Chapter 17
Carter disconnected the call, and I tossed the phone on my bed and pulled on some clothes. As I was walking downstairs, I dialed Ida Belle, who took forever to answer and sounded half asleep.
“We’ve got trouble,” I said.
“Can it wait another hour?”
“Not according to Carter.” I filled her in on Gertie and Godzilla’s latest adventure.
“We’ve got to get them off the sidewalk and Godzilla back in the water,” I said.
“Until the poacher is caught, she’s not going to leave that alligator alone.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do about it? We can’t lock it up somewhere, and she’s managed to tame the darn thing. It can’t hang out behind my house. It’s likely to walk into anyone’s backyard and demand baked goods.”
“Let me get dressed and head over there. Maybe I’ll think of something on the way.”
“I’ve already thought of something. Barbecue. I’m going outside to look for them. I’ll text you if I find them.”
I disconnected the call and headed outside to locate Gertie. The people who’d complained all lived north of me toward the park, so I set out that way at a medium-paced jog. It didn’t take me long to figure out where Gertie was. All I had to do was follow the screaming.
I picked up pace, rounded the corner, and spotted the problem right away.
A woman, a man, and two boys, probably five and two, were standing on top of a car parked at the curb and looking down at Godzilla, who was wearing a pink collar and staring up at them hissing.
As I got closer, I realized the youngest boy was clutching a small package of chocolate chip cookies.
At the end of the street, I saw Gertie round the corner in what I assumed was supposed to be a jog, but it looked more like a limp.
I watched as she got slower and slower and finally slowed to barely a walk.
At the rate she was going, the car would rust out from under those people before she showed up and collected the gator.
I moved to the sidewalk and crept slowly toward the vehicle.
When I was about twenty feet away, I stopped and waved, trying to get their attention, but it did no good.
Their backs were to me and they were all fixated on Godzilla.
Not that I blamed them. Sure, people from Sinful saw alligators all the time, but they usually weren’t accosted by them in the middle of the street, and I was guessing that they’d never seen one sporting a collar.
“Hey,” I said, hoping my voice projected enough for them to hear but not so loud that it got Godzilla’s attention.
No one showed any sign of moving, so I tried again, this time a little louder. The wife turned slightly, frowning, and when she caught sight of me, her eyes widened and she started shaking her head and waving her hands.
“Run! Get help!”
I waved my hand in a downward fashion, trying to get her to lower her voice, but she was stressed and it was too late.
A couple seconds later, Godzilla walked around the side of the car and stared right at me.
He hissed and pushed up on his legs. This was so not good.
I had my gun this time, but I couldn’t take a shot at him in the middle of the street. Not with the risk of a ricochet.
My second of hesitation was all he needed to launch.
I whipped my head around, looking for the nearest tree, but all I saw was small ornamental trees and bushes.
I could probably outrun him onto a porch, but I’d already seen him climb stairs, so unless I burst through someone’s front door, that wasn’t going to work either.
Godzilla launched, racing toward me and surprising me all over again with his speed.
The woman started screaming, and the kids began crying.
I crouched, only one option left, and waited until the gator was about five feet away, then I sprinted straight toward him and jumped.
The gator threw his head up and I heard his powerful jaws snap together as I cleared his tail.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, I took three giant bounds, then leaped onto the hood of the car and ran up on the top to stand with the others.
“You’re Superwoman,” the oldest kid said.
“Something like that,” I said, and watched as Godzilla whipped around and ran back to the car, settling in where he’d been before.
I leaned over to look at the youngest kid. “Can I have those cookies?”
The mother’s eyes widened. “You ran up here to take a toddler’s cookies? What kind of crazy are you?”
“They’re not for me,” I said. “The gator likes cookies. That’s probably why he cornered you. He saw the package.”
Clearly, she didn’t buy it. “I’m calling the police again. This is ridiculous.”
“The police are who sent me,” I said. “Believe it if you want or don’t, but that alligator is not going to move away from this car until he gets those cookies. And I can outrun him. If you want to sit here all day, I’m happy to go back home and have breakfast.”
The woman, who was clearly to the point of hysteria, grabbed my arm and pushed me. “Get off. I don’t care if he eats you. You’re some sort of psycho.”
