Chapter 9 #2
We all sat, and Ida Belle began to fill Ramona in on what had happened with Petey.
A flush crept up Ramona’s face as Ida Belle talked, and her hands began to twitch.
When Ida Belle finished, Ramona was silent for so long, I wondered if she’d processed everything she’d heard.
Finally, she rose from her chair and shouted, “That’s a bunch of horseshit! ”
“We know it is,” Gertie said, trying to calm down the clearly irate woman. “And Carter knows it is, but as long as the state says to hold Petey, he can’t do anything about it without risking his job.”
Ramona took deep breaths, shaking her head. Her chest heaved up and down with the effort. Finally, she sat back down. “It’s that witch Celia. If she wasn’t trying to get Carter fired, he could do his job the way he ought to be able to.”
“That’s true enough,” Ida Belle said, “but even Carter couldn’t go against the state.”
“Maybe he would still have to hold Petey,” Ramona said, “but he wouldn’t have had any problem letting Quincy stay there before that devil was running Sinful.” She looked over at me and nodded. “Thank you for seeing that Quincy got into jail. That was smart thinking.”
I sighed. “What in the world are things coming to when the best thing you do in a day is getting someone thrown in jail?”
“That woman is the root of all evil,” Ramona said. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. I still say that the day she was put in charge of Sinful is the worst day in the town’s history.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Gertie said. “We’re all praying the election audit gives us a different result.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Ramona asked. “Someone needs to do something about that woman.”
I have to admit that I’d thought the same thing many, many times, but Ramona’s intensity was a bit disconcerting. And even if Celia disappeared into a bright ball of light, that wouldn’t solve the problem with Petey and Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries.
“We have this theory,” I said, “that if the state really has evidence against Petey, then it must have been planted.”
“Of course it was planted!” Ramona said. “That boy isn’t capable of poaching. He’s barely capable of getting dressed anymore.”
“But if it was planted,” Ida Belle said, “then that means someone targeted Petey specifically.”
Ramona frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Why would someone do that?”
“We were hoping you might be able to help us with that question,” Gertie said. “You probably know Quincy and Petey better than anyone else, so you would be aware of any problems they’ve had with other people…things that might give a less stable mind a reason to get revenge.”
Ramona was silent for a while, her brow wrinkled in concentration, then she slowly shook her head. “I just can’t think of anything. You know Quincy. He’s the nicest man around and keeps to himself as much as possible. How do you create a enemy that determined when you rarely leave your house?”
I couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. Ramona had the same opinion of Quincy that Gertie and Ida Belle had. Not that I was expecting her to jump up and shout out a name, but I guess I figured everyone had someone who was mad at them for some real or imagined slight.
“What about Petey?” I asked. “I know you all agree he couldn’t hurt anyone, but Gertie said he liked to wander about. Could he have unintentionally caused a problem?”
“I talked to Quincy about Petey’s wandering,” Ramona said. “I saw him several times when I was checking rabbit traps. He would walk the trails from Sinful through the marsh and the woods and to the highway and back.”
“But you never saw him near the water?” I asked.
Ramona frowned. “I was fishing about two months ago and saw Petey standing twenty feet or so from the bank. He was just staring at the water, not moving. I called out to him but he showed no sign that he heard or saw me. After a couple minutes, he turned around and walked back into the trees.”
“That’s weird,” Gertie said. “He hasn’t gone near the water since that day, far as I knew.”
“Me too,” Ramona agreed. “I told Quincy what I saw and he said he questioned Petey, but the boy refused to talk about it. Quincy dismissed it as an oddity, but then a month ago, I saw him doing the same thing again, except this time, he was closer to the bank…maybe ten feet away.”
“Like he’s working up the courage to get closer,” I said.
“Maybe,” Ramona said. “I just don’t know.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “It’s strange, but I don’t think it makes a difference. There’s a huge gap between standing ten feet from the bank and getting in a boat, baiting hooks, and hauling in gators. Based on what Ramona saw, it took the boy a month to move ten feet.”
Gertie nodded. “At that rate, it would take him a lifetime to get to the rest.”
“Then we still circle back to someone having a problem with Petey,” I said.
“But that doesn’t make sense either,” Ramona said.
“I can’t imagine anyone having a problem with Petey that they wouldn’t take to Quincy.
Everyone knows the boy and knows the situation.
Even the less decent among us wouldn’t do such a thing to that family.
And to what end? Even if that trumped-up evidence sticks, Petey isn’t competent to stand trial.
He’d be released back to his dad and everything would be just as it was before. ”
And then something new occurred to me. “What if Petey saw something?”
“Something that someone else didn’t want him to see?” Gertie asked.
“Of course, something they didn’t want seen,” Ida Belle said. She looked over at me, nodding. “So if they wanted Petey out of the way, and discredited, the easiest way to do it would be to set him up.”
“But what did he see?” Gertie asked.
“Maybe the poacher,” I said. “That would make the most sense. The guy frames him for what he was doing, figuring if Petey points the finger at him, no one will believe him since Petey was the one with the evidence against him.”
“And with Petey’s issues, the court probably wouldn’t believe him, and that’s assuming we could get him to talk in the first place.” She banged her hand on the chair. “Damn it! I bet you’re right.”
“So how do we get Petey to talk?” I asked.
“If Petey knows something,” Gertie said, “Quincy is the only person who might be able to get it out of him.”
