“That’s a whole lot of assumptions you’ve made, especially the part about where I know for sure how random dogs will behave. Can you prove that?”
“Don’t waste your breath,” Celia said. “Even if you had the entire thing on video, nothing would happen to her. I guess when you’re sleeping with the deputy, you can get away with murder in this town.”
The entire diner went quiet and everyone stared at me.
“I’m not sleeping with Carter,” I said.
“That’s disappointing,” Francine said, then glanced around. “Did I say that out loud?”
“No one believes that,” Celia said. “You’ve been running around loose in this town since the day you arrived. It’s not respectable. I didn’t think it possible but you’ve brought Ida Belle and Gertie’s stock even lower.”
“That’s enough,” Ally said. “I won’t listen to you run down Fortune. She’s helped me more than anyone else ever has, and she saved your life. How ungrateful can you be?”
Celia swung her head around and glared at Ally. “Your mother did not raise you to be disrespectful.”
“No, she raised me to be her slave and a doormat. I’m neither any longer. Get used to the idea.”
“It’s a shame she didn’t do a better job making you a lady.”
“You mean like you did with your daughter?”
The café went silent. I was fairly certain everyone was holding their breath. It took me several seconds to realize that I was as well. Celia’s daughter had been a sorry excuse for a human being and the kind of woman that every woman on earth loathed, but I never thought sweet Ally would slap Celia directly across the face with the one thing she had no defense for. It was both startling and beautiful. I wasn’t sure whether to clap or light a candle.
One look at Celia’s face, and I decided “pull a weapon” may be the best option. If looks could kill, Ally would have sunk straight through the café floor and on down to hell.
Finally, Celia took a breath. “You have the nerve to speak ill of the dead?”
“I’m not speaking ill. I’m speaking the truth. Death doesn’t change who people were. Unless you want me to lie—Mother taught me that was wrong, too.”
“That’s enough!” Ida Belle yelled. “The bottom line is that Fortune won the race. No one but Celia’s lot will believe she made that toss intentionally. Besides, one could argue that if Celia hadn’t cheated by leaving church early, then none of this would have happened.”
“Sounds good to me,” Francine said. “If everyone will take their seats, we can get food out to you and everyone else that’s held up over this spectacle.”
I stared at Francine as she whirled around and headed back into the kitchen, my lips quivering with the smile I was trying to hold in. It was the most talking at one time I’d heard from the café owner. Today was two for two on the quiet ones getting their say. Maybe it was a full moon.
When the door swung shut behind Francine, it was apparently Celia’s cue to give everyone one final glare and stomp out of the café, her menagerie of whipped women trailing behind her. Briefly, I wondered what they’d eat today since the café was the only place open on Sunday, but as the entire lot of them could stand to lose a pound or two, I didn’t dwell on it very long.
“Are you all right?” I heard Gertie ask as the rest of the Sinful Ladies took their seats.
I turned and saw her patting Ally on the back.
“I’m fine,” Ally said. “In fact, I’m better than fine. I’ve taken crap off that woman my entire life. It was never going to stop unless I refused to allow it. Aunt Celia will either learn to be respectful, or she won’t see me.”
“I hope she doesn’t make trouble for you,” I said.
Ally shrugged. “She’d have to work awfully hard to top last week.”
She had a point. The prior week, Ally had been the victim of arson and of a particularly creepy stalker. Both seemed to have toughened her up. Now Celia might need a blowtorch to cut through Ally’s leathery skin.
Gertie nodded. “Well, I guess there’s nothing we can do about any of this now. We might as well talk it over with a chicken-fried steak.”
“The magic words,” I said, and took my seat.
Francine popped up a couple seconds later, carrying a pitcher of sweet tea. Ally began flipping tea glasses over as Francine poured.
Ida Belle looked up at her as she filled a glass. “What in the world got into you, Francine?” she asked. “If Celia is elected mayor, she’ll target you straight off.”
