Chapter 11
I heard a key rattling in the storeroom door and leaped from my sitting position on the table over a stack of paper boxes and did a roll into a shelf.
I jumped up and steadied the shelf before it fell, then tucked myself behind the boxes just as the door opened and Carter stepped inside.
I peered through a crack in between the boxes, praying that Carter didn’t need copy paper.
“You all right?” Carter asked.
“Yes, we’re fine,” Quincy said. “Something startled him, I think.”
“Angel!” Petey shouted, then went back to humming.
Quincy gave Carter an apologetic shrug. “I’m not sure what he’s thinking. This isn’t exactly the best place for him.”
“If there was any other way…” Carter said.
“I know you’re doing everything you can, but do you have any idea when the state is going to do something? They can’t just leave him sitting here forever.”
“I’ve called them four times already today but they keep stonewalling me.
As soon as I know something, I’ll be in here sharing it.
The drunks should be out of the jail by this evening.
If you’re still here, we’ll move you guys down there.
It’s not the Ritz, but at least there are beds and a toilet. ”
“I’m sure we’ll manage, whatever the circumstances,” Quincy said.
“Gertie wanted to talk to you and see if she could visit, but I have Celia sitting out in front of the sheriff’s department, so I can’t let her in. Is there anything you need?”
“We need plenty,” Quincy said, “but I’m afraid it’s nothing you or Gertie can give us.”
Carter nodded, looking defeated. I felt my chest constrict, and the overwhelming urge to burst out from behind the boxes and hug him came over me. Then common sense took hold again and I was back in spy mode.
“Okay,” Carter said. “Call for me or bang on the door if you need something. Ally said Francine is providing dinner for you two.”
“She outdid herself with lunch,” Quincy said. “The good people in this town are why I stay. They still outweigh the bad.”
“Yeah, they do.” Carter left the storeroom, and I heard the door lock behind him.
I popped up from behind the boxes and climbed onto the table. “I have to run. Keep trying to get Petey to talk.”
“I’ll try, but I don’t know how much good it will do if he’s frightened.”
“I’m working on an idea about that,” I said. “I’ll get back with you.”
Quincy watched as I slid the ceiling tile back. “Do you need help? I can put a chair up there or give you a push.”
“I’m good,” I said, and leaped up, grabbing the rafter. I pulled myself up onto it and looked back down. Petey had risen from the floor and was pointing up at me.
“Angel,” he said.
Quincy shook his head. “You’re no angel, but darn if you seem completely human.”
“There’s probably some truth to that.”
I slid the tile back in place and thought about my options.
The back door wouldn’t work because of the Celia contingent, nor could I risk walking all the way down the hall to get to it.
The break room didn’t have an exterior window, so that was out.
My best choice was Carter’s office on the back side of the building, but the window was clearly visible from the back door steps, where Celia’s minion was perched.
What I needed was a distraction.
Then I remembered a pack of lunch meat sitting on the counter in the break room. If I could snag that meat, and with a little help from Ida Belle and Gertie, I just might be able to make it work.
If not, I’d stroll up front, get arrested for breaking into the sheriff’s department, and the storeroom would get rather crowded.
Ten minutes later, I opened the window in Carter’s office and peeked outside.
I recognized Celia’s cousin and right-hand man, Dorothy, sitting on the steps, crocheting something in a hideous orange color.
I balled up some of the lunch meat and started tossing it out the window, first off to the right, then slowly leading toward the steps.
A couple minutes later, I heard Ida Belle call out and watched as she walked up to the steps.
Dorothy immediately stiffened, clearly preparing for battle, but Ida Belle casually chatted until her shoulders relaxed a bit.
Then she pointed toward the bayou and when Dorothy’s back was turned, Ida Belle dropped something into the crochet bag.
Now all we needed was for Gertie to get Buddy Riker’s hound dogs loose and the show would be on.
I could hear them barking in the distance and figured Gertie must be near the pen.
The sound wasn’t moving yet, though, so they weren’t out.
I hoped Gertie had laid the trail to the edge of the tree line.
