I looked over at John. “A doctor might be nice,” I said. “I think he’s infected. That’s what Raydean thinks.”
“That crazy woman that lives across from you and shoots at aliens?”
“Hey! She’s got training and she’s got a friend on his way over here with antibiotics. I’d say Raydean’s doing all right.”
Carla sighed. “Well, if you got a doctor coming, what do you need another one for?”
“The one on his way’s a vet. I was thinking maybe you could do a little better, even though it’s your ex.”
“It may take me a little while,” she said. “We may have to wait until after dark. I don’t want to take any risks.” But she didn’t mean with John’s life, I knew that much from the one time I’d had dealings with her. Carla had a one-track mind. She only wanted what was best for the DEA.
“Yeah, well, if he ain’t alive, Carla, how’s about I have him stuffed for you!”
She hung up on me. Just as well. If we’d chatted two seconds longer, I’d have gone through the phone and kicked her shapely little behind. Carla Terrance! I knew it all along. She was the only one who could yank him out of his department and make him dance like a puppet at the end of her little string.
I looked over at John. “She must’ve hurt you bad, big man. She must’ve tied Mr. Happy in a hell of a knot for you to be in this much of a mess!”
He moaned softly in his sleep.
“Yeah, well, when this mess is over, you can have her if that’s what you want.”
The phone rang again and I snatched it up, ready to tell her the rest of what I was thinking.
“What?” I yelled. “You haven’t done enough?”
“Sierra, that you?” a male voice asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Albert—uh, Meatloaf. Lord, honey, you’d better come quick. Roy Dell’s got Frank and I think he’s fixing to kill him!”
“Listen, Meatloaf, this isn’t a good time.”
From the background I could hear an ungodly scream.
“What was that?” I asked. The hair on the back of my neck jumped to attention. “Meatloaf! What’s he doing?” But Meatloaf wasn’t listening to me.
“Roy Dell! Roy Dell! Stop it! Are you nuts? Look at him! You done cut the circulation off!”
Roy Dell said something I couldn’t make out. Then there was another long scream, this time ending with a shriek.
“I hate to do this,” Meatloaf said into the phone, “but right now, you’re the only one he’ll listen to. Roy Dell!” Meatloaf yelled at him again. “The phone’s for you!”
“What? Huh? The phone?” Roy Dell’s voice sounded liquor-slurred. “Tell her I ain’t talking!”
“It ain’t Lulu. It’s Ruby’s friend, Sierra.”
Oh, just dandy, I thought. Turn the psycho over to me! Thank you, Meatloaf! I could here two sets of shoes shuffling over to the phone.
“Here,” said Meatloaf, apparently guiding Roy Dell’s drunken progress.
“Hello, darlin’,” said Roy Dell, pitching his voice to sound low and sexy. It sounded more like a sick animal, but I didn’t let on.
“Roy Dell, what in the hell is going on?” I wasn’t going to waste time on sympathy. He needed a mama.
“Ma’am?”
“Are you drinking?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, his voice a sheepish little boy’s.
“And did you go against what I told you and go after Frank?”
“You’re damn right I did,” he roared. “And Meatloaf agreed with me, too!”
Uh-oh. Wrong question. “Well, you left me all alone,” I said. “Where did you go?”
“Aw, now darlin’, I didn’t mean nothing by it. I was sittin’ out in your car, with that blanket what Lulu and I inaugurated with our love, and I jest got to thinkin’. Then, before I knew it, I saw Mr. Rhodes go driving by, real slow. I needed to talk to him about something, so I took off, thinking maybe I could catch him.”
“Then what?”
Roy Dell sighed, torn between talking to me and exacting revenge from Frank. “Well, he parked and said he had business to attend to and he couldn’t talk just then. I told him I was done waiting for my money. It had been six weeks and I wanted some action.” Roy Dell took a swig of something. “Summ’n a bitch told me to come up to his office later in the afternoon and he’d pay me. Then he walked off. And do you think he was anywhere to be found? No indeedy.”
I could hear voices coming from the direction of my kitchen. Raydean was back and I was going to have to wrap this up quick.
