The Miss Fortune Series: Nearly Departed (Kindle Worlds Novella) (6 page)

“Wasn’t he
wearing a Sinful Sluggers baseball cap?”

Gertie
looked at the photo. “Yes, but every man who ever played on the Sinful Sluggers
team owns a cap.”

Ida Belle
shook her head. “Why they wear them is beyond me. They’re the worst team in the
adult league. No surprise, though. The Swamp Bar sponsors them, so the team’s
always filled with a bunch of Swamp Bar losers.”

“We need to
talk to Fred.”

Ida Belle
dismissed me with a wave. “Fred’s harmless.”

“You didn’t
see the way he looked at me.”

“He just
has a bug up his butt is all.”

“Maybe he
needs me to remove it.”

Gertie
shook her head. “Can’t be done. Season five of Medical Mysteries. He was quite
a local celebrity after the show aired. I have it on DVD if you’d like to
watch.”

I shook my
head. “I’d rather not.”

Gertie took
a closer look at the image on the screen. “You know, come to think of it, he
did call me a ‘Yankee lover’ last week when I bumped into him coming out of
Walter’s. Then he started bragging about some Yankee he ran off the road the
other day.” Gertie arched her brow. “You don’t think that’s why he tried to
kill me. Because I’m friends with you?”

Ida Belle
held up her hands. “Hold on. The person sitting on the bench may or may not
have anything to do with it. And if he does, we don’t even know the man in the
picture is Fred.”

I studied
the photo. “Yeah, but if it is Fred, I bet at some point he would start
bragging about it with a bunch of his buddies at the Swamp Bar. I need to get
in there and listen in.”

“I don’t
like where this is going,” Ida Belle said. “The last three trips to the Swamp
Bar didn’t go so well. You’ll never be able to step foot in there without
people clamming up. And since you’re the most famous Yankee in Sinful at the
moment, I don’t think they’ll be rolling out the welcome mat.”

I knew she
was right, but something about this guy said he was the one. I had to think of
a way to get into the Swamp Bar and hear the scuttlebutt. Even if it wasn’t
Fred, someone who played for the Sinful Sluggers sat on that bench. The perfect
place to wait for the perfect time to remotely set the timer.

“I need to
think,” I told Ida Belle and Gertie. “I’m going for a run.”

“It’s
midnight,” Gertie said.

“Best time
to think.”

* * * * *

Sinful became a whole different
place after midnight. A little more… sinful. As I ran past Missy Labatt’s house
I noticed her husband coming home after a night at the Swamp Bar. I also
noticed Missy’s boyfriend sneaking out of a window on the side of the house. A
few houses away, old lady Talbot sat in a rocker on her porch, smoking,
thinking no one could see the red glow of her cigarette. Her husband had tried
to ban smokers from serving as tithing collectors in the Baptist church. Word
had it she spiked his evening warm milk with a sleeping pill so he wouldn’t
awaken to find her smoking.

As I rounded
the corner I approached the house of Peter Noel, lit up with his midnight
prayer meeting. Once I had snuck up and looked in the window and saw a group of
men sitting around a table. Maybe it was the stacks of poker chips, but
something told me the cards they were holding weren’t biblical flashcards.

Ten minutes
later I had finally reached my destination—the park bench at the rec center. Kneeling
beside the bench, I pulled a small flashlight from my jeans pocket and checked
the area for powder used to lift a print.

“It’s
already been processed.”

My pulse
quickened. I whirled around toward the sound of the voice, though I didn’t need
to see him to know who it was.

Carter
stood several feet away, wearing black jogging pants and a black T-shirt. He held
up his hands to block the flashlight. “Do you mind pointing that somewhere
else?”

I turned
the flashlight off and stood. “Have you been following me?”

“No, just
out for a run. So, do you think Stinky Labatt will ever figure out Missy has a
boyfriend? Or do you think he even cares?”

“You have
been following me.”

“Not
technically. I was parked outside Ida Belle’s house when I noticed you leaving.”

“And yet
you’re right here. Which means Ida Belle and Gertie are left unprotected.”

“With the
firepower those two carry? Besides, I called Deputy Breaux to ask him to
relieve me while I followed you to see what you’re up to.” He looked down at
the bench. “Did those two talk you into coming over here to collect prints?
Because that would be taking interfering in a police investigation to new
heights.”

