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LILA ROSE RETIRED TO her office to weave the reality of Bunny’s assailant and the torn page 27 into her current novel. Meanwhile, Gertie went home to retrieve her bathing suit, making it clear there was no way she was going to act out a nudie scene in front of people. She’d also insisted that if she had to play a drunk, she didn’t want the cheap stuff, so Janice chose a 2008 Didier Dagueneau Silex, a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley of France. Not the most expensive bottle in Lila Rose’s collection, but it probably did set her back about $120. Ida Belle and I managed to cool the hot tub temperature down, so it would be safe for Gertie to soak in while drinking alcohol.
One hour from the time I’d hatched this last-ditch scheme, the author stepped out on the patio with several typed copies of the hot tub scene and waved the pages in the air. “Not a masterpiece, but not bad.”
She handed a copy to Gertie who sat in a robe at the patio table enjoying a glass of wine. Lila Rose snatched the bottle and looked at the label. “The 2008 Didier?”
“You owe it to her, Mom,” Janice said.
Gertie took a big swallow and grinned at Lila Rose. “You owe it to me. And there’s one in the outside wine frig in reserve in case I don’t get liquored up enough. And Janice said if I don’t get to it tonight, I can take it home.” She took another swallow and poured more in her glass.
Janice kissed her mother and said, “Hope it works,” before heading into the house. It had become clear that Janice served to “break the spell” of Lila Rose’s characters, and we didn’t want that happening too soon.
Lila Rose handed copies of the scene to me and to Ida Belle.
“Ida Belle will read the narrative and Fortune will read Jelly’s dialogue.” She glanced down and saw Gertie pulling a red pencil from her robe pocket, circling several things on the page. “You’re editing me?”
“I just noticed a few problems with grammar. A couple places to cut. You tend to get wordy sometimes. Has your editor ever pointed that out to you?”
Lila Rose yanked the pencil from Gertie’s hand. “I didn’t appreciate it when you were a new teacher and I was your student, and I don’t appreciate it now.”
“Why don’t you just get in the hot tub?” Ida Belle said.
Gertie stood. “Fine. Let me get in character.” She took another sip of wine then moved her head counterclockwise around her neck, then clockwise. “Okay, what’s my motivation?”
“You want to get Lila Rose’s internal character of Poppy riled up, so she takes control of Lila Rose’s personality and tells us who assaulted Bunny,” I said.
She shook her head. “No, I mean my character motivation. What drives Poppy’s mama?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie placed her hand on her hip. “It matters to actors.”
“Which you are not,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie blew out a sigh. “You do remember I dabbled in theater while in high school. I did have that starring role in Our Town.”
“You weren’t the lead.”
“In the hearts and minds of the audience I was. Rebecca Gibbs. Sister of George.” She looked at me. I could tell she was already starting to feel the effects of the wine. “I was originally the understudy, but luckily Peggy Breaux came down with mono.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “Get in the hot tub.”
Gertie untied her robe, handed it to Ida Belle and climbed the steps to the bubbling aboveground hot tub, which had now cooled to a lukewarm temperature.
I whispered to Ida Belle, “I just hope she plays the part of Poppy’s mother enough to convince Poppy to show up.”
Ida Belle smiled. “We’ve vacationed together. Trust me. Give her the equivalent of three mai tais and she’ll do anything you want. And then some. Elvis impersonation. Belly dancing. Streaking through the middle of someone’s wedding photos.” She then took Gertie’s wine glass and bottle and set them on the wide ledge of the hot tub. I took Gertie’s reading glasses and pages and set them there as well.
Gertie clapped her hands. “Oooh, I love these bubbles.” She clapped again. “Okay, people. Places! And... ACTION!”
At this point Gertie had probably downed a glass and a half of wine. She was feeling good. We ran through the six pages that Lila Rose had prepared, a scene that ended with Poppy accusing her mother of being in cahoots with Bunny’s attacker, culminating in a big reveal of the attacker’s identity.
