“Since never. Lavender gave them to me. He said to let them collect dust until I hit puberty. Then I can use them or sell them, whichever I want.” He stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and licked his fingertips. “So,” he said. “When do we start?”
“Start what?”
“Talking clues,” he said, taking my notebook from the nightstand and handing it to me. “About Miss Lana.”
He frowned and leaned toward me. “She’s—been—kidnapped?” he said slowly, raising his voice at the end, as if I had gone dense. “We—are—detectives?”
“Some detectives,” I said. “We can’t tell a bank robber from a bodyguard.”
“We’ll find Miss Lana, Mo,” he said. “We’ll do like Miss Retzyl taught us. Remember? Define the problem, then solve it. Problem?” He tilted his head the way Miss Retzyl tilts hers when he gives up in math.
I sighed. “Miss Lana’s been kidnapped by Slate.”
“Because?”
“How should I know?” I wailed. “Nothing makes sense.”
“Shhhhh. You’ll wake Mama.”
He pulled Miss Lana’s scrapbook toward him. “Why would anybody want to take Miss Lana? I mean, she’s nice, but she drives the Colonel so crazy he stays away half the time.” He glanced up from the scrapbook. “I mean that in a good way,” he said. “I love Miss Lana.”
“I know. I love her too.”
“It could have been accidental,” he said. “Maybe Slate thought she was a movie star. Cher, maybe. She does wear wigs. No,” he sighed, saving me the trouble of shooting him down. “That’s not it.”
“Maybe she surprised him,” I said. “Maybe she found him ransacking the living room, looking for … something. Or for the Colonel. Slate had already been to our house once. Remember? The night Mr. Jesse died.”
“That’s right,” he said, and turned a page in the scrapbook. “Who’s this?”
I glanced at the photo. “Miss Lana, prior to blossoming.”
He turned to her drama club collage. “Wow,” he muttered. “Way to blossom.” He yawned. “Why would a bank robber take Miss Lana? What do bank robbers want?”
“Money?” I guessed as he turned to the photo of the young Colonel, with me on his knee. “Only she ain’t got none. Neither has the Colonel, unless …” I stopped, staring at the photo, at the open suitcase on the table.
Dale looked up. “Unless what?”
“Unless Slate believes that old rumor. About the suitcase full of cash.”
He snorted and closed the scrapbook. “He can’t be that stupid. Daddy started that rumor so people would be nice to the Colonel when he first came to town.”
“Never underestimate the power of stupid, Dale. What if Slate thinks that rumor’s true? What if he kidnapped Miss Lana to get money that isn’t even real?”
Dale scratched his head. “Even if he did, we still got to find a way to get her back.” He stood up and stretched. “Let’s sleep on it, Mo,” he said, picking up the scrapbook. “Can I take this? I can study it while Lavender mutters.” I nodded. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.” Queen Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “Liz,” he said, “you stay with Mo.”
A photo fluttered from the scrapbook as he closed the door. In it, a young Colonel and Miss Lana stood arm in arm in front of an old church, smiling at me. The wind whipped Miss Lana’s hair around her face. I laid it on the table, clicked off the light, and settled back into bed.
I closed my eyes and tried to sense where Miss Lana was. Please Miss Lana, I thought, think to me. I’m at Miss Rose’s house.
Finally I shoved the sheet away and walked to the window overlooking the barnyard. The night sky stared back at me patient and black, dressed in wide sweeps of stars.
The Colonel’s voice found me, steady and clear: “When you feel lost, let the stars sing you to sleep. You’ll always wake up new. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Soldier?”
“I think I do now, sir,” I whispered.
I dragged Dale’s beanbag chair to the window and fell asleep listening to the stars.
Chapter 20
A Suitcase Full of Cash
“Miss Rose,” I said the next morning, “I want to tell Joe Starr about the Colonel’s suitcase of money, and about the night he crashed at the edge of town.”
She sat at the kitchen table, stirring cream into her coffee. “That old story?” she said, looking startled. “Why?”
