Chapter 4 #2
“Okay, so let’s think about it from the opposite side of things to try to narrow it down. What is the type of person who would commit this crime?”
I nodded. “That’s good. Someone who doesn’t have a problem breaking the law, for starters.”
“And someone who was more concerned about running away from someone they might have accidentally shot rather than sticking around to make sure they didn’t deliver a killing round.”
“Remember what Carter said about the size of the gators. The poacher isn’t a pro or he’d have the equipment and skill for a bigger catch.”
“So stupid crazy. Not a professional. And not worried about shooting someone.” Ida Belle looked at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I sighed. “We need to look for the boat at the Swamp Bar.”
The Swamp Bar was one of the many banes of my Sinful existence. It was a shack out in the swamp, where the most disreputable of the locals got up to drinking and even more no good. I’d been there a couple of times—never my choice and never for fun—and I’d yet to come away unscathed.
Still, I knew Ida Belle was right. Half of the regulars at the Swamp Bar went by boat, so there was a good chance that if the poacher frequented there, we might luck into finding the boat Hot Rod had seen. Or at least one with the right motor.
It would be a start, anyway.
“Okay,” I said. “The need to revisit the Place of My Eternal Embarrassment aside, what now? If we go with my theory that his base of operation is nearby where he sets the lines, then what way do we go now? Are there houses nearby? Or a boat launch?”
“There’s a makeshift boat launch about a mile up this bayou. That’s the direction he fled in but it was also the direction opposite of Hot Rod, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“Let’s check it out.”
Ida Belle gave me all of a second and a half to get back in my seat before taking off again.
This time, she did a doughnut before shooting out of the channel and back into the main bayou.
We were a good hundred feet away before I realized that I hadn’t stiffened like I usually did when she launched the boat.
Either I was getting used to Ida Belle’s driving style or my muscles were fatigued from all the tensing I did earlier.
I was sorta hoping it was the latter of the two.
It didn’t pay to let one’s guard down around Ida Belle and a fast vehicle.
We made the drive to the boat launch in a ridiculously short amount of time.
It barely felt like she’d gotten up to speed before she was cutting the throttle and turning to the left.
I looked at the bank ahead of us and decided that “makeshift” was a super-polite description of the boat launch in front of me.
The remnants of a dilapidated dock jutted out from the bank, a few lonely, warped planks of wood clinging to the pylons. A small clearing of dirt that would hold maybe two trucks and boat trailers max was just beyond what was left of the dock.
“Where is the launch?” I asked.
“You’re looking at it,” Ida Belle said.
“There’s no ramp here.” I waved my hands at the grassy embankment.
“That marsh grass is the launch. Don’t let how it’s standing fool you. It springs right back up after being pressed down. A long time ago there was cement, but it broke apart years ago. This used to be Old Man Johnson’s camp. He’s the one who put the boat launch in.”
“Why didn’t he keep it up?”
“When I said ‘old,’ it wasn’t one of those colorful Southern sort of endearments.
Old Man Johnson was old as Christ when I was still a kid.
He died decades ago, and his wife had gone years before that.
He had a couple kids who inherited this, I guess, but no one ever came out here.
Katrina took out what was left of the camp.
But the slope for the launch is still there.
It won’t hold anything heavy, but you could launch a boat the size Hot Rod saw here. ”
“Where does the road come out?”
“It’s an old dirt road, best I can remember. There’s a couple turns onto other dirt roads, but the whole mess eventually dumps you onto the access road for the highway.”
“Well, enough people are using it to keep the grass from growing over the parking area. If the poacher is using this place, that’s another risk. I mean, he could throw a tarp over the gators, but wouldn’t that raise a few eyebrows?”
“Exactly the opposite, actually. Everyone would know he had something illegal under the tarp, and they’d intentionally avoid looking at him. You let on that you know someone’s up to poaching, and you might find yourself under the tarp with whatever else they have.”
