“I am not paying a cover to see Todd,” I said. “I see enough of him as it is. Rarely clothed, too. I swear he was raised by nudists.”
“Who is Todd?” asked Nik.
“Cherry’s ex-husband,” said Red. “Don’t get hooked on Cherry. She will break your heart. She has issues with committing.”
“I am not hooked on Cherry,” said Nik. “She is crazy. Not my type.”
I glared at Nik and then Red. “I do not break hearts. They break mine. I thought y’all were my friends.”
“Friends keep it real,” said Red. “We want to help you.”
“I don’t need that kind of help. I get enough of that kind of help from everybody else.”
“We don’t want to see you end up alone,” said Leah. “You had two men willing to put up with you. We were surprised you got that many.”
“She’s feisty,” said Red. “Some men like cute and feisty. They think they’re going to get the milk for free with this one. You can tell she’s not ready to settle.”
“Hey,” I said. “I don’t give away milk.”
“She could have a pet. A dog. A cat will not listen to her always talking,” said Nik. “A dog is more forgiving.”
“Both Todd and Luke have their own issues.” I swigged my beer and glared into the mirror. “I might just try someone else out. Casey said I should have some fun.” I thought about Max and this time didn’t get the nauseous feeling that had previously accompanied thoughts about his maneuvers. Of course, the beer probably helped.
“Another one? You still haven’t gotten over Luke. Would you like me to replay your dramatic scene from two weeks ago when sweet, little Tara Mayfield asked Luke to dance, Miss Jealous Much?” Red looked at Leah. “She’s going to try rebound dating. Always a bad idea.”
“I know, Red.” Leah shook her head at her Dr. Pepper.
“Hello, I’m still here,” I said. “And now I’m changing the subject to Shawna Branson.”
“Not again,” said Nik. “I am not liking this subject.”
“No one asked you. Red, please get Nik some wings. I bragged on them, so make sure they are extra tasty.”
“I did visit Shawna at her shop for you, honey,” said Leah. “Those are some scary baby heads she has hanging in there.”
“Shawna has baby heads hanging in her shop?” asked Red. He waved at Casey and made the international sign for ordering wings. He pointed at me and twirled his finger to hurry her up.
Even at the other end of the room, I could feel Casey’s eye roll.
“Not real baby heads,” I said. “Shawna hasn’t gone that loony. Yet. Did she tell you what kind of pictures she is looking for?”
“Some snapshots. That’s all I could get out of her before she started ranting,” Leah shook her head. “Shawna is horribly jealous of your new commission. I shouldn’t have told her.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Fascist,” said Nik into his beer.
“Whatever you do, Red, don’t give Nik any vodka,” I said.
“Did you know Mr. Max has hired out her gallery?” said Leah. “She is very happy about that. Ecstatic, in fact. And would like to rub it in your face.”
“I thought the Bear was going to help me, not Shawna,” I pouted.
“I thought you found Mr. Max suspicious,” said Red. “Why would you want him to help you?”
“He is the only person in Halo willing to buy my art at the moment. I don’t really have a choice. I’m not sure if I trust him, but he seems very willing to help.”
“But what does he want in return?” said Leah.
“Good question,” I said. “The Bear does nothing for free. But he hasn’t suggested anything yet.”
“You be careful,” said Red. “There’s got to be other people in this town willing to back your art.”
“There is posters,” said Nik. He pointed to the signboard paraphernalia I had left on the bar.
“That’s good news,” said Leah. “Who’s having you do posters?”
“Miss Wanda.” I gulped my beer. “The posters are for Shawna. I didn’t have the heart to tell Miss Wanda the announcements are intended to decimate my career. They advertise Shawna’s Concerned Citizens brigade.”
“You’re helping the enemy?” said Red. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I couldn’t tell Miss Wanda no. She’s too nice.” I wiped a drip of beer off a piece of poster board. “However, I thought I could put a positive spin on my artwork while still including the information Shawna wanted.”
“A Trojan horse poster?” said Red.
