“That idiot Gavin pulled a muscle in his leg,” Myrtle said. “I told Carter if he bothered to get some muscle tone, he could have limped in here and done his job. It’s not like you use your legs for dispatch.”
“What if he needed to pee?” Gertie asked.
“He’s a man,” Myrtle said. “We got Dixie cups. Anyway, I’m sure Carter will hear about it soon enough, but you’ve got a little time to get an alibi in place.”
“Thanks, Myrtle,” Ida Belle said and disconnected.
“Well? Anyone got a good cover story?” Gertie asked.
“I don’t even know where to start,” I said.
“I have an idea,” Ida Belle said. “But it’s going to require some verbal fabrication.”
Gertie shrugged. “It’s not Sunday, so I’m good.”
“I’m going to stop by our houses and we all need to grab a swimsuit and a beach towel and haul it back out,” Ida Belle said.
I had no idea where she was going with it, but I didn’t care. At least she had an idea.
And how much trouble could we get in wearing swimsuits?
Twenty minutes later, I found out.
“What if Nora shoots us for trespassing?” I asked.
“I don’t know that she owns a gun,” Ida Belle said as we slipped into Nora’s backyard.
“Everyone in Louisiana owns a gun,” I said.
“True, but Nora knows us,” Ida Belle said.
“Didn’t you tell me that she’d been drunk for fifteen years?” I asked.
Ida Belle nodded. “That’s the genius part of my plan. Gertie, get that bottle of wine and those plastic glasses out.”
Gertie pulled four plastic glasses from her purse along with a huge bottle of wine while I helped Ida Belle shove back the top on Nora’s hot tub. Gertie poured up the wine and we all climbed in.
“Now, start laughing and talking loud,” Ida Belle said. “And Gertie, dip down and get that mud off.”
I felt ridiculous but I did my best fake laugh, which led to real laughs from Gertie and Ida Belle. Sure enough, a minute later, the patio door to the house opened and Nora came out with a shotgun.
“What are you people doing in my hot tub?” Nora yelled.
“Nora, it’s Ida Belle and Gertie, remember?” Ida Belle said. “You invited us over for a dip. You’ve been in here with us for an hour already. Why did you get dressed? Gertie just poured you another glass of wine.”
Nora frowned, then looked at the glass of wine and shrugged. “Heck if I know. Let me go see where I put my suit.”
Five minutes later, Nora was in the hot tub with us, regaling us with tales of her trip to Amsterdam, where apparently anything goes, and Nora went right along with it. We’d polished off the first bottle of wine—most of it going to Nora—and had moved on to the second by the time my phone rang. I leaned out of the hot tub and answered.
“Where are you?” Carter asked and I could hear the aggravation in his voice.
“At Nora’s house,” I said.
“Nora’s?” he repeated, clearly confused.
“Yeah, we’re in her hot tub.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I dropped the phone back on my towel and slipped back into the steamy water.
“We’re up,” I said and reached for my glass.
Five minutes later, Carter stomped into the backyard, glaring at us.
“You want to tell me what you were trying to accomplish over at Liam’s butcher shop?” he asked.
We all put on our best confused look. Except for Nora, who really was confused.
“We dropped off a casserole,” Gertie said. “Dropped one off for Tiffany, too. It’s kinda what we do.”
“Gil died Monday night,” Carter said.
“But we didn’t hear about it until day before yesterday,” Ida Belle said. “And since we had festival prep, we didn’t have time to address it before today.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?” he asked.
“Gil died?” Nora asked.
Ida Belle raised her eyebrows and waved a hand at Nora, who was making her point.
“Gil died in New Orleans,” Ida Belle said. “Tiffany has nothing to do with the townspeople. Liam left years ago and never looked back. Josephine is dead. Who do you think we would have heard it from so quickly? A carjacking doesn’t exactly rate a nightly news slot in New Orleans.”
“Fine,” Carter said. “The problem isn’t the casserole. You stole a moped and boudin, blew up a dumpster, and assaulted a pig farmer.”
We all put on our blank faces.
“I once dated a pig farmer,” Nora said. “He grew the best weed. There was this one time we got in his best pigsty—”
Carter cringed.
“We don’t know anything about all that,” Ida Belle said, cutting Nora off. “We left the butcher shop and came straight to Nora’s. Been here for over an hour already.”
Gertie nodded and held up her hand. “See, I’m starting to prune.”
I struggled not to laugh because even with no water, Gertie’s fingers were starting to prune.
Carter looked over at Nora. “That true, Nora?”
“Heck yeah,” Nora said. “We’ve been drinking wine and I’ve been telling them all about my trip to Amsterdam. Brought some great drugs back with me. Didn’t even get caught in customs.”
Carter stared at her in dismay.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know what happened at the butcher shop after we left—although it sounds like something we’d all like to hear—but it wasn’t our doing. Gertie’s been fighting a backache since she twisted around trying to get rid of that head last night and Ida Belle was complaining about her knee. I just like sitting in hot bubbly water and drinking. In fact, I’m seriously considering getting one of these.”
Carter threw his arms in the air, whirled around, and stalked off. I’m pretty sure he knew we were lying but with a witness that placed us in her hot tub while all the drama was going on at the butcher shop, there wasn’t much he could do.
“That was genius,” I said and clinked my glass against Ida Belle’s.
“I met a genius in Amsterdam,” Nora said. “He figured out how to get an awesome high from soybeans and plastic milk jugs.”
Chapter Six
By the time we made it out of Nora’s hot tub, we all needed a shower, some food to absorb all the alcohol, and a nap. Otherwise, we weren’t going to be in any shape for the festival that night and I intended to walk that maze this year as a customer since I wasn’t part of the scaring crew. Hopefully, it wouldn’t become another crime scene.
Ida Belle dropped me off at home and I trudged in and up the stairs. Lord knows, I’d already had my fill of hot water for the day, but I turned on the shower because the smell of chlorine combined with all the wine was about to knock me out. I did the whole wash the hair gig, wrapped it up in a towel, and pulled on one of Carter’s T-shirts and some underwear before heading for the kitchen. If anyone decided to drop by, they’d just have to wait for me to find pants.