“Yes, sir.” I shuffled my feet and edged back. “Guess I should be getting to work.”
My stomach rumbled low and long, reminding me I had not fed it breakfast. A quick glimpse at my watch showed it far past lunch.
“And what are you doing here, Luke? Keeping guard over the coffin?” Ronny chuckled. “Going to stay here all day?”
“Maybe,” Luke grumbled. “Just taking a break from all the company.”
“Remember I’m company, too,” said Shawna, giving Luke a playful push.
I groaned aloud and tried to cover the sound with a cough.
“Of course, I didn’t expect Shawna to be at the house,” Luke snuck a hard look at me while directing his answer to Ronny. “When did I last see you, Shawna?”
“Oh goodness me,” said Shawna, “I can’t rightly say. Years and years ago.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth, but the snort ripped through me anyway. I mean, who talks like that? If Luke fell for that kind of crap, he had changed a lot more than I thought.
I returned to the easel. Ronny slipped to the far wall after me. He gripped the edge of the coffin, riveted on Dustin. I laid a hand on Ronny’s back.
“Are you okay, Mr. Price? I guess you’ve known Dustin since he was little. This must be hard for you.”
“Thank you, hon’,” he said. “It’s hard to believe.” Slipping out from under my hand, he sped out the room.
“Poor guy,” I said, turning back to Luke and Shawna. With a disgusted grunt, I snatched my drawings from Shawna’s light fingers.
Oblivious to Shawna’s snooping, Luke stood with his arms crossed, watching Ronny’s retreat. It seemed Dustin’s troubled character made his death as difficult as his life. This commission positioned me on the edge of the Branson-Harper mire. I had my own family bogs to wade through, and they weren’t much prettier than the Bransons’.
But other people’s problems are sure a lot more interesting than your own.
Thirty minutes later I gave up my attempts to sketch. Shawna and Luke found my last nerve and worked together to snap it, standing in a corner, reminiscing about Eagle football victories between Shawna’s catty comments on my ability to capture Dustin’s likeness on paper. Besides, I was starving.
I packed up my tackle box, grabbed my sketch book, and strode out the door. Luke followed, though we didn’t speak. When I pulled out of the drive, I glimpsed him leaning against his pickup, watching me. A shiver ran through me, and I squashed it.
I had no business thinking about Luke or his dimples. The whole Dustin situation didn’t sit well with me. He acted the teeniest bit odd.
My stomach gurgled, drowning the blast of the radio. I turned off the main road onto Highway 19 toward my family’s farm and checked my rear view for the large grill of a black truck. I’d be lying if I said memories of Luke hadn’t crossed my mind a time or two over the years. However, after the Las Vegas fiasco, I vowed to abstain from men.
Luke made me stupid, and I hated stupid. Todd was temporary insanity and harmless. Luke was dangerous.
I scrunched my face and eased the accelerator until the engine knocking quieted. I detested restrictions. Even self-imposed ones.
He might be dangerous, but Luke didn’t scare me.
Therein lay the problem.
FOUR
Pulling into the farm could be trickier than holding onto the bottom lane at Bristol Motor Speedway. With the right signal blinking, the Datsun idled before the gravel turn. I scanned the rutted drive. My eyes cast across the weedy foreground with its smattering of chewed forsythia toward the split in the lane leading to a rusty roofed barn.
Empty.
The other fork led to a little ranch house with a tacked on screened porch and crumbling flowerbeds. The house hid behind a thick ancient oak and an overgrown Bradford Pear flush with white blossoms. I craned my neck, but couldn’t see past the limbs of the oak still clinging to last season’s dead leaves.
I revved my engine, but that trick never worked.
Whistling wouldn’t work either.
A clump of half-chewed hollyhocks grew by the fencepost. A grunt of disgust escaped my lips. I loved those hollyhocks. Wasted half a day adding manure to the Georgia clay to coax them into growing. I loved their colors: dark purples, brilliant reds, and pinks with tips pale as blush and deepening to dark magenta centers.
