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GERTIE STARED AT THE Dalmatian whose gaze was fixed on the fire hydrant sitting just outside the glass window.
“They really should dust old Spot,” Gertie whispered to Marge and Ida Belle, who were seated next to her on the plastic waiting-room chairs. In addition to serving as a property manager for Sinful Real Estate, Wade Guillory was also Sinful’s premier taxidermist.
The three had been instructed to assemble at the taxidermy shop at ten that morning so Mr. Guillory could drive them to the three-bedroom rental for a tour. If Louanne’s talk with him the night before was a success, their tour would also include a lease signing.
Gertie reached over to the stuffed dog and wiped her finger across the top of his head. “They probably haven’t dusted him since Mr. Guillory brought him to Career Day our last year of high school.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “If you ask me, it’s a little cruel to have a dog spend eternity staring at a fire hydrant he can’t use. I don’t like that.”
“I don’t like how Paul Corbett is here, but Mr. Guillory isn’t,” Gertie said. She glanced at Mr. Guillory’s inner office, visible to the waiting room by a pane of glass, where Guillory’s assistant, Bonnie Cotton, was handing over a set of keys to Paul Corbett.
“She’d better not be giving Paul the keys to our house.”
Paul shoved the keys in his pocket. Before leaving Bonnie’s office, he shot an angry glance at them through the glass window.
“By the looks he’s giving us, I’d say those are the keys to the two-bedroom,” Ida Belle said, grinning. “Whatever Louanne held over Mr. Guillory, looks like it worked. I love that look on a man’s face when he realizes a female got something he wanted. Doesn’t happen very often, but when it does...”
“It’s groovy,” Gertie said, finishing her thought.
Paul opened the door to Bonnie’s office and stormed out.
“Good morning, Paul,” Gertie chirped as he stomped into the waiting room and stopped to shoot them all another ugly look. Gertie sighed. “Look, I can tell you’re upset, and I think I know why. I can understand how you wanted the three-bedroom and I’m sorry if it makes you sore you didn’t get it. But I know you two lovebirds will adore that cozy two-bedroom on Oakdale.”
He shot an extra-long glare at Gertie. “You should be sorry. That three-bedroom should have been ours.”
“I’m not sorry,” Ida Belle said. “There are three of us and two of you.”
“I’m not sorry either,” Marge said. “Stop being such a big baby about it.”
Paul jabbed his finger at Marge to make his point. “This town would have been better off if the three of you never came back.”
Gertie noticed his finger was shaking. He stormed to the glass door and shoved it open. Gertie called out to him. “Oh, Paul, on second thought...”
He tossed a glance back at her as he stepped outside. Gertie combined a wave goodbye with a middle-finger salute, raising it high in the air for added effect.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am we got the house and I can be out from under my mama’s thumb,” Gertie said, watching as Paul squealed away in his car. “After you two left last night, I found out she opened the box I shipped home. You know what she did? She burned my Janis Joplin Cheap Thrills album. And I specifically wrote on the outside of the box, ‘Don’t open this, Mama.’” Gertie felt her lip shaking. “She took a little piece of my heart and tossed it in the church bonfire a week before we came home.”
“Bonnie’s coming,” Marge said as she straightened in her chair.
Gertie glanced up at the office window to see Bonnie Cotton walking toward the door to the waiting room. “It’s about time.”
Bonnie stepped out, a look of concern on her face. Gertie jumped up from her chair. “What? What’s wrong?”
Bonnie smiled. “Why, nothing Gertie. At least, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Gertie groaned. “Oh, great. Paul gets a house and we get nothing.”
Ida Belle stood. “Let her talk. Is there a problem with the three-bedroom?”
“Is that why Mr. Guillory’s not here?” Marge asked.
Bonnie shook her head. “No, it’s yours. I spoke with Wade last night. He told me he had a talk with Louanne Boudreaux and decided to rent the three-bedroom to y’all.”
“Buuuut,” Gertie said.
“Well, it turns out he never came home last night. But—” Bonnie added quickly upon hearing Gertie releasing a painful moan, “that in itself is not unusual. I just got off the phone with his wife, Philomena. She said he came home for dinner and went back to the rental because he had more work to do. She said he sometimes gets so busy with maintenance work on the rentals that he works late into the evening and stays overnight. He probably worked so late that he’s still asleep over at the house.”
Gertie could feel her pulse slowing. “Okay, sounds plausible.”
Bonnie held up a pair of car keys. “Why don’t I just drive us all over and we’ll meet Wade there?”
