Lethal Bayou Beauty (12 page)

“The coffee will take a couple of minutes,” I said, “but maybe you should tell me what has you out creeping around lawns at midnight. Is your cell phone dead again?”

“No, but I was afraid to use it. Mr. Walker, who lives next door to me, is a CB radio buff. He has a huge tower in his yard. A couple of cell phone conversations that I thought were private, ended up public knowledge. I suspect he listens to everyone within range. And I cut the home phone off when mother went to the nursing home. No use paying for something I wasn’t using.”

I stiffened a bit, then forced myself to seem relaxed. “Your house is four blocks from here, right?” If someone in Sinful could overhear my conversations with Harrison, we were going to have to ditch the emergency phones and stick to email only.

“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

“Oh, I was just thinking that Ida Belle and Gertie should probably watch what they say on the cell. You know how they’re always up to something.”

“Oh, they know about Mr. Walker. That’s why they’re usually vague unless they’re standing in front of you.”

“Well, I wish they would have told me that. I could have blown their cover.”

Ally laughed. “I’m not even going to ask what cover you could have blown. My guess is they’ve been avoiding Mr. Walker for so long that they forgot to tell you about him. Plus, I don’t think his tower reaches more than a hundred feet or so. Only people on his block are at risk.”

I got up to serve us some coffee, then sat back down. “So what is it that you couldn’t say on the phone?”

“Mayor Fontleroy and his wife, Vanessa, had dinner at Francine’s tonight. A couple of Celia’s friends stopped by to talk to them, and when I heard your name, I moved as close as I could without being obvious.”

“I take it the conversation wasn’t complimentary.”

“They want the mayor to force Carter to arrest you. They said everyone in Sinful knows you did it and that if Carter doesn’t move quickly, then he should be fired for incompetence and never allowed to run for sheriff.”

I sighed. We’d expected as much, but the locals were moving even faster than I’d thought. “What did the mayor say?”

“He tried to calm them down—said it had only been a day, and they needed to give Carter a chance to correctly do his job or the whole thing could be thrown out in court. But Vanessa was a different story. She agreed with Celia’s friends and said she wouldn’t feel safe in Sinful as long as you were wandering loose.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I know,” Ally said. “She’s a total bitch, and she’s his second wife—the one he traded in his older wife in on. She’s a good fifteen years younger than him.”

“Let me guess—Celia’s sister was wife number one.”

“Yep, so the mayor is always trying to smooth things over for Celia because he doesn’t want drama. Celia’s sister left town as soon as she collected her settlement. Hasn’t stepped foot in Sinful ever since.”

I frowned, considering all the complications this presented. “Does the mayor pay much attention to the new wife or is she strictly for appearances?”

Ally sighed. “He’s a fool. I think he was infatuated with her at first. So much so that he didn’t get her to sign a prenuptial, and I know his attorney desperately wanted one.”

“Does he have money?”

“A bit of family money, but not as much anymore since his first wife got half when she divorced him—still less than what she should have earned for being married to him, mind you.”

“So if this one goes, she’ll take half of what he has left.”

Ally nodded. “Which can’t be much, at this point, because she spends money like she’s printing it. It’s not like Sinful pays huge salaries, even for the mayor.”

“To sum it up, you’re afraid the trophy wife is going to put pressure on the mayor to put pressure on Carter.”

“And Aunt Celia. As soon as she gets back, she’ll be on a rampage. The mayor won’t get a moment of peace until someone is arrested, and all indications are that the person they want arrested is you.”

“I figured it would get around to this, eventually, but I think we were all hoping for a little more time.”

Ally brightened. “So you are investigating yourself? Good!”

“No, nothing like that,” I scrambled to cover. “I’m hardly qualified for that kind of thing.”

“I don’t know—you strike me as quite observant, and I’d hate to meet you in a dark alley. Besides, you’ve got Ida Belle and Gertie to help, and they’re nobody’s fools. I don’t believe for a minute that the situation with Marie was resolved by chance. I’d bet a year’s salary that the three of you were right in the thick of it.”

I was torn. Ally was one of the only people I actually felt guilty lying to, but I didn’t want to get her involved, either. Finally, I decided that partial truth was probably the best policy.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not going to lie to you and say we’re just sitting around waiting for this town to railroad me, but the truth is, I don’t want to get you involved. You have to live in this town once I’m gone. What if someone had seen you tonight? Or worse, what if I’d shot you? I don’t think that would have helped my case any.”

Ally blew out a breath and slumped back in her chair. “I know you’re right, but man, it pisses me off.”

“You can’t afford to appear as if you’re on the wrong side of this, Ally. Especially since Pansy is your cousin.”

“But the three of you are looking into things, right?”

“Yes. We are following up on several leads.”

“I want to help.” She held up her hand before I could argue. “No one has to know. In fact, I can probably get more information if the lynch mob thinks I’m siding with them. I can collect information and report it back to you.”

I hesitated before answering. My conscience told me to say no and insist she stay far away from me until this entire mess was over, but my mind said she could be an asset, and we weren’t all that flush with assets.

“You promise to be careful?” I asked.

“I promise,” she said. “Starting with no more midnight boat runs. If I need to tell you something again, I’ll drive somewhere else and call.”

“Good. And no trying to get information out of people. Just listen and report. I don’t want anyone to get suspicious.”

She didn’t look completely happy with the request, but I believe she saw the merit in it. “Fine. No questions. I’m a voice-activated recorder and that’s it. So have you figured anything out yet?”

“Nothing beyond speculation.” I gave her a brief rundown of the IRS situation, not explaining how we got the information, and told her some of our ideas about how Pansy might have accumulated such a tax bill.