The first read-through didn’t prompt a change in Lila Rose, so we ran through it again, this time Gertie adding her rendition of “Tiny Bubbles” as she finished her third glass of wine.
By the middle of glass four, Gertie was standing in the hot tub playing the air guitar. “Da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da!” she shouted as she picked at the lines of fringe on her bathing suit, as if she were strumming the strings of a guitar. “Smooooooke on the wa-ter!” She swayed a bit and looked at us through reddening eyes. “Take three!”
We began reading the words again. Gertie decided to ad lib, regaling us with her philosophy of life.
“Always find the fun in things.” She hiccupped and continued. “You know what I think is funny? The word, snorkel. Who thought of that word, anyway? Whoever it is should get some prize or something. It’s a funny word, snorkel. Snorkel, snorkel, snorkel.” She laughed and hiccupped and then laughed at the hiccup. “Pickle’s almost as funny, but not quite. Moist. I hate the word moist.”
Lila Rose read from her work. “Mama, what are you doing here?” She still hadn’t made the switch to Poppy.
Gertie fumbled with her pages and they fell into the hot tub.
Ida Belle rushed over. “Here, read mine.”
Gertie waved her off. “No, no. I got this.” She pointed to Lila Rose. “You talkin’ to me? I know you’re not talking to me. You know why? Because the first rule of Fight Club is... I see dead people... who need people, are the luckiest people...” She poured a glass from the second bottle we opened and held it up. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” She took a huge swallow. “May the force be with you.” She sat back in the water. “Oooh, I think we’re going to need a bigger boat. Snorkel.” She laughed and slapped at the water.
“This isn’t working,” Lila Rose said. “I hate to say it, but a main part of the feud between Poppy and her mother was established several books ago when Poppy speaks of finding her mother in bed with another man while her father was at work. So when Poppy sees her mother naked in the hot tub, it’s like a slap in the face.”
“You want Poppy’s mommy to go skinny dipping?” Gertie shouted. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie set her wine glass on the ledge of the hot tub. She made some movements underwater and soon, pulled her suit out of the water and tossed it our way. I had to duck to avoid it hitting me in the face. She then stood, nothing but skin, dancing the Macarena.
I turned away. “I can never undo that image,” I said to Ida Belle.
Lila Rose turned to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry you have to see this, Jelly.”
“Yeah, you and me both.” I suddenly realized she’d called me “Jelly.” Poppy Boone was in the house.
“Mama!” Lila Rose shouted to Gertie in her character of Poppy Boone. “I told you to stay away from my house.”
“Heeeeey, Macarena!”
Lila Rose stormed to the hot tub. “Listen to me, Mama. You are overdue for one butt chewin’, and it’s about time I deliver it to you.”
“Time for this Jelly to roll!” Gertie shrieked, repeating one of Jelly’s stock lines from the PB&J books.
“You leave Jelly out of this. Since the day I found her left on my doorstep you have treated her with contempt, saying she’s not blood related. Well, I’ll tell you this. I am more a mama to that girl than you ever were to me.”
Ida Belle rushed over and whispered loudly the next line to Gertie.
“What do you know, huh?” Gertie said, pointing to her. “You know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’.”
“Don’t think I didn’t see you in the library, Mama. You’re in deep.” Those weren’t the words Lila Rose had written, but they were close enough, so it was working.
“The library? With who?” Ida Belle whispered.
Gertie repeated the lines with a few hiccups thrown in.
“The old lady. The one who sat down and started ripping those magazines. She didn’t notice me sitting at one of the tables. I got up and came behind her and saw she was tearing something out of page twenty-seven. I said, ‘what the hell?’ and she quickly shut the magazine and got up. But I saw it was a Good Housekeeping.”
“Did you see her face?” I asked.
Lila Rose looked at me and shook her head. “Not totally. But I saw she was older with short, white hair.” She looked at Ida Belle. “Like hers.” She looked at me and pointed to Ida Belle. “Who the hell is that?”
“Maya’s grandmother,” I said quickly, going along with the storyline. “She wants to help us.”
