“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “after the interment, the Diamonds have asked me to tell you that they will receive callers at their residence on Mebane Road. Let us pray.” He stretched out his arms, threw his head back, and began to speak.
I couldn’t listen. I closed my eyes and bent my head, but I wasn’t listening. I was saying my own prayers, talking to Herself about Ruby and her family, and what a gift she had been in my life. I didn’t want to hear Brother Everitt’s message of guilt and shame. “And, God,” I added silently, “if you need some help getting the ass—um, animal, that killed her, just put me to work, all right?”
Raydean elbowed me and I opened my eyes. The congregation was standing as Ruby’s casket was carried slowly down the aisle. Her parents and other family members followed, then the rest of the congregation filed out of the pews and headed for the door.
“Honey, ain’t no point in us going out to the cemetery. That wouldn’t be a good thing for you.” Raydean’s voice was soft and she gripped my elbow gently with her gloved hand. “Let’s us wander up to the drugstore and have a Coke, then we’ll go out to her parents’ and pay our respects.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, and started wandering toward the back of the church. I was hoping to avoid Detective Wheeling, but that wasn’t going to be possible. He had planted himself in our path and was staring me down.
“Let’s talk,” he said softly.
“Let’s not, Detective, and say we did.” I started to push past him, but Raydean missed the cue.
“Honey, you look thirsty,” she said to him. Raydean came up to about his collarbone, but her hat was tall enough to brush the tip of his nose. “Why don’t you just come on with us over to the drugstore and have a Coke. That’s what we’re gonna do. My sweet friend is just a bit overcome, you know. I figure it’s best to refresh ourselves before we set out to pay our respects.”
As I watched, Detective Wheeling’s face switched from a look of consternation to a broad smile, all of which was directed over the top of Raydean’s hat toward me.
“Why, ladies, that would be just the thing. Why don’t I drive?” He swept his arm through Raydean’s and placed a guiding hand on the small of my back. There was no other option but to allow myself to be led out the door, past Brother Everitt, and on to the Wewahitchka General Drugstore.
Raydean was thrilled, I could tell. She practically pushed me out of the way in her effort to climb into the front seat, and once enthroned, she began a rapid-fire conversation with Detective Wheeling.
“Smart thinking, boy,” she began cryptically.
“How’s that, ma’am?” he drawled.
“The way you screen out interference. You got your scanner, your car phone, and your radio all clumped up together and they’re all turned on.” She was right. The radio was pumping out a Reba McEntire song while the scanner squawked a sequence of numbers. “You keep out the interstellar galactic interference that way. It’s best in case them Flemish decide to invade. Wouldn’t do to be caught with our pants down, now would it?”
Wheeling’s neck reddened and he laughed nervously. Maybe the good old boy had bitten off more than he could chew. I sat back in my seat and started enjoying the ride. We were at most a block from the downtown area.
“You and Miss Lavotini been friends long?” he asked, expertly whipping into a space that had materialized right in front of the drugstore.
“Shoot, boy, I been knowing Sierra since she moved into the trailer park two years ago. Weren’t for her, I’d a been dead many times over. Them Flemish don’t cotton to chihuahuas.” Wheeling looked puzzled but didn’t say a word. Raydean was half out of the car and headed for the soda counter before Wheeling could open his door.
We took stools on either side of Raydean, who by now was calmly sipping a tall soda. I was in a time warp. The soda counter was marble, the stools wrought iron, and the mirror behind the counter was turning gray with age. Even the counter boy seemed to be a throwback to another era. He was ancient, maybe in his nineties, and wore a peaked white paper cap.
Detective Wheeling ordered a soda and then whistled softly under his breath. Raydean looked over at him and smiled.
“You know, Sierra liked another boy at the funeral, but I told her you were the better item.” Wheeling smiled slowly. “Of course,” she added, “that was afore I saw that little gold band on your finger.” She looked over at me. “You’d best keep the one you got,” she said.
I felt my face flush and I started praying in earnest that she wouldn’t mention Nailor’s name.
“Hush, Raydean,” I whispered.
