Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) (15 page)

I leaned over as far as I could, and my fingers barely brushed the handle of the grill. I put more weight on my back leg and leaned in a tiny bit more so that I could pull open the top on the grill. Sure enough, the hamburger patties sat there half done. In the deputy’s rush, he’d remembered to turn off the grill, but hadn’t taken the time to bring the burgers inside.
 

I grabbed the patty closest to me, tore off a little piece, and tossed it to Rambo. His eyes remained rolled up and fastened on me even as he lowered his head to sniff the meat. Then he stuck his huge tongue out and licked the scrap right up from the patio, the extension hanging from his jaw the entire time.

I was going to have to use the bait and switch.

I squatted down on the doghouse and stretched out my hand, just far enough for Rambo to smell the meat. His ears perked up and he immediately inched closer. I was only going to get one chance to get this right, and I was going to have to make it a fast one. One slip and my hand would be right there next to that platinum piece of hair.
 

I steadied myself as much as I could and leaned forward, ready to make my move. I held out the entire patty, trying to entice Rambo close enough to grab the hair. He eyed me for a bit, still suspicious, but finally, the taste of the burger won out and he took that last step toward me.

When he lunged for the patty, I grabbed the extension and pulled, flinging the patty behind me. Rambo didn’t even hesitate before following the patty. I launched off the doghouse and ran for the fence line, praying that he chewed before he swallowed. I didn’t even pause to look behind me before I heaved myself on top of the fence. A huge crash sounded behind me, and I glanced back in time to see Rambo tackle the grill, spilling the rest of the hamburger patties onto the patio. I flipped over the fence and into the hedges, breaking some branches and crashing into a startled Ida Belle.

We both tumbled out of the bushes and onto the lawn, rolling in one giant ball of hands and feet. I wound up on top and sprang up immediately, worried that I’d killed Ida Belle. I smiled as she launched into a stream of cussing. At least she was still alive. I extended my hand and helped her up from the lawn, then glanced across the street.

Gertie stood in her front yard, holding her water hose in one hand and her cell phone to her ear with the other. The end of the hose had flipped over into the open window of her car, and I could see water running out from the bottom of the door. She was staring directly at us, jaw dropped, which I took to be shock from our fall, but then she dropped her cell phone and started waving frantically.

“We better run,” I said.

Ida Belle stopped wiping off her pants and hurried after me as I sprinted across the street. Gertie dropped the hose, which got lodged in the passenger’s side mirror and remained hanging over the car door, grabbed her cell phone, and ran to the front door to hold it open. Ida Belle and I dashed inside, and Gertie pulled the door closed behind us. I peeked out the front window just in time to see Deputy LeBlanc rounding the corner.
 

“Gertie, the hose!” I yelled.

Gertie gave me a blank stare for a split second, then wailed, “Oh no!”

“Not now!” Ida Belle grabbed Gertie’s arm as she moved toward the door.

Deputy LeBlanc pulled into his driveway, slammed his truck door, then hurried back inside.

“That was close,” I said.
 

“He looks mad,” Ida Belle said.

“He’s going to be madder when he realizes the dog ate all his hamburger patties,” I said.

“Is that how you distracted him?” Ida Belle nodded. “Good thinking.”

“Crap,” Gertie said and started pressing buttons on her cell phone.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“I need to call Margaret and tell her not to bring her cat over.”

###

We could hear Deputy LeBlanc’s outraged cries all the way across the street and through the walls of Gertie’s house. Gertie took the yelling as an opportunity to go outside and turn off the water hose and open her car door. A tidal wave of water gushed onto the pavement. Ida Belle rushed out with what had to be a gallon box of baking soda. She opened all the car doors and sprinkled the stuff everywhere. I made a mental note not to ride with Gertie for a good while, maybe ten years or more.

Gertie slogged back inside and to the kitchen, her now-wet shoes tracking water across her hardwood floor. Ida Belle trailed behind her, wiping up the water with a dish towel. I followed them into the kitchen and took a seat across from Ida Belle as Gertie put on a pot of coffee.
 

“I don’t suppose you have any baked goods around here, do you?” I asked. “I tossed my bag of cookies before I went over Deputy LeBlanc’s fence.”

Gertie nodded. “I’d just finished a pound cake when you called. It will be great with coffee.”

Ida Belle pointed at Gertie’s feet. “You need to take off those wet sneakers and put them on the back steps to dry. The last thing we need is you catching a cold when we’ve got things to do.”

Gertie pulled off her tennis shoes and tossed them on the back steps. “Fortune, you never told me what you were coming over here for,” she said as she started pouring coffee. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to call?”

“I suppose so, but I don’t have your phone number. I don’t know how you got mine.”

Gertie slid cups of coffee in front of me and Ida Belle, then sat down with her own cup. “Your phone was on the kitchen counter on Sunday. I got your number off it in case I needed it, and loaded mine and Ida Belle’s into your contacts, which is empty, by the way.”

“My old phone crapped out,” I said, making an excuse. “I haven’t had time to load names yet.”

Gertie nodded. “Well, now that you know we’re in the contacts, you don’t have to take any more risks getting in touch with us.”

“Which numbers did you give her?” Ida Belle asked.

Gertie looked offended. “The secret ones, of course.”

“You have secret phones?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Ida Belle said. “We have phones registered in our names, but with Big Brother able to pull your records at a moment’s notice, we decided to keep pay-as-you-go phones. We drive over to New Orleans once a month to pay cash for more minutes. That way, there’s no trail.”

“Do I even want to know why you two need untraceable phones?”

“Probably not,” Ida Belle said.

As she was likely right, I didn’t push the issue. “I was coming over to tell you about a run-in I had with Harvey’s cousin.” I went on to explain the door banging, ensuing conversation, ineffectual paper serving, and Deputy LeBlanc’s observation of the exchange.

