I attempted a smile, but it came out more in the neighborhood of a grimace. “Hi, Herb. How’s it going?”
Unlike Kyle, whose navy business suit was just the right touch for a classy place like Albertino’s, Herb even made me look good. In place of his usual old-school, country singer suit, he had on a God-awful burnt umber polyester suit with one of those Nehru collars that were so popular about a million years ago and a plaid polyester tie with a big stain on it. His comb-over was plastered down with some sort of shiny goop and his glasses were held together in the middle with black electrical tape.
“Marty, I was just talking about you with Zagle! He said he’d run into you. How the devil are you? You sure are in one big old pickle, ain’t you? Tell you what though, this here could just be the big break you was hankering for, you know? I mean, of all the effing luck, getting yourself accused of murder, but I’d take the thing and effing run with it, you know? When all this crap is over with, you can parlay it right into somethin’ cause ain’t nobody gonna remember what it was the read about you, they’ll just remember that they read something. You know I’m effing right, right?”
“I don’t know, Herb, I don’t think a murder suspect is going to rank very high on the must-hire list of most corporate recruiters.”
He tapped himself with his fist in the center of his chest and a long, rather loud belch punctured the air. “Naw, Marty, don’t you go worryin’ yourself over that. Enjoy being off. You’ll be back to work in no time, you mark my word.”
When he said that he made some weird eye movements like he was trying to send me a message. Either that or he was totally spazzing out.
“Do you know something I don’t know, Herb?”
He continued with the eye movements, giving me a smile that spoke volumes. Volumes of what, only Herb himself knew, but volumes nonetheless.
“Oh, heck naw, Marty, where ever you get an idea like that? I don’t effing know an effing thing.”
Every time he said ‘effing’, his favorite word (or non-word, I suppose you might say) a little mist of spit sprayed me. Of course, he also had a death grip on my left arm so I couldn’t get myself out of his watering range. I’d probably still be there listening to him ramble and getting a free shower if Kyle and the other man hadn’t motioned him back to their table. He let go of me, pecked me on the cheek – too gross for words, especially since he had a bad case of halitosis – and then headed back to his meeting.
“Wonder why he’s meeting with Kyle,” Charli said, returning from her little reunion.
I was still mad at her for deserting me in my hour of need, so I didn’t answer at first. I had wondered about Herb and Kyle myself, but didn’t much like any of the ideas I came up with. Especially the one with Herb being a spy too. That one seemed just plain silly.
When we were in the car, I gave up my silent treatment since Charli hadn’t seemed to notice that I wasn’t talking to her. “I know that other guy who was sitting with Herb and Kyle from somewhere, but I can’t put my finger on who he is. Did you recognize him?”
“He looked a little familiar, but I think it’s just that he has a slight resemblance to Jack Black.”
I closed my eyes and pictured the other man again. “I guess you’re right. He does look a little like Jack.”
Charli cranked up the engine and we drove over to her house to round up the supplies for our spy mission. While Charli changed into her girl detective outfit, I peeked out the front window, but Kyle didn’t come home while I was watching. I thought about our encounter at the restaurant and played it over and over in my head, beating myself up for being such a nincompoop and wondering if maybe now he thought I was guilty of killing Frank. God, I hoped not.
I tried to avoid the line in the mulch, but my eyes kept straying to it. It creeped me out to be sitting in Charli’s house, so close to the crime scene. I don’t know how my sister could stand it. No way would I have stayed there all alone. But then, Charli has always been a very brave person. Not that I’d ever in a million years tell her that.
As we were backing John’s car out of the driveway, Charli reached over and patted my knee. “Listen, sis, I know things have been a little tough for you lately, and, well, anyway, John and I can lend you some money if you need it.”
I fought back tears. “Thanks. I might have to take you up on that. Maybe enough to get tires for my car.” I cleared my throat and swiped at my eyes. “So, how are we going to do this thing?”