“Because,” I said, “Slate might think that old story’s true. It’s the only reason I can think of that he might have stole Miss Lana. And we can’t tell that story without telling about the Colonel’s crash.”
Lavender ambled in and slid my scrapbook across the table. “Nice photos,” he said, taking a basket of eggs from the refrigerator. “You want some eggs, Mama?” She shook her head. “Mo, you think you can make toast?”
Can I make toast? Is he kidding me?
As I popped two slices of Wonder Bread into the toaster, the bathroom door slammed. “Dale’s up,” I said, taking two more slices from the bag and twisting it shut. I glanced at Lavender, who’d tied a gingham apron over his jeans. “What do you think we should do, Lavender?”
“I think we should get some plates and forks.”
I headed for the cupboard. “I mean about Miss Lana.”
He studied me, his blue eyes serious. “I think we should do everything we can. If searching will help, I’ll search. If talking about the suitcase or the Colonel’s crash will help, I’ll talk. I’m surprised nobody’s already told him, anyway.”
Have I mentioned I will marry Lavender one day? We’ll adopt six children, some of them twins. He poured the eggs into the pan. “Dale!” he bellowed. “Get a move on!”
The toaster popped up two pieces of burnt toast. “We need to tell it careful,” I said. “Starr might not take the Colonel serious once he finds out he can’t remember anything.”
“Oh, Mo, everybody takes the Colonel seriously,” Miss Rose said. “He only missed being mayor by one vote last year, and he wasn’t even running.”
“Miss Lana voted against him,” I said. “Twice.”
Lavender shoveled eggs onto three plates. “Dale!” he called. “We’re eating.”
Miss Rose smiled at him as he sat down beside her. “Macon started that rumor the same day I met Lana. You were such a cute baby,” she told me.
“Yeah, except for that diaper thing,” Lavender said, wrinkling his nose.
I flipped a fork of eggs at him.
“Don’t throw your food,” Miss Rose said automatically. “Macon and I went over expecting to find the Colonel with you. But there was Lana sitting on the porch, rocking you and singing a lullaby. I can see her clear as day, wearing that light blue dress, the one with the little flowers and the pearl buttons down the back.
“We introduced ourselves, and suddenly Lana and I were best friends. After a while we went inside, and there was that old, striped suitcase lying open, full of baby things. And beside the suitcase was a stack of cash. The Colonel scooped the cash into the suitcase and closed it, and then he and Macon laughed about the Colonel’s suitcase full of cash.”
She glanced at Lavender, her eyes dancing. “You know how your daddy used to be, before … Well, before. Soon it was all over town—how Lana and the Colonel were living out of a suitcase of cash, buying whatever they needed to get the café up and running.” She shrugged. “I don’t see much reason to tell Starr about it, Mo, but I don’t see any harm in it either, if you want to.”
“Tell me what?” a voice said from the hallway, and we jumped. I whipped around, my mouth full of eggs. Starr stood in the door, hat in hand. His clothes were wrinkled and tired, and his chin wore a dark sheen.
“Did you find Miss Lana?” I asked.
“Not yet.”
Suddenly my eggs didn’t look fit to eat.
“Come in,” Miss Rose said. “I’ll pour you some coffee.”
He tossed his hat on the counter and sank into a cha
ir. “Thanks.” His eyes found mine. “Well, I’m reporting, as promised. We’ve searched all the deserted buildings in the area. We didn’t find her, but we also didn’t find any sign of foul play. Second, we suspect Slate’s driving a black Malibu—the last unaccounted-for car that belonged to Dolph Andrews. It helps to know that. And third, my people are searching Slate’s old hangouts in Winston-Salem. Also good.”
“Winston-Salem? But that’s so far away!”
“But it’s my territory—which gives me the advantage,” he said. “Now we wait. Waiting’s tough, but every detective knows that’s part of the job, right?”
I nodded, blinking back tears.
“That’s my report. Now, what did you want to tell me?”
I pushed my plate away as Dale slipped into the room. “I wanted to tell you about a suitcase,” I said, still trying not to cry.
