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  TOE TO TOE

  A Nonie Broussard Novel

  by

  Deborah LeBlanc

  Smashwords Edition

  Published on Smashwords by:

  LeBlanc Laboratories

  Toe to Toe

  Copyright 2018 by Deborah LeBlanc

  ISBN: 978-1-937209-04-9

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  ALSO BY DEBORAH LEBLANC

  Family Inheritance

  Grave Intent

  A House Divided

  Morbid Curiosity

  Water Witch

  White Hot

  The Wolven

  Bottom Feeder

  Voices

  Witch’s Hunger

  Witch’s Thirst

  Witch’s Fury

  DEDICATION

  This book is for Roe, Sarah, and Pookie.

  CONTENTS

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30

  CHAPTER ONE

  Panting, Nonie Broussard struggled to pull off Dover Fontenot’s underwear. The man weighed well over three hundred and fifty pounds and carried most of that lard in his barrel-chest, gut and butt. Fortunately, Nonie’s father had been gracious enough to cover Dover’s face with a sheet of black plastic so she didn’t have to look at it.

  In life, Dover had been no Brad Pitt. He’d looked more like a pit bull. A sixty-three-year-old, cigar-smoking, bourbon-drinking, foul-mouth pit bull and the mayor of Clay Point, LA. Now his face anyway, was little more than a mangle of blood, bone, and hair. From what Nonie had been told, Dover had reached over to grab a pack of cigarettes that had slid from the passenger seat of his car to the floor. When he looked up again, his sedan was burying itself beneath an eighteen-wheeler’s flatbed.

  It was bad enough that Nonie had to take off his underwear, but doing it in an embalming room made it ten times worse. The smell of formaldehyde made her stomach do flip-flops, and the stark sterility of the room, with its steel appliances and white tile floors, walls and ceiling made her dizzy. Had Dover’s bloody goo of a face been exposed, she’d have bolted in a heartbeat.

  “So come on and get those damn things off already,” Guy Skinard said, leaning against the counter near one of the embalming machines.

  Nonie shot him a look. “The elastic keeps catching on the hitch in his butt. It sticks out so far you could sit a dinner plate on the damn thing. And why are you so anxious for me to get his underwear off anyway? You’re not even supposed to be in here. Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be?”

  Guy scowled. “No,” he snapped. “And I just wanna see, that’s all.”

  “See what?”

  “How big his wiener is.”

  “Guy Philip Skinard!”

  “Aw, come on. You can’t tell me you’re not a little bit curious.”

  “Not even,” Nonie said emphatically.

  “We can call it research,” Guy said. “You know, like disproving an urban legend.”

  Nonie pulled a bit harder on Dover’s shorts and felt them give a little. Sweat beaded up on her forehead from the effort. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know, he’s a big guy and all, but he’s got small feet and hands, which usually means a small wiener. I just wanna see if it’s true. See? Research.”

  Nonie glared at him. “You’re sick, you know that, right? Go on and get the hell out of here. You know this room is off-limits to the public.”

  “I’m not the public.”

  Nonie huffed. “Right. You’re a pain in the butt. Now go.”

  “And what’re you gonna do if I don’t? Kick me out?”

  None let out an exasperated sigh. Life used to be far less complicated.

  Only fourteen days ago she’d been working at Garmin’s T-shirt factory, located on the north end of town. Sewing labels on T-shirts had been a tedious, boring job, but it paid the rent on her half of a duplex, kept fuel in her ’98 gas-guzzling Acura, and food in her pantry.

  Nonie had started working at Garmin’s fresh out of college—all three semesters of it. It hadn’t taken long for her to figure out that extended academia was not for her. She’d applied at Garmin’s two days after dropping out. That had been nearly three years ago.

  She’d been content with her mindless tasks at the factory. Then one morning, out of the blue, all three hundred and forty-five employees came into work to find the kiss of death smacked on small pink slips in their time sheet box. Evidently the head honchos who owned the factory figured it would be more cost effective to manufacture their T-shirts in Indonesia, Mexico, or somewhere in bum-pluck China. Anywhere but Clay Point, LA. or any other city in the vast U S of A for that matter.

  The Garmin gorillas had doled out small compensation checks, but nothing close enough to cover Nonie’s monthly expenses. She’d needed another job and quick, but so did three hundred and forty-four other ex-Garmin employees. That left finding another job in Clay Point all but impossible.

  She’d had one job offer from Red Barn Feed & Seed, which she turned down. They’d wanted her to lug fifty-pound sacks of seed from trucks to storage bins for minimum wage. Another option had been for her to drive to Lafayette and look for work. But that meant she’d have two, forty-five-minute drives to make per day. With her resumé being so limited, Nonie figured that even if she did find a job in Lafayette, half of her salary would go to gas and repairs on her already abused car.

  That had left her with only one other choice. One she dreaded. One she’d avoided her entire adult life—working for her family’s funeral home. She’d grown up around the business and never could understand how her parents tolerated so much sadness every day without mentally cracking. Although, where mentally cracked was concerned, her mother, Rita Broussard, could be considered slightly questionable.

