Swamp Sniper (25 page)

“No. I haven’t taken my eyes off of the house. Tony is still outside, but I haven’t seen Paulette.”

“Thanks.” I disconnected and turned the phone on vibrate before slipping it back into my jeans pocket. I peered out once more, but didn’t see any movement in the neighborhood, so I slipped around the hedge and started a quick walk across the lawns, trying to keep myself positioned in a way that foliage and vehicles would block my approach from anyone in the distance.

The street was a dead end, with a patch of ground about twenty feet wide that was kept up by the town. Directly beyond that was the swamp. I looked behind me and blew out a breath. She must have gone into a house, but which one? And why would she go to such lengths to hide visiting a resident from her cousin?

I was just about to chalk it up as a loss and leave when I saw a flash and then something moving at the edge of the swamp. I ducked behind a magnolia tree and peered around, trying to see what had gotten my attention. A couple of seconds later, Paulette stepped out of the swamp, her sequined gold top glinting in the sunlight. The flash made total sense now.

What the hell was she doing in the swamp?

Unfortunately, it was a question that would have to wait because she set out straight toward me. I tucked myself in and pressed myself flat against the trunk of the tree. It wasn’t long before I heard her footsteps coming toward me. I listened closely to the sound of her steps on the grass and inched around the tree at the exact moment that she passed.
 

I’d no sooner skirted to the other side of the tree when I saw a man emerge from the swamp from the same place Paulette had exited. I dove for a set of low hedges and crouched behind them, peering through the branches to see if I could get a good look at the man. Even though he was wearing a ball cap pulled low and I only had a limited side view of him, it only took me a couple of seconds to place him.

But what I couldn’t do is come up with any plausible reason for Bobby to secretly meet Paulette in the swamp.

###

“Bobby?” Gertie asked. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. “I got a good look at the side of him, and I recognize his stride from when I met him at the rally.”

“And from when he left Francine’s this morning after you blew him off for Carter?” Ida Belle asked.

I shuffled my feet. “Where did you hear that?”

“One of the Sinful Ladies called to tell me about it while you and Gertie were tree-climbing. It’s getting around.”

I groaned. The last thing I needed was even more people talking about me.

“So why would Bobby meet Paulette?” I asked, trying to shift the subject back to something more comfortable.

Ida Belle and Gertie both shook their heads.
 

“I’m surprised he even knows her,” Ida Belle said. “He left Sinful before Ted and Paulette moved here.”

“But he’s been back on leave, right?” I said. “Could he have met her then?”

Gertie frowned. “You know, I only recall seeing him once since he left, and I can’t remember if that was before or after Ted and Paulette moved here. His mother was complaining that he always had somewhere better to go instead of visiting her.”

“His mother is a total nag,” Ida Belle said. “Going to hell is a better option than visiting Vera.”

“There is that,” Gertie acknowledged.

An idea formed in the back of my mind, and even though it was as thin as the edge of a razor blade, I couldn’t seem to stop it from taking shape. “What if he met up with Paulette in New Orleans during his leave?”

Gertie’s eye widened. “What makes you think that?”

“No solid reason. Probably because he’s a flirt and it irritates me. I’ve only seen him twice and both times, I’m sure he was hitting on me, or getting around to it.”

Ida Belle nodded. “He has a reputation of being rather a hound dog.”

“Always sniffing around a woman,” Gertie agreed.
 

“Well, Paulette certainly didn’t spend any time in the military,” I said, “and I can’t think of any other reason for him to talk to her. If he wanted to pay condolences, he would have rung the front door bell and been holding a casserole, like everyone else in this town.”

“Do you think he could have killed Ted?” Gertie asked.

“Sure, he could have,” I said. “Almost anyone could have.”

“But you don’t think so?” Ida Belle said.

I shook my head. “I had him pegged for a louse, but not a killer. Of course, I’ve been off a bit since I’ve been in Sinful. The residents here are not nearly as predictable as terrorists.”

“Preach,” Gertie said.

“If we follow the line of Bobby having a fling with Paulette during his leave,” I said, “then what would make sense is him meeting with her to impress upon her the importance that she didn’t tell anyone.”

“I get it,” Ida Belle said. “Given the timing of his arrival back in Sinful, if people knew he’d been carrying on with Paulette, he’d move to the top of the suspect list.”

“Exactly.”

“But you don’t think he did it?” Gertie asked again.

“No…but I don’t know why.”

“It’s hard to believe anyone would get that worked up over Paulette,” Gertie said.

“There’s that, and since we now suspect Ted didn’t have the money we originally thought he had, if Paulette wanted to be with another man, she could have simply left. Nothing to lose, right?”

Ida Belle sighed. “While it’s an interesting piece of information, if it doesn’t help our case, then I guess we better shelve it and get back to our original plan of checking out Lyle.”

I nodded, but was only half listening. I wasn’t being dishonest when I said I didn’t think Bobby had killed Ted. Something about him didn’t say killer, his military career notwithstanding. But I did think he was a liar. Something about him wasn’t genuine, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

I just hoped whatever Bobby was hiding had nothing to do with Ted’s murder.

###

After my big reveal about Paulette and Bobby, I headed home for a shower, food, and some thinking about everything we knew so far and a plan for getting the goods on Lyle. Assuming there were some goods to get.

Ida Belle and Gertie couldn’t come up with a better explanation than I had for Bobby’s clandestine meeting with Paulette, and I had a feeling they weren’t going to. From the beginning, I’d had the feeling that Ted’s murder was just the surface of everything that was going on. The photos, Ted’s hidden past, the two guys taking a picture of Ted’s corpse…I knew all of it was important and somehow it all fit together.