“Actually,” Miss Rose said, “it’s an old rumor about the Colonel and a suitcase of cash.”
Starr frowned. “Cash?”
Dale inched around Starr and plucked a piece of toast from my plate. You could tell Dale the world had ended and he wouldn’t lose his appetite.
“It was a lie,” I said, finding my voice again. “Dale’s daddy told it after the car crash that brought the Colonel to town and made him forget his life.” Somehow, it didn’t sound so good out loud. “The point is, Slate might think that rumor about the money is true. I’m thinking that’s why he kidnapped Miss Lana.”
Starr nodded. “I’ve heard the Colonel has memory problems,” he said. “How about filling me in?”
I opened the scrapbook and slipped the Colonel’s story out. “Here’s the story in his own words,” I said. “You can skip the first part. It’s about me. The second part’s about him.” To my surprise, he read the whole thing out loud:
Dear Soldier,
I know you wonder how we came to be here, in Tupelo Landing.
You were born during a hurricane. I imagine your mother did what people do on hurricane days: She bought food, tied the porch furniture down, fell asleep listening to the wind. No one expected a flood.
Like others, she awakened in darkness, startled by the bump of furniture against her walls. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and screamed. The floodwater lapped against her knees. She splashed across the porch and scaled the trellis as bits of other people’s lives drifted by: an easy chair, an oil drum, a chicken coop with a drenched rooster perched on one side. You were born as the water crept up the roof and her world shrank smaller and smaller.
In the distance, I believe, she caught a glimmer of hope: a broken billboard spinning crazily on the tide. She wrapped you in her gown as the sign skidded across the roof. Gently, she placed you there, then cried out as the makeshift raft slipped from her hands. You spun away, my dear. And you were not afraid.
I, on the other hand, was scared out of my mind.
“This next part is more about the Colonel,” I said. Starr turned the page:
I awakened in a wrecked car, in a raging storm, my head howling. Winds roared. Trees fell. Worlds drowned.
Who was I? I couldn’t remember. Where had I come from? I didn’t know.
I slid down the bluff by the creek, grabbing great hands full of kudzu to break my fall, and crouched by the creek. My leather shoes sank into the mud. I locked my arms around my knees and rocked to keep from screaming.
I didn’t know there was a dike upstream. I didn’t know it would break.
“Why, God?” I cried. “What do you want from me? Give me a sign.”
In that instant, your billboard careened ashore on a wall of water, cracking the back of my head. I reached for balance and touched what I thought was a puppy. Then you grabbed my finger. My God, I thought. It’s a baby. I fainted dead away. That’s how Macon found us the next day—me unconscious on half a billboard, you nestled in my arms, nursing on the pocket of my uniform. The half billboard said: “… Café … Proprietor.” Our path seemed clear.
I will always love your mother for letting you go, Soldier, and I will always love you for holding on.
Love, the Colonel.
PS: I apologize for naming you Moses. I didn’t know you were a girl until it was too late.
I slid my plate to Starr. “Try the blackened toast. I made it special. I hope you ain’t taking any of this about the Colonel the wrong way,” I added.
“I’m trying not to. How much money is in this rumor?”
“Oh,” Miss Rose said, brushing imaginary crumbs from the table. “Thirty thousand dollars or so.” The phone rang. “Dale, do you mind getting that?” Dale trotted off down the hall, toward the living room.
“Thirty thousand dollars?” Starr sputtered, going red at the collar.
“It’s just a rumor,” I said.
“Really? That’s a good trick, building a real café with rumored money,” he said.
I hadn’t thought of that. I looked at Miss Rose. “The Colonel had some cash when he came to town,” she said. “Lana brought some. … Macon liked the Colonel. He might have loaned him money, for all I know. Things were better for us then.”
Starr ran his finger along his eyebrow. “Is any of that money left?”
I pictured the dollar bill over the café’s kitchen door, and the Emergency Five in my suitcase.
“I doubt it,” Miss Rose said. “As far as I know, their money was gone before Mo could walk. Except … there is the dollar bill over the kitchen door.” She laughed like a wind chime on a shady porch. “Lana bought the first lunch special at the Colonel’s café, and if memory serves, she paid for it with his money. He hung it up the same day.”
