miss fortune mystery (ff) - tabasco fiasco (hair extensions and homicide 3)

by bow, frankie

  I was longing to talk to the Company shrink, which was weird because I’d always resented the mandatory sessions that followed each assignment. We all did. Why do they waste time putting us through this touchy-feely nonsense, we’d complain, when we could be back out there saving the world? But now I was starting to see the sense of it. My mind was an asset, and the Company had to keep its assets in top working order. I was clearly not in top working order. Just a short chat with Doctor Whatshername would have done me a lot of good about now.

  I was carrying the bag from the kitchen trash out to the garage when I almost collided with Carter. He cleared his throat and paused, unsure of what to do next. This was the first time I’d been alone with him since he’d returned to Sinful from his leave.

  “Nice of you to come tonight,” I said.

  He sighed. “I wasn’t expecting so many people. It’s a little weird.”

  “I have to say, I’m surprised you showed up in Sinful with a modeling agent. It doesn’t seem like you.”

  “Modeling and acting,” he mumbled.

  We heard Claudia’s vivacious laugh in the living room. Carter glanced up guiltily.

  “Well,” I said lightly, “Sinful’s loss is Hollywood’s gain.”

  Carter snorted. “Hollywood’s not breaking down my door yet. Claudia’s the one who wanted to come here. She said if she was going to invest in me she wanted to see me in my natural habitat.”

  “Your natural habitat? That makes you sound like an exotic pet.”

  He sighed. “I’m just trying to pick up a few extra bucks. Make hay while the sun shines, like they say. Look, Fortune, I’m thirty-…let’s just say I’m over thirty.”

  “That’s not old.”

  “Old enough that none of the special operations units will take me.”

  “Why does that matter? What, four tours in Iraq wasn’t enough for you? You were planning to leave Sinful and join MARSOC?”

  “No, not literally, but—don’t look at me like that, Fortune. I am not having a midlife crisis.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say it.”

  “What I’m having is a financial crisis. At this point in my life I should be…look, my latest pay envelope came with an IOU inside instead of a paycheck, thanks to our new mayor-elect. And I have a pile of bills that aren’t going to pay themselves.”

  “Does your mother know about this?”

  “Yes. And for your information, she thinks picking up an acting gig or two isn’t the worst idea. At least until Dr. Stewart clears me to return to work full time.”

  “Well, Emmaline is a smart woman. I guess if she’s for it...” I shrugged.

  “Here, let me get that. You go back and play hostess.”

  Carter took the trash bag from me and headed to the garage. I washed my hands in the kitchen sink and returned to the living room just in time to hear Claudia laughingly make a Deliverance reference.

  “I believe that movie was shot in Georgia, dear.” Gertie was using her schoolteacher voice, never a good sign. It was her way of not losing her patience. “This is Louisiana. They are two different states, you realize. Not even contiguous.”

  “Oh, Fortune, here you are,” Ida Belle said. “Claudia was just telling us all about her special diet. She says suitable food’s real hard to find out here in the boonies.”

  “Oh, I’m not that particular,” Claudia laughed. “I just like to eat whole, natural food.”

  “She orders raw cheese from an organic farm in California,” Ally added. I could tell Ally was bristling at the implication that our local fare wasn’t good enough. Justin picked up on it too, and patted Ally’s shoulder to distract her. Great. My dinner guest was managing to offend everyone, even my easygoing roommate.

  “And I eat raw whenever possible,” Claudia continued. “I mean, cooked food is fine. But the raw has all of the natural life force.”

  Justin closed his eyes as if praying for patience. While he was hardly the type to jump in and correct people, he was getting his master’s degree in biology. I could tell that it was an effort for him to let the “natural life force” thing pass.

  “Well, we do have some lively gumbo on the menu tonight,” I said brightly.

  “That was lame,” Ida Belle muttered. I was standing behind the couch where she was sitting, so only I could hear her.

  “Fine,” I hissed back. “You play social director, then.”

