Gators and Garters (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 18)

by Jana DeLeon

  “Try to follow them so we can see them go into the parking lot, but don’t turn in after them,” I said.

  Ida Belle exited and remained some distance back until the car started turning into the parking lot of the motel, then she sped up a little to close the gap. As we slowly passed by, I saw the car park at the end of the building and the couple got out and headed up the stairs.

  “They already had a room,” I said.

  “I wonder for how long,” Gertie said.

  “Let’s go ask,” I said.

  Ida Belle made a U-turn and headed for the motel office. We’d dealt with this clerk before, if it was the same guy, and most things could be had for a little bit of flirting and/or a twenty-dollar bill. Gertie offered to do the flirting routine but before Ida Belle could shoot her, I jumped out and said I would give it a try first.

  The clerk looked up when I walked inside and gave me a creepy up-and-down look. When he finally locked in on my face, his eyes widened.

  “Oh no,” he said. “I know about you now. You’re that CIA chick.”

  “Former CIA. No chick.”

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he said.

  “Then let’s not have any. I just want some really easy information on a couple of your patrons.”

  “Ah, man, I’m not supposed to give out that kind of stuff.”

  “Because this place is steeped in propriety?”

  “Whatever. Look, we both know this place is a dump, but it’s a job. And there aren’t too many jobs where you can game most of the day and still get paid.”

  “No one will ever know you’ve spoken to me. I’m very discreet. Remember, CIA?”

  “Fine. Just promise me that you’ll leave after.”

  “Sure,” I said, not bothering to say exactly how long after I would actually wait until I left.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Dexter Nutters or Marissa Perkins.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t recognize either of those names.”

  “Of course not.” People never used their real names at this motel. “Okay, dude is built like a tree stump, talks crap all the time, and can’t fight worth a darn.”

  “No tree stump dudes staying here.”

  “The woman is skinny, blond hair, beady eyes.”

  “Oh, her. Yeah.” He tapped on his keyboard and shook his head. “Registered under Jane Smith. These people really have no creativity.”

  “When did she check in?”

  “Five days ago.”

  “That’s a long stay for a place like this.”

  “True. Usually the oil field guys are the only ones who stay more than a day or two.”

  “Did you talk to her at all when she registered? You know, chat her up? Hit on her a little, maybe?”

  He frowned. “No way. She’s not my type.”

  I blinked. I had assumed that most women with a pulse would be his type. “Why not?”

  “She’s a user. I had a cousin who OD’d. I’m lazy and I’ll drink beer like nobody’s business, but I don’t go near that stuff or anyone who does.”

  “We all have our line in the sand,” I said. “That’s a good one.”

  He nodded. “Anyway, I didn’t ask anything and she didn’t offer. Barely looked at me. Just asked for the weekly rate and shoved some cash at me.”

  “Have you seen her coming and going? Anything unusual? Any visitors—other than the stumpy guy I mentioned?”

  “Haven’t seen her since she checked in,” he said and motioned to his laptop. “But if I’m not checking someone in, I’m usually on that. Got no window with a view out front and I’m not exactly the outdoor type.”

  Since his skin was as white as the paper on his desk, I figured he was telling the truth on that one.

  I gave him my card and his eyes widened. “PI? Really?”

  “My new line of work,” I said. “If you see anything odd going on with that woman, give me a call. Or if you think anything is wrong.”

  “Like what? Hey, she’s not dangerous, is she?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I said and headed for the door.

  “Wait! How dangerous? What did she do? Do I need to get Mace or something?”

  I just smiled as I walked out. It wasn’t nice but he needed some way to burn energy. Lord knows, he wasn’t working off ten calories a day sitting in that chair. A little worry might burn more.

  I hopped back into the SUV and filled Ida Belle and Gertie in on the conversation.

