| |
AS THE THREE GIRLS approached Louanne Boudreaux’s house along the bayou, Ida Belle felt herself truly relaxing for the first time since her return to Sinful.
Louanne was technically Marge’s aunt, but she’d always felt like a second mother to Ida Belle after her own mother passed. Though Marge’s and Gertie’s moms both meant well and tried to provide some mothering to her throughout the years, it was Louanne whom she’d clicked with the most.
The property was more like a compound, with a main house, a separate photo lab, a guesthouse where Ida Belle had often spent the night during leaves, a greenhouse, and a shed. She guided the boat and secured it to Louanne’s dock. As she, Gertie and Marge made their way toward the main house, Ida Belle spotted a family of ceramic frogs lining the path, as if guiding them. They’d been a gift from her mother to Louanne a year before she’d died. Her mother had been a talented artist and the frogs had been her first attempt at ceramics. She could feel that familiar lump in her throat whenever she spotted the frogs, as if her mom were saying, “hi” from Heaven. Ida Belle tipped her head at them as she always did.
Gertie spoke, breaking her reverie. “I wonder whether Louanne has any company staying with her.”
Marge frowned. “When are you going to give up your crush on him? He’s as old as your dad.”
“I do not have a crush on him,” Gertie said, rapping Marge on the head with her knuckle.
“You most certainly do,” Ida Belle said, stopping a potential rap on her head with a threatening look to Gertie.
The man in question would be Col. Cole Parker, Louanne’s boyfriend and a former superior of theirs during their intelligence work in Vietnam. He’d met Louanne during World War II when they both served as military spies, and they’d had an on/off romantic relationship ever since. Currently they were in their “on” period. Cole stayed with Louanne when his undercover work with the FBI allowed.
The more pious of Sinful’s residents, including both Marge’s and Gertie’s mothers, were quick to judge Louanne and Cole “cohabitatin’” outside of marriage. Ida Belle certainly didn’t see anything wrong with a woman enjoying the company of a man without the trappings of a marriage. In her view, men had a way of scrambling women’s brains when they lived in close proximity for too long.
Nope. Not for her. No matter how many times she had to say no to Walter’s proposals. She’d seen many a woman give up her dreams of independence by putting her own life on hold while helping her man fulfill his dreams. She’d seen it in her own mother, who’d had artistic inclinations and probably could have pursued art had her own parents allowed her to go to art school. Instead, she married and supported Ida Belle’s father as he advanced into supervisory positions on the oil rigs. Young Ida Belle had made a vow early on never to put herself second.
Marge signaled for them to stop. Whispered, “Who do you supposed that is?”
Ida Belle followed Marge’s gaze to an older woman sitting on a bench knitting. Or, rather, handcuffed to the bench knitting. Patton, Louanne’s large, white dog, was asleep on the ground next to her. His head ticked up when he realized there was company approaching.
“Probably a bail skipper,” Gertie whispered back.
Patton barked, then sprang up and rushed to the girls, his tail wagging.
The woman looked up and smiled. “Omigoodness, you three must be Louanne’s girls. Now don’t tell me, let me see if I can guess. Ida Belle is the tall blonde with the blue eyes,” she said, pointing her knitting needle with her free arm toward Ida Belle. She then swung her arm toward Gertie, then Marge. “Gertie, the brunette, is dressed like she’s ready to go dancing on Bandstand, and Marge, hair dark as charcoal, favors denim cutoffs and T-shirts.”
Ida Belle ran her hand through Patton’s white fur and nodded. “Are those handcuffs a fashion choice, or to keep you from running off?”
“I suppose to keep me from running, though I think they look rather stunning on me.”
“You’re one of my aunt’s prisoners?” Marge asked as Patton made the rounds of licking at all their hands.
