by Dixie Cash
“Did he say Lantana Tanner?” Edwina whispered to Debbie Sue.
“Shhh,” Debbie Sue replied.
Just then the giant woman threw back the door and huffed in, obviously more irritated than curious or nervous. Pink foam curlers were attached to her head, an enormous aqua chenille robe covered her bulk, and Dallas Cowboy slipper socks covered her feet.
“Sheriff, I’m here. What’s going on? I was right in the middle of American Idol and you know I never—”
“Cool it,” the sheriff said sternly, his hands planted on his belt. He began to grill her about the envelope.
She reported that the envelope had been on his desk when she went to lunch. When she returned it was gone. “I didn’t touch it. I assumed you’d canceled your trip or had come back early and taken it. I had no reason to think otherwise. Am I going to get paid overtime for coming all the way down here?”
“Go home,” the sheriff said. “Thanks for coming in.”
He waited until she was well gone before speaking again. “There’s only one other person I can think of who might know something. Y’all excuse me, please, but I have to ask you to leave so I can conduct some business.” He stood up and made an attempt to herd the group toward the door.
“Wait a minute,” Debbie Sue said. “We’re not going anywhere. We have an obligation to our client to locate this DVD or what ever it is.”
“Miss—” the sheriff started, but was interrupted by Allison taking hold of his arm.
“Mike, please help us. We all want the same thing. The truth about who murdered Monica. These are friends of mine and their friend is in trouble. If I’m responsible for the DVD disappearing, I’m in trouble. Please let us help you. We won’t get in your way.” Allison’s voice broke. “I should have never let the DVD leave my hands until I handed it to you personally.”
The bull of a man crumbled. “Now that’s nonsense. You left it in the office of a sworn official of the law. You had no reason to think anything would or could happen to it. You did exactly right.” He looked at each of them. “You can come along, but you’ll have to follow me in your own rigs. And don’t forget, I’m in charge. You’ll all do as I say. Understood?”
MERLE HAD MADE his usual stops, checking to see that everything was quiet and peaceful in his hometown. Some tacky person had thrown out some trash and he stopped to pick it up. He didn’t like it when people threw their trash out of their car windows. As his mom would say, that wasn’t nice.
He pedaled three times around the downtown square and was seven blocks from the court house when he spotted the tan car inside the cemetery.
It was the same car he had seen parked on the road near Dunnam’s. That day, the person inside was trying to read a road map, but he was really spying on the funeral home the whole time. Merle knew that for sure, because he had watched the car.
Because people treated him as if he were invisible, Merle was always able to see a lot. Everybody assumed he was incapable of figuring anything out, but he did figure out things. He took longer than others, but he could figure out lots of things.
He had figured out for sure that the tan car wasn’t a Haskell car and it didn’t belong there in the cemetery. There was never a car in the cemetery this late. He knew he needed to see what the occupant of the car was doing, but he didn’t like to be in the graveyard at night. It was dark and scary.
He had almost talked himself out of riding around the low gray wall that encircled the plots when he noticed the shadowy figure standing near a freshly dug grave. He didn’t think it was a ghost. He didn’t believe ghosts cried. And this person was really crying.
The person was standing beside the new grave where Monica Hunter would be put tomorrow. The man who dug the grave had said a bad person had killed Miss Monica.
What if this was that bad person?
Merle couldn’t decide what to do. Should he ask the person what they were doing here crying? He was confused and scared. He wished Sheriff Mike was here. He would know what to do.
Merle started back to the court house. He stood on the pedals and pumped hard so he could go faster. He was almost there when the familiar blue-and-brown sheriff’s car came toward him.
Sheriff Mike pulled to the side of the road and motioned for Merle to stop. Another vehicle, a red pickup carrying people he didn’t know, pulled alongside him. Merle had to squeeze his bicycle between the sheriff’s car and the red pickup.
“Merle,” Sheriff Jackson said, “got a second to talk?”
“Sheriff Mike! You gotta come quick! Somebody’s in the graveyard crying!”
