Gator Bait (10 page)

“What that tells me is that Carter did all his thinking at his house. His mind was already made up when he arrived at the sheriff’s department. When I’m contemplating a mission, I sometimes make notes, look at maps…”

Ida Belle’s face brightened. “You think we might find some clues about Carter’s thought process at his house.”

“There’s no guarantee, but it’s a better place to start than aimlessly cruising the bayous with the potential to be shot at ourselves.”

“Carter’s not going to let us in his house,” Gertie said. “He’ll know right away why we want in.”

“I don’t recall saying we would ask permission,” I said.

“All kinds of ways into a house,” Ida Belle agreed.

“We could always ask Emmaline for the key,” Gertie suggested.

I considered it for a moment, then shook my head. It would definitely be easier to stroll right in the front door, especially given that Carter’s rottweiler, Tiny, guarded the backyard, but it opened the door for too many risks.
 

“The more people we involve,” I said, “the more likely Riker or Carter will find out what we’re doing.”

“She’s right,” Ida Belle agreed. “Emmaline wouldn’t think twice about keeping something from Carter if it was for his own good, and she’s used to our meddling around in things, but Fortune is new in town and dating her son. If she gets even an inkling that Fortune isn’t exactly who she claims to be, Emmaline has the contacts to track down the real Sandy-Sue. And then the gig is up big-time.”

“Crap,” I said. “I hadn’t even thought about Emmaline checking up on me.”

Gertie frowned. “If she thinks Carter is serious about you, sooner or later, she’s going to. That’s what mothers do.”

I sighed. “Why couldn’t I find a nice, orphaned fisherman to date?”

“You could always stop dating Carter,” Gertie said.

That was true, and the easiest solution to both current and future problems. But the thought of turning Carter loose now made my heart clench with a tiny feeling of loss that I hadn’t experienced since my mother passed.

“I don’t like that option,” I said finally.

Gertie grinned. “I wouldn’t like that option either if I were you. If ever there was a man worth risking your life over, it’s him.”

“We’re going to be careful,” Ida Belle said. “No one’s life needs to be at risk.”

“It wouldn’t take much to jimmy Carter’s front door,” I said. “Give me an ice pick and a credit card, and I can get the door opened in a matter of seconds. Do you think someone will notice?”

“Of course,” Gertie said. “Sinful is full of the nosiest people in the world, but by now, everyone has heard about what happened to Carter. They will just think we’re picking up some things for him at the hospital. Likely no one will ever mention it to Carter or Emmaline.”

“And even if they do, we can deny it,” Ida Belle said. “With everything else that’s going on, no one’s going to dwell on the questionable musings of a nosy neighbor.”

“Great,” Gertie said. “We can swing by my house for an ice pick and I can change clothes. I’m starting to smell.”

“You’re probably molding, you old coot,” Ida Belle said.

Gertie shot Ida Belle a dirty look and wheeled around the corner into the neighborhood. As she was about to turn onto her street, I grabbed her shoulder. “Keep going.”

Gertie yanked the steering wheel back straight and continued on down the road before pulling to the shoulder and stopping. “What’s wrong?”

“Riker and Mitchell are parked in front of Carter’s house.” Which also meant they were parked across the street from Gertie’s house.

“What for?” Gertie asked. “They know where he is.”

“I bet they have a warrant to search his house,” Ida Belle said. “Looking for the same thing we are.”

“Well, they can’t show it to him if he’s not there,” Gertie said.

“They don’t have to,” Ida Belle replied. “They can present it to the sheriff and force their way in.”

“We have to get inside before the sheriff gets there,” I said. “And our easy front door entry is out, which only leaves the back door. Unless Tiny is off visiting relatives for the summer or has had counseling for that killer disposition, then I’m afraid the life-threatening part of this plan is now unavoidable. And I’m going to need a change of clothes and tennis shoes, which will take up even more time we probably don’t have.”

