Gators and Garters (A Miss Fortune Mystery Book 18) Read online

  Gertie nodded. “Miss Molly always loved food but when she got to prison, she found out everything was cheap and tasteless. She begged for kitchen duty until they gave in, and she managed to work wonders with very little. Even the guards started eating there.”

  “The warden was so impressed, he gave her run of the kitchen and an improved budget,” Ida Belle said. “So inmates got some of the best food they’d ever had in their lives. When she got paroled, she worked for a caterer in New Orleans for a while to learn the business end of things. Then she turned all that skill and knowledge into a business and Miss Molly’s Catering was born.”

  “What did she do before catering?” I asked.

  “Cage fighting,” Gertie said. “She was Molly the Mauler. Had an excellent record.”

  “A cage fighter from Sinful?” Even for the town that invented crazy, that one sounded strange.

  “She isn’t an original local,” Ida Belle said. “She’s from New Orleans, best anyone knows. That’s where she was living when she was a fighter, anyway. Had a great-uncle or a fifth cousin or something that used to live here so she knew of the area from when she was a kid. Thought a change of pace would be good when she got out and didn’t think she had the looks to compete with the caterers in NOLA.”

  I stared. “Best anyone knows? How is it possible that the woman has lived here for more than a day and the local gossip contingent hasn’t hounded her for every detail of her life since she emerged from the birth canal?”

  “Easy,” Ida Belle said. “They’re scared of her, and she has a reputation for being rather a hothead.”

  “Which is exactly what got her into trouble over the twice-baked potatoes,” Gertie said.

  “Did someone sneak seconds without permission?” I asked.

  “Worse,” Gertie said. “They salted them without tasting.”

  “Molly dived over that table like she was in the Olympics and tackled the offender like she was back in the cage,” Ida Belle said. “The over-salter was unconscious before she ever hit the floor.”

  “Given Molly’s prior conviction,” Gertie said, “we were afraid she’d go away for longer than a year, but the judge took pity on her.”

  “Over salt?” I asked. Clearly I didn’t have as good a handle on this whole Louisiana thing as I’d thought.

  Ida Belle grinned. “The salt offender was Celia.”

  “Oh no,” I said, and started laughing. “But wait, this was at a wake, you said. What about the family of the deceased? Weren’t they mad?”

  Gertie shook her head. “They didn’t think the potatoes needed salt either.”

  “Well, Miss Molly sounds like the perfect person to cater your shindig, then,” I said. “At least she won’t be traumatized by random gunshots, fights over the cake, or a certain alligator who shows up when he smells food.”

  “Oh no!” Gertie said. “What am I going to do about Godzilla? Gator tail is one of Miss Molly’s most requested appetizers.”

  “She’s not going to shoot him and fire up the grill with Carter standing right there,” Ida Belle said, but she didn’t look completely convinced.

  “Don’t worry,” I told Gertie. “She won’t get a shot off before I do.”

  Gertie looked relieved. “It’s really nice to have friends who can handle all these domestic issues.”

  I shook my head. Only in Sinful were a begging alligator and a murdering cage fighter considered domestic issues.

  “So why did she kill her husband?” I asked. “Did he put ketchup on his steak?”

  “No. He changed the television channel,” Gertie said.

  “And she killed him for that?” I asked.

  “It was the last five minutes of the final episode of Justified and they didn’t have a DVR,” Gertie said.

  “Well, that explains everything,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” Gertie said.

  “Word was her husband was a bad dude,” Ida Belle said. “The whole TV thing probably isn’t even true. Rumor has it he tuned Molly up on the regular. That’s probably how she learned to fight so well.”

  “Why didn’t she just leave him?” I asked.

  Ida Belle shrugged. “One of life’s mysteries. And since no one is willing to ask her, we’ll probably never know. We’re headed to her place after the Army-Navy store. You can give it a go if you’d like.”

  “No!” Gertie said. “Not before the wedding. Fortune’s trying not to kill people and if Miss Molly gets her on the ground, then she’ll be sporting black eyes for your wedding.”

