Missing in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series) (8 page)

“I think it’s a good idea,” Maryse said, “but I don’t think all three of us should go. That might seem overwhelming. But you and Mildred should do it.”

“Why me?” Jadyn asked. “Wouldn’t you rather go with Mildred?”

“Yes,” Maryse said, “but I’m not the best choice. I suck at reading people and aside from science, I don’t have a logical bone in my body. If they know anything at all, you’ll be able to get it out of them, and figure out what it means.”

Jadyn felt her face flush slightly at the compliment.

“Besides which,” Maryse continued, “if I’m going to get into hot water with Luc over sticking my nose into this, then I’d rather it be when I’m sure I can make something happen.”

“Okay,” Jadyn said, “then Mildred and I will go to the diner and see if we can drum up some information. We’ll call you as soon as we leave.”

“Great,” Maryse said. “And Jadyn…thanks.”

“You ready?” Jadyn looked over at Mildred, who frowned.

“I was thinking,” Mildred said, “we may be able to get more out of people if we said Raissa was family. We wouldn’t really be lying. She may not be my blood but I love the girl like she is.”

Jadyn considered the potential pitfalls. “Any chance the diner employees will know you and your family well enough to call bullshit?”

“I don’t think so. Mudbug is the end of the road as far as the highway goes and I know everyone living here. The diner is far enough away that most people working there probably live closer to New Orleans where there’s more retail.”

“And no one should know me yet,” Jadyn said, “so I can be a cousin.”

“I like chicken-fried steak,” Helena repeated.

“You’re not going,” Mildred said.

“Actually,” Jadyn said, “as much as I hate to admit this, Helena could come in handy.”

“See, I’m handy.” Helena looked at Jadyn and frowned. “What am I handy with?”

“Not handy ‘with’ but handy ‘for,’” Jadyn said. “Lots of people don’t want to get involved with the police on any level. So even if they think Mildred and I are family, they might still clam up. But when we’re talking out front, the cooks may whisper in the back, and after we leave, some of them may talk among themselves. That’s where you come in.”

Helena’s expression cleared. “I get it. I’m covert operations.”

“Something like that,” Jadyn said.

“Will you buy me a chicken-fried steak?”

Jadyn sighed.

###

Colt had no sooner turned on his shower than his cell phone rang. He looked at the display and held in a curse. It was Eugenia.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Old Man Humphrey called up here all in a snit. The fool says someone stole one of his cars.”

“You shouldn’t call him ‘Old Man Humphrey.’”

“Why the heck not? He was old when I was born and I’m old now. That makes him ancient.”

Colt held in a sigh. “Old Man…er, Mr. Humphrey hasn’t driven a car in at least a decade.”

“Yes, but that hasn’t stopped him from piling them up in his yard like an extra on
Sanford and Son
.”

“Well, send Deputy Nelson over there.”

“Do you think I’d be bothering you if that was an option? Deputy Nelson is tied up at the high school. Bunch of kids smoking weed and drinking beer. A parent caught them and all hell broke loose since everyone’s pointing fingers at the mayor’s kid as the supplier.”

He closed his eyes and groaned.

“If you’d prefer to take over at the school, I can send Deputy Nelson to Humphrey’s house.”

“No! God no, I wouldn’t prefer that. I’m sure I’ll be hearing from the mayor soon enough. Deputy Nelson can take a few licks. Tell Humphrey I’m on my way.”

He shut off the shower and complained to thin air the entire drive to Old Man Humphrey’s house. It was set back a ways in the swamp at the end of a dead-end road. Which was all good news for Mudbug. Eugenia hadn’t been exaggerating when she likened his place to
Sanford and Son
. It looked like the place cars came to die.

The entire front lawn was littered with automobiles—trucks, cars, convertibles, hardtops, sedans, and sports cars.
 

Stan Humphrey was standing on the front porch holding a whiskey glass and smoking a cigar, apparently intent on openly defying death. He frowned when Colt got out of his truck.

“Took you long enough,” he complained. “A man could die before law enforcement gets around to working in this town.”

A man who should have been dead years ago shouldn’t be so picky.

“It’s been a busy day.”

“Your shortage of help ain’t my concern, but what is my concern is my missing car.”

Colt held in a sigh. “That’s what I’m here for. You want to tell me what happened?”

Stan threw his arms up in the air, sloshing whiskey across his front porch. “I done told the dispatcher everything I know. The car was here. Now it’s not.”

“When was the last time you saw the car?”

“When I came home from church. Good sermon today. All about how being lazy is a sin. You should have been there.”

Colt glanced upward, wondering why God had seen fit to pile this on top of what had already been an exhausting and disappointing day. “Sir, you couldn’t possibly have seen your car after church today because it’s Monday.”

Stan stared at him for several seconds, then blinked. “Well shit fire and save the matches! You mean I been napping for a whole day?”

“Twenty-four hours is more like a short hibernation than a long nap.”

Stan waved a hand in dismissal, his marathon nap clearly of no concern. “No matter. Facts still the same. The car was here when I got home from church.”

“Yes, sir, but the amount of time during which the thieves could have taken it is significantly longer.”

Stan just stared.

“You know what,” Colt said, “never mind. Give me the make and model of the car.”

“It was a Cadillac DeVille. Damn fine automobile in her day. Had me a roll in the backseat with Melvina Watkins. Took her virginity, matter of fact. Might have been the best day of my life.” He narrowed his eyes at Colt. “That was before I found God, mind you. I don’t want you casting any aspersions on my character.”

“Of course not. Did the car still run?”

“Can’t remember. Probably not, but it might not have needed more than a battery to make it go. I mostly kept it around for sentimental reasons.”

