Happy Birthday, Marge Read online

  “How about Marge?” he asked. “Did she buy any guns from either of those two men?”

  “She might have bought a collectible weapon or two,” Ida Belle said, “but nothing before the thirties. I think both those guys specialize in pre-1900s, and she wasn’t interested in guns that old.” Ida Belle thought a moment. “She and Scott did have some hunting buddies in common and sometimes went hunting together, but I never knew her to do business with him. Are we finished here? I stopped at Marge’s favorite ice-cream store on Bourbon Street and have three gallons of praline crunch sitting on ice. I need to get them home to my freezer.”

  Gertie hoisted her purse up over her shoulder. “We’ll join you. We need to regroup about Marge’s bench.”

  They started off, but I hung back with Carter. Gertie turned. “Are you coming?”

  “Uh, why don’t you join Ida Belle? I’ll go home and unload the Jeep and meet you over at her house in an hour.”

  “Oh,” she said, smiling at Carter. “You take all the time you need.” She giggled as she walked to her car.

  I looked down at the brick walkway, tracing my foot along the pattern of the bricks. “So... I had a good time last night.”

  “I did too.” His shoe traveled next to mine, caressing the side of my foot.

  I pulled my gaze up to his handsome face. “But we missed most of the meteor showers. I hear tonight’s a good viewing night as well.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Care for another look at the sky?”

  “You don’t know how much I’d love to do that.” His voice sounded pained.

  “Oh,” I realized, “that’s right. The break-ins. You’re probably on duty.”

  “The thieves might be finished with what they came to Sinful for, but in case they’re not it would be a good idea for me to patrol through the night. I do have a half-hour break at 10:00, though it might be too early to see much of anything.”

  “I’m sure we’ll see plenty of action.”

  He grinned. “I love that you’re so much into astronomy.” He leaned in and gave me a light peck on the lips, his “I’m-on-duty” kiss. “I’ll pick you up at 10:00.”

  As he was walking away, a thought popped into my head. “Are there many people in Sinful with fencing skills?”

  He studied my face. “You are not to take part in any investigating.”

  Carter had no idea I was thinking of becoming a PI. I decided to save that discussion for another day. I waved him off. “Are you kidding? I have a party to plan.”

  As he walked away, I could feel the wheels starting to turn in my head. A case such as these burglaries was something I could practice with. And, on a personal note, I certainly wouldn’t mind helping to find a guy who terrorized people with a sword. Ahmad was a swordfighter. While prepping to infiltrate his organization, I had watched an undercover video of him “punishing” an associate who was accused of stealing from him. A duel. Ahmad held a sword while his opponent was handed a stick. The accused, of course, didn’t stand a chance, his bloodied body absorbing one thrust after another. Then when Ahmad was done having “fun,” he ended the duel with a quick thrust of his sword between the accused’s eyes.

  His calling card.

  I couldn’t do anything against Ahmad, but I’d love a chance to help put a killer behind bars.

  Chapter Six

  I STARED AT MYSELF in the full-length mirror while holding up a hangered T-shirt against my chest. A soft, silky, sage colored v-neck T-shirt that made my blue eyes reveal a whisper of green. It was sexy in an understated way, meaning it didn’t look as if I was going for sexy. This was just a quick, casual, make-out-in-the-truck date. I grabbed the back of my hair and bunched it atop my head. Should I go for a ponytail or something like a little messy hair bun that he could quickly undo?

  The thought of Ahmad and his sword-between-the-eyes calling card was still in the back of my mind. Was this sword-wielding thief as blood thirsty as Ahmad? And was he the same one who burglarized Scott and Audrey Hoover and terrorized Barb Geroux?

  Puzzles such as this string of burglaries intrigued me now more than ever, and I found myself itching to practice my investigative skills. But how to do that without interfering in Carter’s investigation?

  I heard Gertie and Ida Belle’s voices as they came up the stairs. I tossed the shirt over to the bed. I had forgotten about meeting them at Ida Belle’s to bitch and moan about Marge’s bench. Instead, I got lost in finding the perfect make-out clothes for tonight.