“Sierra’s shy,” Raydean said loudly. “She’s got her a nice young fella. Course, I can’t say nothing for the calling hours he keeps.” I kicked Raydean’s ankle. “Youch!” she squeaked, her hand darting down to rub her sore ankle. “What you do that for?”
“I think we should be getting back,” I said. Wheeling was smiling to himself, like he held all the cards and knew I was about to fold. “We don’t want to be too late getting to Ruby’s house.”
Raydean took a huge suck at her straw, inhaling half of her Coke with one inhale. Detective Wheeling didn’t move.
“Aw, ladies,” he said slowly, “now there’s no need to rush off. Heck, they just left out for the cemetery. They won’t get back over to the house for another forty minutes. Miss Raydean, you just settle back and relax.”
Raydean smiled and batted her eyes at him. “Don’t mind if I do,” she sniffed. Wheeling took another pull at his soda.
“A woman as pretty as Sierra,” he began slowly, “I’ll bet she’s got all kind of fellas wanting to be her beau. He must be right special.” My heart was beating out of my chest.
“I don’t see as how that’s really any of your business,” I said.
“Aw, now, honey, there ain’t no call to be rude,” Raydean said. “And I’m sure he is nice,” she said, turning to Wheeling. “He’s a po-lice. I find po-lices usually to be on the wrong side of me, but this one’s a sweet fella. Plays a mean hand of poker, too.”
“Raydean,” I warned. “I have many male friends, and yes, Detective, some of them are members of your profession. You see,” I said, turning to Raydean, “Detective Wheeling is a member of the police force.” I spoke slowly and deliberately, hoping Raydean would catch on and know to button her lip. “He’s one of them.”
Raydean stiffened at the mention of “them.” “Them” meant only one thing to her. “Them,” she said slowly, turning to stare at Wheeling, while at the same time pushing herself closer to me. “Uh-huh,” she said. “Them, eh?”
Wheeling smiled disarmingly. “We’re not really so bad,” he said.
Raydean’s eyes widened. “Not so bad?” she screeched, earning the attention of the ninety-five-year-old counter boy. “Bursting into people’s homes in the middle of the night? Using force to control the minds and lives of innocent people? Ultimately working for world dominion? That’s not bad?” She reached gingerly up to the counter for her purse and pulled it quickly toward her.
“Now, Miss Raydean,” Wheeling said, sensing something was drastically wrong and mistaking it for common police phobia. “We’re here to protect and to serve. Innocent folks have nothing to fear from us. We want to make the world a better, safer place.”
“How many are there of you?” she asked.
“In Panama City? Oh, I’d say no more than five hundred, counting the county and the beach force.”
Raydean jumped off her stool and headed for the door. “Come on, Sierra, we gotta clear outta here. Beach force! Who’d have thought they’d come by water!”
I stood up and prepared to follow the rapidly departing Raydean. Detective Wheeling grabbed my arm in an attempt to restrain me.
“What is it with her?” he asked. “What did I say?”
I grinned. “Well, Detective,” I said, “you’ve somehow managed to convince Miss Raydean that you are an alien life form. I wonder how she ever got such an
idea?” Wheeling followed me out the door. Raydean was walking briskly down the sidewalk toward the church, obviously not intending to ride in what was now a suspected alien vehicle. “Nice try, Detective,” I said. “Maybe you’ll have better luck interrogating some of my other friends and acquaintances. However, were I you, and not an alien, I would be talking to Roy Dell Parks, or any number of other swarmy assholes that were pawing Ruby Diamond that night. I would not be sipping sodas and frightening harmless little old ladies in a wasted effort to find out more about me.”
I whirled around and headed down the street after Raydean. Wheeling wasn’t finished with me. He wasn’t the type to let anyone have the last word.
“Miss Lavotini,” he said, matching his stride to mine, “believe it or not, I’m trying to help.” I stopped in my tracks, preparing to give him some choice advice on how to do his job, but the look on his face stopped me. He had the same earnest little-boy expression I had seen that first night in the police station. I’m a sucker for guys who look like that, and so I stopped just long enough for him to get a word in edgewise.
