Both girls started to protest, but T.J. just looked at them, his face stem. Once again Wanda Nell couldn’t help but think of Bobby Ray. The few times he’d ever disciplined the children, he’d had that same look on his face. She tried not to cry.
“It won’t be long,” T.J. said. He grinned slightly when Juliet stuck out her tongue at him. “Go on, Pesterbug, or I’m gonna pinch your head off.”
T.J. waited until his sisters had disappeared into opposite ends of the trailer before he sat down again on the couch. He regarded his mother solemnly.
“What is it, T.J.?” Wanda Nell asked quickly. “What is it you didn’t want your sisters to hear?” Her stomach had drawn up into a tight knot. She wasn’t really sure she wanted to hear his answer.
T.J. leaned back on the couch and propped one booted foot across the edge of the coffee table. Wanda Nell frowned, but she didn’t insist that he move his leg.
“I got to talk to you about Daddy, Mama,” he said. His eyes held sorrow and regret. “I don’t want to scare you, Mama, but I reckon you oughta know, especially now with Daddy dead like that.”
Her chest constricted, and Wanda Nell found it hard to get her breath. Oh, dear Lord, she prayed, don’t let T.J. be mixed up in whatever mess his daddy cooked up. Please, please, please! If those men were gonna come after her son, too, she didn’t know what she’d do.
“No, it’s not like that,” T.J. said, smiling faintly as he seemed to read his mother’s mind. “I wasn’t mixed up in nothing with Daddy. I promise, Mama. I’m different now, Mama, and I’m not going to let you down ever again. I promise you that, too.”
“Oh, honey,” Wanda Nell whispered. She desperately wanted to believe her son, believe that he truly had changed and finally grown up, ready to take responsibility for himself. She had to be willing to give him the chance to show her. “I truly hope so, T.J. You’ll make me the proudest mother in the world.”
He grinned at that, but quickly sobered. “I’m sorry for all the things I done in the past, Mama. I know I can’t really make any of it up to you now.” Anticipating her question, he went on quickly, “I’ll tell you all about it later, Mama. It’s kind of a long story.”
Wanda Nell nodded acceptance.
“About Daddy,” T.J. said, “I don’t know everything, but I know a little bit of it.” He paused. “Just enough to be kinda scared, Mama.”
Wanda Nell’s stomach knotted up again. “What is it?” she was finally able to whisper.
“I been out in Houston, Texas, awhile,” T.J. said, “and then I decided it was time to come home. Took me a while to get back here. I didn’t have a lot of money, but I worked for every bit I had. I saved it up, and I ended up over in Greenville awhile. I thought I might try to get me a job at one of them riverboat casinos. Figured that was as good a place as any to start.”
Wanda Nell nodded encouragement. She didn’t much approve of gambling, but that was something they could talk about later.
“Anyway, I was hunting for a job there, and one day I ran into Daddy on one of the boats. Last I heard, he was down on the coast, Biloxi, I guess, working with a guy running fishing trips out in the Gulf.”
“He was gambling, wasn’t he?” Wanda Nell asked, disgusted. “He was always convinced he was gonna hit it big with some jackpot.”
“Nope,” T.J. answered. “Actually, he was working there. Security guard, if you can believe that.” He laughed. “I don’t know who he conned into that one, but he said he’d been working there awhile. Told me he thought he could get me on there, too. Said to give him a couple days, then come back, and he’d have it all set up.”
The amusement had disappeared from TJ.’s voice, and Wanda Nell anticipated what was coming. “When you went back, he wasn’t there anymore, was he?”
T.J. shook his head. “I was a bit surprised, Mama, ’cause Daddy said he was on to a good thing, and he really liked it there. Made good money, and, well...” T.J. wouldn’t look at her as his voice trailed away.
“And he had some idiot woman waitin’ on him hand and foot,” Wanda Nell finished the sentence for him.
“Yeah, some girl he’d hooked up with, he really liked her, he told me,” T.J. said. “He sounded like he really meant it, Mama, and I thought I was gonna have a job. But I guess I shoulda remembered who I was talking to.”
