Happy Birthday, Marge Read online

  Gertie nodded. “A statewide tournament in New Orleans, probably midseventies, just after we came back from Vietnam.”

  As it registered with both of us, Gertie and I gazed at each other. “Fencing?” we both said.

  I rubbed my chin. “So, Barb knows how to use a sword. And she probably still has all her old swords.”

  Gertie’s eyes narrowed. “I knew Barb was in the fencing club in high school with Marge, but I didn’t know she was at the level of competing. We need to devote our resources to solving those burglaries after the party. And we can start by learning more about Barb.”

  “I’m with you there,” I said. We both stared at Barb as she continued to complain about Marge.

  “You wouldn’t believe what a cheater she was,” Barb said to her puppet, who nodded in agreement. She noticed us watching and lowered her voice, though still chatting up a blue streak.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Marge

  “I DID NOT CHEAT,” THE ghost said, getting in Barb Geroux’s face.

  “Yes, you did.”

  Marge pulled back, stunned. “You can hear me and see me.”

  Barb rolled her eyes. “I see you’re wearing your mullet. Another thing you cheated me out of. I was all set that day to become the first person in Sinful to make that leap in hair fashion and what did I see when I stepped inside Sinful Cuts? You, sitting in Cindy Lou’s chair, getting compliments from all the women in the shop for being the first person in Sinful to get a mullet. MY mullet. Well, I couldn’t get one after that. Everyone would think I was just copying you. I had to wait until you were dead to get my hair styled the way I wanted back then.” She patted her hair with her puppeted hand.

  “Very stylish,” she said through Cloris.

  “Thank you,” Barb said to the puppet.

  “You’re crazy,” Marge said.

  “And you’re dead,” Barb shot back.

  Gertie rushed over, followed by Fortune.

  “Who are you talking to?” Gertie asked.

  “Oh, just talking to myself,” Barb said, smirking at Marge. “You know me, old crazy Barb.”

  Gertie looked in the ghost’s direction. “Are you seeing something that the rest of us aren’t?”

  Barb smiled. “I was just telling Cloris that this is only the second time I’ve been in Marge’s house. The last time was in ninety-nine when we met to patch up our differences. I took one look at her trophies on the mantel and knew she’d just brought me over here to shove them in my face.” Barb put the trophy back on the mantel, placing it out of alignment with the other trophies. “Hope it’s not crooked. I know how particular Marge was. It would really grate on her to see her trophy up there all crooked.” Barb glared at Marge. “And her not being able to fix it.”

  And it did grate on Marge. She’d never been one for keeping a squeaky clean house, but her trophies were always lined up perfectly. “Put it right,” Marge demanded.

  “Bite me.”

  “Barb,” Gertie said firmly, “I want to know who you’re talking to.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Is it Marge?”

  Barb chuckled. “Well, now, wouldn’t that be a hoot if the only person who could see her would be me.” Barb waved Gertie off. “But, no, I’m just talking to myself, as always. Just thinking I should go get a bite of that wonderful Gertie Hebert cooking. Why, I don’t know when the last time was I had some of your cooking. Probably when I bought one of your cakes at the church bake sale, because I don’t recall you ever inviting me over to dinner. Now, Marge, I think you had her over to dinner several times a week. Well, she could really pack it away, I guess, being a chunky gal and all.” She looked at the food table. “Look, Cloris, deviled eggs. Your favorite.” Barb strode over to the table.

  “I’m not chunky,” Marge called out. “I’m stocky!”

  Barb turned her puppet toward Marge and yelled, “Chunky!” before allowing Cloris to scan all the food offerings.

  “I’m kicking her butt out,” Fortune said. “She disrespected Marge. And she’s getting that disgusting puppet too close to the food. We have no idea where that puppet’s been.”

  Gertie reached over and grabbed Fortune’s arm. “Wait. What if...” Gertie hesitated. “This is silly, but...”

  “You think she sees ghosts?” Fortune was having a hard time not smiling.

  “It’s possible,” Gertie said, defensively. “She was talking to the elder and very dead Sheriff Lee yesterday.”

