I poked my head out the front door to see if Tim was still around. He was draped over the porch swing, pretending to read the Sunday edition of the Roanoke Times, but really arm-chairing all of the police work that was going on. It surprised me to realize that it was only Sunday. It felt like days since my ill-fated date with Kyle. A month since we’d laughingly gone door-to-door around Charli’s neighborhood, planting those flamingos. A lifetime since the mulch fight with Frank.
I settled onto the swing next to Tim and gazed out across to the mountains. It was another one of those sweet summer days that bring to mind lazing around at the lake. The green of the mountains made the sky a deep turquoise. I wanted to drink it all in, pretend like I was a pig-tailed little girl without a care in the world other than what type of rope to use for our tree house entrance.
Tim folded the paper, tossed in on the porch, and slung his arm across my shoulder. I buried my face in his soft cotton GHS shirt. It smelled like soap and fresh air, like comfort and safety. At times like that, I think I might just marry Tim so I can feel that way all the time. Usually it only takes about two more minutes of being around him before I regain my sanity.
“You okay?” he asked. His voice was gruff and tender at the same time.
I reluctantly sat up and shrugged. “Guess so, considering.”
He patted my back and gave me a big squeeze. “Dicey’s good. You’ll be fine.”
“I know.”
“I just want you to know that, no matter what, I’m here for you.” He patted and hugged some more.
This wasn’t like Tim at all. I wasn’t used to this syrupy, nicey-nice treatment from him. Usually he blasted me with both barrels if he thought I was screwing up. And since that was pretty much all the time, our relationship generally had three fazes: starting a fight, fighting, or getting over a fight.
Don’t get me wrong, Tim and I are best friends. Always have been, always will be. It’s just that for a while now we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on things. I used to be able to talk to him about anything. After Ricky Ray proposed and the wedding planning began, Tim and I became stuck in this continuous fighting mode. And even though Ricky Ray dumped me, we haven’t managed to break the habit.
When we were kids Tim, Ricky Ray, and I were practically joined at the hip. We met on the first day of kindergarten and were practically inseparable for years. We were partners in crime, the three Musketeers, the Dream Team, playing together every minute of free time. I naively thought it would be like that always. In my kid mind the three of us, looking remarkably like our ten year old selves, had a house with a big swimming pool in the back and lived together, each with our own kid-paradise room, in complete joy and harmony. That, of course, was before I knew anything about sex.
You know that advice about never messing around with your friends? How if you do you’ll ruin the friendship? Well, that’s what happened to us. Only the friendship that got broken was the one between Ricky Ray and Tim. When we were in eighth grade Ricky Ray and I were playing out in the tree fort. I think Tim had strept throat or something. Anyway, to make a long story short, Ricky Ray and I got into a tussle over something or another and the next thing you know, we were kissing to beat the band. From then on he was my boyfriend.
Tim instantly and passionately decided that he hated Ricky Ray. To say the least, our friendship took a backseat to my budding romance. But Tim was still there for me. Even though it broke up the Three Musketeers, and he and Ricky Ray could barely be in the same room together, Tim never once let me down. He was my rock. Mr. Tell It Like It Is.
I smacked him on the arm. “Stop that. Stop tip-toeing around me like I’m someone you don’t know.”
He looked taken aback. “What do you mean? I’m just trying to be supportive. Geez, Louise, Marty. You are the most exasperating person I’ve ever met! First you act like a dad gummed fool, running around dumping manure on an old man. As if that’s not enough, you get yourself right in the middle of yet another murder. What ever possessed you to pick up that gun? This time you have really screwed up, Marty. I don’t know what I’m going to do with… What the heck are you laughing at?”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them to me. “That’s better. That’s the Tim I know and love. Good to have you back, buddy. For a minute there I thought someone had given you a lobotomy or something.”
He pouted. “What do you mean by that? Are you making fun of me? Because if you are…”
I cut him off again. “Of course I’m not making fun of you. I was just, oh, never mind. It’s not important. Let’s just drop it, okay?”
