Double blast, p.22
Double Blast, page 22
They got me.
“How do you know all this, Courtney?”
“Because Fiona trusts me.”
Nah. I shook my head. Not buying it.
“If Fiona didn’t have somebody to talk to, the top of her head might blow off.”
That I somewhat bought into, but then again, I didn’t.
“She wanted someone to know the whole story in case something happened to her.”
A little more believable.
“I know a guy who sells Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. He used to be the manager at Orange Julius at Greenville Mall. Okay?”
That, I believed.
“Why did you disturb Eli Atwell’s body, Courtney?”
Her head jerked back. “Who said I did?”
“Answer the question.”
“I was looking for the silver coin.”
“I get that the root cellar information was beaten out of Frank Simmons, but how did you know where the root cellar was?”
“Roy Howdy told me.”
“When?”
“After his uncle died.”
“Was it in the middle of a casual conversation? Roy Howdy was at the bank cashing a voodoo check and just let it slip? ‘Oh, by the way, Courtney, I have a root cellar full of dead bodies.’”
“Something like that.”
“Did you find the silver coin?”
Her sigh answered for her, amended with, “But old Eli might’ve had it. We’ll never know.”
I tilted my head quizzically.
“I never got to dig in his pockets because Roy Howdy came stomping down to the basement to work on his voodoo. He had two mother-in-law candle orders.”
A novel idea, mother-in-law voodoo candles, and a typical Courtney move, not checking his pockets before hauling his dead carcass out of a casket. “Did Roy Howdy ask what you were doing in his basement?”
“Not so much.”
I found that odd, but then again, it was Roy Howdy. “So what’d you do?”
“Well, I had to distract him.”
“I wouldn’t imagine it would be too hard to distract Roy Howdy, but distract him to the point of him not noticing you dragging a dead body through the basement? And this after he found you there? How’d you manage that?”
Two bright spots popped up on her cheeks.
I raised an eyebrow.
She barely smiled. A small coy smile.
“Gross, Courtney.”
“Judge not lest you be judged, Davis Way. You don’t know what it’s like living in a small town with slim man pickens.”
Oh, yes, I did. He was locked in a bank vault as we spoke. “Skip that part,” I said. “Skip the Roy Howdy part altogether. Get to the why-you-moved-the-body part.”
“Well, after I got rid of Roy Howdy, I couldn’t get Old Eli back in the casket. I tried to stuff him back in real quick but stuffing a body back in a casket is harder than getting one out.”
If lightheadedness were a thing of mine, it would have paid me a visit just then. “How did you get him out in the first place?”
“I grabbed him by his war clothes.”
Lightheadedness tapped on my shoulder.
“He didn’t weigh nothing,” Coutney said. “He was all bones and teeth and a little bit of hair. But I couldn’t get him back in because I couldn’t find his knees.”
Lightheadedness and I dropped our heads and held up wait-a-minute fingers until our vision returned from its swim. When it did, I said, “Then?”
“Then I grabbed a gurney, tossed old Eli on it, and hightailed it out of there so I wouldn’t get caught.”
“You’ve been caught.”
“I know! Okay?”
I rolled a hand in a keep-going way.
“We went out the basement door and across the street to Bea’s.”
“We?” I asked.
“Me and Eli.”
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “Why Bea’s?”
“Because it was raining cats and dogs, and because Bea’s was close by and she was gone on her honeymoon.”
“Then you hid the body?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I figured Roy Howdy was back by then and waiting on me.”
“I told you I didn’t want to hear about you and Roy Howdy.”
“That’s part of the story, Davis. I sent Roy Howdy to my house to get our Twister game, and by the time I got all that done with Eli, I had to get back to Roy Howdy’s. It’s not like he could play Dirty Twister all by himself. Okay?”
I was about to go for Daddy’s gun and she knew it.
“Okay!” She held up stop sign hands. “Okay! And you’re no fun!”
“Back to Bea’s Diner.”
“I’m never going there again.”
I slapped my own forehead with a palm in frustration.
“Not that I really went there before,” she added.
My hands, of their own accord, clenched into fists.
“Bea’s,” Courtney rushed out. “Back to Bea’s. No one was supposed to find old Eli before I could go back over my lunchbreak the next day and find the coin. Then sneak him back to Roy Howdy’s. But you found old Eli first. Now we’ll never find the silver coin.”
If the coin was, indeed, hidden in the root cellar, it could have been in any of the four caskets. Or under a rock. Or in a shoebox. And had the coin been on Eli’s person, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Wilcox County’s coroner would have bagged it as evidence and notified everyone. Including me. Which he hadn’t. “What about the money?”
“What money?”
“The money Frank supposedly hid for a rainy day.”
She shook her head. “He hid it good, Davis. No one’s ever going to find that money.”
She was probably right about that. “One last question, Courtney.”
“Go right ahead. Not like I have a secret left to my name.”