Lucky for me, she was weak and I had awesome balance, because the shove barely moved me, but it did piss me off. Her husband was panicking, his hands on her arms, trying to get her to let me go. The kids were wailing again and I’d had about all I could stand of everything.
I came around with my right hand and slapped the woman in the face.
She jerked back, shocked, and let go of my arm.
Before she could react, I grabbed the cookies out of the toddler’s hand and sprang off the car, waving the package at Godzilla.
He shifted his body around and started out after me.
I ran down the block toward Gertie, slowing only long enough to toss a cookie onto the pavement.
I was down to my last one when I reached the end of the block where Gertie had finally gotten up and was standing with the broken leash.
“You’re on your own,” I yelled.
I tossed the last cookie onto the ground in front of her, then veered off to the left and jumped into the bed of a passing pickup truck. The truck driver slammed on the brakes and leaned out of his window, staring at the alligator as Gertie tied the leash around the pink collar.
“Are you crazy?” he yelled at Gertie.
It seemed to be the question of the day. Unfortunately, I was leaning toward a big “yes” in response.
“I’m fine,” Gertie said. “Just go on about your business.”
The driver looked back at me. “Can I drop you off somewhere or are you crazy too?”
I looked down at Gertie and Godzilla, who was now resting quietly beside her, and sighed. “Crazy,” I mumbled, and climbed out of the bed of his truck.
He shook his head and tore off down the street, probably afraid whatever was wrong with us was catching. Godzilla took one look at me and hissed, and Gertie tapped him on his head.
“Behave, now,” she said. “Fortune gave you cookies. She’s your friend.”
“I am not his friend. What I am is in the doghouse with Carter, who sent me to get both of you off the sidewalk and that gator back in the water.”
“I’m not letting him go back where I found him,” Gertie said. “The poacher will get him. At this point, he could catch him with an Oreo or two.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Fine, it’s my fault. But he’s domesticated now so it’s too late.”
“Domesticated” was a big leap in describing Godzilla’s current state of mind. I could work with opportunist, but I wasn’t about to forget that the gator could easily become an apex predator.
“Then put him somewhere else,” I said, “but not in my backyard. At this point, the poacher is not your only problem. Carter will shoot that gator in a second to avoid the liability.”
“How is Carter liable for something a wild animal does?”
“He wouldn’t be, except you made a spectacle of yourself and the gator and people called the police. Now that he’s aware of the problem, if he chooses to do nothing about it, then he’s liable for anything that happens from this point on.”
Gertie’s face fell, and I knew it was finally settling in just how easily Celia could use this against Carter if Godzilla bit anyone.
“Fine,” she said. “We can turn him loose in the bayou at the back of the subdivision.”
I didn’t like it. It was way too close to people for my comfort, but I also lacked the equipment to haul him anywhere else. “Fine, but get him there fast,” I said.
Gertie headed off down the street, the gator trotting beside her. I hung back a little, not wanting to be any closer to Godzilla than I had to be. It was the most ridiculous sight I’d ever seen. So ridiculous, in fact, that I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture.
Gertie had just stepped into a vacant lot at the end of the block when Ida Belle rounded the corner in her SUV and pulled up beside me.
“Doesn’t look like a big emergency to me,” Ida Belle said. “At least not on the Gertie scale.”
“You should have been here ten minutes ago.”
Ida Belle looked behind me. “There’s a family standing on top of their car.”
“Ten minutes ago,” I repeated.
“Ah. So what’s she’s doing now?”
“Putting Godzilla in the bayou at the end of the subdivision. She refuses to take him farther away from town and honestly, I’m not looking to transport him again, either.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Mark my words, this is not going to end well.”
“You don’t have to convince me. I stole a toddler’s cookies and made him cry. I slapped that hysterical woman on top of the car, who is probably on the phone with Carter right now trying to get me arrested.”
“Well, get in, cookie snatcher. The least I can do is buy you breakfast before we head out into the bayou to get into more trouble.”
I climbed into the SUV and we watched the clearing. Finally, Gertie stepped out of the trees and headed our way. She climbed into the SUV without a word and let out a long sigh.
“Stop fretting over that gator,” Ida Belle said. “All this is going to be over as soon as we figure out who that boat belongs to.”