Colt glanced around at no less than forty vehicles with flat tires and weeds growing around them and wondered how many of them had a Melvina-in-the-backseat story.
 

Not wanting to dwell on the matter, he focused on what facts he could drum out of what had to be one of the strangest crimes he’d seen since he returned to Mudbug. At minimum, it would take a battery and air in the tires—assuming they would even hold air—to get one of the cars out of the yard. But more likely, whoever had taken the car had towed it off. If it was even missing, and given that Stan was the only witness, that was looking shaky.
 

“Where was it parked?”

“Right up front just past the mailbox. You can see the empty spot.”

Colt walked to the edge of the lawn and took a look. A large square spot of bare ground sat surrounded by weeds. Tire tracks led through the weeds at the front of the lawn and onto the dirt road. He squatted down and picked up a handful of soil to take a closer look at, but it looked normal. Something had been covering this space or it would be grown over like the rest of the yard, and since he couldn’t spot a single green stem anywhere in the dirt, he had to assume that whatever had been here had been moved recently.

Maybe Old Man Humphrey wasn’t crazy after all.

He made his way back up to the house, where Stan was lighting another cigar. “Do you have a license plate number for the car?”

“Don’t think it had a plate on it. Hadn’t been driven in years. Kept it around for sentimental reasons.”

“Do you have the title to the car? I need the vehicle identification number in order to identify it as your property once it’s found.”

“What the hell would I need the title for? Ain’t like I’m selling it.”

“You can apply for a lost title. But I’m going to need some way to identify the car.”

“Title’s probably in the house somewhere, but it might take me a bit to find it.”

If the inside of the house looked anything like the yard, Indiana Jones probably couldn’t find that title, but that wasn’t Colt’s problem.

“I’ll have Deputy Nelson do some asking around tomorrow,” Colt said. “If you think of anything else I need to know, give my office a call. I’ll be out of pocket for a day or two.”

“Those government jobs give you people entirely too much vacation. Always ducking out when you ought to be working.”

“I’m not vacationing.”
Technically, I am, but not really.
“We’ve got a missing person…a federal agent and probably kidnapped.”

 
Stan’s eyes widened and he stared at Colt for a bit, probably trying to gauge whether he was pulling his leg or not. He must have decided Colt was telling him the truth because he threw his arms in the air again, spilling what remained of his whiskey. “What the hell is this town coming to?”

“I don’t know, sir. Have you seen anything out of place around lately? Aside from your missing car?”

Stan shook his head. “Been quiet as far as I know. Who’s the agent?”

“Name is Raissa Bordeaux. She moved here last year.”

Stan’s expression went from incredulous to worried. “I know Raissa. She helped me get a hunting rifle sighted a couple months ago. What the hell are you doing standing here jawing about an old car? Get out there and find that girl.” He shook his head. “You young people really need to learn how to prioritize.”

“Yes, sir.”

Some days, there was just no winning.

Chapter Five

Jadyn pulled Mildred’s sedan into the parking lot of Ted’s Diner next to three Harley-Davidson motorcycles and looked over at Mildred and Helena. “Does everyone understand the plan?”

Helena rolled her eyes. “You’ve been rattling about it ad nauseam the entire drive.”

Jadyn turned around and looked directly at her. “So you mean even the dead have heard me.”

“Low blow,” Helena said and stepped through the side of the car.

Jadyn and Mildred climbed out and made their way to the front door. “Scan the room first,” Jadyn reminded her, “and if you see anyone who knows you, switch to plan B. I’ll follow your lead.”

Mildred nodded. “I hope we find out something that helps.”

“Me, too.”

Jadyn pushed open the door and they walked inside. Where the café in Mudbug was bright and had a homey feel, the diner was dim and the furniture was run-down, giving the whole place a dingy look. Three beefy tattooed men—the only other patrons—looked up from a table toward the back when they walked inside but then went back to their conversation.

Jadyn was happy to see the bar counter at the front of the restaurant with the serving window directly behind it. It was something she’d hoped to find, as this way, the kitchen staff would be able to hear their conversation. If the kitchen staff started talking among themselves, Helena would be on point to listen in on the conversation.
 

A red-haired woman who looked fifty but probably wasn’t a day over forty walked up to them, a bored expression on her face. “Help you?” she asked.

“Yes, two coffees please,” Jadyn said, making a note of her name tag that said “Dee.”

As Dee reached for the coffeepot behind her, a head popped up in the food service window and Jadyn did a double take. The person was wearing what could only be construed as a Batgirl mask. Jadyn glanced over at Mildred, who was staring at the masked person, her jaw dropped slightly.

“Helena?” Mildred mouthed.

Given that Dee was inches away from the masked kitchen bandit and hadn’t even uttered a peep, Jadyn was certain it was Helena. Either that or Ted hired the oddest set of cooks she’d ever seen. Before Jadyn could reply, the masked bandit gave Jadyn a thumbs-up and a second later, a basket of butter disappeared from the window.

Definitely Helena.

Dee turned around and placed two cups of coffee in front of them. “I ain’t seen you before. You passing through?” she asked as she poured.

Mildred glanced at Jadyn, then looked back at the Dee. “Not exactly. We live in Mudbug but we were hoping you could help us with something.”

Dee’s expression shifted from bored to guarded. “You cops?”

Mildred laughed. “Not hardly.”

Dee didn’t look completely convinced. “We had enough cops around here today to last a lifetime. Rude, too.”

Jadyn laughed. “You and I probably talked to the same person.”

Dee narrowed her eyes at Jadyn. “You involved with that missing woman?”

“Not involved,” Jadyn said. “Related. She’s my cousin. Mildred here is our aunt.”