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They sat in the car and let the news sink in before Marge finally spoke. “Okay, now are we going to go in and beat the crap out of him?”
“Maybe there’s a logical explanation,” Gertie said.
“Like what?”
“I said maybe. I didn’t say I knew what it was.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Whatever it is, it’s not good. Oh, and he had a little black bag by the mirror. Two other wigs were in it. And he had a makeup kit.”
Gertie’s face lit up. “A man with a makeup kit? That alone will get him a night in jail. Let’s get Sheriff Lee.”
Ida Belle shook her head vigorously. “And admit I snuck into his room and went through his stuff?”
Marge opened the driver’s door. “We need to take him to Aunt Louanne and see if she knows who he is and why he’s been sneaking around her place.”
“I wish I’d brought a pistol with me,” Ida Belle said.
Marge got out of the car, pulled a shotgun from under the front seat. “Lucky for us, Granny always keeps her shotgun in the car.”
Ida Belle and Gertie joined Marge and the three rounded the corner of the block of motel rooms. Mystery Man stood outside of his room, locking the door. Marge signaled to her friends to go back to the side of the building. “He’s leaving. We have to get him before he gets in his car.” Marge started to charge around the corner with her rifle, but Gertie grabbed her arm and held her back.
“If he turns and sees that shotgun, he’s going to run. You two stay here. Be prepared with that shotgun when I bring him back.”
She rushed around the corner of the building and called out to Mystery Man.
“Yoohoo!”
He stopped and turned around. He frowned when he saw her approaching him.
“Wouldn’t you know it, but our car just died again.”
He sighed. “Maybe you should go inside the motel office and use their phone to call a mechanic.”
“Well, you did such a good job before that Miss Frannie and I were wondering if you could work your magic again.”
“Miss Frannie? I thought she was Miss Clover.”
“Yes,” Gertie said, quickly recovering, “Frannie Clover.”
“Look, Miss... Priscilla, I really have to be getting on. Are you sure you’re having car troubles?”
“Are you implying that I’m a liar?” she asked. From the other corner of the building Marge emerged, carrying the shotgun. She must have grown impatient and circled around behind the building. Patience was never one of Marge’s strong points. Gertie placed her finger to her lips, giving Marge a subtle signal to move quietly.
“I never said that,” the man said. “It’s just that I have to see someone before I head out of town, so I really have to go.”
He turned away from Gertie and stopped. Marge now stood several feet away, the shotgun aimed at him. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
“You have got to be kidding,” he said.
“Do you hear me laughing?” Marge asked.
Ida Belle came up beside Gertie. “You’re taking a ride with us.”
He spun around and stared at her. “Where have you been hiding?”
“We’re going to ask the questions, Mr. Cole Parker from Virginia.”
His eyes widened. “You broke into my room while I was helping them out?”
“You have quite a makeup case,” Ida Belle said.
“Why were you sneaking around my aunt’s house the other day?” Marge asked. “And why did you take our pictures?”
He turned back around to her. “Look, I’m just a traveling salesman passing through.”
“Well, you chose the wrong town to pass through,” Marge said.
“And the wrong girls to stalk,” Gertie added. “We’re taking you to Miss Louanne’s house and ask her if she knows you.”
He whipped back around to face Gertie. “Oh no. That’s not going to happen. It’s time you girls stop this little game you’re playing and—”
But he didn’t finish the sentence. Marge clunked him in the back of the head with the butt of her granny’s shotgun and the mystery man slumped to the ground.
The girls looked down at him.
“I have some rope in my purse,” Gertie said. “We can tie him up and stick him in the trunk.”
Ida Belle gaped at her. “Why do you have rope in your purse?”
Gertie shrugged. “Just seemed like a good idea. A girl can always use a nice piece of rope.”
They pulled Mystery Man from the ground and carried him to the car. Gertie glanced at the motel office, hoping Stinky had his nose inside a girlie magazine and would miss the action outside of his office.
The rope did come in handy. They tied up Mystery Man’s hands and feet, took off his glasses, and hauled him up and into the trunk. Ida Belle patted his stomach. “Fake beer belly. This guy went to a lot of trouble to change his appearance.”
“The big question is, why,” Marge said as she closed the trunk. “Hopefully Aunt Louanne can answer that for us.”
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Marge trudged over to Stinky’s office to call her aunt, who was working in her home darkroom today, but came out moments later, shaking her head. “No answer. She’s probably in her darkroom.” She slid behind the wheel of the Packard. Taking a boat would be a faster way to get to her aunt’s house, but they couldn’t risk anyone seeing them with a man tied up with rope. Not that that hadn’t happened before. This was Sinful, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see a father of a jilted bride hauling a rope-bound man back to the altar. Marge started the engine. “I’ll take the bumpy back roads.”
