Bayou Busybody Read online

  Table of Contents

  Bayou Busybody (Miss Fortune World: The Mary-Alice Files, #2)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  From the Author

  The Vanishing Victim

  Also By Frankie Bow

  Copyright © 2018 by Frankie Bow

  All rights reserved.

  This story is based on a series created by Jana DeLeon. The author of this story has the contractual rights to create stories using the Miss Fortune world. Any unauthorized use of the Miss Fortune world for story creation is a violation of copyright law.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author and the publisher, J&R Fan Fiction, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Stock art: Pixabay, Freepik

  Chapter One

  MARY-ALICE ARCENEAUX awoke to the happy whirring and banging of construction in her kitchen. The crew liked to show up early, while it was still cool. Mary-Alice could scarcely blame them. The old Cooper place sat right on the bayou, and by mid-morning, the humidity was nearly intolerable. Mary-Alice was not in the least put out that she couldn’t use her kitchen. It gave her an excuse to stroll over to Francine’s Diner for breakfast.

  Mary-Alice had recently moved to Sinful, Louisiana, and so far she was pleased with her decision. She had come from Mudbug, about an hour’s drive away. Mudbug had two restaurants, a roller rink, and its own historical society. But Mary-Alice was ready to leave the hustle and bustle behind. To stop and smell the swamp lilies, if you will.

  Mary-Alice’s one disappointment had been her cousin Celia. Celia was a lifelong resident of Sinful, and Mary-Alice been looking forward to having family nearby. But Celia had just been elected mayor and was busy with her new duties. Fortunately, Mary-Alice had no trouble making new friends. She was agreeable and curious and above all, a good listener.

  Celia did not approve of Mary-Alice’s new friends. This did not trouble Mary-Alice; Celia disapproved of most people.

  Francine’s Diner was a short walk from Mary-Alice’s front door. Mary-Alice had already made the trip several times. Francine’s served excellent food and was the only dining establishment in town. She spotted three of her new friends sitting at a booth near the back. Gertie, Ida Belle, and Fortune still had their menus on the table, meaning they hadn’t yet placed their order. Mary-Alice hesitated by the front counter before anyone noticed her. Mary-Alice’s mother had taught her so well how to be “ladylike,” she was practically invisible. Even her sequined tennis shoes and henna-red hair couldn’t make her conspicuous. If one did happen to notice Mary-Alice, the impression was of a festively-decorated mouse.

  Gertie noticed Mary-Alice first and waved her over to their table. Like Mary-Alice, Gertie and Ida Belle were in the prime of life (that is to say, on the sweet side of seventy). The third woman (girl, really), was the grand-niece of their late friend Marge. She was visiting from the Northeast to take care of her aunt’s estate. Her name was Sandy-Sue Morrow, but everyone called her Fortune.

  Fortune Morrow was an odd one, even for a Yankee. She was a children’s librarian, with none of the serene temperament one would expect. She crackled with a pent-up energy that reminded Mary-Alice of a downed electrical line. She used military-sounding phrases like “Alpha Mike Foxtrot” instead of “goodbye.” When she met someone for the first time, she gave them the up-and-down as if she were sizing them up. Mary-Alice concluded Fortune had read a few too many spy thrillers in her spare time.

  “What’s good today?” Mary-Alice picked up a menu. From the way the women’s conversation had stopped cold, she suspected they had been talking about her cousin Celia.

  “Everything,” Fortune sighed. “I can’t decide.”

  “That’s why we need a plan of attack,” Ida Belle said, “I get the strawberry waffle. Fortune, you get the ham and biscuits with redeye gravy, and Gertie’ll order the shrimp and grits. And now Mary-Alice is here, we can order one more.”

  Gertie brightened.

  “The crab Benedict! Is that alright with you, Mary-Alice? Then when Almira shows up, if she shows up, there’ll be plenty for all of us.”

  “Of course.” The thought of so much food made Mary-Alice feel overwhelmed, but she was happy to be included in the breakfast plan. And who was Almira? As much as Mary-Alice enjoyed the women’s company, their conversation often made her feel like she’d missed an entire reel of a movie.

