The back door opened again and I let go of the door handle, hoping whoever had entered hadn’t heard me trying to escape.
“Who’s there?” the pig man called out.
Double crap!
I grabbed the plastic sheeting from behind the pig and pulled it over my head. It had barely hit the floor when the door flew open and the pig man stomped inside. I couldn’t see much with the thick plastic over me, but there was no mistaking the dark object in his hand. Well, this had gone south fast.
I had totally Gertied.
I waited until he took a step in my direction, then launched. As I tackled him, I threw the plastic over his head and he went flying into a heap in the corner. I sprang up and ran out of the freezer, slamming the door shut behind me. I just hoped he didn’t start shooting. Those freezers weren’t cheap.
No way was I running out the back door, so I headed to the front of the store, texting Ida Belle that I was out of the freezer as I went. The coast was clear in the entry so I eased up to the windows to stare outside. I heard an engine racing and barely ducked behind a fake ficus tree when Gertie shot by on the moped, wearing an ET mask and with a trail of boudin links around her neck, flying behind her like a scarf. Liam’s truck was right behind.
The pig farmer pounded on the freezer door, yelling and threatening to open fire, so I bolted out the door and in the opposite direction of Liam and Gertie. The lot next to the strip center was wooded so I dashed into the trees for cover and so I could take a moment to figure out what the heck to do. I’d barely gotten into the trees when I heard a huge boom that shook the ground and then saw debris flying up and over the strip mall.
Gertie had gotten onto the service road with the moped, Liam still hot on her tail, but as soon as the blast went off, he slammed on his brakes, made a U-turn and headed back for the shop. I stepped out of the tree line near the access road and waved wildly at Gertie, trying to get her attention. She saw me at the last minute and decided that was a good time to make a hard right onto the grass.
It wasn’t.
The moped was airborne for a moment as it launched off the curb. The ET mask looked strangely appropriate in that instant. Gertie lost her grip and her ride midair and fell into a mudhole. Miraculously, the moped kept going, but I was too busy staring at Gertie to realize it. By the time I realized it was still in motion, diving was my only option for escape, so that’s what I did.
Right into a blackberry thicket.
I sprang out of the thicket as if I’d bounced off a trampoline. Gertie had climbed out of the mudhole and was limping toward me, clutching the mask. I pulled out my cell phone and sent Ida Belle as text.
In woods east of strip mall.
Ida Belle: On my way.
I watched down the access road, waiting on Ida Belle’s SUV to appear, but when I heard the approaching engine, I realized it was coming from in front of us. Seconds later, the SUV flew out of the woods, went into Reverse, and backed to where we were standing, sliding to a stop. Gertie and I ran for the SUV and didn’t even manage to get the doors completely closed before Ida Belle took off, staying on the grassy area. About fifty yards down, she took a hard turn into the woods and I realized there was a road there.
Sort of.
A Sinful-type road, anyway.
It was mostly two runners of dirt with weeds in the middle that ran into the woods. Ida Belle’s face was tight in concentration on maintaining warp speed while racing on a non-road in the middle of a forest. I just held on for the ride and about a hundred yards away, she took a hard left and we flew out of the woods and into a parking lot behind the higher-end motel.
Ida Belle increased speed as soon as she hit pavement and the SUV screamed out of the parking lot and onto a side road. But instead of turning left, back toward the highway, she took a right and floored it. When we’d done a good five miles at over a hundred miles per hour, she finally let up and looked over at us, shaking her head.
“I’m going to have to backtrack to the darn Gulf of Mexico to get home,” she said.
“Did Liam see your SUV?” I asked.
“He drove right by me chasing Gertie out of the parking lot,” she said. “But I don’t think it registered with him. I took some dynamite from Gertie’s purse and set it with a long fuse. Then I hauled it out of there and onto that logging trail when he chased Gertie to the front of the building. Some people might have come out of the back doors of their shops to see what the commotion was about, but if they did, I was too far away to get a license plate.”
“Then all they know is that a black SUV was fleeing the scene,” Gertie said. “So we’re good.”
Ida Belle stared at her in dismay. “A moped stolen by a boudin-eating ET, dynamite set off in a dumpster, and a black SUV leaving the scene. Yeah, Carter won’t figure that one out at all, especially when he gets there to question Liam and sees Gertie’s casserole on the counter.”
Gertie blew out a breath. “Busted.”
Ida Belle shook her head. “Did you get anything to make all of that worthwhile?”
“I might have,” I said and repeated the exchange I’d heard between Liam and Tiffany.
“Do you think they did it together?” Ida Belle asked. “It sure doesn’t sound like they were completely done with each other. At least, not on Tiffany’s end for sure.”
“It didn’t sound that way to me either,” I said. “Although Liam is clearly hacked about the police involvement, so we’re back to what would that stunt gain them?”
Ida Belle shook her head. “I don’t know. Seems like if they were starting up again before Gil’s death, the last thing they’d want is to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.”
A rush of air hit the back of my head and I looked back to see Gertie dangling the boudin out the window, pouring a bottled water on it to get the mud off. She popped back inside the SUV and took a bite.
“This is great,” she said. “Anyone want a piece?”
We couldn’t exactly head to Judith’s house given that Gertie was covered in mud and I had tiny spots of blood all over my arms where I’d wrestled with the blackberry thorns. Plus, we probably needed to go home and appear to be doing normal stuff for when Carter called or came by. And there was no doubt he’d be by. So Ida Belle hauled it on the back roads until she could cross back over to the highway and hurry home. Her phone rang just before we got to Sinful.
“It’s Myrtle,” she said.
Myrtle was one of the Sinful Ladies and more importantly, worked dispatch at the sheriff’s department. Normally, she worked nights so I wondered what had her calling now.
Ida Belle put the call on speaker.
“It’s Myrtle. Got a situation down here at the sheriff’s department.”
“What kind of situation?” Ida Belle asked.
“The kind that usually means you guys were up to something,” Myrtle said. “A call came in about a stolen moped, an alien, and an explosion.”
“Crap,” Ida Belle said. “Is Carter coming for us?”
“No. He’s out looking into that Headless Horseman thing. Deputy Breaux took the call and is on his way to the butcher shop now. I had to wait until he left to call and warn you.”
“What are you doing there right now anyway?” Ida Belle asked.