Ally sucked in a breath. “Aunt Celia is running for mayor? Oh, God. It’s the end of the world as we know it.”
Francine’s eyes widened. “Well, Celia as mayor is certainly not optimum.”
Gertie sighed. “The first thing she’ll do is change the dismissal time for the Catholic church. The Sinful Ladies will never get a serving of banana pudding again.”
Francine plopped the pitcher onto the table and put her hands on her hips. “If she does anything of the sort, I’ll stop serving banana pudding altogether.”
There was a collective intake of breath, as if someone had pulled a drawstring on all their panty hose. They all stared at Francine with so much dismay that you would have thought they’d been told Christ had already returned and they’d missed him.
Francine snatched up the pitcher and shoved it at Ally. “And if she pushes me more, then I’ll sell my recipe to the Sinful Ladies.” With that, she whirled around and headed off for the kitchen.
I couldn’t help grinning. “The more I get to know her, the more I like her.”
“Francine’s always been a pistol,” Gertie said.
“Why isn’t she a member of the SLS?” I asked.
Ida Belle sighed. “She’s still holding out hope that she’ll find ‘the one.’”
I frowned. “Who’s the one?”
Ally laughed. “The one for her. Her soul mate. Her Carter.”
“Ah,” I said. “Speaking of which, I need a double order of banana pudding, and make one to go.”
Gertie gave me a sly look. “Behind closed doors, there’s lots of creative uses for pudding…”
Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “You haven’t had a date in a coon’s age. What the heck do you know about creative pudding escapades?”
“I know things,” Gertie said.
“Let me be surprised,” I said. The last thing I wanted to hear was Gertie’s ideas for sexy pudding romps when I was about to eat lunch.
Ally looked relieved and pulled out her pad. “Let me get those orders started.”
“What you do is,” Gertie continued as if we hadn’t spoken at all, “get a roll of Visqueen or an extra-large tarp—”
“I’ll have the chicken-fried steak,” I interrupted. I’d already heard enough to know that I did not want the details of the rest of it.
Ida Belle frowned at Gertie. “Sunday is probably not the appropriate day for such a discussion.”
Gertie’s face fell a bit. “You’re right. If anyone overheard, they could have me arrested. I’ll save it for tomorrow.”
If I’d been anywhere but Sinful, I might have been more concerned about what words could get Gertie arrested, even on a Sunday. But Sinful had all kinds of oddball laws that appeared only to restrict the most bizarre and the most common of behaviors. I had a good idea that the founding fathers had been drunk when they wrote the town rules.
“Speaking of inappropriate Sunday behavior,” Ida Belle continued, “what the heck was going on with you two in church today?”
“Fortune was sexting,” Gertie said.
“I was not! Gertie was making change in the offering plate.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “It’s a wonder the entire building doesn’t go up in flames.” She tapped her fork against her tea glass and all conversation ceased as the ladies all focused on their leader.
“Ladies,” Ida Belle said, “you’re all aware of the situation with the mayoral race. I wish I could say otherwise, but it looks grim. I need all of you to contact everyone you can think of who is on the fence or doesn’t usually vote and convince them to cast a vote for Marie tomorrow. If anyone has other ideas about how to help Marie’s election chances, I’m all ears.”
“We should start a smear campaign against Celia,” one of the ladies suggested. “That’s exactly how they do it in DC. We have to make sure everyone knows she’s not a desirable person.”
“Oh, oh!” One of the ladies’ hands shot up in the air. “We should toilet paper her house. That’s a sure sign of being unpopular.”
Gertie brightened. “I haven’t toilet-papered a house since I was young and frisky.”
Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “You haven’t done anything since you were young and we’re not discussing frisky ever. Besides, that’s a ridiculous idea.”
“You didn’t think it was a ridiculous idea when we were teenagers,” Gertie argued.