  They rapped on my bedroom door.

  “You decent?” Gertie called out.

  “Sure. Sure.” I struck a casual pose, one hand resting on the dresser.

  Gertie and Ida Belle stepped inside my room.

  “Ice cream okay?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Ida Belle said.

  “But we noticed an hour had passed and you didn’t come over to discuss Marge’s bench.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I unloaded the car of the party supplies, set up the helium tank in the shed out back, then came to my room to freshen up.”

  Gertie nodded. Her gaze fell upon the shirt I’d tossed on the bed. “Is that what you’re wearing on your date with Carter tonight?”

  “How’d you find out about our date?”

  Gertie smiled. “You just told me.”

  Crap.

  “Yes it is what I’m wearing, and I don’t want to hear a word about it.”

  Ida Belle went to the bed and picked up the shirt. “That’s what you were doing while we were strategizing what to do about Marge’s bench? Deciding what to wear tonight? And all you came up with was this?”

  “Maybe you missed the part about me unloading the car of all the party supplies and setting up the helium tank in the shed. I even tested it on some of the balloons.”

  Gertie walked to the closet and opened the door.

  “No-no,” I said to her. “MY date. MY choice of outfits.”

  “So what will you wear with the shirt?” Gertie asked. “A nice sexy, short skirt to show off your legs?”

  I shook my head. “Just a pair of yoga pants.”

  They said nothing. Just stared. Stares of disappointment.

  Gertie pulled out a yellow sundress from the closet, something they’d helped me pick out when I had dinner with Carter a couple of weeks ago. She held it up. “How about this? Easy to whip off. You know, in case the situation arises.”

  Ida Belle stepped over and admired the dress. “Nice and breezy. Won’t restrict your movements.”

  “My yoga pants will be just fine. That’s what yoga pants do. Allow you to move.”

  Gertie held a finger in the air. “But what if you and Carter are getting hot and heavy and he accidentally takes the brake off and his truck slips in the bayou? With this dress, you can quickly whip it off and swim safely back to shore without getting pulled under by those heavy yoga pants.” She held up the dress. “Again. Easy on. Easy off.” She emphasized her next words. “In. Case. The. Situation. Arises.” She punctuated her remarks with a wink.

  “He’s picking me up at 10:00. We only have a half hour,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be whipping off anything.”

  Gertie shook her head as she hung the dress over the top of the door. “You need to get your metabolism checked.”

  I ignored her, retrieved the shirt from the bed and hung it and the dress back in the closet. “Let’s go downstairs. Ally is experimenting with different crusts and dropped off a couple peach pies for us to sample. I’ll put on some coffee and we can discuss alternatives to Marge’s bench. I assume we’re going to have to put it off until the next council meeting.”

  Gertie snickered. “How long have you known us?”

  This didn’t sound good.

  Over pie and coffee they shared their plan with me. We were going to wait until 10:30, after my date with Carter, and take Marge’s bench under the cover of darkness to Marge’s favorite spot in the park, where we would also bury some of her ash
es.

  I washed a piece of pie down with coffee. The comparison of crusts was lost on me, as they both tasted equally delicious. “And we can do this without being spotted?”

  Gertie waved me off. “The park closes at ten. We might run into an occasional teen couple wanting a quiet spot to make out, but they won’t say anything because they don’t want their parents finding out either.”

  “And Carter’s too busy patrolling the neighborhoods because of the burglaries. We’ll be fine.”

  I forked a slice of pie. “Speaking of the burglaries. I was thinking I need some practice if I’m going to get better with my sleuthing skills. Any interest in tossing a few theories around?”

  “We thought you’d never ask,” Ida Belle said. “We spoke with Myrtle, who called her counterparts over in Lake Charles and Pollard. Rapier blade is what killed Gus Westerfield in Lake Charles, and the description from the burglary victim in Pollard matches the same type of blade. The victim there woke to a man wearing a clown mask and holding a sword to his throat.”

  “Have they found any connection to Gus Westerfield or the burglary victim in Pollard?” I asked.