“You have a spare pair of yoga pants, socks, and T-shirt in my laundry room,” Gertie said. “We wear the same size tennis shoes, so you can borrow my new Nikes.”

“We can’t just pull up in your driveway without Riker and Mitchell seeing us,” I said, “and I’d rather they didn’t.”

“We can park around the block,” Ida Belle said, “and get in through the back door.”

“Isn’t it just easier to go to my house?” I asked. “And there’s still the issue of the dog to address.”

“I’ve got the dog covered,” Gertie said. “I got a whole slab of meat on Saturday. Put most of it in my freezer, but there’s a plate of steaks in my refrigerator.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Why would you buy an entire slab of meat for one person?”

“I didn’t really plan to?”

“You can’t accidentally buy half a cow,” I said.

“You can if you hit it with your car.”

Ida Belle shook her head. “Is that why your bumper is duct-taped on again?”

Gertie’s eyes widened. “No. The bumper fell off when I hit Big Leonard Vincent. He didn’t budge so much as an inch.”

I pondered the details of a man who tore a bumper off a car without moving an inch versus the cow, who didn’t get nearly as good a deal, but I couldn’t form a decent mental picture of such a giant.
 

“Okay, so we use the steaks to distract Tiny, and I jimmy the back door. Ida Belle comes with me to handle Tiny, and Gertie will keep watch up front, but some distance from Riker and company in case they recognize you from the hospital.”

“I’m telling you they won’t,” Gertie said.

“She’s probably right on that one,” Ida Belle said. “Aside from a quick glare, they barely looked at her.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” I said. “Gertie will alert us when the sheriff arrives.” I looked at Gertie. “If necessary, distract him for as long as possible so Ida Belle and I can make a clean getaway.”

“Perfect,” Ida Belle said as Gertie wheeled the car around the corner and parked behind her house, one street over.

We hurried in between the houses and into Gertie’s backyard. Gertie let us in the back door and we split off in three different directions. I ran to the laundry room and threw on my own clothes, then headed into the kitchen for the ice pick and meat. Gertie went upstairs to change clothes, and Ida Belle practically sprinted for the downstairs bathroom, grumbling something about daily water requirements and old bladders. A box of Nikes sat on the kitchen table, so I pulled them out and tried them on. A perfect fit.

Five minutes later, we reconvened. As Gertie bounced down the stairs, I drew up short and stared. Ida Belle exited the hallway, took one look up the stairwell, and uttered an “Oh my.”

During some era—one before my birth—the outfit Gertie had on was probably considered sexy. But a historical artifact worn on a, well, historical artifact, didn’t elicit the same response. The bright red fabric was more suited for a brothel than the sidewalks of Sinful. The fitted waist strained against fat forced into the restrictive fabric, creating creases where I was pretty sure it was supposed to lie flat and smooth. The poofed-out skirt hit just above the knees and looked oddly like a tutu. I was fairly sure the scoop neckline was supposed to provide a hint of the cleavage below, but the currently inserted cleavage and gravity had conspired to tug it down a good two inches below optimum range.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Ida Belle asked.

“Fortune said to distract the sheriff,” Gertie said.

Ida Belle cringed. “She meant start a conversation or fake a heart attack or something benign. Not dress like an Old Testament street walker. And what’s with the tennis shoes? Weren’t you wearing red pumps earlier?”

“My feet hurt and you never know when I’ll need to run. Besides, the tennis shoes have a red stripe.”

“Uh-huh,” Ida Belle said. “Where the hell did you get that getup, anyway?”

Gertie put her hands on her hips. “It so happens that this is the dress I bought for our high school homecoming.”

“I don’t ever remember seeing it,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe I was drunk.”

“In high school?” I asked.

Ida Belle shrugged. “Small town. Not a lot to do. You either got married, drunk, or pregnant, not necessarily in that order.”

“You never saw the dress because I didn’t get to wear it,” Gertie explained.
 

We didn’t have time to waste, and I knew the answer would be something that either strained credulity or made me blanch, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “Why not?” I asked.

