No Right Turn

by A. J. Stewart

  “Can you tell me how your drivers pay for gas?”

  She frowned. It was stunning.

  “They don’t.”

  “They don’t? How does that work?”

  “It’s a NASCAR race, Mr. Jones. The fuel is part of the race. It’s supplied by the fuel sponsor. The drivers don’t pay for it.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not making myself clear. I don’t mean the race car drivers. I mean the guys who drive the vehicle transports.”

  She nodded. “I see. Well, in that case, each driver carries a gas card, like a credit card.”

  “I know what a gas card is.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “So can they use the card anywhere, or how does that work?”

  “No, they can’t use it anywhere. It isn’t actually a credit card.”

  “I get that.”

  “I mean our transports can’t stop just anywhere. It’s part of the sponsor’s agreement. East of the Mississippi, the trucks can only use Fuelex gas stations and truck stops.”

  “So you have a record of where the trucks stop?”

  “I have a record of where they buy gas.”

  I reconfirmed my theory about attractive people being hard work.

  “Could you tell where the test car transport fueled up on the day of the hurricane?”

  “The test car transport? You mean Rex’s truck?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “He stays local.” She tapped the keys on her computer keyboard.

  “He did a delivery for Dale. I just want to confirm his route home.”

  She looked at her screen. “The day of the hurricane. Okay. Yes, I see a transaction here. Palm Beach Gardens. I don’t know where that is.”

  “It’s in Palm Beach. Hence the name.” Score one for being painful and hard work, Jones.

  “It says the Fuelex station on PGA Boulevard.”

  “Okay, anything after that?”

  “Hmm. No. No stops until he checks into the workshop about. . . ten hours later.”

  I thought about the timing. Ten hours wasn’t an unreasonable amount of time to drive from Palm Beach Gardens to Charlotte. The traffic was heavy-ish with folks fleeing the storm. We’d done it quicker in my Cadillac, and Angie Beadman had done it quicker still in her Camaro. And the logic didn’t fit, either. If Rex had somehow taken the cars from Dale Beadman’s garage, which video proved he didn’t, he wouldn’t have stopped to fuel up minutes later. He’d do it before or he’d do it well after. You don’t stop the getaway car for gas a block from the bank.

  “Ten hours,” I said softly.

  “That’s pretty much straight through from Palm Beach to Charlotte.”

  “I thought you didn’t know where Palm Beach Gardens was?”

  “I just put it into Google Maps,” she said, pointing at her computer screen.

  “Oh. Well. Good for you. But he could have stopped and hit the gas hard after.”

  “You mean drive above the speed limit? No.”

  “No? Why not? People do speed.”

  “Often, Mr. Jones. Always for some. But not our trucks.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you seen those trucks, Mr. Jones?”

  “I have.”

  “And what is their defining characteristic, as far as vehicles of that type go?”

  “You’ve got me.”

  “They are billboards, Mr. Jones. Massive rolling advertisements for Dale Beadman Racing, for our sponsors and for NASCAR. An organization built around the idea of driving cars very, very fast. Can you imagine what would happen if one of our trucks got caught speeding on a public road? Could you imagine the controversy? Sponsors would be running for the door. No, the trucks cannot speed, Mr. Jones. Above all else, they must obey the speed limit on all roads. And they are speed-limited to sixty-five on the freeways. So ten hours is a straight-through run.”

  I nodded. She made sense. She was beautiful, and she made a sound argument. It didn’t improve my impression.

  “Okay. Palm Beach Gardens, straight to Charlotte. Good.”

  It was good. I liked Rex. He was a bit sensitive for a trucker to suit my tastes, but then I didn’t have a lot of experience in the area of truckers. Perhaps my impressions were based upon false tropes in movies and such. I didn’t know. Either way, it made sense. He’d dropped off the F-88 and fled the hurricane, as any sane man would. How the cars had gotten off the island was still a mystery to me. But I was eliminating possibilities, and that was half the battle.

  I stood. “Thanks, Miss, uh, Sydney.”

  “Of course.” She nodded but kept her eyes on her screen, like I had already left. I got it. This was the worst part for attractive people. I was about to leave, and it was my last chance to throw her a line, ask her to dinner, wow her with my wit and charm. Except I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. I had a beautiful woman waiting for me at home. One that turned rain clouds into sunshine just by giving me a half smile. I wanted to tell Sydney that, but there was no point. It would sound like I just didn’t have the confidence to make my move. And weakness like that was the worst thing of all in the eyes of the truly beautiful.

  “Enjoy your evening,” I said and I walked out.

  I was in the corridor when I heard her speak.

  “Mr. Jones,” she called.

  I stopped and took a deep breath. I turned and stepped back to her door.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Jones, I owe you an apology.”

  “I can’t possibly think what for.”

  “I was curt with you. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t notice.” If I didn’t notice, I must have been deaf and blind.

  “It’s just. . .” She took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Like an athlete or a yoga practitioner.

  “My cat died this afternoon.”

  “Your what?”

  “My cat. He died. I was at the vet all afternoon. And I came back to the office and I probably shouldn’t have, and I acted appallingly to you.”