The woman nodded. “I’m Gabby Riggs and I’m wanted for the attempted murder of my husband. In my mind, I should be wanted on suspicion of finally standing up for myself. But, the state of Louisiana took offense that I stood up for myself with an axe. He’s a mean son of a gun, but he’s also a judge, which means they were doubly offended. So even though I just chopped a portion of his buttocks off, attempted murder it is.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and chuckled. “Attempted. Hah. If I wanted him dead, I’d have given him one well-placed whack and he’d be gone. Trust me, it does not take forty whacks of an axe to do someone in. Lizzie Borden wasted her energy.” She held up her knitting. “What color do you think I should make the stripe on this cap? Yellow or lavender?”
“Yellow,” Gertie said. “Did your husband deserve getting some of his behind whacked off?”
Gabby nodded. “Very much so.”
“Then welcome to Sinful, Gabby,” Gertie said, grinning. “Any idea where we can find Louanne Boudreaux?”
“Well, I suppose you can find her inside.” Gabby tipped her head toward the house. “She said she needed a little nap.”
Gertie glanced at Ida Belle with a mischievous look in her eyes. “Oh, she’s sleeping. Sure would be a shame if someone were to surprise her and bring her out of that nice, peaceful nap.”
Ida Belle nodded. In the early days of their spy training, the three girls were regularly awakened by Louanne, who’d said they needed to be able to go from a dead sleep to action in five seconds. Louanne had seemed to take a certain amount of glee when she’d burst into their room and shout, “Up, up! Hit the showers, now!” The first few times she’d done that the three girls were so disoriented they ran into the showers with their nightgowns on.
“Oh, I don’t think Miss Louanne would appreciate your barging in on her,” Gabby said. “Like I said, she’s taking a NAP.”
“I know she wouldn’t appreciate it,” said Marge, grinning. She looked at Ida Belle and Gertie. “Race ya.”
Ida Belle was always the quickest of the three and so was the first to rush through the front door of Louanne Boudreaux’s three-bedroom shotgun house and straight through to the end of the long hallway, where Louanne’s master bedroom suite was situated.
She burst into the bedroom first, followed a few seconds later by Marge. There they found a naked Louanne Boudreaux and an equally naked Cole Parker, spooning on top of the bedsheets. At least they had been spooning. Now they were scrambling to slip under the sheets.
Gertie arrived moments later, her voice calling from behind them, “Hit the showers! Hit the showers! My damn shoe slipped off. What’d I miss?”
She wedged her way between her two friends. “Oh.”
Ida Belle overcame her shock and placed her hand over her eyes. “We’ll wait outside.”
“That’d be advisable,” Louanne said, clutching at the sheet now shielding her body from them.
Ida Belle turned to leave and found that Marge had already backed out of the room. Gertie, on the other hand, was staring at Louanne and Cole.
“You may leave, soldier,” Cole said.
“Uh-huh,” Gertie said, seemingly hypnotized.
“As in leave,” Louanne said.
Ida Belle grabbed Gertie by the arm and pulled her out of the room.
“That sheet was pretty thin,” Gertie whispered as she and Ida Belle made their way to the front of the house, “but it looked to me like they were buck naked.”
“That’s because they were,” Ida Belle whispered back.
“Damn shoe,” Gertie said. “I always miss the good stuff. So what’d you think of him? Naked, I mean.”
Ida Belle shot her an incredulous look. “He was our first commanding officer.”
“Yes, and I bet he looked extra special commanding without his boxer shorts.”
Ida Belle shook her head.
“Like you never wondered,” Gertie shot back as they joined Marge who was standing on the front porch with her head lowered.
“There’s no unringing that bell,” Marge said, staring at the ground.
“Just out of curiosity, was it a small, medium or large bell?” Gertie asked. “Don’t give me that look, Marge.”
Ida Belle strode over to Louanne’s prisoner, who was calmly knitting. “You could have told us she was with a man.”
“Well, I told you she wouldn’t want you to disturb her.” Gabby held up her knitting needle. “Well, hell’s bells, girls, what did you think I meant when I said she was taking a nap?”
Marge shot up from the bench and stormed over. “That she was taking a nap!”
“I do recall winking when I said the word, ‘nap.’ Where I come from that means there’s a little hanky-panky going on.”