“Roy Dell, did Mickey Rhodes go into Wannamaker Lewis’s house?”
“Hell, honey, I don’t know. He walked off in that direction, but you know, the place caught on fire right after that. Why would he go in there?”
So, Roy Dell stuck around long enough to know the house was on fire but was gone when the firemen arrived.
“Where are you, Roy Dell? I want to see you.”
“No, ma’am! Whass about to happen here ain’t fit viewin’,” he said. “Frank done wrong and I got to let him know you don’t dog Roy Dell Parks.”
“Roy Dell! Did it never occur to you that I might have a few resentments toward Frank, too?”
Footsteps were moving down the hallway. John Nailor was burning up. And I was stuck talking Roy Dell out of killing a man I agreed needed killing. There’d be an extra jewel in my crown for this. Maybe I’d have to say one less Hail Mary when the final reckoning came.
“All right, all right,” he sighed. “If you want to wop him upside the head once before I finish him off, you can come on.”
He dropped the phone and shuffled away. “Roy Dell! Roy Dell, where are you?” I could hear Meatloaf ask.
“We gotta wait to kill him,” he said. “Women! Always wanting to direct the action.”
The door to my room opened and Ma stepped in, followed by an entourage.
“Don’t hang up!” I yelled into the receiver. In the far distance, I heard the unmistakable sound of a pneumatic lug-nut loosener. Then Frank screamed again.
“Sierra, you there?” Meatloaf sounded breathless.
“Where are you?”
“The garage.”
“At the track?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. Won’t no po-lices ever find us here. Roy Dell’s got an early warning system. Hurry now!”
“Don’t let Roy Dell kill him till I get there!”
He hung up and I turned around to face the small crowd that had gathered in my room. There was a much larger crisis at hand than saving Frank’s ass. Arlen the vet had arrived.
He stopped at the edge of the room, a short man with thinning white hair and twinkling blue eyes. Judging from the three-piece suit he wore, time had stopped for him in the late-thirties. I figured he had to be closing in on ninety. But Raydean was oblivious to this. She stood by his side, beaming, her Easter bonnet secured to her head with a huge hatpin, and white go-to-church-lady gloves on her hands.
“Sierra, this is Dr. Arlen Fellows,” she said proudly, blushing. “Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy, Retired.”
Yeah, retired many times over, I thought.
“Where is my patient?” he asked, peering myopically past me. Raydean motioned me aside and led Arlen up to John’s side.
Arlen changed abruptly. “My bag, nurse,” he said, brusquely.
Raydean stiffened, took the cracked leather bag Ma carried, and plopped it down on the bed next to Nailor.
“Yes, sir!” she answered.
Arlen reached forward and briefly touched Nailor’s nose. “Dry,” he said. “Not a good sign in a human.”
Ma shook her head and looked at Al. She was thinking the same thing I was. The man was a lunatic.
Arlen took out a penlight and shone it in Nailor’s eyes. “Hmmm,” he murmured. “Nurse, horse pills it is! Let’s start with a broad spectrum antibiotic, this ampicillin oughta get it. Acetamenophen and ibuprophen, alternating every two hours for the first eig
ht. Oughta bring that fever down.”
Nailor was struggling to be awake, trying to track Arlen with his eyes.
“You hurt just everywhere, don’t you, boy?” Arlen said. “Not just your withers, but your flanks, too, I’d reckon. Well, you’ll feel better soon.”
Arlen turned to Raydean. “Nurse,” he said, “Clean and dress that wound again. Give him his meds. Then let’s play a hand or two of cards.”
Raydean nodded and started hauling medicine bottles, gauze, and tape out of the black bag. As an afterthought, she reached in deep and pulled out a pack of playing cards, which she tossed to Al.
“Doc’s orders,” she barked. “Deal ’em out in the kitchen. Five-card draw! Boil water!”
“Boil water?” Al sputtered.
“You don’t know how?” Raydean asked.
“Well, sure I know how,” he said. “I just don’t know why.”
Raydean was calmly pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “Coffee, you young idiot!”
Ma laughed. “Come on, Dr. Fellows, I got some cinnamon buns with your name written all over them.”