He pouted for a couple more minutes, but the best thing about Tim is that he heals quickly. “All right,” he said. “Consider it dropped.”
We swung to and fro, not talking, just enjoying the beautiful June day. Well, at least Tim seemed to be enjoying it. I couldn’t stop my eyes from straying over to the place where Frank’s body had been. It gave me the shivers.
“Tim, I have got to go home. I’m going stark raving mad here. Besides, Delbert has probably destroyed the apartment. He hates being left all alone for so long. You wanna grab a six-pack and come over?”
He poked me in the arm. “I gotta work tonight so no beer. I’ll come over and watch you drink a couple, though. Somebody’s gotta keep you out of trouble. And don’t think I haven’t heard about your little swimming episode. You really outdid yourself yesterday, didn’t you?”
I got up off the porch swing, ignoring him.
“Hey!” he said. “I’m talking to you. Did you hear me?”
I did, but was not in the mood to discuss it. “I heard. I’m just ignoring you.”
I opened the front door and hollered in at Charli. “Hey, sis. I’m going on home now. I’ll call you later.”
Her voice rumbled back from the depths of her house. “Okay. See you later. Be careful. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” I turned back to Tim. “Do you mind springing for the beer? I’m fresh out of money. I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
Tim chuckled. “Sure you will, Marty. You already owe me twenty-three dollars. Heck, if I added it up, you’d probably owe me a couple of million dollars. You’ve owed me since we were nine and you talked me into fronting you five bucks for that fancy squirt gun. Which, by the way, caused me to get grounded for three days. Remember? You accidentally squirted Mrs. Nowling’s clean laundry with that concoction you mixed up, dishwashing detergent and cherry Kool-Aid, wasn’t it? Then when she came out to investigate you dropped the gun and ran off. You just left me there, standing next to that stupid gun. I can’t believe I forgave you for that. I must have been nuts. Still must be. I wonder why on earth I keep hanging around with you?”
I pulled his green Glenvar PD hat down over his eyes. “Because you crave the excitement, that’s why. And that wasn’t my fault with Mrs. Dowling’s laundry. The sight was off on that squirt gun. Which, by the way belonged to you, not me. I swear, Tim, your memory stinks. You wouldn’t loan me the money, but said you’d buy the gun and let me play with it. Anyway, you should have taken it back to the store. It was a dud if I ever saw one. I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble, either. I figured you had enough sense to run instead of just standing there like a bonehead, waiting to get caught.”
Tim flipped the brim of the hat up and gave me his cutest smile. “God, Marty, you’re such a…”
“…Wonderful, compassionate, beautiful person.” I stuck out my tongue at him and darted off the porch. “Meet you at home.”
I hopped into the Mustang and fired up the engine so I didn’t hear his reply. It didn’t matter, I’d heard it all before. It was our usual pattern. Tim was still yapping to himself as he unlocked the door of his big black truck.
I popped off the emergency brake and shifted into reverse. Tim rapped on my passenger side window.
What now, more childhood disaster stories? I leaned across and cranked down the window an inch. “What?”
“Did you kno
w that your tires on this side are flat? Looks like somebody slashed them.”
I climbed out and looked. Tim was right. Both of the tires bore deep cuts. I went back in the house and told Charli about the tires and that I was going to have to leave the Mustang in her driveway. Then I scrambled into Tim’s monster truck, switched the radio station to WROV, and buckled the seat belt. I slumped down in the seat and stared out the window, feeling extremely sorry for myself.
“Holy crap, Marty,” Tim said, “what’s next, hordes of locusts and massive floods?”
“Shut up or you’ll jinx me,” I said.
Too late, of course.
10
As soon as I saw Pilazzo’s the craving hit and I knew we had to stop and have some potato soup. It’s my addiction, pure comfort in an ironstone bowl, and I knew that if I didn’t get it, and fast, I was going to just roll over and die. I’ve been known to dream about the stuff, to plan my life around it, and now, here we were, mere yards from the mother lode.