“Subliminal advertising,” said Leah, reaching for the folder of material.
“Something that would make people not want to go to this meeting,” I opened a notebook and drew a pencil from my bag. “I thought y’all could help me brainstorm.”
My stomach sensed approaching food and called out to claim it. I clamped a hand over my belly as a few of Todd’s fans turned around to search the room for the source of the bee swarm sound.
“Who’s this?” said Casey, plunking two plates of steaming wings on the bar before us. She cocked her head and eyed Nik, who straightened from his slump and eyed her back. Casey looked particularly fetching in her Daisy Duke’s and County Line t-shirt with the sleeves and bottom hem line hacked off. Her bar apron created the only shield between her belly button ring and Red’s public. Considering Red’s public was mostly women at the moment, I couldn’t help but fear for her tips.
“I am Nik.” Nik held out a hand to capture Casey’s and kissed it. “And you must be the angel sent to save me.”
“Good Lord, Nik,” I said, “You can’t come up with a line better than that?”
“Hush,” said Casey. “I’m taking a break, Red.” Before Red could open his mouth to stop her, she had dragged Nik from his stool and they had exited the premises.
“I swear I’m going to fire her, Cherry,” said Red.
“You said yourself the Todd fans aren’t ordering anything. She’ll be back after she and Nik,” I coughed, “get to know each other in the parking lot.”
“Red, calm down,” Leah patted his arm, “you look apoplectic.”
“Your face is so red, your freckles have disappeared,” I added. “Anyway, Nik needs some cheering up. I don’t think he likes working for Rupert. Nik’s a very gloomy person.”
“Let’s work on your posters and take Red’s mind off Casey,” said Leah. She flipped open the folder of copies. “Lord help us. Have you looked in this folder?”
She held up a photocopy that featured an enlarged section of Todd’s anatomy. “This is what Shawna wants stuck on these posters? How could Miss Wanda approve of this?”
“Miss Wanda hadn’t looked at the copies yet. Let me see that,” I snatched the paper, which caught the eye of two women striding toward the autograph signing. They turned fifteen shades of pink, but slowed their walk and halted before us.
“Are those flyers for the Sticks drummer to sign?” asked a woman with a dark haired bob and carrying a purse that looked suspiciously like a diaper bag.
Before the “what?” could fly from my mouth, the older of the pair snatched the flier from my hand. “I recognize this from the other posters. It has to be him.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Give that back.”
The older woman shoved the flier into the diaper bag. “I know we’re late, but my daughter needs a night out and wanted to see him for herself. Me, too.”
“See what for yourself?”
“The man in the posters. Word has spread the model performs in Sticks. We’ve got one hour before Sissy needs to get home and feed the baby.” She gave Sissy a shove and they sped to the far end of the room.
Red shook his head. “I bet they’re not ordering anything, either.”
I scanned the other copies. “I can’t believe this. Shawna has made Todd into a porn star and turned the female population of Forks County into a bunch of degenerates. And she’
s trying to make me look depraved?”
Leah shoved the copies back into the folder. “This is horrible and wrong. I don’t want to see Todd like this.”
“Todd’s image has been sliced and diced and corrupted,” I said. “Shawna has taken an object of beauty and turned it into an object of lust.”
“This kind of notoriety might bring in customers now but will doom my business.” Red leaned over the bar to reexamine the crowd. “Folks will think I support this kind of smut.”
“You have to stop her, Cherry,” said Leah with a lethal glare at Red. “I’m sure Red is just as concerned about what these posters would do to you and Todd as much as his business.”
Red’s ruddy complexion brightened. “Well, of course, Leah. Maybe I should disperse this crowd.”
“I’m getting out of here. I’ll work on these posters at home.” I hopped from my stool, slung my satchel around my shoulder, and turned toward the door. “Actually, I’ll go out the back way. I think seeing my sister and Nik getting acquainted in the breezeway may turn my stomach.”
“She better not be in my foyer,” called Red.
