Agent Riker’s frustration began to show. “No. That’s not what I meant. I mean did you see anything out of the ordinary in your surroundings.”
“Well, sure. Hardly anything in Sinful is what I would call normal. There’s alligators and frogs that sound like they’re using amplifiers, the most enormous mosquitoes I’ve ever seen, and none of the people are normal, at least not compared to home back east.”
Agent Riker’s face fell a bit. “I see. You’re not from here.”
“No. I’m just here for the summer to settle up my great-aunt’s estate. I can’t even remember the last time I was here—probably too young to recall.” I frowned. “What’s all this about, anyway? Do you know who shot Carter?”
Agent Riker’s expression went from contemplative to blank. “I’m not at liberty to talk about that.”
“Not at liberty, my foot,” I complained. “If you know who shot Carter and don’t tell, you’ll have to answer to his mother.”
Agent Riker looked mildly disturbed, then pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to Carter. “As soon as your memory clears, give me a call.”
“Sure,” Carter said and placed the card on the tray next to him.
“I can’t express enough how important this is, Mr. LeBlanc,” Agent Riker said. “Attempting to handle this matter yourself is not advisable.”
“Got it,” Carter said, not bothering to look at Riker.
Agent Riker frowned. “I wonder if you do. In case you’re fuzzy on the law as well as what happened to you yesterday, if you interfere with my investigation, you’ll be arrested so quickly, it will probably give you another concussion.”
Carter looked up at him. “Since you haven’t told me what you’re investigating, you might have trouble making charges stick. I can hardly be expected to sit in my house until you decide it’s all right for me to do my job.”
Agent Riker smiled. “If you give me any reason to doubt your intentions, that can be arranged.” He motioned to Agent Mitchell and they left the room. The door hadn’t even closed before Ida Belle and Emmaline hurried inside.
“What a douche bag,” I said.
Carter laughed.
I whirled around. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Yes,” Ida Belle said, “but I was thinking it.”
Carter looked at me and grinned. “You were a maniac. That whole airhead routine made Agent Riker crazy.”
I nodded. “It also made him leave. So what the hell is going on?”
Carter shook his head. “I couldn’t get a thing out of them except that they’re with the ATF. I threw out some comments and questions that I thought would elicit a response, but I didn’t even get an eye twitch. Lobotomies must be required for government agents. I swear, they’ve all had their personalities scrubbed.”
Ida Belle glanced at me, looking a little worried. I probably should have been offended, but I couldn’t muster up the energy to be. His statement held entirely too much truth, even about myself. My entire career, I’d essentially been a machine. Granted, a highly reliable and extremely efficient one, but personality hadn’t played into any of my accomplishments. At the CIA, personality was usually considered a detriment.
“So all we know is that the ATF thinks you might have stumbled into their investigation,” I said, “but we have no idea what that investigation is about.”
“Well,” Ida Belle said, “we know it’s alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. Tobacco seems a stretch. There’s plenty of illegal stills around here, but I can’t imagine the ATF cares about them.”
Carter shook his head. “The sheriff doesn’t even care about them.”
“That’s because one of them is his,” Ida Belle said.
Carter stared at her in dismay.
“Oops,” Ida Belle said. “Anyway, I suppose someone could be running the high-end stuff through the Gulf from Central and South America.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “but they could be running any of the three, or even from Cuba. The ATF is on high alert in Florida. Someone smuggling cigars may have decided on an alternate drop point.”
Carter studied me for a moment.
Crap. That sounded way too much like law enforcement and not at all like a librarian.
“I saw this special on television,” I lied.
Carter blew out a breath. “Most of television is crap, but I happen to know that tidbit is accurate.”
“So we’re back to not having a clue what we’re up against.”
Carter straightened up in his bed. “Wait a minute.
We
are not up against anything. This is a police matter. How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of the way of law enforcement?”
Ida Belle raised one eyebrow at him. “You mean like you intend to do?”
“That’s different,” Carter argued. “I
am
law enforcement so that makes it my business.”
“Agent Douche Bag told you to stay out of it,” I pointed out. “I don’t think he believes it’s your business.”
Carter’s face turned a bit red. “That’s not the point. The bottom line is that something big is going on in my town—apparently right under my nose—and no way in hell am I letting some Fed screw up the investigation.”
Emmaline gave him a stern look. “No way in hell are you running around chasing criminals until your brains are unscrambled.”
“But—” Carter started to protest.
“The way things are right now,” Emmaline said, “you could walk right up to the bad guy and not even know it. You have to wait until you remember.”
“She’s right,” Ida Belle said. “Whoever took a shot at you isn’t going to know that your memory is fuzzy. Any proximity to them or whatever they’re hiding, even accidental, would prompt a repeat performance.”
I could tell Carter wanted to argue, but he probably couldn’t find a line of reasoning good enough to trump logic. He shook his head. “So you just want me to sit here while anyone in Sinful could be at risk from an unknown enemy with an unknown agenda?”
“I’m sorry,” Ida Belle said, “but until your memory returns, I just don’t see any other way.”
“There’s got to be some way to hurry this up,” he said. “Call that doctor back in. Surely they can make the swelling go down faster, right?”
“The only way to make the swelling go down faster,” Emmaline said, “is for you to rest.”
“Great,” Carter groused. “So the only contribution I can make is to do nothing. That’s not what I get paid to do.”
Emmaline put her hands on her hips. “I don’t remember ‘getting shot and almost drowned’ being in your job description either, but you managed that one. I worried and prayed every day of your military service. And you know I wasn’t happy when you decided on law enforcement when you left the military. When you settled in Sinful, I thought, ‘How bad can it be?’ Now…”
Emmaline sniffed and Ida Belle put her arm around her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right,” Ida Belle said. “I know things are strange here lately, but they also have a way of working themselves out.”
