Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) (20 page)

“So, if Marie goes to prison, does Melvin get the money?”

“I’ve never heard anything about Harvey leaving a will. Sorta stupid for a rich man, but Harvey wasn’t the brightest of bulbs. Far as I know, Melvin is next of kin, so I guess he’d come into it all.”

I whistled. “Talk about hitting the lottery.”

“Yep. It would be about the same thing.”

“So, why don’t people think Melvin killed Harvey?”

Walter frowned. “It’s crossed my mind a time or two, but there’s a couple things that keep me from latching onto that theory. First one is that unless Melvin could make certain Marie was blamed for Harvey’s death, he still wouldn’t benefit.”

“That’s true. And you don’t think he’s smart enough to do that?”

“Clearly not. If he did it, he kinda screwed up the finding-the-body part of the crime. You can’t exactly convict Marie of killing her husband if no one can prove he’s dead.”

“But surely Harvey wouldn’t have disappeared and left all the money behind.”

“There was some rumors—I don’t have any hard proof, mind you—that he was carrying on with a woman from New Orleans and they were planning to run off together. I’ve heard whispers that a good sum of money was missing from his accounts, but I can’t get any details out of Carter.”

That figured. “You said a couple of reasons.…”

“Yeah, second one is that when Harvey disappeared, Melvin was sitting in prison in New Orleans.”

“I don’t suppose he could have had a friend do it—especially as he had the perfect alibi?”

“I don’t know. Melvin didn’t have any friends that I’m aware of, and besides which, where the heck has the body been all this time? If there was a plan in all this, it was botched big time.”

I sighed. “I guess you’re right. So there’s no one else that might have taken a shot at Harvey?”

“Shoot—throw a stone and you’ll hit someone who wanted to. There’s no shortage of people who are happier in Sinful with no Harvey Chicoron. Hell, I’m one of them, but it’s a big leap from hating a man to putting a bullet in him.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”
For normal people.
 

Then I processed the rest of his statement. “
You
, Walter? You seem so calm. Why would you want to shoot him?”

“Harvey’s family built and owned most of Main Street. Me, the butcher, the churches, and Francine all rented the space. We tried to buy it for years, but Harvey’s parents wouldn’t sell. Then Harvey got control when his parents died and decided to put the screws to everyone. He doubled the rent, and we either had to pay up or get out.”

I shook my head. “I would have shot him for you if I’d been here.”

“Normally, I’m a peaceful man, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it crossed my mind a lot more than once that everyone in this town would be better off if Harvey was dead.”

“So when he disappeared, I guess that problem went away.”

“Sure. First thing Marie did after she got control of the estate was lower the rent back to the old rate. Then she sold us our buildings at a more than fair price.”

Walter narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s your interest in all this, anyway? You one of them amateur sleuth sorts?”

“I find that sort of thing interesting.” The lie rolled easily out of my mouth. “But I guess mostly I was hoping the answer was something else besides Marie. Seems like everyone likes her, and the more I hear about her, the more I like her myself.”

“That’s very true. It’s going to be a sad day if Marie goes away for killing Harvey. Likely, ain’t no one going to be happy about it but Melvin.”

I nodded, and for some reason, my thoughts flashed back to the letters I’d found in Marge’s attic. “Can I ask you something?”

Walter laughed. “You’ve already been asking me something for twenty minutes.”

I smiled. “Okay. Can I ask you something else?”

“As I don’t get much opportunity to talk to young, beautiful women, you can stay here talking as long as you want.”

“There’re a lot of older, single people in this town—Ida Belle and Gertie, Marge, you. What’s the deal? No offense, but you’re in an age group that usually settled down for the whole kids-golden-retriever-and-white-picket-fence thing.”

“Ida Belle, Gertie and your aunt were feminists ahead of their time. Can’t really blame them for wanting more than the role society told them they was supposed to fill. I’m not much for being told what to do, either.”

“Me, either. So, my aunt never had a romance with anyone?”

He frowned and shook his head. “Not that I can recall, although I often wondered if she didn’t meet someone in Vietnam.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When she came back, she had that look sometimes…like she was thinking hard about someone that wasn’t available. I know that feeling.”

“Ida Belle?”

He nodded. “All my life, there’s only been one woman for me. If I can’t have her, then I don’t want any other.”

“Walter, you’re an old romantic!”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “I suppose there’s worse things to be.”

###

Given the size of my breakfast, I probably should have jogged home, but I didn’t have the energy. Instead, I shuffled back to the house, loaded down with bags. Walter had helped me stock up on plenty of easy-to-prepare food and had assured me the battery for the Jeep was on its way. Then he’d given me a free bottle of Sinful Ladies cough syrup and a wink before I’d headed out. I decided Ida Belle could do a whole lot worse than settling down with Walter.

As I walked, my mind ran through everything that had happened since I’d arrived in Sinful. As much as I hadn’t wanted to care, I found myself drawn to the mystery surrounding Harvey Chicoron’s death, everyone’s presumption that Marie was the perpetrator, and the equally consistent belief that Harvey had deserved it and no one wanted Marie to pay.

I almost felt sorry for the prosecuting attorney, but then the attorney part kept getting in the way of complete sympathy after the dealings I’d had with them. Still, they were in for some serious anger issues from the Sinful population when it came trial time. Except for Melvin. That idiot would probably be in court every day holding up a sign that read, MARIE DID IT, if the judge allowed such things.

My search for an alternative suspect was leading nowhere fast. I’d had hopes that talking to Walter might yield another angle, but apparently, the most likely people to have popped off Harvey, besides Marie, were the pastor, the priest, the butcher, Francine, and Walter.
 

