Lethal Bayou Beauty (10 page)

Ida Belle nodded at me and I pulled the gun from my purse and handed it to him across the desk. For the first time since I’d laid eyes on him, I saw a flicker of emotion. He liked the offering.
 

“You were right,” he said to Ida Belle. “The gun is pristine and well worth the exchange.”

He opened a laptop, typed something in, and then two of the giant televisions shifted to blank Internet search screens. “What information do you need?”

I held my breath. This was the breaking point. So far, I hadn’t seen any evidence that this kid was willing to break the law, but we were about to find out just how much he liked the gun and/or disliked the government.

“We’d like to know the case details,” Ida Belle said. “Specifically, how she was killed, but any additional information is appreciated.”

He nodded and started tapping on the keyboard. The screens whirled with a series of numbers, scrolling so quickly I could barely tell what they were, much less assign any meaning to them, but apparently all of it made sense to The Sorcerer. Suddenly, the scrolling stopped and the monitor revealed the Sinful Sheriff’s Department’s file server.
 

“You’re good,” I said, unable to keep my appreciation to myself.

The Sorcerer gave me a “no shit” look, then asked, “Name of the victim?”

Ida Belle gave him the name and he tapped again then frowned.

“A record has been created for the victim,” he said, “but it doesn’t contain any information. Official results from labs and the coroner won’t be available right away, of course, but the attending officer should have made notes. Let me check something else.”

He tapped again and the sheriff’s email appeared. A paltry list of email appeared containing subscriptions to hunting magazines and one highly disturbing reminder to refill a Viagra prescription.
 

“I take it the sheriff isn’t leading the investigation?” he asked.

“The sheriff is older than dirt and couldn’t lead turtles without being run over by them,” I said. “Deputy LeBlanc is leading the investigation.”

He tapped again and pulled up Carter’s email. We all leaned forward as he clicked to open an email to the coroner, then sat back in disgust over what we’d read.

“Interesting,” The Sorcerer said. “It appears your deputy is smarter than the average small-town guy. He’s electing to keep the entire file in writing until the case is solved. He’s directed everyone to send reports by courier only.” He looked over at Ida Belle. “Does he have a reason to suspect the sheriff department’s system has been compromised?”

Ida Belle squirmed a bit in her chair. “We might have a friend who works as an admin, and she might have known the deputy’s password and used it a time or two.”

The Sorcerer smiled. “We are kindred spirits, Killing Machine, but in the future, you should leave specialties to the specialists, then you can remain undetected.”

Ida Belle sighed. “How was I supposed to know things would get this out of hand? Usually nothing happens in that town.”

He nodded and tapped some more on the keyboard. Then he scribbled some numbers on a piece of paper and handed it to Ida Belle. “I figure you’re not going to let this go. That code will get you past the sheriff’s department’s security system.”

Gertie’s eyes widened with a bit of fear, but not enough for my taste. Ida Belle happily tucked the numbers in her purse. I could see already that it was going to be a long ride home, fighting all the way.

“Let me do one more thing before you go,” The Sorcerer said and tapped in Pansy’s name in some complicated-looking search engine. The screen flashed and pulled up a single entry—Pansy’s Facebook page.

The Sorcerer opened the Facebook page, scanned it, then blanched. “No wonder someone killed her.” He flipped back to the search engine and pointed at the screen. “Notice I can only find one Internet mention of your victim.”

“Does that mean anything?” I asked.

He nodded. “There are only two kinds of people who don’t have an Internet presence—those who intentionally keep their identity from online sources and those who don’t really matter. Given that your victim has a Facebook page where she has posted over five thousand pictures of herself, I’m going to guess she falls in the second group.”

I frowned. “She mattered so much to someone that they killed her.”

He smiled. “Ironic, yes? She wanted nothing more than fame and attention, and in death, she got both.”

He closed the laptop and handed the gun back across the desk, a wistful look on his face. “As much as I’d like to have the weapon for my collection, I can’t accept it for work I could not complete. But if you have need of my services in the future, I’d be willing to trade again.”

I would have let him keep the gun just to see him work, but I understood his professional code.
 

“Have you ever thought about doing work for the government or military or both?” I asked, thinking that between me and this kid, we could probably solve most of the world’s problems.

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t work with amateurs.”

Chapter Eight

“So what now?” I asked.
 

We were all back at my house, sitting at the kitchen table and eating a plate of Gertie’s famous chocolate chip cookies, apparently a “requirement” for Ida Belle if she needed to think. If we didn’t solve this murder soon, I was going to need to buy bigger pants, which was alarming if you considered that most of what I had contained stretchy waists.

“We need more information on Pansy,” Ida Belle said.

“Aren’t we going to break into the sheriff’s department tonight?” Gertie asked.

Ida Belle shook her head. “When I talked to Walter earlier he said Carter had been by to stock up on coffee and NoDoz. He’s pulling an all-nighter.”

Walter was the owner of the General Store and Carter’s uncle, and had been in love with Ida Belle for longer than I’d been alive. She’d already turned down so many of his marriage proposals that I wasn’t exactly sure why they were still on speaking terms. I suppose I had to give him points for either temerity or plain stupidity. I was hoping for temerity, as I’d liked Walter from the instant I met him.

“I’ve got nothing, ladies,” I said. “The Internet is a blank and we can’t go asking Celia what the body looked like when she found it or who hated her daughter enough to kill her, but without even knowing where Pansy lived in LA, we can’t start poking around into what might have gotten her killed. I don’t suppose there’s anyone else in Sinful who might know what Pansy’s been up to since she left town, is there?”

Gertie shook her head. “Maybe someone in Celia’s crew, but they wouldn’t talk to us.”