“Why didn’t you guys tell me about him?” I asked. “We could have wasted a ton of time looking for another suspect and he was right in front of us. That guy has some serious anger issues.”

Ida Belle shook her head. “The police checked into him first thing, but he’s got an airtight alibi for when Harvey disappeared.”

“Completely airtight?”

“He was doing a year in a New Orleans prison. He was in seven months before Harvey went missing and did another five months after. Unless Harvey was alive all that time and Melvin found him and killed him after he got out, there’s no way he did it.”

“Crap.” Another great idea shot to hell.

I drummed my fingers on the table, and then another idea popped in my mind.
 

“Is it possible he could be working with a partner? Being in prison is the perfect alibi. Maybe he took advantage of that.”

Ida Belle raised her eyebrows. “That’s not a bad thought.” She looked over at Gertie. “Who does Melvin hang out with?”
 

Gertie stared at Ida Belle for a couple of seconds, then slowly shook her head. “No one that I could imagine him trusting with something like murder. His friends and family should be on one of those stupid criminal shows.”

“If they’re anything like Melvin,” I said, “I totally get that. But maybe he hooked up with someone different—someone outside of his family and usual buddies. If he thought he was getting Harvey’s money, he could have afforded to pay a lot.”

“Well,” Ida Belle said, “he doesn’t exactly run in high-class circles, so it’s entirely possible he found someone to partner with.”

I nodded. “The most likely person would be someone he met in prison but who was paroled before he was.”

Gertie and Ida Belle perked up, but suddenly my mind latched onto the flaw in my logic and I sighed.
 

“Never mind,” I said.

“Why?” Gertie asked.

“If Melvin had someone murder Harvey, he would have wanted the body to be discovered while he was in prison. That way, it was far more likely Marie would be tried for it, and he could have made a run at Harvey’s money a long time ago.”

Ida Belle frowned. “Maybe they had a plan but something went wrong.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe they didn’t want the body found right away so that the time of death range would be wide enough that Marie couldn’t alibi all the time.”

“So you’re thinking they would have hid the body?”

Ida Belle nodded.

“Where?”

“Somewhere in the swamp, I’d imagine,” Ida Belle said, “but if an alligator managed to get a hold of it…Well, that might be why it took five years for some of Harvey to appear.”

I blew out a breath. “It’s thin. I mean, really thin.”

“Too thin to direct suspicion away from Marie?” Gertie asked.

I nodded. “We need more than supposition.”

“Like what?”

“A possible partner, for starters.”

Ida Belle pursed her lips. “I think your point about him making friends in prison is a good one. I hear that kind of thing on the news, so it’s no secret it goes on.”

“Yeah, but we’d have to know who he met in prison, and I have no idea how we’d get that information.”

“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Gertie said.

“It is?”

“We’ll have Myrtle look it up for us. They keep records of cellmates at least, right?”

“That’s Marie’s cousin, the woman who works for the sheriff’s department, right? She could get in a lot of trouble if she gets caught by Deputy LeBlanc. What if she won’t do it?”

“Oh, she’ll do it,” Ida Belle said.

Her tone made it sound like Myrtle didn’t have much of a choice. I wondered for a moment if Ida Belle had something on the woman. I didn’t wonder for a second if she’d use it. I already knew she would. Ida Belle was clearly the wrong person to mess with in Sinful.

She was the Godfather, except silver-haired, female, and southern.

Chapter Twelve

Despite the enormous hunk of pound cake I’d eaten at Gertie’s house—and not even counting the second serving—I felt my stomach rumble as I scaled Gertie’s back fence and headed home. Apparently my earlier sandwich and all that cake weren’t enough to cover the energy I’d expended running from Rambo.
 

I really didn’t feel like another sandwich, and I certainly wasn’t going to attempt cooking, not with the way my luck had been lately, so I hurried home and washed my hair. The bald spot was easy to see if I left the hair down, but I could cover it nicely if it was drawn back in a ponytail, which was my preferred hairstyle anyway, as long as I was required to be girly.
 

I guessed I’d have to see about getting it fixed at one of those “fancy shops in New Orleans” that Ida Belle had talked about before someone noticed and started to wonder. Which reminded me that I needed to check with Walter and see if he had an ETA on that battery for Marge’s Jeep. I didn’t necessarily need a vehicle to traverse all four blocks of Sinful, but I couldn’t exactly walk to New Orleans.
 

When I had everything cleaned and looking public-presentable again, I grabbed a book on Revolutionary War weapons that I’d found in the bedroom and headed to Main Street for Francine’s Café. There wasn’t any banana pudding on Monday, but my mouth watered thinking about the chicken-fried steak I’d had on Sunday. I could definitely stand a repeat of that meal, and maybe some cobbler. Gertie said they had cobbler every day and all of it was good. It was going to have to be fabulous to top Gertie’s pound cake, but in the name of science, I was willing to sacrifice my stomach for the comparison.

Francine’s was empty except for two gray-haired men sitting in the corner. They looked up in interest when I walked in the door, then leaned in and started whispering. I figured they hadn’t seen anyone under the age of thirty in a decade, so there was probably some speculation of species on their part.
 

Francine gave me a wave from the grill, then sauntered over with her order pad. “I guess neither my food nor hanging out with the Sinful Ladies got you killed.”

“Not yet, but the jury’s still out on the Sinful Ladies.”

“Ha. You’re a fast study. The Catholics will be gunning for you after that dash you made on Sunday.”

I blinked. Hell, I hadn’t even been thinking along those lines. Jeez, now in addition to everyone else, I had to watch my back for the Catholics. “It’s hard to live a quiet life in this town, isn’t it?”