* * * * *
THE TWO-STORY BLUE and white Victorian was everything Marge had hoped it would be. A front porch with a swing. Room for two cars in the driveway, space out front for a third. When they got cars. That would be the first order of business after signing the papers for the house.
“Do you like it?” Marge asked Gertie, who appeared so happy she was about to cry.
Gertie nodded. “It would only be more perfect if it was surrounded by an alligator-infested moat and a drawbridge that would automatically pull up when my Mama stops by.” Gertie glanced at Bonnie. “She’s a bit overprotective.”
Ida Belle opened the front gate of the white-picket fence and entered the property, the others following behind. “Well, I can see why Paul Corbett was upset. This place looks great. At least from the outside.”
“Upset is putting it mildly,” Bonnie said. “When Mr. Guillory called to say he decided to rent to you three, he indicated he’d just gotten off the phone with Ellie. She was livid. They’re newlyweds, you know.”
“Yeah, we know,” Ida Belle said, sounding annoyed. “Us single gals always get the leftovers. But not this time.”
“Well, I hear you on that point,” Bonnie said as she closed the gate. “I have about twenty years on you three, and I never married, so I know how hard it can be. Sometimes a single girl just has to make her own way. I did. Without women’s lib, I might add. I own my own house, you know.”
“You got a loan all by yourself?” Marge asked.
“Well, no, my father is also on the mortgage.”
Marge rolled her eyes. “Just what I thought. In Louisiana, women don’t hold much sway unless they have a man somewhere. But the world’s starting to change, and pretty soon Sinful will have to change with it.”
Bonnie held up her hands. “You’re lecturing to the choir, Marge Boudreaux. I don’t want to hear it. Besides, I already got an earful from Paul Corbett when he came in to pick up the keys to the two-bedroom.”
They walked up the steps to the porch and Bonnie retrieved the key from her purse.
“Looks like it’s open,” Ida Belle said as they approached the door, which was slightly ajar.
Bonnie rapped lightly on it with her knuckles. “Mr. Guillory? I have the three girls to see the house. Hello?”
Bonnie waited a moment but didn’t hear a response. “Hello?” She rapped again. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Mr. Guillory?”
Marge glanced at the porch swing off to the side and felt herself grinning. After ten years of working dangerous missions abroad, that porch swing was going to get lots of attention from her. “Aunt Louanne outdid herself this time,” she whispered to Ida Belle and Gertie. Marge glanced at the doorknob. “Though we’ll have to get better locks.”
Gertie raised a brow.
“What?” Marge asked.
“We’re not in Vietnam anymore,” Gertie said gently. “All we have to worry about now is your average Sinful kook. And a kook is no match for the training we have.”
“I don’t like to take chances,” Marge said.
Nothing wrong with locks, she thought. She’d made the mistake of not securing her quarters one time. Didn’t turn out well for the double agent who had murder on his mind, but it was a mistake she wasn’t going to repeat.
Ida Belle peered inside the doorway into the living room. “It looks fully furnished. I wonder what Louanne held over Mr. Guillory to get him to choose us over Ellie and Paul.”
Marge shrugged. “Aunt Louanne never holds something over someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
Gertie waved them both off. “I don’t care what she threatened him with.” She sighed and gazed around the property. “It’s ours for the next three months. I’m going to celebrate by buying another pair of hip huggers. And I’m watching Laugh-In and listening to Janis Joplin over and over again and my mom can’t stop me.” Gertie shivered with excitement and clapped. “Thank you, Louanne!”
The celebration was cut short by a shriek from inside the house. Seconds later, Bonnie ran outside, her face horror stricken. “Blood,” she managed to whisper, before collapsing on the porch.
“Crap,” Ida Belle said. She opened her purse and grabbed a pistol. Marge did the same. “Stay with her,” Ida Belle said to Gertie.
Marge and Ida Belle crept cautiously through the doorway and entered the living room. Ida Belle pointed to a swinging butler door that led to another room, most likely a kitchen. As the two neared the door they noticed a stream of blood that had oozed under it. “Cover me,” Ida Belle whispered to Marge as she pushed through to the kitchen. A man was face down in a bloody pool on the linoleum floor, his right hand outstretched as if trying to reach for the door.
“Oh, God,” Marge whispered after her eyes settled on the man’s other hand and the long nail sticking out the back of it. Then she noticed all the other nails stuck in his body.
Ida Belle reached down and felt the man’s neck. “He’s dead.”