by Fran Rizer
Just as I slid into the front passenger seat, a loud crash of thunder rumbled almost simultaneously with vivid white lightning streaking across the sky.
“That’s close,” Otis said. “Rain’s coming. Sorry about your car, but I’ll get you home.”
“Have you seen my Mustang?” I asked as rain poured, making it almost impossible for me to see through the windshield. Yet Otis didn’t remove his glasses.
“I haven’t seen the car,” he said. “I went home after I dropped you off. Your father called me at my house and asked me to come get you. Said you sounded upset, and since I live near here, he knew I could get to you faster than he could.” He paused and then added, “And I think he’s determined to find Bill before the sheriff does.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that it had seemed like I’d had to wait forever.
“Where do you want to go?” Otis asked. “Your apart- ment, your father’s, or Ellen’s?”
“Why would I go to Miss Ellen’s?”
“Your father said Jane got a phone call right after you and I left the grill. She was scared to go home without you, and the Parrish place is full already. Ellen invited Jane to spend the night with her.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but you’re scaring me to death driving in this storm with those shades on. Can you see well enough?”
“Not really,” Otis said and lifted the sunglasses from his face. The skin all around his eyes looked puffy and painful. I noticed that he wasn’t really moving his mouth much when he spoke.
“What happened to your face?” I gasped, thinking that if he’d had another facelift, this one was a disaster.
“It will be all right. Don’t look at me. Where do you want to go?” Otis is almost always a gentleman while Odell tells it like it is regardless. The tone of, “Don’t look at me,” sounded like Odell, not Otis.
“Wherever they’ve towed my car.”
“It hasn’t been towed yet, but it’s way out there in the sticks behind the old abandoned Halsey place. Now that they know the car was stolen, they’re examining it more thoroughly or that’s what your father said. I don’t know how much they can do in this rain. Mr. Parrish was eager to get back to looking for whoever was driving your car as well as finding Bill.”
“Take me there.”
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t think you’d want to go to the Halsey place.”
“I’m positive. I want to see how bad the car damage is. Thank heaven my insurance company decided my car is a vintage collectible and not just old, so it’s insured for a lot more than the average ‘66. Hopefully, I can just pay the deductible and insurance will cover the rest of the repairs.”
“I’ll phone your father and get specific directions.” Otis made the call. He didn’t put it on speaker phone, so I didn’t hear, but we headed toward the Halsey place.
When we turned off the highway onto the dirt road into the woods, the canopy of the treetops and the pelting rain blocked out the moonlight, making it much darker.
We didn’t go more than a mile before I saw lights. Otis parked behind a single Jade County Sheriff’s Department cruiser. Through the rain, Otis and I could see my baby: the only thing I’d salvaged from my marriage.
“Ohhh,” Otis moaned. I was speechless with shock.
The front end of my Mustang was flat against a massive tree trunk, looking like it had gone through it, but in reality, the front end had crumpled like an accordion against the oak.
Mike walked over. I lowered the window to talk to him, but Otis motioned for him to get into the backseat. He was drenched and dripping water just from walking from his truck to the Lexus. Otis had leather car seats, but the water would probably ruin the plush carpet back there.
“I’m sorry the pony is wrecked, but I’m so glad you weren’t driving,” Mike said.
“Who was behind the wheel? How bad was the driver injured?” I asked.
“They don’t know,” Mike said. “When the car was found, there was no one in it. Pa went nuts, and the sheriff was just about as bad. All of us were searching for you, afraid you’d wandered off not knowing where you were. Then you called.”
“What about Bill? Has anyone heard from him?”
“Not yet,” Mike said.
“I don’t quite understand why your family is helping the sheriff’s department search for your brother,” Otis commented.
“It’s crazy to think Bill would kill anyone,” Mike answered, “but he made a big mistake by running. That makes him look guilty. Pa wants to find him and have him turn himself in before this becomes a big APB instead of a BOLO.”