  So, stuck like a rock in hardening concrete, Nonie had sucked it up and talked to her father about hiring her, emphasizing her employment would be temporary, only until she’d found another job.

  Evidently Elmo Broussard—who most people in Clay Point called T-boy—suddenly experienced selective hearing when she’d mentioned the temporary part because the man damn near went into seizures from excitement. Finally, his prodigal daughter had come to him, wanting to work at the funeral home. To him, that meant that the Broussard Funeral Home legacy would live on once he passed away. It had already been handed down from father to son from two previous generations, so, for all intents and
purposes, it should be going to her brother, Matthew, who was five years old than Nonie. More than likely that discussion of passing from father to son had already taken place, though, because last year Matthew conveniently moved to El Paso with his wife, Jeannie, and their two kids. That left Nonie to deal with her father’s hopes and struggling with Dover’s underwear.

  “You almost got it,” Guy said. “Look, I see a little bit of hair. Just a little more—”

  “Shut the hell up,” Nonie snapped, then heard the snick of the lock on the embalming room door.

  Her Uncle Fezzo stepped inside and smiled when he saw her struggling with the stubborn underwear. “Looks like I got here jus’ in de nick of time,” he said.

  Fezzo was her father’s older brother and one of Nonie’s favorite relatives. He stood at least six foot three, had a stocky build, walked with a limp, spoke with a heavy Cajun accent, and, even at seventy-years-old, had a head of thick, gray hair. For years, Fezzo had made a living hunting alligators and running trout lines in the swamp. That came to an end when he lost a struggle with a five-hundred-pound gator. The beast’s jaws had clamped onto Fezzo’s right calf. Had it not been for Buzzard, Fezzo’s hunting buddy, he’d have lost that leg for sure.

  Fortunately, after three surgeries and a lot of physical therapy, Fezzo managed to walk again, but his alligator hunting days were over. That was when her dad had asked Fezzo to help at the funeral home. He knew Fezzo had too much pride to ask for a job, so Nonie’s dad had made it sound like the family desperately needed him. Evidently smelling a rat, Fezzo had taken some time before he consented. Now he helped with removals, kept the hearse and flower car in top running condition, and stood sentinel at viewings. He also lent a hand in the embalming room, undressing the deceased. Then he’d gussy them up after Butchy Thibodeaux, a short, blond, chubby man in his early thirties, and the funeral home’s apprentice, embalmed them.

  Earlier, Fezzo had been sent to retrieve Mrs. Inez Trahan, a ninety-four-year-old resident of Our Lady of the Oaks Nursing Home. She’d passed away quietly in her chair while watching a soap opera on television. With Fezzo gone, Nonie’s dad had asked her to help with Dover. They needed the mayor undressed stat in order to embalm him. This would then free up the embalming table for Mrs. Trahan. Grudgingly, Nonie had agreed. So far, she’d managed to strip off Dover’s button-down shirt, slacks, shoes and socks, then got snagged on his tighty-whities.

  “The mayor’s got a big hitch in his giddy-up,” Nonie said to Fezzo, “and I can’t lift him high enough to get his underwear off.”

  “Mah, don’t worry ‘bout dat,” Fezzo said. “You don’t need to see that old saggy sack anyways. I’ll take care of it. By de way, you friend, Buggy, is in de coffee room, and she’s hoppin’ around like she got a few bees up her butt. Said she needs to talk to you right away. So you go and see what she wants, and I’ll finish here. Don’t forget though. Dey want to do de viewing tomorrow, and you know what dat means.”

  Nonie rolled her eyes. “Yep, mega busy. Dad’s probably already taking Rolaids and Mom’s worried about everything being perfect and what she’s going to wear for the viewing.”

  Fezzo chuckled while donning a surgical gown. “You got it. So try to make it fast wit’ you friend. Den go see what else you daddy wants you to set up for tomorrow. Don’t want you mama to know you not workin’. She’d pass a stroke.”

  Nonie kissed her uncle on the cheek, then stripped off her surgical gown, hair cap and shoe covers. “Thanks for covering for me.”

  “Not a problem, mon petite fille. I’m supposed to be doing dis anyways.”

  Nonie smiled, left the embalming room and was about to head for the coffee room when she spotted Guy flanking her on the right.

  “You need to stay put,” she said. “For Buggy to come here, it must be important. That means private convo. You’re not invited.”

  “Aw, come on,” Guy protested. “You wouldn’t let me see Dover’s wiener, the least you can do is let me in on this.”

  “I said no,” Nonie said, and marched down the carpeted hallway to the coffee room. She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw Guy standing at the end of the hallway, pouting. She couldn’t help but think how sexy he looked with that pouty mouth, shoulder-length, blond hair, and those deep smoky gray eyes and dimpled chin. He wore scruffy jeans and a white T-shirt with the word Budweiser emblazoned in red across the front. It was so him.

  Nonie and Guy had been childhood sweethearts since high school. They’d been inseparable. Swore they’d marry, live in Clay Point and raise a brood of kids. Spend the rest of their lives simply loving and growing old together. Their dreams had roots in reality, save for one small problem.