  “I think everything’s ready.” Ally jumped up. “People hungry? Ready to eat?”

  “I sure am,” Carter said as he returned to the room. We took our places around the table. Claudia next to Carter, Ida Belle with Gertie, Justin and Ally…and me. Alone.

  I felt like a seventh wheel. I know people usually say “fifth wheel.” But there were seven of us around the table, and I was thinking of the six-wheeled Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle that we introduced in 2004 to protect our troops from IEDs.

  But I digress.

  I lifted the lid from the pot, releasing a cloud of fragrant steam. It stung my eyes, which I thought was a little strange, but what did I know? Maybe it was supposed to be like that. I ladled a scoop of gumbo into each bowl.

  “Smells great, Fortune,” Justin smiled encouragingly. “Spicy.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without your help.” I smiled back

  Ally wished everyone bon appétit. The guests dug in, so I followed suit. When the spoon was halfway to my mouth, the mood around the table shifted abruptly. I slowly set the spoon down.

  Chapter Seven

  I watched in horror as smiles of anticipation turned to grimaces of torment. People grabbed for their water glasses. Someone shouted,

  “Get some milk!”

  I jumped up, pulled the milk carton from the fridge, and poured a little into each person’s water glass.

  “Is the milk hormone-free?” Claudia gasped when I approached her. She was last, which wasn’t on purpose, I swear. Someone had to be last.

  “Um…”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She grabbed the carton from me and poured the milk straight into her mouth. She swallowed, shook her head, and waved her hand in front of her face.

  “I want to go home,” she sputtered. Carter got up and placed his hand on the back of her chair.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “We’ll be fine.” Carter’s manner was sober despite the fact that he was drenched with sweat, as red and shiny as a boiled lobster. I walked them to the door.

  “Well, thanks for coming.” I let them out onto the porch and watched them disappear into the warm night.

  “Claudia!” I heard Carter cry. Then more loudly, “I’m taking her to the hospital. Someone call ahead.”

  “Oh for Heaven’s sake,” Ida Belle said. “A little spicy gumbo never killed anyone.”

  “I’ll call,” Ally said. “Maybe she’s having an allergic reaction or something.”

  “We can only hope,” Gertie said sweetly.

  Ally, Justin, Ida Belle and Gertie were panting and dabbing sweat from their faces. I slipped on the heatproof oven mitts, pulled the cast iron pot from the table, stomped out to the front porch, and tossed the gumbo over the railing into the bushes. A rustling sound indicated I’d disturbed an animal. I was afraid I’d hit Merlin, but then I felt him winding around my ankles.

  I went back inside with the empty pot, my cat trailing behind me. I know cats can’t literally laugh at people, but it seemed that Merlin was snickering at my disgrace.

  “You threw the gumbo away?” Gertie exclaimed.

  “I probably should have buried it in a lead-lined box, but we didn’t have one handy.”

  “It was just a little too hot,” Ally said. “We could’ve mixed it down with veggies or something. It wasn’t bad otherwise, just over-seasoned. Fortune, don’t be discouraged.”

  “Could you stick potato pieces in it to soak up the heat?” Ida Belle asked.

  Ally shook her head. “I think that only works when it’s too salty. He
y, I brought home a pecan pie from Francine’s. And there’s ice cream in the freezer. Anyone up for dessert?”

  Everyone was. We ate gooey pecan pie and sweet vanilla ice cream and chatted about Gertie’s latest romance novel. I started to feel a little better. In a few days, I told myself, I’d forget all about this disastrous dinner.

  Chapter Eight

  I was enjoying a peaceful morning in Marge’s library. I had claimed my favorite armchair, and had a glass of sweet tea and a book on Soviet spycraft that I’d pulled down at random from one of the well-stocked shelves. Ally was working the morning shift at Francine’s, and Ida Belle and Gertie were going to meet me later for lunch. I was feeling good after a run and a shower. The embarrassment of last night’s failed dinner party was already fading. Maybe in a few days it would even seem funny, and I’d have an entertaining story to tell.