“What’s in this for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I get that you’re Fiona’s only friend in the world, but does friendship really go that far? Exhuming, transporting, and hiding corpses far?”
“Well, for one thing, Fiona didn’t know about me tossin’ Eli’s casket till after. And what’s in it for me is the bank.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like you said, I’m her only friend in the world. After all I’ve done for her? I’ll get the bank.”
I think my mouth dropped open.
“Who else would she give it to?”
Bank charters didn’t work that way. (“Bye, Courtney. Thanks for everything. You can have the café curtains in my kitchen, my souvenir spoon collection, and the bank.”) Not that it mattered. I felt certain Pine Apple’s banking days were over.
Just then the door leading to the den, a door my parents never closed, creaked open. It was Florida. Her hands rested lightly on Cole’s shoulders. He didn’t look up. Florida whispered, “Someone needs a minute. Do you mind if we go to your room, Davis?”
“Not at all.”
Courtney and I watched them disappear into the stairwell.
I stood.
I stepped over to my mother’s amazingly tidy junk drawer and pulled out her grocery list pad and a pen. I placed them in front of Courtney. “Go talk to Fiona,” I said. “I’m sure she needs you.” I gave the pad and pen a push. “It’s probably best that Fiona, Florida, and Cole stay here with me tonight, so she might want a few things from her house. Make a list. She’ll want her toothbrush. A change of clothes. She may even want you to grab important documents. Just ask her what she needs for herself, Florida, and Cole. We’ll gather it all up, then I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay.” She was up, pad and pen in hand, and on her way into the den.
“And Courtney?”
She turned.
“Whatever it is you need to say to Fiona, say it now.”
“You don’t think they’ll take off for Nebraska tonight, do you?”
“I have no idea what’s going to happen tonight.”
Fifteen minutes later, I wished I’d given Courtney a timeframe. Like, “Say what you need to say, but wrap it up quickly.” So I spent the time thinking about my children. Their laughs. How sweet they smelled when they woke up. How much I missed them when they were just down the street. When it occurred to me I could call and check on them, even talk to the girls, it also occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my phone in three hours. That had me digging for it. And it was loaded.
First up, thirteen missed calls from Eugenia Winters Stone, President of Pine Apple Women’s Society. She’d left a six-minute voicemail. No telling what that was about. But it could wait.
I scrolled through the many text message notifications I’d been completely unable to read for hours on end, much less respond to, the last one from my sister only half an hour earlier. Where was I? Why wasn’t I answering? Did I hear Eddie rolled into town? Did Florida know? The baby was already asleep, and the girls were barely awake. If I didn’t text right back, everyone was going to bed. And would I PLEASE call Eugenia Winters Stone. I texted her back. Kinda tied up. Kiss my babies and I’ll call you as soon as I can. I kept scrolling, spotting a text message from Daddy, the first line of which was We will be home Tuesday... I didn’t know if we meant Mother and Daddy or if we meant Mother, Daddy, and Bea, but I saved the rest of the message for later anyway. For one, Tuesday was an eternity away. And for two, chances were it was about Bea Crawford. I was already dealing with her son. No one should have to deal with both at the same time. I slowed down at a message from my husband, along with a picture of my dogs, Cotton and Candy. We miss you. I gave it a heart. Thinking that didn’t show anywhere near the amount of love I was feeling, I texted back three big red hearts with, I miss you guys too. For good measure, I added another heart. My thumbs were poised to ask him if he had a minute for a phone call, that I was sitting on information I needed to share, but I couldn’t with Fiona and Courtney in the next room and didn’t want to start the “Who are Fiona and Courtney? Why are they in the next room?” business just then, so I decided it could wait until I had Courtney squared away. Why scare him before I had to? The remaining text message notifications had nothing to do with Fiona, Florida, or even Fantasy, so I figured I might as well get it over with. It wasn’t like I had anything better to do while I waited on Courtney to wind it up with Fiona already. I clicked the tiny phone receiver icon to listen to Eugenia’s message, which, I’d already decided, probably had something to do with Saturday’s Memorial Day Kickoff Pancake Breakfast. The Pine Apple Women’s Society was in charge of the event, which meant she was in charge, and it was probably a six-minute lecture on maple syrup. Only Eugenia could talk about maple syrup for six solid minutes. I hit the speaker icon, then the play button.