I eased past Todd’s groupies, hoping not to be recognized. The bingo crowd still had it in for me and there was no sense in riling that group. Women addled with Todd-induced hormones and deprived of bingo were a dangerous lot. I caught the gleam of Todd’s tight, faux-leather tush and pushed through the swinging kitchen door. I waved a “hey” at the staff and scooted toward the back door where the cooks took their smoke breaks.
Slamming through the door, I hooked a right toward the parking lot, remembered I didn’t have my truck, and stumbled to a stop at the edge of the building. I scanned the lot for Rupert’s town car and couldn’t find it. Todd’s Civic was also missing. However, Casey’s Firebird had been parked in a prime slot in front.
I thought about returning to Red’s kitchen to look for her keys, when I spotted a familiar BMW parked across the street.
“Shit.”
Twenty-Six
I watched the BMW for a good five minutes, or at least a long thirty seconds as I wasn’t wearing a watch, and again nothing happened. The parking lot grew busier as women juiced up on Todd’s splendiferous form left Red’s and the regulars who knew Todd and didn’t care to see his all-but-nothings arrived for the usual Friday night party. I needed to see who drove that silver hatchback. Calling the police would mean scaring the vehicle away, and danged if I would let this sonofabitch follow me around town and not know who he was.
The BMW had parked to watch Red’s from across the street. Behind the vehicle, a steep hillside led to a vacant lot and an abandoned building used by local high schoolers for practicing their spray painting skills. Red’s gravel parking lot, bare of trees and bushes, didn’t provide much cover. The sun hadn’t fully dropped either. On my left lay the old railroad tracks, marking Halo’s town limits. Here, the tracks ran in a depression created by a ditch that banked and grew into the hillside on the other side of the street. If I could get to the top of the hill, I could spy on the Beamer. The ditch wouldn’t hide much more than a rabbit on this side of the road, but following the tracks was my only chance to cross the road unseen.
Dropping the poster board at the side of the building, I darted toward the tracks and hunker-walked the shallow ditch, hoping the busy parking lot would keep attention focused on Red’s. At the street crossing, I squatted and waited for a minivan to cross the tracks to use as cover to scurry across the road unnoticed. The raised tracks and rutted road had a jarring effect on most chassis’s, so locals knew to ease over the crossing before accelerating into Halo where the potholes were filled with asphalt on a more regular basis. The minivan crept toward the tracks. I popped up from my squat, startled the driver into braking, and hurried across the road to drop into the deeper embankment.
There I waited while another minivan and an SUV left Red’s and bumped over the tracks. The embankment rose past my head. At the top was the abandoned, crumbling brick building once used for storage by the railroad, currently decorated with graffiti tagging and crude penis drawings.
Flipping my satchel onto my back, I climbed up the hill on hands and knees. I gladdened in my effort to dress in jeans and boots, although the tube top hadn’t been so smart. It had worked its way toward my navel by the time I reached the top of the hill. I reached under my shirt to yank it up, knocking off beads in the process.
I hurried toward the vandalized building and peered around the side. The BMW was parked below me. From this vantage point, I had a bird’s eye view which did me no good. The sun roof appeared as a dark rectangle. I dropped to the ground, Army man style, and wormed my way hand-over-hand to the edge of the hill.
Across the street, more vehicles pulled into Red’s. A hefty engine growled and a yellow, convertible Mustang with a GAPCH license plate charged down the street toward the bar. I froze. The tires sprayed gravel as Shawna took a tight corner into Red’s. I assumed she had heard about the Todd extravaganza going on inside. She revved through the lot, forcing a cowboy to back into his tailgate, and stopped before Red’s front door.
Hopping out of the car, she turned to cast a caustic eye on the man she almost hit, then trailed her eyes over the parking lot. Her automatic money-seeking sights trained on the BMW. She cocked her head, and I imagined an android read-out blipping the model, make, and market value of the Beamer in her brain. Her face lost its mad-as-hell look and grew puzzled. I held my breath and let it out as her eyes left the BMW, traveled up the hill, and stuck on my face hovering Wizard of Oz-like above the hatchback.
