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LILA ROSE DID SHOW up. And the way the other Sliders huddled around her in the Mudbug Roller World parking lot, it was obvious she was as popular as ever. Other than our team and the Mudbuggers’ cars, the parking lot was pretty empty since the management had closed the rink early for the Mudbuggers’ practice session.
Gertie groaned as she got out of my Jeep.
“I told you not to wear your original uniform,” Ida Belle said. “You’ve gained a couple inches. Your shorts are too tight.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my shorts.” Gertie glanced at me. “She’s just mad she got rid of hers. You know, this uniform has gone up close and personal with some of the best women skaters of the seventies and eighties.” Gertie yanked at the seat of her tight shorts and gave them a good, strong tug.
I shook my head and whispered to Ida Belle. “Up close and personal is putting it mildly.”
The other Sliders were all dressed to skate, some in yoga pants, others in shorts. Lila Rose looked up as we approached. “Evening, Ladies.”
“Mrs. Fontaine was telling us all about the new books she’s going to release,” Sinful Slider Ginny said.
Lila Rose shook her head. “Please, ladies, you all know me. I grew up in Sinful. You called me Lila Rose before I became well-known and I expect you to call me that now.” She cocked her head and looked at Gertie. “Dear Lord, Miss Gertie, did you spray-paint your shorts on?”
“These are my official Sinful Sliders’ shorts from eighty-two,” Gertie said, twirling around so they could get a full view of her. And I do mean full.
“We wore shorts that tight?” Opal asked. “No wonder I have a varicose vein problem.”
Edilia shook her head. “You need to let your intestines breathe, honey. I bought a new pair of purple shorts over at the outlet mall in New Orleans today.” She pulled the elastic band several inches away from her stomach. “Made in the good old U.S. of A, too. And if I have a big meal, these shorts will expand with my belly. Those things you have on will get you constipated, mark my words.”
Gertie frowned. “Can we stop focusing on my shorts, please?”
Kitty shrugged, her several-times lifted face smiling broadly. “It’ll be hard not to, but, okay.”
Ida Belle signaled the women to come in closer. “While we’re here practicing, Gertie and I are going to create a little diversion, so Fortune can take a look around the lockers. See if she can find any of that stuff used on the City Hall lawn.”
“What will we do if The Assassin finds anything?” Edilia asked. “Make a citizen’s arrest?”
I held up my hands. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me that.”
“Relish it, sweetie,” Lila Rose said. “It’s not every day a girl can be an assassin.”
“If she finds something we’ll take it to Deputy LeBlanc,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle stepped a few feet away from the group. “Lila Rose, could we have a word with you, please?”
I joined Lila Rose, Janice and Gertie beside Ida Belle. She took a breath before speaking to Lila Rose. “We’d like it if you keep yourself in the shadows.”
“Oh, I intend to. I’m writing a skating character and just want to soak in the ambience of the roller rink. You won’t even know I’m here.”
Lila Rose rejoined the group as Janice hung back. She turned to us. “I hope it’s not an imposition, Miss Ida Belle. Getting out with other people seems to be doing her a world of good.”
Ida Belle softened. “No, no imposition.”
“Thank you,” Janice said, before joining her mother.
Babs gestured toward the entrance. “Why doesn’t The Assassin lead the way?”
Reluctantly, I took the lead. We stepped inside the well-lit roller rink where the women of the Mudbuggers were practicing a move I recognized as the Truck and Trailer from my practice sessions. They were so busy they hadn’t noticed us slip inside. But Jeff noticed us, or rather, me.
“Well, if it isn’t The Assassin.” He waved down at us from an elevated organist’s booth suspended from the rafters. “I’ll be down in a bit. I have some work I’m doing up here.”
This caught the attention of the Mudbuggers on the floor. Tilma broke from her bent-over position demonstrating the Truck and Trailer and skated over to the edge of the track, signaling the other women to join her. Soon they were crowded behind Tilma, glowering at us. The young woman in the back smiled at me. I recognized her from the Facebook photo. All Beef Patty. We were about the same height and she wore her blonde hair in a ponytail like mine. In the Facebook photo she’d been sneering at the camera and wore a dangerous smile. But this smile seemed genuine. I smiled back.
Tilma folded her arms and glared at Ida Belle.
Ida Belle folded hers as well, meeting Tilma’s glare. “I hope you brought your checkbook, so you can write Sinful a check for the damage you caused.”
Tilma shook her head. “You have a lot of nerve. First, none of us have set foot in Sinful. Second, if you meant for those letters to scare Bunny or me from competing in this rematch, you’re wrong.”
