Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

The island seemed out of place in the swamp. All the surrounding land was low and flat with only marsh grass covering it. But this tiny patch of land rose out of the swamp as if it had been summoned there, trees so dense you couldn’t see more than a couple of feet past the first wall of them.

Storm clouds had picked up overhead, and everything had gotten dim. There was a fine mist around the entire island that looked almost like fog. With the heavy moss hanging from the trees lining the edge of the island and the voodoo doll tied to a post on the pier, it looked like a scene from a scary movie.

Gertie, clearly excited, leaned over and whispered, “If the dock is this spooky, I can’t wait to see the house.”

Corndog tied off the boat, and as we climbed onto the dock, he lifted Gertie’s purse out of the boat and his eyes widened.

“Lord help, you got an anvil in here?” he asked. “You best let me carry this for you. It’s a bit of a walk, and luggage service is something I’m responsible for.”

I thought for a minute Gertie might argue, but then I remembered we were talking about a Southern man of a certain age, and our host. She just nodded and thanked him. He picked up the purse straps, still frowning over the weight, and stepped off the pier and onto a dirt path.

“Rain’s coming in fast,” he said as he lifted his head and sniffed the air. “We best get to the house before it gets us. They was all in the library when I left.”

“Wait…they’re all still here?” I asked as we set off up the path.

“Yep. They prepaid and said they saw no point in trying to find another place and hauling out of here just for a couple nights. I figured some of ’em might be staying with family in Houma for the reunion and probably don’t want to be there any longer than they have to be. Family can be a blessing or a curse.”

“Seems an appropriate statement in this case,” Ida Belle said.

I nodded. So given the choice of spending a couple extra nights with family or staying in a ‘haunted’ B and B where your good friend died, they’d all chosen the B and B. That said something about the people I was about to meet, but I didn’t know what. Not yet, anyway.

We were about twenty yards into the trees when the thunder started overhead. Corndog and his sniffer had apparently called it correctly and the storm was about to hit. He picked up his step, as did Ida Belle, who was right behind him, but instead of going faster, Gertie came to a complete stop, and I almost ran into the back of her.

“Is that hosta growing out there?” she asked.

Corndog stopped and turned around. “Yes, ma’am. Petunia has been planting it in different areas. We don’t get a lot of sunlight around the house, so she’s been testing it for sun and saturation tolerance. That’s about as close to the bayou as she’s been able to get, though. Too close to the salt water and it doesn’t seem to do as well, even with a bit more sunlight.”

“What variety is it?” Gertie asked, and stepped off the path, headed for a clump of plants that I assumed were the ones that she’d risked being caught out in the rain for.

“Don’t—” Corndog yelled, but it was too late.

I saw the snake drop from the thick moss above her, landing right on her head. Gertie let out a scream that could probably be heard back in Sinful and whirled in circles, frantic to get the snake off her head. She managed to toss it off into the trees with one of her arm swipes, but when she did, she backed into a thin tree trunk and another one fell to replace the one she’d just lost.

She started spinning all over again and then took off running down a narrow path in the trees, but not the path we were on.

“Stop!” Corndog yelled and hurried after her.

But Gertie disappeared in the thick growth, not slowing one bit. Corndog had sounded panicked when he’d yelled at her to stop, which I took to mean there was more wrong with the situation than what I could see. So I took off after her. It only took me a couple of strides to pass Corndog, and I spotted a flash of Gertie’s yellow shirt ahead of me. Then I heard another yell and a splash.

I spotted the drop-off at the last minute and threw my arms around a cypress tree at the embankment to prevent myself from going into the bayou along with Gertie. A big hunk of the embankment had been torn off and was still sending pieces into the water. Corndog and Ida Belle hurried up beside me and we carefully peered over to see if we could spot her.

“There!” Ida Belle pointed off to our right, and I saw a patch of yellow clinging to roots below the overhang .

I hurried over, and Corndog called after me to be careful because the embankment wasn’t solid. A warning that came a second too late. I stepped to the edge of the embankment, intending to climb down the roots and help Gertie out of the water.