I sprung to attention and tried to keep from drooling. “Tim, you’ve gotta stop. I gotta have soup.”
He gripped the steering wheel tighter and stared straight ahead. “No. I’m not in the mood.”
Tim? Not in the mood for soup? Something was big-time wrong. He loves that soup even more than I do. I checked for signs of obvious head trauma. “What, are you sick or something?”
“Nope. Just full from all that food I ate at Charli’s”
Like I believed that. Tim has a hollow leg. I’ve never known him to pass up food, especially when it comes from Pilazzo’s kitchen. We were getting to the point of no return. I had to think of something fast. I’m not proud of it, but I resorted to whining and begging.
“If you have an ounce of humanity you’ll stop. Please, Tim. I’ve just been accused of murder. I haven’t slept hardly a wink. And someone slashed my tires. Besides that, I’m unemployed and broke. The only thing in the whole wide world I’m asking of you is to stop so I can get a little nourishment. Can’t you just taste it? All hot and creamy. The big chunks of potato, the carrots, the little bits of bacon. And Dave’s secret spices. Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top? You know you love it as much as I do.”
He shook his head. I was mad. And desperate.
“Damn it, Tim! You’re being mean. Okay, already, I give. I’ll do your laundry for a week.”
He peeked over at me. “Even my socks and underwear?”
I shuddered. “Will you turn them right-side-out?”
Tim thought about it, shook his head, but he turned into Pilazzo’s anyway. “Two weeks,” he said. “Since I know I’ll end up having to buy.”
I grumbled and groaned. It was totally unfair, but what’s a poor starving girl to do? “Geez, Tim. You drive a hard bargain. Okay, so two weeks. But you’ve gotta buy the soap and the fabric softener.”
Something about the way he grinned made me think that maybe I had been manipulated. I came close to telling him to just forget the whole thing, to take me on home, but well, this is Dave’s soup we’re talking about. I wasn’t about to complain. He wheeled into a parking spot next to the trash dumpster and cut the engine.
Pilazzo’s is what is known in the lingo of restaurant aficionados as a ‘dive’. It used to be an abandoned gas station until two guys we grew up with had the bright idea to open a combination bar-pizza parlor-pool hall. (Rumor has it that the idea came to them after they’d consumed a fifth of tequila – and ate the worm.)
You can still smell a faint odor of gasoline and when it rains the outside patio turns into a rainbow colored oil slick. It's always chilly in the winter, hot in the summer, and the walls are painted Pepto-Bismol pink, not the world’s most appetizing color. I love it anyway.
I'm not a barfly or anything like that -- I don't drink much, maybe an occasional beer or glass of wine, but I could almost live at Pilazzo’s. My mom seems to think that I do, much to her consternation. She just doesn’t appreciate its charms. Hidden beneath that greasy spoon, beer joint exterior, Pilazzo’s is a gourmet’s delight. Well, a fast-food gourmet, anyway.
We're talking the best pizza this side of Italy. Pizza with loads of pepperoni and sausage and real cheese, not that sissy low-fat, vegetarian stuff Charli buys. Overstuffed sub sandwiches. Half-pound ground sirloin burgers on Kaiser rolls. The aforementioned potato soup. Sheer artery-clogging, palate-pleasing heaven.
The bonus is that I can count on knowing ninety percent of the customers at any given time. Plus, the owners let me bartend whenever I need money. Well, they do when they need extra help, which of course, they haven’t lately, but they’re still good guys. All in all, there’s nothing bad you can say about the place.
Okay, so I suppose it might be nice if everyone in the place didn't always know my business. I probably wouldn't complain if they all loved Ricky Ray a little less, either. It is a little irritating that they have giant posters of him stuck all over the walls and that the sign out front says 'Pilazzo's: Home of Ricky Ray Riley'. And, really, you have to admit, twelve Ricky Ray songs on the jukebox is just plain overkill.
As usual, one was playing when we walked in. It was that new one, the one about the girl with that ‘lonesome look in her eyes’. You know which one I mean. It’s the one that sounds like two alley cats rasslin’ it out over a slab of tuna. Anyway, the place was practically deserted when Tim and I banged through the door.
