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IT WAS NEARLY SUNSET by the time Mary-Alice and Almira left the sheriff’s office.
“May I drive you home, dear?”
Almira pulled the scratchy brown blanket tight around her.
“Yes,” she said, finally. “Thank you.”
Mary-Alice started walking in the direction of her house. Almira followed her.
“Is there someone I can call?”
Almira shook her head.
“It’s just Rochelle at home. My daughter-in-law. Tristan’s not coming home until tomorrow.”
“Tristan?”
“Our son. He’s in the Air Force.”
“Goodness, you must be very proud. I didn’t know you had a grown son.”
“Yeah, I was young. Only twenty-one when he was born.”
Mary-Alice had married Joe Arceneaux when she was nineteen. “Better late than never” had been her mother’s comment on the timing.
Mary-Alice turned off the main road toward her house. Almira hesitated, then followed. Mary-Alice supposed the driveway did look a little spooky, with the shadows lengthening and the cypress trees looming on either side. She made a note to ask Boon St. Clair about getting lights installed.
“Almost there, dear. Watch where you step, it’s a little bumpy after the last rain. How did you meet your husband?”
“I was a sophomore in Professor Whitbread’s women’s literature class. He was thirty-two and married. He had us reading Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman and all this first-wave feminism stuff, and yet we managed to enact this perfect patriarchal cliché. You know, I had no sympathy for his wife. Not back then, anyway. Karma, huh?”
Mary-Alice nodded. While she didn’t know all the references Almira was making, she understood the gist.
“There’s nothing new under the sun, is there? Father Michael said it just last Sunday. Ecclesiastes, I believe. Ah, here we are.”
Mary-Alice switched on the light. Her dark-green Oldsmobile 88 gleamed under the carport’s fluorescent tubing. Lumber and paint buckets were stacked against one wall and covered with a translucent tarp.
“Mary-Alice, can you stay for dinner? It’s just going to be me and Rochelle. I don’t think I can face her by myself.”
Almira looked greenish and wretched in the harsh light. Mary-Alice could read the faded letters stenciled on the rough blanket. Calcasieu Parish Emergency Services. The poor woman.
“That’s very kind. Just a minute.” Mary-Alice fumbled in her purse. “Let me make a quick call.”
Mary-Alice walked a discreet distance away and started to dial Gertie’s number. But just as the phone started ringing, Mary-Alice recalled Celia had sent her out of town. And Fortune, too.
She called Ida Belle next. Fortunately, Ida Belle answered her phone. Unfortunately, she was even more brusque than usual.
“Oh, Ida Belle,” Mary-Alice faltered. “You sound like you’re busy. I don’t want to bother you.”
“Mary-Alice! Sorry, I thought you were Gertie. I wouldn’t have used that kind of language if I’d known it was you. What’s going on?”
“Gertie’s friend Almira seems to have lost her husband in the bayou.”
“Aw, crap. She had to do that now?”
“She’s asked me to drive her home and stay for dinner. I just wanted to let you know what happened and where I was going to be.”
“You think she bumped him off and you’re next?”
“Well I didn’t really think of that—”
“Nah, it’s good to be cautious. Are you gonna be alone with her?”
“Her daughter-in-law will be there.”
Ida Belle grunted, and Mary-Alice heard what sounded like a struggle, followed by the snap of a latch being forced shut.
“Ida-Belle, are you packing? Are you leaving town?”
“Packing? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Celia told me she sent Gertie and Fortune to anger management camp. You’re going to go and try to get them out, aren’t you? That’s why you’re packing! Oh, are you bringing a gun?”
Ida Belle waited a few moments to respond.
“Mary-Alice,” she said finally, “your powers of observation are worthy of the Sinful Ladies’ Society. Your discretion, on the other hand—”
“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to be nosy.”
“No, no, nosy is good. Nothing wrong with nosy. Just don’t go saying things out loud. Can anyone hear you?”
Mary-Alice glanced at Almira, who was now shaking out the blanket, unaware it was as dry as it was going to get in the bayou humidity.
“No,” Mary-Alice whispered. “No one can hear me.”
“All right, listen to me, Mary-Alice. Maybe you’re right. This thing wasn’t an accident.”
“Oh no, I never said—”
“So it’s not the worst idea in the world to keep an eye on this Almira woman. Gertie likes her, but Gertie doesn’t always have the best judgment.”
Mary-Alice heard a grunt that sounded like Ida Belle was dragging something heavy. Like a suitcase.
“So where’s her house? Just in case you disappear, I have to know where to tell the sheriff to look for your body.”
Mary-Alice put her hand over the phone and walked over to Almira, who was now folding the damp blanket.
“Almira, where are you staying?”
Almira set the blanket on the ground, patted her pockets, and then closed her eyes and sighed.
“It’s gone. My phone. My purse. I need to replace all my credit cards. Wait. I think I can remember it.”
Almira told Mary-Alice a street name and number.
Mary-Alice scurried away and repeated the address to Ida Belle.
“That’s not far from Marge’s place. Fortune’s place, I mean. Yeah, okay. Worst case, you make a break for it and it’s only a mile or so back to your house.”
“Thank you, Ida Belle. And safe travels.”
“Hmph,” said Ida Belle.
Mary-Alice hung up and returned to Almira.
“Almira dear, I would be delighted to join you for dinner. Here, let me help you in”