Lethal Bayou Beauty (23 page)

“Not me,” Ida Belle said. “All that niceness might rub off. Can’t afford for that to happen.”

Gertie rolled her eyes. “Imagine the horror.”

I grinned. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve still got gravel dust in my hair and it itches.”

Ida Belle peered out the door. “Coast is clear.”

We hustled out of the storeroom and into the store. At the same time, Walter came hurrying in from the back door, wiping his hands with a rag.

“Got held up at the dock,” he said.

“Did you see the fire?” I asked.
 

He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what all the noise is about?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Apparently, a raccoon set fire to the AC unit at the sheriff’s department. I’m surprised you didn’t see a commotion since it’s only a couple buildings down from here.”

He frowned. “Thought I smelled something burning, but sometimes there’s a burning smell when Sammy’s curing hides.”

I cringed. Yuck.

“Thanks for letting us use your room,” I said and stuck my hand out. “I’m sorry to put you in the middle of things.”

Walter hesitated for a moment, then shook my hand. “All I did was unlock a door and make a phone call.”

“Well, I still appreciate it,” I said.

Ida Belle and Gertie gave Walter a wave and we started out of the store. I reached up to push my bangs to the side and a familiar smell wafted by. I lifted my hand back up—the hand that Walter had shaken—and took a big whiff.

Gasoline!

I whipped my head around and stared at Walter, who gave me a wink and went back to stocking. I waited until we were back in Gertie’s car before exclaiming, “Oh my God. Walter set fire to that AC unit.”

Neither Gertie nor Ida Belle seemed even remotely surprised.
 

I stared. “You already knew?”

“Suspected,” Gertie said, twisting around in the passenger’s seat to look at me.
 

“But how would he even know Carter was going to arrest us?” I asked.

“He left the storeroom phone on speaker,” Ida Belle said, “so he could hear the conversation. I saw the light as soon as we walked in the room.”

“You asked him to do that?”
 

Ida Belle shook her head and pulled the Cadillac away from the curb. “I don’t ask Walter to do anything like that. If I knew he was going to listen, then he wouldn’t be able to claim lack of knowledge on the subject matter.”

“She doesn’t want to owe him,” Gertie said, which was an explanation I bought more readily.

“Then why did he did he set the fire if not for Ida Belle?” I asked, completely confused.

Gertie pursed her lips. “That’s the interesting part. I don’t know for certain, but I’m going to guess that he did it because he likes you and was worried.”

“If you like someone, you help them change a flat tire or bring them food,” I said. “There’s a huge gap between those types of things and criminal mischief.”

Gertie nodded. “I think you remind him of someone.” She inclined her head toward Ida Belle.

“Oh.” I slumped back in my seat. In a strange way, it made sense.
 

Gertie had commented earlier that she would have liked Ally as a daughter, if she’d gone that route. I hadn’t thought of it at the time, but if Ida Belle had a daughter, she’d likely be more like me.

I wished Walter hadn’t gotten involved, but in the pit of my belly was a small warming glow. It was nice to have people care about me—people who tried to help without being asked or offered anything in return.
 

I smiled and said a silent prayer that Carter never found out his uncle was working for the dark side.
 

###

I showered until the hot water ran out, then spent another ten minutes under the cold, trying to invigorate my exhausted body and mind. It had been an incredibly long day, but I knew if I fell asleep this early, I’d be awake in the middle of the night, and that was something I hated.

Time seemed to pass so much slower when it was dark outside, and everything seemed starker. It was a slow crawl into depression.
 

I knew why I felt that way. I wasn’t as out of touch with my emotions as people accused me of being. I just didn’t wear them on the outside like an extra layer of clothing, nor did I dwell on them like well-meaning people sometimes suggested I do. “Sit with the pain.” “Find your center with your memories.” “Take a pill.”

Depending on whom I was talking to—well-meaning coworker, CIA shrink, or New Ager who was part of an undercover operation—everyone seemed to think I needed to do something different with my feelings. I always resisted the advice. The way I’d handled things had worked fine my entire adult life.
 

At least, I thought it had been working.

Then I’d come to Sinful, and I started wondering if my profession, and all the lifestyle requirements that came along with it, had allowed me to remain stuck in an emotional rut, always pointing to professional success as proof of how well I was doing. But what did I really have to show for my life, except a bunch of completed missions that I could never talk about?

I threw on yoga pants and a T-shirt and trod barefoot downstairs to fix up some dinner. Unless the house caught fire, I was in for the night and determined to get some sleep. As I walked through the living room, I glanced out the front window into the fading sunset, wondering if I would see Sheriff Lee parked across the street on his horse—or even worse, on my own front lawn.

My eyes narrowed. I was definitely under surveillance, but it wasn’t by horse and it wasn’t Sheriff Lee. I flung open the front door and stalked down the driveway to Carter’s truck. He saw me cross the street and lowered the stack of papers he’d been reading, then shoved them into an expandable file on the passenger’s seat.

“Seriously?” I asked. “You couldn’t arrest us, so you’re going to spend the night stalking me?”

“It’s surveillance when the police do it,” he said, looking aggrieved.

“Since I’m innocent of the crime you’re investigating and you know it, that’s debatable.”

He sighed but didn’t respond. I took a good look at him and realized he was even more exhausted than I was, which stood to reason. He’d been on twenty-four/seven duty for days, with a murderer on the loose, half the population of Sinful angry at him for not arresting me, and a good chunk of his time wasted chasing me, Ida Belle, and Gertie around. And none of that included the investigation he was conducting.
 

