Louisiana Longshot (A Miss Fortune Mystery, Book 1) by Jana DeLeon Page B

my gear,” I said, “but if I have to fire while running, a handgun would work better.”
    Walter lowered his paper and stared at me, raising one eyebrow. “You been watching them cop shows on television?”
    “Maybe?” I replied, hoping it would cover my faux pas of asking for weaponry that a librarian probably shouldn’t have the ability to use.
    He narrowed his eyes at me, and I worried for a moment that I’d taken things too far.
    “What’s a pretty young thing like you know about shooting a handgun?”
    “Pretty young things who live in big cities can’t shop after dark without protection.”
    He stared a couple of seconds longer, and I kept my gaze steady. Finally, he sighed and pulled a pistol from underneath the counter.  
    “I have to run a background check on you to sell you a pistol,” he said. “There’s no way I can get that check done in the next ten minutes, so seeing as you’re Marge’s family, I’m going to loan you my gun. But if you lose it, or shoot anything but a gator with it, I’m going to swear you stole it.”
    “Sounds like a plan,” I said as I put the rifle back in my supplies box and took the pistol from him. “I take it you know this Number Two?”
    “Yep. Got a fishing camp out there.”
    “Is there anything in particular I should watch out for?”
    He snorted. “Yeah. You’re riding in the boat with ’em.”
      I shoved the pistol in my camo pants and left the store before I changed my mind. I was way too close to agreeing with him.  
    Ida Belle was perched at the back of a tiny aluminum boat next to an outboard motor. Gertie sat on a bench in the middle, wearing a life vest and squinting at me as I approached the bank.  
    “Couldn’t we borrow a bigger boat?” I asked.  
    “A bigger boat won’t fit down the channel,” Ida Belle said.
    “Are you sure this thing’s safe?”
    Ida Belle waved a hand in exasperation. “Just get in and sit down up front. Unless you plan on dancing in here, the thing’s fine. And push me away from the bank, will you?”
    I looked at the wobbly piece of tin and hesitated, then chastised myself. I’d seen plenty of boat launches on movies. I could handle this.  
    I untied the boat from a giant post, then pushed the front of the boat just a bit with my foot. The mud it was resting in must have been slick because the boat launched backward. Panicked, I leapt from the bank onto the flat shelf on the front of the boat, waders and all, and froze in a judo fighting stance.  
    Gertie clapped, grinning from ear to ear. “That was amazing. I figured you were going to flip over into the bayou, and then we’d have to fish you out and buy you new waders.”
    Great. Twenty-five years of martial arts training had managed to entertain Mother Time in the bayou. My father would be proud.  
    “I thought the waders were waterproof,” I said. “Why would you have to replace them if I fell in?”
    “They’re water tight ,” Ida Belle said. “So as soon as you get in water over the waistline, they’ll fill up and you’ll sink like a stone. If that happens, you have to shed those waders and let them go. Then you’ll have to buy another set.”
    “That happen a lot?”
    “Probably more than you want to know about.”
    “Hmmmm.”
    “Are you going to sit down?” Ida Belle asked. “Or am I supposed to drive down the bayou with you up there looking like a Jackie Chan hood ornament?”
    I hopped down into the boat and sat on the bench at the front. It was a good thing I did. Next thing I knew, Ida Belle twisted the throttle on the boat motor and it launched a good two inches out of the water and ten feet forward in less than a second. If my feet hadn’t been firmly planted on the bottom of the boat, I would have been face-first in the aluminum.  
    Gertie, however, did not fare as well. She flipped over backward off the bench, still clutching the shotgun, and shot out the lights on Walter’s pier. I looked back at the store to find