“What letters?” Gertie asked.
“What letters?” Tilma said in a mocking tone. She dipped her hand in the pocket of her white cotton shorts and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Ida Belle. “Bunny received a similar one. You can keep it. It’s not the original. That I’m keeping and may show to the police.”
I stood behind Ida Belle and read over her shoulder. Letters had been cut from magazines to form words. The note read: “Revenge will be mine. Watch your backs, ladies.”
Ida Belle turned to her Slider teammates. “Any of you send a threatening letter to Tilma or Bunny?”
They all denied it. Ida Belle turned back to Tilma. “We didn’t send them. How do I know this isn’t one of your stunts to get out of the rematch?”
Tilma cocked her head. “You think I would send myself something like this as an excuse to drop out? You’re crazier than I thought, Ida Belle.”
“I’ll tell you who would do it,” Gertie said. She craned her neck to look over the group of Mudbuggers. “Where’s Bunny? She’d do something like this.”
“Bunny had car trouble and will be here later,” Tilma said. “But if you think she did it, you’re wrong. She wants to compete against you as badly as I do. I want this rematch to finally shut you up. I’m tired of hearing you bellyache about how unfair that last bout was. We won and we’re going to win again. And nothing will stop us.”
Gertie snickered. “Really? We were watching your practice. No offense, Paula,” Gertie said to a woman with salt-and-pepper hair, “but you should strap a pillow around your butt when you skate, because you looked a little shaky. I wouldn’t want you to bruise your wrinkled old caboose.”
Paula pursed her lips.
One of the Mudbuggers looked down at Gertie’s shorts and snickered. “I don’t know what body part that is, but it’s trying to escape your shorts, honey.”
Another Mudbugger stared at Kitty’s pulled-back, frozen smile. “Whoever did that face of yours should be shot.”
Kitty grinned like a madwoman and pointed to the other woman’s belly. “Goodness, Dotty. Expecting at your age?”
“She’s not expecting,” Martha said. “Unless you count expecting her next meal with great anticipation.”
“My mistake,” Kitty said.
Oh dear God, senior trash talk.
As the women lobbed insults at one another, All Beef flicked her head to the left, indicating she wanted to talk with me privately. I moved several yards along the railing and she skated over.
“Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Patty Lawson. You must be The Assassin.”
“You can call me Fortune.” We shook.
“Cool Derby name,” she said. She looked over at the bickering seniors. “Can you believe them? I mean, come on, the match was more than thirty years ago and they’re still fighting about it.”
“So why’d you join them?” I asked.
She pulled off her helmet and fanned at her sweat-drenched blonde hair. “I paint cars for a living and Tilma’s one of my customers. She asked if I skated and I said ‘yes.’ I figured, ‘why not?’ I only moved here about six weeks ago, so I don’t know anyone yet. It’s not like I have friends to spend time with. But, come on, what are we really going to do out there on the skate floor? It’s not like we’re going to knock any of these old ladies down. I figure I’ll just be out there to help them up if they fall.”
I shrugged. “Ida Belle and Gertie are pretty good skaters. I don’t think they’ll be falling much.”
Holding her helmet securely between her knees, All Beef pulled the band off her ragged ponytail, smoothing her hair and rebanding it. “I figure they’ll have fun. That’s the most important thing, right?” She called out to Tilma. “I have to leave now, but I’ll be back here tomorrow night for another practice session.”
Tilma nodded to her. “Good job tonight, All Beef.”
The Mudbuggers cheered her on as she exited the track. I followed her to a bench where she sat and took off her skates. She looked up at me. “So we agree? We’re just out there to help some old ladies have fun? I’m not in this to rough anyone up.”
It could have been a ploy to make me relax my game. Although with my training I could take her out in a heartbeat, and I do mean really take her out. She was pretty good on wheels and knew all the legal Derby moves. Me? I knew the moves they don’t teach in Derby school and if I used them would land me in more than the penalty box. Could I trust her? Maybe not, but since my skating experience amounted to just two days, I wouldn’t mind making her think I was on her side. “Yeah, sure.”
“Hey, and if you need any painting on your car, look me up.” She scooped up a backpack leaning against the ledge of the track, slung it around her shoulders and left through the front entrance.
The Mudbuggers went back to their practice session, so I walked to the benches where the Sliders were now putting on their skates.
Ida Belle looked up at me from the bench and whispered, “We don’t get the track for another half hour, but we’re going to trash talk our way out there for a practice jam. Disappear and go back to the lockers and snoop around a bit. Look for anything that might be out of place.”