She nodded to Ida Belle. “Glad to have you aboard.”
I gripped Lila Rose’s shoulders and stared in her eyes. “Poppy, this is important. The person who beat that lady with a bat, the one you tackled... this person also wants to kill Maya. Do you remember him?”
Lila Rose nodded as Gertie started singing, “Let it Go” from the movie, Frozen.
“Plain as day,” Lila Rose said. “I pulled at his face and I also yanked down one of his gloves.”
I grabbed my laptop from the table and pulled up photos of Dexter and Andre. The picture of Dexter I’d obtained from his restaurant’s website. The one of Andre came from Janice’s phone. I was sure Andre wasn’t the perp, but there was no harm in showing her the photos of both men. “Did he look like either of these men?” I asked, pointing to the screen.
“Not even close,” she said. “Those men are black. The man I tackled was white.”
“White?” Ida Belle asked.
Lila Rose nodded. “When I grabbed his face I noticed something odd. I was pulling his skin away. And then I pulled down one of his gloves and his hand was as white as mine.”
“It was a mask,” I said.
She smiled and nodded. “Just like that bank robbery we solved. Everybody was looking for an old man, but it was a young guy wearing an old-man’s silicone mask.” She pointed at me. “But you cracked the case when you found the face staring back at you in a dumpster.”
I sat at the table and Googled “silicone masks.” Several shops in New Orleans popped up. I clicked on a page of black men’s masks. “Any of these look familiar?” I asked her.
She looked at the page and shook her head. I then went to the next site, a higher-end shop geared toward productions and clicked on the heading, “African American Man.” There, on the page, were several types from which to choose, including Scary Man, Old Man, Nerdy Man and a collection of Handsome Black Men.
She pointed to the one labeled Handsome Black Man #5. “That’s the mask.”
I then pulled up another page of old women’s faces and showed her the masks available.
“That’s the woman in the library,” she said, pointing to one labeled, Mean Granny, a full-sized, pullover old-lady mask that included a sagging chest. “She tried to hide her face, but I saw enough of it to say that’s her.” She rubbed her chin. “The woman in the library was wearing a mask as well?”
I nodded. I rotated the laptop so Ida Belle could see the screen. “That’s the old woman we saw in the hospital the day we went to see Bunny.” I turned to Lila Rose. “Thank you, Poppy.”
“Looks like someone’s overdue for a beat-down,” Lila Rose said, pulling her shoulders back dramatically. “So let’s get this son of a B.”
“Time for this Jelly to roll!” Gertie yelled as she stood in the tub and strummed the air guitar.
“Shut up, Mama,” Lila Rose shouted to Gertie.
“I’ll go get Janice,” Ida Belle whispered.
* * * * *
SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, Lila Rose was back to herself. Gertie was out of the hot tub and wrapped securely in a robe, having joined Ida Belle, Lila Rose, Janice and me at the patio table.
“Imagine that, a silicone mask,” Lila Rose said as she stared at the photo of the mask on the screen. “I have a storyline like that in one of my PB&J books. Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t actually ID someone.”
I shrugged. “At least we know we’re not looking for a black man, or even an old white woman. We’re looking for two masks.”
Gertie, drunk as a skunk, shook her head. “Masks don’t kill people. People kill people.” She glanced at Lila Rose. “Write that down, Lila Rose.”
Ida Belle placed her hand over Gertie’s mouth to quiet her and shook her head. “But are we looking for one person or two people? A man, a woman, or both?”
“I’m guessing one. The old woman and man have never been reported being seen together. Whoever’s behind the mask, he or she just wants to keep the cops busy trying to figure out who the perps are.”
Janice sighed. “This sounds more than personal. Someone’s gone to a lot of work to make it look like it was a team rivalry gone bad.”
Lila Rose nodded. “If you ask me, it’s a hit.”
“The Gascons?” I asked.
Lila Rose shrugged. “Who else?”
“Maybe Bunny is supplying information to Lila Rose’s writer friend who’s writing that book about mob families,” Ida Belle said.
