by Hearn, Shari
I stopped and turned back toward them. “Why else would I need an overnight bag unless we’re evacuating?”
Gertie dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “We don’t leave for hurricanes. It’s Midge Fuselier. She has a boil on her butt.”
As I said, sometimes we had different definitions of urgent. “And Midge’s boil would cause me to leave my house overnight because…”
Gertie rolled her eyes. “Because she’s our lookout, and tonight she has to lie on her stomach and apply a warm compress to her ass twice an hour. You’ve obviously never had to burst one of those suckers.”
Ida Belle nodded. “So we need a new lookout.”
I skipped back down the stairs. “Lookout? Is there some case you’ve been working without telling me?”
Ida Belle shifted on her feet. “No, but it is important. So if you could just pack your bag. You might want to toss in a few things like toilet paper and soap.”
“And flashlights and insect repellent,” Gertie added. “And if you have an extra fire extinguisher, that would be just dandy.”
It didn’t sound like an ordinary stakeout. “Where are we going? Is someone’s life being threatened?”
“We’re going to one of the nearby islands. And no, no one’s life has been threatened.” Ida Belle’s eyes didn’t quite meet mine. When we first met, she could lie right to my face. But we’d gotten closer, more like family than friends; lying to me was getting harder.
“What kind of urgent thing is this?”
Ida Belle and Gertie glanced at one another.
“I’m not packing a bag until I know.”
Ida Belle sighed. “All right. Tonight it’s our turn to tend to The Sinful Ladies Society cough syrup manufacturing site.”
I rolled my eyes at the words, “manufacturing site.” She could dress it up in its Sunday best, but it was still just an illegal moonshine operation hidden somewhere in the swamp land.
“Gertie and I cook the mash while Midge normally provides lookout.”
I nodded. “Only she has a boil on her butt and now you’d like me to go with you.”
Gertie looked at Ida Belle. “And you said she’d put up a fight.”
I shook my head.
“Is that shake of your head saying, ‘no, I won’t put up a fight?’ or ‘no, I’m going to be selfish and not help out two old ladies in need make moonshine?’” Gertie grabbed onto the sofa, as if she were so feeble she needed it to help her stand upright.
No no, they were not going to do this to me today. I had a new book featuring a wacky FBI agent I checked out at the library, a bottle of chardonnay I bought in New Orleans, and an evening where I was just going to hang out with myself. I turned on my heels and headed into the kitchen.
Ida Belle and Gertie were close behind.
I reached into my fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. “How come when you’re bragging on yourselves you’re ‘two gals who still have it,’ and when I don’t want to help with something you become ‘two old ladies in need?’”
Ida Belle opened my cupboard and peered in. “My my, what’s this?” She yanked out my stash of Sinful Ladies Society Cough Syrup, three bottles in all, and placed them on the counter. “You drink it, but you won’t help make it?”
“Because it’s illegal. I’m still a federal agent, remember?”
“And it wasn’t illegal to impede an ATF investigation?” Gertie asked. “And it wasn’t illegal to break into Celia’s house searching for evidence? And it wasn’t illegal signing your name on a legal document as Sandy-Sue Morrow when you’re really Fortune Redding? Am I missing anything?”
She was actually missing plenty. It seemed almost every time the three of us got together we were doing something illegal.
Ida Belle held up her hand. “No no, Fortune has a point, Gertie. Besides, standing guard over a moonshine operation can be dangerous. The last time we were out there a group of drunken gator hunters wanted to help themselves to our product. I can understand if she’s afraid.”
She slowly pulled her gaze to meet mine. And did I detect a slight uplifting of her lips? I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. Call me reckless, call me impulsive, call me an absolute disaster at walking in girl shoes. But don’t call me afraid. She knew my number-one weakness.
And now she was going in for the kill.
“Who knew the CIA turned out such pansies.”
Gertie’s eyes moved from Ida Belle to me, and back again, no doubt deciding whether to weigh in. She blew out a breath of relief when she heard Merlin scratching at the door to be let in.
“I’ll just let kitty in,” she said, moving toward the door.