  “Five days?” Gertie said. “Then she was just minutes away from Molly’s house. Dexter could have called her when Molly left in her boat, and Marissa could have gone after her in Molly’s smaller boat.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. He probably knew where Molly kept the keys. I can’t imagine she’d hide them.”

  “That’s because you haven’t lived here long enough,” Ida Belle said.

  Gertie rolled her eyes. “A lot of people have feelings about their boats like Ida Belle does about this car.”

  “Well, it’s not like they’d be asking permission to borrow the woman’s boat to kill her,” Ida Belle said. “And unless she can pull one of those Jesus tricks like Fortune’s dad, Molly isn’t likely to come back and dish out some punishment for taking her boat.”

  Gertie stared at the motel and frowned. “I wonder what they’re doing in there.”

  “Yuck,” Ida Belle said. “No one needs those images in their mind.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Gertie said. “They both looked mad when they left the bar, and when they got out of the car, they were walking single file, not next to each other. I wish we had a bug in their room.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said. “Assuming the room next to them is empty.”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “The last time you tried that one, you fell through the ceiling and landed on a naked dude who thought you were the prostitute he ordered.”

  “So I’ll knock first,” I said. “If no one answers, I go in and see what I can hear. Those walls are paper thin, trust me.”

  Gertie clapped. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Sit tight and be ready to haul butt,” I said. “If either of them sees us, the gig is up. And I don’t want them running.”

  I pulled on latex gloves and hurried up the stairs, then put an ear to the door of the room next door to Dexter and Marissa’s. I didn’t hear any movement inside so I knocked softly on the door. Silence. I pulled out a credit card and grabbed the doorknob, but it jiggled so much when I touched it that I tried turning it.

  It was open!

  I heard a noise at the end of the motel and saw the clerk walk outside and lean against a light pole at the edge of the parking lot. Crap! He wasn’t supposed to be outside. I pushed the door open and slipped inside. The drapes were drawn on the front window so the room was dark as soon as I pulled the door shut behind me. I felt the wall for a switch but when I flipped it up, nothing happened. It figured. This place was falling apart. Why bother with things like light bulbs?

  There had been lamps on the nightstands when I’d fallen through the ceiling, so I walked toward where the bed should be, using the front wall to guide me to the side. When I reached the far wall, I located the nightstand only a couple feet away. I found the lamp, then slid my hand up to turn it on.

  And that’s when I heard breathing.

  I flipped the switch on the lamp and choked back a cry.

  It was him!

  The same skinny glowing-white dude I’d almost landed on the last time I’d been here. But this time, he wasn’t naked. Exactly. He was standing in the middle of the bed wearing a mask and a cape. A Hello Kitty mask and matching G-string lay on the nightstand next to me.

  “You!” His eyes widened. “No way! This is not going to happen again.”

  “It didn’t happen last time,” I said. “And pull that cape around the important parts before I shoot them off.”

  My tone m
ust have scared him into action because he flipped the cape around to his front like something you’d see in a vampire movie. Except the back of this cape had lettering on it that spelled out Super Lover.

  “I ought to shoot you for that cape,” I said. “Get down off that bed and find some pants.”

  “You broke into my room, threatening me with death if I don’t dress to your liking? This is my room. What are you doing here?”

  “None of your business. Just get covered with something that’s not so offensive. Or a lie.”

  He flushed deep red. “You don’t know anything about me so you don’t know what’s a lie.”

  “I know if you’re paying for it, there’s nothing super about it.”

  “If you don’t leave, I’m going to scream and call the police.”

  I shouldn’t have done it but I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t know what was worse—his naked grossness, the creepy, inaccurate cape, or the fact that I could hear raised voices in the next room but I couldn’t hear what they were saying because Naked Dude wouldn’t shut up.

  I yanked the comforter and his legs flew out from under him. As soon as his body connected with the top of the bed, I threw the end of the comforter over his entire body, rolled him up the bed like a burrito, and shoved the mask into his mouth, drawing the string tighter in the back. Then I hurried to the wall and stuck my ear to it. Naked Dude was writhing on the bed and trying to yell, but he wasn’t making enough noise to mask the argument next door.