Then the bank I was standing on collapsed.

I curled my body as I dropped, trying to protect my face and stomach from impact on the roots below, and had a second of relief when I hit the water. I popped back up immediately, dirt and moss still dropping onto me from above.

And that’s when Corndog yelled the one word I didn’t want to hear.

“Gator!”

I dropped my legs down, hoping to hit roots, but my feet plunged into the slimy, gooey mud that made up the bottom of the bayou. I whirled around and saw Gertie about ten feet away, the back of her T-shirt hooked on a cypress knee. She was trying to lift herself off it, but there were no other stumps nearby for her to use to step on, and she couldn’t reach behind to push herself off the root.

The gator was twenty feet behind her.

I shoved off a root and started swimming for Gertie as a shot rang out above me. Then a second later, I heard a yell and a huge splash as more of the embankment tore away, and I figured Ida Belle had joined us for a dip.

The alligator had gone under just before she fired the shot, either to hide or to approach in stealth mode, preparing to snag Gertie underwater and pull her down for a death roll. Given that it was mating season, and gators seemed to be looking for a fight during that time, I was betting on the latter.

There was no way Ida Belle could get a shot from the water, assuming she hadn’t lost her pistol when she fell, and I had no idea if Corndog was packing. I was going to guess yes, because this was Louisiana and he lived on an island surrounded by predators. But given his questionable vision and the gator’s proximity, I was hoping he had opted for praying instead of opening fire.

“Duck out of the shirt!” I yelled to Gertie as I swam.

Her eyes widened, and she must have realized why I’d just told her to strip because she put her arms up and went below the surface. I covered the last five feet, praying she was going to pop back up.

Then the gator surfaced right next to the dangling T-shirt and raised his head up to nudge at the fabric blowing in the wind. I was just about to dive when Gertie surfaced next to me, sputtering water everywhere. The gator swung his giant head around and made eye contact with me, then sank again.

“Swim!” I yelled.

Gertie set out for the bank with me right on her tail. I could hear Ida Belle and Corndog yelling, but their words were all garbled with the boom of thunder overhead and the sounds of Gertie and me swimming. Gertie reached the mass of roots where the bank had collapsed just ahead of me and scrambled up a root, just out of the water.

Then she let out a yell like I’d never heard in the two years I’d known her.

I twisted around just as the gator surfaced right in front of me, his jaws wide open. I saw the flash of teeth and before I could pull my weapon, he lunged. So I did the only thing I could do.

I punched him right in the face.

The blow hit him between the eyes and I twisted out of the way as I let my fist fly. I felt his teeth scrape my side and knew he’d broken the skin, but I’d startled him enough that he’d disappeared below the surface again. I prayed he was headed off to find an easier snack .

I scrambled up the roots and pulled myself up to the destroyed embankment just in time to see the gator surface again inches below where I stood. One lunge was all it would take for him to pull me off. I spun around on the giant root I stood on and leaped for the bank, just as the gator launched himself out of the bayou. He grabbed my tennis shoe, and I grasped the roots that were holding the remaining embankment upright. I yanked my leg as hard as I could, but he had his teeth sunk into the rubber sole in a firm grasp, and my hold on the roots was loosening by the second. Just as I was going to slip my foot out of it, he let go and dropped back into the water.

Gertie was already climbing, and I set off after her, but when I drew close, she slipped. I reached down and grabbed the only thing available—the back of her sports bra. I twisted my fist in it, praying it was new and the fabric would hold, and yelled for Gertie to drop her arms. If the bra slipped over her head, she’d go crashing back down into the bayou, where I had no doubt the gator was still lurking.

She dropped a good couple inches, and I steeled myself for the giant jerk I knew was coming when the bra reached the end of its stretch capacity. I barely managed to keep hold of her and saw that the bra had come up over her chest and was now tucked under her arms. I heard something splash and Gertie sighed.

“There goes my bag of Skittles,” she said.

So there we were—me clinging to a tree root on the side of the embankment, praying it held. Gertie spinning below me, suspended by my hand clutching her bra, flashing her boobs to the wildlife.

