Gator Bait (20 page)

Francine nodded. “Those state police are holding her just for spite. A judge is going to take one look at her and tell the cop to grow a pair. Assault, my fanny.”

“My guess is it won’t even get that far,” Ida Belle said. “If that cop presses charges, he’ll catch hell forever for accusing a granny of assaulting him.”

I heard a wail across the room and looked over to see Laurel lifting her crying baby from his high chair. An older woman sitting next to her pulled out a bottle and passed it to Laurel. Francine glanced at them and frowned. “Poor kid. He’s usually one of those happy babies that never cries. I guess he’s picking up on his mom’s stress.”

“You heard about the boat?” Ida Belle asked.

“It’s pretty much made it around town. I mean, we all knew that boat was sitting on bottom somewhere, but it feels different when you got proof. One of the shrimpers that brought up the sheriff department’s boat was in earlier. He said that roughneck who dives has offered to go back down and look for the…you know.”

We nodded.
 

“It’s nice of him to offer,” I said. “It might make things easier if they could have a real service…I mean, complete.”

“I agree,” Francine said.

“Who’s the woman with her?” I asked.

“Hank’s mother,” Francine said. “She’s sorta a wreck. I can’t imagine, losing your child… Anyway, you two didn’t come in here to get depressed, so what’s it going to be? Chicken-fried steak?”

It was so tempting to blurt out a “yes” to my favorite of Francine’s dinners, but with a busy and physical night ahead of us, fried food probably wasn’t the best option. “I better keep it light tonight. I’ll have the grilled chicken with rice.”

“Make that two,” Ida Belle said.

Francine raised her eyebrows. “All sorts of odd things going on in Sinful today.” She shoved her pad into her apron and headed for the kitchen.

The bells above the door jangled and the guy I saw with the fish on Saturday walked inside and up to the counter. What was his name?

“Lucas?” Hank’s mother called across the restaurant.

Lucas. That was it.
 

He turned around and gave them a wave before heading over to their table. “Mrs. Eaton, Laurel,” he said, shoving his hands in his jeans pocket. “I, uh, heard about the boat. I’m really sorry.” He looked at the floor the entire time and shuffled his feet as he spoke, clearly uncomfortable.
 

“Thank you,” Hank’s mother said. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. I hope you’re doing well.”

“Yes, ma’am. Shrimping is good, and I caught a mess of speckled trout last weekend.”

“That’s good to hear,” Hank’s mother said. “You drop by sometime when you get a chance.”

“I will,” he said. “Y’all have a good night.” He gave them a nod before heading back to the counter to pay for a to-go order. He collected the bag and left the café.

Ida Belle leaned over toward me. “Lucas was best friends with Hank since the crib. He was supposed to go out with Hank shrimping that day, but broke his hand the day before. He was never the friendliest sort, but he withdrew completely after Hank disappeared. I think he feels responsible.”

I watched out the window as Lucas climbed into a beat-up pickup truck and backed up. That surly look I’d always seen him wearing made more sense now. “That’s rough.”

Francine appeared with our dinner and we dug in right away, since we had no idea how soon Gertie would make a break for it. When we finished, we asked for coffee, paid our tab, and sat lost in our own thoughts, waiting for something to happen. It was probably the most silence I’d experienced since I’d arrived in Sinful.

When my phone beeped, I practically jumped.

Pick me up at the split oak tree.

“We’re up,” I said and tossed some tip money on the table. Ida Belle grabbed her purse and we headed out to my Jeep, which we’d deemed a better option for our nightly excursion than Gertie’s ancient Cadillac. Not to mention my night and day vision was considerably better.

Gertie ran out from behind the oak tree before I even pulled to a stop and crawled into the back. “That hog Crawford downed the sandwich and half those brownies in twenty minutes. Didn’t even offer me a single one. Serves him right to sit on the throne all night.”

“So I guess the brownies kicked in?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” Gertie said. “I think they kicked a hole in his stomach. He was sitting in that chair, half asleep, then all of a sudden, he shot up like he’d been electrocuted. His face turned pale and he ran out of the room like people were shooting at him. I aired up the mannequin first, figuring I could hide it under the cot if Crawford finished up too soon. The way he ran out, there was bound to be a round two.”

“And a three and four,” I said.

“Maybe so,” Gertie said, “but he was still out on one when I let myself out of the cell. I went out the back door and Marie locked up behind me.”

“Good Lord!” I said. “I hope you didn’t kill him, Ida Belle.”

Ida Belle shot me a worried look. “Give me my phone,” she said to Gertie.
 

Gertie handed her the phone and Ida Belle sent a text. Several seconds later, a reply came in.

“Marie says he’s alive and sitting on a chair outside the men’s room,” Ida Belle said. “He hasn’t even been back to the cell to check on you.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “He thinks he’s stuck in redneck Mayberry watching Grandmother Time. His guard is down.”

Ida Belle nodded. “Let’s hope it stays down until Gertie can sneak back in.”

“Marie wouldn’t give me my purse,” Gertie said. “She let me have my cell phone but said Crawford might ask to see my bag and if it wasn’t there, Myrtle would get in trouble.”

“And she’s right,” Ida Belle said.

I held in a grin. If Ida Belle hadn’t called Marie with specific instructions regarding Gertie’s illegal weapon collection handbag, she probably would have handed the entire thing over when Gertie asked. But Ida Belle figured Gertie had already caused enough problems with her back of tricks and wasn’t about to risk her blinding either one of us, or worse. I was pretty sure I’d seen a Taser in there.

“What’s the skinny on the storage facility?” I asked.

“I sent one of the Sinful Ladies over there this afternoon,” Ida Belle said. “Under the guise of needing to rent a unit for her elderly aunt who was moving in with her. It’s five rows of buildings, all one-story, but only one has units large enough to house a boat. She asked about car storage and found out only two of the big units are currently occupied.”