I leaned into her. “That letter put a new spin on things. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“I agree,” Ida Belle said. “I believe Tilma when she said she didn’t destroy the Sinful lawn. And we didn’t steal the mascot or send the letters. So why is someone trying to make it look like our teams have pulled pranks?”
She stood, and the others followed suit. They moved over to the railing. Ida Belle leaned forward and shouted, “Are you ladies skating or playing shuffleboard?”
Gertie stepped onto the wood track as the Mudbuggers returned a few insults. “Oh for heaven’s sake, girls, don’t get your granny panties in a bunch. But judging by your moves, if today were the championship jam, we’d win.”
“Like heck you would,” one Mudbugger called out.
Ida Belle placed her hand on her hip. “Care for a practice jam? You pick your best five ladies and we’ll see who’s gotten rusty.”
“Unless you’re chicken,” Gertie said before clucking like a chicken.
Tilma pointed to several women. “Clara, Barbara, Maysie, Sadie and me.”
Ida Belle chose Gertie and three other Sinful Sliders, and they skated into formation. While all the other players were focused on the two teams, I turned and headed for the back.
A voice called out to me before I reached the cashier’s station. “Fortune.” I turned around to find Janice with a panicked look on her face. “I lost my mom.”
“Didn’t she say she was going to walk around the place and soak in the ambience?”
She nodded. “I was hoping to follow her, you know, to make sure she doesn’t go through her transformation.”
She said it as if her mom were a werewolf, instead of someone suffering a dissociative disorder, but I guess for her it felt like her mother was becoming some creature. I wouldn’t want to be this woman for any amount of money.
I looked up at the organist’s booth. “Did you check up there? Maybe she wanted to get an overview of the rink?”
She nodded. “I just came from there. It was empty.”
I touched her shoulder. “I’m going to snoop around in the back of the arena. If I see her, I’ll make sure she’s okay.”
Janice nodded, the look of worry remaining on her face.
“She said she hasn’t lost any time since beginning therapy, right? That’s a good sign.” I didn’t believe that, however, remembering the “Poppy” wink Lila Rose had given me the other day.
She nodded again. “Thanks. I’ll look around here more.” She glanced toward the snack bar that was closed for the night. “Who knows, maybe she broke into the snack bar.”
“Good idea. Go check over there.”
Janice strode toward the northwest corner of the rink while I dashed into the back, where the employee’s break room, skates-for-rent cubby, bathrooms, lockers and changing rooms were located. Jeff had apparently turned off the speakers to the main section of the roller rink, probably at the Mudbuggers’ request, but left them on in the back of the building. Some country song about someone’s woman doing him wrong. I didn’t like having the music blaring, making it hard to hear if footsteps came up behind me. I pulled a lock-pick set out of my backpack and quickly opened and checked the lockers. I knew it was a longshot any of the women would stash grass-killing chemicals in their lockers, but it wouldn’t hurt to look.
Finding nothing unusual, I stepped out into a dimly lit back hall that led to one of the changing rooms where I found more lockers. Again, nothing. When I left the changing room, I heard a faint noise outside, like a shriek, though the loud music made it difficult to hear clearly. The next noise was louder, a thump against the exit door at the end of the hallway. Racing over, I tried to push the door open, but the old wooden door appeared stuck. I pulled the handle to the right to hopefully give the door more space against the frame, then pushed my full weight against it. The door flew open. Bunny LeBeau was lying on the ground several feet away, holding her legs and screaming in pain. A baseball bat sat on the ground next to her.
I rushed over and knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”
She screamed, clutching her legs. I pulled my phone out of my backpack and started to dial 9-1-1. Before I was able to dial the last 1, someone came from behind and tackled me, knocking me to the ground. “You’re due for one ass-whoopin’, lady,” said a voice I recognized as belonging to Lila Rose. The gruffness of it and signature ass whoopin’ phrase signaled that she’d been taken over by her fictional character. “Poppy?”
“Jelly?” she said, thinking I was the sidekick Lila Rose had created for Poppy in her PB&J Murder Mysteries series.
Lila Rose and I let go of one another.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Bunny moaned again. I grabbed my phone from the ground and completed my 9-1-1 call. After I finished I looked at Lila Rose, then at Bunny. “What are you doing here? Please don’t tell me you...”
“What?” she said, horrified. “Of course not! I was checking out the front of the roller rink when I heard someone screaming in the back. I came around and saw a man standing over that gal, beating her with a baseball bat. I tackled him, and we tussled something fierce. He threw me against the door and came at me, but then turned and ran when he heard someone pushing on the door to get out.”
“Which way did he go?”