Ida Belle turned in her seat and stared at the trunk. “It’ll get awfully uncomfortable back there in the trunk for him.”
“I sure hope so,” Marge said, pulling onto the highway in the direction of Aunt Louanne’s.
About a mile later they pulled onto Majestic Rd., or as the locals called it, “Organ Crusher Way.” If you wanted to rough someone up around here, this was the road to do it on. Marge glanced at Gertie, then up at the rear-view mirror to see Ida Belle’s reflection. “Brace yourselves.”
Gertie stuck her arms in front of her, placing her hands flat against the dashboard. Ida Belle grabbed onto the back of the front seat but lost her grip as Marge raced over a bump in the road. Thud. Then a curse. Ida Belle yelled at Marge to stop, screaming something unintelligible.
“What?” Marge yelled back.
“Sheriff Lee!”
Marge slowed to a stop. As the dust settled, Sheriff Lee rode up next to the car on his horse, Barnaby. He dismounted, slapped the dust from his sheriff’s uniform, and strutted to Marge’s window, peering inside at the three of them.
“Out of the car,” he ordered. “All a ya’s.”
They obeyed and followed him to the front of the car. His eyes panned from Ida Belle to Gertie, then to Marge, his eyebrows coming together on his forehead. “This is your grandma Millie’s car, isn’t it?”
“Yes sir,” Marge said.
He reached over and slid the sunglasses from her face and then lifted the hat from her head. “Her wig too?”
Marge nodded.
“Does Miss Millie know you’re taking her car for a joyride?”
“We’re not joyriding,” Marge said. “We’re on our way to see my Aunt Louanne. My grandma’s out of town and said I could use her car.”
He nodded. “You’re going awfully fast on this bumpy road.”
“Were we?” Ida Belle asked.
“Yep.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Interesting getups the two of you are wearing. But I shouldn’t be surprised. The three of you have been seen in some mighty interesting getups over the years.”
“We’re practically in the Army,” Marge said. “We just thought we’d start dressing a little more sophisticated is all. The Army is big on their women representing them well.”
“I see.” His gaze shifted to Ida Belle. “You don’t care to be sophisticated?”
Ida Belle shrugged. “I’m still searching for my sophisticated style. We thought maybe Miss Louanne might have some suggestions.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “I’ll get right to the point. Yesterday morning a dress and a pair of pants were stolen from the Comeaux’s clothesline. The perp also kissed a pair of Mr. Comeaux’s undershorts and left a lipstick mark.”
Gertie’s hand flew up to cover her lips.
“We’re calling the perp the ‘Butt Kissing Bandit.’ Any idea who might have stolen the Comeaux’s clothing?”
“I would imagine someone with an underwear fetish and very poor taste in clothing,” Ida Belle said.
His bottom lip quivered. “That’s a given. Can you account for your whereabouts yesterday, ‘bout ten thirty in the morning?”
“Prayer circle,” Marge said. “In fact, we enjoyed it so much yesterday we were on our way to Aunt Louanne’s house to join her in another one.”
“Thought you were going over to her place to get fashion advice.”
“The fashion advice was going to be part of our prayers,” Ida Belle said. “I was hoping for some divine intervention on which color looks the best on me.”
He stared at her for a good thirty seconds. “Pink. All girls look good in pink. I don’t want to speak for the Lord, but I bet he’d agree with me. That’s why he gave us pink and made it exclusive to girls.”
“I’ll take that into consideration. So can we go, Sheriff?”
“Sure. After I get my ticket pad and cite you for speeding.”
“A ticket?” Gertie asked. “I’ve seen people go down this road much faster than we were going.”
Sheriff Lee trudged back to his horse to retrieve his pad. “Yep, but I didn’t see them. I saw you.”
A moaning sound came from the back of the car. Mystery Man was waking up.
Sheriff Lee whipped around. “What was that?”
Marge suddenly grabbed her stomach and moaned. “Me.”
Mystery man knocked at the trunk lid. Marge covered by banging her fist on the hood. “Ohhhhhh. The pain.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“It always happens before my menses,” she said, before moaning again to drown out Mystery Man’s gagged-mouth sounds.
“Your what?”
“My insides are in a knot,” Marge said, clenching her teeth. “It’s gonna happen any minute. I need to get to Aunt Louanne’s house quick.”
She moaned again and knocked on the car with the flat of her hand.
