Chapter 15
Gertie veered left and sprinted for the pier, moving faster than I thought possible.
Whiskey jumped off the porch and ran after her.
I hurried down the steps, scanning the pier and parking lot for Ida Belle, but didn’t see her.
Bar patrons began to stream out of the bar and onto the porch, some of them now hurrying to the pier behind Whiskey.
I’d lost sight of Gertie and Whiskey as soon as they got out of the porch light because there were no lights past that.
A tiny fleck of light bounced up and down in the distance, and I figured it must be Gertie using her cell phone as a flashlight.
I hurried to the pier with the rest of the patrons, pulling my nine-millimeter from my waist, and hoping that I really didn’t have to shoot Whiskey before the night was over.
When I got to the dock, I heard the roar of a boat engine, and Whiskey started yelling. “She’s stealing my boat! That crazy old woman is in my boat!”
The clouds parted enough to allow a stream of moonlight through and I watched as Whiskey’s boat streaked away from the pier and down the bayou.
“I’ve got a boat here,” Buck yelled. “Let’s go after her.”
For the first time ever, while on a mission, I froze. Clearly, I couldn’t shoot them, but if they caught up with Gertie, what would they do to her? Maybe I could shoot the boat, but then they’d turn on me, and there were a lot more boats, so shooting one didn’t fix anything.
I felt a tug on my arm and turned around to find Ida Belle standing behind me. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispered, and hurried through the crowd now gathered at the pier.
I cast one last glance down the bayou but Gertie and the boat had disappeared into darkness.
I heard another boat engine fire up as I rushed out of the crowd behind Ida Belle.
Her SUV was parked at the back of the lot, far enough away from the crowd that no one said anything as she started up her hopped-up engine and headed away from the bar.
She waited until we’d gone a scary fifty yards or so before turning on the headlights and punching her foot down on the accelerator.
“We can’t leave Gertie out there,” I said, clutching the grab bar as the SUV took a huge bounce in an enormous pothole.
“Don’t have a choice. We can’t steal a boat, and as awesome as this truck is, it still doesn’t float. Don’t worry. Gertie knows these bayous better than anyone. She’ll head back to town and ditch the boat. We just need to get to Sinful and watch for her.”
I had no doubt that Gertie knew the bayous around Sinful as well as the next resident, but I also knew she couldn’t see for crap during the day, much less running in moonlight in a stranger’s boat that she wasn’t used to handling.
Ida Belle had sounded convincing when she’d delivered her opinion, but I saw her clenched jaw and her iron grip on the steering wheel and knew she was worried.
“What happened?” she asked.
I started filling her in on the showdown in the bar and had just told her about the dart when I saw something move in the marsh on our left. “What is that?” I asked, leaning over the center console toward the driver’s-side window, trying to make out the fast-moving object.
As Ida Belle rolled down the window to get a better look, the object took a hard right and came straight at us.
Ida Belle slammed on the brakes as the boat flew up the embankment and slid across the road.
The SUV wheels locked up, sliding on the dirt road, and rolled right over the boat as if it were a speed bump.
Before it even came to a complete stop, I jumped out of the SUV and ran behind it, praying that Gertie had been thrown clear of the boat before the SUV had flattened it.
A rush of relief came over me when I saw the totaled but empty boat sitting in the middle of the road.
As Ida Belle rushed up beside me, I heard a groan coming from the weeds.
We ran over to the edge of the road and found Gertie crawling out of the marsh.
She was covered in mud and had marsh grass clinging to her but appeared to be okay.
A boat engine roared nearby and Ida Belle and I grabbed Gertie’s shoulders at the same time and hauled her up, then half dragged her to the SUV.
Ida Belle threw open the back and we tossed Gertie inside before she could even get a word out. We hurried back inside the vehicle and Ida Belle tore off down the road as if we were being chased by a tornado, and that wasn’t far from the truth.
“Are you all right?” I called back to Gertie.
She groaned again, and her head peeked up over the backseat. “I have a headache.”