  Guy Skinard had died in a freak boating accident nine years ago.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nonie’s sneakers whispered across the maroon, olive, and gold swirled carpet that lined the hallway to the coffee room. The funeral home was shaped like a T, with a sitting area and two viewing rooms taking up the base. Just inside the oak double-doors of the entrance sat a receptionist’s desk and a viewing room marquee. Beyond it were two brown leather sofas and four wing-back chairs, upholstered in tan and maroon striped fabric. The sitting area then led to the two viewing rooms, which sat on opposing sides of the funeral home. Viewing room A had been enlarged over the years so it held pews for chapel services for anyone choosing to veer off the traditional Catholic mass route. Room B was standard size and used most often.

  At the intersection that formed the top of the T of the funeral home sat her father’s office to the far left. Beside it was a women’s bathroom, followed by the coffee area then a men’s bathroom. The embalming room capped off the far right of the T.

  The coffee area held three, round, wooden tables with four matching chairs assigned to each, a snack bar and a small kitchenette. Since 98 percent of Clay Point’s forty-one hundred residents were Catholic, it wasn’t unusual to have family members bring gumbo, étouffée, or some other meal for family and friends gathered to mourn. Unlike other places around the U.S., funerals held in Cajun country were a process due its course. It called for a full day’s viewing with an occasional request for overnight stays, then two to four hours of viewing the following morning, and ended with a funeral mass, usually held at St. Anthony’s, located four blocks from the funeral home on Main Street. Burials most often took place in the cemetery that sat behind the church.

  Buggy hated funerals and funeral homes as much as Nonie did, so her friend coming here gave Nonie pause. Something had to be wrong.

  The moment Nonie swung into the lounge she spotted Buggy pacing impatiently around the tables. When she saw Nonie she started jumping up and down and clapping her hands like an eight-year-old, her face bright with excitement.

  Nonie had met Buggy Mouton in second grade and they’d been steadfast, best friends ever since. Buggy stood about five feet tall and weighed maybe ninety-eight pounds if she had ten dollars’ worth of quarters in her jean pockets. She wore her jet-black hair in a pixie cut with bangs, had huge caramel-colored eyes and a tiny nose that sat above full lips. Her choice of clothing very seldom swayed away from jeans, tees, and sneakers. Both Nonie and Buggy were quickly climbing the hill to thirty, so she couldn’t imagine what had set her friend off, causing her to act like an adolescent on speed.

  Before Nonie had a chance to ask, Buggy ran up to her, grabbed her by both arms, stared at her with wide, sparkling eyes and said, “Girl, you’re not going to believe the news I have. You’ve gotta sit ‘cause it’s gonna knock you on your ass!”

  When someone asked you to sit before they gave you news, that news was usually horrid. But Buggy looked too damn near orgasmic for this to be the case, so Nonie pulled a chair out from the nearest table and sat.

  “What’s up with you?” Nonie asked.

  Buggy flapped her hands at her sides like a young bird ready to take flight. “Okay, okay . . . Wait let me get a Coke first.”

  Before Nonie could prote
st, Buggy ran into the kitchenette, grabbed two Cokes from the fridge, then hurried back to Nonie and sat beside her. She handed Nonie a soda and pulled her chair up close.

  “All right, I’ll give you the scoop, but you have to promise not to say a word until I’m finished, okay?”

  “Um . . . okay,” Nonie said.

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “No, I’m serious,” Buggy insisted. “Like cross your heart, pinky-swear.”

  “Geez, we’re not in kindergarten, Bug. I promise I won’t say a word ’til you’re done,” Nonie said, starting to get annoyed and anxious at the same time. “Jesus, you look like you’re about to jump out of your skin. What’s the deal?”

  Buggy opened her Coke, took a long gulp.

  “Tell me already,” Nonie said, waiting for Buggy to finish guzzling her soda.

  Buggy placed the soda can on the table, let out a little burp then said, “Okay, here’s the skinny. You know how Lyle works for that cable company in New Orleans, WXRT, right?”

  “And?”

  “He drives the van. You know, the one with the satellite domathingies on it? The one they use when they have to film something live? Well, yesterday he’s driving the van to this big shindig they had to cover on Bourbon Street and guess who’s riding in the van with him?” Buggy looked at Nonie expectantly.

  Nonie sighed. “No clue.”

  “The producer of two of their highest-rated weekly shows and the owner of WXRT!”

  Having no idea where this was going, Nonie tried to look impressed for her friend’s sake. Buggy and Lyle had dated since high school just like her and Guy. “Driving the bigwigs. Pretty cool.”

  “Are you kidding? Like that never happens. Even better, Lyle’s not just driving the van, he hears them talking about a new show they want to put together called Something’s Out There. It’s like a ghost hunting thing, but only in the South. And get this—they want to start in Louisiana ‘cause we’ve always got some weird shit going on down here. If it works out as good as they hope, it might air farther than Louisiana. Like Texas or Arkansas.”