The first piece of lunch meat I’d thrown had landed about ten feet from the edge of the trees.
It was plenty close for a pair of hunting hounds to get a whiff of.
The barking increased in intensity, and then it started getting louder.
They were headed this way. I watched at the edge of the tree line, waiting for them to burst out of the trees, but instead of dogs, Gertie barreled out of the brush, running like a madwoman with a string of hot links trailing behind her.
The dogs were right on her tail, grabbing at the flopping wieners. By the time she reached the window, the links were long gone, but Gertie kept right on running past the sheriff’s department and around the corner.
Dorothy jumped up from the steps and both she and Ida Belle watched as Gertie huffed by them, then turned back around to eye the baying hounds. The dogs stopped running and went silent, sniffing the air. That was it! They’d caught scent of the lunch meat.
The dogs started baying and scurried down the invisible line of lunch meat I’d created, lifting the pieces from the grass as they barreled past. Dorothy was so intent on watching the dogs, she didn’t see Ida Belle sneak off.
The dogs picked up speed, trying to beat each other to the next prize.
Dorothy stood like a statue on the bottom of the steps and began to look worried as the hounds drew closer.
Then the last bit of lunch meat was gone; the dogs stopped again, sniffing the air.
“Go on,” Dorothy said as she lifted her crochet bag and swung it in front of her. “Shoo!”
I clamped one hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. She couldn’t possibly have picked a worse move.
The dogs caught a whiff of whatever Ida Belle had dropped inside her bag and launched.
One of them grabbed the bag midair and brought it down to the ground, ripping it from Dorothy’s grasp.
The other dog lunged for the prized bag and the first dog took off with it.
When he launched, the hideous orange thing Dorothy had been making wrapped around her ankle, the other end securely fastened in the running dog’s mouth.
Her legs flew out from under her and she crashed onto the ground, screaming like a banshee.
The second dog ran right over her head, still trying to get to the bag.
On the one hand, it was hilarious, and fell short of what Celia and her crew deserved, but it was also too much distraction.
I’d wanted the dogs to scare Dorothy off, not tackle her.
A second later, the back door to the sheriff’s department flew open and Carter ran outside.
He stopped short, probably trying to figure out why Dorothy and two dogs appeared to be launched in a tug-of-war battle over a crocheted something-or-other, but finally zeroed in on the problem and jumped in, trying to unwrap the fabric from Dorothy’s ankle.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get more entertaining, Celia showed up.
She rounded the corner of the building as Carter pulled the fabric free from Dorothy’s leg.
He flung it backward, hitting Celia square in the face.
The dogs, still on the trail of whatever goody Ida Belle had put in the bag, ran for the orange thing and both jumped at the same time, knocking Celia over backward, crocheting on top of her.
The first dog grabbed one end of the orange thing and took off.
The second dog grabbed the other end of it and got a good mouthful of Celia’s skirt along with it.
When he took off, the skirt ripped all the way up to the waistband, leaving Celia showing all of her left leg and way too much of some other parts.
Since everyone I was trying to avoid was out back, and once again, I’d seen more of Celia than anyone ever wanted to, I took the opportunity to run down the hall and out the front door.
Myrtle, the dispatcher and a friend of Ida Belle’s and Gertie’s, just waved and didn’t even bother to ask a question.
I took a hard right as soon as I exited the building and almost ran smack into Ida Belle.
“Hurry up!” she said, motioning me toward the General Store.
“I was hurrying until you got in the way,” I said as we took off down the sidewalk.
Gertie was sitting on Walter’s seat behind the cash register, wheezing. Walter opened a bottle of water and handed it to her. She took a drink, coughed, and sprayed water all over Walter. He sighed and reached for a roll of paper towels on a display near the counter.
“Are you all right?” I asked Gertie.
She nodded. “Those dogs are faster than I thought they’d be.”
“You weren’t supposed to try to outrun them,” I said. “You were supposed to leave the trail out of the woods before you turned them loose.”
Gertie stared at me several seconds. “That probably would have been easier.”
Ida Belle looked up at the ceiling, probably praying again.