“You’re lucky you’re not dead,” Ida Belle said. “What kind of move was that?”
“The boat was running out of gas,” Gertie said. “I saw the SUV and figured my only chance to get away was to catch a ride.”
“That’s a hell of a way to go about hitchhiking,” I said.
The SUV hit another hole and Gertie flew up, almost hitting her head on the roof of the vehicle.
“Do you have to hit every hole on the road?” she complained.
“Only if you want me to keep driving,” Ida Belle said.
“It’s painful riding back here,” Gertie said. “Slow down so I can crawl into the backseat.”
“If you get into my backseat with all that mud and grass on you,” Ida Belle said, “you’ll be cleaning this truck for the next ten years.”
“At least throw me a rag or something,” Gertie said. “I’ve got mud and swamp water in my eyes.”
I looked over at Ida Belle, who shook her head. “I didn’t think to stock that kind of stuff.”
“What about in your purse?” I asked Gertie.
“I took the towel out to make room for the pipe wrench,” Gertie said.
I was about to attempt to tear off some of my T-shirt when I remembered the paper towels. I reached into my bra and pulled out a wad of the paper and tossed it back to Gertie.
“Incoming!” I yelled.
Ida Belle glanced over at me, one eyebrow raised.
“I improvised until I can get a padded bra,” I said.
“Ah,” Ida Belle said. “The gropers.”
I scanned the road in front of us, looking for a landmark that would tell me how much farther we had to go to reach the highway, but I still hadn’t learned to read tree stumps and cattails.
“How far are we from the highway?” I asked.
I wasn’t worried about Whiskey and Buck catching us, and no one from the Swamp Bar was going to come remotely close in a vehicle either, but I’d bet money someone had called the cops.
We needed to hit the highway before Carter or Deputy Breaux got onto this road.
Ida Belle must have read my mind because she yelled at us to hold on and slammed her foot on the accelerator.
The SUV launched forward, then banged through another hole so fast I swear it was airborne for a couple of seconds.
I braced my feet on the floorboard and managed to get my seat belt on before we flew in and out of the next dip.
I heard Gertie banging around in the back and hoped she was still in one piece when we got back to Sinful.
“Is anyone following us?” Ida Belle asked.
I turned around and looked out the back window.
“I don’t see any headlights. Even if Whiskey found his boat and called for someone to come get him, it would take time for them to get to him.
And no way would they catch us, not in anything I saw in the parking lot.
I’m more worried about Carter or Deputy Breaux getting here before we get out. ”
Ida Belle nodded and her shoulders relaxed a tiny bit, but she didn’t slow down at all.
We slid and bounced for another five minutes or so before sliding onto the highway.
Ida Belle didn’t even pause before flooring it and we raced for Sinful at light speed, never passing another car.
About a half mile from town, she slowed to the speed limit and we drove onto Main Street, looking between buildings at the bayou, but everything appeared quiet.
“I bet no one is available to go to the bar right now,” I said. “With someone having to sit at the jail twenty-four-seven and working the poacher case, they’re limited on people.”
“And a ruckus at the Swamp Bar would be low on the list of priorities,” Ida Belle said.
“I need a tranquilizer,” Gertie said. “My entire body hurts.”
“I have some horse tranquilizers,” Ida Belle said. “Keep up that whining and I’m going to grant your wish.”
I wasn’t about to ask why Ida Belle had horse tranquilizers, because there might come a time when they came in handy. I just hoped she had them hidden well enough that Gertie couldn’t find them.
When we pulled up in Ida Belle’s garage and the door closed behind us, I let out a huge breath of relief. We helped Gertie out of the back of the SUV and Ida Belle pointed to the door that led to the backyard.
“Outside,” Ida Belle said. “You have to hose down before you’re allowed in my house.”
Gertie mumbled something about prison treatment but walked out back and stood behind the patio while Ida Belle sprayed off the thick layer of mud and grass. When she was finally satisfied, Ida Belle turned off the hose and headed up the steps to the house.