“Collect
prints? Like, fingerprints?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “First you accuse us
of taking bomb fragments, and now you think I’m here to collect fingerprints?
You think very highly of our skills, Carter. Why would we want to collect
prints from this bench anyway?”

“Because
it’s the perfect spot for someone to activate a timer.”

“Huh, I
never thought of that. You might be right.”

“So, if I
frisked you or checked your backpack, I wouldn’t find some dusting powder and
tape?”

It had
occurred to me to try to lift a second set of prints. But with a mole in the sheriff’s
department we could call to find out the results, I decided not to bother.

“I’ll let
you frisk me if I can frisk you first,” I said, my lips upturning slightly.
Oh,
God, that is the dumbest flirt line ever.

But it
worked. Carter opened his arms wide. I stepped within inches of him and patted
down his biceps, normally not a body part one pats down. But an interesting
one, nonetheless.

“Not bad,”
I said. “You must lift weights.”

He
shrugged. “It’s one way to keep in shape.”

I could
think of a few other ways for his body to stay in shape, and I was dangerously
close to suggesting myself as his personal trainer.

“You know,”
I said, running my finger across his lips, “I once read about a man in prison
who hid a shank in his mouth. He was able to make an escape because of it. You
wouldn’t mind if I gave you a more thorough pat-down, would you?”

He grinned.
“I would expect it. I mean, you never know what dangerous weapon I might be
hiding inside my mouth.”

I took his
face in my hands and guided it down to mine. His lips didn’t need much prodding
to open.

I had no
idea how long we were lost in our kiss. Seemed only a second. And forever.

Until…

“Get a room!”

We both
jumped. I was so startled I think I bit Carter’s tongue.

“Ow.”

“Sorry.”

“What the
hell?” Carter took out his flashlight and shined it on Cookie, sitting in her
motorized wheelchair several feet away. “What are you doing out here, Miss Cookie?”

“What?”

Carter
shouted the question again.

“I was out
for my late-night stroll. The battery in my chair gave out. Who’s the skank?”

“I’m not a
skank.”

“What?”

“I’m not a
skank!”

Somehow it
sounded worse as a scream.

“Oh, the
Yankee. Same difference.”

“Miss Cookie,
you shouldn’t leave your house without a replacement battery.”

“What?”

Carter let
loose a stream of cuss words.

“Carter…” I
motioned with my head toward Cookie.

“Oh, she
can’t hear what I’m saying anyway. She refuses to wear a hearing aid. Honestly,
we could be plotting a murder and she wouldn’t hear it.” He looked back down at
Cookie, who continued to cast her 100-year-old glare at me. “Wasn’t tonight
your night out at the Swamp Bar?” Carter yelled.

“No!” she
shouted back. “I go on Tuesdays and Fridays. Half off beer night on Tuesdays
and ladies play free pool on Fridays.” She looked back at me. “You should bring
the skank there someday.”

“She’s not
a skank!”

Cookie
looked at Carter. “Well, you going to be a gentleman and wheel me home?”

“Go,” I
said to him, “before I kill her.”

“Another
time, then?” he asked, hope filling his eyes.

“Definitely.”

He grabbed Cookie’s
wheelchair. “Come on, Miss Cookie.”

“Hey,” I
said as he turned Cookie’s chair around, “you don’t have to park outside our
houses. We’re fine. If we notice anything out of the ordinary, we’ll give you a
call.”

“I’m going
to hold you to that.”

Of course,
we expected the unordinary, so anything to us was ordinary. “Promise.”

He nodded.
“Just stay out of the sleuthing business. For once let me do my job.”

I knew he
was frustrated at our continual interference with his police work. The problem
was, his position as deputy meant he had to do things by the book. Ida Belle,
Gertie and I didn’t have his restrictions. And time wasn’t on our side. Not
with a potential killer gunning for Gertie and the possibility of the ATF getting
involved and discovering my true identity. I needed to get into the Swamp Bar
and do some snooping around without anyone noticing me.

I watched
as Carter wheeled Cookie down the street. Suddenly the idea came to me. And I
thought it was a good one. I broke out in a run back to Ida Belle’s house.
Smiling all the way.

“You want
to go to the Swamp Bar dressed as who?” Gertie asked after I burst inside and
revealed my plan.

Ida Belle
shook her head. “No one will ever buy you as that old relic.” She got up from
the table and went into the kitchen for more coffee.

