She reached for a pad of paper and started writing. A minute later, she handed the sheet of paper to Gertie. “That’s a map to his place. Was his mother’s place before she passed, God rest her soul. There’s no road names, so I drew some landmarks.”
“Thank you,” Gertie said. “I really appreciate the information. And the gizzards.”
The woman nodded. “You ladies have a nice day and good luck with your car repair.”
I hurried to the counter and paid for my soda, then headed outside and hopped into the Jeep. A couple minutes later, Ida Belle and Gertie climbed in, and I gave Gertie a high five.
“Great work,” I said.
Ida Belle smiled. “Gertie always knows just the thing to say to get the old gals talking. I never was good at it.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to make all the sympathetic faces,” Gertie said. “When you’re talking nonsense, you mostly just look like you smelled something bad. People don’t get chatty with someone who looks like they just sniffed a horse’s butt.”
“This butt-sniffing discussion is incredibly interesting and probably useful, but it needs to wait,” I said. “Pass me that map.”
I took the sheet of paper from Gertie, looked at the squiggles, then read the cryptic phrases, identifying the turns.
“Right at the lightning tree. Left at the beehive. Left at the Millers’ old barn…what the heck is this?”
“Typical local directions,” Ida Belle said, and took the paper from me. “Just head south kinda slow and I’ll let you know where to turn.”
I pulled out of the parking lot and drove out of town, all fifty yards of it, scanning the trees even though I had zero idea what I was looking for. We were about a mile past the downtown area when Gertie grabbed my shoulder and pointed.
“There!” she said, clearly excited. “That’s the lightning tree.”
I looked at the giant cypress tree that looked as if it had been torn down the middle. What the heck. It made as much sense as anything else in Louisiana.
“Great,” I said, and I made a right turn onto a dirt road. “Find me a beehive, preferably one we can drive quickly by. They can come in through air vents.”
The dirt road led into a forest, so I slowed down some, partly because of the crappy road but mostly because I figured it might be hard to spot a beehive in all the foliage. I wasted my time worrying.
The hive was huge. Like the size of guest bathroom.
“What the heck kind of bees made that?” I asked as I made a left turn onto an even smaller dirt road. “It’s like something out of Jurassic Park.”
“They’ve been at work there for a long time,” Ida Belle said. “I bet there’s some stellar honey in it.”
The noise of the Jeep must have alerted the bees to an invader present. A group flocked out of their McMansion and flew straight for us. I swear, they were the size of small birds.
Gertie leaned forward, watching them fly back and forth across the front of the Jeep. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about them getting in an air vent.”
Ida Belle nodded. “You’d need a heavy-duty flyswatter to take out one of those babies.”
I stared at her. “You’d need a nine-millimeter to take out one of those things, which is precisely why that hive is so big and undisturbed. It’s guarded by prehistoric creatures.”
“I hope they don’t follow us all the way to Willie’s house,” Gertie said. “Without my purse, I’ve got nothing to take them out with.”
Thank God for small favors. If Gertie’s purse of death were still with us, she’d probably have been shooting at the bees through the windshield.
“I’m sure they’ll leave before we get to the house,” Ida Belle said. “After all, someone’s been living there for decades. If those monsters were hanging around outside, they would have moved years ago.”
“Maybe that’s what happened to the Millers,” I said, and pointed to a dilapidated barn with an overgrown path leading up to it. “And their livestock. They were probably carried away under the cloak of night and used for parts to build that hive.”
I made the last turn after the barn and we inched along on a narrow slit of dirt, trees branches rubbing both sides of the Jeep.
“How do people keep paint on their cars out here?” I asked. At the rate I was going, I was going to owe the real Sandy-Sue a paint job, at the least, when I turned over her inheritance. Possibly even a new vehicle.
“When you’re driving a road regularly,” Ida Belle said, “it stays cleared better, and most people cut the worst of the branches out of the way.”
“And some just don’t care,” Gertie said. “That’s why you see so many trucks with rusted-out spots on the sides.”
The Jeep dipped into a huge hole that had been hidden by marsh grass and we all flew up and back down onto our seats.
“I’m more worried about a back injury,” Gertie said. “I hope Willie’s house isn’t that far.”
“I hope we don’t need to leave in a hurry,” I said.
“Why would we need to do that?” Gertie asked.
“Because Willie is a convicted felon and he might have tried to kill Hot Rod for a key that unlocks a crypt that even Willie hasn’t identified?” I said. “And if he didn’t try to kill Hot Rod, he probably knows who did, which means he’s still tied to murderers, potentially the Seal brothers. And then there’s the part where it’s the three of us and things just seem to turn out that way.”
“I see your point,” Gertie said. “But I’m going to be optimistic. This time, everything will be fine.”
“Sure,” Ida Belle said. “Willie will probably be on his front porch whittling. He’ll offer us tea and tell us why everyone is after the key and we’ll be on our way. Or maybe he’ll just leave a note pinned to the front porch and we won’t even have to bother with pleasantries.”
“I’ll just settle for no shooting,” I said. “If we could get through one investigation with no shooting, I’d throw a party.”
“I don’t mind the shooting,” Gertie said, “because you and Ida Belle are always the best at it.”
I glanced over at Ida Belle, started to say something, then shook my head.
“I think I see it,” Ida Belle said.
I leaned forward a bit and caught sight of a gray structure just off to the right. The path made a right turn, and I stopped about twenty yards from the house.
“Looks a bit rough,” Gertie said.
That was an understatement. At one time, the place had been painted, probably a bright yellow, but now, tiny remnants of its previous sunshine splendor were dull and clung to splintered, rotting wood. The roof sagged on one side, and we watched as a raccoon crawled through a hole in the roof and strolled up a branch that had settled on the corner of the house. The one window appeared intact. The rest that I could see were covered with plywood.
There was no vehicle out front, which was a good sign, but that didn’t mean Willie wasn’t inside. He could have caught a ride with someone. Or for all we knew, he might have a motorcycle in the living room. It would probably dress the place up.
“I guess the house fell into disrepair while he was in prison,” I said.