Ida Belle and I were locked in a stare down as Gertie opened the door and Merlin rushed in.
“Hewo, Merwin,” Gertie cooed to him. She bent down and picked him up. “Oh… pwetty pootie tat.”
“He doesn’t like baby talk,” I said, keeping my eyes on Ida Belle.
“And did he tell you this using sign language, or did he type it out for you?” Gertie asked.
“I just know.”
“Hmmm.” She eyed the bag on the table. “What’s in the bag?”
“Catnip.”
“Ooh, Merwin,” she said, lifting the bag and shaking it in his face. “Wanna get silly?”
Merlin growled. I broke my standoff with Ida Belle and looked over to find Merlin’s ears pulled back to the side of his head.
“What does it mean when his ears do this?” Gertie asked, holding him at arm’s length as if he were a baby in a poopy diaper.
“He’s going to scratch your eyes out.”
Gertie dropped Merlin to the floor and he skirted around my legs.
“Well?” Ida Belle asked me.
“I have a bottle of chardonnay, a book to read and a night to myself. Okay?”
Gertie shook her head. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ida Belle, she said no. Why don’t we just go without her? I’m sure nothing bad is going to happen to us if we don’t have a lookout. And who cares about us anyway?”
And now it was Gertie’s turn to milk my number-two weakness: guilt.
“We don’t have any kids or grandkids who would miss us. Who cares if there might be an alligator that gets the drop on us, or maybe a poacher who wants to get hold of our special mash. Who cares if the proceeds of our cough syrup go to help girls and the little old ladies of Sinful, and that if we’re not on schedule with our next shipment poor old Mabel will have to wait a few months to get that suspicious mole removed. Fortune has a book to read.”
* * * * *
I wasn’t sure what got to me more, being called a sissy or a callous princess. But a half hour later I had an overnight backpack slung over my shoulder, a couple of bowls of Merlin’s food set out on the kitchen floor, and a bottle of chardonnay in my hand.
“You are not taking that with us,” Ida Belle said.
“Why not? If I’m going to be stuck in some miserable, swampy place with nothing to do I might like a nice wine to go with it.”
Gertie took the bottle from my hand and returned it to the fridge. “You’re letting your Yankee show, Fortune. It’s considered rude to take a California chardonnay to a Louisiana still.”
I looked down at Merlin, who appeared to be studying us intently. “I’ll be gone overnight, Merlin. I’m leaving the pet door open in case you want to go catting around.” I grabbed at the grocery bag of catnip on the table and shook it. “I could leave this on the floor and you could invite your cat friends over tonight for a party.”
Merlin meowed. And not a pleasant meow either. More like a “screw you” meow.
“He’s sensitive about the catnip, isn’t he?” Gertie said. “Like he’s trying to tell us something. Where’d you get it, anyway?”
“Walter’s. It’s called ‘Sinful Madness.’”
Ida Belle grabbed the bag and looked inside, pulled in a whiff. “Oh yeah, Walter said Dill Nolin sold him some of his homegrown catnip.”
Merlin meowed, excited almost.
“Dill Nolin? The Yankee hater?”
“Yep. He always has a few business schemes going. Guess this is one of them.” Ida Belle opened the back door. “Come on, we’re pushing daylight.”
I grabbed the boat keys from the counter and followed Ida Belle and Gertie out. Before closing the door, I glanced back at Merlin. I knew that cats didn’t smile, but damned if the expression on his furry face didn’t look like one.
* * * * *
Ida Belle drove the airboat; Gertie sat in the Captain’s chair next to her. I spent the next half hour on the bench reading over the instructions Ida Belle printed from the internet on how to make moonshine, highlighting in yellow the ten most important safety tips. I could have boiled it all down to one safety tip: go to New Orleans and buy a bottle of chardonnay, then don’t answer the door when two old ladies come calling.
She also included a handout on how to handle alligator attacks. I probably should have read up on gators the second I set foot in Sinful. During the five weeks that I’d been here, I had only crossed paths with a handful of the ugly monsters. One in particular would have made a human casserole out of me if Ida Belle hadn’t stopped it with a bullet.