My cover blown, I didn’t know what else to do but smile. Shawna shrieked and pointed. The cowboy turned and looked. The car engine spurted to a start below me. I thought but didn’t say a few expletives and started my hand-over-hand backwards crawl. Shawna darted across the parking lot, screaming my name and all the things she’d like to do to me. Max’s words about “danger” and “retreat” popped into my mind as I scrambled through the weeds.
Taking his advice, I jumped to my feet and ran.
I gunned Todd’s Civic through town, swerving on to side streets toward the county highway to confuse the BMW. I had run home, discarded my ruined chiffon blouse, grabbed Todd’s keys, and headed out the door. Once again, my house had been full of young bachelors enjoying a self-proclaimed “happy hour” on my porch. They had moved the dead pheasant couch outside where they lounged with their feet on the rails and coolers at their sides. I hadn’t stopped to kick them out. I had hoped the BMW didn’t know where I lived, and I wasn’t going to stick around for it to find me.
Once out of town, I made straight for Max’s Nouveau Antebellum estate. Amid Shawna’s screaming about my moral ruin were boasts of Max’s financial support of her. He had been my last hope in proving the witch hunt false. I needed confirmation if I really indeed should “abandon hope of living in Halo.”
According to Shawna, I did.
At this point, faith in my local art business’s success had already snuck out the back door. I might have to make a career of the graveyard shift at the SipNZip. I’d live. But if I were run out of Halo, who would check on the Coderres? I needed to stick around to keep up the momentum of helping that family. Finding a way for Miss Gladys to care properly for Jerell and breaking the family pattern of drugs and robbery seemed paramount.
With so many thoughts about stalkers, Shawna, and the Coderres circling my brain, I passed the black pickup parked down the street from Max’s drive without thinking.
I had pulled the Civic’s grill before Max’s closed gate, ready to hop out and speak to his intercom, when I did my double take. I shoved the gear shifter into reverse, backed into the road, and parked across the street from the truck. A cab light flared. I hopped from Todd’s hatchback and strode across the road to the jacked-up pickup.
Luke rolled down his window. “What are you doing here?”
“I have business to discuss with Mr. Max. What about you? This looks like a
stake out.”
“Get in,” Luke rolled up his window.
I circled the truck and climbed in through the passenger door. “This is the second time I’ve found you hanging around Mr. Max. What’s going on?”
“I could say the same to you.”
We scrutinized each other for a long moment. Luke cut off the overhead light, breaking the tension.
“Why are you watching his house?” I said. “Shouldn’t you be out looking for Tyrone’s and the Dixie Cake truck driver’s killer?”
“The hijacking is bigger than that. And don’t ask me for details because that’s all I’m telling you.”
“Bigger than what? Are there more dead people?”
“Lord, I hope not.” Luke rested his head on the seatback.
I ticked off points on my fingers. “Let me see if I can figure this out. You’ve got a hijacking where there’s normally no hijacking. The driver was shot, but he’s the wrong driver. You have a witness to the shooting, who is later killed. It doesn’t sound that complicated to me. But you’re watching Max Avtaikin’s house.”
“Yep.”
“Did you know I was coming here?”
Luke sat up. “Why would I know you were coming here?”
“I told you Mr. Max was going to help me absolve my name in the community by financing a show. You were clear about not supporting that decision. And seemed pretty irate to find us together under that magnolia tree.”
Luke folded his arms. “Your little game of Frogger had me irate.”
“It didn’t bother you at all to see Max’s arms around me?”
I felt that statement detonate and sensed the sizzle of Luke’s blood beginning to steam.
I backed off. “I’ve been bringing food to the Coderres. Got them a funeral, too. Do you think the M.E. will release the body soon? I imagine Miss Gladys is getting anxious to have Tyrone buried. I know she’s anxious to have his killer caught so she can proceed with suing the perp.”
Hijack in Abstract (A Cherry Tucker Mystery) Page 17