“What’s gonna happen?” He looked at Ida Belle and Gertie. “Is she gonna die? Do we need to get her to a hospital? What’s happening to her?”
“You know,” Ida Belle said, “her menstrual cycle.”
“Her period,” Gertie shouted above Marge’s moaning.
Sheriff Lee cringed. His face turned pale. Like most men, he had a fear of anything to do with a woman’s cycle.
“Gah!” Sheriff Lee took several steps back as if it were catching. Marge took one step toward him and he took three back. He held the flat of his hand out to stop her. “You get back in that car and get to your aunt’s house quick.” Sheriff Lee turned and took a running leap onto Barnaby. Apparently, Barnaby didn’t want anything to do with menstrual talk either. Took no prodding on Sheriff Lee’s part for him to gallop away.
“Well done,” Gertie said to Marge.
Ida Belle strode to the back of the car and banged on the trunk. “You be a nice boy and stay quiet back here and Marge will drive real gentle.”
Marge wasn’t exactly gentle, but she wasn’t gunning it every time she came to a rut in the road. One last curve and her aunt’s house came into view. She parked next to Louanne’s Falcon and got out. When they opened the trunk, Mystery Man was drenched in sweat and had a sour expression on his face. Marge guessed that she would too if she’d just spent the last twenty minutes riding in the back of a trunk in the Louisiana heat.
“We’re going to keep you tied up and show you to my aunt to see if she knows who you are. You’d better have a good explanation why you put on a disguise and followed us and her all over town.”
The three each grabbed a part of him and hauled him out of the trunk. His ankles were tied together, but he was still able to stand. Ida Belle reached over and yanked off his beard, then his wig, revealing a head of thick, black hair. What had been a scruffy man with shaggy red hair and glasses, which had obscured much of his face, was now a handsome man, albeit a sweaty and disheveled one.
“Oh dear Lord.” Aunt Louanne appeared from a path carrying an armload of wood, which she promptly dropped to the ground. She slapped a hand over her mouth.
“This is the man we’ve been telling you about,” Marge said. “He’s been following all of us around the past couple of days.”
“And took pictures and left them in your darkroom for you to find,” Gertie said.
“I saw a map to your place in his motel room,” Ida Belle added. “And wigs and a makeup kit. His beer belly, by the way, isn’t real. He was headed for his car and we were afraid he was coming over here to cause you trouble.”
Marge nodded. “So we thought we’d beat him to it and bring him to you instead.”
Aunt Louanne blew out a breath and walked toward them, shaking her head.
“Does he look familiar?” Marge asked, trying to read the expression on her aunt’s face. It seemed to her to be a mixture of shock and something else. Pride.
“According to his license, his name is—”
“Cole,” she said, interrupting Ida Belle. “Cole Parker.” She pulled the gag from his mouth. “Hey, Cole.”
He spit out a thread from the gag. “Lou.”
“You know him?” Marge asked.
Her aunt nodded. “You might say. We worked together in the Army. He’s a recruiter now. I asked him to stop by and talk to you girls about your enlistment and job opportunities.”
Marge could feel her legs turn to rubber.
“A recruiter?” Gertie asked, the color draining from her face.
Ida Belle cursed.
“I expected him next week,” Aunt Louanne said.
“I thought I’d surprise you,” he said. “This is not the way I envisioned it, however.”
Marge cleared her throat. “You wanted him to talk to us about our enlistment?”
She nodded. “He has connections. I thought he could put in a good word for you. Get you into some jobs that are more exciting than just typing and filing.”
Marge could feel the life draining out of all of them. Their hopes, their dreams. Their one big chance to get into some fun job in the Army, and they knocked him out and stuffed him in a trunk.
“I don’t suppose that offer of talking to us is still on the table,” Ida Belle said.
He shot her a dirty look.
This wasn’t fair, Marge thought, feeling her anger welling up inside. She pointed to him. “If you ask me, it’s all your fault. Disguising yourself and following us? What did you expect was going to happen?”
Ida Belle kicked Marge in the shin to shut her up.
“Do you normally follow recruits like that?” asked Gertie.
“It’s my style,” he said. “I like to see what type of soldier he might be before recommending him for certain positions. Or she, as the case may be. Suffice it to say, I’ve seen plenty the past couple of days.”
“Would you like to know what Jesus had to say about forgiveness?” At this point the Bible was Gertie’s only hope.
“Not particularly,” he said.
Louanne moved a few feet away and gestured for the Swamp Team 3 to follow her.
“We didn’t know he was a friend of yours,” Marge whispered.
