by Jana DeLeon
“Me too,” Ida Belle said.
“So do we keep checking the kids?” Gertie asked.
Ida Belle nodded. “We’ve got to be here anyway, so might as well nose around. You never know what we might turn up that’s useful.”
The sound of whooping had me looking toward the street. Another wave of teens was arriving in the bed of a pickup truck.
“Football team,” Gertie said.
“The popular kids,” I said. “Looks like I have work to do.”
Chapter Ten
I trailed a bit behind the new group of teens as they carried an ice chest and lawn chairs toward the bonfire, assessing them as I went.
Seven guys, three girls. The guys were the typical stocky jock types. The girls all had on cheerleader skirts. No threat to me, but they were probably hell on the other students.
As they arranged the chairs and passed out sodas, I sauntered up. “Mind if I have one of those?” I asked, and pointed to the ice chest.
One of the guys gave me a look up and down. He must have liked what he saw, because he gestured for one of the girls to hand me a can. She gave me a look up and down too, but I got the impression she wasn’t as impressed as he was.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Fortune. I’m visiting for the summer.”
“I know you,” one of the other guys said. “Didn’t you kill some dude?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “If she’d killed someone she would be in jail, not hanging out in the park bumming a soda. God, you’re so stupid sometimes.” She whirled around and stomped off to where the other two girls were standing, then the three of them huddled close to one another, alternating whispering and glaring.
“She didn’t kill him,” another guy said. “They found some dead dude in her yard, right?”
“Sort of,” I said. “The house belonged to my aunt, and the bone was in the bayou behind the house.”
“Oh.” The first guy looked slightly disappointed. “That’s something I guess, but not as cool as killing him yourself.”
“So you’ve killed someone?” I asked.
“Me? What—no!”
“Then how do you know it’s cool?”
“I, uh, it’s not cool for me to kill someone. I mean, unless he’s hurting my dog or using my duck blind without permission…you know, serious shit.”
“Of course,” I said. I could get on board with the dog part. Jury was out on the duck blind. I might have to live in Sinful longer before that one kicked in.
I motioned to the cooler. “I don’t suppose you have some beer hidden in there.”
“Nah, we’re not much for drinking.”
“Oh, you go for the harder stuff then?”
He stared at me for a moment, his brow wrinkling, then he finally got it and his expression shifted to one of slight disgust. “Drugs? No way!”
I checked out his biceps. “Not even steroids?”
“That crap will shrink your balls. And get you banned. A college scholarship to play football is the only chance we have to get the hell out of this town. We’re not about to blow it on something stupid.”
“Good for you,” I said, and meant it. “A lot of players aren’t nearly as smart.”
“A lot of players aren’t trying to get out of Sinful.”
“Hey, look!” One of the other players pointed to the street. The food vendors that had been at the Fourth of July celebration the day before were unloading their trailers at the curb and setting up shop. Hot dogs, pretzels, funnel cake, and snow cones. Yum!
“Oh!” One of the cheerleaders ran over to grab the arm of the player I’d been talking to. “I want a snow cone.”
“Sure, baby.” He gave me a nod. “Nice talking to you.”
The popular kid crowd, along with half of the other teens, made their way over to the food vendors. I headed back for the picnic table to regroup with Ida Belle and Gertie.
“Anything?” Ida Belle asked as I slid onto the bench.
“No. Apparently, they don’t even do steroids because they could lose their chance at a scholarship, also known as ‘getting the hell out of Sinful.’”
Gertie frowned. “That’s completely logical and a little surprising coming from them, but hey, who am I to question one’s motivation for getting out of here. If I had been a normal teen, that might have been my goal as well.”
“You did get out of here,” Ida Belle said. “We went to war, remember?”
“What about after the war?” Gertie argued. “We could have gone anywhere, but the three of us parked ourselves right back in Sinful.”
I knew the “three of us” referred to Ida Belle, Gertie, and Marge Boudreaux, the woman whose niece I was pretending to be. They’d served together in Vietnam in a capacity that no one but me and their commanding officers knew about. Assuming their commanding officers were still alive, which might be a stretch.
“Where else could we be in control?” Ida Belle said.
Gertie shook her head. “How’s that working out for you?”
“Right now, it’s a bit troubling,” Ida Belle agreed, “but we’re going to get it all straightened out.”
“I hope so,” Gertie said. “Retirement wasn’t supposed to require this much energy.”
I pointed to the food vendors. “You didn’t tell me there would be fat snacks.”
“That’s because there never have been,” Gertie said. “At least, not of the professional sort. Used to, it was limited to whatever you brought in yourself.”
“Well, then I think our hard work here deserves funnel cake,” I said.
“Darn straight,” Gertie said and popped up from the bench.
“I’ll stick around here,” Ida Belle said. “There’s a couple kids near the bonfire I want to chat with. Get me a bubble gum snow cone. Maybe it will cool me down.”
Gertie hopped up from the bench…well, maybe “hop” was a little strong. She sort rolled off of it and into a standing position, then we set out for food. The girl I’d met at the festival was serving up funnel cake and her husband was working the snow cone end of things.