And it wasn’t even Mardi Gras.

The alligator popped up below us and I was about to tell Ida Belle to shoot, but then he appeared to look up and decide we were too much to bother with. He gave a giant swish of his tail and headed off in the other direction.

“You’ve scared the alligator,” Ida Belle said. “Flashing your wares and all.”

“I can’t dangle here all day,” Gertie said, her arms still clamped to her side to keep the bra on. “And I’m starting to get dizzy.”

“Yeah, well, my rotator cuff is going to move out of my shoulder soon,” I said. “When you’re facing the embankment again, prepare to grab hold. I’m going to swing you toward it. Do not miss!”

What I didn’t say is that it wouldn’t be a polite or gentle swing. I only had one shot at this. If Gertie lifted her arms and wasn’t close enough to grab the roots, then she was going down again, and I had no doubt our reptilian friend would be happy to make a U-turn. I could feel my shoulder starting to burn as she slowly spun around, and I prayed I could not only hold out but muster up that final burst of energy that would be needed to get her those two feet back to the embankment.

Just as she turned to face the bank, I swung her out to gain momentum, then pulled as hard as I could for the bank. Gertie stuck her hands out just as she collided with the bank. Her face planted in a crumbling patch of dirt, but she managed to grab hold.

“Are you stable?” I asked.

“Yes, but I think this bra cut off the circulation to my lower body.”

“Worry about it later. Get to climbing.”

“I’ll be flashing Corndog, and there’s no way to pull my bra down hanging out here.”

“You’re probably covered in mud, and I’m guessing Corndog is old enough to have seen boobs before. What he probably hasn’t seen is someone eaten by an alligator. ”

“Actually,” he called out, “there was this one time over in Mud Bayou… You know what? I’ll save that story for dinner.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Go!”

“Hurry up!” Ida Belle said. “If this storm hits while you’re still hanging there, that embankment is going to be a slick piece of work. And your friend is still out there swishing around. Corndog has had his eyes closed since Fortune punched the gator. He couldn’t watch anymore.”

“Fine,” Gertie said and started inching up.

I waited until she was a body length ahead of me then set out myself, warning Ida Belle and Corndog to step back several feet for fear that all our weight on the edge would send more of it down into the bayou.

Gertie finally managed to crawl over the edge and a couple feet to firmer ground, where she yanked the sports bra down to cover her goods, then fell back down to the dirt. I pulled myself up and over and practically sprang three feet from the edge to ensure I was solid. I heard a rip and looked back to see the gator tearing Gertie’s T-shirt from the cypress knee.

Gertie sat up and groaned. “That was a brand-new shirt.”

Her face and body were covered with mud, and there were bits of moss and twigs stuck in her hair and her bra. She looked like a forest creature. But then, I probably didn’t look much better. I hadn’t eaten the embankment, but I still had mud all over everything but my face. Ida Belle was dripping from her dip but looked otherwise unharmed.

“I dropped my pistol when that embankment collapsed,” she said and sighed.

Correction. Ida Belle had sustained the biggest injury of us all. She’d lost her weapon.

“Do you have a spare shirt in your handbag?” I asked Gertie .

She shook her head. “I gave it to Sammy for his Great Pyrenees.”

“Why did a dog need a shirt?”

“He’d been to the groomers and they messed up the orders. Shaved him within an inch of his life. I saw him on Main Street, and the big guy was so embarrassed he wouldn’t even take a hot dog weenie from me. He perked right up once he was wearing the shirt.”

Ida Belle shook her head as she pulled off her blue plaid shirt that she wore over a white tank and passed it to Gertie. “Put this on so Corndog can open his eyes and get us to the house.”

Gertie silently took the shirt and wisely donned it without a single peep about fashion. Ida Belle might have lost her gun, but my money was on her in hand-to-hand combat. And losing one’s favorite weapon had a tendency to bring out your fighting spirit.

“Everybody’s up to biblical standards,” Ida Belle announced. “You can open your eyes, Corndog.”