“Is that what it is now, a ‘Be On Look Out’ instead of an ‘All Points Bulletin?’ ” I asked.
“Yes, but no matter what caused Bill to climb out that bathroom window to escape talking to the sheriff, the longer he’s missing, the worse it will look, and we don’t know Bill’s frame of mind. Pa doesn’t want Bill acting like an idiot and some overeager deputy shooting him.”
I hadn’t considered that scenario before and just the thought of it made me shiver.
“Are you going to take her home?” Mike asked Otis.
“I’ll take her wherever she wants to go.”
“Good. I’m going to help with the search for Bill.” He got out of the car.
I turned toward Otis. “I’m going to take a closer look,” I said.
“There’s a big umbrella in back.”
“Why didn’t you offer it to Mike?”
“Because I was saving it for you. I knew you’d want to touch that car before we leave.”
The umbrella was one of the oversized ones we kept at the mortuary for use when it rained during a funeral service. I sloshed through the mud over to my car. A deputy stepped out of the Jade County cruiser and met me. He recognized me and said, “Sorry about your car, Callie.”
“Can I get inside it?”
“I don’t think so. The way it’s bent, the doors won’t open. Are you looking for something?”
“My cell phone is in the glove compartment, and my maid of honor dress for Daddy’s wedding is in the backseat.”
The deputy pointed to a garment bag lying in a mud puddle beside the Mustang. Wet clay covered some of the letters, but I knew what it said: Belle’s Beautiful Brides. A spill of dirty teal chiffon fell from the ripped bag.
“Is that your dress?” the deputy asked.
“Yes. Who dropped it on the ground?”
“Must have been thrown out during the accident when the roof was torn off.”
“Can I take it?”
“I don’t know why not.” He laughed. “But if it turns out I should have refused, just don’t tell Harmon you asked, okay?”
“Okay, may I look in the glove compartment?”
“I’ll open it for you. The car isn’t really stable and the doors won’t open, but with the ragtop shredded like it is, I can reach it.” He leaned over the passenger side and tried to open dash pocket. It wouldn’t budge. He yanked it, and all the papers and junk I kept in there came tumbling out onto the floor, which was full of rain. The deputy caught my cell phone in mid-fall and handed it to me. I clicked it on and was surprised that the display lit up. I was even more surprised to see dozens of calls and text messages from J. T. Patel. I quit carrying my cell phone in my bra when I read that it wasn’t safe or healthy, but I definitely didn’t want the rain blowing beneath my umbrella to wet the phone, so I shoved it into my fake cleavage, grabbed the muddy garment bag, and hurried back to Otis and the Lexus. The deputy followed me.
“Why are you here alone?” I asked.
“Waiting for the tow truck.”
“Will you tell them to tow the car to Pee Wee’s Garage when they finish with it?” I asked him as I tossed the garment bag onto the floor in back before I closed the door. I squeezed my eyes tight to keep from crying.
“I’ll tell them, but it won’t matter where you want it taken. It’s a stolen vehicle and will be towed to the impound lot.”
“Nothing else to do,” I answered.
“Where to?”
“Take me to my apartment.”
10:00 P.M.
I looked at the clock, it was ten forty-three Stony-faced Otis glanced over at me “I know you’re upset, Callie, but this could have been a whole lot worse.” Otis used his comforting Undertaking 101 voice.
“They won’t be able to fix the car, will they?” I asked, but I knew the answer.
“It’s definitely totaled.”
As we pulled out of the wooded area and onto the
highway, we passed a wrecker that I assumed was headed to tow my Mustang. I began reading my text messages and became more irritated by the moment. The text messages were mostly from J. T. Patel, and they varied between declarations of his love for me and complaints about the demands of his business—not the restaurants, but the midway
concessions he ran for state fairs. Repeatedly, he had texted bitter demands to know why I wouldn’t answer my phone. Repeatedly, he had texted that he would be on the road toward South Carolina within an hour or so. Repeatedly, he had changed departure from Florida to a later time. Toward the end of the messages, he began lamenting the difficulties of long-distance relationships.