The bitterness in his voice made his mother ache for him. His daddy had disappointed him, time after time. Bobby Ray had had a chance to do something decent for his son, and he’d screwed it up again.
“So what happened?” Wanda Nell asked gently.
“When I went back and asked for him, they looked at me real funny. Wanted to know who I was and what I wanted him for. ’Course, all they had to do was take one look at me, and they knew who I was. One of ’em even said something about it.” He scratched his chin. “The way they kept pushing at me, asking one question after another, I knew Daddy’d done something.”
“What?” Wanda Nell asked, though she had a horrible feeling she knew.
“Well, they never would come right out and tell me,” T.J. said, “but he had to’ve ripped ’em off. I just wonder how much he made off with. Must’ve been a bundle, the way they was grilling me.”
“They didn’t try to hurt you, did they?”
“Naw, but they sure looked like they wanted to hurt someone. I asked ’em why they wasn’t talking to the police if they was so concerned about finding my daddy, and they just said they wanted to handle it privately.”
“And I bet they did,” Wanda Nell said. “Did your sisters tell you about what happened to them? How those men broke in here and tore this place up looking for something?”
“Yeah,” T.J. said, his eyes gleaming with anger. “I wish I could get my hands on those guys for a few minutes.” That sounded like the T.J. she knew best. He had her temper, and he’d get into a fight faster than he could spit.
“You better leave those guys alone if for some reason they ever turn up again,” Wanda Nell said, “and I mean it. If they killed your daddy, they won’t think twice about doing the same to you.”
TJ. nodded. “I know, Mama, and I was just talking. I ain’t crazy enough to take on two guys like that. At least, not any-more I’m not.”
“Good.” Wanda Nell hoped he was telling the truth. “Did your sisters tell you anything about those men?”
“Yeah,” T.J. said, “and I think one of ’em, the short one, was in the room when they was questioning me at the casino. It sure sounded like him.”
“I can’t figure out why they just didn’t call the police and have them look for Bobby Ray,” Wanda Nell said.
T.J. laughed. “Oh, come on, Mama. You can’t be that naive.”
Wanda Nell bristled. “What do you mean?”
He pulled his leg off the table and onto the floor, then leaned forward. “Mama, surely you don’t think those places are pure as the driven snow?” He laughed again. “Anytime that kind of money’s involved, you know there’s something crooked going on, too. And knowing Daddy, he was in on it somehow. He just thought he could rip ’em off and get away with it, like he always did.”
“I guess you’re right,” Wanda Nell said slowly. “And if that’s the case, they ain’t gonna stop looking for that money. We won’t be safe until they find it.”
“Maybe not,” T.J. said. “But they kinda screwed up when they killed Daddy. Now they’ve got the cops involved, and that wasn’t too smart.”
“Lord, what a nightmare,” Wanda Nell said, sighing.
“Yeah, thanks to my fine, upstanding father,” T.J. said. Then he looked ashamed. “I wadn’t much better than him, I guess, the mess I made of my life.”
Wanda Nell leaned forward and patted his knee. “But, honey, you don’t have to repeat all your daddy’s mistakes. Anyway, sounds to me like you’ve made some big changes. Some important changes.”
T.J. nodded. “I sure wanna think so, Mama. And at least I’ve got time to do things different, not like Daddy.”
They sat in silence for a moment, then Wanda Nell asked again, “Those men at the casino, they didn’t try to hurt you or threaten you, did they?”
“Not really,” T.J. said. “They told me to tell Daddy to get in touch with them, if I talked to him. I said I would. Then they let me go.”
“Thank the Lord for that.”
“Yeah, I have to tell you, I was sweating a bit before they turned me loose. After that, I thought about getting the hell outta Dodge, as they say, but I decided I’d better stick around Greenville a day or two and see if I could track Daddy down.”
“Did you?”
T.J. shook his head. “Naw. He didn’t tell me where he was living, or anything like that, but I did find a bar near the casinos where they knew him.” He shrugged. “But nobody’d seen him for a coupla days. One of the guys there told me where he thought Daddy was living, and I went there, too. But his landlady said he’d cleared out. Can you believe, he didn’t owe her any money? I was expectin’ her to ask me to pay what he owed, but she said his rent was paid up.”
