Floyd’s usual woman. I passed it off as looking up an old acquaintance of my brother’s while I was in town. I guess since I played it as not really knowing him well, the bartender felt obligated to give me a warning.”

  Ally frowned. “Maybe I’ve been lucky, living right next to him and nothing happening.”

  I nodded. “It kinda sounds like it, but if it makes a difference, he probably isn’t the arsonist.”

  Ida Belle and Gertie walked into the living room from the kitchen. “Why do you say that?” Ida Belle asked.

  “Some idiot at the bar—” I started.

  “There she goes,” Gertie said, “calling the good people of Sinful idiots again.”

  I could tell she was being facetious, so I ignored her. “Called Buckshot Billy,” I continued.

  “Definitely an idiot,” Gertie said.

  “He told me Floyd wasn’t at the bar the night of the fire because he was in lockup in New Orleans.”

  Ida Belle and Gertie looked at each other, then back at me.

  “Certainly a possibility,” Ida Belle said. “I’ll have Myrtle call New Orleans and verify.”

  “She can do that?” I asked.

  Ida Belle nodded. “She gives them some ID number and they’ll assume she’s checking because of an investigation. I’ll give her a call.”

  Ida Belle pulled out her cell phone, but before she could dial, someone pounded on my front door. She shoved the phone back in her sweatpants and hurried off to the kitchen. Gertie dashed across the room and pressed Play on my DVD player.

  Ida Belle returned a couple seconds later and put chips and dip on the coffee table. “We’ve been watching a movie.” She flopped down in the recliner and motioned for me to get the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  It wasn’t the most creative cover in the world, but at least it was one that couldn’t be disproven. I jumped off the couch and swung open the front door. Carter stood on the front porch, his I-know-you’ve-been-up-to-something scowl already in place.

  “Hi,” I said, forcing a smile. “What’s up?”

  He glanced inside and frowned.

  “Make it rain!” Gertie stood in the middle of the living room floor, clutching a fistful of dollar bills. Every couple of seconds, she’d pull some bills from the stack and toss them at the television. Ida Belle stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Ally was doubled over on the couch, tears streaming down her face.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Carter asked.

  “Movie night?” I answered, not nearly as confident of that fact as I had been thirty seconds before.

  I stepped back around the entry wall into the living, Carter right behind me, and took a look at the television. Half-naked men danced on a stage, crazed women screaming at them and clutching their chests.

  Gertie cheered like the women in the movie and tossed more bills at the television set. “I told you this Magic Mike movie was the best thing ever.”r />
  Carter’s scowl disappeared and his expression shifted to slightly horrified. Probably because straight men weren’t overly excited to see another man dancing around with his stuff in a G-string, even if it was on television.

  “We agreed to indulge her,” I said. “Did you need to talk to Ally? I think I can revive her.” Ally now hung half off the couch, laughing so hard her entire body shook.

  “You’ve been here all evening?”

  “I have, but it’s my house. Ally met with the insurance people for a while, and Ida Belle and Gertie showed up about an hour ago with snacks and Gertie’s version of girls’ night porn. Why?”

  “Dispatch got a call from Farmer Frank’s wife. Someone ran a motorcycle through her chicken coop.”

  “I don’t own a motorcycle.”

  “Lack of legal possession hasn’t been a deterrent for you in the past.”

  I felt my back stiffen, somewhat insulted by his accusation and his tone. “I see. So if something weird happens in this town, and it involves anything remotely illegal, then it must have been me. Remind me why you asked me on a date again? Clearly your opinion of me doesn’t match the standards of the badge you carry.”

  He had the decency to look embarrassed. “It’s not about you, necessarily. It’s about the company you keep.”

  Because he had a point, I decided to let his comment slide. “Well, I’ll admit that I wouldn’t mind if you arrested Gertie for both her behavior and her awful choice in movies, but that’s the only thing even remotely inappropriate that has gone on here tonight.”

  Which was technically true, because dressing like a hooker was stupid but not necessarily inappropriate and everything questionable or illegal had taken place somewhere else. Well, technically, hiding the motorcycle in my bushes might count as questionable, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

  He glanced at the television again and flinched, then shuffled, clearly uncomfortable. “I guess I’ll be going then.”

  I followed him to the front door and watched as he stepped outside, then turned around. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, your garage door is open.”