4 Big Easy Hunter (11 page)

He laughed a loud laugh. “Susan,” he said shaking his head, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk before. This is an entirely new experience.”

“It’s not pretty, I know,” I said with my eyes only half open. “Point me in the right direction, and let’s go.” We walked a short distance, and I slurred, “I talked to Mick. He’s sleeping with Joe. He barked all night, and neighbors complained. Joe barked, not Mick. Anyway, Joe’s sleeping on Mick’s pillow. Isn’t that funny?”

Darby looked around. I was sure I was embarrassing him, but there was no controlling it on my end.

“Did you know Nate’s dad was gay? Yep. Gayola. Made a baby with his lesbian wife,” I exclaimed loudly. I put my finger to my lips and said, “Shhhh! Don’t tell Nate though. It’s a secret.”

If Darby looked horrified, I wasn’t able to see it.

“Won’t Detective Bentley be perplexed when he gets the printing plate? Perplexed. That’s a funny word.” I stopped walking long enough to giggle and shake my head. I suddenly clapped my hand over my mouth and asked with alarm, “You don’t think he will make fake money, do you?”

I think I saw Darby’s mouth hanging open. I was pretty sure I shut up after that, and I think I continued to move my feet. I may have burped loudly, but before I could be embarrassed, my brain went dead.

There was a sledgehammer buried in my head. I put both hands up to feel around for it, but I could only feel my painful hair. I opened my eyes a bit, but the light of day hurt them. I attempted to take stock of my situation.

I was in the super comfy bed in my hotel room, but I had no idea how I got here. The last thing I remembered was singing Sweet Caroline and drinking Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. Ooh … that’s why I felt like a sledgehammer hit me. What a miserable feeling. A quick check of my body revealed I was still wearing yesterday’s underwear. That was a good sign.

I rolled over onto my side and saw a wastebasket beside the bed. Thank goodness it was empty. I guess I could hold my liquor; I just couldn’t handle it.

My watch showed it was 11:00. I missed breakfast with the guys, but I was glad they let me sleep. I had desperately needed it. Too bad I felt like a truck hit me. Even my toes hurt.

Our mystery tour wasn’t scheduled to start until 1:00, so there was plenty of time to get ready. As I contemplated ordering breakfast from room service, there was a knock at the door. I wrapped the sheet around myself and went to peer out the peephole. It was Darby. I opened the door, turned around, and dove back into the bed.

He didn’t say anything. He sat down in the desk chair beside the bed. I glanced over at him and knew something was wrong. He was usually cheerful in the mornings, and he always called me Sunshine. Not this morning. I sat up.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Where’s Nate? Did something happen? Are you ok?” His subdued countenance was scaring me.

“There’s nothing wrong with Nate. He’s sitting on our balcony reading the paper. I came over to wake you and have a little talk,” he said.

Uh-oh. Something must have happened last night. Oh my gosh! What if I brought a strange man back to the room with me last night? Who undressed me? It was obvious he had bad news.

“Ok,” I said warily, “talk.”

“What do you remember about last night?” he asked.

“Nothing after Sweet Caroline,” I said. My heart was starting to pound to match the pounding in my head. “What happened? Did I do something? Darby, please tell me I didn’t bring someone back to the hotel with me.” Tears were starting to well up in my eyes. I couldn’t bear the thought that I had been so out of control as to be unfaithful to Mick.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” he said with a hint of exasperation in his voice.

“Well, what is it then? And how did I get back here and into bed in my underwear?” I asked.

“I brought you back to the hotel, and I undressed you and put you in bed,” he said. “I stayed long enough to be sure you weren’t sick and that you’d gone to sleep.”

“That’s a relief,” I said letting out a huge, pent-up sigh. “So what has you so upset?”

“You were, shall we say, chatty on the way back here. Do you have any recollection of telling me something about Nate?” he asked with eyebrows raised.

Oh my gosh! No! Did I tell him what Aunt Sony said about Nate’s parents?

“Not a thing,” I said innocently.

“No? If I recall, it was something about Nate’s dad making a baby with a lesbian wife,” he reminded me.

I hung my head.

“I was probably going to tell you when we got back home,” I told him with some embarrassment. “Aunt Sony planned to tell Nate his parents were gay, but when she saw how comfortable he was in his relationship with you, she decided to let it rest. She said she and Uncle Alfred were the only two people to ever know his dad was gay and had married a lesbian friend.” I smiled a little smile and said, “She said they did
it
once, and she got pregnant with Nate.”

Darby couldn’t hold back a grin. “Nate actually might want to know about this,” he said. “I’ll have to think on it before we go to see his aunt and uncle again.”

I could see he was mulling it over in his mind already. I interrupted his momentary lapse into silence and said, “Darby, I’m really, really sorry if I embarrassed you last night. I know I’m not a good drunk. That’s why I’m usually so careful about how much I drink.”

“You were only a little embarrassing,” he said with a smile. “It was an experience for sure.” His smile faded, and he looked at me more seriously before saying, “What I really want to talk to you about is the printing plate you sent to Detective Bentley.”

My eyes popped out of my head, and I shrieked, “WHAT?!”

“You heard me,” he said. “You told me not to use a $50 bill because it was fake money. Then you said Detective Bentley would be
perplexed
when he got the plate in the mail. You were worried he would start printing money.”

I flopped back onto the pillows and pulled the sheet over my head. My hair and my toes hurt worse than they did before.

“Susan, what’s going on?” he asked. “I swear, if you’ve gotten yourself involved in anything here that’s none of your business, Mick’s going to have my head on a chopping block.”

I sat up and looked at him with a guilty look, but said, “I’m not involved in anything. That’s why I sent the plate to Detective Bentley. He can figure out what to do with it.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Where in the world did you find a plate for counterfeiting money?” he asked incredulously.

