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HARRIET HAD FOLLOWED the advice to clear out of Sinful. That was the good news. The bad news was that a whole day had passed, and Harriet was nowhere to be found.
From her bright, newly-remodeled kitchen, Mary-Alice called Harriet’s mother as the other ladies stood around and listened. Harriet’s mother sounded worried. She’d seen on the news that there had been a murder in Sinful, which of course meant that a homicidal maniac was on the loose.
“She’s not answering her phone, Miss Mary-Alice,” Harriet’s mother fretted. “Y’all tell her to call, you hear? I just want to know she’s safe.”
Mary-Alice assured Harriet’s mother that she would pass the message along at the earliest possible opportunity. She apologized for having caused any interruption, and rang off.
“Do you think she’s just hunkered down in her apartment?” Ida Belle grabbed a blueberry cheesecake square from the tray on the kitchen table. Mary-Alice lived in the old Cooper Place, steps from Francine’s Café, and made sure her kitchen was always stocked with the exemplary baked goods on offer there.
“She did seem worried about leaving her shop unattended,” Fortune observed. “After what happened yesterday, she might’ve just decided to hide.”
“What if she’s stuck in there, afraid to come out, and starving to death?” Gertie asked.
Mary-Alice pulled a padded picnic cooler down from the shelf.
“True, Miss Gertie. She mightn’t have had a chance to go shopping,” Mary-Alice stocked the cooler with chilled cans of Coke from the refrigerator. Then she opened the freezer and threw in some Moon Pies.
Although it was past opening time, Harriet’s Books was closed and dark. The four women went around the side and up the wooden steps to Harriet’s apartment. Mary-Alice, who knew Harriet best, went first.
Mary-Alice knocked softly, and the door swung open. She was about to call Harriet’s name, but Fortune put her finger to her lips and slipped past her, into the apartment. Mary-Alice let Ida Belle and Gertie go next, and finally she followed them in, still holding the padded cooler. Its floral print seemed a little festive for their clandestine mission. Mary-Alice made a mental note to buy a camouflage patterned cooler for next time.
Fortune stood in Harriet’s neat living room and listened. Then she motioned for the ladies to stay put and disappeared down the hallway.
The next thing they heard was Fortune’s voice.
“Carter! What are you doing here?”
Then Carter’s voice.
“We have a search warrant. What are you doing here?”
Assuming it was safe to go in, Ida Belle, Gertie, and Mary-Alice crowded into the bedroom to see Carter, wearing translucent gloves, standing next to an open dresser drawer and holding a pair of flannel pajama pants. Deputy Sheriff Kyle Breaux stood to the side, looking uncomfortable and clutching a bulky camera.
“We were worried about Harriet,” Mary-Alice explained, setting down the cooler on a dresser and unzipping it. “She wasn’t answering her phone, and her mama told us she hadn’t heard from her either. It’s awfully hot in here. Would y’all like a cold Coke?”
“Yes ma’am, that’d be—” Deputy Breaux started toward Mary-Alice, but Carter’s glare froze him in mid-step.
“Could you please,” Carter said with exaggerated patience, “not set up a picnic in the middle of a crime scene?”
“Crime scene!” Fortune exclaimed.
“Did something happen to Harriet?” Mary-Alice asked.
“She’s not here,” Carter said. “She wasn’t here yesterday, and she’s not here now. That’s why we had to go to the trouble of getting a warrant.”
“Silly, she hasn’t fled,” Gertie chided him. “She was scared when Adam Sampson came by, and worried Deale would try something else. We advised her to get out of town for a bit and she agreed to go see her mother. I wonder whether she’s heard the news. She might not know about Deale’s murder.”
“So what have you found?” Fortune asked.
“Fortune—Miss Morrow, I mean—you know I can’t—”
“Oh, come on, Carter.” The concentrated heat in the upstairs apartment seemed to be making Fortune snappish. Of course folks who didn’t grow up here found it hard to deal with the summer heat and humidity. “Like it or not, we’re already involved with this case. We talked to the victim hours before his murder, and we knew—know—Harriet. Mary-Alice here is her best customer.”
Carter glanced at Breaux, who was still standing, looking longingly at the cooler.
“Why don’t you take a break?” Carter said. “Just make sure to drink it outside.”
A relieved Kyle Breaux set down the camera, grabbed an icy Coke, thanked Mary-Alice, and left the room.
“We know the victim was found wrapped in a pajama top,” Fortune said. Everyone in the room looked at the flannel pants carter held in his hand.
“That wasn’t public knowledge.” Carter’s voice was stony. “How did you get that information?”
“Wasn’t public knowledge!” Ida Belle exclaimed. “What, did you tell Old Mrs. Johnson yeah, I know this is the most interesting thing that’s happened to you in about a hundred years, but please don’t tell anyone what you saw here?”
Carter reddened a little.
“I hope you realize it makes things harder for us when information gets out like that.”
“Tell Mrs. Johnson,” Ida Belle shot back.
“Carter,” Kyle Breaux called from outside. “You might want to take a look at this.”
Carter quickly stuffed the nightie into a paper bag and followed Breaux’s voice, leaving the ladies alone in Harriet’s bedroom.
“Should we—” Mary-Alice began, but Carter reappeared in the doorway.
“I can’t leave you in here,” he said. “In fact, you shouldn’t even be here.”
“We’re leaving,” Gertie said and then halted at the doorway.
Fortune stopped to avoid running over Gertie, Ida Belle bumped into Fortune, and Mary-Alice ran into Ida Belle. Carter heaved a persecuted sigh and left them to untangle themselves.
“Looks like it might be a thumbprint,” Breaux was standing just outside the bathroom, whose tiles acted as an amplifying chamber. The ladies froze inside the bedroom doorway and listened.
“Yeah, that looks like blood,” they heard Carter say. “Over there, too.”
Then they heard Carter’s heavy shoes clomping back down the hallway. He stood again in the doorway, glaring at them. The four of them immediately looked in four different directions, as if they hadn’t been straining to hear.
“You ladies really need to leave. You’re wrecking the crime scene.” Carter knelt to right a knitting basket that the ladies had accidentally knocked over, and retrieved a yellow ball of yarn that had rolled free.
Then he paused, hefted the basket, and started digging through the remaining yarn skeins and folded paper patterns.
“When are you going to talk to that handyman?” Gertie demanded. “And ask him what he was doing dropping by Harriet’s?”
“That young man did seem very suspicious,” Mary-Alice added. “If you recall, Sheriff, he ran away, which no respectable visitor does.”
“Yes, you told me.” Carter was feeling around the bottom of the basket. “Of course we’ll be talking to everyone involved. But you ladies need to stay out of it. This is a dangerous...Breaux!”
Carter pulled his hand out of Harriet’s mending basket, holding a small, shiny, and deadly object.
“That’s a .22!” Breaux exclaimed, skidding to halt on the wooden floor.
“Why Carter LeBlanc,” Gertie declared. “You clever boy. You’ve found my little Ricky Derringer!”