She led him away, leaving me and Raydean to change Nailor’s bandage. We boosted him up in bed, with him moaning every time we touched him.
“It’s the fever, Sierra,” Raydean said. “He cain’t stand our touch to his skin. I’m gonna get him a cool rag in a minute.”
He choked on the pills, but we got them into him. He didn’t say a word when Raydean cleaned his arm. He was out of it.
“Sierra,” Raydean said, as we finished. “I want you to listen to me.”
I stopped and looked at her, recognizing the clear, distinct tone of Raydean sane.
“You think Arlen’s a kook. Don’t bother denying it!” She held up her hand to stop my comment. “And in some respects he is. Just like me. But he’s a good vet. We’re taking good care of your man. You trust me, don’t you?”
I looked right back at her. “Of course I do, Raydean.”
“That fever’ll be down some in thirty minutes,” she said. “He’s starting to mend. So if there was anyone whose life was hanging on yours … anyone you might’ve said ‘don’t kill him yet’ to…”
“Oh! Oh, yeah!” I looked back at Nailor, lying on the bed, his face pale again.
“Honey,” Raydean laid her hand on my arm. “Let me take care of him. He won’t die. I promise you.”
I hugged her and stepped over to the bedside. I sat down and ran my fingers lightly through his hair.
“I gotta go over to the racetrack for a little while,” I whispered. “I’ll be back soon.”
His eyes flew open. “No!”
“It won’t take but an hour, I promise.”
“No! I told you. The … mouse. It’s moving. Any second!”
“It’s the fever, honey,” I answered. “Carla knows about the mouse. You told her. It’s all right.”
He grabbed my arm with his good one. “No!”
“Okay, okay, then I won’t go. I’ll just hang around here.” Panic was rising up, choking me. What if Roy Dell really did kill Frank? Then it would fall on my head because I could stop him if I left now.
Raydean stepped in then. “Sugar, go eat,” she said, giving me a little shove. “Here, honey,” she said soothingly to John, “I got a nice cool cloth for your head. Sierra’s gonna go eat her lunch now. She’ll be right back.”
I felt like a heel. I wasn’t going out into the kitchen to eat. I was going up to the racetrack and save a lowlife from death. Or so I thought.
Thirty
I didn’t think I was in any danger of becoming a detective. That much I knew as I drove up to Wewahitchka and the Dead Lakes Motor Speedway. I couldn’t make sense out of anything. Ruby was killed at the Speedway and Nailor was working undercover for the DEA at the Speedway. There were drugs in Wannamaker’s house. Wannamaker Lewis was dead and so was his daughter. There were millions of dollars up for grabs and only one person in the world in line for all of that money. Ruby’s biological brother.
“What does a cop do?” I asked no one in particular. “I’ll tell you: They ask questions. They ask everybody questions. So that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna ask everybody questions, starting with Roy Dell and Mickey Rhodes and ending,” I said as I turned into the track drive, “with that little brunette in the front office!”
I pulled the Camaro up to the gate. It was locked. There was no way to drive around it, so from this point on I was gonna have to hoof it.
“Bet cops don’t walk,” I muttered. “Cops would flash a search warrant and the gate would just automatically open!” I slammed the car door shut and started walking.
“It can’t be Roy Dell,” I said aloud. “He’s Raydean’s nephew. He wasn’t adopted. So who else do I have on the list? Who else was at both scenes?” I let my voice die off, because now I knew. I knew who had motive and opportunity. I only needed confirmation. My stomach tightened. I had to play this one real smart or I’d end up real dead. He’d loosened the lug nuts on my car. He tried running me off the road. He’d attacked me outside the club. He’d been there every time something bad had happened.
As I crossed the track and started down into the pit, the sound of revving engines got louder. Whatever Roy Dell’s early warning system was, it didn’t seem to be ringing any alarms at my appearance. In fact, aside from a stray catcall or two, I proceeded unnoticed to Roy Dell’s garage.
The yellow Vega was resting on jacks, its rear wheels missing and its mouth wide open. There wasn’t a soul in sight. I slipped around past the car and headed for the flimsy metal garage that served as Roy Dell’s worksite. Something didn’t seem right. This was just too easy.