Ally’s eyes widened. “Wow. Even I didn’t see that one coming. I mean, I’d totally believe Pansy was working the sex trade, but it’s hard to fathom men paying that much for her.”

I nodded. “Especially once you’ve met her.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“Try and track down her landlord and see if we can find out more about the eviction. Maybe he’ll be angry enough to give up something we can use. But beyond that, we don’t have much to work on. What would really be helpful is if we knew the names of her biggest clients. I figure there’s got to be an angry wife or two in the lot.”

“Bet on it.” Ally drummed her fingers on the table, her brow scrunched in concentration. “I bet Pansy kept a list. She’s both stupid and vain enough to think it would be okay. She used to keep a notebook with a list of all the boys she slept with in high school. Even rated them on stamina and performance. Two extra points were awarded if they had a girlfriend at the time. Three if they were married.”

I shook my head. “It’s a wonder no one has killed her before now.”

“Tell me about it.” She frowned. “If Pansy was evicted, where is all her stuff?”

I shrugged. “It might have been confiscated during the eviction. Or if she was smart, she moved it to storage somewhere. Or she may have sold everything figuring she was coming back home. Why? Do you think the list would be with her things?”

Ally was silent for several seconds, then slowly shook her head. “No. I think she would have brought it with her. A reminder of what she had accomplished. Her own little ego boost.”

I nodded. “That sounds likely given what you’ve told me about her, but Carter probably took anything like that as evidence. If she had a list and brought it with her, it’s locked up in the sheriff’s department with all the other evidence.”

I didn’t let on that tomorrow night, I planned to be inside the sheriff’s department, poking through that evidence. But at least I knew to look for a list in any of the personal items Carter recovered.

“No, it’s not!” Ally jumped up from the table and clutched my shoulders, a huge smile on her face. “Pansy knew Celia was a snoop. She would have hidden the list and I know exactly where she would have hidden it.”

I felt my pulse tick up a notch and a swell of hope rose in me. “Where?”

“Under a loose floorboard in her closet. That’s where she kept her diary and her sex-rating book.”

“Oh,” I said, as the hope slipped away. “The house is being guarded by the state police while Celia is away. But even if she were here, Celia wouldn’t allow me in her house, much less Pansy’s bedroom. I can’t imagine she’d let Ida Belle or Gertie past the front door, either, since they’ve taken up with me.”

“No,” Ally agreed. “But she’ll let me in. I’m family.”

“Family she doesn’t particularly like or trust,” I pointed out.

“True, but Celia would never go against southern manners. When there’s a death, family is required to show up and help. Celia won’t tell me to go away because I’d only be doing what manners and bloodline call for. As soon as she returns to Sinful, I’ll pay her a visit and offer to help her clean her house, cook meals…maybe even choose an outfit for Pansy for the funeral. Even though she won’t like it, she won’t tell me no.”

I smiled up at Ally, that feeling of hope swelling back up. If Pansy had a list, and if she’d brought it with her, and if Ally could get hold of it, we might have a list of suspects.

It was a whole lot of “ifs,” but I’d take it.

###

Despite the fact that I’d been up a good portion of the night, I was too wired to sleep late. I sprang out of bed at six a.m., ready to take on Sinful…until I remembered it was Sunday. That meant a long, unnecessarily boring sermon and that I had to wear a dress. This whole dress-wearing thing was getting to be a habit, and it wasn’t one I appreciated. Last night, I’d found myself drooling over a new line of combat boots I’d found on the Internet.

Since I was awake so early, and had eaten way too many dessert items the past week, I decided to take a morning run. Exercising served the dual purpose of keeping me from getting fat as a barn and allowing me to create a mental layout of the neighborhood. I’d looked up the pertinent addresses on Google Maps last night but wanted to commit them to live visual.

I took a good hour for the run, which required me circling the neighborhood at least ten times. I had to admit to losing count after six. Gertie had told me that a lot of people lived on rarely traveled farm roads outside of the cluster that was the Sinful township, but all of the key players in my life resided in the single neighborhood that extended north of downtown.

After the run, I made some notes on layout, street conditions, hedges and other useful hiding places, and the houses that contained dogs—at least, the houses where they bothered to bark. I avoided actually running on Celia’s street, figuring I didn’t need to give people anything else to use against me, but I was able to get a good layout of the street from the next block.

Once the notes were done and hidden away, I did a load of laundry, cooked and ate breakfast, and was made up and dressed when Gertie stepped onto my front porch at eight a.m.

Gertie jumped back in surprise when I opened the door before she even knocked.

“You’re up…and dressed.”

“I’ve been up for hours. And I figured as long as I’m here church is sort of mandatory, but today, probably even more so.”

Gertie nodded. “Celia came home last night. The funeral will be sometime this coming week, but they’ll probably light candles for Pansy today at service.”

“So…no tennis shoes?” My second day in Sinful had been a Sunday, where I’d learned that the first group representative to arrive at Francine’s Café after church let out had control of the limited banana pudding supply offered only on Sundays. I’d been cajoled into donning tennis shoes during final prayer and sprinting down Main Street so that the Sinful Ladies could command top seating and dessert privileges. Celia was the sprinter for the GWs, but even with new Nikes, didn’t stand a chance against me.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be decent,” Gertie said finally, looking so disappointed I had to laugh.

“Don’t worry,” I said and clapped her on the back. “The summer has plenty of Sundays left, and I doubt Francine is going to stop making banana pudding. If I ran today, it might cause a conflict worse than Vietnam.”

“You’re right. I suppose the least we can do is let Celia step first into Francine’s today after church.”

“That, and find out who killed her daughter.”

“Count on it,” Gertie said. “You ready, then? I’d like to talk to Ida Belle before choir practice starts.”