Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) (25 page)

“It’s okay,” Marie said. “I’ll feel safer there until y’all return. Just in case.”

“She’s right,” I said. “I’d like to think Melvin isn’t stupid enough to break into the house in broad daylight, but as I’ve spoken with him, I can’t guarantee anything.”

Gertie patted Marie’s arm. “As soon as we get back with that letter, we’re going to pick you up and go straight to see the sheriff. We’re going to put this entire mess to bed once and for all.”

I felt my back and neck tense up. There was a lot riding on a letter that we weren’t even sure existed.
 

I hoped Gertie’s prophecy was right.

###

It took every ounce of self-control I had to smile politely at Mr. Worley and appear patient as he regaled me with tales about the woman he thought was my aunt. All of a sudden, it seemed things were actually taking on that slow pace everyone claimed for small-town living. Of course, it happened at the exact time I wanted everything to move at lightning speed. Well, now and during the sermon on Sunday.

He sat across from me, in that giant leather chair that seemed to swallow up all one hundred forty-six pounds of him, holding the sacred envelop in his hand, and showing no signs of running out of things to say. I was almost ready to create an accident with my coffee so that he’d cut things off, when the receptionist poked her head in his office to tell him his next appointment had arrived. He looked at his watch in surprise, then pushed a piece of paper across the desk to me.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ve been having such a great conversation that I didn’t realize how much time had passed.”

Fifty-six minutes. Ten seconds. Eleven. Twelve.

“That’s all right,” I said and took the pen he was offering to sign the receipt document.
 

I pushed the paper back across to him and rose from my chair. He jumped up as well, handed me the letter, and then shook my hand for what felt like another five minutes. By the time I got out of the office, my pulse was at heart attack level. I practically ran to the curb and jumped in the back of Gertie’s Cadillac.
 

Both ladies turned around to give me expectant stares.

“Well?” Ida Belle asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I said as I tore open the envelope. “He wouldn’t shut up.”

“Hurry up,” Gertie instructed, her hands clenched together on top of the front seat.
 

“I’m hurrying,” I muttered as I pulled the letter from the envelope and unfolded it.

Ida Belle blew out a breath as she saw the scrawl. “Thank God, she wrote it longhand. The handwriting can be verified.”

“Read it already!” Gertie yelled.

I took a deep breath and started to read out loud.

Sandy-Sue,

Before I get to the point of this letter, I want to apologize for leaving this on your shoulders. If you stick around long enough to find out the particulars of the situation, you’ll understand why I couldn’t get any of my friends in Sinful involved.

I killed Harvey Chicoron.
 

When I was delivering a casserole, I saw him hit his wife, Marie. I’d always suspected that was the case, but I’d never had proof. Once I did, I saw red. I made a promise to myself that Harvey would never strike Marie again.
 

I knew Marie didn’t have options for leaving. Without Harvey’s money, she wouldn’t be able to continue caring for her brother, and I knew Marie would endure any level of indignity to preserve her brother’s care.

So I killed him and made it look like he’d disappeared with another woman. I knew it was the only way Marie would get the money and the quiet she deserved to live out the rest of her life.

I am sorry if my actions caused grief for anyone in Sinful after my demise, but I am not sorry for what I did.
 

Please show this letter to the sheriff so that suspicion no longer falls on Marie, but instead, blame is finally placed where it belongs.

Your loving aunt,

Marge

We were all silent for several minutes. Tears pooled in Gertie’s eyes, and she sniffed, then rubbed the bottom of her nose with her finger. Ida Belle stared down at the floorboard, her grief so clear despite how hard she worked to control it.
 

A wave of guilt washed over me for pretending to be the family of a woman who was so clearly missed. All this time, the situation with Marie and Harvey had been like a game to me—a puzzle that needed solving. I hadn’t stopped to think about the loss that had occurred to precipitate my arrival in Sinful, or how much it was still affecting these women, even though they didn’t show it.

Then I felt sad. Sad for Ida Belle, Gertie, and Marie, and all the other women who’d considered Marge a neighbor and friend. Her dedication to protecting the freedom of others who couldn’t protect themselves had extended far beyond her military service. I regretted that I’d never gotten to meet her when she was alive. I think I would have liked her. I already knew I respected her.

“Well,” Ida Belle said, then went silent again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know her better,” I said. “And I’m sorry all of you lost such a great friend.”

A single tear ran out of Gertie’s eye and onto her cheek. She swiped it away with her finger and then smiled at me. “She would have loved you. All that worrying she did over how you’d turn out. I think she would have been surprised and very pleased.”

I felt my heart ache just a bit. Sure, I was pretending to be Marge’s niece, but they didn’t know that. The fact that Gertie thought Marge would have been pleased touched me. It was the first time since my mom passed that someone had given me a genuine compliment. I’d forgotten what it felt like.

 
“I guess we don’t have to worry about Marie going to jail any longer,” Gertie said.

“No,” I agreed, but at the moment, it seemed small consolation.

###

The drive from New Orleans back to Sinful was a sober one, none of us having much to say. No one had thought to leave Marie a cell phone, so she wouldn’t know what we’d found until we got back to Marge’s house. I figured it was just as well. To read the letter over a cell phone seemed rude. It was the sort of thing that really needed to be done in person.

My thoughts whirled around on all the twists these few short days in Sinful had taken and marveled at the strength of the women I’d met and the one who had already passed. Which got me right back to the dread I felt at showing the letter to Marie, who would probably feel guilty about it all.