Louanne stepped outside from the house wrapped in a silky robe. She held out her arms. “My girls have returned!” She then shot a look at Gabby. “A little heads-up might have been nice.”
Gabby shrugged. “Not my fault they don’t understand what a wink means. Younger generation. You have to spell everything out for them.”
Louanne swooped in and gave each girl a big hug. “So did you get the place?”
Ida Belle shook her head.
Louanne frowned. “Wade Guillory didn’t choose you three? Oh, he is going to hear from me.”
“Good luck with that. He’s dead,” Marge said.
“Dead?”
“You haven’t heard?” Ida Belle asked. Which was odd, because not much happened in Sinful without Louanne being the first to know.
“We found him dead at the rental when we went to look at the place this morning,” Gertie said. “He was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Louanne said, furrowing her brows.
“I didn’t do it,” Gabby said from her spot on the bench. “In case anyone was wondering.”
“The phone rang about an hour ago,” Louanne said. “Probably someone calling to spread the news. I ignored it because Cole and I were... napping.”
Just then the door swung open and Cole, dressed in jeans and buttoning up the last button of a pressed blue cotton shirt, stepped outside. He no longer sprouted his military crewcut, having abandoned the military look when he retired from the Army several years back. His blond hair had now grown out and he sported a mustache. Yep, he was movie-star handsome. Much like her Walter, who looked a little like Paul Newman. Ida Belle blushed. Did she just think of Walter as “her Walter”?
The three girls stood at attention.
“At ease,” Cole said, walking down the porch steps. “And you no longer have to do that. We’re all civilians now.”
“Yes, sir,” Marge said, averting her eyes from him.
There was an awkward silence as no one wanted to make eye contact, except for Gertie, who couldn’t stop staring at Cole.
Finally, Cole cleared his throat. “Well, I have to be heading out. Duty calls.” He kissed Louanne goodbye. “I’ll be back in two weeks.”
Louanne waved goodbye as Cole backed out of her garage and drove down her private road toward the main highway.
“He just popped in for the day,” Louanne said. “He wouldn’t say, but I suspect he’s on an undercover assignment.” Though she smiled, Ida Belle could see Louanne’s eyes glistening. Her relationship with Cole may not have been cemented in marriage, but she loved him just the same and worried about him when he went on an assignment.
Louanne sighed and switched gears. “I just made a batch of sweet tea. And there’s some leftover coffee cake that Gabby made for breakfast this morning. Feel like getting me caught up?”
Gabby cleared her throat. “I’m thinking of making a dewberry pie tonight with all these wild berries you have growing around here.”
“That would be lovely, Gabby,” Louanne said.
The fugitive looked down at her cuffs. “Hard to do while cuffed to the bench.”
Louanne sighed. “You won’t try to run, will you?”
Gabby rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake, it’s the season finale of Bonanza tonight.” She sighed and looked at Ida Belle. “If I’m lucky, Little Joe Cartwright will take his shirt off.”
After Louanne removed Gabby’s cuff from the bench, she ushered the girls inside the house. Once they were seated with glasses of sweet tea and an assortment of cookies made by her prisoner, Marge gave a nod of her head back outside and asked what she knew Ida Belle and Gertie were thinking. “I take it you have no intention of returning Gabby back to the authorities.”
“What makes you say that?” Louanne asked.
“Well, let’s see,” Ida Belle said. “She took an axe to her husband in self-defense. Her husband’s a judge, meaning she won’t receive a fair trial. You just uncuffed her, for cripe’s sake.”
Gertie held up a cookie. “And these are the best pecan praline cookies I’ve ever had. And I’ve never seen your kitchen so spotless and your living room so well-dusted. She’d make someone a fine housekeeper.”
“You should try her gumbo,” Louanne said. “But I fully intend to return her to the judicial system.” Her lips turned up slightly. “But she is stronger than she looks. Should she overpower me one day and make a run for it, well that can’t be helped.” She retrieved a spiral notebook from a shelf filled with spiral notebooks. “Now, let’s get down to business. You want the skinny on Wade Guillory.”