“Look, put yourself in my place,” he said. “If you were trying to find the killer, you’d talk to everyone, track down every possible lead, gather as much information as possible, no matter how trivial or useless it seemed, wouldn’t you?” Raydean was now a small speck in the distance, turning into the church parking lot, her bonnet a pastel dot of color in the red-clay parking lot. I looked back at Wheeling, staring into his clear eyes and hating myself for seeing his point.
“Of course,” I answered. “So why aren’t you out at the racetrack?”
“Because I wanted to come to the funeral,” he answered. “I wanted to see who was here. And because you know things you haven’t told me.”
My guard was up again. “The hell I do,” I said angrily.
“You do,” he said evenly. “In every witness’s mind there are fragments, bits that they may not consciously be aware of, that float around. They may be important bits or they may just be fluff, but you have them. One of those pieces might just hold the key to what happened or who did this. It’s my job to keep talking, keep asking the right questions. You can see that, can’t you?”
I nodded. Wheeling was wearing a dark blue suit, a pale blue shirt, and a subdued gray tie. For a moment I found myself liking him, even wondering about what he’d be like if he wasn’t married. Stop it, I warned myself, don’t let your guard down.
“The fact remains,” he was saying, “you placed another detective in my squad at the scene. I’ve got to wonder about that. That doesn’t mean I automatically discount what you said. It just means I’ve got to find out about that.” Damn, I knew better than to lower my guard. “Was Raydean talking about Detective Nailor in there?”
“No,” I answered, looking him straight in the eye. “Raydean’s like that. She gets confused. I mean, she met Detective Nailor last summer when he was investigating a murder. Maybe that’s what she meant.” I could feel my neck flush and I felt just like I used to feel in Catholic school when Sister Claude Marie would demand my homework and I would lie about it.
“Sierra,” he said, “it’s not like I suspect you of anything. I’m just trying to get at the facts here. It makes no difference to me if you and John have a personal relationship.”
I heard Raydean’s car before I saw it. The unmistakable sound of a 1962 Plymouth Fury traveling fast with a small hole in its muffler made Detective Wheeling look up. Raydean was headed for the drugstore, no doubt to rescue me from the clutches of an alien evildoer. I could make out her face, set with a determined expression, her bonnet hanging lopsided over her forehead, covering one eye. She was coming in and she was coming in fast. Only one thing stood between her, the curb, and me: Detective Wheeling’s unmarked brown Taurus sedan.
Wheeling realized this at the same moment that I did and jumped out into the street in a vain attempt to ward off her approach. He waved his arms wildly, yelling for her to cut the wheel, but Raydean either didn’t hear him or chose not to listen. There was a small, high-pitched scraping noise as the front fender of Raydean’s Plymouth tapped into the Taurus and then rubbed a thin even scrape all the way down the side of the car.
Raydean may have noticed this, because she then attempted to correct her error by backing up. This only served to neatly crease the entire left side of his car.
“Oh my God, would you look at that?” he moaned.
I looked. “Detective, I’m thinking a little rubbing compound and you’ll be good to go.” Wheeling glowered at me.
“Rubbing compound? There’s a dent an inch deep on the side of my car.” Raydean honked the horn impatiently. Apparently she saw nothing wrong and intended for us to put as much distance as possible between herself and this alien.
“Well, then,” I said, “do you want me to get her to—”
“No, hell, no. Just go on. There’s no use in me trying to get anything straight with her. Just go on. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Detective,” I said softly. “I owe you one.”
“One?” he said, a hint of a smile escaping as he looked at Raydean. “You owe me, all right, but one won’t get it. How about we call a truce and you agree to sit down and talk to me. One on one, no crazy neighbors or attorneys.”
“All right. One on one. Your office. Tomorrow morning.”
Wheeling nodded, his attention turned back to his bruised Taurus. “Go on, get out of here. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Raydean gunned the engine to let me know that time was wasting. I didn’t want to linger, lest the detective change his mind and decide to make our lives more difficult. I ran around to the passenger side of Raydean’s car and climbed in.
