I blinked. “You have a kid in college? Holy crap! You don’t look old enough.”
She grinned. “I’m forty. Clean living.”
Gertie snorted. “That explains my wrinkles.”
“So did your daughter find anything?” I asked.
“She found a car same as Gil’s on a couple blocks but the plates didn’t match,” Casey said. “I ran the plates and they belonged to a total loss that went to the junkyard years ago. She lost the car on the highway, though.”
“What about the owner of the total loss?” I asked.
“Died in the car wreck,” she said. “The junkyard claims the plates weren’t on the car when it came there, but who knows. I spotted four sets of plates just standing in the drive. The owner is old and doesn’t seem to care much about what’s going on at his business. Is there anything beside the Headless Horseman thing that makes you think this wasn’t a regular carjacking?”
“Did you do much background work on Gil?” I asked.
“I know his wife’s a lot younger than him,” she said. “She ID’d the body. But she didn’t strike me as someone who had the mind to plot a murder.”
“And maybe she doesn’t,” I said. “But before she married Gil, she’d been dating his son for years. I guess it just calls some things into question.”
Casey whistled. “Yeah, that puts a different light on things. Man, I wish I had something to go on, but I honestly don’t. I mean, except for gut feeling.”
“Gut feeling is good enough for me,” I said. “What’s it telling you?”
“That there’s more to this than what I see,” she said. “I can’t tell you why but it just doesn’t sit right. Never did. And then you tell me about this incident at the festival and the wife and Gil’s son and I have that feeling all over again. But unfortunately, I don’t have an avenue to pursue in that direction.”
I nodded. “I understand and agree. There’s a lot of movement under the surface. I just wish some of it would come up for air.”
She checked her watch and stood. “I’ve got to get back. I’ve got an interview, but here’s my card with my cell number. Let me know if you find anything. You’ve got my mind going in a million directions.”
“Can I ask a favor?” I asked as I gave her one of my cards.
She raised an eyebrow. “Another one?”
“Yeah, well, you see, I’m sorta poking my nose into police business without an actual client and my boyfriend tends to get aggravated when I do that, so if we could just keep this conversation between ourselves, I’d really appreciate it.”
She frowned. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who would let a man tell her what to do.”
“Oh, I don’t, which is why we have issues. You see, he’s a deputy in Sinful—kinda runs the place really since the sheriff is a hundred and eighty-two years old.”
She laughed. “A deputy and a PI who is former CIA. Yeah, that relationship isn’t going to have any bumps. But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me unless I have to go on record with any of it.”
“Thanks,” I said and she left.
“What do you think?” Gertie asked.
“I think Detective Casey is one smart cookie,” I said. “And if she doesn’t like the feel of this then there’s probably something to it.”
It was evening before we arrived back home. I took pity on Carter and had a box of pralines in tow. The movie had been a good action flick and we’d all enjoyed it, but I was glad it hadn’t required much concentration since I couldn’t stop my thoughts from wandering back around to the carjacking, the headless chicken, the stunt at the festival, and the conversation between Liam and Tiffany. It must all tie together but I just couldn’t figure out how. I needed more information and I was hoping the acting troupe could fill in some gaps.
Carter swung by my house shortly after I got home. I was heating up some of the food he’d brought over when he called out from the front door. I yelled him back and he trudged into the kitchen and sank into a chair, looking mentally and physically exhausted.
“A person really shouldn’t look that bad on his day off,” I said and grabbed him a beer.
“I shouldn’t feel this bad either.”
“You look like you’ve been on a CIA mission. All of this is not over a headless chicken.”
“That was just the start of my fun day. After the headless chicken, I got a call from two fishermen whose boat was stuck on something submerged in one of the bayous. Deputy Breaux and I set out in the sheriff’s department boat because it has the biggest engine, figuring we might be able to pull them off whatever they were hung on.”
“But you couldn’t?”
He shook his head. “By the time we got there, the tide had been going out for an hour and they were even more stuck than before. I told them to tie off their boat and we were going to give them a ride home and then address it again when the tide was in tomorrow morning. But then Deputy Breaux poked an oar into the water below the boat and said it wasn’t something natural, like a tree.”
“Another boat?”
“I wish. I looked over at the bank and a little ways upstream, I saw tire tracks leading down the embankment.”
“If the tire tracks were still visible in the marsh grass, they were fairly fresh.”
He nodded. “I got a bad feeling about the whole thing so I called for a recovery vessel. And you’ll never guess what we hoisted out of the bayou.”
“Gil Forrest’s car.”
He stared at me for a moment, then shook his head. “You don’t think his death was a carjacking, do you?”
“Let’s just say it sounded sketchy before and now I don’t buy it at all.”
“Just once, I’d like someone to die normally in this town.”
“There was that guy who had a heart attack last week.”
“While walking down the road wearing his granddaughter’s tank top—and that’s it—and carrying a toilet plunger like an Olympic torch.”
“Okay, so not exactly normal but it was natural causes. That might be as good as you get.”
He sighed.
“You want me to heat you up some of this food?” I asked. “I was just about to eat.”
“No. I’ve got plenty more at home and after being in the bayou all afternoon, I really want a shower more than anything else.”
I grabbed the box of pralines off the counter and set them in front of him.
“So I guess Tiffany and Liam just topped the suspect list,” I said.
“You know I can’t talk about it.”
“Whatever. I’m not an idiot. Young wife who married for money. Son who got thrown over by the young wife and his own father. It’s not exactly a Hallmark movie. And if that carjacking was even remotely legit, that car stolen in NOLA wouldn’t have wound up in a bayou in Sinful.”
He rose from the table. “I’ll leave you to your speculation. I shouldn’t have even told you about the car, but the recovery guys are regulars at the Swamp Bar, so it will be all over by tomorrow morning.”