“
And
it would get right back to Carter that we were poking around,” Ida Belle said.

“Okay, let’s look at the other angle,” I said, refusing to be defeated. “If Pansy wasn’t followed here by an enemy from LA, then someone in Sinful is the murderer. That means they’ve been holding a grudge for a lot of years. Surely, you’ve got some ideas on that.”

Gertie gave me an apologetic look. “I’m afraid not. Pansy’s shenanigans were all of the teenage type. We tend not to pay much attention to that stuff. I mean, we knew she got around, but I don’t know which girls she pissed off in the process.”

 
I perked up. “I bet Ally knows.”

“Probably,” Ida Belle agreed, “but we have to be very careful getting her involved. Ally and Celia may not be close, but they’re still family. Everyone will be watching Ally to see which side of this she stands on.”

I sighed. “And they won’t appreciate it if it’s my side. I get it.” The last thing I wanted to do was cause trouble for Ally with Sinful residents. She had to live here after I was gone.

The doorbell rang and we all looked at each other.
 

“You expecting someone?” Ida Belle asked.

“Who would I be expecting?” I headed to the front door, praying that it wasn’t Deputy LeBlanc, there to arrest me.
 

I was pleasantly surprised to see Marie and Bones standing on my doorstep. I smiled and let them in the house. The real Sandy-Sue had inherited Bones, her late Aunt Marge’s ancient hound dog, along with the house and everything in it. My first day in Sinful, Bones dug up a leg bone that belonged to Marie’s missing husband, and everything went downhill from there. Marie was one of Marge’s best friends, the chief suspect in the murder of her husband, and she promptly went missing.

Ida Belle and Gertie roped me in to helping them find Marie and clear her name, and almost got themselves killed and me exposed in the process. Once the real killers were revealed, Marie’s name was cleared, and since Bones knew Marie and loved her, I let her take the old hound to live with her.

“Did he walk all the way over here from your house?” I asked as Bones shuffled down the hall and into the kitchen. He sat in front of the cabinet that contained dog treats and I poured him a couple on the floor as Marie greeted Ida Belle and Gertie.

“He’s been quite perky lately,” Marie said. “I’ve had to fence my petunias to keep him from digging.”

A trickle of fear ran through me. “There’s not…under the petunias…”

Marie laughed. “No. I’m quite certain the petunias are not hiding any body parts. I made the bed myself last year and pulled out about three feet of topsoil.”

I nodded, but still wasn’t convinced. When I buried someone, I always went deeper than three feet, and Bones got his name and reputation from being able to find bones several feet under dirt and even water. But as long as the fence was keeping Bones at bay, I wasn’t saying a word. The last thing Sinful needed was another questionable corpse.

“Do you want some coffee?” I asked Marie as she took a seat at the table.
 

“No, thank you. I can’t stay for long.”

I nodded. “It’s probably a good idea for you to avoid us for a while.”

Marie brightened. “So you are investigating?” She clapped her hands. “When I heard the whole story down at Francine’s, I just knew you wouldn’t let this town railroad Fortune like they tried to do me. That’s why I’m here.”

She reached inside the front of her ruffled blouse and pulled out a large envelope, folded in half. “Best I can figure, this was delivered to my house over a week ago. With everything that was going on then, I hadn’t taken the time to go through the mail until today, and I found this.”

She pushed the envelope across the table to Ida Belle. Ida Belle looked down at the mailing address and her eyes widened.

“This is from Pansy to Celia,” Ida Belle said.

“Why would Celia’s mail come to your house?” I asked.

Ida Belle snorted. “Because Postman Bob is a drunk and Marie lives next door to Celia.”

Gertie frowned at Ida Belle. “It’s not really polite to call him a drunk when you’re his supplier. Postman Bob is our biggest customer for cough syrup,” Gertie explained.

“Should we open it?” I asked. “It
is
a federal offense to open someone else’s mail.”

Ida Belle ripped open the envelope and pulled out some papers. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than the feds.”

“Well, what is it?” Gertie said, leaning across the table to look at the papers.

“It’s a note from Pansy,” Ida Belle said.

Mom,

Here is the paperwork we talked about. I have to turn it in two weeks from now or the whole deal will be void. I’ve talked to an attorney, but I have to give him five thousand in retainer before he’ll even start working on my case.

I know you don’t have much, but I don’t have anyone else to ask.

Pansy

Ida Belle flipped the note over and looked at the attached paperwork. “It’s an IRS agreement for paying back taxes. Holy crap, Pansy owes the IRS over eighty thousand dollars for federal taxes and more for self-employment.”

“Has she never paid in her life?” I asked.

Ida Belle shook her head. “It’s all for one year—two years ago.”

“How much do you have to make to mount up eighty grand in taxes in a single year?” I asked.
 

“A little under two hundred thousand,” Marie said, “depending on her allowed deductions.”

We all stared at Marie.

“What?” she asked. “I like numbers. I filed all Harvey’s business returns as well as our personal.”

“I’m storing that away for future reference,” Ida Belle said. “It’s certain to come in handy at some point.”

“Okay,” I said, “so what was she doing to generate that kind of income in a single year? I don’t believe for a minute that making corporate videos about sexual harassment and computer security pays that kind of cash.”

“I agree, it seems highly unlikely,” Ida Belle said.

“Can I see?” Marie asked.

Ida Belle handed her the IRS forms. As she scanned them, a blush started at the base of her neck and crept up her face. Finally, she covered her mouth with her hand.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“It’s all self-employment income that she owes the taxes for. See here?” She showed us a six-digit number on one of the forms. “This is the business code for ‘All other personal services.’”