Raydean slammed the car into reverse and pulled out into the street without checking the rearview mirror. A car’s brakes screeched and a horn sounded, but neither of us looked back.
“I’m thinking the boy was telling you that I’m certifiable,” Raydean said calmly, once the car was rolling down the street.
“You did a damn fine job yourself,” I answered.
“Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you,” she answered cryptically.
Twelve
Ruby Lee Diamond’s parents lived on the edge of Wewahitchka in a small white frame house that sat behind a chain-link fence on a manicured stamp of crayon-green grass. Cars lined either side of the road, having been pulled over into the grass that ran to the street’s edge. More people were pulling up as we arrived, parking and then making their way to the door with somber expressions and casserole dishes.
“I didn’t think…” I said.
“Well, I did,” Raydean replied, reaching over her shoulder into the backseat for a square foil-lined baking pan. “Always keep a spare in the freezer, just in case.” I had no idea what was in the pan, and didn’t really want to ask. Knowing Raydean, baked alligator was not out of the realm of possibility.
We walked up to the house and drifted inside, swallowed up by the covey of friends and relations, all come to comfort Ruby’s parents. Brother Everitt was nowhere to be seen, and I was glad because I was in the mood to tell someone off and he’d have been my first target. Raydean, who’s never met a stranger, wandered into the kitchen to deposit her casserole, leaving me to fend for myself.
The house was larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, but still the house was packed with what appeared to be the entire population of tiny Wewahitchka. Ruby’s parents sat on a sofa in the living room and an informal receiving line had been started. The dining room table was quickly being covered with food as women in hastily donned aprons ran back and forth from the kitchen.
“It’s Sierra, isn’t it?” a low voice said. I looked up to see Meatloaf standing next to me, distinctly uncomfortable in his too-tight polyester pants and short-sleeved white shirt.
“And you’d be Meatloaf,” I answered. He smiled tentatively and extended a hand that, even though scrubbed, still
looked gray with car grime. “Did you bring the rest of the boys, or are you doing this on your own?” Somehow I didn’t think Meatloaf would brave a funeral alone. I tried to look around behind him, but he took up too much space for me to get a clear view.
“Nah, them others is here. I just saw you standing all alone, looking like a flower, and I thought, well, I wanted to say hello.” His face was scarlet. Who’d have thought a big guy like that would be shy around a woman?
“There you are. Come on.” I looked behind Meatloaf and saw his buddy Frank, who hadn’t bothered to clean up much. He wore dark blue mechanic’s pants, steel-toed work boots, and a pale blue shirt with short sleeves that showcased his tattoos. His one concession to formality was a too-short clip-on paisley tie.
Frank glowered at me, probably still remembering how I’d clocked his idol, the great Roy Dell Parks.
“Come on,” he repeated impatiently. “Mr. Rhodes said we’d best git on.” I looked around again and this time saw Mickey Rhodes standing in the corner, a Panama straw hat in his hand and a somber expression on his face.
“Where’s Roy Dell?” I asked, suddenly remembering my damaged Camaro.
“Aw, he’s outside in Mr. Rhodes’s Caddy. He was so tore up at the graveside, he couldn’t face coming in,” said Meatloaf. Frank snarled something about Meatloaf needing to shut up.
“Well, I need to see him about something, so let’s step outside.” I started walking out the door with Roy Dell’s boys behind me. Mickey Rhodes made an attempt at a polite greeting, but I had one thing on my mind: retribution. Roy Dell and I had business to settle concerning a certain lug nut.
I heard Frank behind me. “I don’t like the look on her face,” he was saying. “She looks just like she did the last time.” Meatloaf giggled nervously.
Mickey Rhodes’s Cadillac was easy to spot. It gleamed white in the sunlight of the early afternoon. White exterior, fire-engine-red interior, and a magnetic sign on the driver’s side door that advertised the Dead Lakes Motor Speedway. Hunched down in the backseat, his head lowered miserably, sat Roy Dell Parks.
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