  My heart sank into my shoes. If there was anyone who had acted appallingly, it was me. Score negative one, Jones. Now I took the deep breath.

  “You were fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry about your cat.”

  She nodded, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She even looked good crying and I hated myself for thinking that.

  “Go home, Sydney. Drink some wine, toast your kitty.”

  She smiled a smile that I suspected she wasn’t going to be able to hold. The dam walls were about to break.

  So I walked away. I knew it was going to keep me awake at night. There were a lot better ways to behave when a fellow human being was hurting. I walked down the stairs and out through the main lobby. It was twilight out. Crickets chirped and the breeze wafted by. Lucas wasn’t there. I figured he was still in the museum. Which meant I had to go back inside.

  So I did. I ran. I ran right back up the stairs and down the corridor and into Sydney’s office. She was facing away from the door, so she spun around in her chair toward me. Her face was red and wet and puffy. I stepped around her desk, and she stood and she plunged her head into my chest despite being an inch taller than me. She wept like a baby. A very sad baby that had lost her kitty. I held her as her tears soaked my shirt. She was a stranger to me and would remain so. But she was a human in need of a little humanity, and I was a human with some to spare.

  I was just glad I had stopped long enough to wonder what Lenny would have done.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lake Norman was a man-made lake just on the other side of I-77 from Mooresville. The lake was surrounded by houses worth more than most entire inner-city suburbs. The house we were looking for sat in an enclave called The Point, a peninsula of land that jutted out into the lake and was home to a Trump National Golf course and homes with values closer to ten million than to one. It looked like a regular suburb except the homes were like mini-castles and were mostly waterfront.


  The Lake Norman area was a popular home for many of the NASCAR drivers, which made sense given its proximity to the team headquarters that dotted the landscape surrounding Charlotte. It also made sense that it would be popular with former drivers as well. Which was exactly what Ansel Brasher was. Simon Lees had given me the address with some trepidation. I wasn’t sure what he thought I was going to do there, but I had promised to be on my best behavior.

  Brasher’s house was an enormous Mediterranean hidden from the street by old-growth oaks. The driveway was the size of a parking lot at Walmart, and it was full of cars whose owners got no closer to Walmart than opening their stock certificates. There must have twenty cars, and most of them looked new and shiny and worthy of Dale Beadman’s collection. I saw a Bugatti and an Aston Martin and a Ferrari. There were two Teslas. We parked on the street, which seemed to be against the rules, but there were no signs, so I went with it. Besides, the guys doing the valeting in the driveway didn’t say I couldn’t.

  We strode past a five-car garage around the side of the house. I find walking with a purpose makes most people believe you belong where you are. This despite the fact that both Lucas and I were wearing shorts and I had a shirt that had just had a gallon of tears poured on it. Plus we had helmet head. I was surprised security didn’t jump out of the trees and take us down. We walked around the side of the house because all the sound seemed to be coming from the rear of the property.

  We stopped in the shadows just short of the paved patio. It was a space the size of three basketball courts. There were tiki lamps and cocktail tables and well-dressed folks sipping champagne. To my left was a buffet table where a guy in a white apron was cooking steaks on a massive grill. I could see a pool glistening with blue light, a small waterfall cascading into it for effect. Beyond the pool lay the calm water of the lake. I glanced at Lucas’s attire and he at mine. I couldn’t help but feel everyone else was overdressed for a barbecue.

  I strode into the light. The first few people who saw me did double takes. Was this Ansel’s errant son come home to beg for more money? I don’t know if that was what they were thinking. I didn’t even know if Ansel Brasher had a son. But that was the facial expression I got. I walked up to a short guy in a Brooks Brothers shirt and asked him if he had seen Ansel. The guy recoiled like I had sneezed on him.

  “I have not,” he spluttered.

  I shrugged and kept moving. The secret is to keep moving. If you stop, you’re fair game. I walked toward the house. Inside I saw more people. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, I noted a large fireplace that sat idle. I got as far as the concertina doors, where I ran into a young guy who looked like an Abercrombie ad. His hair was lush and silky and he wore a sweater tied around his shoulders. I had no idea people still did that, but I hadn’t visited Cape Cod in the summer for many years.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Only if you’re Ansel Brasher, and I’m guessing no plastic surgery is that good.”

  “This is a private residence. Mr. Brasher does not see fans here. You can contact him via the Fox Sports office in New York City.”

  “You’re suggesting I go to New York?”

  “I’m suggesting you call.”

  “But I’m here already, Junior.” I went to step past the kid, but he shifted his weight and our shoulders connected. I still had pitcher’s shoulders, but the kid was built pretty well, too.

  “I would prefer not to have to call the police.”

  “So we agree on something. But now you’re wasting my time. I need Ansel Brasher and you’re not him.”

  “I am Mr. Brasher’s personal secretary. You don’t see him unless I say so.”