  Gertie shook her head. “So far, no. Jewelry was taken in all the burglary cases, but they don’t know about Gus’s place because he lived alone and there’s no one who can tell the police if anything’s missing.”

  “But the murder was the first crime involving a sword?”

  Gertie and Ida Belle both nodded.

  “What about the Sinful victims? Barb Geroux and the Hoovers. Do you know the particulars in those burglaries?”

  “For that,” Gertie said, pushing her empty pie plate away from her, “we need to talk to them, find out what they told Carter.”

  I sighed. “It’s not as if we can go over there and snoop around. Carter would accuse us of messing with his investigation. We’re going to have to come up with a legitimate reason to go talk to them.”

  Gertie placed her hand on my arm. “Oh, ye of little faith.” She reached around to her huge purse that was hanging on the back of her chair and pulled out two envelopes. One was addressed to Barb Geroux and the other to Audrey and Scott Hoover.

  “None of them are on Marge’s party invite list, but I think she wouldn’t mind us inviting these three so we can pump them for information,” Gertie said.

  “And wouldn’t you know it?” Ida Belle added. “We forgot to mail their invitations, so we’re going to have to hand-deliver them.”

  I smiled. “Even Carter can’t argue with that.”

  BARB GEROUX STARED at the invitation in her hand a moment and invited us inside her sister’s house for some sweet tea. The three of us sat on the sofa while Barb sat on one of the chairs opposite us.

  Early seventies, slender, a pair of reading glasses secured around her neck with a pink corded lanyard. No tin foil hat in sight. Except for her odd-looking, frizzy white mullet haircut, she seems pretty normal. Threat Level: Low.

  As we sipped tea and munched on cookies, Barb continued to stare at the invitation, puzzled. Finally, she spoke. “This is an invitation to Marge Boudreaux’s birthday party?”

  Gertie nodded. “We forgot to mail it, so we’re hand delivering it.”

  “I thought Marge hated me.”

  Ida Belle took a sip of tea. “Hate is such a strong word. I think you two were very different people. But I think she respected you.”

  Barb laughed. “Yeah, right. I’m going to have to consult with Cloris.”

  Barb got up and walked out of the room.

  “She doesn’t seem so odd,” I said.

  Gertie reached for a cookie. “Just wait.”

  “Is Cloris her sister?”

  I could have sworn Ida Belle said, “sock puppet.” I was about to ask for clarification when Barb reentered the room, a Lambchops sock puppet covering one hand. She sat down in her chair and showed the puppet the invitation, explaining to the puppet that it was for Marge’s party.

  “The one who cheated?” the puppet asked.

  I then realized that Barb was a very talented ventriloquist. Her lips didn’t even twitch when she was speaking for her puppet.

  “You’re a ventriloquist,” I said, which prompted a kick from Ida Belle under the coffee table.

  “The best,” Barb said. “I’ve been working in ventriloquism since I was a girl. I’ve won all competitions I’ve entered except one. The talent show in high school when Marge played the banjo.”

  “Cheater, cheater, cheater. That competition was rigged,” Barb said through Cloris.

  “Now, Cloris,” Barb said, “we mustn’t speak ill of the dearly departed.”

  Suddenly, Barb’s eyes shot up toward the side of the couch, next to where Gertie sat. She paused as if listening to someone, then gave a subtle flick of her head toward the door. She cleared her throat, stood and said, “Would you excuse me? I think I left the sprinkler on out front. I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m staying,” said the puppet.

  “No, you’re not,” Barb answered. “You’re coming with me.”

  Barb went outside and crossed in front of the picture window just out of our line of vision.

  “Okay,” I said, “so she still holds a grudge against Marge. She is talented with her puppet. She doesn’t seem wacko.”

  “Ten to one she’s going out to talk to empty space,” Gertie said, getting up and rushing to the window, craning her neck to watch Barb.

  Ida Belle got up and joined her. “Yep, an invisible friend.”