The entrance to the garage, a sliding metal door, was almost completely shut, the interior darkened. No sound came from the inside. I looked over my shoulder, making sure no one saw me, and pushed the door open just wide enough to slip inside. Big mistake.
As I stood in the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust I realized I was not alone. Somewhere in the dimly lit garage someone else was breathing.
“Roy Dell?” No answer. I took a step farther into the building. “Roy Dell, is that you?” Nothing.
I was beginning to see things, shapes and lumps of machinery. I stepped back toward the door and pulled it open, just enough for a shaft of midafternoon sunlight to stream through. The light fell on two bodies sprawled out on the floor at the far end of the building. Naked.
My worst personal nightmare had come to reality. Roy Dell Parks and his wife Lulu lay clumped together, their arms resting on significant body parts, smiling in their post-nookie slumber. A bottle of tequila lay empty at their sides.
“Oh, God!” I cried. I couldn’t help myself.
Lulu roused herself enough to open one puffy eyelid and give me the once-over.
“Where’s Frank?” I asked, keeping my voice low so Roy Dell wouldn’t hear us.
Lulu appeared confused for a moment, then caught sight of her husband and started to smile.
“Roy Dell fought for my honor,” she said, and a smug look crept over her features. “He applied his impact wrench to Frank’s private jewels. It was all I could do to get him to turn loose of the boy.” Lulu shook her head. “He oughta be able to use it again, once the swelling goes down, but they had to take him over to the hospital. He needed a little something for the pain.”
Lulu leaned against Roy Dell and fell back to sleep, which in my opinion was a good thing, considering my last dealings with her were at the business end of a shotgun.
I walked back out into the sunlight, blinking and knowing the vision of the two of them would stay stuck with me for perhaps a lifetime.
“A cop would think logically at this juncture,” I said to myself. “A cop would say, ‘Don’t think about all that nakedness. The world is a horrible place, full of horrible sights. Focus instead on the case at hand.’”
I stepped out into the pit lane and started checking out the other racing crews. It was l
ong past lunchtime and the smell of grilled onions and frying meat filled the air as the snack shack catered to its carnivorous customers. I hadn’t eaten all day, but the smell mingled with the memory of the last hamburger I’d eaten at that shack, the night Ruby was killed, and somehow my appetite faded.
“Just ask a few questions,” I reminded myself. And I would’ve too, had I not looked back up toward the gate and seen an ominous sight. Detective Wheeling and five uniformed police officers dressed out in SWAT gear.
There was no way to run back and warn Roy Dell. And after seeing the look on Wheeling’s face, I didn’t think I wanted to see him, either. Instead I ducked around the side of the snack shack and remembered my other mission. A little chat with a certain brunette.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,” I said to myself, and headed up the metal fire escape.
A blast of cold air hit me as I stepped into the tiny reception area. My feet sank down into the plush carpeting and the world of racing went from dirt track to high-dollar concrete.
“I don’t give a shit,” a man’s voice yelled, coming from the brunette’s office. “I’m telling you how it is and how it’s gonna be. Do them the way I tell you.” It sounded like the urbane Mickey Rhodes was losing his super-slick cool.
“All I’m telling you is, I’m certified in bookkeeping and it ain’t right!” My quarry was defending her mental skills, not the first thing I would’ve expected from her. A moral stance. Go figure.
“I pay you to do as I say!” he yelled.
“You know,” she said, her voice almost as loud as his, “if I hadn’t just known for a fact that amount was wrong, your account would’ve shown even more of a loss than there really is! You’d think you’d be grateful I found the money!”
“It ain’t found money,” he screeched. “That figure’s wrong!”
“One of us is dumber’n hell,” she said, “and it ain’t me! We’ve got creditors calling and people we ain’t paid in months. Here I go and find money and you insist it ain’t really there! Now what the hell kind of businessman are you?”
A money-laundering businessman, I thought. A hide-from-the-government businessman. Just the type John Nailor would take an interest in. I slipped a little farther down the hallway and into one of the offices. Mickey’s office.
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