“Good point.”
“But it does mean someone else might have seen something. Once news of the poacher starts leaking out, someone who wouldn’t stick his neck out here at the launch might have a word with Carter.”
“So it’s still riskier to use a place frequented by others.”
“Yeah. It’s more likely he has a camp on the bayou. Tossed the tails right up on his pier and filleted them in the privacy of his own home, probably drinking a beer and watching the sports channel.”
I nodded. “Let’s go farther down the bayou and see if there are any camps visible from the main bayou.”
“You got it.”
Ida Belle set off down the bayou, but this time at a much slower clip so that we could see down the channels and inlets that branched off the main source. I peered down one after the other but with the dense brush, it was impossible to know what else might lie down them.
“We’d have to go down every single one of these to know what was there,” I said. “It would take forever.”
“Maybe not,” Ida Belle said. “I have an idea, but I need to pick up some equipment.”
“What idea?”
She waved a hand in dismissal. “I’m not sure it will work so I don’t want to get your hopes up. Let me check on it and I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
I was about to press for more information when a boat shot out of one of the channels right in front of us, and it was a miracle that we didn’t broadside it.
Ida Belle yelled at the other boater, who spun his boat around and glared at us as if the entire event had been our fault.
I was just about to give him a far bigger piece of my mind than Ida Belle had when I saw the Wildlife and Fisheries stamp on the side of his boat.
Midthirties. Five feet eight. A hundred ninety pounds. Okay muscle content. Crappy attitude.
The last one was a guess but as soon as he opened his mouth, he verified it.
“You need to watch where you’re going,” he said, scowling at the two of us.
“I think you need to take your own advice,” Ida Belle shot back, clearly unimpressed by his driving and his position with the state. “Last time I checked, the person entering the larger body of water should yield.”
“I don’t need you telling me how to navigate these waters,” he said.
“You need someone telling you,” Ida Belle said. “Because clearly, you’re doing it wrong.”
He narrowed his eyes at us. “What are you doing here anyway? You’ve got no fishing equipment, and don’t tell me you’re working on your tan.”
“Bird-watching,” Ida Belle said, and held up the binoculars hanging around her neck.
“Sure,” he said. “Then you won’t mind if I search your boat, will you?”
“Search away,” Ida Belle said.
I looked over at her and she gave me a tiny shake of her head.
Angry Man boarded the airboat and lifted the cover off the bench seat and peered inside.
It didn’t take long to make his way through two life jackets and an ice chest with four bottled waters in it.
He slammed the cover back down and stomped back onto his own boat.
“Watch where you’re going from now on,” he said, “and I suggest you stick to the main waterways. You’re likely to run into trouble on the bayous.”
He started his boat and took off down the bayou. We both sat staring after him.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
Ida Belle frowned. “He thought we might be poachers.”
Then it hit me. “Holy crap! That means Wildlife and Fisheries knows about the problem. Carter is not going to be happy when he hears about this.”
“Look on the bright side,” Ida Belle said. “At least this time when Carter’s angry, we didn’t do it.”
After our run-in with angry Wildlife and Fisheries man, we decided boating in the opposite direction was probably the best plan.
He might not think we were poachers any longer, but he hadn’t bought that bird-watching thing, either.
We covered a huge amount of ground, but I’d bet anything it didn’t even put a dent in the scope of water surrounding Sinful.
In three hours of riding, we hadn’t seen any other signs of bait lines.
We had just turned down yet another channel when we spotted Gertie ahead of us, but she wasn’t fishing.
She was leaned over the side of her boat, peering into the water like she was summoning a mermaid. When she heard our boat, she jerked up and grabbed her fishing rod. A couple seconds later, we pulled up beside her.
“What the heck are you looking at?” Ida Belle asked.
Gertie looked slightly flustered, and she hesitated a second before answering. “I was checking the water for clarity. The fishing is better when the water’s clear.”