Corndog slowly opened one eye, as if to ensure he wasn’t being fooled, and his shoulders slumped with relief when he saw us all standing there, clothed, if not presentable. He gave me a look of sheer amazement.

“You punched a gator,” he said. “Just walloped him right in the face. I’ve never seen anything like it before. When my nephew said you were deadlier than a serial killer, I just thought he was being dramatic, but I sure wouldn’t want to fight you. Not even when I was younger.”

“And you didn’t even see the bra-dangling save,” Ida Belle said, and Corndog blushed.

She turned to glare at Gertie. “Why the heck did you take off running? That was a rat snake. You almost got yourself, me, and Fortune killed, and you owe me a new pistol. ”

“He was on my head,” Gertie said. “I couldn’t see him and didn’t think about asking him if he was venomous or not.”

“You could have asked me,” Ida Belle said. “And why did you head down the wrong path?”

“I thought I was on the one to the house. Spinning around must have gotten me mixed up.”

Ida Belle shook her head. “So you’re telling me that failing to identify a snake you’ve seen a thousand times at least and running down a path that doesn’t look even close to as traveled as the one you were on has nothing at all to do with your eyesight.”

“Fine! I’ll go get new glasses when we get home. I think I broke these anyway, and they’re my last pair of the old prescription. I’ll have to put a bit of tape on them until we get home.”

Since Gertie had destroyed an untold number of glasses since I’d known her, I didn’t even want to ask how many pairs she’d purchased.

“You’ve been on your last pair for five years now,” Ida Belle said. “I swear, if you don’t get new glasses next week, then Fortune is going to stop using you for investigation. Between your vision and your purse, she can’t afford the liability insurance.”

Ida Belle turned around and stalked off. Corndog gave us a nervous look as a peal of thunder shook the ground.

“We best get going,” he said. “If the bottom drops out before we get to the house, we might all be wearing a snake hat. They don’t like these big storms—drop right out of the trees and scurry for cover.”

Gertie hopped right up, as if she had not nearly died, and we set out after Corndog. None of us were necessarily scared of snakes, but we didn’t want to wear them on our heads either. Ida Belle was back on the main path and yielded the lead to Corndog, who set out at a surprisingly fast walk. We hurried behind him, and I glanced up when there was a break in the trees to look at the angry clouds swirling overhead. I’d seen this kind of storm a million times since I’d moved to Sinful, and they always hit with a huge downpour. But at this point, all of us but Corndog could use a bath.

“Here we are,” Corndog said as we broke through the trees and into a small clearing.

The house had the dock beat for atmosphere, hands down. It was indeed an uphill walk to get there, and if the cypress trees hadn’t been so old and huge, it probably would have been visible from a distance, but the ancient, enormous trees surrounded the house, eclipsing it completely from sight until you were standing right in front of it. They also eclipsed most of the natural light, leaving only a small clear area that would get direct sunlight only when the sun was right overhead.

Right now, of course, the storm clouds were rolling in and it wasn’t the time of year for the sun to be positioned over the house like a spotlight anyway, so it looked more like dusk than the middle of the day. And although there’s no way in hell I’d live out here, cut off from an easy jog to a café or bakery, I could appreciate why Corndog and Petunia were desperate to hold on to their home.

It was a huge Victorian, painted in shades of dark blue and green and with copper tops on the turrets. It was easily double the size of my own home and since I knew what that one cost to maintain, in an established township, with easy access to supplies and people, I could only imagine what kind of costs they were looking at to keep the place up. Ultimately, I figured it was a losing proposition. As soon as you couldn’t do a lot of maintenance yourself, all bets would be off owning a place like this. And I had an idea that Corndog, with his arthritis, wasn’t rushing to climb a ladder anymore .

“Wow!” Gertie said, echoing my thoughts. “This is incredible. Who would have ever thought it was hidden back here?”