“Great. So we only have two units to check. What about security?”

“There is a security system, but we figured as much. All she could tell me about it was that there was a panel on the office door with a blinking light.”

“Probably a perimeter alarm.”

“Does that mean we can’t go over the fence?” Ida Belle asked.

“Yeah, but they probably didn’t wire the top of the office building. We can get in over the roof.”

“Good thinking.”

“How are we getting on top of the building?” Gertie asked.

“We aren’t,” I said. “You are going to keep watch and be ready to start the Jeep and haul ass out of there if things go south.”

“How come you guys get to have all the fun?” Gertie groused.

“Because when we let you do things your way,” I said, “you fall out of trees and get thrown in the drunk tank.”

She sat up in between the front seats and glared at me. “I didn’t realize you were so particular about how I carried out our criminal activity.”

“Enough complaining,” Ida Belle said. “This is about Carter, remember?”

Gertie slumped back in her seat.
 

“Here’s our turnoff,” Ida Belle said. “The storage facility is about a mile down. The road ends at the facility, and all of the side roads are dead ends as well, so this is the only way out.”

“Got it,” I said. It wasn’t the kind of situation I liked. I preferred to have at least one alternate escape path, even if it was a difficult one. But I could work with this. I didn’t have a choice.

“There’s a side road up here on the left,” Ida Belle said. “It’s the last turnoff before the facility…about fifty yards away. I figure we should stash the Jeep there.”

I located the road and pulled in, then swung the Jeep back around and eased it as far over as I could without running into the ditch that framed both sides of the road. A huge cypress tree with hanging moss completely cut off the little bit of moonlight available and blocked it from the view of traffic on the main road.

I cut the engine and handed Gertie the keys. “Unless someone turns down this road, they shouldn’t be able to see you.”

“How’s your signal?” Gertie asked, checking her cell phone.

“One bar,” I said.
 

“Me too,” Gertie said.

“Me three,” Ida Belle said.

“Crap.” I shook my head. “When this is over, we have got to buy some good radios.”

“That’s a great idea,” Gertie said. “I wish you would have come up with it sooner.”

“I did,” I said, “but I kept thinking all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was over. Now I’m resigned to the reality that I’m a criminal activity magnet.”

Ida Belle pulled out gloves and beanie caps and I twisted my ponytail into a knot and shoved it under the hot wool. “We need get some beanies made out of cotton. With all the heat and humidity here, this wool makes my scalp itch.”

“I’ll make some,” Gertie said. “We can all have signature colors.”

“Yeah, black,” I said. “You know, the color you use when you don’t want people to see you?”

I hopped out and hefted my backpack and a loop of rope from the back of the Jeep. Ida Belle grabbed a flashlight and a crowbar. Gertie moved from the backseat to the driver’s seat and stuck the key in the ignition.

“We’ll try the phones if we have to make a run for it,” I told Gertie, “but we may not get a connection. I need you to be on alert. If someone is after us, we may have to break for it in the woods, so we could be approaching the Jeep from any direction. Watch all of them.”

Gertie nodded. “Don’t worry. I got this.”

Ida Belle and I set off down the shoulder of the main road toward the storage facility. “Does it worry you,” I asked, “that we just left the one of us with the worst vision to be lookout?”

“Oh, it worries me, but not as much as it would if she were skating over that roof. You need the better set of eyes watching your back once you’re in that unit. Besides, Gertie isn’t breaking any laws sitting in a parked car.”

“Except for the fact that she’s supposed to be in jail?”

“Well, there’s that.”

The security lights on the front of the storage facility shone brightly across the parking lot in front of the office building. I paused behind a hedge on the side of the road and studied it for a moment. “Lots of light.”

“Too much light,” Ida Belle said.

“But no car. No security guard?”

“The manager said they have roaming security that checks several properties during the night.”

“Maybe we’ll luck out and be done before he makes it back around here.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out a BB pistol, took aim at the floodlight on the left side of the building, and squeezed the trigger. The light exploded and that side of the building went dark.

“Nice shot,” Ida Belle said.

I grabbed the backpack and we hustled over to the office building. I pulled on the drainpipe and was happy to find it solid. “This hurricane construction comes in handy,” I said as I shinnied up the pipe and onto the roof. “You want the rope?”

“No,” Ida Belle said. “I got this.”

She tossed me the flashlight and crowbar and grabbed hold of the pipe. Her ascent wasn’t as quick as mine, nor as stylish, but I was still impressed. “Not bad,” I said as I helped her over the roofline.

“Since you arrived, I’ve upped my workout,” Ida Belle said, looking pleased with herself. “I tied a rope in my oak tree last week and have been climbing it at night when no one can see. Looks like it came in handy.”

“What if one of your neighbors sees you?”

“One of them already did. I told them I was hunting squirrels for a stew.”

I shook my head as we started across the roof to the back of the building. Only in Sinful would that explanation fly.

At the back of the building, I squatted down and checked the ground about fifteen feet below. A porch light next to the back door provided enough light to see the entire back of the building, but the area was completely free of hurricane-ready drainpipes or any other object large enough to use for a downward traverse. I could drop-and-roll it, but I wasn’t sure asking Ida Belle to do the same was a good idea.
 

I lifted the rope from my shoulders and handed one end to Ida Belle. “Tie this off on that vent.”

I tied a few knots in the other end of the rope and when Ida Belle gave me the thumbs-up, flipped it over the side of the building. I hoisted the backpack over my shoulder, lay flat on the roof, and swung my body around until my legs dangled over. Clutching the rope, I started down and hopped off a couple feet from the pavement. As soon as my feet hit the ground, Ida Belle dropped the crowbar and flashlight to me and started down the rope.