Soldiers of Fortune (11 page)

I nodded and moved into the primary position. Ida Belle was the swamp tracking expert, but when it came to entry into a potentially hostile environment, I wanted to take point. I crept down the line of shrubbery toward an opening I’d spotted about ten feet off the trail. When I got to the edge of the bushes, I lifted the Desert Eagle up to my shoulder and spun around the edge of the bushes to face what was left of the lab.

“It’s clear,” I said as I stepped toward what remained of the building.
 

Two charred four-by-fours stretched upward, crossed over each other and wedged between two huge cypress trees with blackened sides. Pieces of plywood and aluminum lay strewn over a twenty-feet-square radius. Glass glittered on the ground as the sunlight filtered through the trees The tops and inside branches of the trees surrounding the clearing were completely gone, shards of wood hanging where huge branches had once stretched out over the building. When I looked up, it appeared as if I were in a round hole looking up at the sky.

“Wow,” Gertie said. “This was some blast. Way worse than that incident with our still.”

“You had a still incident?” I asked.

“That’s the way Gertie tells it,” Ida Belle said.

“How many times do I have to tell you I thought it was water in that bottle?” Gertie asked.

Ida Belle raised one eyebrow. “As opposed to 190 proof, like it said on the label? Gertie tried to put out a generator fire with the contents of that bottle.”

Good. God.

“Let’s see if we can find anything in this mess,” I said.

We picked through the rubble of broken glass, burned wood, melted plastic, and torn aluminum, but didn’t come across anything that would give us an indication of who might have been using the site. After thirty minutes of digging in soot and ash, I rose up and clapped my hands together, trying to remove some of the black goo that clung to them.

“Maybe we’re not thinking about this right,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Ida Belle asked.

“We’re searching right in the site of the blast—ground zero,” I said. “Everything here would have been blasted to bits, some of it falling back down here and the rest scattered out.”

Ida Belle nodded. “And everything that fell back down here continued to burn while things flung outside of the clearing might have retained more of their original properties.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The side we entered from had thick foliage that probably prevented things from getting through, but the other sides of the clearing only have trees and low brush. I say we each take a side and start looking from the edge of the clearing to ten feet out.”

We all tromped off into our section of the swamp and I started scanning the foliage and the ground for anything that might give us a clue as to who had built the lab. “Remember to look up. Things could be caught in limbs.”

I spent thirty minutes scouring every inch of my area and was just about to call it a bust when I caught sight of something under a clump of weeds. The color didn’t match anything in the surrounding area, so I squatted to get a closer look, then smiled.

It was a finger!

“I found something!” Gertie yelled.

“Me too,” I said and made my way back to the clearing.

Gertie held out her hand, and Ida Belle and I looked down at the black matchbook she held.

“It’s not weathered,” Gertie said, “so it couldn’t have been here very long.”

“So could be he’s a smoker,” Ida Belle said, “which still keeps a good portion of the men in Sinful in the running. Or he could have been using the matches for the meth cooking. Either way, I don’t see how that helps.”

Gertie smiled and flipped the matchbook over to show the Swamp Bar logo in bright yellow. “And we know he hangs out at the Swamp Bar, which narrows things down a bit more.”

A wrinkle formed across Ida Belle’s brow. “I wonder if we could get a good print off of it?”

“No need,” I said and held up the finger. “I’ve got the print thing covered.”

They both made a face like they’d smelled something bad, then brightened.
 

“That’s a great find!” Ida Belle said.

“Do you think it belonged to the cooker?” Gertie asked.

Ida Belle stared at her. “No. It probably belonged to some other guy who happened to have his finger blown off in the swamp.”

Gertie put her hands on her hips. “Lots of people in Sinful are missing fingers, and they weren’t running meth labs.”

“Yeah, but those fingers are either at the bottom of the bayou or inside a gator,” Ida Belle said.

“I think it’s reasonable to assume only one person lost a finger here,” I said.

“You’re probably right,” Gertie said. “Besides, if it had been here a while, something would have already eaten it.”

“With a little Tabasco, it might not be so bad,” I said. “Isn’t that what you guys say about everything?”

Ida Belle laughed.

Gertie made a face. “Ick. I’m glad I found the matchbook and don’t have to carry that thing back. How are you planning on securing it?”

I slipped it in my jeans pocket. “All secure.”

Gertie frowned.

“What?” I asked. “It’s not like I can do more damage than has already been done.”

“If we’re done here,” Ida Belle said, “we should probably clear out before someone catches us.”

“I don’t think there’s anything else to find,” I said.

Gertie nodded and we headed out of the clearing and back down the trail. I paused at the end of the path and scanned the bayou. “Coast is clear,” I said.

We hurried over to the airboat and hopped inside. I started toward the back and Gertie grabbed my arm. “You said I could ride shotgun on the way back.”

I knew what I’d said, and I would never go back on my word, but given Ida Belle’s love of speed, I was positive that Gertie could last longer on a bull than in that seat. “Fine,” I said, “but we do it my way.”

Gertie narrowed her eyes at me. “What way is that?”

“Give me your shirt,” I said, pointing at the long-sleeved pink plaid print that she was wearing.

“I’m not taking off my shirt,” Gertie said.

“I know you’re wearing a tank underneath it,” I said. “It’s not like I’m asking you to go back to Sinful naked.”

“Thank God,” Ida Belle muttered.

Gertie unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it off, but still didn’t look convinced. “I don’t see what good this is going to do. Not like air is going to catch in the thing and haul me away like a parachute.”

“Not with those hips,” Ida Belle said.