Corndog looked pleased at her compliment. “She’s a beauty, all right. I’m just glad my great-grandpa bought her. Paid three thousand dollars back then, which was a king’s ransom, but that wouldn’t pay the light bill for a year these days. She needs a lot of work, but she’s still magnificent. My whole life, I spent every spare hour I had out here helping him with the place. That’s why he left the house to me. He knew I loved it as much as he did.”

Even Ida Belle looked suitably impressed as we both nodded.

A huge drop of rain landed on my cheek, and Corndog gave us a once-over. “We best go in the side door to the kitchen. I got a hose just outside the door, and at least you can take off your shoes there. Will save having to clean the rugs in the entry.”

Corndog headed for the side of the house and we hurried to follow. There was a set of cement steps that led to a side door. He made a move for the hose, but it turned out we didn’t need it. The downpour hit just as we arrived at the entry, so Gertie and I stood under the roofline and caught a big wave of water as it barreled down the roof. It wasn’t a great shower, but at least we were no longer covered in mud.

When lightning struck just past us in the trees, we decided we were clean enough and hurried inside. There was a small entry hallway and just past that, we found ourselves standing in a nice-sized kitchen with a large island. The room was a craftsman’s showplace of hand-carved wood. Even the wall panels had decorative etchings on them. And if the kitchen was this fancy, all I could think was I couldn’t wait to see the rest of the house.

“According to the legends,” Corndog said as I studied the floral etchings on a wood panel, “the pirate who built the place was a craftsman and artist, and he’s the one who did all this work. Don’t know if it’s true, but it makes for a good story for guests.”

“It’s incredible,” I said.

A woman wearing an old-fashioned, pale yellow dress with tiny blue flowers and a million pleats came bustling out of a door off to our left, wiping her hands on a dishrag hanging from her apron string.

Seventies. Just under five foot. Ninety-five pounds, with the apron and shoes. Arthritis in her hands and knees. Thick glasses and still squinting, so probably went Gertie’s route on addressing her vision. Zero threat, unless she’d used peanut oil in something that killed the allergic guest.

“Sorry,” she said as she approached. “I was looking for my baking sheet in the pantry and didn’t even hear you come in. Darn thing was on the wrong shelf. I’m Petunia. You must be Fortune, Ida Belle, and Gertie.”

Then she got a good look at us and exclaimed, “Oh my word! What happened? Are you bleeding?”

“There was a snake, end of trail, collapsing embankment, alligator, bayou accident,” I said.

Her face immediately cleared in understanding, and she nodded, making me wonder just how many times it had happened before.

“And your side?” she asked.

“Just a scratch,” I said.

“Well, you can’t just drip the whole time you’re here,” Petunia said. “And I know mud is supposed to be good for the skin, but it’s not so welcome on my carpets.”

“We tried to wash off in the storm,” I said.

“I think we can do better than that,” Petunia said. “You all need a shower. I’ll get your clothes on to wash, and in the meantime, I’ve probably got something you can borrow while I get them clean.”

Ida Belle eyed the slim woman and shook her head. “Not for all of us.”

Gertie glared at her and Petunia laughed.

“I’ve lost some weight as of late,” Petunia said, “and took in some of my dresses so I didn’t look like a slouch for guests. But I have some from when I enjoyed my own cooking more. Something that’s not fitted and has a little give will work just fine.”

She gave Ida Belle a critical look. “I’m afraid my dresses might be a little scandalous on you given the height difference.”

“If Corndog has another set of overalls and a T-shirt, that will work fine for me,” Ida Belle said.

“Perfect,” Petunia said and eyeballed me. “I think our nephew left a pair of sweats and a T-shirt here last time he stayed over. They might be a little short with your long legs, though.”

“I can make them work,” I said.

At that point, I’d have worn anything but a scandalously short dress with pleats.

When I’d taken the case, it hadn’t occurred to me that the reunion party would still be here. But since they were, that gave me an idea.

“You have two rooms available, correct?” I asked.

Corndog nodded. “That’s right. The cops said to hold off renting the, um, dead guy’s room for a bit in case they needed to check something, but I’ve got one room with a queen bed and one with two doubles.”

“Good. We’ll take them.”