My sigh was lengthy and loud. Otis looked at me. “You sure have a lot of texts, Callie, and they don’t seem to be improving your mood any.” He cut me an apologetic look before adding, “Not that I don’t understand why you’re in that mood.”
“The texts are all from J.T. He’s irritated how important it is to me for him to be here tomorrow for Daddy’s wedding.”
“Didn’t you go to Florida to see him several times?” “Yes, and he’s been up here a lot since I met him, but he’s been too busy the past few months. I told him how important it is to me for him to be at the wedding.”
“How serious are you about this man?”
Otis glanced over at me, and I snapped at him, “Keep your eyes on the road!”
He turned his attention to driving but continued, “You can’t maintain a relationship indefinitely like this. If it’s going to be permanent, one of you will need to move.”
“Permanent? “Do you really believe there’s such a thing as a permanent relationship these days?”
“Well, Odell and I have both been divorced, but our parents stayed together ‘til death parted them. And I don’t think your mom and dad would ever have divorced. They would still be together if he hadn’t lost her to death so young.”
I sat silently for a few minutes, waffling between the old feelings of guilt and resentment I’d sometimes felt as a child. My mother died giving me birth. I pushed that out of my mind. I decided many years ago to neither take nor give guilt trips.
“I’d begun to think Bill and Molly would make it, but now I doubt it.” I hadn’t meant to tell anyone about Bill and Molly and Loose Lucy, but the words tumbled out unrestrained, and I told Otis all about the morning.
“So that’s what’s going on? Making you doubt Patel? What does that have to do with the sheriff wanting to talk to Bill?”
“The body Ty and I found out on Dunbar Road turned out to be Josh Wingate, Loose Lucy’s boyfriend. Bill let Lucy stay at his house without Molly knowing about it because Lucy told him that Josh had abused her. I thought Bill and Molly were doing great with their new house and the dog business going so well. Then we caught Bill hiding Lucy in his and Molly’s home.”
“Well, you can’t fix that. Try to get a good night’s sleep and the world might look better tomorrow. Maybe both Bill and Patel will be here in the morning.”
“I hope so. There’s hardly anything worse than being a bridesmaid or maid of honor without a date at the wedding, and I’m really worried about Bill. He needs to come on home and straighten out this mess.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Otis asked.
“No, I just keep thinking one of the worst things has to be for a loved one to be missing, to disappear. There would never be any closure.”
We rode silently for a few minutes, and then I laughed. “What’s funny?”
“I was thinking about Dr. Donald Walters. I saw him earlier this evening, and he called J. T. Patel my ‘carnie.’ It made me think of that story you told me about the man called Spaghetti. You remember, don’t you? The Italian man who traveled with the carnival and died in Laurinburg, North Carolina? The carnival traveled on without him, and the funeral home kept his body for years because no one was willing to pay for services. That might be the only way I’d get my own carnie here for good—to embalm him and keep him at Middleton’s, or better yet, prop him up in a corner of my kitchen.”
“Callie! That’s awful!” The scolding tone of Otis’s voice didn’t match the smile on his face.
“It’s terrible, but it seems every time I meet someone I think is going to be the real deal, it falls apart. I could just lean him up in the corner and take him out when I need an escort.”
“Callie, I’ve noticed that you sometimes give off an ‘I’m not interested’ attitude. I’ve seen the way men look at you, and as a man myself, I can tell you that you’re very attractive.”
“I’m just tired of being lonely, and too many of those men who ‘look’ at me, aren’t really interested in getting to know me.”
“I don’t think your silent escort propped up in your kitchen would be getting to know you either, and you don’t want someone who’s only with you because he has no choice.”
He was right. I didn’t want a man that didn’t really want to be with me, but I continued anyway.