We swung by my place so I could put on a pair of black jeans and a black turtleneck. My spy clothes weren’t designer like Charli’s, but I thought they were more suitable. I’m a fast dresser, so we were on our way within about five minutes. Charli decided that we’d park a couple of blocks behind Art’s shop and approach it from the rear. I’d noticed the day I picked up my car that the back gate had a gap in it and was pretty sure that we’d be able to squeeze through.
Charli had just turned off Main onto Parkham Drive when a car horn blared out from behind us. I nearly jumped out of my seat. “Geez, that freaked me out,” I said.
It tooted again and again from behind us. I peered around. “Oh poop. You’d better pull over,” I told my sister. “It’s Mom.”
“Fiddlesticks.” Charli eased the car into the parking lot of a pediatric dentist’s office and Mom’s white Lincoln pulled in behind her. “Act non-chalant.”
Mom tapped on the driver’s side window. It took Charli a few seconds of fumbling around before she found the button and let the window down.
Mom stooped down and eyeballed us. “Hello, girls. What are you two up to?”
“Nothing,” Charli and I said in a sing-songy unison. We sounded like we were trying to hide the fact that we were about to, oh, I don’t know, do a little bit of breaking and entering or something along those lines. So much for non-chalance.
Mom scrutinized us a little closer. “Where are you going?”
“No, no, nowhere,” Charli stammered. “Well, I mean, obviously we’re going somewhere. Where we are going is uh, home. Yes, home. Isn’t that right, Marty? Home.”
I practically broke my neck I nodded so hard. “Right. Home. First to my home, then to Charli’s. We just came from Albertino’s. We had dinner. Together. Now we’re going home.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going the wrong direction?”
Charli and I glanced sideways at each other. She mouthed for me to take it.
I took a cleansing breath and tried to tone down the squeakiness. “Ahh, well, you see, it’s like, um, we decided to take a little drive first. You know, to let our food settle. Charli read this article that said you should always let your food settle. And that a drive was a good way to do it. Let your food settle, I mean. But now we’re done. Letting our food settle. So we’d better go.” I faked a yawn. “Yes. We’d better run. I’m so tired I can’t hardly keep my eyes open.”
Mom’s eyebrows shot up another notch. “Yes, I suppose you are rather tired. Charli, dear, the reason I stopped you is to see if you would like to stay over at our house tonight. I hate the thought of you being all alone in that big, empty house.”
Charli shook her head. “No, that’s okay, Mom. Really. I’m fine. Everything is under control. Thanks for the offer, but, well, um, we were just talking about that very thing and Marty decided that she’s going to stay with me. So, you see, I won’t be alone at all. Marty will be there. Right, Marty?”
First I’d heard of it, but it seemed like the thing to do. “Right. I’m staying. With Charli. So we’d better go. To Charli’s.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Mom said. There was hesitancy in her voice. “I’ll let you go. To Charli’s. And Charli, dear, I’d really love to read that article about food settling. It sounds fascinating.”
She turned and started back toward the Lincoln. Charli buzzed up the window and laid her head against the steering wheel. I let out a couple of nervous giggles.
“You don’t think she suspected we’re up to som
ething, do you?” Charli asked.
“Duh. We acted like a couple of little kids with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Mom’s got better ‘trouble detection’ radar than anyone I know. Besides, she sounded a little sarcastic when she asked to read that article, don’t you think?”
“A little sarcastic? Geez, Marty, she sounded awfully convinced to me.” Charli smacked her head against the steering wheel a couple of times. “Of course she was being sarcastic, you ying-yang. I swear, sometimes you are the dumbest…”
There was a rapping at the window again. “Shi—, er, I mean shoot,” I said on the off chance that Mom could hear through the window glass. “Now what?”
Charli’s window slid back down.
Mom leaned in and gifted us with a dazzling smile. “By the way, I think it’s so cute that you girls decided to dress alike, but don’t you think you’re a little old for that sort of thing? And, a little underdressed for Albertino’s?”
She was in her car before Charli or I could think up an answer. Which, based on our totally moronic behavior thus far, was probably for the best.