“Great. I’ll run the serial number,” Starr said. “See if it’s connected to Slate.”
“What? The Colonel ain’t no robber,” I said, my voice rising. “I didn’t tell you this so you could run the blooming serial number.”
“Calm down, Mo,” Lavender said. “Detective Starr’s trying to help.”
“Mo, everything I learn gets me closer to finding Lana,” Starr said. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table—something Miss Rose don’t allow. “I’m working every angle I can find. Right?” He glanced at my plate. “Anybody gonna eat that last piece of toast?”
“Help yourself,” Miss Rose said as Dale trudged back into the kitchen. “Who was on the phone, baby?” she asked.
“Slate.”
Lavender and Starr leaped to their feet.
“Don’t bother getting up,” Dale added. “He said he’ll call back later.”
Chapter 21
Ransom
Around eleven o’clock, Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton rapped on the door. “Rose?” she called. “Is Mo here? I’m nibblish, and with the café draped in crime scene tape, I thought I might dine here today—if she’s available.”
Starr looked up from his phone-tracing gizmo. “She dropped by for lunch?” he whispered to Deputy Marla. “During an investigation? Is she insane?”
I handed the screwdriver to Deputy Marla. “I’ll act like I didn’t hear that, as that’s practically my grandmother you’re talking about,” I said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to show some respect.” I turned to the door. “I’m in here, Grandma Miss Lacy,” I called. “Miss Rose is in the garden and Lavender’s in town, working on his car. Come in and I’ll make you a sandwich. Miss Rose has Wonder Bread.”
The screen door squeaked open. “Please don’t call me Grandma, dear,” she said. “You know I prefer Grandmother.” She smiled at Starr and extended her hand, which is as fragile and blue-veined as a baby bird. “Detective Starr,” she said.
“Ma’am,” he said, giving her hand a gentle pump.
“Would you like a PB and J?” I asked her.
“Don’t trouble yourself, dear,” she replied. “I have a basket of fried chicken in the Buick. Let’s spread a tablecloth on the porch. Detective? Deputy?” She fastened her smile on Deputy Marla. “You are a full deputy, aren’t you, dear?”
“
Yes, ma’am,” Deputy Marla said, standing up straight.
Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton beamed at her. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “Won’t you two join us for a picnic dinner?”
“I will,” Dale said, trotting down the hall. “I’ll get us some iced tea.”
“Thank you, Dale. That would be wonderful.”
I followed Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton to the porch and helped spread her yellow gingham tablecloth. She’d brought a feast: fried chicken, deviled eggs, coleslaw, potato salad, and rolls. As she passed out the plates, Mayor Little drove up in his dinged Jeep. “Mind if I join you?” he asked, pulling a paper sack from his front seat.
“Make yourself at home,” I said. He tiptoed across the porch, shrugged off his blue seersucker jacket, and folded it over the back of the swing.
“Sorry to hear of the recent unpleasantness, Mo,” he said. “I’d have dropped by sooner, but I’m monitoring the hurricane. I doubt she’ll turn this way, but if she does, your civil servants stand ready. I may open the school to refugees.”
“They can have my desk,” Dale offered.
Mayor Little settled in the swing and smoothed his napkin over his tie as Lavender and Sam roared up in Lavender’s GMC. Sam took the steps two at a time and handed me a fistful of orange daylilies.
“I do admire daylilies,” Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton murmured. “They’re as pretty as they are tough.”
Sam smiled. “Yes ma’am,” he said. “Just like Mo.”
“Gag me,” Dale muttered as I headed to the kitchen for a jar of water.
By noon, half the town draped themselves over Miss Rose’s yard, chatting and eating lunches they’d brought over themselves. Thes and Reverend Thompson nudged in among the Azalea Women, who’d claimed the garden table. Attila Celeste and her mother sat by their Cadillac, eating grapes and carrot sticks. Skeeter’s folks spread a blanket on the lawn.
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