  “Or just her imagination,” Fortune said. “From what I’ve heard about Marge, Barb would have been tossed out the door the second she called Marge a cheater.”

  “Got that straight,” Marge said. “If I had the skills, I would have picked her up, spun her around and stuck her on the ceiling. But I might need that crazy puppeteer.”

  Fortune looked over at the food table. “She’s just a typical Sinful nut job who is now giving a bite of cookie to a puppet.”

  “Still... if she could be a bridge to Marge...”

  Fortune gently placed her hands on Gertie’s shoulders. “Marge’s memory is all around you, Gertie. You don’t need someone like Barb Geroux to connect with her.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Marge said. “Yeah, she’s a wing nut, but she’s the only one who can hear me. Maybe I can get Barb to deliver my warning about the gun. As much as I hate having her in my house, you have to let her stay.”

  Gertie pulled in a breath and blew it out. “I agree with what you’re saying,” she said to Fortune, “but it’s not good Southern manners to invite a woman to a party and then uninvite her. We’re going to allow her to stay for now.”

  Fortune sighed. “All right. It’s your call. I guess it would be good to keep an eye on her, especially since she knows her way around swords and still holds a grudge about Gus Westerfield and the haunted plantation tour.”

  Barb finished dishing up a food plate (with the help of her puppet) and shuffled up to us. Its mouth full of cookie, the puppet mumbled something without Barb’s lips even moving, causing Barb to shoot a stern look its way. “Cloris, it’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.” Barb looked back at Gertie. “What do you expect? I ordered her from a shop in New York City.” She glanced at Fortune, and said, derisively, “She’s a Yankee puppet.”

  Fortune started to say something back to Barb, but Gertie cut her off. “Well, I’m sure Cloris is just having an ‘off’ day. You go enjoy yourself outside, Barb. If you or Cloris need anything, just let me know.”

  “Oh we will.”

  Barb headed into the kitchen to get to the backyard. The ghost followed her. “Oh no, you’re not getting away that easily.”

  “Not listening,” Barb said.

  The kitchen was crowded with women filling their plates with warm food items from crockpots and hot plates Gertie had set up on the countertops and island. Several of the women glanced at Barb as she made her way through, some rolling their eyes at one another. While Barb was known all over Sinful for her kookiness, she had seemed to always take it in stride. More like fostered it, Marge had always thought. She seemed to delight in being off balance and annoying people.

  Barb held up Cloris as she passed the women. “Ingrid had her lips plumped again,” she said through the puppet. “Can you say, Clown Lips?”

  “Cloris!” Barb shook her head sternly at the puppet, tossing an apologetic look at Ingrid, whose bloated lips were trying to form a frown on her face.

  For Barb, her puppets were her weapons.

  Marge followed Barb out the back door, where guests had gathered in folding chairs on the back lawn to listen to the music of Didi and the Comfort Shoes, who were jamming to a medley of Creedence Clearwater songs.

  “Move around to the side of the house where no one will see you,” Marge said to Barb.

  “Say ‘please.’”

  Marge pursed her lips. “Please.”

  Once they were alone, Marge asked, “Do you see all spirits, or just me?”

  Barb
sighed. “More than I care to see.”

  “I have a message I want you to deliver to Fortune.”

  “Nope.”

  “Look, Barb, like it or not you’ve got a gift of seeing people who’ve crossed over. Now, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

  “A gift?” Barb shot back. “What you might see as a gift, I see as a curse. When I was a little girl, we lived in New Orleans. As you can imagine, I saw a lot of dead people there. My daddy took advantage of it. Charged people a quarter if I’d talk to their loved ones. I never had a moment’s peace. Didn’t matter to my daddy, except when the spirits took over the house and even Daddy started seeing them in the middle of the night.

  “We were driven out of New Orleans and came to Sinful. It is not a gift. If word got around here, I’d be hounded to death again by the living and the dead. I have a few spirits who got wind of me and come around to talk. Best if the people of Sinful just think I’m talking to my puppets. So no, I won’t do it.”

  “Do it or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  “Or else I’ll go poltergeist on you.”

  Barb laughed. “If you were that talented, Marge Boudreaux, you’d be writing your warning in blood on the walls. And yes, I have seen that.”