  This I had to see. I rushed to join them and craned my neck to look out. Sure enough, Barb was waving her hands in the air, arguing with the azalea bush. Gertie reached over and quietly opened the door a crack so we could listen. Barb was telling “Sheriff Lee” that she wanted him to pack up his mule and hit the road.

  Gertie quietly closed the door and signaled us all to go back and sit down.

  “Did she say Sheriff Lee?” I asked as we quickly sat. “She thinks she’s talking to him?”

  “More like Sheriff Lee’s father,” Gertie said.

  Ida Belle tossed her a skeptical look.

  Gertie nodded. “It’s true. Bea one time overheard Barb talking to Sheriff Lee and she referred to his mule, Pierre. Our Sheriff Lee doesn’t ride a mule named Pierre. But his daddy did. She was talking with the ghost of the first Sheriff Lee.”

  “In her mind,” Ida Belle said.

  “What if those figments of her imagination aren’t her imagination?” Gertie said. “What if she sees dead people?”

  Ida Belle rolled her eyes.

  “You can roll your eyes all you want at me, but Midge heard her talking to an invisible person once. Only Barb addressed the person as Miss Mellette.”

  Fortune shrugged. “Who’s that?”

  “Our home ec teacher from high school. Had a face like a possum. Mean old cuss. She’d been dead for five years, but Midge remembered Barb saying, ‘I’m going to mix plaids with polka dots and I don’t give a bleep what you say, possum face.’ Miss Mellette was always warning us about mixing prints.”

  Barb reappeared in the window approaching the door.

  “She’s coming back,” Ida Belle said. “Just act natural.”

  Gertie took a sip of tea as Barb sat back down. “Everything okay out there?”

  “It’s a sprinkler,” Barb said, rolling her eyes. “Getting back to this party... Am I supposed to bring a gift?”

  “Well, no,” Ida Belle said. “Marge won’t be there to open it.”

  Gertie leaned forward. “Unless she will be. You haven’t seen her around, have you?”

  “Of course not. She’s dead, right?” The wink Barb tossed to Gertie was downright creepy.

  It was time to get our information and go. “Hey, changing subjects. We heard you were robbed.”

  Barb’s eyes widened. “It was so horrible I can’t even talk about it.”

  She held up her puppet and it spoke. “A man, dressed all in black with a clown mask. I didn
’t hear a thing because she stuffs me in a trunk with a bunch of other puppets at night. The bitch.”

  “Cloris!” Barb said to the puppet. “That’s not nice.”

  “Anything else?” Gertie asked, directing her question to Barb, who then pointed toward Cloris. Gertie looked at the puppet and sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Barb thinks he had an accomplice because she heard someone else walking in the hallway outside of her room,” the puppet said.

  “This man...” Ida Belle asked Barb. “He was... real wasn’t he?”

  Ida Belle reached for the cookie tray and Barb pulled it away. “What are you implying?”

  “Well, it’s just...” Ida Belle shrugged.

  Gertie cut in. “Maybe you were dreaming.”

  Barb slid the tray of cookies back toward Gertie. “Oh, he was real all right.”

  “Anything unusual about the burglar?” I asked

  “Other than the fact he was holding a sword to my chest?”

  “Did he speak? Did you detect any unusual voice pattern, or accents?”

  Barb shrugged. “I don’t think he was from around here. He didn’t sound like us locals.”

  “What’d he take?” Ida Belle asked.

  “He grabbed a diamond watch and a few bracelets. The watch was worth about three hundred dollars. I won it in a sweepstakes. I do that in my spare time. Send my name in to sweepstakes and fill out online sweepstakes forms. I won a trip to Vegas once. And some silver candlesticks. Those are worth more than seven hundred dollars. I keep them in my china cabinet with things I’ve won over the years.”

  “Expensive things?”

  “Yes, some of them are.”

  “But the thieves didn’t take those?”

  Barb shook her head. “They must be stupid thieves, I guess.”

  As we were getting up to leave, I thought of one more question to ask Barb. “You took Gus Westerfield’s plantation tour, didn’t you?”

  Barb shivered. “That’s right. I was interested in the landscape and architecture.”