The three nodded.
The notebook was one of Louanne’s “spy books,” notes she’d kept throughout the years of Sinful residents and their comings and goings. She’d always told the three she continued her surveillance to help keep her spy skills sharpened. But they all knew deep down she was just a snoop.
“As you know,” Louanne said, opening the notebook and flipping through the pages, “I went to see Wade last night at the rental to persuade him to rent to you.”
Ida Belle nodded. The notebooks also helped when Louanne needed to “persuade” someone to do what she wanted.
“Turns out, Wade has a weak spot. One Sunday several months back, Philomena discovered the tithing envelope she’d made out the night before and was about to deposit in the church plate was empty. She chewed him out in front of the entire congregation. Got him to promise in front of Pastor Ed and God that he would give up gambling.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Something tells me you discovered Wade lied to God.”
“Well, I knew you might need a little bit of an edge in your search for a suitable rental, so I kept tabs on Wade for two weeks last month. A little undercover trip to the Swamp Bar revealed the fact that Wade hadn’t given up his gambling as he’d promised his wife. I got a few photos of him with a small stack of chips and a face filled with worry. I picked the best shot of the bunch and showed it to him last night. I told him I had another photo and was going to share with his wife.”
“You blackmailed him?” Marge asked.
“I wouldn’t call it blackmail,” Louanne said, a note of indignation in her voice. “I would never really show it to Philly. So technically, it’s not blackmail. But it did get his attention.”
“No, I think it’s still blackmail,” Ida Belle said.
Louanne ignored her and sighed. “I’m sure Wade didn’t want to be known as the man who broke a promise to his dying wife.” She sighed. “Poor gal. She was definitely the brains of that relationship. They were living a nice life all because of her. Too bad her dying days had to be stuck with a two-timing loser like Wade.”
“What’s wrong with Philomena?” Gertie asked.
“Leukemia. Her doctor gave her six months. That was several months ago.”
Ida Belle blew out a breath. “She seemed just fine when we were here on leave last year.”
Louanne shook her head. “Well, that was a year ago. Life can sour on a dime. Of course, Wade doesn’t know I wouldn’t tell her, so he caved pretty quickly.”
“Did you happen to see Bonnie Cotton while you were there?” Marge asked. “We found a hair clip of hers at the rental this morning. She was the one who found Wade and said it must have slipped off as she was running out.”
“But I know she wasn’t wearing it this morning,” Gertie said.
“In fact, I did see her there,” Louanne said. “When I arrived, I saw her entering the house and waited for her to leave before I went inside. That was about 6:00.”
“Did you hear what they were talking about?” Ida Belle asked.
More indignation crept into Louanne’s voice. “Are you asking if I crouched outside the window and listened in on their private conversation?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What kind of spy would I be if I didn’t listen in?” Louanne asked, shaking her head. “She was there delivering some cabinet pulls, and he reminded her of the times they’d had together. He wondered if she wouldn’t consider another go with him.”
Marge whistled. “So they had an affair in the past? Now it’s getting interesting.”
Louanne lifted her brows. “Affair’s not the word I’d use. I doubt she really wanted his attention. She certainly didn’t want it last night because she told him she had a boyfriend. He said that it seemed to him that she had two, so why not make it three?”
“She has two boyfriends?” asked Ida Belle.
Louanne shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a reason to keep up with Bonnie’s love life, so I have no intel on that. She denied it, but Wade seemed pretty certain there was another guy, and suggested that it would be a shame if her main boyfriend found out she had another one on the side. He also accused her of being a ‘Mrs. Robinson.’ I took that to mean the side boyfriend was much younger than Bonnie. It was then she said she had to run and scooted out of there. When I spoke with Wade after Bonnie left, I may have tossed in a suggestion that he leave Bonnie alone.”
“But Bonnie didn’t know you overheard everything and told him that,” Ida Belle said. “She may have had enough and come back later to kill him to keep him from blabbing about everything.”