It was a little after noon when we got back to Marge’s house. Marie was peeking down the stairs when we walked in and hurried down to join us as soon as Ida Belle closed the blinds. The anxiety in her expression made my heart clench just a bit. How must she feel—with her freedom and her brother’s financial and medical security riding on her dear friend admitting to a horrible crime? How had she lived all these years, seeing Marge every day, and both of them pretending nothing was out of sorts?

“We got it,” Gertie said. “Let’s have some coffee and talk.”

Coffee in the afternoon sounded a bit odd with the heat of the Louisiana summer, but we’d made a single stop on our return from New Orleans to pick up a bottle of bourbon. I figured a heavy dose was going straight into Marie’s cup, which certainly wasn’t the worst idea I’d heard, and noticed that Gertie pulled out the decaffeinated coffee instead of the regular.

“Have you eaten today?” Gertie asked Marie after she put the coffee on to brew.

“I had a glass of orange juice,” Marie said.

Gertie gave her a single nod. “I’ll make some dry toast. You need to eat something. You getting sick won’t help anyone.”

Bones woke up and stretched, then walked over to where Marie sat, and nudged her hand. She scratched him behind the ears, and he put his chin on her leg, looking up at her with those big, sad, hound eyes.

“What’s going to happen to Bones?” I asked.

Marie’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s up to you. You inherited him along with the rest of Marge’s estate.”

I flopped into a chair across the table from Marie. “Oh. I hadn’t even thought about it that way.” Especially as I wasn’t Sandy-Sue and hadn’t really inherited anything. But despite all the legalities, I was about to make an executive decision about someone else’s property.

“I wouldn’t dream of taking him away from here,” I said. “I can’t imagine he’d be happy in the city.”
 

I looked over at Marie. “Do you want to take him?”

Marie looked down at the old hound dog and smiled. “I’d love to have him. Bones is the best man I’ve ever lived with.”

“Got that right,” Ida Belle said. “And let that be a lesson. Five more years and you’re in the Sinful Ladies Society. Stick to Bones and knitting. It’s safer.”

I swear, the old hound must be part human, because he walked under the table and licked my hand before going back to curl up in his corner bed. I smiled, feeling better that Marie wouldn’t be alone anymore. Ida Belle gave me an approving nod, and Gertie sniffed, then pretended her nose itched as she placed the dry toast in front of Marie.

“That coffee ready yet?” Ida Belle asked.

“Coming right up.” Gertie said and started filling cups.

Marie picked up one of the slices of toast and took a bite, but she didn’t seem enthusiastic about eating. I didn’t blame her. High stress levels tended to eliminate my appetite as well, and I normally had no shortage. I saw Gertie add a generous swish of bourbon to Marie’s coffee before she carried the cups to the table and took a seat.

Marie took a sip of the coffee and grimaced a little. “It’s a little strong, Gertie. Pass me some sugar.”

Gertie slid the sugar bowl across the table to Marie. We all sipped in silence for a couple of minutes. I figured they were waiting for Marie to eat more of the toast and get a bit of the coffee in her before hitting her with the letter.

I sipped my coffee, trying to remain patient, and was just about to give it up when Marie swallowed the last bite of toast and Gertie nodded at me. I pulled out the letter and slid it across the table to Marie. Reading it out loud to her somehow felt intrusive.

Marie hesitated, the fear clear in her expression, then finally lifted the letter and began reading. Her eyes grew red and watery as she read, and a single tear slid down her cheek as she placed the letter on the table.
 

“Can we wait until tomorrow to take this to the sheriff?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Of course, dear,” Gertie said and patted her hand.

Ida Belle nodded. “It’s been waiting all these years. I don’t think another day is going to kill anyone.”

“Is this going to be enough?” Marie asked. “To, you know…”

“I think so,” I said. “The police will want to talk to all of you, of course, but I can’t see any reason for the prosecutor to pursue you on this. It really doesn’t serve anyone’s interest, including the prosecutor’s. The chance of getting a conviction against you given these letters is slim. It’s definitely enough to sway a jury.”

“Showing all this to the sheriff is the first step, anyway,” Gertie said.

“Exactly,” Ida Belle chimed in. “And we’ll be right there to help you with this and every step that comes after.”

Marie rose from the table and gave us all a small smile. “I appreciate everything you’ve done. I don’t know what I would have done without you. You’re wonderful people, and I don’t deserve such good friends. I’m going to get back out of sight, just in case Melvin is watching. I need some time to be alone with my thoughts…and talk to Marge.”

I don’t know why exactly, but the thought of Marie, sitting in the attic on that cot, talking to her dead friend—the woman who’d killed to save her—got me choked up. I felt the pressure building in my nose and between my eyes, and my mouth dropped a bit as I realized what was happening.
 

I caught the tear before it escaped my eye and stared at my moist fingers. I hadn’t shed a tear since my mother’s funeral twenty years ago. I wasn’t sure what it said about me that I shed a tear for a woman I’d never met but hadn’t shed a single tear when my father died.
 

“We’re going to go,” Gertie said, and I realized they’d risen from the table and were standing there, purses in hand, and looking down at me.

“Call if you need anything,” Ida Belle said, always the one taking care of business.

But I could see the unshed tears in her eyes as well, although she was working hard to keep them in. Gertie didn’t even bother trying to stop them or wipe them away, instead letting them rest on her tanned skin, like proud emotional banners.
 

As they left the house, I stared down at the kitchen table, wishing I could be more like Gertie.

Chapter Nineteen

I tried to make myself busy, but putting up the coffee cups, cleaning the pot and wiping the kitchen table took only minutes. Then I wandered from room to room, wondering what to do with my afternoon. Marie was still tucked away in the attic, and I really didn’t expect to see her for a while, if not tomorrow morning.