“I’ve lost three pounds,” Gertie said.

“No you haven’t,” Ida Belle said. “Your vision has just gotten worse and you can’t see it.”

I pointed to the seat. “Just climb up there before all of Sinful parades by and sees us here.”

Gertie climbed up into the seat and plopped down, looking smug and happy. “This is great!”

“Uh-huh,” I said as I climbed onto the platform next to her. “Just wait until your eyeballs turn inside out.”
 

I draped the shirt across her chest and pulled the sleeves behind the seat, then tied them in a knot.

Gertie struggled to release herself from the restricting fabric. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Ensuring you don’t pitch out into the bayou,” I said. “You’ll thank me when it’s over.”

“Wanna bet?” Gertie asked.

Ida Belle grinned. “If you’re done strapping in Junior, let’s get out of here.”

I hopped off the platform and gave the bench a once-over. No way was I sitting there without a roll cage. I pulled two life vests out from the bench storage and placed one on the bottom of the boat and one against the side of the bench to make a cushioned seat. Then I took a seat and gave Ida Belle a thumbs-up.
   

“Pansy,” Ida Belle said and fired up the engine.

The name-calling rankled a bit, but it was better to be rankled than tossed about like salad. If experience had taught me anything, I knew I’d need to be in tip-top shape for whatever came next. Our excursions into private detective territory always involved something insanely physical before it was over.

Ida Belle stomped on the gas pedal and my head jerked back as the boat leaped out of the water. I grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my head back into place as the boat leveled out at two million miles per hour. As soon as I got home, I was
so
ordering one of those neck thingies that race car drivers wore.
 

I heard Gertie squeal and turned around. Her face looked as though she’d gone through five hundred facelifts, and none of them good. Her skin was pulled back so tight, her mouth was a solid line across her face, and despite the fact that I was positive she had her eyes as wide open as a hoot owl, they formed narrow slits that matched her lips. Her white hair stood straight up and back, and I wondered if it would make it all the way back home, or simply give up and let go. If she’d had a beard, she would have doubled for post-op Kenny Rogers, or with a mustache, Albert Einstein.

“Whoohoo!” Ida Belle hooted and pushed the steering rod forward for one of those 12-G turns.

I braced my legs on the hull in front of me and grabbed the side of the boat to try to keep myself from being flung down into the bottom. I heard Gertie yelling behind me, and she didn’t sound nearly as enthused as Ida Belle. I managed to stay mostly upright and pulled myself back to a sitting position as the boat straightened out again.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Ida Belle pressed the accelerator harder and the boat jumped forward again. Buoys, land masses, and clouds began to pass before my eyes, or maybe it was my life. It was so blurry, I couldn’t be sure. What concerned me even more was how Ida Belle could see to drive at this speed.

That thought had no sooner entered my mind when Ida Belle entirely cut her speed and the boat slammed down on top of the water. My knees gave and I pitched forward, rolling into the hull. “What the hell?” I cried as I pushed myself upright.

“We got trouble,” Ida Belle said and pointed to the channel opening that led back to Sinful.

I peered over the hull and saw a bass boat at the opening of the channel, but not just any bass boat. That particular boat belonged to Walter, and he wasn’t lending it out. “What are they doing out here? They’re supposed to be lounging in recliners watching television.”

“Apparently, they lied,” Ida Belle said.

“Well, it’s not like we can bitch about it,” Gertie said. “Not with our track record.”

“I didn’t lie about anything today,” I said.

“Only because you haven’t talked to Carter today,” Ida Belle said.

“That’s beside the point.” I blinked a couple of times to put some moisture in my eyes and took another look, then sighed. “Might as well head in. Carter’s got a pair of binoculars trained on us.”

“What’s our cover story?” Gertie said.

“Simple,” Ida Belle said. “Fortune leased an airboat and we’re trying it out. They don’t have a line of sight to the island where the lab was located. For all they know, we’ve been cruising back and forth across the lake.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

Ida Belle pressed the gas pedal down again and we lurched forward, hurtling across the lake toward Walter’s boat. When we were about twenty yards away, Ida Belle cut the speed and we coasted to a stop beside them.

“What the hell is this?” Carter asked, pointing at the boat.

“It’s an airboat,” Gertie said.

Carter looked up at her and did a double take when he saw her long-sleeved shirt straitjacket. “I know what it is. Why do you have it?”

“Fortune leased it for the summer,” Ida Belle said. “Isn’t it great?”

Carter’s eyes widened and he pinned his gaze on me. “You leased an airboat? Why in the name of all that is holy would you do such a thing?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was talking to this boat salesman a week or so ago in the café. I asked him about airboats since I’d seen one going by my house one day, and he told me they were the most fun ever and said he’d make me a deal. When I explained I was only here for the summer, he offered to do a lease.”

Carter shook his head in disbelief. “You leased an airboat? Oh my God.”

I heard a chuckle and looked behind him to see Walter wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
 

“You’re not helping matters,” Carter said. “The three of them will kill themselves in this thing. They’ve already tied Gertie up, for Christ’s sake.”

“That was Fortune’s idea,” Gertie said. “I was mad about it, but she swore I’d thank her when it was over. I have to admit, she was right on that one.”

“Told you so,” I said.

Gertie nodded. “I’d be swimming for shore if it wasn’t for this shirt. Good thing I bought the one made out of the sturdy material and not that cheap stuff.”

“Stop all your worrying,” Ida Belle said. “This isn’t my first rodeo. I can handle this thing just fine.”

“Like you handled the Corvette?” Carter asked. “Or the motorcycle?”