Soul Man Page 14
Barb Geroux poked her head around a tree along the side path. “Did you get him?”
Carter looked over. “Miss Geroux, I told you to drive back to Sinful.”
“I wanted to make sure you’re doing your job right.” She looked at Gertie and me. “I guess I saved your hineys.” Then she shifted her gaze, as if looking at something behind me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MARGE
“YEP,” BARB SAID, DIRECTING her words at Fortune and Gertie but looking past Fortune toward Marge, “you’d be dead now if it weren’t for me saving your butts. Something Marge would have done herself had she not gone and died on you.”
“You did good, Barb,” Marge said.
Fortune and Gertie followed Carter and Redneck down the side path. Barb hung back, waited until they disappeared before pointing to Cootie. “Why is he still here? I thought he’d go into the light once we caught his killer.”
“Good question,” Marge said. “You don’t see any tunnel of light beckoning you?” she asked him.
“No. I keep thinking about Jo and wish I could have given her the painting of her and her dad. And let her know how sorry I was and that I love her and wish her well.”
Marge glanced at Barb, who rolled her eyes.
“Oh well,” Cootie said with a sigh of resignation. “I guess I’m meant to stay in the in-between world. Looks like you and I will be spending a lot of time together, Marge.”
He slapped her ghostly fanny. Marge sent a pleading look Barb’s way.
A sneer crossed Barb’s face. “You need me, don’t you?”
“Giving Jo Cootie’s painting would be a nice thing to do,” Marge said.
“Yeah, right,” Barb said.
“Look what you did today. I can tell you had fun on our little adventure. And you did something nice. Doesn’t it feel good?”
Barb chewed her lip. “Give me a rematch on our checkers game and you have yourself a deal.”
“You got it.” A thought popped into Marge’s head. “I’ll throw in one checkers game a week if you do one other thing for me.”
Gertie reappeared from the path. “Barb, aren’t you coming?”
“I’m all in.” She nodded to Marge.
As they disappeared down the path together, Marge overheard Gertie asking Barb, “You didn’t by any chance see a man without a head running around, did you?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MARGE
COOTIE WAS GONE. DID Marge miss him? Okay, maybe a little. Okay, maybe not at all. All she knew was that Cootie was now safely on the OTHER “other side,” leaving her free to enjoy movie night with Ida Belle, Gertie and Fortune.
Gertie entered the living room, carrying a huge popcorn bowl. Ida Belle brought in three smaller bowls as Fortune finished up a phone conversation with Carter.
“I swear to you we had nothing to do with it. I’m just glad everything worked out okay. Sure, looking forward to it. See you tomorrow night.”
Gertie set the big bowl on the coffee table. “We had nothing to do with what?”
Fortune snagged a piece of popcorn and popped it in her mouth. “Well, Jo got her painting back.”
“The nude one?”
“Not quite. When Ida Belle and I searched Cootie’s house the other day, I noticed a painting of a young girl feeding an apple to a horse. Her father was holding her. I didn’t know it, but that painting was from a photograph Jo had given Cootie when they were dating a long time ago. He sketched it back then and apparently decided to cover up the nude painting with a painting from that sketch.”
Ida Belle set the smaller bowls around the coffee table, placing Fortune’s bowl near the overstuffed chair to the side of the sofa. “How did the painting get from Cootie’s house into Jo’s hands?”
Fortune shook her head. “Here’s the weird part. Jo said Barb Geroux contacted her and said Cootie had given the painting to her, with instructions that in the event of his death, she was to give it to Jo.”
“But that’s not true,” Gertie said. “You saw it in Cootie’s house. Barb had to have gone in and stolen it.”
Fortune shrugged. “Right, but I’m certainly not telling Carter I saw it hanging above Cootie’s mantel when I illegally entered his house.”
Ida Belle picked up the DVD package from the table and opened it. “Maybe Cootie told Barb before he died about the painting and she just took it upon herself to go get it. Being a neighbor, she might have had a key to his house in case she checked on it when he went out of town.”
“Or,” Gertie said, “maybe Cootie told Barb AFTER he died and told her where the key was to his house. And he told Barb what to say to Jo.”
Ida Belle stared at Gertie in disbelief.
“What?” Gertie asked. “I find Barb talking to Cootie’s ghost more believable than Barb and Cootie being friends and him confiding in her before he died. When have you ever known Barb to have a friend?”
Ida Belle slipped the DVD into the player. “You’ve been watching too many of those Medium shows.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” Marge said to deaf ears. The moment Barb gave the painting to Jo had been quite touching. Barb had called Jo to her house and presented her with the painting and let her know how much Cootie had loved her. She hadn’t revealed to Jo that Cootie was standing right beside her telling her exactly what to say. Barb still wasn’t ready to come out as the Sinful Medium. Once Jo left with the painting, the tunnel of light opened for Cootie once again. Marge saw it too but stayed behind. She wasn’t ready to let Sinful go just yet.
Ida Belle plopped down on the sofa and asked Fortune, “So did Jo tell Emmaline and Walter about posing nude for Cootie?”
Fortune nodded. “All this time she’s been so worried what they would think about her nude modeling in college, and it didn’t matter at all to them. Anyway, I’m getting together with Carter and the rest of his family at Emmaline’s tomorrow night and having a proper introduction to his Aunt Jo.”