“Why not?”
I asked, following her. “Gertie has all those old lady getups in her hidden
storage closet. People are used to seeing Cookie in the Swamp Bar. They know
they can say anything in front of her and she won’t hear it. I can go tomorrow
night.”

Gertie came
in with her coffee mug, holding it out for Ida Belle to fill. “Cookie goes on
Tuesdays and Fridays. It would be unusual for her to show up on a Thursday
night.”

I shrugged.
“I’ll just make up some story about being really thirsty or something.”

Ida Belle
filled Gertie’s mug. Shook her head. “I don’t like it.”

“All I need
is the right makeup and a motorized wheelchair. If Fred’s inside and makes a
slipup, I’ll be sitting right next to him to hear it. I bet I could even lift
one of Fred’s glasses to get a print. And no one would even notice.”

I could
tell by Gertie’s smile my idea was winning her over. “I think it could work.”

“How are we
going to make Fortune look like Cookie? It’s not like the old-lady disguises we
used to put on back when we were younger. The people at the Swamp Bar already
know Cookie.”

“You said
people just ignore seniors.”

Ida Belle
nodded. “Most of them, yes, but there are a few people at the Swamp Bar who
actually look out for Cookie. If one of them’s inside tomorrow night and can
tell you’re a fraud, it’s all over.”

“Then we
have to make sure she’s a dead ringer for Cookie,” Gertie said, smiling. “And I
know just the person who can make that happen.”

“What?” I screamed into my vanity
mirror, scrunching my face as if I had stepped in a pile of dog poop.

I reached
over to my laptop and pressed
play
on one of the downloaded videos of
Gertie’s funeral. On the video Cookie screamed “What?” to her daughter, Delphine,
her face scrunched like… well, like she had rolled her wheelchair through dog
poop.

“What?” I
screamed again.

After four
hours of imitating Cookie, I had her voice and facial expressions down pat. Pretty
amazing, considering I had all of five hours of sleep the previous night and Cookie
was 72 years older than me. The old-lady clothes Gertie and Ida Belle gave me
helped, a pair of polyester slacks and a T-shirt with
I Brake for Bingo
Games
spelled out in sequins.

You still
have it, Fortune,
I thought, flashing my reflection a thumbs-up.

The last
time I had this challenging a role was two years ago when I pretended to be a
Russian engineer in his thirties who was selling nuclear waste to an arms
dealer in Yemen. The one thing I hated about pretending to be a man was
wrapping my breasts flat against my chest, which wasn’t an issue in that
assignment because the Russian I was imitating had one bad case of man boobs.
But he also couldn’t pronounce his “r’s” clearly, something he was known for, and
when I slipped and said “ricochet” as clear as a bell, my slipup almost proved
to be my downfall. Luckily I was faster on the trigger than the arms dealer.

I heard
banging coming from my front door downstairs. Probably Ida Belle and Gertie here
with my wheelchair, the same model as Cookie’s. I ran downstairs, almost
tripping over my cat, Merlin, who decided curling up in the middle of the
staircase would be a good idea. I was beginning to wonder if Merlin wasn’t some
sort of cat assassin and I his number-one target.

When I
opened the door Ida Belle shoved the wheelchair through the doorway and then
stepped into the living room. The wheelchair was loaded down with an
overstuffed trash bag. Either a dead granny was hidden inside, or the head of
hair popping through the top was one of Gertie’s old-lady wigs she brought over
for my disguise.

“Tell me
you have coffee,” Ida Belle said, racing for the kitchen.

“Second pot
of the day.”

Gertie followed
through the doorway, yawning, and handed me a plate of coffee cake before
dropping her purse inside the door. “I brought sugar.”

Her eyes
were punctuated with dark circles beneath them. When I left Ida Belle and
Gertie at 1:00 a.m. they were both hunched over laptops, trying to track down
an exact duplicate of Cookie’s wheelchair in one of the many medical supply
rental stores in New Orleans.

“How much
sleep did you get last night?” I asked Gertie.

“About four
hours.”

“Well, you
did a great job finding the right one.” I inspected the wheelchair, which
looked exactly like the one Cookie rode in the photos and videos, down to the
My
other ride is a Harley
bumper sticker, as well as assorted decals of
grinning alligators. “This looks just like Cookie’s.”

“It should,”
Gertie said. “It is Cookie’s.”

“You stole her
wheelchair?” I didn’t care for the old crazy lady, but stealing her wheelchair
seemed unnecessarily cruel.