  Furious banging on the front door interrupted the story of Georgi Markov and the Bulgarian Umbrella.

  I yanked open the door to find Carter glaring back at me.

  “You could knock like a normal person,” I said.

  “I did. No one answered.”

  “Why don’t you come in?”

  Carter glanced around.

  “Just so you know, people know I’m here.”

  “Sure. What are you talking about?”

  I stood aside and watched him walk in and then stop, craning his neck as if he were looking for booby traps or something.

  “It’s okay, Carter. I deactivated the laser death cannons when I saw it was you at the door. Come on.”

  He headed for the kitchen table, unsmiling, and sat down.

  “Can I get you a glass of sweet tea?”

  “No!”

  “Whoa. Okay.”

  I refilled my own tea glass and took a seat at the table across from him.

  “What kind of weird game are you playing with me, Fortune? You don’t want to share my life, but you want to control it?”

  “Carter, what is with you this morning?”

  “Maybe you don’t approve of this acting thing, but it was my choice to make, not yours. You don’t just get to—”

  “Look, I did not mean to ruin your date, or business appointment, or whatever that was. Believe me, I wouldn’t sabotage my own dinner party on purpose. How is Claudia, by the way? Did you really take her to the hospital?”

  Carter’s mouth compressed into a line.

  “What’s the problem? Your new girlfriend mad at me?”

  “She’s dead, Fortune.”

  “What?”

  “As if you didn’t know.”

  “What?”

  “Look, I don’t know exactly who you are or what you do, and I don’t want to know. Hear that, whoever’s listening to this conversation? I don’t know what she does and I don’t want to know.”

  “Carter, I—”

  “You could probably drop me right now, dispose of my body so no one finds it, and not give it a second thought.”

  “That’s absolutely insane. Do you realize how crazy you sound?”

  What Carter was saying was actually fairly accurate. That’s exactly what I did for a living. Make people disappear.

  “Fortune, you don’t get to come into my life and just…kill people you don’t like.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. How dare you. You really think I’m that petty? Besides, if I wanted to kill someone—”

  “You’d make sure it looked like an accident? Well, congratulations. It did look like an accident. I’m the only one who thinks it isn’t.”

  “Oh, and you’re telling me this? Careful, now.”

  “You should know that I wrote everything down and sealed it in an envelope. It’s in my desk drawer in case anything happens to me.”

  “Seriously, Carter?”

  Carter was quiet for a moment.

  “I know it sounds crazy. But everything with you has been crazy.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  Carter looked uncertain.

  “Their working theory is some kind of allergy.”

  “They do a tox screen?”

  “Oh, they will. I made sure of that.”

  “Did Claudia eat anything that the rest of us didn’t?”

  Carter’s expression hardened.

  “Yeah. Whatever you dropped into her bowl when you served the gumbo. I’m sure you already washed all the dishes to get rid of the evidence.”

  “Actually, Ally and Justin cleaned up. I’m going to ignore that ridiculous accusation and point out that you didn’t answer my question. Did Claudia eat anything that the rest of us didn’t? Justin was on his soapbox again last night after you guys left about the dangers of unpasteurized dairy. Maybe it was her handcrafted cheese that did her in.”

  “You think I don’t know how to do my job?”

  “Of course you know how to do your job. In fact, I’m sure you’ve already had someone check not only Claudia’s stomach contents but also her personal food supply. The one she was telling us about last night.”

  Carter looked furious. In his rush to blame me for Claudia’s death, he neglected a basic step in his investigation. And that was no one’s fault but his own.

  “She did have some food items in my fridge,” he said in a measured tone. “I guess I should get those checked out.”

  It was my turn to be furious. That he was so eager to pin this on me.

  And that Claudia’s food was parked in his refrigerator.

