“So tell me about this case,” I said.
“It’s about Molly,” he said. “I want to know who killed her.”
Because I was former CIA, I could manage to avoid registering surprise in even the most questionable of circumstances, but so far, nothing about Nickel’s visit had been remotely in the realm of normal. I was trying to imagine how he had managed a personal interest in Molly that had him sitting in my backyard all afternoon with stolen beer but couldn’t even come up with a decent guess. I figured we’d get around to it eventually, so I moved forward with the business part of the discussion. My curiosity could wait.
“Molly? The caterer?” I asked, just to make sure we were both thinking of the same person.
“I don’t know any other Molly around here,” he said.
“I don’t suppose you know her real name, do you?” I asked.
He gave me a confused look. “’Course I do. Mary Olivia Broussard.”
“Molly for short,” I said and looked over at Ida Belle and Gertie, who were shaking their heads. We’d just risked our lives, destroyed a perfectly good van, and angered a bear and more importantly, Carter, and all the while, Nickel had been sitting in my backyard with the very information we’d gone looking for.
“We don’t know for sure that she was murdered,” I said. “It could have been an accident.”
“Bullsh—crap,” he said. “Molly was no fool. No way she’d manage to get in a bind like that on her boat. You met her, right? Did she look like a woman who couldn’t take care of herself?”
“She struck me as quite capable,” I said. “But everyone can make a mistake, and sometimes those mistakes are fatal.”
He shook his head. “Not Molly. Not on a boat. You have to understand, her brother Johnny drowned. Got caught out in a storm and just like that, he was gone. Being as Johnny was a commercial shrimper and pretty much wrote the book on boats, it was a big shock. And since Molly and Johnny was thick as thieves, him dying broke her up something awful, especially as it happened while she was in the joint. They wouldn’t even let her out to attend his funeral. So when I say Molly was careful on boats, I mean careful like a surgeon or a pilot.”
I glanced over at Ida Belle and Gertie, who looked as convinced by Nickel’s words as I was. All three of us had problems imagining the obviously capable Molly getting caught unaware on the bayou, and given what Nickel had said, I was doubling down on that. The situation was growing stinkier by the second.
“How do you know all of this?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Gertie said. “We didn’t think Molly knew people in Sinful until she moved here, and she darn sure didn’t go out of her way to hand out anything personal.”
“I was good friends with Johnny,” Nickel said. “Back during one of my stints in jail in NOLA, I bunked with him. Now, I see how you’re looking and I don’t want you thinking bad about the man. The truth was, Johnny was probably the only guy I ever met in the joint that didn’t belong there.”
“So why was he there?” I asked.
“He wrote a hot check,” Nickel said. “Had an old buddy of his that he went into the shrimping business with. The loser wiped out the account, but Johnny didn’t know when he paid the bills, and his buddy was long gone. The mayor was on a big push to crack down on hot checks at the time, so Johnny got a couple months in the joint in addition to a fine. They was making examples or something. Anyway, we got on real good and after I got out, I looked him up and we hung out mostly every week until I moved back to Sinful. He was the best guy I ever met. Well, him and Whiskey.”
Most people around Sinful wouldn’t put Whiskey onto a best-guy list but I knew a thing or two about the Swamp Bar owner that a lot of residents probably didn’t. And I agreed with Nickel. Whiskey was a good guy. If Nickel put Johnny on the same level, then that was probably saying a lot because men like Nickel didn’t just hand out compliments, especially about other men.
“Besides,” Nickel continued, “even if something happened, Molly has a CB radio on her boat. Angel said her cell phone was cutting out.”
“Who is Angel?” I asked, assuming she was the party on the other end of the call when Molly had made her cryptic statement about someone bringing about her death.
“Angel and Molly have been friends since they was kids,” he said. “Angel had been dating Johnny pretty serious when he died. Her and Johnny was going to get married but was waiting on Molly to get out. Guess maybe you shouldn’t wait on important things, right? Might not get another chance.”
“That’s really sad,” Gertie said. “For everyone.”
Nickel nodded. “And now Angel has to have another funeral with an empty casket. Seems like a lot for one person.”
“What about Molly’s parents?” Ida Belle asked.
“Her mom split when the kids was little,” Nickel said. “They never mentioned her and if someone asked, they didn’t really answer. I figured it was old wounds and I never got into it. Their dad is still alive, far as I know. I always got the impression he’s a mean old cuss although ain’t no one ever come right out and said so. It was more about what they didn’t say, you know? He lives somewhere outside of NOLA. I only ever saw him once and that was at Johnny’s funeral. Didn’t shed so much as a tear and that ain’t right. A real man shouldn’t have no problem crying over the death of his only son.”
“No. He shouldn’t,” Gertie said and patted Nickel’s arm.
“Do you happen to know anything about Molly’s will?” I asked.
Nickel shook his head. “Can’t see Molly discussing that with someone like me. Whiskey maybe. He’s got the head for business but they weren’t on that kind of speaking terms. Why?”
“Because her crazy boyfriend showed up at Ally’s house today threatening her,” I said. “He’s under the impression that Molly left Ally her catering business and apparently, he thought it should be coming to him.”
Nickel’s eyes widened. “Was Ally hurt?”
“No,” I said. “He scared her more than anything. Carter locked him up but you know that won’t stick for long.”
Nickel scratched his head. “Molly’s said before as how she thought Ally was the most talented baker she’d ever come across, which ain’t no secret around here. And I know Molly’s catering business was real important to her. I suppose if she was gonna do up everything legal and all, it would make sense she’d want it going to someone who could do it justice.”
“You said Dexter was hitting on women at the Swamp Bar,” I said, “but that you didn’t think anyone had told Molly because they’d be afraid to. Did that include you?”
Nickel sighed. “I guess I kinda hedged on that one earlier. Yeah, I told her. I figured she’d go crazy on him but the next week, I stopped by her house with a bottle of specialty whiskey she’d asked us to get for her and that loser was still there. I didn’t bother saying anything after that. Molly knew I wouldn’t lie. Not to her, anyway. So if she decided it wasn’t a problem, wasn’t nothing I could do about it.”