I sighed. The more I learned about Harvey, the more I wondered if everyone’s assumption of Marie’s guilt was a bit of a leap. It seemed that a number of people had very valid reasons for wanting him out of the way.
 

My imagination was still whirling with all the insane possibilities for a suspect when I looked around and realized I’d walked right past my house. Good grief. I needed some serious work on my focus. Someone could have capped me right there on the sidewalk, and I wouldn’t even have seen them coming.
 

I trudged up to the house and breathed a sigh of relief when I jiggled the front door and found it locked. At least Sinful hadn’t eaten away all of my survival instincts.
 

Bones was awake for a change and standing at the back door. I took that to mean it was break time and opened the back door to let him saunter out. As it was a nice day and the kitchen knives were in easy reach, I left the door open so he could come back in whenever he was done with whatever one-hundred-year-old hound dogs did when they weren’t digging up bodies.

In the time it took me to pour myself a glass of soda, he’d already shuffled back in and climbed back into his bed in the corner. For one who’d started all this flurry,
he
didn’t seem to have any problem sleeping. By my estimation, he managed a good twenty-three hours of sleep out of any twenty-four-hour day.
 

I closed and locked the back door, then tackled the supply bags. It took only a couple of minutes to unpack the groceries; then I wandered around the downstairs of the house for a bit, trying to find something to do. After my fourth pass around the living room, I flopped into a recliner and blew out a breath.
 

I was bored.

For the first time since I’d arrived in Sinful, I was finally getting a dose of that whole slower-pace thing. Unless you had sleeping habits like Bones, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I pondered for a moment what it said about me exactly that I’d rather be risking my cover by getting involved in the investigation of a murder committed by a woman I’d never met to a husband that no one liked, than taking a nap.

It took only a minute to decide I wasn’t cut out for a slower pace. This bit of excitement was probably the first Sinful had seen since Harvey went missing, so I supposed I ought to be grateful for the timing as it had given me some distraction. Technically, I supposed I should be cataloging the stuff in Marge’s house and packing it for sale, but that seemed even more boring than just sitting here.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and checked the display for the tenth time since entering the house. No calls. No messages. Maybe Ida Belle and Gertie were taking a day off. That would be about right—as soon as I got knee-deep in it all, they were taking a step back.

I gazed up at the picture on the fireplace mantel that Gertie had identified as Marge and Marie. They were on Main Street and both smiling. Streamers hung from light posts, so there must have been some sort of celebration going on. The photo next to it was one of Marge with a group of men standing next to a giant dead deer. They were all dressed in camouflage and looked to be having the time of their lives.

The picture reminded me of Marge’s military uniforms lumped on the desk upstairs, so I hopped up from the chair and headed to the bedroom. I didn’t like those uniforms being rumpled. This was the perfect opportunity to iron them and get them back into the shape they were meant to be in. Ironing wasn’t exactly my favorite thing to do, but it was better than sitting there, and restoring the uniforms to pristine state would provide a certain level of satisfaction that I hadn’t really achieved since landing in Sinful.
 

I retrieved the ironing board and iron I’d seen in the spare room across from the one I was using, then set up in front of the window in my own room. The light was nice, and it afforded me a great view of the street.
 

I hunted down starch in the kitchen pantry while the iron was heating up, then picked the first set of pants and jacket off the table and went to work. Normally, you couldn’t find me doing anything domestic, but ironing was different. Growing up with a former military commander as a father tended to lend itself to good grooming. He’d even insisted on ironing sheets and underwear.

Of course, as soon as I left home, I abandoned all that nonsense, but couldn’t give up the ghost on military uniforms. Sometimes something was simply the right thing to do. Armed with my starch and a hot iron, I went to work on the jacket.
 

When I finished pressing the jacket to within an inch of perfection, I stood there holding it for a moment, thinking it was a real shame to fold such a beautifully ironed garment. Maybe I should hang up the uniforms. A museum or collector might be interested in them. You never knew what people were interested in having.

I’d used all the hangers in the guest room for my own wardrobe, the vast majority of which I hadn’t bothered to wear, so I went in search of more. The closets in the other spare rooms contained only neatly stacked and labeled storage boxes, so I went to dig through the closet in the master bedroom.

It was a large walk-in with clothes rods on each side and shelves above. Marge’s clothes were arranged according to type and color. No surprise there after seeing her pantry. A bunch of empty hangers dangled from the rod at the back of the closet, so I snagged a handful of them.
 

Apparently, my mind overreached my grasp because I lost my grip and they popped out of my hand and onto the closet floor. Sighing, I leaned over to gather up the hangers. I reached for the last one and pulled, but it appeared to be stuck on something. I tugged harder and heard a faint click.

A second later, the back panel of the closet slid back, revealing a wall of weapons that made me gasp.

Holy crap!

Pistols, rifles, semi-automatic, full automatic, knives, swords, grenades…I felt my heart pounding, and I got a bit short of breath. What a beautiful, beautiful collection. I ran my fingers reverently over a grenade launcher I’d been coveting for months. Marge had seriously good taste.

Clearly Deputy LeBlanc didn’t know anything about Marge’s hidden stash. He’d removed a bunch of hunting rifles and a pistol and left all the good stuff behind.
 

I pulled an assault rifle from the wall and inspected it. It was in perfect operating condition. What the hell had Marge done in the military to warrant this level of interest in weapons? I knew she was a hunter, but this was hardly the type of gun one used to bag a deer.

I put the rifle back on its hanger and reached for an excellent nine millimeter. The clip was full and it was a beauty. Certainly, Marge wouldn’t mind my borrowing her gun while I was visiting. I stuck it in my waistband, then squatted to feel the panel where the hanger was lodged. Sure enough, there was a little switch under the edge of the baseboard. I moved the hanger out of the way and pressed the switch. The panel slid silently back in place.