  But all I said was,

  “Glad I could contribute something useful to this investigation. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Chapter Nine

  Gertie and Ida Belle worked their Sinful Ladies Society connections to get as much information as they could about Claudia Hunter’s death. (I asked them not to tell me how they obtained the confidential, HIPAA-protected material. Plausible deniability is a beautiful thing). They found that Claudia Hunter had quickly developed a fever and died after a few hours in the hospital. A basic tox screen had come back negative.

  It looked like I wasn’t in danger of being arrested for murder—at least, not yet. But the fact that Carter had decided I was guilty was intolerable.

  The following afternoon Gertie and Ida Belle were over at my place. At one point Gertie looked up from her knitting and cleared her throat to get my attention. I was sprawled on the couch, reading Marge’s book on Cold War spies.

  I set the book down on my chest.

  “What is it, Gertie?”

  “Fortune, you should just talk to him.”

  “She’s right, Fortune,” Ida Belle said from the kitchen table, where she was cleaning her Browning M1911. She’d had the vintage sidearm since the sixties, and as she put it, as long as she took care of it, it took care of her.

  I sat up on the couch. “Carter isn’t even speaking to me. I can’t believe he thinks I’m capable of killing someone. For such a stupid reason, I mean.”

  “So go tell him he’s wrong,” Ida Belle said. “And by the way, I don’t wanna make you paranoid or anything, but given the fact that you have a price on your head, I think you should take people dying at your dinner table seriously.”

  “Ten million dollars,” Gertie reminded me.

  “It’s only one million if I’m dead, though.”

  “A million dollars is still a pretty good payday,” Ida Belle said. “We got you the information about Claudia Hunter. But we don’t know what else Carter might’ve found out. You should make nice with him and find out what’s going on.”

  “You’re right. I guess I should talk to him. Even though he did accuse me of murder.”

  “I don’t see why you’re upset,” Gertie said. “After all, you’ve killed lots of people. Just not the one Carter thinks you killed.”

  “He was at the station earlier,” Ida Belle said. “Might still be there. Maybe you should go over there now.”

  “No time like the present,” Gertie added.

  I crossed my backyard and hopped i
nto my speedboat. The quickest route was along the bayou, which ran behind the East side of Main Street. I docked at the pier behind the sheriff’s station and went in to find Carter in his office, poring over a stack of files.

  “Look,” I said. “I didn’t do anything to Claudia Hunter. My only crime here was trying to cook dinner for people.”

  Carter sighed.

  “Come in. Close the door.”

  “Do they have a cause of death?”

  “Still undetermined.”

  “What’s all that?”

  “Fortune. Please don’t share this with anyone.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I mean it.”

  He removed a stack of papers from the top folder and spread them out on the desk, facing me. They were rap sheets. Each had a photograph of a different woman.

  “Who are they?”

  “They are Claudia Hunter.”

  “No kidding. Really?” I looked closer. “Selena Gutierrez, Helena Nordbo, Manuela Respighi, Joelle St. Clair, Bitsy Crocker, and Rashida Jackson.”

  Under the wigs and makeup and colored contacts, all of the women had the same basic architecture. High cheekbones, a pointed chin, large eyes, and small, delicately shaped ears.

  “The ears,” I said. “They’re the giveaway.”

  Carter nodded.

  “Claudia was a con woman, Fortune. I can’t believe it.”

  “Did you give her any money?”

  “Not really. I mean, I paid for some meals. Put a deposit down for a photographer. And I gave her my bank deposit information. Did you know you can use that to make withdrawals too?

  “I did know that. Yes. Anyone can take the information on a regular check and use it to drain your bank account.”

  Carter rested his face in his hands. “I dodged a bullet. She could’ve cleaned me out.”

  “So you still think I killed her, Carter? To control your life, or whatever you said?”

  Carter rested his forehead on his hand.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

  “Sorry about that? That’s what you say when you wrongly accuse people of murder? Sorry, no hard feelings, let’s move on?”