  Barb marched through Marge, shaking off the sensation as she did and took a seat to listen to the concert.

  “When I do gain poltergeist skills,” Marge said to herself, “you’ll be the first one I look up.”

  Marge didn’t bother walking around to the door. She was a ghost, after all. It was time she acted like it. She walked through the wall, through her stove and back into her kitchen, then into the living room to find Fortune, whom she spotted with Gertie greeting more arriving guests. This time, the Hoovers. She drifted over to them and noticed the tension in Audrey Hoover’s body language. She was jittery, her eyes darting around the room as her husband warmly greeted Gertie and Fortune.

  “So nice of you to come,” Gertie said to them.

  “We wouldn’t miss it,” Scott Hoover said. “Would we, Audrey?”

  “No, of course not.” But her lips were tight.

  She was wound up. And Scott seemed to be overcompensating, gushing over the way the house was decorated, as if having to make up for his wife’s nervousness.

  “Did you blow up all those balloons yourself?” He glanced at the food table, not waiting for a response. “Deviled eggs? Look, Audrey, your favorite.”

  She nodded. “They look great.” Suddenly, she blurted out, “Deputy LeBlanc came by our house this morning.”

  “They’re not interested in that,” Scott said. “Is that music I hear out back?”

  “I’m interested in it,” Fortune said. “Any developments regarding your burglary?”

  “He wanted to look at our files,” Audrey said. “Our business files.”

  Scott took firm hold of Audrey’s shoulders. “This is Marge’s birthday party. Let’s go enjoy ourselves. Beer?”

  “Out back in the ice chests,” Gertie said.

  Scott led his wife out through the kitchen. Marge decided it was time for a little intel on the Hoovers and followed them.

  “You’ve got to keep it together,” Scott said to his wife as Marge sidled up next to him.

  “She knows. She just invited us here to try to guilt trip us. To get us to confess.”

  “Confess what?” Marge asked.

  “She won’t have any proof,” Scott said. “I never gave Marge a receipt.”

  “You don’t know that Marge didn’t write something down. I say we confront her.”

  Write what down? Marge wondered. The last time she’d visited the Hoovers was when she’d picked up the 1853 Colt Dragoon that Gertie had been drooling over, currently wrapped up and sitting in her closet gun vault with a note that said Gertie was to open it on Marge’s birthday. The thing had cost a small fortune, but Marge had known she didn’t have much time left, so bought it as a goodbye present for Gertie. She’d made a similar purchase for Ida Belle, a 1928 Luger used by the Dutch Royal Air Force. Ida Belle wasn’t much for antique weapons, but she had salivated over that one when she’d seen an article about it in a magazine. Marge had paid for it, but there was a snag in the delivery for the Luger. Marge told Scott at the time if she wasn’t at home for the delivery (Marge’s euphemism for if I die before you deliver it) that they were to give it to Ida Belle.

  Scott shook his head. “Are you crazy? She’s just fishing for information, so the best thing we can do is keep our mouths shut. Don’t be stupid.”

  “You know, now that I’m thinking about it,” Marge said, “whatever happened to that gun that I paid more than five grand for? Did you give it to Ida Belle? And you’re right, I didn’t have a receipt because I trusted you two. Keep talking.”

  Instead, they clammed up when they opened the door to the backyard and greeted Marge’s neighbors who were enjoying beers and listening to the Comfort Shoes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I CRANED MY NECK AND watched as the Hoovers made their way through the kitchen to the backyard.

  “They’re in the backyard,” I said to Gertie as Ida Belle wandered over.

  “What’s up with them?”

  “She’s about to crack,” I said. “I think it has something to do with the burglary.”

  “And get this,” Gertie said to her, “Barb had one of her conversations with her invisible friends, going on and on about Marge’s fencing trophy, which got us wondering about her abilities with a sword. Turns out she competed.” Gertie leaned in to Ida Belle. “Barb has the means and, if she still held a grudge against Gus Westerfield over the tour, a motive.”

  “Yes, but let’s not forget the Hoovers,” I said. “Maybe the Hoovers had a bad business deal with Gus Westerfield.”