Ida Belle sighed.

“Back then,” Gertie said, “I wasn’t exactly in hot demand.”

“You’re not in hot demand now,” Ida Belle grumbled.

Gertie gave her the bird. “So when that idiot Fingers Marcantel asked me to the dance, I started to say no.”

“His name was Fingers?” I asked.

“Yes, on account of him losing two of them in a fight with an alligator,” Gertie said.

“That’s not true,” Ida Belle said. “Everyone started calling him ‘Fingers’ because he couldn’t do math without using them to count—and I’m talking high school, not elementary. He made up that story about the alligator to sound like a tough guy. What really happened is he stuck his hand under the lawn mower when his dad was working on it.”

Gertie waved a hand at Ida Belle. “Whatever. Anyway, I wanted to go to the dance, and Fingers was my option, so I took it. I snuck off to New Orleans with two other girls and we bought dresses our mothers would have never let us out of the house in.”

“Your mothers would have been right,” Ida Belle said. “I wish yours was still around to stop this tragedy.”

“Anyway, I was walking home from school one day and heard someone moaning behind the big oak at the west side of the park. I thought someone was hurt, so I ran around the tree and there was Fingers and that slut Jasmine Arceneaux.”

“Great-aunt of Pansy Arceneaux,” Ida Belle threw in.

I nodded. Pansy Arceneaux, Celia Arceneaux’s daughter, wasn’t exactly a vestal virgin, and her less-than-moral ways had gotten her killed. “So it runs in the family. I take it you were so disgusted you didn’t go to the dance with Fingers?”

“I would have still gone,” Gertie said. “I mean, I’d already bought the dress, but Fingers’s mother found out. She pumped him full of penicillin and sent him off to military school the next day.”

Ida Belle threw her hands in the air. “All that to explain why you’re dressed like a Halloween hooker. You know what? I don’t even care anymore. Let’s just get this over with.” She stalked out the back door, Gertie trailing behind, her skirt swishing as she walked.

I gripped the ice pick and package of raw meat and set out after them, wondering how my life had gotten so complicated all over again.
 

Chapter Seven

I perched on top of one corner of Carter’s back fence and studied the giant sleeping dog on his patio. I motioned to Ida Belle, who was sitting on the opposite corner, and she pulled out a piece of steak and whistled.

Tiny opened one eyeball and Ida Belle whistled again, waving the hunk of meat in the air. Realizing his perimeter had been breached, Tiny jumped up and trotted straight for Ida Belle. She scooted back on the fence and tossed one of the hunks of meat about five feet out. The smell of the meat had Tiny skidding to a stop beside it. He took a single sniff then gobbled the entire thing up in two bites.

I worried for a moment that I hadn’t brought enough meat. The bait had to give me enough time to get in and out of Carter’s house. In and no out was fraught with issues I didn’t even want to consider.
 

Ida Belle waved and pulled out a second piece of meat. Tiny stretched his entire body up the fence, whining for Ida Belle to provide him with more raw treats. As soon as she dropped the next piece, I dropped into the bushes, then burst out and sprinted for the patio. Tiny’s head jerked around, and for a moment, I thought it was all over but the trip to the hospital, but Ida Belle whistled again and dropped another piece of meat on the ground.

I jabbed the ice pick into the door lock and shoved the credit card down the slot between the door and the frame. A couple seconds later, the lock clicked open and I bolted inside, closing the door on the now-charging rottweiler. Tiny slammed into the door and dropped onto the patio. For a moment, I thought he’d broken his neck, but finally, he rose and wobbled over to his bed, where he flopped down.
 

I ran to the front of the house and peered out the window. Riker and Mitchell were still parked at the curb. Riker was arguing with someone on the phone. I wondered if it was the sheriff’s department. I eased the blind slat back into place and headed for the kitchen. I wasn’t sure if Carter maintained a separate office, but if he didn’t, I figured he might work at his kitchen table like I did.