“She was probably the girlfriend he told you about,” Wanda Nell said.
“Nope,” T.J. said around a big grin. “She was about seventy-five, Mama. Too old for Daddy.” He thought a moment. “She had a funny name, kinda like a plant. What was it? Turnipseed, that was it.”
Wanda Nell laughed. “Yeah, she’s about fifty years too old for your daddy.”
T.J. just rolled his eyes. “Only thing she could tell me was she thought he might’ve been heading for Tullahoma. She overheard him talking to somebody on the phone, and he was saying something about Tullahoma.”
“Nosy little old lady,” Wanda Nell said, “but she was right.”
“Daddy didn’t have a phone in his room,” T.J. explained, “and he asked to use hers, she said.”
“Sounds like he treated her better than he treated his own mama,” Wanda Nell observed. “Can’t say as I blame him, though, that old witch. Wait till I tell you what she done to me.” She was about to launch into the story when the phone rang.
“Now, Mama,” T.J. was saying. He was the only one of her grandchildren that Mrs. Culpepper had ever had anything to do with, and he had a soft spot for the old battle-ax.
“Let me get that,” Wanda Nell said, rising from her chair, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Halfway to the phone, she remembered that Jack Pemberton was supposed to be calling her back. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him, after what Juliet had told her about him writing true-crime books. She could always tell him she was busy visiting with her son and put him off, she decided. She walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. “Hello,” she said, preparing herself to get Pemberton off the phone quickly.
“We’re watching you,” a voice said, low and hard. “If you don’t want something nasty to happen to that pretty little girl of yours, you better give us that money back.”
Wanda Nell’s hand tightened on the phone. Her temper ignited. “Listen here, you asshole. You keep away from me and my family. I don’t have that goddamn money, and if I did, I’d give it to the sheriff’s department.”
Heavy breathing came back to her over the wire. “You listen, bitch. We know you’re lyin’, and you better hand over that money.” He kept on talking, getting more and more explicit about what he was going to do to Wanda Nell and her daughters if the money didn’t turn up soon. Sickened, Wanda Nell screamed an obscenity back at him, then slammed the receiver down on the base.
Trembling violently, Wanda Nell stumbled to the sink. Hanging her head over it, she threw up. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Mama! What’s wrong?” T.J.’s hand tightened. “Are you sick?”
Wanda Nell groped for some paper towels to wipe her mouth. Still a bit shaky, she straightened up and turned on the water with one hand as she wiped her mouth with the other. T.J. spoke again, urgently. “Mama, what’s wrong?”
Shutting the water off, Wanda Nell looked up into her son’s eyes. “That was one of the assholes who broke in here. He said he’d hurt Juliet if we didn’t turn the money over to him.” She burst into tears.
“My God, Mama,” T.J. said. He drew her into his arms and held her tight. “But y’all don’t have the money, do you?”
“Course not,” Wanda Nell replied, her voice muffled against his chest. “Why the hell do they think I’ve got it?”
T.J. rubbed her back with his big hand, and Wanda Nell could feel the calluses on it through her gown and robe. “If those guys don’t have it,” T.J. said, his voice calm, “then it’s still gotta be out there somewhere, don’t you think, Mama?”
Wanda Nell pulled back from him. “I guess I wasn’t really thinking too hard about that, son. But you’re right.”
“Okay, then,” T.J. said. “What could Daddy’ve done with it?”
Wanda Nell thought for a moment. “I’d’a thought he might give it to Ricky Ratliff, but since Ricky’s been killed, too, I guess he didn’t.” She shivered. “But if he didn’t give it to Ricky, then who?”
T.J. stood watching her, and as she thought about it, several things came together in her mind. Wanda Nell turned away from her son and took several steps from the kitchen into the hall. “Miranda! Get in here.”
“What’s going on, Mama?” T.J. asked.
“I think I just figured out what happened to that money,” Wanda Nell said. “Your daddy was here that night when I got home, and he flashed a big wad of cash at me. He gave Miranda some before he left, and I’m just bettin’ he gave her more than he let on.”