“Her
duplicate chair,” Gertie said, correcting me. “With all the decals in the same
spots. After searching the internet for an hour, I remembered she bought two.”

“Won’t she
notice it’s missing?”

“Probably
not. She keeps it out in Delphine’s shed, and once I heard Delphine complaining
her mama wasted money on buying a duplicate when she never uses it.”

Ida Belle
came out of the kitchen carrying two cups of coffee. “Unfortunately Delphine
had one of her bouts of insomnia last night, and when that happens she stays up
reading in her bedroom till all hours.” Ida Belle handed Gertie a cup of
coffee.

“She says
she reads ‘historical fiction,’ like she’s some college professor or something,”
Gertie said. “Honestly, Delphine must think we’re all fifty shades of stupid.” She
blew over her coffee.

Ida Belle
grabbed the plate of coffee cake from my hand and made her way to the sofa and
sat. “She usually has a hard time tearing herself away from a book. And unlike Cookie,
Delphine has excellent hearing. Since her bedroom window’s just a few feet away
from the shed, we had to wait a good hour after she turned her light off to
break in. That was about three this morning.”

“I’ll have
to ask Bev at the library what book she checked out, because I looked in her
window a few times and she had the biggest smile on her face.” Gertie took a
sip of coffee, then nodded her head toward the wheelchair. “Well, go ahead, try
her out. We charged the battery for you.”

“What?” I
shouted, screwing my face up like Cookie’s.

Ida Belle
laughed. “Pretty good.”

“Pretty
good? I’ve been practicing for hours to get Cookie down.”

“Her sour
face is the hardest,” Gertie said. “I think you’d have to go a few weeks
without a bowel movement to get that look right.”

I sat in Cookie’s
chair. Honked the bicycle horn.

“Pull your
head down into your shoulders,” Ida Belle said, bringing her shoulders up in
demonstration. “Make it look like someone hammered your head down into your
chest cavity.”

Gertie
nodded. “Again, lack of bowel movements would help with that too, so if you
haven’t had one today, resist the urge.”

“Can we
stop talking about movements, please?”

“Uh-uh,
you’re Cookie now. And if it’s one thing Cookie talks about, it’s bodily
functions,” Ida Belle said. “Why do you think no one wants to sit next to her in
church?”

Gertie
swallowed a gulp of coffee, and then agreed, “No kidding. If there’s anything
that’ll kill your appetite for Francine’s pudding, it’s hearing Cookie talk
about her mucus.”

“What else
does she talk about?” I asked as I circled the sofa and coffee table in the
wheelchair.

Ida Belle
rolled her eyes. “She goes on and on about how she was crowned Miss Sinful in
nineteen thirty-two, and how the next year Babette Doyon cheated and won the
pageant. She was Celia’s mother, just FYI.”

I popped a
wheelie. “A thief in Celia’s family? Why, I’m shocked.”

A knock at
the door commanded my attention.

“That must
be hair and makeup,” Gertie said.

“So early? It’s
only ten o’clock. I’m not going to the Swamp Bar till eight.”

“You’re
going to be transformed into a relic of the industrial age. That takes time and
heavy-duty prosthetics and makeup.”

I stood to
go answer the door, but Ida Belle stopped me. “Uh-uh, from now on, no more
walking. Use the chair.”

She was
right, of course. For the next several hours I had to live in Cookie’s world. I
sat back down and drove over to the door, banging on it with the front of the
chair. These things definitely were harder to maneuver than they looked. I did
a four-point turn, ending up at a forty-five degree angle, with the door at my
side. I grabbed onto the doorknob and turned it, then moved forward, pulling
the door open.

“Hello.” A
man’s voice surprised me. I just assumed Gertie would send for Ally or someone
from the hair salon. The look on my face must have been one of confusion.

“We brought
in someone from outside Sinful,” Gertie said.

Ida Belle
nodded. “Loose lips and all.”

I spun
around in the chair and watched as a man in skinny man jeans and purple T-shirt
entered the room.

Six foot two.
Lanky. Mid-thirties. Fine blond hair, about three-inches long. Took him an hour
to style it to look like he woke up five seconds ago. Threat-level: Low.

“Well,
well, well,” he said, eyeing me, “Miss Fortune. I knew I’d finally get my hands
on you.”

“Do I know
you?”

His voice went
up several octaves, becoming breathy. “You don’t recognize me?”

“French
Fry?”