“It would sure solve the problem of always needing an escort when I’m either between relationships or involved with someone who’s too busy for me,” I said.
“Callie, that’s ridiculous.”
“And remember what you told me about William Lee, the deaf fisherman who became the Alton Mummy? Deaf Bill spent a long time between his embalming and burial, didn’t he? I’ve forgotten—where was that?”
“Yes, he died in 1915 in Illinois, and wasn’t buried until 1996, eighty-one years later. What makes you think about him now?”
“It has to do with closure. People need closure. That’s what I like about what we do at Middleton’s. We provide closure for people when they lose a loved one. I think it would be horrible for a family to worry about a loved one for years while he’s lying in a funeral home someplace far away. The dead deserve to rest in peace.”
“That’s mine and Odell’s attitude, too.”
“Then you wouldn’t keep a body because the bill wasn’t paid? Like collateral?”
“No. We would petition the county to declare the person indigent if no next-of-kin could be located. Then, we could get permission to inter or cremate. My father told us about Spaghetti when we were little. He said that he stopped at the mortuary and saw the corpse before some Italian congressman eventually paid for the man to be buried.”
“I just know I don’t want my brother Bill to disappear and stay gone. I want him cleared and home with his family. What if I never see him again?”
We pulled into the circle drive in front of the duplex apartments where Jane and I live. I heard my dog barking in the backyard.
“Will you wait here until I get Big Boy inside?” I asked Otis.
“I’m going to walk both of you in.”
Otis followed me around to the back of the building. Big Boy came flying out of his dog house and galloped to the gate. I reached over and petted him. As soon as I had the gate unlocked, all hundred and fifty pounds of Great Dane jumped up on me, almost knocking me down.
“That dog thinks he’s still a puppy,” Otis said.
“He’ll always be my puppy. Do you want to come in for coffee?” I asked.
“Why not? But as late as it is, I’d rather have hot tea.”
The three of us went into my apartment, and immediately, Bob Seger sang out “I love that old time rock ‘n’ roll,” letting me know I had
a call. I looked at the display, recognized the number, answered “hello,” and headed to my bedroom calling back to Otis that I was going to the restroom.
“Bill! Where are you?” was the first thing I whispered into the phone after closing the bedroom door.
“I can’t tell you that, but I need you to help me.”
“The best way I can help you is to pick you up and take you to turn yourself in to the sheriff. You know Wayne will treat you right.” I went into the bathroom and closed that door.
“You don’t understand,” Bill protested. “Wayne told me that Lucy said I drove off from my house early this morning right after Molly left and didn’t get back there until a few minutes before you showed up with Mike, Molly, and Ty. He also said that Josh hadn’t been dead long when you found him.”
“So?” I flushed the toilet, so Otis would believe I was in there legitimately.
“That would put me away from the house with no witnesses during the time Lucy’s boyfriend was killed. She’s trying to frame me. I want you to talk to her and find out why.”
“Lucy and I don’t exactly like each other.”
“I know, but you’re the only one I can trust to do this.”
“Turn yourself in and tell the sheriff about it. He’ll straighten it out for you.”
“That’s easier for you to say than for me to believe. I need to know what’s going on.”
“I saw Lucy. She looks pretty rough. Maybe she’s mad that you put her out on the roof and she got hurt.”
“Just do what I ask you, and, Callie, don’t tell anyone about this call. If you do, the sheriff will be tracking my location through cell towers.”
“But . . . “ It didn’t matter what I was going to say because he disconnected.
I slid the phone into my pocket and returned to the living room with Otis. He was kicked back in my recliner, channel surfing on the television remote control. Big Boy lay stretched out on the rug beside my boss. The dog was snoring.
I microwaved two mugs of water and dropped Constant Comment tea bags into them. When the tea looked the right color, I removed the little bags. After carefully setting the cups on the coffee table along with a box of Moon Pies, I curled up on the couch.