The first rule of gator safety I read seemed pretty obvious: Don’t remove alligators from their natural habitat or keep one as a pet. That I could live by. I made it a rule not to own a pet that could devour me, and the way alligators devoured their prey turned my stomach. The handout referred to it as a “death roll,” wherein the alligator holds its prey firmly in its mouth and rolls its body over and over until the poor sucker dies by either drowning or blood loss.
The usual swamp stink shifted as we curved to the left and made our way around one of the many islands that dotted the bayou. If you took the smell of three outhouses and mixed it with the stench of a hundred freshly pooped diapers, you’d be happy you had that smell and not the one now assaulting my nostrils. Ida Belle slowed the boat, allowing it to move a few feet out of the water and onto the muddy banks of the island, next to the boat of the SLS moonshine crew we were relieving.
“Your still is on Number Two?” I asked after she turned off the engine. Number Two was the name of an island they had taken me to my first week in Sinful. And, yes, it was appropriately named.
“Well of course we didn’t set up our still on Number Two,” Ida Belle said.
“This is Guano Gap,” Gertie added. “The smell’s not nearly as bad.” She sniffed. “Usually.” She dug around in her purse and pulled out a tube of scented oil, squeezing a few drops on her finger. After smearing it under her nose, she handed the tube to me.
I swiped a drop under my nostrils. “Oh, yeah, much better. Now it just smells like a rose crapped in my nose.” Somewhere, in an alternate universe, my double was reading a book and sipping chardonnay. She had just received a text from Carter’s double, asking if he could bring over food from Francine’s. As luck would have it, Carter’s double was also an expert masseuse. Make that an expert masseuse with a world-class singing voice who would sing love songs—in Italian—while rubbing my bare shoulders with warm oils THAT DIDN’T SMELL LIKE CRAP. My double had all the luck. I handed the tube back to Gertie. She noticed my alligator instructions on the bench and picked them up.
“Did you read the gator safety tips?”
I nodded.
“Maybe you should take them with you and read them again once we get to our camp.”
“They’re pretty self-explanatory.”
“For us, yes,” Ida Belle said, taking the handout from Gertie and shoving it in my backpack. “But when it comes to gators, you’re still a Yankee, and we’d feel better if you kept this with you. It’ll be night and we’re surrounded by water.”
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and picked up the ice chest and duffel bag of provisions. “Here’s the way I see it. Gertie’s vision problems have landed her in one scrape after another.”
“I don’t have a vision problem!”
“Yes you do. You need glasses and you know it,” Ida Belle said. “What’s that got to do with gators?”
“Well, if she hasn’t ended up as gator food yet, I think I’m safe.”
Ida Belle shrugged her shoulders. “She has a point.”
I expected Gertie to flip me a bird, but instead she swept her arm toward the trail leading away from the boat. “Fine. After you, Scout.”
I stepped off the boat and headed along the shore toward a trail leading into a grove of cypress trees. I must have walked ten yards when Gertie called out to me.
“Did that handout say the closest you should get to a gator?”
“Yep, not too close. Why?”
“Because I’d say you’re close enough. You might want to wait until Shorty over there has his dinner for the evening.”
I followed her gaze and saw an alligator to my right, about five yards away, sitting perfectly still among the reeds along the shoreline, marking time as an unsuspecting beaver was about to cross his path. “Shorty” may have been low to the ground, but he was about ten feet long and probably tipped the scales at four-hundred plus pounds. I instinctively went for my Glock in the back of my waistband.
“What are you doing?” Ida Belle asked. “You wouldn’t want someone shooting you just because you stepped up to the salad bar, would you?”
Out of respect for the beaver, I turned away as Shorty made his move.
“That reminds me, what’d we bring for dinner tonight?” Ida Belle asked, raising her voice above the sounds of a shrieking beaver and the splashing of the water as Shorty thrashed about and performed his “death roll” underneath the water in order to drown his entrée.
Okay, I lied. I looked.
