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FLORENTIN MENARD’S address was at the end of a neat cul-de-sac in one of Lake Charles’ newer suburbs. With its perfectly-trimmed hedges and jewel-green lawn, the house blended perfectly with its neighbors; neither ostentatious nor shabby. Fortune parked on the curb. The door magnets Fortune had slapped onto the Jeep marked it as an official Obliti-Pest vehicle. The ladies zipped themselves into brown Obliti-Pest jumpsuits and donned their Obliti-Pest hats, all of which were kept in the back of the Jeep for occasions such as this one.
It wasn’t the catchiest company name, Gertie had explained to Mary-Alice. But all of the good names were already taken by real exterminators.
Florentin Menard, they knew from their previous investigation, lived alone, with no roommate to ease the mortgage payments. The house’s purchase price was well out of range of his bookkeeper’s salary, and he had made a large down payment in cash.
“I love these nice, safe neighborhoods,” Gertie remarked as she slid a pick into the front door lock. “They don’t put up a million locks on the front door.”
She swung the door open and went inside.
“Go ahead,” Fortune quietly urged Ida Belle and Mary-Alice. “I need to keep my hand over the camera until you get inside.”
Florentin Menard’s house was as neat and unremarkable as the man himself. The bed in the master bedroom was neatly made, and even Menard’s home office was blamelessly tidy.
The “exterminators” pulled on nitrile gloves and made a quick pass through the three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Then they headed to the kitchen, whose drawers, cabinets, boxes, and jars presented hundreds of potential hiding places.
“I wonder whether we mightn’t have another look in the master bedroom,” Mary-Alice suggested. “After all, the bedroom is where people keep their deepest secrets.”
“Where on earth did you hear that?” Ida Belle demanded.
“Why, from Miss Gertie,” Mary-Alice replied.
“Mary-Alice, that’s from the back cover of Rogue of the Retirement Home,” Gertie said, a little embarrassed. “I just made it up to sell books.”
“Well, I still believe it’s good advice,” Mary-Alice insisted. “Miss Gertie, you’ve a lifetime of experience, teaching, and organizing the Sinful Ladies’ Society, and, well, all of the other things you’ve done.” Mary-Alice didn’t know all the things Gertie had done, but suspected there was more to her resume than schoolteacher and ladies’ club officer. “I believe you may have given us some very good guidance, Miss Gertie, even if you didn’t intend to.”
“Well my goodness, Mary-Alice, if you’re going to flatter me like that, who am I to argue?”
Gertie and Mary-Alice headed down the hallway to Menard’s spotless bedroom. (It was as neat as the others, but there were clothes hanging in the closet.)
“So you like Menard for the murder?” she asked Fortune, who was methodically going through the kitchen cabinets. “I thought you weren’t convinced he had enough of a motive.”
Fortune shrugged a shoulder as she ran her hands around the edges of the shelves.
“Who knows? He doesn’t stand to inherit. And he must’ve known that whatever he was doing was going to be exposed when Deale was killed. On the other hand, there’s jealousy—”
A whoop from down the hallway interrupted them. Fortune and Ida Belle ran into the bedroom to find Mary-Alice propping up the queen-sized mattress with all her strength as Gertie pulled one thin notebook after another out from underneath it. They counted ten in all. The lot fit easily into Gertie’s new handbag.
“Miss Gertie, should we really take them?” Mary-Alice asked, a little shocked. “I mean to say, having a little peek’s one thing, but stealing...”
“Mary-Alice, this is for the greater good,” Gertie tapped her bag emphatically. “These notebooks might contain the key to this murder.”
“I say we quit while we’re ahead,” Fortune said. “It’s getting late, and Menard might—”
Fortune’s phone began to ring from somewhere on her person. It took her a few minutes of searching all the pockets on the bogus exterminator’s uniform before she found it and pulled it out. Her eyes widened in horror, but she lifted the phone to her ear and purred,
“Carter! What a pleasant surprise! Are you out of the hospital already?”
“Carter!” Gertie and Ida Belle mouthed at each other.
“Well, this is awkward,” Gertie whispered.
A clicking at the front door caught their attention.
“No, this is awkward,” Ida Belle hissed back as she fumbled at the bedroom window. “Menard’s home. Come on, move!”
Mary-Alice and Gertie quickly straightened up the bed as Ida Belle and Fortune eased open the biggest window in the bedroom. Fortunately, it happened to open onto Menard’s secluded backyard.
Fortune managed to keep most of the exertion out of her voice as she teetered on the window ledge then and jumped to clear the neatly-trimmed bushes just beneath the window.
“Oh, nothing,” she said casually into the phone as she reached up her free hand to ease Ida Belle down over the thorny hedge. Ida Belle then held the phone to Fortune’s ear so she could continue her conversation while helping Mary-Alice and Gertie down with both hands.
“Of course not,” Fortune breathed as she reached over and pulled the window shut. “What kind of trouble do you think we could’ve gotten into in the last three hours?”
The ladies took one last peek into the bedroom to make sure everything was as they’d found it (it was). Gertie hefted her handbag to make sure she still had it with her. A neighbor, looking out the window, would have seen four jumpsuit-clad exterminators sauntering out from between the two houses and back to their car. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.
“Oh, we decided to go into Lake Charles for lunch,” Fortune cooed into the phone as she unlocked the Jeep and let the ladies in. “We had some great muffulettas. And then we had a nice stroll around to walk off the calories. In fact we’re just starting back to Sinful now.”
“Am I on speaker?” Carter’s tinny voice asked over the speaker phone as Fortune started up the Jeep, and the other three ladies attempted to zip themselves out of their exterminator suits without unbuckling their seatbelts.
“Yes, because I’m driving,” Fortune replied. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” Carter’s tone was dangerously calm. Mary-Alice and Gertie exchanged a nervous glance in the back seat.
“I just got an interesting phone call,” he went on. “From the firm of McIlvaney and Pine. They told me a couple of nice ladies claiming to be friends of Harriet’s stopped by the firm of this afternoon, asking about files related to the Deale murder.”
“Gosh, that’s terrible,” Fortune said. “I hope they weren’t taken in by such a transparent ruse.”
“No, they weren’t. They told me the two ladies seemed completely harmless, probably a couple of well-meaning amateur detectives. But they wanted to let me know.”
“Amateur!” Gertie objected. Ida Belle turned back to glare at Gertie and make a furious shushing motion.
“Well shame on them for bothering you when you’re still in the hospital,” Fortune said.
“I know Florentin Menard’s residence isn’t far from McIlvaney and Pine,” Carter went on. “Please stay away from Menard’s house.”
“We will,” Fortune said. “I promise. I told you, we’re driving back to...”
Fortune’s voice trailed off as the sound of sirens caught her attention.
“Do I hear sirens?” Carter demanded.
“Yes.” Fortune’s voice had lost its confidence. “There’s a fire.”
Although the fire was a few miles away, they could see black smoke billowing over a sinister orange glow.
“A fire? Where?”
Carter’s voice was tense.
“Fortune?”
Fortune was shaking her head.
“We’re too far away to be sure,” she said.
“But...?”
“It’s in the neighborhood where McIlvaney and Pine are located.”
“I can’t believe it,” Mary-Alice whispered. “We were just—”
She caught herself, but Carter had heard her.
“You were just there. I know.”
“She meant to say we were just talking about them,” Gertie objected. “We never admitted to going there. And we certainly didn’t set any fires today.”
A deafening blast rocked the Jeep up onto two wheels. It came down with a suspension-straining bump.
Ida Belle patted her white hair back into place. “Well. It certainly seems someone did.”