I wave of empathy washed over me. I’d been where he was far too many times in the field. Some missions were in and out. Others seemed to drag on endlessly and without decent food or sleep. It took weeks for me to recover every time I returned home.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“What?” He looked confused, but I suppose it was a strange question.

“Have you eaten?”

He held up a coffee and a half-eaten protein bar, and my empathy ticked up another notch.
 

“I’m about to heat up a chicken casserole from Francine’s. Why don’t you come in and get something decent to eat?”

A wistful look passed over his face before he shook his head. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“Why not? You’re here to make sure I don’t go on a killing spree, right? If you’re sitting in my kitchen, I can’t attempt to kill anyone but you. Besides, maybe the great citizens of Sinful will think you’re questioning me or searching my residence and cut you some slack.”

He tilted his head to the side and studied me for several seconds.

“What’s in it for you?” he asked finally.

I threw my hands up in the air. “Maybe I’m just being nice. Contrary to what you and other people might believe, I can be a very nice person. Maybe I feel sorry for you because in a way, you’re in as bad a position as I am, and neither of us has done anything to be there. Maybe I’m afraid if you don’t eat some of the casserole, I’ll consume the entire thing and have to spend the next ten years jogging it off.”

His lips quivered for a second, then finally the smile broke through. “Well, I suppose people might think I’m finally coming down on the Yankee criminal.”

“Hey, it’s a win for everyone.”

He pushed open his truck door and stepped out, clutching the expandable folder under his arm. I figured it must be Pansy’s file if he wasn’t even willing to leave it in his truck. Of course, he might also figure I would get him back into the kitchen, then have Ida Belle and Gertie steal the file out of his truck. I have to admit that for a second, it had crossed my mind, which probably made me a bit less nice than I’d claimed.

He followed me inside and back to the kitchen, where I directed him to the breakfast table. He slid into the corner chair and placed the folder on the table next to him.

“You want a beer?” I asked.

“More than anything in the world, but I can’t have one.”

“Right, you’re working. Soda? Iced tea?”

“I don’t suppose you have root beer, do you?” he asked, looking like a hopeful ten-year-old.

“Actually, it’s my favorite. I took the last four two-liters at the General Store.” I grabbed the root beer out of the refrigerator and poured two tall glasses.

Carter took a huge gulp of the root beer and gazed outside at the muddy bayou, slowly swirling its way to the Gulf of Mexico. I pulled out the casserole, cut off two big hunks, and put them in the toaster oven to reheat.

“You know,” he said, still staring out the window, “when you grow up in a place like Sinful or even just visit one, you don’t think any awful things happen.”

He turned from the window to look at me as I slid into the chair across from him. “I mean, nature is a bitch, so there’s hurricanes and tornados, and a lot of the professions here have dangerous elements, but that’s all part of normal life.”

“But murder isn’t,” I said quietly.

“Not usually.”

I nodded. “I remember thinking when I walked through town the day I arrived that probably the only time something was killed here, it was eaten, then stuffed.”

“Or peeled and fried.” He gave me a small smile. “Yeah, that used to be the case.”

“What do you think happened?”

He shrugged. “The simple answer is time. People are crueler—more desensitized to things that would have shocked them ten years ago—and the dark secrets that people kept years ago seem to be bubbling up.”

“So you’re saying good southern manners prevented people from poking into others’ business in decades past, but now, people are less likely to cover up or even ignore questionable behavior?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“So you think Pansy’s past finally caught up with her?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation, especially with a suspect.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s a yes. Did you check into Dr. Ryan?”

He sighed. “You’re not going to quit asking questions, are you?”

“Hey, my freedom is on the line here. You can’t blame me for asking.”

He frowned and studied me for a couple of seconds. “No, I guess if I were in your position, I’d be asking as well, so I’ll throw you a bone. The New Orleans Police have detained Dr. Ryan on my request. I will take a trip there tomorrow morning to question him, but I don’t expect much to come of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he asked for a lawyer before they ever got him out of the hotel.”

The buzzer sounded on the toaster oven and I got up to retrieve the casseroles. I wasn’t the least bit surprised that Ryan had lawyered up. I would have done the same thing in his position and with his pocketbook. But at least if he was in custody for suspicion of murder, Carter shouldn’t have any trouble getting a look at his phone records.

I sat one of the plates in front of Carter and took my seat across from him again. The first bite made me sigh.
 

“If I lived here permanently,” I said, “I’d have to be towed around on a flatbed trailer.”

Carter smiled. “Francine has a gift.”

“So does Ally. Wait until you taste the peach cobbler she made a couple days ago.”

“One of my favorites,” he said and took another bite of casserole. “You and Ally have gotten to be friends, huh? I wouldn’t have put the two of you together.”

“Why not?”

“Partly because of the ex-beauty queen thing and Ally’s past with Pansy. Partly because Ally’s a people person and librarians are usually more introverted.”

“And partly because I’m from north of the Mason-Dixon Line?”

He grinned. “Partly.”

“The beauty queen thing was overblown by my mother,” I said, giving him my regular cover story. “It was her dream, not mine. And it’s true, I am an introvert. People tend to annoy me as long as they’re talking, and sometimes when they’re not.”

“But yet, you took up with Ida Belle and Gertie—the two worst influences in Sinful—on the very day you set foot in town.”

“I know, but they needed my help. I figured, ‘Here are these two nice old ladies and their friend being accused of murder’—why shouldn’t I pitch in?”