“Leftovers. I made a meatloaf the other night,” Gertie answered calmly as Shorty resurfaced.
“Which recipe? Your mama’s or your Aunt June’s?”
“Mama’s. Aunt June was a teetotaler. I thought it would be disrespectful to eat her meatloaf while we were making shine.”
Ida Belle nodded. She cast a glance to Shorty as he devoured the now-dead beaver. “Any sides?”
“Baked beans and coleslaw. No mayo in the coleslaw. Didn’t want us to get food poisoning.”
Satiated, Shorty ambled away from us and onto the muddy banks to get the last few rays of the day. I’d read that alligators could survive a week on one beaver, so as long as we didn’t threaten him, Shorty had no interest in us for dinner.
“Okay, let’s go. You lead the way, Eagle Eye,” Gertie said to me, holding in a laugh.
The Sinful Ladies’ still, or as Ida Belle insisted on calling it, the SLS cough syrup manufacturing site, was located on the west-side of the island, a good thirty-minute walk from the south-side where the boat was parked. The thick grove of cypress trees lent an eerie feel to the place, what with their veils of Spanish moss blowing gently in the breeze, and the army of cypress “knees” standing guard around them, short woody stumps originating at the roots below, and breaking through the surface of the soft, muddy soil.
I slapped at a mosquito on my forearm.
“Shoulda let me spray you with insect repellent,” Ida Belle said as she walked a few feet behind me.
“I didn’t want to stink.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you already stink.”
She wasn’t kidding. Just thirty minutes of walking through the muggy swamp and my all-day-protection, strong-enough-for-a-man deodorant had already thrown in the towel.
“You two ever consider moving to a place where you can actually go to the store and buy your booze, so you don’t have to come here and make it?”
“What fun would that be?” Gertie asked.
“Our camp is just up ahead,” Ida Belle said. “Take the right fork.”
I heard the moaning as soon as I made the turn. A whimpering, really. I held my hand out to stop Ida Belle and Gertie and placed my finger to my lips. Another moan. I slipped my gun out of my waistband. Ida Belle
did the same, as Gertie quietly unclasped her purse and drew her weapon. It was twilight now as we stepped into the clearing. A woman lay on her side on the ground.
“Vivvy!” Gertie called out as she and Ida Belle rushed to the woman’s side and knelt down beside her. I held out my weapon, scanning the area, noticing that the SLS still, or parts of it, lay in ruins several feet from the woman. A small cabin sat about thirty yards away, its door ajar.
“My leg…” Vivvy moaned again.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“Her leg. It might be broken. She seems a little in shock.” Ida Belle held her hand up and I took it, helping her stand. “There should be three women,” she whispered to me, indicating the cabin with a nod of her head. She looked down at Gertie. “You okay here with Vivvy?”
Gertie nodded, patting Vivvy’s hand.
With our weapons drawn, Ida Belle and I slowly approached the cabin. A few feet from the open door, I held my hand out, stopping Ida Belle. I had no idea what we’d find inside. Could be empty. Could be a bloodbath. If it was the latter, there was no way I’d want Ida Belle to see it. These were her friends. “You stay out here,” I whispered to her.
“Like hell I will.”
Ida Belle pushed past me and into the cabin.
“Sweet Jesus.”
I followed her in. The two women sat bound together on the sofa, gags in their mouths. But they were alive.
CHAPTER THREE
Merlin
Chompers was an ugly bulldog, and not the fastest runner, but somehow he had managed to surprise me on my way to SFL headquarters. And that was how I ended up perched in this tree for the past hour.
“I can wait all night, you know,” Chompers growled. He had since stopped barking like a raving fool, choosing to wait it out while pacing back and forth at the base of the tree.
“You’re one butt-ugly dog. I’m having a hard time knowing which end I should be talking to.” I batted at a limb, hoping to knock it down on him.
Chompers licked his lips. “I wonder how I should eat you. Dipped in my Gravy Train, or just raw, no sauce. I hope you didn’t have any tuna today. I hate a cat with tuna aftertaste.”
