Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) (28 page)

“And the kick?”

“Oh, that was nothing,” Gertie said. “I see it all the time on those old Bruce Lee movies. I figured we had nothing to lose, right?”

She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and I knew something was up, but before I could ask, I heard a low rumble coming up the block.
 

I froze. “Deputy LeBlanc! I told Marie to call and tell him you were being held hostage.”

I glanced at the two bodies and a wave of dizziness passed over me.

Shit!

This was so not good. There was no way I was getting out of this without being fingerprinted, logged into the system, and investigated. It would totally blow my cover, not to mention probably cost me my job.

“Run!” Ida Belle yelled.

“What?”

Ida Belle grabbed the pistol from me and fired it into the couch. I stared at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“You don’t need to be in the middle of this,” Ida Belle said.
 

Gertie nodded and pulled me toward the back door. “Shove that bloody jacket in my compost pile. Get a good soaking, then try to break in the back door when you hear us let Carter in the front door.”

“But how will you explain—”

“We’ll figure it out,” Ida Belle said. “Go. Now!”

I scrambled through the kitchen, grabbing a butter knife as I passed the counter, then ran out the back door into the blinding storm, shrugging off my jacket as I went. I shoved the jacket into the compost pile in the corner of the yard, then circled around to the back door again. I stuck the butter knife in the doorjamb and pretended to be jimmying the back door.
 

Suddenly, the door flew open and Gertie looked out at me.

“Where’s Melvin?” I whispered, getting into my role of knowing nothing, just in case Deputy LeBlanc was listening.

“He’s dead. Get inside before you drown.”

I hurried inside and followed Gertie to the living room, where Deputy LeBlanc was frowning down at the two bodies and shaking his head. The table that held the knitting basket and the chair that Gertie had been tied to were both several feet closer to Cheryl’s body. A second chair had been pulled from the dining room and lay on the floor next to the first one, but none of the ropes that had bound the women were in sight.

“Do you know how lucky you two are?”

Ida Belle nodded. “We knew once Sandy-Sue arrived, they’d kill us all. But when they got to fighting over the inheritance, I knew it was our only chance to try something. When Gertie gave me the nod, I waited for the right moment.”

Gertie jumped in. “As soon as Melvin put down that shotgun and came across the room to argue with Cheryl, I knew that was my chance. I grabbed the needle and shoved it in her neck.”

“When Gertie stabbed her,” Ida Belle continued, “I jumped up and grabbed her pistol when she dropped it.”

“Melvin got a hold of his shotgun,” Gertie said, her expression animated, “but Ida Belle clipped him before he got a lock on us. It was just like the county fair, only she wasn’t shooting clay pigeons.”

Ida Belle nodded. “Just like it. Anyway, he pulled the trigger after I shot him. Must have been some involuntary thing, but lucky for us it happened as he was falling, so the chandelier caught the worst end of it.”

Gertie waved a hand. “I’ve always hated that chandelier.”

I stared at the two of them, completely dumbfounded at how eloquently and efficiently they’d fabricated a completely plausible story and then delivered it as if it had really happened that way. This was better acting than any movie I’d ever seen.

I stepped in between them and reached out to squeeze both their shoulders. “I am so glad the two of you are all right. When I got that text, I knew something was wrong. I figured if I knocked on the front door and strolled in, we’d all be in trouble. I was trying to open the back door with a butter knife, but it wasn’t cooperating.”

I stared down at the bodies and shook my head. “The whole thing is unbelievable.”

Deputy LeBlanc sighed. “Welcome to Louisiana.”

“Ha. Yeah, I didn’t quite count on this much excitement. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that small towns were quiet.”

“It’s a common mistake,” Deputy LeBlanc said. “So, I guess since I received the rescue call from Marie, that she’s returned from yonder hiding place?”

“Jesus, we forgot to call Marie!” Gertie ran off toward the kitchen, no doubt to call Marie and tell her the five-year nightmare was over for good.

“Actually,” I said, “Marie never left. She was sorta living in my attic.”

He stared. “And I’m supposed to believe you didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know. I swear. Not until today.”

“So, was she playing dead? Because these houses do make noise when people move around upstairs.”

I threw up my hands. “Yes, there was noise, but I thought it was the raccoon. And I wasn’t about to go up there again and check after the hassle you gave me the first time.”

His lips quivered just a bit, and I knew he was trying not to smile. “I didn’t hassle you about checking the noise. I hassled you about trying to
shoot
the noise.”

“Whatever. It translated to the same thing to me.”

“Well, given that last time you shot the roof, I guess Marie was lucky you left well enough alone. So, what’s this text that got you all suspicious?”

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and showed him the text. “I knew something was wrong because Gertie and Ida Belle know I can’t knit. And since we’d seen Melvin with Marie’s cousin at the Swamp Bar, I was afraid he’d gotten to them, thinking we were onto him.”

“Uh-huh. You three and your investigation are something we’ll discuss at length as soon as I work up the energy. I’m just wondering, though, what if it really was a knitting emergency, and you’d just panicked?”

I shrugged. “Then I would have wasted your time and almost drowned myself for no good reason, but it was a risk I was willing to take.”

The smile broke through. “Well, as that’s one of the only things you’ve done this week that wasn’t illegal, I suppose this is progress.”

I just smiled back and nodded. If he only knew.

A car door slammed out front, and Deputy LeBlanc went to the door to let in the parade of paramedics. I joined Ida Belle and Gertie to peek out the front window. All over the block, people started coming out of their homes and gathering in front lawns.

“Everybody’s coming outside now that the cops are here,” Gertie said. “Wasn’t no one coming outside when they heard gunfire, though.”