“Merle, there’s no law against being in the graveyard crying. Now listen to me, I need to ask you something.”
“But they’re crying! They’re standing there, looking at that place Miss Monica’s going to be laying for eternity in peaceful rest. And they’re crying!”
“I want you to calm down. It’s a real sad thing about Monica passing on. There are a lot of people who’ll be crying. Settle down and answer a question for me.”
Merle knew it was his duty to tell the sheriff. He pushed on. “It’s the car that was parked and spying at Dunnam’s yesterday.”
Debbie Sue decided to take matters into her own hands. Sort of. She reached out and touched Merle’s arm and gave the sheriff a wink above the cyclist’s head. “Tell you what, Merle. My friends and I’ll drive to the cemetery and see what’s going on. You stay here and talk to Sheriff Mike. Would that be okay?”
Merle switched a look between her and the sheriff. “I guess so.”
Debbie Sue smiled and eased her foot off the brake. “Where’s the graveyard, Allison? Let’s just drive over there so the sheriff can talk to this guy and find out about the surveillance video.”
Following Allison’s directions, Debbie Sue drove a few blocks out of town to the county cemetery. The moon had risen and some of the headstones shone in its reflection. Debbie Sue had never seen so many trees that weren’t mesquites all in one place in West Texas. Their dark silhouettes lent an air of eeriness. God, no wonder Merle had been afraid. Debbie Sue wasn’t usually afraid of anything living or dead, but her palms had gotten a little moist.
“Look, there’s the car he was talking about,” Edwina said.
As Debbie Sue steered left to get a better view of the car, her headlights spotlighted the person standing at the open grave. The person turned and looked into the bright beam, frozen by the sudden light.
“Holy fucking shit!” Debbie yanked the steering wheel, making a sharp turn and throwing up a barrier against the tan sedan’s exit. She shoved the gearshift into park and leaped from the cab.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Edwina cried, opening her door and following Debbie Sue.
Allison was stunned. She looked at Tag.
“Are we supposed to yell an obscenity and jump out of the truck?” he asked. “There does seem to be a pattern here.”
“We’ve got to help them.” Allison yanked on her door handle, only to find it locked.
“Forget it,” Tag said. “This is a crew cab. You can’t open these back doors if the front doors are closed.”
“What? Can’t you open the front doors?”
“I could. If I was an acrobat.”
Allison’s heart began to pound. “You mean we’re trapped?”
“Let’s wait a minute. If they don’t come back, maybe you can reach the front door and open it. You’re smaller than I am.”
“This is insane,” she said, her voice growing more strident. “My Crown Victoria might have been junk on wheels, but at least I could get out of it.”
“Now calm down. I don’t think they’re in harm’s way.”
“But we don’t even know what they’re chasing.”
“I’m not so sure they do either.”
He pointed at Debbie Sue, who was running between two rows of tombstones like the headless horse man. Only her light-colored khaki pants could be seen in the night. The pants stopped once beside a
headstone, then took off again.
Edwina was closer to the truck. She made three little steps, stopped, leaned on a headstone, and adjusted her shoe. Five more steps and she stopped and pulled at her bra strap.
“What are they doing?” Allison asked.
“Damned if I know,” Tag answered, shaking his head.
To Debbie Sue’s dismay, the person who had been targeted in her headlights was nowhere in sight. “Ed, where the hell did he go?”
Complete silence. Except for the rustling of dried leaves. The sound surrounded Debbie Sue, almost like a whisper. The clouds had moved over the moon and left the landscape in pitch-black darkness. A shiver ran up Debbie Sue’s spine. “Ed?…Ed? Where are you?”
She began to walk gingerly. She couldn’t see a thing, including Edwina. “Ed, don’t pull this shiiiii—oomph!”
Debbie Sue landed on her tailbone. She got to her feet, the smell of dirt all around her. She dusted her bottom and her blazer sleeves and bent her arms, checking for injuries. Her elbows bumped a wall.
A wall?