“Bogart showed it to me,” I said matter-of-factly.

“The dog?” he asked dumbfounded.

“Yep,” I said.

I filled him in on my escapade with Bogart, finishing with, “I honestly have no idea why I shoved the plate in my purse, but during the tour, I realized it was important that someone know about all of them. I didn’t want to get involved by going to the police, so I mailed it home to Detective Bentley.”

“That’s why you wanted to go to the post office,” he said as the connection was made in his mind.

I nodded my head.

“But what took you so long that day?

“I saw Ferg delivering boxes of money to a Spanish guy at a bar. I sat in my car and watched. The Spanish guy had a gun tucked in his waistband, and Ferg is definitely into something illegal.” I gave the news to Darby somewhat excitedly. It felt good to be able to tell him what I had discovered.

“Susan Hunter Raines! You are
not
getting involved in this!” he barked at me. “You didn’t see anything. No Spanish guy, no gun, no boxes.” He threw his hands up again in exasperation. “I know that look on your face, and you know full well if Mick shows up, and you’re knee-deep in trouble, he’ll kill all of us.” He lowered his voice a few decibels and said, “You should have left the plate alone, but at least it’s on its way to Bentley.”

We both sat and stared blankly for a few moments before I broke the silence and said in a small voice, “You’re right, and I don’t have any plans to follow up on any of this. I was just telling you what I saw.”

He gave in and gave me an endearing smile. He could never be mad at me for long, and sending the plate home to Detective Bentley wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever done.

“How long will it take you to get ready?” he asked. “Nate and I didn’t have breakfast, and we can all grab a quick lunch before the tour if you can be ready soon.”

I glanced at my watch again. It was 11:20. “Give me forty minutes,” I told him. “If I’m ready sooner than that, I’ll come to your room.” I hopped off the bed without giving thought to being in my underwear. I started rummaging through the dresser for my new floral romper. It was sleeveless with a collar and a button-down front. A belt of the same material tied at the side in a bow. The loose shorts came to about mid-thigh. The backdrop was black with the large flowers being light yellow and cream with green leaves. It was lightweight, really cute, and I loved the contrast between my naturally blonde hair and the black background.

I smiled, turned to Darby, and said, “Found it! I’ll see you soon,” and I dashed into the bathroom.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I’m not going in there. You can’t make me.”

Darby and I were doing our best to convince Nate there was nothing to be afraid of and going into the Voodoo Museum wouldn’t hurt him.

“No!” he said emphatically. “They’ll take a hair off my shoulder, or cut a little piece of my clothing, or something, and then they’ll make a voodoo doll and torture me.”

I had a hard time suppressing laughter. Poor Nate was horrified when he saw our mystery tour was to the Voodoo Museum, then through a cemetery, finishing with a haunted house and a fortune teller reading.

Ferg joined us on the sidewalk and clapped a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Come on, Nate. I’ve been in here a million times. It’s only two rooms and a hallway, and a bunch of pictures and stuff. There’s nothing spooky in here, and it certainly isn’t haunted.”

It was one thing for Nate to tell his friends “
no
,” but I could tell he didn’t want to appear too cowardly to Ferg, and he finally relented.

Most of the people in our group had already gone in and come out. We were the last to enter the small museum, and I was the one who squealed and wanted to bolt for the exit as soon as we walked in. The man behind the counter was holding a snake. My skin started crawling all over my body, and my hair stood on end. I hated snakes. Nate went over and petted it. My skin crawled even more, and I shuddered.

Darby was watching me and started laughing. “Susan, it’s harmless,” he said.

I turned my back to both of them and, once my skin settled down, I began looking around in the first room. There was some creepy stuff in here – skulls, artifacts, and even the paintings were creepy. I started reading about voodoo and the influence it had in New Orleans. I was soon immersed and found it to be fascinating. There were several altars, and when I came across Nate and Darby in the next room, Nate was fishing in his pockets for something to leave on one of the altars. The only thing he could come up with was a stick of gum. I could only assume he thought adding the gum to the already large collection of lip balms and other personal items would protect him from spirits. I’m pretty sure I read that leaving an offering actually had something to do with releasing energy, but if Nate thought he would be getting protection, so be it.

Darby placed his business card on the altar and winked at me.

“Susan, aren’t you going to leave something?” Nate asked. “You don’t want evil spirits to follow you around while you’re here, do you?”

“I’m not worried about evil spirits, Nate,” I told him with a laugh. “I don’t have anything to leave, and I’ll be fine.”

He shook his head and raised his eyebrows in a “
you’ll be sorry
” manner.

Ferg came into the room and said, “We’re moving on to the next location in five minutes. Is that enough time for you guys to finish up here?”

We all nodded, and I walked with Ferg to the area where souvenirs were sold.

“Are you looking for something to take home?” he asked. “Most people take voodoo dolls or gris-gris bags, but if you want something you won’t be throwing away later, the candles are nice.”

I was drawn to the simple, brightly colored mini candles. I asked for two of every color, and pulled out my wallet to pay for them.

“Let me get them for you, Susan,” Ferg said. “Consider it a small thank you for baby-sitting Bogart yesterday.” He pulled out a $50 bill and handed it to the lady at the counter.

A small gasp escaped my lips, but thankfully, he didn’t notice. Was he really using counterfeit money to pay for items around town? I wanted to see his reaction to real counterfeit money. I pulled the bills out of my purse.

“Ferg,” I said holding the money out to him, “Bogart is hiding things in the bushes down by the garden. There were several household items, but he also had this money. You left the plantation before I could give it to you.”

I was looking into his eyes. I saw the momentary flinch, a bit of confusion, and then a flash of fear. He hid the fleeting emotions quickly and smiled at me.