  “You promised me we’d have the money,” Marissa said. “But you’ve got nothing. Where’s the legal documents she drew up? You said you signed something.”

  “I did sign something,” Dexter said. “Jesus, you know I’m not lying about all this. You heard my conversation with Molly. I dialed you up and kept the call connected just so you would stop doubting me. And if you hadn’t been so stupid and screwed up the recording, I’d have it as evidence that the business is supposed to go to me. Not some wannabe baker in this crap town.”

  “Maybe Molly was playing you,” Marissa said.

  “You think a woman can play me?”

  “I think a lot of things. But here’s what I know for certain—I held up my end of the bargain, and now you need to make good on yours. You promised me the money to get to Mexico and live high on the beach every day. And that’s what I expect you to deliver or I’ll just find someone who can.”

  “You don’t want to threaten me,” Dexter said.

  “That’s not a threat.”

  I heard footsteps, then the door opened and slammed shut. A couple seconds later, I could hear footsteps on the stairs, and I peeked out to see Marissa jumping into her car. Ida Belle’s SUV was nowhere in sight. She tore out of the parking lot and then I saw Dexter step out, staring after her. He shook his head and pulled out a cigarette, then went to sit on the top step. Crap. No way was I sticking around in the room with Naked Dude until Dexter finished sulking. It was a brand-new pack of cigarettes. He might be there all night.

  I was about to pull out my cell phone and see if Ida Belle and Gertie could figure out a way to get Dexter off the steps so I could get out of there before Naked Dude worked his teeth through that mask and started yelling for the police when I heard a whistling sound. A second later, a bottle rocket hit the steps right below Dexter’s feet and exploded.

  He jumped and whirled around as a second one hit him square in the back just as it exploded. He screamed as if he were being killed and bolted for his room door, but he’d managed to lock himself out. He shoved his shoulder against it but he wasn’t even strong enough to take out a door at the worst-built motel in southern Louisiana. More fireworks exploded around him and down on the first floor and he looked my direction, clearly panicked.

  Holy crap!

  He was going to run for this room and I’d left the door unlocked. I grabbed the Hello Kitty mask and bolted for the door, but Dexter had already grabbed the handle so I tucked myself behind it, barely managing to get the mask over my head and my hands up to block the door as it flew open. Dexter stumbled in, and during his momentary distraction with the man on the bed rolled up like a burrito, I gave the door a hard shove, then jumped out and followed up with a kick directly in his back.

  The kick sent him hurtling onto the bed, directly on top of Naked Burrito Dude, who started wailing like a cat in heat. I bolted out of the room and ran for the end of the balcony. I hit it with my midsection and flipped over, landing in the parking lot below, then took off running for the woods at the edge of the parking lot, which is where the fireworks were coming from.

  I heard yelling behind me and figured Dexter had spotted me running away. More fireworks lobbed over my head, ensuring he didn’t try to pursue. Not that he could have caught me. I was running like the wind. And gasping like a smoker in that mask, which had absolutely horrible air flow.

  I yanked the mask off as I ran into the woods and spotted Gertie with her handbag of goodies at the edge of the tree line. She grabbed the bag and took off through the trees, yelling at me to follow. We skirted the parking lot and then burst out of the trees behind the motel where Ida Belle’s SUV was parked, the doors already open. We jumped inside but as Ida Belle took off, I heard a familiar hissing sound.

  I looked back at Gertie as she opened her handbag in a panic.

  “We have a live one!” she shouted.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thoughts of all the hardware Gertie had pulled out of her purse at one time or another coursed through my mind in a flash. I grabbed it from her lap, opened the SUV door, and chunked the purse into the motel dumpster as we passed. We had barely gotten past it when the handbag blew.