  “Yeah, I’m good with not knowing,” I said. “It was just a basic curiosity, but not the kind I want to die over. Besides, if I get her too wound up, she could be sent back to jail and I’m really looking forward to the food now. Are we doing taste-testing, I hope?”

  “Nope,” Ida Belle said. “Just dropping off money. Molly doesn’t do taste tests. You tell her about the event, what other food you’ll have, and what your budget is, and she picks the menu.”

  “Well, it’s not very customer-friendly, but I suppose it’s better than being tackled,” I said.

  “Trust me, you can’t lose,” Gertie said. “Everything that woman sends out of the kitchen is magic.”

  Ida Belle pulled into the Army-Navy store parking lot and smiled. “You guys ready to find my wedding duds?”

  Gertie sighed. “Might as well. Hey, they have camo in white and black.”

  “Crawfish boil,” Ida Belle reminded her. “This is the one thing I’m going traditional on.”

  “Of course it is,” Gertie grumbled as she climbed out of the truck.

  Chapter Two

  We headed inside the store and Ida Belle called out to Big Chappy, the owner. He looked up from the counter and gave us a wave and a smile. I didn’t know much about him, but I did know his real name wasn’t Chappy and he wasn’t big. But he’d served as a chief of chaplains in the Army, so I figured the nickname had stuck from his service days. And the smile. Leave it to an Army chaplain to be both deadly and optimistic.

  He finished up checking out a customer and headed our way just as Gertie spotted a rack of camo miniskirts. She dashed over and yanked one off the racks.

  “Oh my God!” she said. “Look at this skirt. It’s too cute.”

  Ida Belle frowned. “You’re disappointing me, Chappy. Don’t tell me you’re selling that trendy crap in here now.”

  Chappy shrugged. “The kids like ’em, and the parents are happy to spend a fortune for that strip of stretchy nonsense just to shut them up. Heck, I’ve had more new customers in here since I started stocking those skirts than I have in the past ten years. And once the kids get the parents in here, there’s usually something else I can convince them they need. Flashlights, knives, coolers…it’s been a real boon to the business.”

  “Well, I can’t knock capitalism,” Ida Belle said and looked at Gertie. “Don’t even think about buying that. It’s a disgrace to people who wore the real thing.”

  “Why?” Gertie asked. “You can run in it. It’s not long enough to trap your knees.”

  “It’s not long enough to trap your important parts,” Ida Belle said. “You run in that, your heinie will be showing in about five steps.”

  “Depends on your heinie,” Chappy said. “It’s that stretchy stuff. If you’ve got enough for it to tuck under, you’d probably be okay.”

  I stared. “Exactly what kind of religious leader were you?”

  “The kind that wasn’t blind,” Chappy said.

  “You keep looking at young girls’ tuck-unders and that could change,” I said.

  He grinned. “What can I help you ladies with today? Got some great .45 rounds in yesterday. And a couple new semis.”

  “Actually, we’re here for Ida Belle’s wedding outfit and the bride has chosen camo,” I said.

  “Great choice,” Chappy said. “I’ve got pants with zipper pockets and snaps. Do you have a preference?”

  “Snaps,” Ida Belle sai
d. “It’s easier to draw your gun.”

  I shook my head. “You know, it’s a little disconcerting the amount of discussion that has gone into the need for self-defense at your wedding. Are you sure you don’t want to just fly to Vegas and do this thing?”

  “I’m not leaving Louisiana,” Ida Belle said. “Look what happened when we went to Florida. Chaos. Can you imagine what could happen in Vegas?”

  “Without Gertie?” I asked. “It would probably be as boring as one of Pastor Don’s sermons.”

  Ida Belle shook her head. “Walter’s not big on shows or gambling and I’m not big on people. That doesn’t leave us much else to do in a place like Vegas.”

  Gertie stared at her in dismay. “You’re getting married! There’s only one thing you should be doing.”

  Chappy looked a bit uncomfortable.

  “Walter’s as old as me,” Ida Belle said. “Without medical assistance and a respirator, that one thing isn’t going to occupy days.”

  “So you’re not going to have a honeymoon?” I asked. “I thought you said you’d be gone for a couple days after the wedding.”