She could see nothing, so she reached out with her hands, feeling what was beside her. Bare dirt. She looked up and all she could see was a three-by-six slice of sky slightly lighter than her surroundings. Shit! She had fallen into an open grave. “Damnation! Son of a bitch!”
A voice beside her said, “You left out fuck.”
Debbie Sue jumped so high she shinnied a good two feet up the dirt wall before Edwina said, “That won’t work. I’ve already tried it.”
“Dammit, Ed, you scared the living shit outta me! Why didn’t you say something?” Debbie Sue bent forward, catching her breath and waiting for her heartbeat to slow.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Edwina replied, exaggerated civility and sweetness hanging on each word. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, Deb, glad you dropped in. Can I get you something to drink?’”
Debbie Sue looked toward the voice, but could barely see Edwina’s outline. “This is no time for sarcasm. How the hell are we gonna get outta here?”
“This is the perfect fucking time for sarcasm. Of all the lousy places I’ve wound up in my life, and you know there have been some doozies, this one takes the cake. Thank God Tag and Allison are in the pickup. They’ll get us out.”
“Not for a while, they won’t. Not unless they figure out how to open the friggin’ doors.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t get out the backseat with the front doors closed. Tag might be able to reach them, but he’ll have to break both his legs first. He’s a pretty big ol’ boy.”
“That’s crazy. Putting doors like that on a pickup makes no fucking sense.”
“Tell it to Ford. You’re talking sense to me from the bottom of a grave, in the middle of the night, in the middle of fucking nowhere?”
They stood there in silence, listening to each other’s breathing.
“I guess we better start being nicer to each other,” Edwina said. “Seeing as how we’re gonna be laying together for eternity in peaceful rest.”
Debbie Sue couldn’t hold back a snicker. “That Merle’s something else. I couldn’t believe it when he said that. He’s worse than Billy Don.”
Edwina began to laugh and Debbie Sue joined her. They both bent double in laughter, gasping for breath. The giddy moment had almost passed when a human voice from above silenced them both.
“Here. One of you reach up for my hand and I’ll pull you out.”
Debbie Sue looked up and saw the outline of a human against the black sky. “Eugene!” She thrust her hand upward.
“Janine!” Edwina said.
Once they were aboveground, Edwina whacked Eugene/ Janine’s shoulder. “You’re the one that nearly ran over me in Salt Lick.”
Eugene/Janine ducked and raised his arms in self-defense. “Stop. Don’t hit me. I bruise easily.”
Without warning, Eugene/Janine startled and disappeared behind a tree trunk just before Sheriff Jackson, Merle, Tag, and Allison walked up.
“What happened?” the sheriff asked.
“We fell in an open grave, but Eugene pulled us out,” Debbie Sue said.
“Janine saved the day,” Edwina said, wiping her feet on her pant legs. She had been forced to remove her shoes to shinny up the grave wall.
“Who’s Eugene?” the sheriff asked.
Eugene prissed out of the shadows. “That would be me, Officer.”
“Who’s Janine?” Allison asked.
“Ditto!” Eugene/Janine said in a falsetto voice.
Even in the dark, Debbie Sue could see Allison’s jaw drop. Tag and the sheriff likewise.
“Are you having trouble, Sheriff Mike?” Merle asked. “Do I need to call 911?”
“No, Merle,” the sheriff answered patiently. “I’m not in trouble. I am 911, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
The sheriff turned his attention back to the little group. “Somebody needs to start explaining things to me. We’re all gonna take a little trip back to my office right now.” He looked at Eugene/Janine. “Miss, uh, I mean, sir, you ride with me and Merle. Allison, you and your band of clowns follow us.”
“Did he call us a bunch of clowns?” Edwina whispered to Debbie Sue as they tramped back to the pickup.
“Shut up, Ronald McDonald, and just do as he says.”
twenty-seven
Debbie Sue and Edwina followed the sheriff. At his office, he motioned for Merle to help him and they began dragging chairs from the reception room into his private office. Allison and Tag soon appeared.
“Now. Is everybody here?” the sheriff asked, placing the last chair. The chairs were arranged in a semicircle, each facing his desk.
