Chaos in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series) by Jana DeLeon Page B

six-year-old.”
    “Blue jeans are men’s clothes? Since when?”
    “Since forever if you ask some of the idiots who live here. Anyway, then Millicent said as how she’d offered you a discount for a cut and style but you’d turned her down. The other idiot said bad taste must run in the family and they both laughed like hyenas.”
    “So what did you do exactly?”
    “I emptied the bottle of hair dye that Millicent normally uses and refilled it with the purple-tinted one. They both look white coming out of the bottle.”
    Jadyn struggled to remain irritated, but after what Helena had told her, it was hard. “What they said was bitchy and rude. And if I’d heard it, I would have told them off. I get that you don’t have that option, but when you do things like this, it could cause trouble for Colt. People will think he can’t control the town, especially with everything that’s happened lately. There’s an election coming up…”
    Helena’s eyes widened. “Crap. It would be just like that narrow-minded bunch of sheep to vote him out over things he couldn’t control.” She sighed. “I’ll try harder. I swear, I held off as long as I could, but bad-mouthing you and Maryse is a surefire way to put me in the red.”
    “Maryse and I can take care of ourselves.”
    “Maybe so, but I don’t have many people left on this earth that I can talk to. If anyone is going to hurl insults about the two of you, then by God, it’s going to be me.”
    Jadyn sighed. Just when she thought she was making progress, the ghost brought her back down to reality.  
    “Now that we got that settled,” Helena said, “where are we going?”
    “We’re going to visit some shrimp houses in nearby villages and see if we can get an identity for our boat captain.”
    Helena immediately perked up, convincing Jadyn even more that she’d been correct when she made that boredom call. “Cool!” Helena said. “I love a good mystery. What do I get to do?”
    “You are going to be my eyes and ears after the fact,” Jadyn said, the idea just occurring to her.
    “What do you mean?”
    “When law enforcement asks people questions, they don’t tell the truth a lot of times. Sometimes it’s because they are covering for somebody, sometimes it’s because they don’t want me to accidentally discover something else they’re involved in, and sometimes it’s simply because they don’t want to be involved with the law no matter the cause.”
    “But where do I come in?”
    “When I finish questioning people, you stay behind and see what happens. Maybe they talk to someone else in the room. Maybe they make a phone call. Then you report back to me and I try to decide if it has something to do with my case or not.”
    “That’s a smart idea. I used to always talk about people once they’d left the room.”
    Jadyn looked over at the ghost. “You don’t say?”
    Helena waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. Come talk to me when you’ve lived here a year and tell me you don’t talk about people behind their back. I’ll wait.”
    Jadyn didn’t even want to think about dealing with Helena for another year, at least not as she was doing now. If the ghost wouldn’t or couldn’t leave earth for her otherworldly home, then things were going to have to change. Already Luc had offered Maryse a transfer to anywhere in the country. After her kidnapping, Raissa had resigned from her position with the FBI and was dead set on going back to college for interior design, claiming she’d never heard of draperies killing someone. Zach had also resigned and had opened a business specializing in security systems in New Orleans. They were already looking for a townhome in the Garden District.
    Granted, Jadyn would be shocked if Maryse ever agreed to leave Mudbug. Mildred was here, as was her work. And Sabine was perfectly happy with her cabin in the swamp and her business on Main Street and more than happy with her husband, Beau, who seemed as content