“The one
and only,” he said in his normal voice, deep and rugged, sounding like a voiceover
for a truck commercial. “I teach an early-morning class on mortuary makeup in
New Orleans. The college isn’t big on me showing up in drag.” He leaned back,
put his hand on his chin, and squinted at me, as if somehow that would change
what he saw. “Hmm-hmm. I can work with this.” He opened his eyes wide. “Though
I don’t know why Gertie insisted I bring latex prosthetics. You don’t need any
of that. Just my expert hands, some of the finest French makeup, and a styling
brush will do.” He smacked his lips. “When I get done with you, Fortune, men
will be worshipping at your feet.”

Gertie held
out her hand. “Oh no, French Fry. We don’t want her to look glamorous. Toss me
my purse, honey. It’s over there by the door.”

French Fry
looked down and spotted Gertie’s enormous Pullman-sized white purse. He bent
down and lifted it, holding it at arm’s-length from his body as if it contained
biohazardous material.

“Oh my,” he
said, pursing his lips. “How many anemic cows were sacrificed for this thing?
What on earth do you have in here?”

“Stuff.”

He turned
his head and leaned his ear closer to it. “What’s that?” He looked at Gertie.
“Your purse is pleading with me to shoot it and put it out of its misery.”

Ida Belle
laughed. “I told you something was living inside that thing.”

French Fry
shuddered. “Honey, don’t look now, but America’s Most Wanted seasons one
through five are hiding in this thing.”

Gertie
pulled herself up from the couch, stormed over to French Fry, and yanked her
purse from him. She opened it and rummaged inside before pulling out a bundle
of photos. “Here.” She slapped them into his open palm.

He looked
down at the photos and gasped. “What is this?” He took a closer look. “It’s
that old biddy from your funeral.”

“Do you
think you can match me with the photos?” I asked.

“We brought
wigs and clothes too,” Gertie said.

“Well, of
course I can match the photos. I’m the best makeup artist around. But I will
hate myself for doing it. All during the after-party at Francine’s she kept
staring at me in my dress and asking what I did with my manly parts. That’s plain
rude.”

Gertie
shrugged. “It’s not like we all haven’t wondered.”

French Fry
folded his arms and shot Gertie a cold stare.

Ida Belle
set her mug on the coffee table and reached behind her, under her waistband,
retrieving her Glock and setting it on the table next to the mug.

“Do not
make me use that, French Fry. I’ll be grumpy for the rest of the day.”

“Fine,”
French Fry said. “I will transform this beautiful woman into one of God’s
rejects. But I’ll need space to work my magic, an unending supply of coffee,
and there’s a
Jerry Springer
marathon on TV today. I need it on in the
background for inspiration.”

After
ordering Gertie and Ida Belle to another room and setting up his supplies on
the coffee table, French Fry went to work.

“So, what’s
your real name?” I asked French Fry while
Jerry Springer
took a
commercial break.

He muted
the sound. “Bradley Simms. What’s yours?”

I shifted
in Cookie’s wheelchair. “Sandy-Sue Morrow.”

“Sandy-Sue’s
your drag name,” he said, pulling on my extensions. “Underneath these
extensions is a short boy cut.”

“I had an
accident with a curling iron,” I lied. “I had to cut it off. So I went with
extensions.”

“Don’t lie
to French Fry,” he said with his breathy French Fry voice.

“I’m not
lying.”

His voice
deepened. “Look, sister, my entire life has been built on a lie. So I can
recognize when someone’s hiding something.”

My pulse
quickened.
Who is this guy?

And did I
have to worry about him?

“Fine, it’s
okay you don’t tell me. Lord knows I didn’t tell people who I really was until
I was, oh… about thirty. But, you know what? The problem with shutting down a
part of your life is that all your energy goes into maintaining the lie. The
authentic parts of you get lost. And that’s all I’m going to say on the
matter.”

I sat in
silence while he clipped my hair up and slipped one of Gertie’s wigs over my
head. I knew he had a point. Living a lie was taking a toll. I tried to imagine
my relationship with Carter without the lie of being Sandy-Sue.

Hello,
Carter, I know you thought I was a librarian, but I’m actually a CIA assassin.
I will disappear for weeks at a time and you won’t have a way to contact me or
know if I’m alive or dead. And when I’m home I can’t talk about my work. I
might sometimes appear withdrawn. That’s just me working through the images of
a successful kill. You’ll get used to it.