However, even the tenacious hollyhocks had become victim to the farmyard terror. The Datsun idled at the corner of the lane while I searched for signs of life in the farm drive. Behind the fence, three of the neighbor’s horses pulled at the long weeds lining the road and watched me.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I called to them. “He only does this to me.” Or maybe it was the Datsun. Another reason to get this paycheck and toss the clunker.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Bleating floated through the open window, but the cries came from the far pasture behind the shed. My stomach protested the prolonged wait with a clamorous rumble that would have given a thunderstorm a run for its money.
Maybe I would get lucky.
The yellow truck accelerated down the lane, churning clay and gravel in its wake. The object of the game was to get to the house before Tater saw me. Either that or I’d have to endure a long walk with him nudging and nibbling me the entire way. I’d be covered in goat schmeg before reaching the house.
Why couldn’t Grandpa have kept the cows? He never let them roam the yard. Heck, he treated Tater better than his grandkids. My thoughts stopped short at the site of a massive white billy goat trotting out from behind the Bradford Pear. Chewing his cud, he studied the yellow truck barreling down the drive. The buck shook his beard, pawed the dirt, and lowered his horns.
Much as Tater drove me crazy, I didn’t want to hit him. He’d probably wreck my truck. I pounded the brakes. Tater galloped along the drive like he was Secretariat in the last quarter turn of the Derby while I scrambled to pull the keys from the ignition and open the door. The latch popped as Tater darted around the grill of the Datsun to my side. I squeezed out the cracked door, shoved it shut with my butt, and locked it.
“You are not getting in my truck again. I have important stuff in there.”
Tater cocked his head, evaluating my words with amber eyes. His cud swished from cheek to cheek. Evaluation over, he butted me in the stomach, thrusting me against the truck. Goat spittle and dirt speckled my orange tee.
“Dang it, Tater!” I pushed back. “I hate goats. Has that not occurred to you yet?”
“You again. I thought you didn’t live here anymore,” said Ed Ballard, glancing over his shoulder at the slam of the screen door.
“Nice to see you, too, Grandpa.” I bent over and pecked his raspy cheek. “You know that old goat stopped me again. Why don’t you put him in back with the others?”
I could feel the tremor of a smile, but it disappeared by the time my lips left his cheek. He sat with crossed legs at the rattan table set bought thirty years earlier for the bright yellow kitchen. His small frame appeared delicately old and grizzled, yet the denim britches and work shirt hid muscles as tough and stringy as an overcooked chicken, something you were not likely to find in the Ballard house. A folded newspaper lay on the table next to an empty plate and half-drunk glass of tea.
“Anybody else here?” I prompted.
“How would I know? This place is a revolving door for you kids.”
“I’m right here, old man.” Casey stepped onto the faded linoleum in bare feet. Her toenails sparkled with glittery purple polish and an inch of flesh peeked between her t-shirt and low-rise jeans. “You’d think I hadn’t just cooked you up a fierce dinner.”
“Fierce dinner?” I repeated and licked my lips. Casey and Grandpa ignored me.
“I don’t need watching by rude children. What I want is some peace.”
Grandpa tapped his hand on the paper and eyed me. “Sister, fix her a plate. I only see Cherry when she’s hungry, but that’s often enough.”
I slid onto the chair next to him and smiled. “You want to know what I’ve been doing?”
Casey plopped onto a chair opposite and leaned her elbows on the table.
“Wha’ch you been doing?” She tossed her long brown hair over a shoulder, her brown eyes sparking with interest. Casey lived for gossip and excitement. Gossip was easy to find, but excitement a bit harder in Halo. That meant Casey made her own excitement, which often resulted in more gossip.
“I’ve got a chance for a new commission,” I said. Casey delivered me a blank look. “A new customer to paint. It’s Dustin Branson.”
“Uh-uh. He’s dead.”