Ida Belle raised one eyebrow. “The water in Sinful hasn’t been clear since God created Earth. Even my bathwater is sketchy.”
“Sometimes it’s murkier than others,” Gertie insisted.
I could tell Gertie was hiding something and that Ida Belle knew she was lying, but whatever Gertie was up to, it was clear she wasn’t ready to share it with the two of us.
Since she was usually the first to blab about everything, my curiosity was sky high, but I also knew her well enough to know that we wouldn’t get it out of her until she was ready to tell.
“What are you two doing out here?” Gertie asked.
“Looking for a poacher,” I said.
“What poacher?” Gertie asked.
I filled her in on everything we knew about the poacher and on our day of checking channels for evidence. “You haven’t noticed anything strange while you were fishing, have you?” I asked.
“Slim Thibodeaux went by wearing a Batman costume. His dog was dressed as Wonder Woman. The dog’s male, so…”
Ida Belle waved a hand in dismissal. “He’s had those costumes for years. She meant anything outside of the ordinary.”
Gertie scrunched her brow in concentration and finally shook her head. “Maisey Jackson was boating naked again, but that’s nothing new. I can’t think of anything else.”
“Thank God,” I muttered. Those two were bad enough.
“Well,” Ida Belle said, “looks like we’re on to plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” Gertie asked.
“A trip to the Swamp Bar to look for the boat that Hot Rod saw,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands. “I have some ideas about disguises.”
“I’m not going to be slutty again,” I said. “I’m always slutty.”
“It is the Swamp Bar,” Ida Belle said. “If you dress like the church lady, you’re not going to blend.”
“Why can’t I just wear jeans and a T-shirt?”
“Because too many people know who you are now,” Gertie said. “You’re a sight better-looking than the average Sinful fare. When are we going?”
“I’m having dinner with Carter tonight,” I said. “If I cancel, he’ll get suspicious, so it’s either tomorrow or we have to go late tonight.”
Gertie shook her head in dismay. “You’re having dinner with the hottest guy in Sinful and you expect to spend the rest of the night alone. Where did I go wrong with you?”
“I’m pretty sure she was that way before you got a hold of her,” Ida Belle said.
“You would know,” Gertie said, “leaving Walter hanging for sixty years. How do you know she’s not learning that trick from you?”
“How did this become about me?” Ida Belle said.
“I don’t like rushing things,” I interrupted before they got too deep.
“You’re practically going in reverse,” Gertie said. “If you get any slower, he’s going to need Viagra.”
“I’m not worried,” I said. “He’s got good medical insurance.”
“So tomorrow night,” Ida Belle said. “That’s better anyway. We need to come up with a list of Sinful residents. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but it’s probably something we should have handy and keep updated.”
“How are you going to get a list of thousands of people?” I asked.
“I’ll start with the phone book and church registry and go from there. The Sinful Ladies can help. I’ll tell them it’s about the election—that I’m looking for a list to work in case this thing goes to a revote.”
I had to admit, I wouldn’t mind having a database of Sinful locals, especially if other information were noted. “I don’t suppose you could add information like sex and age?”
“Sex is easy enough,” Ida Belle said. “We’d be guessing at age. A lot of the older generation lie about that kind of thing and some have simply forgotten, but we can make an educated assessment in most cases.”
“That would be awesome,” I said, and looked up at the sky. “I need to get home. I got roped into providing dinner.”
“You’re cooking?” Gertie cast a nervous glance at Ida Belle.
“God no,” I said. “Ally’s bringing over casserole, sides, and dessert, but I have to get instructions on how to heat everything.”
“Smart,” Gertie said. “Are we going to the Swamp Bar by car or boat?”
“Car,” Ida Belle said. “We’re looking for a guy in a boat. No use giving him a way to chase us.”
“Why would he chase us?” I asked. “Chasing isn’t part of the plan.”
Gertie shook her head. “It never is.”