Mom’s car didn’t move. She was obviously waiting for us to pull out first.
“What should I do?” Charli asked. “What if she decides to follow us?”
Given that that was a distinct possibility we really didn’t have any options. “You’d better drive toward your house.”
Charli shifted into drive. “I suppose I’d better. Dad gum it, it’s almost ten, too.”
We took a left back out onto Parkham and turned toward Charli’s house. Thankfully, when we reached the turnoff to the ‘Oaks’ neighborhood, Mom tootled her horn and kept going down Main Street toward her own home. As soon as we were in the clear, Charli hung a U and doubled back down to Parkham, finally headed for the place where we were going to park, Skunk’s Hollow.
Skunk’s Hollow is only about a quarter of a mile from Art’s place, but it’s a notorious make out spot. We’d argued about parking there, me figuring it would be wall-to-wall with hot-to-trot teenagers, Charli thinking that since it was a Sunday, no one would be there. For once Charli’s instincts were right. There was no smooching of any kind going on at Skunk’s that night; the place was deserted.
Charli pulled as far back into the trees as she could and we used the lighted makeup mirrors on the back of the visors to apply some sort of black grease paint stuff under our eyes, the way football players do. That was another one of Charli’s ideas. She said that we had to be careful; that our cheeks would reflect light and someone might see us. Not being as adept at makeup, mine didn’t look as good as Charli’s, but I had to admit that, if nothing else, it made us look like a couple of bad ass thugs.
We gathered up our tool bags and flashlights and picked our way through the thicket that lies between Skunk’s Hollow and ‘Skunk’s Bottom’, the nickname the locals have for the area of town that houses Art Danner’s ‘Towing and Hoeing’. The Bottom is also home to several other small Mom and Pop type establishments, mainly garages, a couple of heating and air conditioning contractors, and a few other assorted business that rely less on good location and more on cheap rent.
Art’s building is at the rear of Skunk’s Bottom, (Skunk’s Bottom’s Bottom?) backed up to an alley and some railroad tracks. At the edge of the thicket, Charli and I cut across the tracks and scurried down the service alley toward Danner’s. We made it without incident except for a black lab that moseyed up to us when we passed by ‘Buzzard’s Roost Tattoo Parlor and Harley Painting Shop’ (Motto: Custom tattooin’ for you and your bike). The dog must have thought we might want to play with him. He kept nudging my hand and twice he jumped up and licked Charli’s face, one time knocking her to the ground.
The back gate of Art’s impound lot was bathed in the glow of a high-pressure sodium flood. A faint light burned inside the building. My heart was about to pop out of my chest. What if we got caught? In my zeal to find out what Art and the others were up to, I hadn’t really thought the whole thing through as clearly as maybe I should have.
Charli grabbed my hand. “I don’t see a better way to get in. Looks like that gap is our best shot.”
I took a deep breath. “Stay low, and as soon as you get through hide over there next to that old VW,” I whispered. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Charli shooed at the dog. I think he was in love with her since he was still sniffing her like she was a stinky sock or something. “Go home, boy!” He gave her another friendly lick and tried to jump up on her again. I was beginning to think that Charli was going to have to take him home with her.
I grabbed his collar and pulled him away from her. Charli flattened herself onto the ground, belly down and began to army-man crawl toward the gate. The lab thought she was playing a game and barked. Charli freaked, jumped up, and darted through the gap in the fence and was in the shadow of the weathered green Volkswagen in a heartbeat. I told the dog to shut up, let go of him, and made my own wild dash for the fence.
Once we caught our breaths, we crept around the rusty automobiles, picking our way toward the garage. The freaking dog tried to get through the gap in the fence, I guess wanting to help us out. He wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to nudge it open so he kept barking, obviously hoping that was the key. All the noise made me nervous as all get out, but at least it didn’t start up a chain reaction of barks from the neighborhood canine corp. Charli reached the building first and hoisted herself up to peek into the window.