  “Good. It’s settled.”

  Ida Belle waved Ally over to place their breakfast order. Ida Belle was bossy, but in a good way. She got things done. Ida Belle was the chief of the powerful Sinful Ladies’ Society, a cabal of widows and old maids who more or less ran the town of Sinful. Gertie was Ida Belle’s second in command.

  Fortune’s role was a little harder to figure out. She was too young to be an official member of the Sinful Ladies’ Society (the minimum age was 40). And while the SLS officially forswore the company of men, Fortune seemed to spend a lot of time with the handsome deputy sheriff.

  “Who’s Almira?” Mary-Alice asked when Ally had taken their breakfast order.

  “A writer friend of Gertie’s,” Ida Belle said. “She’s coming to Sinful with her family.”

  “A writer? How exciting!” Mary-Alice clapped her hands. “How long is she staying?”

  “She’s not visiting,” Gertie said. “She’s moving here.”

  Mary-Alice noticed Fortune’s worried expression. She was probably imagining Gertie’s friend was a Russian undercover agent or something. Well, it was no crime to be peculiar, thank Heaven. Because if it were, Mary-Alice had several harmless acquaintances who would be behind bars.

  “Here she is now. Almira!” Gertie stood and waved.

  A solemn-looking woman with a bleached-blonde pixie cut glanced around Francine’s lunchtime crowd. Her tense features relaxed when she caught sight of Gertie.

  Ally came hurrying over with a fifth chair and scooted it over to the end of the booth.

  “Morning, ladies. We met at the A.R.E.A. conference, right?”

  “Yeah, I remember you,” Ida Belle said.

  “Nice to see you again,” Fortune added.

  “What’s the area conference?” Mary -Alice asked.

  “The American Romance and Erotica Authors conference,” Gertie explained. Ida Belle snorted, and Fortune suppressed a smile.

  “That sounds so exciting.” Mary-Alice’s circle had expanded to include another writer. Who knew the tiny town of Sinful would be such a stronghold of The Arts?

  Ally arrived at the table balancing four gigantic plates.

  “What can I get for you?” she asked Almira when she’d placed the breakfasts on the table.

  “Nothing for me, thanks.”

  Almira watched Ally hurry off.

  “I shouldn’t spoil my appetite. My husband’s expecting me to have lunch with him.”

  Mary-Alice was good at spotting unhappy marriages, having lived through one herself. Ten years earlier, a hungry bull gator had climbed up out of the Bayou Teche to find Joe Arceneaux sleeping off a hangover in his favorite lawn chair. Within moments, Mary-Alice was a widow.

  She’d had to act sad, of course. But even now, all she felt was relieved. r />
  Gertie asked Almira about her latest book, which cheered her up. Soon the conversation was moving from one writerly topic to the next. Gertie wrote romances in a genre she called “seniorotica,” featuring mature protagonists. Almira’s genre was “literary romance,” which sounded very elegant. Almira started to tell a juicy story about a self-help author they both knew and disliked, who set out to take revenge on a reviewer. Just as she was getting to the confrontation in the craft beer aisle, she stopped.

  “Here’s my lunch date.” Almira aimed a strained smile at the middle-aged man approaching their table.

  Dr. Whitbread was fair-skinned to the point of translucency. His eyes were pale blue and his hair colorless. He was what Mary-Alice’s mother would call a “boiled blonde.”

  Almira glanced at her watch. “Geoff, honey, I lost track of the time. Gertie, Ida Bell, Fortune, er...I’m sorry, Mary-Ann?”

  “Mary-Alice,” Mary-Alice said.

  “Mary-Alice. This is my husband, Dr. Geoffrey Whitbread.”

  “Your last name is actually White-bread?” Ida Belle snickered.

  “Ida Belle!” Gertie scolded.

  “What? His name is White bread, didn’t she just say? And look at him! Come on, it’s kinda funny. Right, Geoff?”

  Ida Belle dealt Dr. Whitbread a friendly punch in the arm.