But damned if I could figure out how.

I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been more frustrated. This must be what CIA analysts felt like when they had so many facts in front of them and were trying to piece them together until they made sense. Considering that an analyst’s report might result in a hit on someone, I imagined they were considerably stressed as well as frustrated.
 

All the times I’d read the files on my targets, I’d never once stopped to consider what someone went through to gather all that information, then put it together in a way that not only made sense, but created a call to action. As soon as I got back to DC, I was buying every one of the analysts an expensive bottle of wine.
 

Carter has to do this every day as well.

The thought ripped through my mind as I pulled into my garage and instantly, a wave of guilt washed over me. Carter was the one who was ultimately responsible for piecing all of this together, and he was working with half the information we were. Once again, I tried to think of a way to get him the information without implicating myself and Gertie, not to mention making things even worse for Ida Belle. But by lying to begin with, we’d gone past the point of no return.
 

If we fessed up now, then we’d be guilty of interfering with a police investigation. And since one of the culprits was currently the prime suspect, I figured that would be very, very bad when the prosecutor found out. Carter had been lenient in checking my background. So far, he’d only given it a cursory look, which wouldn’t yield anything suspicious. But if the state prosecutor got even a whiff of an idea that I was hiding something, he would tear my cover apart one layer at a time.

I walked into the kitchen and threw my keys on the counter. “You really stepped in it this time, Redding,” I said to the cabinets.

A loud meow sounded below me and I looked down to see Merlin, who began his leg-rubbing routine. I reached down to scratch him behind the ears, then remembered he hadn’t eaten since last night when I’d given him leftovers. Of course, when I left the house for my funeral fun, he still hadn’t moved from his spot on my bed, so I didn’t exactly feel sorry for him.

I reached for the cat food and dumped some in a bowl. Merlin’s meows got louder and more insistent. “Give me a second, you infernal beast. How much of an appetite could you possibly have worked up sleeping?”

I put the bowl of food on the floor and Merlin leaned over to delicately pick up a single piece of the food before sitting down to crunch it. Cats certainly had more table manners than dogs. Bones always managed to spread more food across the kitchen floor than he actually got into his stomach. Of course, Bones was a hundred years old and had three teeth left. Maybe when Merlin was older he’d be as messy.

Which then made me wonder how old the cat was. He didn’t look like a baby, but I had no idea how one gauged a cat’s age. As soon as this entire mess with Ida Belle was over, I needed to take him to a vet. They could probably tell me if I was shacking up with a teenager or an older man.

Now that the noise level in the kitchen had subsided, I pulled sliced roast beef from the refrigerator and made myself a sandwich. I managed to eat half of it with no interruption, but I’d no sooner taken a bite out of the second half when my cell phone rang. I glanced down at the display and saw Walter’s number.

I chugged some soda and answered.

“It’s about to happen,” Walter said, his voice shaking.

“What’s about to happen? Are you all right?”

“I went to the sheriff’s department to talk to Carter. I don’t care if it’s his job. He needs to be reminded that Ida Belle couldn’t possibly kill someone.”

“Hmm,” I said. Ida Belle had actually killed someone last week, but since that person was about to kill me, I supposed that didn’t count in Walter’s tally.

“The front office was empty when I walked in, so I started back to Carter’s office and that’s when I heard him on the phone.”
 

I heard him take a deep breath and blow it out.

“I know I shouldn’t have been listening,” he said, “but damn it, I did anyway.”

Since I’d first heard Walter’s voice, I’d been on edge, knowing something was very wrong, and I knew with certainty that I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say.

“The lab results came in,” Walter said. “Ida Belle’s gopher poison is a match.”

My lower back tightened so hard and so fast, it made my head and neck ache. “Do you think he’s going to arrest her?”

“Once the prosecutor gets that information, I don’t think he’s going to have a choice.”

I checked my watch. It was almost five o’clock. With any luck, Carter wouldn’t be able to get the information to the prosecutor until tomorrow. That bought us until tomorrow morning before Ida Belle was behind bars and things got infinitely dire. Which meant we had a little over half a day to solve a murder, get the information to Carter without implicating ourselves, and clear Ida Belle’s name.

I could do this. I’d single-handedly overturned militias with less effort.

How bad could it be?

Chapter Twenty-Three

Famous last words.
 

It was 11:00 p.m. and I was lying flat on the ground, under a hedge, staring across the street at Lyle Cox’s house, praying that he did something a murderer might do. So far, he’d sat in his recliner in the living room, drunk beer, and watched two hours of sports television, which looked pretty darn nice from where I sat. Or lay.
 

Due to my training, my body could take hours of immobility, so my muscles hadn’t started to cramp, but my mind was ready to leak out my ear and go do something of interest. Anything but sit here another two hours getting eaten alive by the biggest mosquitoes God had ever created. Seriously, I’d been in aircraft that was smaller.
 

Ida Belle and Gertie were faring worse than me. Ancient bones didn’t like being cramped on the ground under a bush, and since Ida Belle was the only one who exercised with any regularity, my guess was Gertie would be walking like the Hunchback for days to come. Still, I had to give them points for not complaining. I’d worked with CIA agents who weren’t as durable as the two senior citizens beside me.

“If he’s not going to do anything worth watching, I wish he’d pass out or something,” Ida Belle said.

“It’s probably our luck he’s a night owl,” I said.

“Or a vampire,” Gertie said.

A vampire wouldn’t be the oddest thing I’d seen in Sinful, so I left the possibility open. I saw movement through the window and got more excited than the situation truly warranted. “Look. He’s moving.”