“I know. The Bransons hired me to paint him dead. Can you believe it?” I turned to Grandpa. “Saw Uncle Will at Cooper’s. The Sheriff’s Office is investigating. What do you know about it?”
“Well,” he pulled on the word while arranging himself for a lengthy answer. Half the information would be factual and the rest supposition, but I might learn something. I hopped up to pour a glass of sweet tea while Casey picked at her nails.
“Dustin was found in the auto bay of Mather’s tire shop. That’s where he worked, when he bothered showing up.” He shook his head, discontented with Dustin’s work habits. “It was after closing so the front door was locked. Curtis Mather found Dustin face down under the lift with drained oil dripping on him and his head smashed in. Probably used one of the tools in the garage, maybe a tire iron? That’s my guess, now. Will wouldn’t tell me the murder weapon.”
“What was he doing there after hours?”
“Dustin was working on his own car.” Grandpa tapped his chin. “An old Malibu. He worked on rebuilding it after work sometimes.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Got my sources. I wonder if JB’s going to sell that Malibu. Cody’s mighty interested. Been busting to ask Branson next time he’s in the dealership garage. I told Cody to wait and see. The man just lost his son. That boy’s got no sense of decorum. Anyway, that’s all I need is another vehicle on blocks in my barn.”
“Knowing my brother and cars, he’ll wrangle that Malibu somehow. It’ll be sitting in the barn within the month guaranteed,” I said.
“He better sell some of his other junk first. There ain’t room. What’s the point of spending all his money on cars if he can’t afford the parts to fix them?”
I set down the tea and walked over to the fridge. A plate of cold chicken sat wrapped in plastic on the shelf. A roar from my stomach accompanied some drool.
“That chicken’s for supper,” Casey called without looking up.
I ignored Casey and grabbed a leg of chicken before sitting at the worn table again.
Grandpa glowered. “Don’t be eating my supper now, Cherry.”
“It would’ve been my supper, too. So I’m just eating my share since I’m going back to Cooper’s tonight.” I bit into the succulent chicken and sighed. “Casey, you could put Chicken D’Lite out of business if you’d open your own place.”
“You keep saying that. And I keep telling you waiting tables at Red’s is more than enough for me.”
“Why would I want her to open a restaurant?” asked Grandpa. “Then somebody else will be eating her chicken and not me.”
“Don’t you want to be successful?” I studied Casey as she leaned over to peer at her toenails. Casey couldn’t find ambition if it drew her a map and hired a sherpa.
“Not if it means slaving away for a bunch of people who don’t give a rat’s ass about me.”
I skipped over her implication at my constant scramble for commissions. “I care about you. So, you have anything to go with the chicken? I’m starving.”
“You’re always starving. You got Gam’s house, and I know it has a kitchen. Why don’t you learn to cook for yourself?” She stretched from her seat with deliberate indolence, our squabble already forgotten.
“Why should I when you do it so much better? Who wants to eat ramen noodles when I can eat this?”
“As I was saying,” Grandpa cleared his throat. “Now, the papers read that Dustin was dealing drugs out the back of the tire shop. Witnesses saw people going in and out that back door late at night from time to time. He could’ve been dealing drugs, wouldn’t put it past him, but I know something else that goes on there.”
“What?” Casey and I responded together. She laid a plate of reheated butter rolls, fried okra, and green beans before me. My eyes dilated. I shoveled Casey’s cooking into my mouth, chewing quickly to hear Grandpa’s reply.
“Sam McGill’s poker group. Got ’em going on all over town.”
I swallowed a half-chewed bit of roll and swished it down with tea. “If there was a poker game, wouldn’t someone have seen him dead and reported it?”
“It weren’t there that night. Will says it was at the Tan-N-Go a few nights before. But if folks were seeing people at odd hours at the garage, had to be poker. If it was drugs, they would’ve been sneakier. Maybe Dustin would’ve hid the drugs with the tires. You think that would work? Maybe on the wheel under the hubcap?” Grandpa leaned back, imagining the clandestine workings of a hubcap drug ring.