  “We’re going deep-sea fishing,” Ida Belle said. “Got a spiffy charter booked as soon as we set a date.”

  “You’re going to spend your honeymoon on bunk beds with a boat captain and other fishermen?” Gertie asked. “I just can’t even with this anymore. I’ve officially given up hope.”

  “You could always get married yourself and have it your way,” Ida Belle suggested.

  “Just as soon as I find a man who can handle a woman like me, I’ll see about it,” Gertie said.

  Ida Belle looked at me. “Looks like you’re safe from having to wear a bridesmaid dress.”

  Gertie gave her the finger and stomped toward the dressing room, waving the miniskirt above her head. “I’m wearing this to your wedding, even if I have to grease up to get it on. I might even run.”

  “Maybe you should just pick out one of those frilly, ruffled monstrosities for her to wear,” I said. “At least you could avoid the potential for a bare-buns scene.”

  “It’s half of Sinful’s residents, outside in July, with five hundred pounds of crawfish and five kegs of beer,” Ida Belle said. “We’ll see someone’s buns before the night is over. That’s a given.”

  I grimaced.

  “At least Celia’s not invited,” Ida Belle said.

  Chappy nodded. “Thank the Lord and pass the beer. Camo for the adults in the room is over on the rack near the AR-15s.”

  “See,” Ida Belle said. “I can buy clothes and accessories all in the same spot.”

  I grinned. I really loved this woman.

  Miss Molly lived off the highway, down a long dirt road with only a few houses on it. I was pretty sure we’d driven to Canada and was relieved when Ida Belle finally turned into a makeshift driveway. We’d already had to stop for Gertie to pee in a bush, and the subsequent round with her and an overly friendly snake had taken up more of my time and energy than I’d wanted to expend. Ida Belle cheering on the snake hadn’t helped matters. Neither had the fact that the bottom of Gertie’s pants had been caught on her tennis shoe.

  The house was a rather unusual one. It looked like a giant barn or airplane hangar, depending on what mode of transportation you preferred. Added to the oddity of the architecture was the choice of paint color. The entire structure was painted bright purple.

  “What’s with the house?” I asked. “This is the house, right?”

  “The barn and a surrounding thousand acres or so used to be owned by a cattle rancher,” Ida Belle said. “He sold off the land in pieces years ago and retired to a small section with the barn and the house. There was a big colonial-mansion-style home over in that clearing to the right but it got taken out by a tornado. The only thing left standing was a refrigerator, which, lucky for the owner, was where he went to hide when he saw the tower of doom coming straight for him. Didn’t take a single board off the barn, though. After that nightmare, he sold the rest of the land with the barn, and Molly scooped it up for a song.”

  “It’s a shame the tornado didn’t strip the paint,” I said.

  “The paint is all Molly,” Ida Belle said. “The original owner had it done up in traditional red with white trim. Looked way better in my opinion.”

  “See,” Gertie said. “There is something to be said for a traditional take.”

  “It looked better to me,” Ida Belle said. “But Molly prefers it like this and she’s the one who has to look at it every day.”

  “Good thing it’s not in our neighborhood,” I said. “People would have to wear sunglasses just to live nearby.”

  “She wouldn’t be allowed to paint that color in Sinful proper,” Gertie said.

  “Don’t tell me there’s an approved list of colors,” I said.

  “Not exactly,” Gertie said. “Back years ago, a former mayor’s wife ran off with a musician with a traveling band—the Purple Experience. He managed to sneak a law in that prohibits purple houses in the town limits.”

  “How did he manage to sneak a law in?” I asked.

  “He got the council drunk first,” Gertie said.

  “That explains a lot about Sinful laws,” I said.

  Gertie nodded. “If we removed all the laws from the books that came about as part of a drunken stupor, it would be a free-for-all.”

  “Of purple houses?” I asked.

  “And probably a lot more public nudity,” Gertie said.

  Ida Belle knocked on what I presumed served as the front door. I heard yelling inside, then a huge crash, like someone had taken down a wall. Then more yelling.

  “Maybe we should come back when someone isn’t being murdered,” I said.