Fortune lowered herself into the chair when the doorbell rang. She answered the door to find Barb Geroux standing on the porch.
“Miss Geroux.” Fortune was taken aback. “What can I do for you?”
“Don’t mess up, Barb,” Marge called out to her. “Just say it to Fortune the way I said it to you.”
Barb shot a stink eye at Marge before turning to Fortune. “I wanted to let you know I spoke with Celia. Her nephew, Bill, I think he’s on parole, is interested in buying this house from you when the time comes. There, I said it. Goodbye.”
Barb turned and walked away.
“See you tomorrow night for checkers, Barb,” Marge called out.
Fortune closed the door, a stricken look covering her face. Ida Belle and Gertie appeared stunned as well.
“That does it,” Fortune said, storming back into the living room. “There is no way I’m going to allow one of Celia’s relatives to buy this house.”
“Damn straight,” Ida Belle said.
“Over my dead body,” Gertie added.
“Look, I know you two promised Marge you’d get Sandy-Sue to live here, but who are we kidding? Sandy-Sue has no intentions of living here, no matter how much you two try to convince her.”
Ida Belle tried to say something, but Fortune plowed right ahead. She was on a roll. “I’ve tried to respect your promise to Marge, but... this house... this house is the first place I really felt at home since before my mom died. After she passed, I was shuttled between Director Morrow’s house and his assistant, Hadley’s house. They were fine homes, and I was fortunate to have had people look after me, but they weren’t MY homes. I get it that Marge wanted family to live here, but, come on... Did Sandy-Sue visit Marge when she was alive? No. Sandy-Sue has a life elsewhere. She’ll sell this house to Celia’s nephew if he offers the right price. How do you think Marge would feel about that? She might not want me to buy it, but she’d hate it more for one of Celia’s relatives to have it, so I’m afraid you’re going to hav
e to break your promise to Marge. Because I’m going to make Sandy-Sue an offer she can’t refuse.”
Fortune dropped into the overstuffed chair next to the sofa, spent.
Marge looked at her friends. “And that, ladies, is how you motivate a buyer.”
“Wait a minute,” Gertie said to Fortune. “Is that why you didn’t want this house? Because you thought Marge wouldn’t want you to have it?”
Fortune shrugged. “You two talked about Marge wanting you to convince Sandy-Sue to stay. I thought you were trying to give me a hint.”
“Yes,” Ida Belle said, “we were. We were trying to get you to buy it.”
“Because you ARE family,” Gertie said, her eyes glistening. “Ida Belle and I have always felt Sandy-Sue wouldn’t want to stay here. But, yes, we did make that promise that we’d try our damnedest.”
“We felt like liars,” Ida Belle added. “So the night Marge died we swore to her that if we couldn’t convince her niece Sandy-Sue to stay, that we’d find someone worthy of her house. And we found her. You.”
“Word,” Marge echoed.
Gertie reached over and patted Fortune’s shoulder. “In many ways, you’re more like family than the real Sandy-Sue.”
“Why didn’t you two tell me you wanted me to buy Marge’s house?”
Gertie folded her arms and glared at Ida Belle. “Because Ida Belle has this foolish notion that you should be the ruler of your own life, and we shouldn’t interfere.”
Ida Belle sighed. “I just thought you really wanted a fresh start. As much as we wanted you to stay in this house, it was for selfish reasons. We didn’t want to see anyone but you in it. Marge was our family. Being in this house brings us closer to her.”
Gertie shook her head. “We should have been selfish from the get-go.”
Fortune grinned. “Then it’s settled. I’ve got the funds. I’ll bid way over and Sandy-Sue has to sell to me. And no trying to convince her to stay.”
Gertie wiped a tear from her eye. “I think Marge would approve.”
Marge nodded. “I do.”
“Can we watch the movie, already?” Ida Belle said, filling the small popcorn bowls.
Gertie sat at the end of the sofa opposite Ida Belle. Fortune leaned back in the overstuffed chair.
Marge eased into her brown recliner, imagined a bowl of the best popcorn she ever tasted and sat back to enjoy a movie with her family.
THE END
WANT TO READ MORE OF my stories in the Miss Fortune World? Visit my website at sharihearn.com to learn more.
Author Bio
SHARI HEARN WROTE HER first story when she was 4, a bunch of squiggly lines, a stick figure and a door, and the only two words she was able to write: THE END. After learning how to spell more words, she took the next logical step and moved to Los Angeles, working on various sitcoms as both a writer and producer, as well as writing screenplays and pilots.
She’s now crossing over into novel writing, sharpening her mystery-writing chops with 11 short stories and novellas in the world of Miss Fortune fan fiction.
She is currently working on more stories for the Miss Fortune World, as well as an original cozy mystery series to be published in early 2019.
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Also by Shari Hearn
Miss Fortune World
Merlin's Misfortune
Miss Fortune World: Sinful Past
Undercover
Miss Fortune World: Sinful Spirits
Happy Birthday, Marge
Soul Man
Miss Fortune World: Sinful Stories
Nearly Departed
Mutiny on the Bayou
Overdue
Nearly Beloved
Rematch
Leaving Sinful
Murder on the Sinful Express