Daaaaavis, she huffed my name, I certainly hope your evening has been highly entertaining. I can’t imagine you shirking your sworn responsibilities to our beloved community for anything less than your own personal pleasure. Perhaps you needed, as they say, a little Me Time. Would that be why you’ve been unavailable to the citizens of Pine Apple since late afternoon? Was it a warm scented bath, perhaps with flickering candles, a soothing concerto on the record player, and a nice Cabernet that had you shirking your civic duties? If so, how lovely for you. And me, you might ask? How has my evening been? I had guests over for dinner. In spite of how much I have on my personal plate, I invited Willa Walters, who you might remember from your Pine Apple Pulp days, if, in fact, you ever set foot in the library, and her new beau, Cedric Kinder. Who I’m sure you know, as he hails from New Orleans, yet, as he shared with me, resides at your gambling hall in Biloxi. A charming gentleman, which, as you are surely well aware, is a scarce commodity in Pine Apple. Thus my attempt, as busy as I am, to welcome him to town with a lovely dinner. After we finished our appetizers of bourbon-glazed bacon-wrapped figs, then moved on to our salad course, Caesar, with my own white wine vinaigrette dressing, and were just finishing the highlight of our meal, garlic shrimp over fettucine with my famous white vodka sauce, we were interrupted by yet another oversized transportation trailer. Davis, Pine Apple wasn’t large enough to accommodate the massive vehicle you had parked in the middle of Main Street for the better part of two days, and it still isn’t large enough for the second obtrusive transportation truck you have blocking traffic, both foot and vehicular. And this new truck of yours is seemingly in need of new braking equipment. I can’t imagine you could have possibly missed the heinous noise that echoed through our valley and was surely heard for miles in every direction as the hideosity screeched to a stop. I’ll have you know I lost a Wedgewood Florentine serving platter in the melee. At the time of the vehicle’s abrupt and intrusive halt, I’d just shaken, poured, and passed beautiful after-dinner espresso martinis and was in the process of clearing the table of serving ware. The Wedgewood platter I was holding clattered to the floor and shattered into a million pieces. The Wedgewood has been passed through the Stone family for four generations, and thanks to you, future generations will not have a platter upon which to serve their holiday turkeys. And I won’t bother you with the aftermath of pasta, swimming in my signature white vodka sauce, landing on my hand-knotted wool dining room rug amidst the shards of my irreplaceable Wedgewood. As you’ve probably guessed by now, I was unable to reach you by phone to speak to you about the horrid, oversized truck arriving so late in the day, “after hours” as they say, and let me go on record as stating I do not appreciate being ignored. Nor do I appreciate Roy H. Carter refusing to take my calls either. Who did that leave to handle the situation? Me. I daresay when your father hears of this, on the heels of all the other turmoil you’ve caused, he will rue the day he chose you over me to keep law and order in our no-longer-charming little city. Davis, let’s get one thing straight. A good leader does not treat their third-in-command as you’ve treated me. Your mother will be downright appalled when she hears of it. And believe me, she’ll hear of it. If you intend to be, as they say, “out of pocket,” leaving me to, as they say, “cover for you,” I expect forewarning, details of pending events to include ill-timed arrivals, and open communication throughout. Your friend Cedric was kind enough to leave my dinner table, as I was otherwise occupied lightly dusting my hand-knitted wool rug with cornstarch in an effort to save it from my signature white vodka sauce, to welcome our latest “big rig” visitors, which brings me all the way to the purpose of this voice message. And please know that I find leaving voice messages just as demeaning an activity as talking to one’s own wall, and leaving a message for you feels downright futile to boot, but I implore you to listen carefully, nonetheless. It has been more than three hours since Cedric left my home on my behalf to kindly request the oversized vehicle relocate, and he has yet to return. Willa, as you can well imagine having already suffered through the pain of losing her husband, is distraught at Cedric’s unexplained disappearance and is blaming herself. It took me the better part of an hour—interrupted at regular intervals in my attempts to communicate with you—to calm her nerves. If and when your pedicure dries at the end of your personal evening of relaxation and rejuvenation, might you be bothered to look for your friend Cedric? That, Davis, is all. Goodbye.
Where would I even start to look for Whiskey? There were no ditches for him to stumble into and sleep it off. There were no bars for him to saddle up to and keep his liquor party going. There was no package store with a posted emergency number for him to call and say something like, “Might I humbly implore you to unlock your esteemed establishment after hours so that I might procure additional libations to compliment the spirit-riddled meal I just consumed?” Eugenia plied a barely sober alcoholic with bourbon, wine, and vodka. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind poor Whiskey had fallen off the wagon. And I wasn’t necessarily in a position to search for the wheels. Now the eighteen-wheeler in the middle of Main Street? I had no idea. For all I knew, Eugenia had a few too many nips while whisking vodka into her signature sauce and she’d dreamed it up. Because I would have noticed a big truck on Main Street. Surely, in spite of it all, I’d have noticed.
I rose from the kitchen table, knuckled the den door, and said, “Courtney? It’s time. I’ll be in my car.”
Ten minutes later, me drumming my fingers on the steering wheel the entire time, just about to beep the horn, Courtney opened the passenger door.
She’d left most of her mascara with Fiona.
I waited another excruciatingly long fifteen minutes in Fiona’s driveway while Courtney went inside. When she finally returned with two overflowing tote bags, I gently lectured her on our way to her house. Not one word to Roy Howdy or anyone else. Don’t answer any unknown calls on her phone, don’t answer the door, and I’d be in touch the next morning.