  Ida Belle held up her hand. “Look, I’m all for investigating the burglaries. But maybe we can do this AFTER Marge’s party.”

  “The Hoovers shredded a bunch of invoices,” I said. “Why did they do that?”

  “AFTER,” Ida Belle said. “Right now we’re enjoying her party. We owe it to Marge.”

  “You’re running out of deviled eggs,” Sinful Lady Edilia Cheval called out from the food table.

  “We’ve got more in the fridge. I’ll get them,” said Ida Belle. She looked at Gertie, then at me and added, “At the risk of sounding like Carter... Behave,” before walking away.

  Gertie turned to me. “I still think the magician’s in play. I’ve got eyes on him and Barb and her puppet.”

  “I’ll cover the Hoovers. I think Marge would understand.”

  “Are you kidding?” Gertie said. “Marge lived for surveillance. She probably had every Sinful resident under surveillance at one time or another. She liked to keep her skills up.”

  We bumped fists and I was fired up for recon.

  Until the Gidleys walked in and a wave of guilt washed over me.

  “I forgot about them. They’re going to want me to sit with them and go over Marge’s family stuff.”

  “I’ll try to keep watch on the Hoovers,” Gertie said. “You get the Gidleys started with some food, then come back later with the family tree stuff. That should keep them busy for a while.”

  I nodded as Gertie walked away. Luckily I had two boxes worth of Marge’s family history and photographs stashed behind the sofa. Maybe that would keep them occupied while I tightened the screws on Audrey Hoover.

  Eleanor Gidley lit up when she saw me, which also served to crank up the guilt I was trying to tamp down. Eleanor wanted so badly to connect with family, and she thought I was one of hers. Hopefully all the research I’d done into Marge’s family would make up for my lies about myself. She and her husband, Barton, rushed over.

  “Cousin!” Eleanor said, hugging me tightly. Forgive me, Marge, I thought.

  “Hey,” I said. “I have lots of research I want to show you. Stories. A family tree. Pictures. Of Marge’s family. MY family.”

  “OUR family,�
� Eleanor said, unwittingly loading onto my guilt.

  “She could barely sleep last night, knowing you were going to share all this with her,” Barton said.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said. It wasn’t a total lie. I did barely sleep last night. “But first, maybe you’d like to sit down with some food and chat with some of Marge’s close friends, then go outside and help celebrate her birthday.”

  “Food sounds good,” Eleanor said. “Though if you don’t mind... Marge’s passing hit me hard. I don’t think I’m in the mood to celebrate. We’ll just sit inside and look through her family memories.”

  “Sure. I have a couple of boxes filled with stuff behind the sofa.” I stepped over to the food table and tapped one of the Sinful Ladies on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Bea?” I said to the woman when she turned around. “I’d like you to meet Eleanor Gidley. She’s my Aunt Marge’s long-lost cousin.”

  “Well, my goodness,” Bea said. She swept in and enveloped Eleanor in a long hug.

  “Eleanor just recently found out she’s related to Marge. And me. She’s been added to our family tree.”

  “Isn’t that something,” Bea said. “Yep, Marge was fascinated by the past and was always tinkering with that family tree of hers.”

  “That DNA test was the best hundred dollars I ever spent,” Eleanor said. “I just wish it could have connected me with Marge while she was still alive.”

  Bea cocked her head. “DNA test?”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “I knew Marge had one ready to send in, but I didn’t know she actually sent it.” Bea looked at me. “The last I knew she put the sample in its mailer and stuck it in her bedside drawer on a Friday and was going to mail it the following Monday. But she wasn’t doing well and was taken to the hospital that night. Praise the Lord, though, Ida Belle or Gertie must have done that for her.” She looked at Eleanor. “And now, here you are.”

  I edged away from them as Bea began telling stories of Marge. The stories, some food, and the family memory boxes could engage them for a bit while I worked on the Hoovers, whom I found sitting several rows back from where the Comfort Shoes were performing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. I also noticed Barb Geroux seated two rows ahead of them, annoying all those around her by having Cloris sing along. Barb may have been a talented ventriloquist, but her puppet couldn’t carry a tune.