“Cowards,” Ida Belle yelled out the front door.

I grinned. It was hard not to like the old girls.
 

Chapter Twenty-One

It was long after midnight before Deputy LeBlanc, the coroner, and an assortment of other people finished up at Gertie’s house. I knew they’d still have a load of questions to answer and papers to sign in the coming days, but I was confident that we were safe. Deputy LeBlanc hadn’t shown any hesitation in buying their story. In fact, I think he was relieved that Marie hadn’t killed Harvey as he had been dreading arresting her. Melvin wasn’t liked by anyone, so the entire town would probably breathe a sigh of relief and have something to talk about for the next forty years.

Marie had rushed over after Gertie called, crying like a baby and hugging everyone within an inch of their lives, including Deputy LeBlanc, who seemed a bit embarrassed by all the fuss.

When she got to me, she’d whispered in my ear, “I wish Marge could have seen you now. She would have loved you.”

After the last car pulled out of the driveway and Deputy LeBlanc crossed the road to his house, I looked around at the mess in Gertie’s living room and shook my head.
 

“Grab a change of clothes,” I told Gertie. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

Gertie started to protest, but Ida Belle stopped her. “She’s right. We’ll all help you deal with this in the daylight. But right now, we need to get out of this house.”

“I know you two have your own places,” I said to Ida Belle and Marie, “but I have plenty of room if you want to come as well.”

Gertie clapped her hands. “Slumber party. I haven’t had one of those since I was a little girl.”

Ida Belle frowned. “Grown women do not have slumber parties. This will be a gathering of the troops.”

I nodded. “I say the first thing we do is gather in my kitchen for coffee and whatever Gertie has baked.”

Gertie lifted a chocolate cake off the kitchen counter. “What are we waiting for?”

The mood was festive as I served the coffee and Gertie cut off slices of her fabulous chocolate cake for everyone. When we were all seated at the table, Marie cleared her throat.

“I just want to tell you all,” Marie said, “how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, now and in the past. And I want to apologize to Gertie and Ida Belle for not telling you that I suspected Marge had killed Harvey all those years ago. I guess Marge thought I’d done it, and we’ve all been covering for someone else this whole time.”

“You were protecting Marge,” Ida Belle said, “and we respect that. Besides, even if we’d known, it wouldn’t have changed what we did. We needed to divert suspicion from you, regardless, because you were going to be the first suspect when Harvey came up missing. It didn’t matter who killed him.”

Relief passed over Marie’s face. “I guess you’re right. I just never thought about it in that light.”

I looked at Marie. “So, do you have any idea when or where Harvey was killed?”

Marie nodded. “I think he was killed right in my kitchen. I’d been sick, remember? After Harvey hit me and Marge tended to the cut, she gave me a sleeping pill and put me to bed. I was out in seconds and slept hard. I remember when I went downstairs to the kitchen later on that evening, there was the faint smell of bleach. I just brushed it off as Marge cleaning up. I mean, until later, when I started to wonder.”

Ida Belle shook her head. “She was cleaning up all right—after Melvin and Cheryl—and thinking you’d done it. I bet she had the shock of her life, coming back to the house and finding Harvey dead on the kitchen floor.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Marie said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the letter I’d gotten from the attorney.
 

“As much as I’d like to keep this,” Marie said, “to remind me that someone I respected and cared about loved me this much, we need to destroy this letter and all the others.”

I nodded. “They would only muddy the waters if they came to light.”

I got up from the table and pulled a cast-iron pot from the cabinets, then picked up the stack of unmailed letters and dropped them inside. I took the letter from Marie, then tossed it in with the others and set them on fire. Marie stood to watch them burn and then dumped the ashes in the sink and washed away any sign that the letters had ever existed.

“I think I’ve had about all I can take for one day,” Marie said, “so if you ladies don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

Ida Belle and Gertie showed no signs of retiring, so I refilled all our coffee mugs and sat down again. The adrenaline still running through me was a more potent stimulant than the coffee ever could be, and I knew it would be hours before I’d be able to relax enough to sleep.
 

Ida Belle looked over at Gertie with that secret look they share when they seem to talk telepathically. Gertie nodded, so I guess whatever was going on between the two of them, they were finally going to share.

“We need to talk,” Ida Belle said to me.
 

“Okay. About what?”

“About who you really are.”

I froze, not even breathing. “I don’t understand,” I managed to say, happy my voice sounded normal.

Gertie reached over and placed her hand on mine. “We’re not interested in ‘outing’ you, dear. We want to protect you.”

Ida Belle nodded. “But we can’t do that properly if we don’t know what we’re protecting you from.”

“We thought at first,” Gertie said, “that you might be running from an abusive husband or something of the like, but once we got to know you, we knew that couldn’t be the case. An abusive man wouldn’t last five minutes around you.”

I shook my head. “What makes you think I’m not exactly who I say I am?”

Gertie laughed. “You have fake hair, never wear makeup, and don’t seem the least bit interested in clothes.”

Ida Belle nodded. “You sit and stand with your back to the wall and facing openings in all buildings. You jumped an eight-foot fence like it was a speed bump, and despite your fight with Tiny, you weren’t the least bit winded.”

“You run like a sprinter,” Gertie continued, “and have balance like a cat with the moves of an advanced martial artist. I know the construction of my attic, and no way did you ‘lower’ yourself into that window.”

“When you meet people for the first time,” Ida Belle continued, “you immediately size them up, looking for weaknesses. You single-handedly took out two armed assailants, one with a knitting needle, and the second with a pistol shot right through the center of the forehead, all done without preparation and while scrambling. Normal people think; they don’t react like that.”