She pointed toward the bayou. “I tried chasing him through the shrubs, but lost sight of him. Then I came back and saw you and thought you were an accomplice.”
“Did you see him?”
“Damn right I did. I managed to grab at his face and pull down one of his gloves.” She squeezed my shoulders. “And get this, his face and his hands, they—”
Just then the back door flung open and Lila Rose’s daughter, Janice popped her head out. “Mom?” She looked at Bunny and her hand flew to her mouth. “What happened?”
“Bunny was attacked,” I told her. “Your mother stopped the attacker and got a look at him.”
I turned back toward Lila Rose, but she now wore a confused expression.
“Why am I outside?” she asked.
Oh crap.
“Poppy?” I said, hoping there was a trace of Poppy left inside who could give me a description. “It’s me, Jelly. What about his face and his hands. Who attacked Bunny?”
Lila Rose looked over at Bunny. “Oh dear.” Then at me. “I have no idea.”
Soon the paramedics arrived to take Bunny to the hospital. A deputy from the Mudbug Sheriff’s Department also arrived. Bunny told him that a man came out of the shrubbery, knocked her down and began beating her before Lila Rose came out, tackled him and gave chase. As she was starting to slip into pain med loopiness, Bunny told the deputy the man who attacked her was black. It happened so fast she hadn’t gotten a great look at his face, she added, but that didn’t stop her from tossing out a name.
“Andre Cheval. It had to be him.” Bunny’s speech slurred as she succumbed to the drowsiness. “He’s threatened me before. Said he was going to get even.”
I sent Janice in to tell the others. After she left, and we were out of earshot of the deputy, Lila Rose and I discussed our story to get everything consistent. She couldn’t say she had seen the assailant but couldn’t remember doing so. She’d then have to admit that she had a multiple-personality-like disorder.
“That might fly in New Orleans,” she said, “but I don’t think your typical Mudbug deputy will buy it.”
There was also the issue of her fans learning her secret if it got out.
We agreed that she would say she gave chase to the attacker, but never got a look at his face. I would say I was knocked down by Lila Rose because she thought I was an accomplice.
I heard the rumble of many footsteps approaching the door. It burst open and Tilma rushed outside.
“Bunny!”
Tilma ran to the ambulance. The other Mudbuggers barreled through the doorway and joined her. Ida Belle and the Sinful Sliders scurried over to Lila Rose and me, asking questions at once until Ida Belle held up her hand to quiet them.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Why don’t we talk privately about it first?”
I signaled for Ida Belle, Gertie and Janice to join me in a huddle a few feet away from Lila Rose and the other Sliders.
“Edilia’s grandson, right?” we heard Tilma ask loudly. “The one who threatened you?” I was suddenly aware of the faces of the women on the Mudbug team turning and staring at Edilia.
“No,” Edilia said. “Not my Andre. It couldn’t have been him.”
“They’re accusing Andre?” Janice asked. “That’s ridiculous. Andre wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“I’ll make it quick,” I whispered. “I heard a thump against the door and came outside. I saw Lila Rose running away from the scene.”
“So, what happened?” Gertie asked.
“She came outside and saw a man standing over Bunny, slamming a bat into her legs. She tackled the guy.”
“Lila Rose tackled him?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly. She was Poppy at the time.”
Gertie arched her brows. Janice’s face fell.
“She got a good look at his face.”
“Well, good,” Gertie said. “She can identify who did it. Because I know it wasn’t Andre.”
Ida Belle massaged her temples. “Except, she was Poppy at the time.”
I nodded. “And she switched to Lila Rose before Poppy could tell me who it was.”
“Lila Rose has no idea what Poppy saw?” Gertie asked.
I shook my head. “She started to tell me there was something weird about his face and his hand. But we can’t tell that part to the deputy because Lila Rose can’t confirm it.”
Ida Belle blew out a sigh. “Bunny said Andre threatened her. This isn’t good.”
“Especially since someone sent Bunny and Tilma threatening letters.”
Janice balled her hands into fists. “She’s lying. Andre wouldn’t have threatened her. It just couldn’t have been Andre.”
The door opened again, and Jeff stepped outside. His eyes widened as he took in the scene. “I was working up in the booth and looked down and noticed everyone was gone. What happened?”
“Someone attacked Bunny,” I said.
“Oh my God.” Jeff rushed to the ambulance.
Gertie left to comfort Edilia, who was crying and repeating, “Andre didn’t do this. He didn’t do this.” Janice went to her side as well.
Ida Belle tilted her head up and gazed into the night sky. “If this doesn’t qualify as a shitstorm, I don’t know what does.”