“I’ll turn off the porch light,” Ida Belle said. “Lose the clothes. I’ll toss you a towel and you can head straight for the shower.”
“You want me to undress out here?” Gertie asked.
“Now she’s worried about being discreet,” Ida Belle said as she walked inside.
The porch light went off and a couple seconds later a towel flew out of the door and landed on Gertie’s head. Deciding I didn’t want to get any more personal with Gertie than I already was, I hurried inside and left her to the disrobing. Ida Belle handed me a shot glass as soon as I stepped inside.
“I have wine,” she said, “but no way was that going to do.”
I tossed back the shot and felt my throat start to burn. “What is this?”
“Our new brew of cough syrup.”
My vision blurred for a moment. “Is the goal to prevent coughing by knocking people out?”
“Something like that.”
“Then you’re good. Give me another.”
Ida Belle poured us each another shot and we finished them up as Gertie stalked inside, glaring at Ida Belle as she headed down the hall for the bathroom.
“You got any aspirin?” I asked.
She grabbed a bottle from a cabinet and tossed it to me. “Headache?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think I hit the top of the SUV a couple times on the way home.”
“I better take some to Gertie, then,” Ida Belle said. “If you’ve got a headache, she must be working up a migraine.”
She left the kitchen, and I tossed back the aspirin and downed it with a third shot of whiskey. It made my eyes water, but almost immediately, my head started to feel better. Or maybe I just couldn’t feel my head. Either way, it worked.
Ida Belle came back into the kitchen and grabbed a dishrag. She wet it and rubbed it across her eyes, removing the dark makeup.
“You got another one of those?” I asked. “My eyes feel like they’re glued in place.”
She wet another towel and tossed it to me. I climbed onto a barstool and started wiping the goo off my face. “How do women do this every day?” I asked. “It’s like someone dumped dirt in my eyes.”
“I never did like makeup,” Ida Belle said. “Makes my skin itch, but it’s a good thing we looked the way we did tonight. Hopefully, no one recognized Gertie. Otherwise we’re in a heap of trouble.”
“No one said anything,” I said. “Even the people who know her wouldn’t expect her to be in the Swamp Bar. And the lighting is really bad in there.”
Ida Belle nodded. “Let’s just hope it was dark enough. And that no one—”
Ida Belle frowned and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
“It’s from Myrtle,” she said. “Carter’s looking for us.”
“Crap.” That was never a good sign.
Ida Belle flew into action. She threw open the pantry and pulled out a bag of microwave popcorn, tossed it in the microwave, and fired it up. Then she grabbed a packet of cheddar cheese garnish for the popcorn, opened it and started flinging it around the kitchen.
I stared at her, certain she’d gone mad.
She tossed the packet on the cabinet and whirled around. “Turn on the TV and the DVD player. Start the DVD, then hit Pause.”
I must have hesitated for too long because she yelled, “Move!”
If there was one thing I understood and knew how to respond to, it was taking an order.
I had no idea what Ida Belle had up her sleeve, but clearly she was working off a master plan.
I ran into the living room and set up the TV as Ida Belle instructed.
I heard her down the hall talking to Gertie, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
She rushed through the kitchen a couple seconds later and out the back door. I stood there staring as she ran back inside and into the laundry room with Gertie’s dirty clothes.
“Grab the popcorn out of the microwave and pour it in a bowl,” she called out as she ran by.
I located a large plastic bowl in the cabinets and poured the popcorn into it. I’d just put it on the counter when I heard a knock at the front door. Ida Belle hurried out of the laundry room.
“Get the door,” she said. “It’s movie night.”
I spun around and took a single step for the front door when I felt my head being tugged from behind.
“The wig,” Ida Belle said as she yanked it off my head.
I’m pretty sure a good hunk of my own hair went with it, but I pulled what was left into a ponytail and knotted it on the back of my neck. I kicked off my tennis shoes in front of the couch and opened the door.