getting harder to keep the varmints away. They seem to have multiplied tenfold this year like the chickens.”
I pointed to a cage thing with a trap door behind the chicken cages. “What is that?”
“It’s for catching varmints,” Judith said. “Easier to trap them and relocate than shoot them and hope you don’t hit anything else, especially as they’re mostly out at night.”
I stared at her for a moment. “Varmints…like skunks?”
Judith grinned. “Yeah, they seem to be the biggest offender.”
Ida Belle and Gertie started to chuckle.
“How in the world did you get the skunk to chase Celia?” Gertie asked. “Or was it just good luck?”
“I might have spilled a tray of fish juice from the fish fry booth on the bottom of her dress when she wasn’t looking,” Judith said.
“How did you get the skunk out of the trap and into the maze without it spraying you?” I asked. Skunks as a weapon was something I’d never considered, but I was considering it now.
Judith shrugged. “You mess with them as many years as I have and you learn how to get around them. And they only go off if they feel threatened. I guess there’s something about me that calms them. Well, until I tossed him into that maze. I’m glad you guys didn’t get caught in the fray. If I’d known you’d were right behind her, I would have set the thing on her when she got out.”
“We weren’t right behind her,” Gertie said. “In fact, we didn’t even see her going in, so she must have lollygagged around in there.”
Judith nodded. “She was in there a long time.”
“Probably making notes on everything that was done wrong,” Ida Belle said. “Celia files a list of complaints with the mayor every year after the festival.”
“Well, then it serves her right, now doesn’t it?” Judith said.
“I really like you,” I said.
Lunch was a good time, chatting with the Sinful Ladies, especially the recounting of the skunk escapade. And the banana pudding seemed particularly excellent. But maybe I was just in a good mood since I’d actually gotten decent sleep the night before and the dead person wasn’t someone I knew or liked. In fact, it seemed from the chatter that a lot of people weren’t particularly fond of him. Marrying his son’s girlfriend seemed to have put off the majority of the women in the town, anyway.
“Do you think we can catch the horse breeder today?” I asked.
“River Hayes rarely leaves her ranch unless she’s showing or selling a horse,” Ida Belle said. “The bigger question is whether or not she’ll talk to us. She’s a huge introvert approaching recluse. I expect she’ll go full-on prepper when she retires and we’ll never see her again.”
“Great,” I said. “She’s not going to shoot at us when we pull up in her driveway, is she?”
“It’s possible,” Ida Belle said.
“Probably not on a Sunday, though,” Gertie said. “She is Southern.”
I shook my head. “There is a lot to unpack south of the Mason-Dixon. Well, let’s give it a whirl. I’m not going to say a ‘shot’ because that might be too accurate.”
We were headed up the highway when I got a text from Mannie letting me know he’d emailed the police report from Gil’s carjacking. I accessed the file and scanned it.
“Well, the police report on the carjacking doesn’t have anything worth noting,” I said. “Like Tiffany said, the security cameras for the theater were broken and there weren’t any witnesses, as Gil was the last to leave. There are no residential buildings that look into the parking lot. Just a bunch of businesses and warehouses that would have been closed already.”
“Who found him?” Gertie asked.
“A taxi driver who was new to the area and got off in the wrong district,” I said. “Noticed a heap in the parking lot as he drove by and stopped to see what it was.”
“Probably wishes he’d kept driving,” Gertie said.
“Probably,” I agreed. “But he’s definitely in the clear. Had fares all night. Doesn’t seem to be much else.”
“We figured it would be unremarkable,” Ida Belle said. “If the cops sniffed anything off about it, they would have come down on Tiffany like a pack of wolves.”
“That still doesn’t mean it wasn’t intentional,” Gertie said.
“Oh, I’m not saying that,” Ida Belle said. “I’m just saying that if it was intentional, whoever did it was prepared and waiting for the opportune moment. No one could know for certain that Gil would be in the parking lot alone, so that meant