“Why don’t they play poker in their houses like normal people? Why travel around to their jobs? I think you’d be more comfortable in your house.” Casey plopped into her chair with a bottle of florescent orange polish. She opened the bottle and spread one hand on the table.
“Because of the wives, of course. That’s how it started anyway. Sam’s wife didn’t want him playing poker, and his friends’ wives would’ve told her if he played at their houses. Sam don’t have that wife any more, but they still play in the businesses for the hell of it.”
“Who’s involved in those games?” I asked.
“Not the crowd I’d hang out with, I’ll tell you that. Can’t see Dustin or his group playing with them neither.”
“Who else works at the tire shop?”
Grandpa rubbed the short whiskers of his chin with one hand. “Can’t say. Don’t get my tires there. I go to the Walmart in Line Creek.”
“Any younger guys in that poker group?”
“Wondering about anyone in particular? You ain’t seeing drummer boy again? I never understood your fascination with that one. He’s got less sense than Cody. And a gambling problem to boot.”
Casey laughed. “Todd may be dumb, but he’s awfully pretty, Grandpa. There’s your fascination. And he worships Cherry.”
“That shows you how dumb he is,” said Grandpa.
“Thanks. You and Casey do wonders for my self-esteem.”
“Speaking of awful pretty, Luke Harper’s back in town for the funeral. You seen him yet?” Casey glanced up from her nails to see my scowl. “Which do we need to lock up? You or Daddy’s gun?”
“That was a long time ago. And I was young.”
Grandpa grimaced. “What are you talking about? Are you in trouble, Cherry? You girls are going to be the death of me.”
“Everything’s fine, Grandpa. Cody will be the death of you, not me.”
“Cody’s not the one that tried to run away and get married.”
“I didn’t run away to get married. Todd won a contest to go to Vegas, and I went along for fun. The wedding was annulled before anything happened, thank you, Lord. It was a momentary lapse in judgment.”
“Call it what you want. Should’ve locked you up then, too,” remarked Casey.
“You’re one to talk!”
“That’s my own business.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Grandpa shoved his chair back and stood up. He placed his hands on the table, flexing the gnarled muscles in his th
in arms. “I’m going to talk to my goats. They have more sense than the two of you.” He pushed off the table and snapped his arm, waving us off. “You two are just like your mother. You better watch yourselves.”
Casey and I stared at each other with raised brows. That was the one line that could always hush us up.
I went back to Cooper’s Funeral Home, but Cooper kicked me out. Told me to come back in the morning when it was less hectic. He failed to understand, even after a mostly patient explanation from yours truly, that I needed to start painting tonight. I couldn’t spread my tarp and lay out my paints within hours of the visitation. And even as fast as acrylics dried, I still had to use glazing to get the look of an oil painting, which took some time.
Nothing would stop me from getting this painting perfectly executed and delivered to that funeral. Not even a little thing like locked doors to an empty funeral parlor. In a creaky, old house probably riddled with ghosts.
And if Cooper didn’t want people showing up after hours, he needed to have strong words with his beautician who left her keys in plain view on the kitchenette counter.
I unlocked the side door and slipped in under the hazy orange glow of a security light. I chuckled at the simplicity of creeping in after hours. It reminded me of sneaking into the high school art room after dark. I was finally caught by a late-night janitor, but until then, I had done some of my best work in the empty building. Taught me to clean up well, too. And how to pick locks on closets with a paperclip.
Not that working in a funeral home after dark was my idea of a good time, but at least Cooper wouldn’t lurk over my shoulder asking questions. And I wouldn’t choke on undertaker fumes either.
I used my flashlight to find my way along the dim hallway. At the entrance to the lobby, my hand hovered over the light switch. Passing car lights shone through the glass front doors, spotlighting my still form. Some nosy biddy would surely notice lights on at Cooper’s after dark and call Mr. Cooper. Or the sheriff.
I left the lights off and stole into the Branson viewing room.
1 Portrait of a Dead Guy Page 5