Hook, Line and Blinker (Miss Fortune Mystery #10)
Jana DeLeon
Introduction
If you’ve never read a Miss Fortune mystery, you can start with LOUISIANA LONGSHOT, the first book in the series. If you prefer to start with this book, here are a few things you need to know.
Fortune Redding – a CIA assassin with a price on her head from one of the world’s most deadly arms dealers. Because her boss suspects that a leak at the CIA blew her cover, he sends her to hide out in Sinful, Louisiana, posing as his niece, a librarian and ex–beauty queen named Sandy-Sue Morrow.
Ida Belle and Gertie – served in the military in Vietnam as spies, but no one in the town is aware of that fact except Fortune and Deputy LeBlanc.
Sinful Ladies Society – local group founded by Ida Belle, Gertie, and deceased member Marge. In order to gain membership, women must never have married or if widowed, their husband must have been deceased for at least ten years.
Sinful Ladies Cough Syrup – sold as an herbal medicine in Sinful, which is dry, but it’s actually moonshine manufactured by the Sinful Ladies Society.
Chapter One
“I think it’s ready,” Gertie said, and dipped a ladle into the huge pot on her stove. The fumes alone had made my eyes water so badly that I’d finally put on the goggles Ida Belle gave me when I arrived twenty minutes ago.
Despite the potentially explosive fumes, the aroma was actually quite nice. “It has a sort of cinnamon smell to it,” I said.
This was the first time I’d been present for an official tasting of Sinful Ladies Cough Syrup. Ida Belle and Gertie had been working on a new flavor, and they claimed their taste buds were officially numb. They said that at this point, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between their brew and a real bottle of cough syrup. So I was the official taste tester. Payment was all the Sinful Ladies brew I could handle, a pot roast, and a container of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It was a darn fine gig if you could get it.
“It should have a bit of cinnamon taste to it as well,” Ida Belle said.
“We thought the cinnamon would make it festive,” Gertie said. “Maybe release it as a holiday offering.”
Gertie poured some of the liquid out of the ladle and into a glass, then handed it to me. “Give it a bit to cool. It will be better room temperature.”
“Or maybe even chilled,” Ida Belle said.
“Oh,” Gertie said. “I like that idea.”
They both watched me as I blew on the whiskey until the steam stopped coming off it.
“Go for it,” Ida Belle said.
“Not just a sip,” Gertie said. “You need enough to give us good feedback, but not so much that you get choked and it doesn’t go down smoothly.”
“Will you shut up and let the woman drink?” Ida Belle asked.
I held the glass up. “Here’s to the last four days in Sinful. No murders. No explosions. No undercover outfits.”
“Hear! Hear!” Gertie chanted.
I put the glass to my lips and took a big swig. Almost immediately, my eyes watered and then crossed, and I yanked off the goggles. I swallowed and thought my throat was going to explode. I opened my mouth to talk, but nothing would come out.
Ida Belle and Gertie watched me closely, and I wasn’t sure whether to feel comforted or worried that neither had flung me onto the floor and attempted CPR. It was probably only seconds, but felt like much longer, when my eyes went back into focus and I sucked in a breath. It burned coming in and smelled of cinnamon coming out. A flush swept through my entire body, and the soreness I’d had in my neck since I’d gotten out of bed vanished completely.
“Holy crap!” I said. “That was both frightening and awesome.”
Ida Belle grinned. “We’re calling it the Widow Maker.”
“Is Sinful Ladies membership down?” I asked.
“Well,” Gertie said, “there have been some deaths and several relocations the last couple years—”
I held up my hand. “I was joking.” And if Gertie thought the cough syrup would result in a potential membership increase for the Sinful Ladies Society, I didn’t want to know about it.
“So is it a thumbs-up?” Ida Belle asked.
I nodded. “As long as you put a warning on the bottle that it could cause loss of eyesight and limit lung capacity, then you’re good.”
“Excellent,” Ida Belle said. “We’ll work up a marketing plan and start moving it through our network.”
“Just how much of this stuff do you make?” I asked.
“We have five active stills among the membership,” Ida Belle said. “A group is assigned to each one. Every summer, each group submits a new brew for testing at a group meeting and we decide if we’ll add something new to the line.”
“But I only know of one flavor,” I said.
“That’s because we’ve never liked any of the others,” Gertie said. “But I think this one is a winner.”
“There has been a lot of call lately for something with more punch,” Ida Belle explained. “A lot of women in town are worried about the calories.”
“Ah,” I said, “so if they can get the same effect with less…uh, dosage, then that would keep them in the market.”
Gertie shook her head. “It’s a ridiculous thing to worry about. How many calories can possibly be in a swig of that stuff?”
“Ridiculous or not,” Ida Belle said, “it’s something people are starting to think about more often. In choir practice last week, Maisey Jackson’s breath was so bad I thought she’d swallowed a skunk, so I passed her a breath mint. She Googled the calories on her phone before she’d eat it.”
“Wow,” I said.
“But that’s not even the most ridiculous part,” Ida Belle said. “Pastor Don’s mother insisted we bless the mint before she put it in her mouth, claiming it was food.”
“I saw her open a protein shake in the General Store last week,” I said, “and she didn’t pray before she took a drink.”
“If you’re not chewing, it’s not food,” Gertie said.
“Where does it say that in the Bible?” I asked. “I’m a little sketchy on the passage concerning breath mints as well.”
Ida Belle waved her hand in dismissal. “People have been making up religious rules forever, and Sinful has the market cornered on it. No matter what you do, there’s someone in this world that has a problem with it.”
“Maybe if Maisey started wearing clothes while she was boating,” I said, “she wouldn’t have to worry so much about her weight.”
“Got that right,” Gertie said.
My phone rang and I checked the display. “It’s Carter.”
“What did you do?” Gertie asked.
“Why do you always think I’ve done something?” I asked. “Never mind.”
It was true that over half of my past interactions with Carter had been over my less-than-legal transgressions that put me smack in the middle of police matters, but now that we were in an official relationship, things were strictly personal more often.