“Kayla, right?” I asked when it was our turn.
She brightened. “Yes. I met you yesterday. And hello again, Gertie. I didn’t expect to see you guys here.”
“We’re chaperoning,” I said.
“It’s good of you to volunteer,” Kayla said. “When I was in high school, we wondered every year if the dance would be canceled because no one would volunteer to chaperone.”
“It was our time in rotation,” Gertie said. “We dragged Fortune along for the ride. We’re surprised to see you here as well. I figured you’d be halfway to your next gig.”
Kayla nodded. “We have a couple days before it starts. Normally we would have cleared out this morning. But Celia asked all the food vendors if they would work the dance, and get this, she’s paying us a flat fee to do it on top of what we’ll make from selling.”
Gertie’s expression shifted from pleasant to annoyance. “That woman. After the debacle she made of the sheriff’s department and Francine’s menu, she’s trying to get brownie points by doing something for the kids.”
“Will it work?” I asked.
“Not a chance,” Gertie said. “Some funnel cake and snow cones can’t make up for the mess she’s made. No offense to your food, dear.”
“None taken,” Kayla said. “The whole mayor thing has been the buzz since we’ve been here. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s happy.”
“No,” Gertie said. “At this point, I’m pretty sure the people who voted for her are unhappy, and the people who didn’t vote for her are ready to kill her.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t go that far,” Kayla said. “What can I get you ladies?”
“Two funnel cakes and a bubble gum snow cone,” I said.
“Coming right up.” She turned around and doctored up two fresh funnel cakes with a load of powdered sugar and put them on the counter just as her husband handed Gertie
the snow cone and gave her a wink.
“On the house,” Kayla said.
“No,” Gertie started to protest.
“I insist,” Kayla said. “You’re working. It’s the least we can do.”
“Thanks,” I said and lifted the funnel cakes from the counter.
“I can’t believe Celia,” Gertie said as we walked back to the picnic table. “Trying to buy people off.”
“And doing a really poor job of it,” I said. “She’s not overly bright, is she?”
“No. Never has been. She’s in charge of her group because there’s no end to her mouth, and she’s a bully. Always was.”
“If people know that, then why did they vote for her?”
“Some did only because Marie is Baptist and Celia is Catholic. Others, I don’t know. Probably, they don’t know her like we do, or maybe since she hasn’t ever set the world on fire with anything, they thought she’d leave things well enough alone.”
“I wonder what they think now?”
“That mob downtown this morning is a good indication. At least half were good Catholics. I think Celia got too big for her britches.”
I set the funnel cakes on the picnic table and took a seat next to Gertie as Ida Belle plopped down on the other side and reached for her snow cone. Gertie filled Ida Belle in on Celia and the vendor deal as we ate.
Ida Belle shook her head. “She’s out of her mind if she thinks this will fix anything.”
Gertie nodded. “That’s what I said. The banana pudding thing is bad enough, but Nelson is going to be the far bigger problem.”
“Speak of the devil,” I said and pointed to Nelson, who had parked in front of the funnel cake trailer and was climbing out of a new Mercedes.
“Where did he get the money for a car like that?” Gertie asked.
“Probably one of those high-interest leases,” Ida Belle said. “He’ll have it for a couple months until they repossess it for nonpayment.”
“You’re probably right,” Gertie said. “The man can barely tie his shoelaces. No way is he making that kind of bank at a job. Janitorial work is about all he’s qualified for, and it doesn’t score people a Mercedes.”
We watched as he walked over to the funnel cake trailer, cutting in front of the kids. Several of them shot the finger at him, but he ignored them all and scooped up the funnel cake that Kayla had just placed on the counter for the next customer. She frowned as he smiled at her and made off with the cake.
“What a douche,” I said.
“And a coward,” Gertie said. “Notice he stepped in front of the geeky kid. If one of those football jocks would have been standing there, he wouldn’t have been so gutsy.”
“I would have paid money to see that,” I said.
“So would a lot of other people,” Gertie said.
“Don’t look now,” Ida Belle said, “but he’s headed this way.”
I glanced over without turning my head and saw Nelson making a beeline for our picnic table.
Gertie sighed. “Why does it have to be when we’re eating? The man turns my stomach.”
I nodded and stuffed a huge piece of funnel cake in my mouth, trying to get it all in before he reached us. I made it three-quarters of the way through before he stepped up to the table, lips and chin dripping with powdered sugar and wearing a fake smile.
“And just what are you fine citizens of Sinful doing here?” he asked.
“Chaperoning,” Ida Belle said.
He glanced around. “Looks like you’re eating to me. You can’t keep things in line sitting here by yourselves.”
“Really?” Gertie asked. “That’s exactly what you do at the sheriff’s department, and you get paid to leave the building and work.”
Nelson’s smile vanished and he sneered. “Don’t think Celia hasn’t filled me in on all the meddling you two have done in this town.” He looked at me. “And you…a Yankee trying to take over, causing trouble when it was such a nice place before.”
