The moment she asked the way to Belle Vista, Morgan Kirkland knew she was in trouble.
The gas station attendant stiffened. And the good old boys who had been lounging on a bench next to the soda machine came to attention.
“Belle Vista? Why do you need to know the way to that place?” the guy in the greasy overalls demanded.
She wanted to tell him in a steel-edged voice that her reasons were none of his business. But since Decorah Security had sent her here on an undercover assignment, she gave him a tentative smile.
The patch on his right front pocket said his name was Bubba. She’d read all about him in the notes her client, Andre Gascon, had sent to Baltimore. Bubba Arnette was a high school dropout who pumped gas during the day. When the sun went down, he illegally trapped alligators in the bayou.
Trying to sound friendly, she spouted her cover story. “Mr. Gascon has hired me to catalogue the books in his library with a view to possibly selling off some of the collection.”
“Oh yeah? You a librarian?” he challenged, staring at her with the smug eyes of a man who thinks that any guy is the superior of any female.
She looked up at him through the car window, picturing what he saw. A very non-threatening individual. A woman with straight, chin-length blond hair, blue eyes, slender frame, dressed in a conservative beige skirt, a persimmon-colored blouse.
What he couldn’t see was the martial arts training, the marksmanship badges, the woman who had abandoned caution along with cream in her coffee. And the gal who held her own with the Decorah agents who had special talents she didn’t possess.
Really, she’d like to meet this guy in a dark alley and teach him some manners.
She took in a breath of the hot humid air and let it out before answering, “Yes, I’m a librarian.” She might not have a degree in the field, but she’d just been through an intensive crash course. The consultants from Baltimore’s famous Enoch Pratt Library had pronounced her fit to decide whether to go with the Dewey Decimal System or Library of Congress cataloguing.
“Well, you don’t want to work for a secretive bastard like Gascon. He’s bad news,” the local expert allowed.
“In what way?”
“You want to get murdered, you drive right up to his estate, chere.”
Morgan gave him a wide-eyed look. In a shaky voice, she asked, “murder?”
“Guys end up in the bayou out by his place. Face down in the muck. Clawed by a jaguar,” he answered, a nasty ring to his voice. Apparently, he was enjoying telling horror stories to the little librarian.
“There’s a jaguar in the swamp?” she quavered, pretending he’d had the desired effect, wishing she were free to wipe the smug smile off his weaselly face.
One of the good old boys, a guy in his fifties with thinning hair combed across his bald pate and an inner tube belly hiding his belt pushed himself off the bench and ambled over to join the conversation.
“Bubba here is just giving you some friendly advice.” He fixed her with a piercing look. “My cousin Willie shoulda listened to him. Leastways, if he didn’t want to croak hisself.”
“Um, thank you all for the warnings,” she answered. “But Mr. Gascon has already given me a retainer. I need the money, and I’m not about to return it.”
“Suit yourself, chere,” Rubber Belly said. Probably he was Bob Mansard, cousin of Willie Mansard, who had indeed ended up clawed to death in the swamp. Until his demise, Willie had been one of the troublemakers in town. Bob seemed to be ripped from the same cloth.
Gascon had told her about the local men and about the cat legend. He’d characterized the guys in humorous terms. She’d gotten the “rubber belly” description from him. But he’d never joked about the big cat. He’d said the murderer was a man—wearing claws. And he had hired her to find out who it was.
Thinking she’d like to cut the chitchat short—and use the facilities before arriving at Belle Vista—she asked, “Is the ladies room locked?”
“Key’s right there,” Bubba answered, pointing to a hook inside the door of the station.
With all eyes on her, Morgan resisted the urge to focus on her beige sandals as she walked past the onlookers, retrieved the key, then hurried around the side of the building.
The restroom wasn’t a place where she wanted to stay very long. So, she was in and out as quickly as she could