“See anything?” I asked.
“Nope. Let’s move around toward the front.”
We checked about four windows. “No one’s here,” Charli said, after she’d peeked into the last one. “Are you sure the meeting was tonight?”
“Positive. Art told Robby to meet at the shop at ten, like always.” I slumped back against the wall. Had they figured out I’d overheard them and changed their plans?
Suddenly a giant, flashing neon light bulb went off in my head. “Shoot. It just occurred to me that he said shop, not garage. I’ll bet they’re meeting at Sam’s.”
Charli bobbed her head. “Exactly.” She started back toward the gate. “Come on. If we hurry, maybe they’ll still be there and we can find out what’s going on.”
I followed after her, darting around the old cars and trucks less cautiously than before. We had just slipped back through the gate and were hurrying down the alley toward the Hollow, the black Lab ecstatically nipping at Charli’s heels and woofing up a storm, when the police car pulled up. I stuck my hand over my eyes like a shield to keep the headlights from blinding me.
“Hello, ladies. A little late for a jog, don’t you think?” Tim said.
“This,” Charli said, “is not good.”
I guess she’s been taking understatement lesson from Mom again.
13
“But, Tim, I swear, we were just driving around and the car started making a funny noise and then it was acting really strange, like it was going to blow up or something, so I told Charli that she’d better pull over, so she did, and we started walking back toward town to find a phone since neither one of us could get a signal, you know how hard it is to get one down here in the Bottom, so, anyway, we were trying to find a phone so we could call a tow truck, but we didn’t see a phone anywhere and we remembered Art’s place and thought, maybe, he might still be there, but he wasn’t, and then this dog started chasing us, so we decided that we’d go back to the car and just take a chance that it was okay and drive it on home, and, well, here you are, thank God, so you can just take us back to the car and we’ll be on our merry little way. I mean you’ve got better things to do I’m sure, so, well, anyway, we left the car at Skunk’s Hollow so you’ll give us a ride. Won’t you?”
I don’t think he bought it. I don’t know why, either. I mean, I thought it was a good story. Charli chimed in at all the right places too. Of course, it didn’t explain the black gunk we had on our faces or exactly what we were doing hanging out around Sk
unk’s Hollow and the Bottom at ten-thirty on a Sunday night. But Tim didn’t ask and neither Charli nor I volunteered any additional explanations.
Tim clenched his jaw, shook his head, said “I can’t…” and “I don’t…” several times, but he loaded us into his squad car, drove us down to Skunk’s Hollow, pronounced Charli’s car drivable, and, then, followed us to her house.
“Charli,” Tim said when we arrived, “I think you best take your car in to have it checked tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at the dealership at eight-thirty.”
Charli opened her mouth to say something, but I elbowed her in the side and she clammed up, simply nodding to Tim.
He followed us inside, then turned his attention to me. “Come on, Marty, I’ll give you a lift home. I’ll be off duty shortly.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just stay here with Charli. She doesn’t want to be alone.”
Tim checked his watch. “Okay, I’ll be back in about an hour and a half. I’ll be staying too. Wouldn’t want you two to have any more trouble, now would we?”
Charli fidgeted with the magazines on her coffee table and avoided Tim’s eyes. “No. Not at all,” she said. “You can camp out in the boy’s room. Marty can sleep in Jaelyn’s bed.”
Tim tipped his hat and gave us a brittle smile. “Okay, see you shortly. By the way, use cold cream. Lots and lots of cold cream.”
With that he popped out the door, climbed into the squad car, and was gone. Charli and I watched his taillights until they faded from view.
“So, you want to go over and check out Sam’s shop?” Charli asked.
“What, are you nuts? Tim really isn’t going anywhere. If I know him like I think I do, he’s sitting down at the end of the road just waiting for us to do something stupid. I’d say we best just bag it for tonight. We’ll check out the antique shop tomorrow. Besides, I’m hungry. That Albertino’s stuff is good, but they don’t give you nearly enough food.”
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