Lila Rose shook her head. “I never met the writer. He was referred to me by a friend.”
“So you don’t even know whether or not he really is a writer,” I said.
Lila Rose shook her head. “Actually, no.”
“If we are dealing with a hit,” I said, “whoever it is should want to get it done and get out of town fast.” That I knew from personal experience. “Why use a bat to beat her? Why not just shoot her?”
Ida Belle shrugged. “Maybe the person doesn’t want to make it look like a hit. I would imagine the Gascons don’t want to focus attention on their family.”
I hadn’t thought of that. In my line of work, as long as my cover wasn’t blown, I didn’t care if the connection was made to a trained assassin. Arms dealers pretty much suspect the CIA has a hand in every bad thing that happens to them. “If they planned an elaborate cover, I’d think they’d have to have help from someone in town. My guess is Tilma.”
Ida Belle ran her hand through her hair. “But Bunny is her best friend.”
“And Bunny would know the skeletons in her closet,” I said. “Maybe Tilma doesn’t want certain things to come out, especially to a writer working on a book about the mob.”
“But she assigned a deputy to watch Bunny’s room,” Janice said. “If she hired someone to kill Bunny, why would the person dress as an old lady and go there to gather intelligence, knowing there was security?”
“The same reason someone put on an old-lady mask and threw magazines in my trash,” Ida Belle said. “To be visible. To put suspicion on me or some other Sinful Slider.”
“And let’s not forget,” I added, “that Tilma received the same threatening note, but I didn’t see an additional deputy assigned to her that day at the hospital.” I looked at Ida Belle. “Did you?”
Ida Belle shook her head.
Lila Rose snickered. “Because she knew she wasn’t in danger.”
I nodded.
Ida Belle pointed to the laptop screen. “Say Tilma did hire someone to do the dirty work. We’re still no closer to knowing who’s behind the disguise.”
I gazed at the masks on the screen. “Well, we know that All Beef Patty left several minutes before the attack. She could have circled back, put on a mask and hoodie and attacked Bunny. Plus, she knows cars. She could have delayed Bunny by messing with Bunny’s car. Then there’s Deputy Vachon. He was first on the scene, so he was nearby when it happened. He could have also disguised himself and done it. Plus, he seems hell-bent on accusing you and Andre.”
Ida Belle blew out a sigh. “We need a way to get the perp to reveal himself. Or herself.”
Gertie pulled Ida Belle’s hand off her mouth. “I know! I know! Time travel. Right? Go back in time to the roller rink and be there just before the perp attacks Bunny, then sneak up behind him and pull off his mask.” She punctuated her comment with a hiccup.
“Time travel?” Ida Belle asked, her bottom lip quivering.
Gertie shrugged. “Studies prove time travel is the most effective way to know what really happened.” She wagged her finger at Lila Rose. “You write that one up, Lila Rose. Time traveling Roller Derby Girl. ‘Join her as she rolls through the centuries, creating havoc wherever she skates.’ It’ll make you famous. Mark my words.” Another hiccup.
Lila Rose shook her head. “I’d say Miss Gertie needs a little green tea to minimize her future hangover.” She rose from the bench. “And maybe we could all use a slice of key lime pie to help us think clearer.”
Janice rose as well. “I’ll help.”
Once they were inside the house, Ida Belle turned to Gertie. “Let’s say our time travel machine is in the shop,” she said, her lip quivering again. “Any other bright ideas?”
Gertie nodded. “You put on the same mask and walk around Mudbug. Whoever reacts the strongest is your perp.”
We stared at Gertie. Her eyes drooped, and she rested her head on the table. “Can I go to sleep now?”
I looked at Ida Belle as she weighed the idea. I shrugged. “Well, at least it’s a plan.”
“You realize you’d be inviting the perp to come to you.”
I nodded. “I’ve done similar things when I was desperate to flush out my target. This person may strike again once Bunny’s released. He or she was lurking around Lila Rose’s house tonight. This person is trying to frame you and Andre. Right now I’m feeling a little desperate.”