“Oh,” I said, “you mean trouble like saving Celia’s life before she died of poisoning and finding out who killed her daughter? That kind of trouble?”
“For all I know,” Nelson said, “you could have been in cahoots with that woman who poisoned Celia.”
“You are so stupid,” Gertie said. “Fortune almost died from poisoning herself.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe that’s just what she claimed.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Ida Belle said. “She poisoned herself to look like a hero. What do you want?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You don’t like us,” Ida Belle said, “and we can’t stand you. Because we’re human and you’re not, we have nothing in common so therefore nothing to talk about. So tell you what you want and then go away.”
His expression hardened. “What I want is for you three to slip silently into the wind. Stop causing trouble. Stop poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“And if we don’t?” Gertie asked.
“Then I can make it really difficult for you, especially wearing a badge.” He looked at me. “And I can make things really difficult for your boyfriend.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” I said.
His expression wavered for a moment, then he recovered. “We’ll just see, won’t we?” He spun around and strode back across the park.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Gertie smirked. “He thinks he’s putting us on notice. Like that fool could scare us.”
“If he even knew the half of it,” I said, “he’d be running for Canada.”
Ida Belle nodded. “But that’s the good part—he’s totally underestimated his opponents.”
“He’s definitely got our abilities all wrong,” Gertie said, “but he knows enough to watch us, and that alone could be a problem.”
“He’s watching us because Celia whined about us to him and probably made it his job to keep us out of her hair,” Ida Belle said. “That man has never had an original thought in his life. I doubt he’s starting now.”
“He wouldn’t have to be original to get in our way,” Gertie said.
“Hopefully, he’ll be too busy avoiding work to notice,” I said.
“Hopefully,” Ida Belle said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
I looked at the street as Nelson climbed into his car and pulled away. A teen with a black hoodie on watched as he pulled away from the curb, then headed into the park and walked behind the bonfire where no other teens were congregated. The fact that he stood alone wasn’t necessarily suspicious—hell, I wasn’t a big fan of people either—but no one had forced him to come. The hoodie, however, in the heat and humidity was a bit of a stretch.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said and hopped up from the picnic table.
“Is something wrong?” Ida Belle asked.
“I’m not sure. Wait here. If you see anything strange, then move in.”
“Like we’d know strange from every day,” Gertie grumbled as I took off for the back side of the bonfire.
I paused about two-thirds of the way there near a crowd of kids sharing a funnel cake. The boy hadn’t shifted in position and no one had moved to join him. He stood stock still, hands in pockets and staring at the bonfire. No other teens or structures were nearby, so I had no choice but to approach him in the open. If he had a weapon in his pocket that he intended to use, no way could I reach him before he got off a shot off.
Ida Belle had missed my pocketknife during her wardrobe search, but unless I took an offensive approach, it was of little use against a bullet. And it probably wasn’t a good idea to make a running leap at a teenager in a public park, especially holding a knife. Of course, it was Sinful, so maybe it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought.
I finally decided what the hell and set off directly for him. When I was about five feet from him, he lifted his head and looked directly at me. Something about his eyes was very familiar.
“You’re
Fortune,” he said, but it was more of a statement than a question.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
He smiled. “Nah, but the description I got was a good one, although I think you’ve even hotter than he said.”
“Than who said?”
“My uncle.”
And then it clicked where I’d seen those same piercing brown eyes. “You’re an Hebert.”
He nodded. “People call me Vapor.”
“That’s a strange name.”
“Nickname. Because I have a talent for disappearing.”
“Depending on what your line of work is, that’s a good ability to have.”
He laughed. “My line of work is being an Hebert.”
“How old are you?”
“Old enough. You interested?”
I stared at him, unable to prevent my look of dismay. “Right now, I’m as involved with the Hebert family as I’m ever going to be.”
“Uncle Little said you were smart. Anyway, I got some papers for you.” He pulled some papers folded into a square out of his hoodie pocket. “Little says to tell you he didn’t know this guy or his people, so he ain’t got no chains to rattle, if you know what I’m saying.”
I took the papers and stuffed them into my back pocket. “Tell him not to worry. I’ll find him a chain.”
Vapor smiled. “I just bet you will. You ever change your mind about your proximity to the Hebert family, you give me a call.” He glanced past me, then gave me a wink and turned to walk away.
“You already exchanging me for a younger model?” Carter’s voice sounded to my right.
I turned around and saw him walking toward me and understood Vapor’s hasty retreat. I hoped he’d retreated before Carter had seen me stuffing the papers in my pocket. I glanced back to make sure Vapor was far enough way that Carter couldn’t get a good look at him and frowned.
The boy was nowhere to be seen.
No way. I hadn’t looked away but a second. How could he vanish in an open area?
But as I scanned the park grounds and the clusters of teens, I didn’t see him anywhere. Impressive. If he hadn’t opted for the criminal route, he could have had a hell of a career at the CIA. They didn’t call us spooks for nothing.