Louanne held up her hand. “You did what you did based on the evidence he was providing.”
“Is he going to keep us from joining the Army?” Gertie asked. She looked close to tears.
“I’ll talk to him. Get him calmed down. You leave him here. It’ll give me a chance to try out my new brew. I call it ‘The Man Scrambler.’ I’ll see if it lives up to its name.”
They scooted to the car as Aunt Louanne bent down and untied the rope from his ankles.
“Can I have the rope back?” Gertie asked. He raised his brows. “Never mind,” she said, sliding into the front seat.
Marge started the car and backed up. Apparently, Gertie thought it wouldn’t hurt to give one last reminder of Jesus. She stuck her head out of the window and shouted Matthew 6:14. "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” She stuck her head back in the window. “How rude. He looked like he was going to flip me the bird.”
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Louanne waved to them as the car disappeared down the dirt road. She glanced at Cole’s hands still tied with rope and winced. “They tied your hands and left them in front of you?” He nodded. “How many times have I told them, ‘if you have to tie a man up, tie his hands behind his back so he can’t put his arms around you and choke the life out of you.’ At least tell me I taught them how to tie a proper knot.”
He worked his fingers under and around the knot. Moments later the rope slipped from his hands and dropped to the ground. Louanne shrugged. “Not bad. It took you seven seconds, but you’re still an escape artist. A normal person would have had trouble getting out of it.” She ran her eyes over him. “You look a fright.”
“A fright?” he said. “I just spent twenty minutes in a hot trunk. And my head hurts. For a little thing, your niece packs a punch. I actually was out for a few minutes.”
Her lips were aching to smile. She had to use every bit of facial strength to keep them in a frown position. For all his good points, Cole was still a man. Getting bested by a girl must be giving him more than a headache. “Care for some aspirin and sweet tea?”
He followed her inside. She could feel his eyes on her as she bent down to arrange the pillows on the sofa. She didn’t really need to arrange the pillows, but she liked feeling his eyes on her. Always had. Once he was settled, she brought out a tray of two glasses of sweet tea and a big bottle of aspirin. She settled in next to him on the sofa. He held the cold glass to his forehead to cool off before downing three aspirin and taking a drink.
“So aside from them assaulting you, what did you think? Was I right?” Louanne put her lips to the glass and tipped it, wetting her lips with the cold liquid.
He pulled in a breath as he watched her. “They’re a little rough around the edges.”
Louanne set the glass down on the coffee table. “Rough? Weren’t we all? Nothing a little sandpaper can’t cure. You’re just sore they got the drop on you.”
“More than I can say for you.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve been here for the past two days and you didn’t have a clue. I was even outside your house and got a clean photo of you on your sofa watching TV. You’re slipping, Lou.” He picked up his glass and took a swig in triumph.
Much like the Undercover game Louanne used to play with the girls as they were growing up, Louanne and Cole played a similar game, although with decidedly adult overtones. She’d show up wherever he was and see if she could get the drop on him, and he’d show up wherever she was and try to get the drop on her. She hadn’t expected him to want to play this time and was surprised when she detected him.
“I’m losing my touch? Is that so?”
He nodded.
She leaned forward and picked up a file folder that had been sitting on the coffee table. She opened it up and pulled out two 8x10 photographs. She slapped one on the table. “My my, what’s that? Oh it’s you, photographing a mannequin sitting on my sofa watching TV.” She slapped another photo down. “And you photographing the girls with that wretched Harvey. Who’s slipping? I’ll have you know I keep in practice here in Sinful. You owe me a nice dinner down in New Orleans. I have the place all picked out.”
He stared at the photos and his lips slowly formed into a grin. “I’ve missed you, Lou.”
“I’ve missed you too, Cole.” She pointed to the photos. “But business first. Those girls have talent. Something the Army needs. Don’t let a little thing like being clocked, kidnapped and locked in a trunk in the middle of summer in Louisiana color your thinking. There, I’ve said my piece.”
“I might want something in return,” he said, scooting closer to her.
“Well, if it’s a silk nightie and satin sheets... that was already going to happen. Like I said, I’ve missed you.”
He blew out a breath. “You always were direct.”
“Life’s short. What’s your proposition?”
He leaned in and kissed her ear, whispered a few things. She closed her eyes. “I was afraid you’d say that.” But she wasn’t. It’s exactly what she wanted him to say.
She scooted closer to him and caressed his cheek. “Okay, business is over. When did we last get together?”
“Berlin. Five months ago.”
“Ah, yes. Those nasty Russians came in and spoiled our fun. Care to pick up where we left off?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”