Miranda came trailing in on those last words, and her eyes grew big as she stopped suddenly and stared at her mother. “What is it, Mama?’ Her voice came out in a whisper.
Wanda Nell folded her hands across her chest and gave Miranda her no-nonsense look. “Where’s the money your daddy gave you?”
“Oh, you mean that five hundred dollars. Mama?” Miranda fluttered a hand in the air. “I loaned it to T.J., Mama, remember? He said he was gonna try to rent him an apartment.”
“Not that money, Miranda,” Wanda Nell retorted. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Where’s the rest of the money your daddy gave you?” She waited a moment for Miranda to respond, and when she didn’t, Wanda Nell continued. “Your daddy came back that night, after I left for work. Didn’t he, Miranda? He came back, and he gave you more money.”
Miranda frowned, and her mother recognized the mulish set to her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mama. Daddy didn’t give me no more money than that five hundred dollars.”
“Don’t lie to me, Miranda,” Wanda Nell said. “Or I’m gonna snatch you bald-headed. Do you understand me?”
Miranda just stood and looked at her.
Wanda Nell itched to grab her daughter’s hair and give it a good yank. Miranda gazed defiantly back at her.
Stepping around her daughter, Wanda Nell made for the small laundry room. Lavon’s diaper pail still sat where Miranda had left it. When she opened it, Wanda Nell wasn’t surprised Miranda hadn’t washed any of the dirty diapers yet.
Holding her breath, Wanda Nell stuck her hand in and gingerly felt around in the pail. At the bottom, under all the stinky, messy diapers, her hand encountered plastic. She grabbed and pulled, and out came a large plastic bag bulging with cash. Wanda Nell’s stomach rumbled, and she thought she was going to throw up again.
T.J. had followed her, and she felt his hand on her shoulder. Mutely, she turned and brandished the bag. T.J. whistled. “How much you reckon’s in there?” he asked.
“I don’t know, and I don’t wanna know,” Wanda Nell said. She pushed past her son and stalked back into the kitchen, where Miranda waited, backed up against the counter.
“Just when the hell were you going to tell me about this?” Wanda Nell demanded. She shook the bag at her daughter. Miranda didn’t say anything.
“You better start talking to me, Miranda,” Wanda Nell said. “We’
re in a whole lotta trouble thanks to this crap, and you better start talking.”
Miranda whimpered. “Daddy gave it to me, Mama. He said he was gonna come back for it, and he just wanted me to keep it a little while.” She sobbed. “And then he died, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I woulda told you, Mama, I swear I would.”
Wanda Nell wondered, not for the first time, how she could have raised a daughter as dim-witted as Miranda. When was the girl ever gonna get any sense?
“Didn’t it ever dawn on you, Miranda,” Wanda Nell said, trying to keep her temper, “that somebody else wants this money? I mean, what do you think those goons who broke in here were after?”
“I know, Mama,” Miranda said, “but Daddy said it was his money. I wasn’t gonna tell those men where I hid Daddy’s money.” Suddenly, she laughed. “I reckon I picked a good place to hide it. That guy came into my room, I saw him open the lid of the diaper pail, and he put it back real quick. Didn’t even bother to look inside.”
Wanda Nell had to admire Miranda’s brief spurt of intelligence. “Yeah, I guess it was a good place to hide it,” she admitted. “But you should’ve told me about it, Miranda. We should’ve told the sheriff’s department about it long before now.” She sighed. “Don’t you realize what kinda trouble we’re gonna be in?”
“I think we should keep it, Mama,” Miranda said. “Daddy said it was his, and it should be ours. If those men killed Daddy, they shouldn’t get his money.”
Wanda Nell felt a hand on her shoulder as she started to speak. T.J. squeezed lightly, and she nodded.
“Randa, honey,” T.J. said, “I don’t think you understand something real important about this money.”
Miranda stared at her brother. “You can have some, too, T.J. There’s more’n enough for all of us.”
T.J. shook his head at her. “Randa, that ain’t the point. That money don’t belong to us, and it didn’t belong to Daddy. Surely you realize that by now?”
Flamingo Fatale (A Trailer Park Mystery Book 1) Page 14