  I took a good look at the kid and thought about his choice of phrase. I was sure there was a time and place that he would never have referred to himself as a secretary. Even secretaries didn’t like the word anymore. My secretary, Lizzy, preferred office manager. In her case, it was a reasonable summation of her role. She managed everything. Perhaps everything manager would have been more fitting. But some people actually were secretaries. They generally preferred to be called administrative assistants or some equally banal title. Somewhere along the line, secretary had become a derogatory word. I had no idea why. Being a secretary was as good a job as any other, and it wasn’t made any better or worse by changing the title. But using the word personal changed everything. Like it made this guy important somehow. But he was still a gatekeeper, and I needed to get through the gate.

  “All right, Junior. Tell Brasher that I’m here about Missy Beadman.”

  “What?”

  “Just tell him. Or I’ll tell his wife.”

  The guy flexed his pec muscle and his shirt rippled. He was in good shape.

  “Not here. Go to the guesthouse.”

  “Where’s the guesthouse?”

  The kid pointed further down the lakefront. “Down there. It’ll be open.” He turned away and walked inside.

  I made sure Lucas was on my six and I strode along the windows and across the patio to the far side. In the darkness across a wide expanse of lawn, I saw the silhouette of a house. As I got closer, I wondered if I had gone the wrong way and wandered into a neighbor’s yard. The house was much smaller than the main house but was still way bigger than my house in Singer Island. There was a keypad on the front door. I pulled the latch and found the door open. Maybe it was operated by one of those smartphone applications. I had no idea.

  Lights came on as we walked inside. The foyer gave way to a great room with a lounge suite and a granite kitchen and a view of the darkened lake beyond. I couldn’t imagine inviting guests to stay in such a house. They would never want to leave.

  “What’s the deal with Missy Beadman?” Lucas asked.

  “The guy who drove me round the track today, Mike? He said he thought there might have been some history there.”

  “Brasher and Dale’s wife?”

  I nodded. “Before they met. So I took a punt. Now I’m not so sure it was after they met.”

  We waited for twenty minutes. I figured it would take the kid about one minute to locate Brasher. I figured he would always have a pretty good bead on his location. It was about a one-minute walk across the lawn to the guesthouse for a guy who knew his way. So the other eighteen minutes were for show. Telling us exactly who was in charge. I leaned against the counter that led to the kitchen. I thought about turning the television on, but I couldn’t find a remote, and televisions these days don’t seem to have buttons anywhere that I can find.

  Brasher arrived alone. That was bold. Sure we were relatively harmless in the grand scheme of things, but he couldn’t know that for sure. We could have been crazed fans, or even fans of someone else. Dale Beadman fans, crazy enough to wander onto his property, so crazy enough to do him harm. There seemed to be more and more of those people around. But he strode into the room alone like he owned it, which of course, he did. He was taller than most race car drivers I had seen. He still looked fit despite being in his seventies. He had the strong jaw and complete hairline that television loved.

  “Who the hell are you?” he said.

  “Miami Jones,” I said. “And that’s Lucas.”

  Lucas nodded his hello.

  “Why are you interrupting my barbecue?”

  “You a car collector, Mr. Brasher?”

  “A what?”

  “A car collector.”

  “I have a few cars. What’s your point?”

  “You have any domestic cars?”

  “Domestic? You mean American?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have some.”

  “You got an F-88?”

  He frowned. “A what?”

  “F-88 Oldsmobile.”

  “No. I don’t have an Oldsmobile here. Listen, who the hell are you? Grantley told me you said Missy Beadman sent you.”

  Grantley. Some people fit their names perfectly.

  “I said I was here about Missy Beadman.”

  �
�What about her?”

  “You know her.”

  “Of course I know her.”

  “Back in the day, I hear you were sweethearts.”

  “Who the hell told you that?”

  “It’s the word on the street.”

  “It’s complete baloney, is what it is.”

  “Does your wife know? About Missy?”

  “There’s nothing to know, you maggot. My wife and I have no secrets.”

  “Is Missy the reason you’ve had a bug up your butt about Dale Beadman for forty years?”

  “Dale Beadman is a cheat and a loser. He doesn’t deserve a fine woman like Missy. But I’ll tell you this. There was nothing between Missy and me. We were friends, before he came along. That’s it. And if you so much as besmirch her name I will break you apart.”

  I doubted that. He was tall and fit, but there wasn’t a lot to him. “I’m trying to save Missy’s good name.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Miami Jones,” I said again.

  He looked at me like old guys do when they can’t recall where they left their keys. Then he remembered. “You’re that guy. You worked for BJ Baker that time.”

  I shrugged. I was fascinated that Brasher would connect me through the same guy that Dale Beadman had. Like Brasher, BJ was a television sportscaster, only his game was football. Between the two of them, they really didn’t give sportscasters a great name.

  “He told me you were a maggot. Now I see for myself it’s true.”

  He waited for his words to sink in. They didn’t. What people like Ansel Brasher never got about me was that I truly didn’t give a damn what they thought of me. I cared what plenty of people thought. Danielle, Ron, Lucas, Sally. I had cared more about what my father had thought than I ever admitted to myself. But I really didn’t give the time of day to Brasher. And he would never have understood that, because he believed the sun revolved around him.

  “When was the last time you saw Dale Beadman?” I asked.