“That’s because back then my parents were paying for the toilet paper. Now when the kids paper a house, all I see is dollar bills hanging off the limbs.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem if you used something cheaper than Charmin.”
“My butt and I prefer Charmin, and none of that is the point. The bottom line is that papering someone’s house didn’t make people turn against them when we were teens, and it’s not going to now.”
Gertie sighed. “Fine, but I still think it’s a good idea, if only to sit across the street at Marie’s and watch her clean it all up tomorrow.”
I sorta agreed with Gertie on that one, but the aggravated look on Ida Belle’s face kept me from tossing in my two cents.
“Given the proclivity for drama among Sinful residents,” I said, “I don’t think a smear campaign is the best tactic. I mean, who doesn’t have some gossip floating around about them? There’s not anything new you can dig up, and everyone is going to believe what they want to anyway.”
Gertie shook her head. “There’s always something new to dig up.”
“Not by tomorrow,” I said. Given all the odd criminal secrets that had started rising to the surface the day I arrived in Sinful, I couldn’t argue with her in theory, but our timeline didn’t allow for intensive digging.
One of the ladies raised her hand. “Maybe we could launch an appeal to the…er, less desirable citizens. Celia’s never made it a secret that she’d like to see the Swamp Bar closed down. The regulars may not be model citizens, but they still have the right to vote.”
Ida Belle nodded. “That’s an idea we can run with to a certain extent, but we’ll only be able to hit the regulars during the day to give them time to vote. If we’d have known about this yesterday, we could have launched a campaign last night.” Ida Belle sighed. “I hate to admit it, but Celia worked this out perfectly.”
I was mulling over our seemingly nonexistent options when Deputy Breaux burst into the café and ran straight for me. “I need you to come over to the sheriff’s department with me. It’s an emergency.”
I jumped up from my seat. “What’s wrong?”
Deputy Breaux glanced around, the panic on his face unmistakable. “I can’t talk here. Please hurry.”
He dashed toward the front door and glanced back to see if I was following. Ida Belle and Gertie jumped up from their seats. “We’ll come with you,” Ida Belle said.
I hurried after Deputy Breaux, who was moving at a rate far faster than what I’d ever seen him accomplish before. He slowed only long enough to push open the door of the sheriff’s department, and we rushed in behind him.
“What the hell is going on?” Ida Belle said.
Gertie collapsed in a chair in the lobby, huffing far too much considering we’d only sprinted across the street.
Deputy Breaux locked his gaze on me. “Were you on a date with Carter last night?”
“Was it on the news or something?” I asked. “Did I need a permit?”
Deputy Breaux looked even more flustered. “No, I just wanted to know where he took you.”
I frowned. “We went to some island. It had a rocky point with an open area where you could see the sunset.”
Deputy Breaux shook his head. “I don’t know it. Could you take me there?”
“No, and even if I could, I wouldn’t until you told me why.”
Deputy Breaux ran one hand across his head. “Carter came in this morning and said as how he was going to check on something he saw yesterday evening that didn’t look right, then he got in the boat and left. He was at home all day until he went out with you, so whatever he saw, it musta been when you two were on the bayou.”
“And when he set up the dinner,” I pointed out. “It was set up when we got there.”
“I didn’t think about that part.” Deputy Breaux ran his hand across the top of his head. “But he still would have seen it along the way to where you had dinner, even if it was before he picked you up.”
For the life of me, I couldn’t clue in on what was so distressing about my dinner. “Okay, so why don’t you call him on the radio and ask where he is?”
He took a deep breath and blurted, “Because five minutes ago, I got an SOS call from Carter…and I think I heard gunshots.”
My breath caught in my throat. Gertie jumped up from her chair and clutched my arm.
“I think I know where Carter took her,” Ida Belle said and moved over to a map of the local bayous that hung on the wall behind the dispatcher’s desk. “The back side of Oyster Island has a rocky edge. It’s the only one I know of.”