  The dumpster rose a couple feet off the ground before slamming back into the concrete. Debris flew into the air, then rained down, covering everything within a thirty-foot radius. Ida Belle took only enough time to shoot Gertie a look that would kill before flipping on her windshield wipers and flooring it. She launched the SUV over the curb and through a large gap in the hedge—courtesy of our last visit—then made a hard right into the alley.

  “Thank God Mannie cleared that hedge the last time,” Gertie said. “It would have taken you forever to wax the scratches out of the paint.”

  “As opposed to how long it’s going to take to get the stench and stain of an entire dumpster off of it?” Ida Belle complained.

  Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “Drama.”

  “I’ve got your drama,” Ida Belle said.

  “Can we please just get out of here and hose down this vehicle before Carter gets here?” I asked. “He’s going to take one look at this setup and I’m going to be the first phone call he makes.”

  “There are other reasons for dumpsters exploding that don’t involve me,” Gertie said.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “An asteroid,” Gertie suggested.

  “Because asteroids are more common than your purse disasters?” Ida Belle said. “Might as well go with alien invasion or a Marvel comic book setup.”

  “Well, there is a guy in a cape back in the motel,” I said.

  They both stared.

  “Well, right now, he’s wrapped up like a burrito,” I said. “Or at least he was when I left, and I seriously doubt Dexter is going to help him with that, so he’s probably going to be like that for a while. At least as long as it takes him to chew through that mask I shoved in his mouth and call for help.”

  “Maybe you’d better fill us in,” Gertie said. “I have a feeling we’re going to need to know what we’re denying.”

  I started with my explanation about Naked Dude, and before I could even get to the part where Dexter burst through the door, they were both laughing so hard they were crying.

  “Oh my God,” Gertie said. “You know Carter will take this call because there was an explosion. When he finds that guy trussed up and rolled, he’s going to lose it.”

  “Not as much as when he unrolls the guy and sees what he’s wearing
,” Ida Belle said.

  “Or not wearing,” Gertie said.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if the sheriff’s department should have to offer hazard pay for seeing naked people,” I said.

  “The taxpayers couldn’t afford it,” Gertie said. “Do you know how many random naked people they run across in a year? And trust me, it’s never the people you want to see naked.”

  “I don’t want to see any of them naked,” Ida Belle said.

  “What about Walter?” Gertie asked.

  “He’s not random,” Ida Belle said. “But I still wouldn’t want a random sighting. I like to be aware that nakedness is coming.”

  “So if you popped over to the store one night after hours, and Walter was doing inventory in the nude, that wouldn’t get you all excited?” Gertie asked.

  “Why in the world would the man do inventory in the nude?” Ida Belle asked. “Where would he keep his highlighter?”

  “If I could just continue,” I said before any discussion could ensue about highlighter placement.

  I finished telling them what I’d overheard.

  “So it sounds like our theory was right,” Gertie said. “Marissa was on hand to do the job just as soon as the right opportunity presented itself.”

  “But what is all that about Dexter signing things and the phone conversation that Marissa was apparently privy to?” Ida Belle asked.

  I shook my head. I was as confused as they were by that part of the investigation. Everyone who knew Molly well said there was absolutely no way she’d leave her business to Dexter and I believed them. But Dexter seemed to be under a completely different impression and for whatever reason, I felt he was actually being honest about that. So either he misinterpreted something really, really badly that Molly had said and made up the document part to placate his girlfriend, or Molly’s best friends didn’t know her as well as they thought they did. And if Marissa had actually overheard a conversation about that very thing, and the discussion was in Dexter’s favor, then that muddied the waters even more. But then with Marissa being a user, she might have been easy to fool.

  On the surface, it looked as if we’d found our answer to whether or not Molly’s disappearance was an accident, and it appeared as if we’d found our culprits. But nothing rang completely true for me. There was too much muddying the waters, as people liked to say here in Sinful.