“Did anyone see you get out?” Walter asked.
I nodded. “Myrtle.”
“How in the world did Myrtle see you?” Walter asked. “She’s supposed to be at the front desk.”
“She was,” I said. “When all hell broke loose, everyone ran to the back, so I left through the front door. Not like Myrtle is going to say anything.”
“Myrtle won’t even ask why you were there,” Ida Belle says. “She knows the value of existing with little information.”
Walter shook his head. “You are truly something. So what was happening out back that everyone went running to?”
I filled them in on the attack of the hungry hound dogs, and by the time I got to the part about Celia’s skirt, they were all laughing so hard they were crying.
Gertie was coughing so violently, Ida Belle started banging on her back. She drank some more water, then started to chant, “You saw London, you saw France, you saw Celia’s underpants.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said.
“At least she wears them,” Ida Belle said.
I groaned. “Thank you for that visual.”
Walter grimaced. “So was all this worth it?”
“Yes and no,” I said, and described my conversation with Petey.
“I’m sure Petey saw the poacher, but he’s too scared to tell who it is.
Quincy’s going to keep working on him, but I had another idea.
When I asked Petey about the poacher, his reaction was instant.
He shook his head but it was clear that he was lying. ”
Gertie nodded. “He can’t act at all. Whatever he’s feeling comes out in his actions and expressions.”
“Exactly,” I said, “so I figured if we had some pictures of people we suspected of being the poacher, then he would react to a picture of the guilty party if we asked him if they were the bad guy.”
“That’s smart,” Ida Belle said. “Unfortunately, our suspect list is currently lacking.”
“But we’re going to the Swamp Bar tonight,” Gertie said. “I bet we can find all kinds of suspects there.”
“True,” Ida Belle said. “The trick, however, is getting pictures of them without someone getting suspicious or the potential guilty party noticing. Not everyone who frequents the Swamp Bar is single, and there’s more than a few Baptists in there, including a couple of deacons.
None of them would want a picture taken. ”
“We just have to be discreet,” I said. “Practically everyone walks around looking at a cell phone these days. Just act like you’re checking email or something. Not like anyone could hear a camera click with the racket in that place.”
“Discreet,” Ida Belle repeated. “Which leaves Gertie out.”
“I can be discreet,” Gertie argued.
“You haven’t been discreet your entire life,” Ida Belle said. “Even in the crib, you’d yank off your diaper and stroll around like it was perfectly fine.”
“She makes a point,” I said.
“Two against one again,” Gertie pouted.
“I don’t know anything about your toddler streaking adventures, and don’t want to,” I said, “but if we want to get pictures without drawing attention to ourselves, that means no outlandish getups. No hookers or nuns or whatever else you’ve got cooked up for dress tonight.”
“Hookers and nuns?” Walter asked.
“Old news,” I said.
“She doesn’t want to talk about it because it worked,” Gertie said.
“Everything works as long as you can outrun people,” I said. “But for once, I’d like to walk into that bar and leave without threats, gunfire, explosion, or a boat, motorcycle, or car chase.”
“Just how many times have you been to that bar?” Walter asked.
“Do you really want to know?” I asked.
He shook his head. “In rethinking my position, never mind.”
“The lack of a car chase would be disappointing,” Ida Belle said.
I stared. “I’m so sorry that you might not get the opportunity to scare us all to death in that bolt of lightning SUV you bought.”
Ida Belle shrugged. “Sooner or later, you’re going to be thanking God I bought that truck.”
I cringed a bit because deep down in the pit of my stomach, I knew she was right. But that didn’t mean I was going to jump up and down about it until it happened.
“So what are we supposed to do?” Gertie asked. “Walk in there like church ladies from Sinful?”
“When have I ever looked like a church lady?” Ida Belle asked.
“At church,” Gertie replied.
“I think jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes all the way around are fine,” I said. “Makeup that’s a little too dark. Maybe some teased hair. That should work, and it’s easy to put together.”
“And to run in,” Ida Belle said.
“I’m really trying to avoid running again,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle nodded. “Then remember that tonight.”