  “The name is actually Whitbread.” The man gave Ida Belle a patient smile and rubbed his bruised bicep. “A good old Anglo-Saxon name. Although some of my students seem to prefer the alternate pronunciation. Almira, honey, you’re making us late. Rochelle’s waiting in the car.”

  “I’ll be right out, sweetheart.” Almira’s small store of joy had evaporated. Her expression as she watched her husband leave the restaurant was pure resentment.

  “Rochelle is your son’s wife?” Gertie asked.

  “Yeah. She’s been staying with us while Tristan’s deployed. I didn’t think she’d want to move down to Sinful with us, but here she is.”

  “You don’t get along with your daughter-in-law?” Ida Belle asked. Almira shrugged.

  “She’s not exactly my biggest fan. She has no problem with Geoff, though. Those two get along great. Anyway, duty calls. Gotta go.”

  Almira edged between the crowded tables of the diner. On her way out, she pushed the door so hard Francine’s customers looked up from their breakfasts to see what the angry jingling was about.

  “Almira married her writing professor,” Gertie explained. “And then her writing career took off.”

  Ida Belle nodded. “Bet he didn’t like that much.”

  “It’s like the plot of A Star is Born,” Mary-Alice said.

  “Isn’t it funny, Mary-Alice?” Gertie grinned. “You thought you’d escape drama by moving to Sinful.”

  Fortune smiled knowingly, and Ida Belle snorted.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Mary-Alice declared. “I love it here. And I’m living right downtown in one of Sinful’s historic homes. It’s so much fun.”

  “Not as much fun as watching Celia Arceneaux turn five shades of green when you moved into one of Sinful’s most distinctive homes.”

  “Oh, I know now that Celia was upset about the old Cooper place, but I certainly didn’t mean to show anyone up.”

  “That’s what makes it even better,” Ida Belle said. “All you did was buy a nice old fixer-upper, and you got Celia spitting nails. Sorry, Mary-Alice, I know Celia’s your cousin, but she is a mean, petty woman and you’re far too nice to her.”

  Mary-Alice preferred to think the best of people, especially when they were family. But even she had to admit the evidence was not in Celia’s favor. So powerful was Celia’s hatred of Ida Belle, Gertie, and the rest of the Sinful Ladies’ Society that Celia had founded a rival group. They called themselves the “God’s Wives,” which Mary-Alice thought was irreverent. Mary-Alice liked hanging out with the Sinful Ladies’ Society anyway. But tact demanded she keep this a secret from Celia for the time being. Best not to poke the bear. Especially when the bear was the acting mayor.

  Mary-Alice thought it would be lovely if one day they could all get along. But Celia had been feuding with Gertie and Ida Belle for decades, and longstanding traditions don’t change overnight.

  “All of this literary talk’s made me hungry,” Ida Belle declared. “I think it’s time for dessert.”

  “So soon after breakfast?” Mary-Alice had indulged rather liberally in strawberry waffles, fluffy biscuits drenched in gravy, and creamy grits. She found the prospect of dessert daunting.

  “We’re grown-ups,” Ida Belle countered. “Who’s gonna tell us no?”

  “My jeans,” Fortune muttered.

  “That’s what elastic waistbands are for.” Gertie picked up the hand-drawn table tent listing the desserts on offer.

  Mary-Alice bought a box of brownies on the way out of Francine’s. The sweet treats weren’t for her own consumption. After the breakfast she’d just had, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to eat for a week.

  The old Cooper place wasn’t visible from the main road. Someone who took the trouble to turn down the long, gravel driveway would not be impressed with what lay at the end. The house had fallen into disrepair over the past century or so. Celia had come right out and declared it looked like a dump.

  The interior wasn’t much better. The kitchen was stripped to the studs and filled with noise, dust, and sweaty men who wore their pants too low. But coming through the front door always perked Mary-Alice up. She saw the possibilities. The house had good bones and in the real estate agent’s words, needed only a few nips and tucks.

  Mary-Alice could already see her new kitchen taking shape. The dreary green walls had been repainted the color of butter. The wall tiles were going up now, a dazzling arrangement of aqua, red, and sunshine yellow.