“She knew you were there last night,” Gertie added. “Wade went home for dinner and called Bonnie to say he spoke with you and that he was going to rent to us. Bonnie seemed quick to point that out, hinting that you could have murdered him.”
Marge snickered. “Yeah, before she remembered you were my aunt. I’ll bet you anything she mentioned that to Sheriff Lee. I’d be expecting a visit from him or Deputy Broussard.”
Louanne smiled. “Wouldn’t be the first time those boys suspected me of something.”
“Sheriff Lee just hates it that a girl makes better moonshine than he does,” Ida Belle said.
Louanne shook her head. “Not anymore. My bounty hunter business has taken off mightily and I just don’t have the time to tend my still. So right now, his rotgut is the best of Sinful.”
Gertie reached for a cookie from the tray. “I heard Paul Corbett was mad that Wade decided to rent to us and not him.”
Louanne pursed her lips. “Hmmmm.” She flipped back several pages of her spy notebook and tapped on the page. “Paul’s a hothead, that’s for sure. I had a run-in with him at the General Store. I had to knock him in the head with a can of peas when he took a swing at Big Eddie. He said Big Eddie had shortchanged him. He said he gave Big Eddie a twenty when he really gave him a ten. He tried to pull that once at the café.”
“Is he hotheaded enough to murder someone?” Marge asked.
Louanne shrugged. “He did do some time for assault in his early twenties. But if he wanted to murder anyone, it would be me. My clunking him with a can of peas made the Sinful Times gossip column. He was the butt of jokes for weeks.”
“What do you have on Dolly Harkins?” Ida Belle asked. “Bonnie said Dolly wasn’t too pleased with how Mr. Guillory stuffed her cat.”
Louanne rolled her eyes. “Yes. Crackers. Dumb name for a cat. Her dog’s name is Cheese. Even dumber. She raised a stink about the way he stuffed Crackers, but as far as I know, she never tried to sue him. Dolly got divorced about a year ago and her husband moved to Lafayette. No kids. Just Cheese and Crackers, although Crackers now just sits in her bedroom window. Apparently, Wade’s work on Crackers didn’t stop Dolly from working for Wade. She takes care of his sick wife.”
“That’s odd,” Ida Belle said.
Louanne shrugged. “Dolly used to work for a home health aide service, so not really. But if you ask me, Dolly gave Wade an ultimatum. Either pay me for the bad stuffing job or hire me. He chose to get something for his money.”
“Anything else unusual about her?”
Louanne smiled. “That woman is a bundle of unusual. I caught her lurking around Wade’s street one night. She about had a heart attack when I came up behind her and said ‘hello.’ I had this feeling she was hiding something. It was before he hired her, so maybe she was just harassing him. As far as I know, she and Wade have been civil to each other since her employment.”
Louanne thought a moment and got up from her chair and retrieved a thin, Sinful directory sitting next to her telephone. She opened it and flipped through a few pages. “And another thing,” she said, smiling. “Dolly lives one street over from the rental, almost directly behind it. There’s a wooded area that ends at the bayou, separating the two houses.”
After finishing their cookies and tea and absorbing all the current dirt Louanne had on Sinful residents, the three girls got up to leave.
“Do you mind if I ask why you three are taking it upon yourselves to try to solve this crime?” Louanne asked as she walked with them to the door. “Why would you take this on when you’ve just spent ten years spying and sleuthing around Vietnam? You’d think you’d want to take it easy and—” And then Louanne stopped. She got it. “Never mind. I understand. I’m a bounty hunter for criminy sakes.”
Louanne opened the door. Deputy Oscar Broussard stood on the porch with his fist held in the air, ready to knock. Gabby stood beside him, an apology written on her face.
“I told this lawman you were busy with your niece and her friends,” Gabby said, a handcuff dangling from one of her wrists. “But no, he just—”
Deputy Broussard spoke over Gabby. “Miss Louanne Boudreaux, I’ve been sent here by Sheriff Lee. We have reason to believe that you are involved in the murder of one Wade Guillory.”