Dave, the chief cook and half-owner was leaning against the bar talking to a couple of the regulars and Bette, the barmaid. A loud group of softball players were tossing darts and I could hear the clacking sounds of a pool game coming from the back room. I threw up a hand to Dave and the gang at the bar and headed off to the restroom. Tim was shooting the breeze with a couple of the guys from the police department who had on green and yellow softball uniforms with a pig logo on the back of the shirt.
Someone had cracked open the tiny window in the ladies room, but it was still stuffy in there. I reached up to open it wider and heard my name mentioned by someone out in the parking lot. Being a curious person, not to mention slightly paranoid, I pulled over the little metal trash can and climbed on top of it so I could peer out the window and see who it was. Standing next to an emerald green Cherokee just to the right of the window were Art Danner and Robby Pluck.
“I tell you, Marty Sheffield is the prime suspect,” Robby said. “They ain’t pointing to us at all.”
Art shot Robby a stern, ‘keep your voice down’ look and shushed him. He gave the rest of the empty parking lot a quick once over before he spoke. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hear what he said.
Robby appeared agitated, almost like he was going to punch Art. Art, on the other hand, was totally kicked back, slouched against the jeep with his left foot propped up on the bumper.
I didn’t want them to see me, but I needed to hear their conversation. Hopefully, one of them was about to confess to the murder of Frank Billingham, in which case, I would be totally off the hook. I pressed my right ear into the window screen and tried to focus my hearing, wishing I’d had the foresight to charge my now dead phone. Finally, by concentrating really hard I was able to tune in to their exchange
“This ain’t the way you said it was going to go down,” Robby said. “You told me it wasn’t going to get complicated. Now Frank’s dead, Sam’s gone off his gourd, and Dicey’s asking a bunch of questions.”
“So, why don’t you tell her to piss off,” Art said. “Your problem, boy, is that you let that dame drag you around by your…”
“Like hell,” Robby said, “I ain’t whipped, if that’s what you’re implying, Man. I got me a good set up going on and alls the hell I’m saying is that this here thing is getting out of hand. I told you all when I joined up that I didn’t want no trouble. Now, that’s all there is. Trouble. And I want to know what you’re fixing to do about it.”
Art lowered his foot to the ground and practically sprang at Robby, grabbing the smaller man’s arms. Judging from Robby’s expres
sion he was squeezing hard. Art’s voice was low and mean sounding.
“Nothing, boy,” Art said. “Not a dammed thing, you hearing me? Far as I’m concerned, far as Sam’s concerned, and by God, far as you’re concerned, it’s business as usual. We done come too far to have it any other way.”
“Man, you’re crazy as a bedbug and Sam’s worthless. Man ain’t said two words that make sense all day. You don’t fix this, I’m bailing.”
Did that mean Sam was the murderer? I pressed my head against the screen as hard as I dared, hoping like heck that the screen didn’t pop out.
Art squeezed a little harder. Robby raised his arms and tried to knock Art’s hands loose, but Art was stronger.
“Don’t you worry about Sam,” Art said. “I’ll take care of him. You, on the other hand, had best be taking care of that old broad you sleep with. I don’t want her snooping around or saying nothing to nobody, you hear? And you be at the shop tonight at ten, just like always. Nothing’s changed. Not one thing, you got it.”
With that, he let go of Robby’s shoulders and settled back against the jeep, propping his foot back up on the bumper again. “I tell you, son, everything is going to be just fine. Frank wasn’t that involved no ways. Too damn tweed. You got to relax.”
Tweed? What on earth was that? I assumed that I’d misheard him, but couldn’t figure out what the heck it was that he’d said.
Robby shook his head. He didn’t look so much upset as disgusted. “Relax? Man, I can’t relax. I done forgot how.”
Art rubbed his hands together. “Hop in the sack with that hot honey you work with. Ol’ what’s her name? You know, that skinny one with them perky ta-tas. That’d sure relax me.”
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