  “It looks like a parrot,” Celia had sniffed. “Mark my words, Mary-Alice, you’re going to get tired of those garish colors. You should have brought in a professional decorator. I could have helped you if I didn’t have so many more important things going on.”

  Celia’s own interior featured avocado appliances, a carpeted kitchen, and macramé owl wall ornaments. It was either hopelessly dated or on the cutting edge of fashion (Mary-Alice suspected the former). In any event, Mary-Alice was certain she would not have liked Celia’s ideas, and was glad Celia had been too busy to help her.

  Mary-Alice knocked softly on her kitchen door frame. The foreman stood, rubbed his hands on the sides of his pants, and came out to the dining room

  “Good morning, Mister St. Clair.”

  “Call me Boon. Please. There’s not a problem, is there?”

  “Oh, no. The tile is looking wonderful. I just wanted to let you know I got you and your men some of Ally’s peanut butter brownies, to keep your energy up. Please help yourself. Whenever you like.”

  “Miz Mary-Alice, you are spoiling us. After this job, I don’t think I’ll be happy working anywhere else.”

  Mary-Alice beamed.

  “Well, I do plan to keep you all busy for a while. Don’t forget, there’s cold sweet tea for you out here in the mini-fridge.”

  Mary-Alice would never engage in any sort of improper behavior, and most certainly not with a hired man. But she did enjoy her little chats with Boon St. Clair. It was always best to be kind, and to stay on good terms with people. Where was the harm?

  Chapter Two

  THE NEXT MORNING, MARY-Alice decided to vary her routine. She said good morning to Boon and the crew, then took a can of Coke and a day-old brownie out to the back porch. It was cooler right on the water. She got comfortable, opened her laptop, and started a new unit in her online computer course. She was still a member of the Crafting Circle and the Historical Society, but Mudbug was now an hour away. She wanted something to keep her mind active, and the self-paced class filled the bill.

  When it got too hot to sit outside, Mary-Alice put away her laptop and went in to check on the kitchen. Boon neede
d her input on a few things, so they spent some time discussing joints and fittings and grout lines.

  By the time she was finished talking with Boon, it was already noon. The brownie had been tasty, but no one would call it a substantial breakfast.

  Mary-Alice was surprised at how deserted Francine’s Diner appeared. Most of the tables were empty. There was no sign of Gertie, Ida Belle, or anyone else she knew. The only person she recognized was Ally, who was busy waiting tables.

  “Sit anywhere you like, Aunt Mary-Alice,” Ally called to her from the ordering counter. Mary-Alice chose a seat close to the window. If there was no one to eat with, at least she might see something interesting going on outside.

  Ally came over with a menu and a glass of water.

  “Hi, Aunt Mary-Alice. Missed you at breakfast. Not a problem with the remodel, I hope?”

  “No, the kitchen is coming along splendidly. I didn’t want to get into a rut. So I thought I’d try doing my computer lessons in the morning and having lunch here.”

  “Aw, that’s great, Aunt Mary-Alice. Are you learning how to send emails and surf the internet?”

  “Not exactly. Right now I’m learning about packet-switching. Ally, dear, where is everyone? I hope I’m not missing out on any excitement.”

  Ally sighed.

  “I guess excitement is one word for it. No, Aunt Mary-Alice, you are not missing out. What happened was, Aunt Celia and Gertie really got into it this morning. And I guess they ended up drawing a crowd.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Exactly.”

  Celia could be a terror when she got riled up, Mary-Alice knew, and Gertie was as stubborn as a rock.

  “Do you know what it was about?” Mary-Alice asked.

  Ally pulled her order pad out of her apron pocket.

  “Something to do with the City Hall flagpole, Aunt Celia’s underwear, and the First Amendment. Apparently the sheriff’s involved. You know, just another day in Sinful. I just try to stay out of it. Are you ready to order, Aunt Mary-Alice?”

  “Oh, my goodness, I haven’t even looked at the menu yet. Something light, I think. I ate so much yesterday, I thought I’d pop. What do you recommend?”