“Then we need to talk to Quincy,” I said.
Ida Belle nodded and we all rose. “Thank you, Ramona, for speaking to us.”
“If there’s something I can do,” Ramona said, “anything at all, you let me know.”
I had a feeling from her tone that Ramona really meant the “anything” part of her offer, which was both heartening and somewhat scary.
I started to walk out, but then something Ramona said earlier came back to me, and I couldn’t stop from asking. “You said earlier that you owed Marge for something. Do you mind telling me what it was? I don’t want to collect or anything. I was just curious.”
“Since she was your aunt and you’re helping Petey and Quincy, I’ll tell you. But you have to keep her secret. I’ve never told anyone else before now and won’t again.”
“I won’t say a word,” I assured her.
Ramona nodded. “Marge killed the gator. The one that got Reece.”
We all stared. Of all the things I might have guessed, and I’d manufactured some good ones during our conversation, that was one I wouldn’t have come up with.
“The gator?” Gertie asked.
Ramona nodded.
I knew it was probably a bad thing to ask, but my curiosity refused to be pushed aside. “How do you know it was the right one? I mean, there’s so many of them.”
Ramona walked over to a hutch just to my right and opened it. She removed something from inside, then turned around and handed it to me. I took the glass jar full of liquid from her, wondering where the hell this was going, when I realized the thing suspended in liquid was a finger.
“Holy crap!” I stared up at her. “Is this…?”
“Reece lost a finger in the attack,” Ramona said. “Marge gutted the gator and found it inside. That’s how I’m certain it was the right gator. I preserved it in pickling juice. Keeps the bacteria out.”
I handed the jar back to Ramona, slightly perturbed by the fact that I was holding a dead boy’s pickled finger kept in a hutch in his mother’s living room.
“Not to beat a dead horse or anything,” I said, “but how can you be sure it’s his finger? There’s a few missing round here.”
“That’s true enough,” Ramona said, “but this one belonged to a young person, and Reece had a scar on that finger where he’d jammed a fishing hook through it the year before. You can still see the scar.”
“Wow,” Gertie said. “That’s really something. Marge never said a word to us.”
“I don’t think she wanted anyone to know,” Ramona said. “I doubt she got her on her first try. Who knows how many she killed to find the right one. She wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to be implicated if she was caught.”
“That’s definitely Marge,” Ida Belle said.
Ramona looked at me. “Your aunt was different. A lot of people thought her strange, but she had a big heart and a huge desire to make things right. She might not have shouted it from the rooftops, but she was always there, behind the scenes.”
Gertie nodded and sniffed. “Marge was one of a kind.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” I said, feeling disappointed that Marge wasn’t really my aunt and that I’d never gotten to meet her. I’m certain I would have liked her.
“I’m glad I got the opportunity,” Ramona said.
“What Marge did changed things for me. I stopped living the day Reece died. I know most people would say I never have lived, but they don’t know me.
I like my solitude. I have my work and my interests and they keep me busy during waking hours.
But after my boy was gone, nothing mattered to me any longer.
Not until Marge brought me that finger. I know some would find it macabre, but it breathed life back into me.
So for that, I am forever grateful to her. ”
“I glad she could help,” I said. “And I’m really sorry about Reece.”
Ramona straightened a bit and nodded. “I’ll fix some food and take it down to the sheriff’s department. I assume Carter can still let them eat.”
“Celia hasn’t insisted he starve the prisoners,” Ida Belle said.
“Yet,” Gertie said.
“Thank you again for talking to us,” Ida Belle said. “We best get back to Sinful and have a chat with Quincy and Petey.”
We headed back out to my Jeep, and I set off back to Sinful. “Okay, does anyone else thinks it’s sorta creepy that Ramona has her dead son’s finger in her living room?”
“Totally.”
“No doubt.”
Ida Belle and Gertie both answered at once.
“I mean, I get it,” I said. “Sorta. But I think once I verified it was the right finger, I would have buried it or something.”
“Me too,” Gertie said, “but Ramona has always been eccentric. If it works for her, then I don’t suppose it’s doing any harm. Not many people have ever crossed her doorstep, and she’s not likely to show anyone else besides us.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “I still can’t believe Marge did that without telling us. We would have helped.”
“She didn’t want you to get in trouble,” I said.
Ida Belle raised one eyebrow. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? We invented trouble.”
I laughed. “Okay. Then maybe she didn’t want you in more trouble.”
“That’s probably true,” Ida Belle said. “And it’s not like this is the first time we’ve found out Marge kept secrets from us.” Ida Belle sighed. “I wonder sometimes if we ever truly know someone.”
“You know me,” Gertie said. “I’m an open book.”
“Really?” Ida Belle asked. “Then tell me what you’ve got in that Pandora’s box of a purse you carry.”
“I could tell you,” Gertie said. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
“There’s probably ten things or better in that purse that could handle the job,” I said.
“I suppose I know you well enough,” Ida Belle said to Gertie. “And I suppose everyone has something they’re keeping to themselves. We’re all human, after all.”
“Except Celia,” Gertie said.
I glanced over at Ida Belle and watched as her smile faded into a pensive look. I wondered what secrets she kept to herself. With Gertie, I believed it was mostly what you see is what you get, but Ida Belle ran deeper. Under that calm resolve was something unspoken.
But then, she could say the same about me.