Looks switched among the assemblage. Like sheep, they responded in unison to the sheriff’s gesture for them to sit down. He took a seat behind his desk. “Now,” he said, sweeping a hand past Debbie Sue and Edwina, Tag and Allison, and Merle, “I pretty much know their story and how it fits into the evening, but I don’t know anything about you.” He pointed a finger at Eugene/Janine.
Debbie Sue was still muddling through what Eugene/Janine was doing in Haskell, Texas, when he was supposed to be in Las Vegas.
Eugene/Janine squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “I’m not speaking without an attorney present. I have rights. I haven’t done anything wrong and you had no reason to arrest me.” His voice became higher with each sentence.
“No one’s being arrested,” Sheriff Jackson said in an even, calm voice. “Yet.”
Debbie Sue and Edwina traded glances.
“Just settle down,” the sheriff continued. “I’m gonna get to the bottom of this here and now.” He turned to Tag. “You seem to be a normal kind of fella. You tell me what’s going on.”
“I wish I could, Sheriff,” Tag said. “I only came up here to see my friend Quint Matthews. I gave Allison a ride when her car broke down outside of Abilene. I’m pretty much in the dark about anything else.”
Eugene/Janine pursed his lips and glared at Tag. “So you’re a friend of Quint’s,” he spit out spitefully.
Debbie Sue wished Eugene/Janine would just shut his damn mouth. She rolled her eyes.
“He’s always gone for the pretty boys,” Eugene/Janine added.
Tag half rose from his chair. The sheriff’s voice boomed. He glared at Eugene/Janine. “I’ve had enough of this. I gave you a chance to speak your piece. Now it’s too late. Merle, bring in that TV set we went to your house and got.” He pulled a disc from his jacket pocket and held it up for all to see. “Y’all excuse me while I watch a movie.”
“The surveillance disc,” Allison cried, coming to her feet.
“So that’s the video,” Tag muttered.
“There’s a video?” Eugene/Janine’s eyes went wide. He looked scared and nervous for the first time.
“He’s gonna watch a movie? Now?” Edwina asked.
“And he called us clowns,” Debbie Sue grumbled
.
As soon as the sheriff and Merle left the room, Debbie Sue pounced on Eugene/Janine. “How the hell do you figure into this mess?” She poked his shoulder with her finger. “I thought you were having a sex-change operation in Vegas.” She looked him up and down. “Looks to me like you’ve still got all your old parts.”
“Well, thanks for bringing that up, Debbie Sue.” Eugene/ Janine sniffled into a handkerchief. “Like I don’t have enough to worry about, you have to remind me of that.”
“Seriously,” Edwina said, “what happened to your sex-change operation?”
“That doctor I paid all that cash to went to Brazil with my money. He took money from several other unsuspecting patients, too. He’s hiding out, the bastard.” He dabbed his eyes. “The Las Vegas police wouldn’t help me at all. They treated my claim like a big joke.”
“Hmmph,” Edwina said. “I guess it’s just as well. You might’ve had to tell them where you got the money in the first place.”
Debbie Sue gave Eugene/Janine a look. “So the money you stole from the Carrutherses for your operation got stolen from you? Where I come from, that’s called poetic justice.”
“No, it’s not! There’s no justice when justice isn’t due! I didn’t hurt anyone!” He began to wail.
On a sigh, Debbie Sue put her arm around his shoulder. “There, there. Are you still taking hormones?”
“Yesss,” he whined. “I really don’t know why I want to be a woman. The mood swings are ridiculous. And I’m retaining enough water to float a boat.”
Debbie Sue shot Edwina a glance as she pulled Eugene/Janine closer. “Eugene, did you have anything to do with Monica Hunter’s death? In case you haven’t figured it out, that video the sheriff’s looking at might show what happened. You wouldn’t happen to be the star player, would you?”
Eugene/Janine bit down on his knuckle. “Oh my God. I only wanted to confront her about how she treated Quint. I can’t go to prison. I’m too fragile.” He broke into even louder sobs.