  “Might be a while,” Gertie said. “I heard she spent a ton of money having her own fighting cage built in the house. I’ll bet she’s having a round with someone.”

  “Hopefully, it’s not someone she likes,” I said.

  “I think that’s probably a really short list,” Ida Belle said and rang the doorbell.

  Disturbed’s “Stupify” blared from speakers inside and outside the house, and we all covered our ears. When it finally stopped, I looked over at Ida Belle.

  “Is this woman staying for the whole shebang?” I asked, praying that she was just flinging plastic containers out of her vehicle as she drove by. I was really looking forward to an event where I probably wouldn’t have to pull my gun, but Molly was a curve I hadn’t seen coming.

  “I doubt it,” Ida Belle said. “She hates weddings. Not overly fond of people, really. She’s mostly in love with a healthy profit.”

  “Thank God for capitalism,” I said.

  The door was flung open and I doubled down on my words. Molly was a sight to behold—if you were into sights that combined MMA and horror movies.

  Early thirties. Six foot even. Two hundred and sixty pounds. Enough muscle to worry anyone who got stuck in an enclosed space and couldn’t run. Bright purple hair in giant spikes all over her head. The one detriment I could see was the strip of spandex shoved up her personals but at the moment, the only casualty was the bike shorts she wore beneath. Well, and maybe her personals.

  “Ida Belle,” Molly said and smiled. “Sorry about all the noise. Me and the boyfriend were just roughhousing a bit.”

  Since no more sound came from inside the barn, I wondered if the boyfriend was still conscious, but I was more disturbed by Molly’s smile. At least, I think it was a smile, but somehow it seemed more sinister than the scowl she’d worn when she first opened the door. Then she grabbed Ida Belle in what appeared to be a bear hug but could have been a wrestling maneuver. My hand hovered at my waist. I didn’t hesitate often, but this one had me stumped. Finally, I glanced over at Gertie, but since all she’d done was take a step back and wasn’t scrambling to dig something out of her purse, I figured the worst threat was being next up for a hug.

  Molly finally released Ida Belle, who now looked sort of lik
e a rumpled bedsheet, and gave Gertie a nod. Then she turned her attention to me and I felt my hand itch. Was it gun time now?

  She looked me up and down, then shook her head. “I’ve heard about you. I have to say, the looks don’t fit the stories, but then I guess that gives you an advantage, doesn’t it? I mean, people see me coming and figure I can do some damage, but they see you and think pretty little thing. I bet you have more confirmed kills than I’ve got knockouts.”

  “Maybe, but the day’s still young,” I said.

  She laughed—one of those huge laughs where your head goes all the way back. “I like her,” she said to Ida Belle.

  Thank God. Although I really hoped liking me didn’t mean I was in for a hug.

  “I brought you the money for the catering,” Ida Belle said and pulled an envelope of cash from her pocket.

  “Sure, sure,” Molly said. “Come on in. I’ve got your contract—better late than never. Just need to get a signature. I’ll scan it later and shoot you a copy. Plus, I just finished a batch of crab cream cheese dip and need someone to test it for me.”

  Molly flung open the door and we stepped inside just as a man headed toward a stairwell to our left.

  Six foot two. Three fifty if he was a pound. Fortyish. Long gray-and-black hair in a ridiculous ponytail. Far too many tattoos to count. Some of them even spelled correctly. Very recent broken nose. Like five minutes ago recent. Threat level zero now that Molly had worked him over.

  “Get some ice on that before it’s bigger than your face,” Molly said. “And stop falling for my backhand.”

  He shot her a look that would have scared normal people but she didn’t even blink an eye as she waved us down a hallway. I fell in step behind Ida Belle and Gertie, certain that even if the dip tasted like the cat’s butt and dirty socks, I was going to declare it the best thing I’d ever eaten. The hallway opened up into a kitchen that was something to behold. It looked as though it belonged in a five-star restaurant, not in a barn in the middle of the swamp. I didn’t know anything about kitchen domestics, but even I could tell there had been a serious outlay of cash on her equipment, not to mention the miles of marble countertops.