Ida Belle glanced at me and I gave her an imperceptible nod. They had a way of working out all right.
This was another mission for Swamp Team 3.
Chapter Six
All three of us started talking at once when we got into Gertie’s car.
“With Carter’s memory fuzzy, we have no place to start,” Gertie said.
“If only we could figure out what the Feds are after,” Ida Belle said.
“Agent Riker knows me.”
Gertie yanked her head around so hard that her arms followed and the ancient Cadillac lurched onto the shoulder of the road. Ida Belle clung to the headrest and stared at me, her eyes wide as Gertie forced the car back onto the pavement, apologizing the entire time.
“Holy…wow,” Ida Belle said. “I never saw that one coming.”
“Me either,” I said. “When I walked into Carter’s room and saw him without those sunglasses, I almost bolted out the window.”
“That might have been a bit suspicious,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle rolled her eyes. “I take it you met on a professional basis?”
“Yeah, an arms dealer established in Florida was moving product in from Cuba on cigarette boats. He had a tourist business as his cover, but drew attention with his lifestyle. Most guys running boat sightseeing tours don’t live in ten-million-dollar estates in Miami.”
“And this Agent Riker was on that case?” Ida Belle asked.
“The ATF was the agency of record. It was American soil, but included international waters, so we were able to insert ourselves into the investigation.”
“Do you think he recognized you?” Gertie asked.
“I don’t think so. I mean, I look completely different than I did then, and I played up the ditzy girlfriend as much as I knew how to.” I cringed a little at the memory.
“I would have paid money to see that,” Gertie said.
“Me too,” Ida Belle agreed.
“Carter stared at me like I’d lost my mind,” I said, smiling at the memory, “but then he figured out I was trying to get rid of them. I think he enjoyed the show.”
Ida Belle snorted. “I bet he did.”
“I called Riker a douche bag at the hospital, and I have a perfect memory, so I know I’m right on that one. But he’s not incompetent.”
“The advantage we have,” Ida Belle said, “is that Riker has no expectation that he would run into you here.”
“True, but the more time he spends around me, the more likely he is to lock in on facial structure or the more likely I am to slip with my voice affectation. He won’t make a connection immediately, but if he latches onto the idea that he knows me from somewhere else, he’ll keep working on it until he figures it out.”
“Just like a dog with a bone,” Gertie said.
“And that’s not all,” I said. “The guy we busted in Florida…he worked for the arms dealer who has the bounty out on me.”
Ida Belle and Gertie exchanged worried looks.
“That ups the stakes even more,” Ida Belle said. “We need to make sure we keep you off Agent Riker’s radar.”
“Yeah.” I flopped back against the seat. “I have a feeling that’s going to be harder than we think. Riker and Mitchell are going to be all over this, and Sinful isn’t exactly a metropolis. Everywhere we need to be, they’re going to be.”
“We’ve worked around Feds before,” Ida Belle said, “and Riker may not be incompetent, but in Sinful, he’s definitely out of his element.”
Gertie nodded. “We got this!”
I felt my spirits rise. I’d worked with some of the best in the world at infiltration and combat, but I’d never been as confident as I was now. Gertie and Ida Belle were unconventional and way past their physical prime, and had little regard for rules, other than Southern etiquette, but they got results. The steps taken to resolve a case mattered to the CIA, but here in Sinful, results trumped everything.
I smiled. “Damn right, we do.”
“So what’s first?” Gertie asked.
I pulled out my cell phone. “First is asking Deputy Breaux to see if he can get Carter’s boat up from the bottom of the lake.”
“Why the boat?” Ida Belle asked.
“Because it might have taken a hit from whatever was used to shoot Carter. If I can identify the weapon it might help us profile our bad guy.”
I punched in Deputy Breaux’s number and told him what I wanted. It took several minutes of detailed explaining, but finally, he agreed to send some local shrimpers out to the lake to see if they could get the boat up.
I disconnected and shook my head. “That was so much more work than it should have been.”
“Young Deputy Breaux has never set the world on fire,” Ida Belle said, “and he’s never going to.”
“He set the chemistry lab on fire once,” Gertie said.
“Anyway,” Ida Belle continued, “the good thing is that Riker and company aren’t going to get anything out of Deputy Breaux either. Even if he thinks he knows something, he won’t tell without getting permission from Carter.”
“He’s sorta afraid of Carter,” Gertie said. “On account of Carter threatening to shoot him.”
“Why would Carter threaten to shoot him?” I asked.
“Because as long as Deputy Breaux is worried about being shot,” Gertie explained, “he never questions anything Carter asks him to do. Deputy Breaux is terrified of being shot.”
“Probably because someone shot him once,” Ida Belle said.
“That was an accident,” Gertie protested.
“Regardless,” Ida Belle said, “the bottom line is that Deputy Breaux won’t be a factor. If a clue flies into his face—which is the only way he’s going to find one—it will go straight to Carter and nowhere else.”
“Perfect,” I said. “So next up is figuring out what Carter saw Saturday that made him suspicious. Without knowing what he was after, we have no idea where to start.”
“That makes sense,” Ida Belle said, “but how do we do it?”
I leaned forward. “Deputy Breaux said Carter came into the office yesterday morning to get the boat keys and headed straight out to the dock, right? So he already knew where he was going and why when he got up that morning.”
“Yeah,” Ida Belle said, “but how does that help us?”