“I guess he couldn’t,” I said. “Unless he knew Nolan as well as he knew Gail. I mean, not that well, if we take Florence’s story for the truth. You know what I mean.”
“I think,” Ida Belle said, “we need to have more details. For example, we know the lights went out, but why? Myrtle didn’t have that information but it’s important. If the time between when the lights went out and when Nolan heard the scream and the shot was only seconds, as it seemed when it was relayed to me, then assuming the killer tripped the power at the meter, how did he get from the meter, up the trellis, jimmy the window, and get inside to shoot Gail in a matter of seconds?”
“All good questions,” I said. “My guess is the lapsed time was greater than our assumptions. Maybe once Carter is gone, we can find out some of the details from Nolan.”
Gertie shook her head. “It didn’t sound as if he was overly chatty. And he looks awful.”
“He doesn’t look well,” I agreed, “but he’s talking to Carter, right? So he’s capable.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll decide he needs to talk it through while we’re here,” Gertie said.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Ida Belle said. “I’ve seen that blank look before. He’s barely present. I bet Carter has to ask him every question three or more times before he gets any response, and then it’s probably not a very detailed one.”
“If he doesn’t talk,” I said, “I don’t know how this is going to do any good.”
“I want a look upstairs,” Ida Belle said.
“I doubt you’re going to get it,” I said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Carter plans to sit right here until Marie returns and the three of us leave. Even if he leaves the house, I’d bet odds he sits in his truck and watches. Does the bedroom only have windows on the back of the house?”
Ida Belle sighed. “No. It runs the width of the house and has windows on the front side and back.”
“So if anyone went upstairs, he’d see light,” I said, “and I promise you, he’ll be looking for it.”
“She’s right,” Gertie said. “We’re under a bigger microscope now than we would have been if we’d never come at all.”
Ida Belle pulled out her phone and started tapping on the screen. “Then we just have to be smarter than Carter.” She paused and I heard a text come in. She tapped again, then smiled. “It’s taken care of. Just give her a few minutes to get the ball rolling.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Myrtle, of course,” Ida Belle said. She walked around to the couch, grabbed a car magazine, and plopped down. Figuring that was all the explanation I was getting at the moment, I sat in the recliner and turned on the television. Gertie took a seat on the other end of the couch and clapped.
“Oh, look,” Gertie said. “There’s a magic show on. I love magic shows. Hey, we should take a trip to Las Vegas and see one. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“As soon as people aren’t trying to kill me,” I said, “I’d be happy to take a trip with you to Vegas.”
“Ha!” Ida Belle let out a single laugh. “You wouldn’t be so quick to say that if you knew what happened that time we went to the riverboat casino in New Orleans.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary to go into all that,” Gertie said.
“What happened?” I asked.
Ida Belle pointed at Gertie. “Someone thought it would be a good idea to have a drink every time those girls came by with a tray.”
“It was dollar drink night for seniors,” Gertie said.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“They’re watered down quite a bit, of course,” Ida Belle said, “but ten of them will do you in, even if they’re not a full serving of liquor.”
“I did not have ten drinks,” Gertie argued.
“It was probably more, but ten is all I counted. The slot machines I played the first thirty minutes didn’t give me a clear view of you. God only knows what you managed to throw back during that time.”
“So ten drinks, at least,” I said.
“Which means she had to go to the bathroom,” Ida Belle said. “So she goes walking toward the back of the casino, all willy-nilly, and I figure I better follow her in case she runs into problems. She ran into problems all right. At the end of the hallway, instead of turning left into the ladies’ room, she pushes open the emergency exit, walks outside onto the deck, straight into the railing, and flips right over.”
I looked over at Gertie. “You fell overboard?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Gertie said. “The boat doesn’t actually leave the dock.”
“So she’s down there thrashing around,” Ida Belle said, “and the alarm from the emergency door is going off like a siren. Two security guards rush me and I’m pointing over the side and yelling that someone needs to fish Gertie out of the bayou.”
I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh no.”
“So one of the guards pulls out a walkie-talkie and tells someone they’ve got a passenger overboard, then we all go running around the side of the boat and down to the dock.”