Wanda Nell smiled at him. “Everything’s fine now, officer. Just some men bothering me and my friend. Didn’t seem to want to take ‘no’ for an answer, but we finally convinced them just about the time they heard your siren.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. We’ll be fine now. Those men won’t be bothering us again.” Wanda Nell sounded more confident than she felt.
“Okay, ma’am. Y’all have a nice day now, you hear?”
Wanda Nell and Mayrene waved as the police car slowly drove out of sight.
“Let’s get the heck out of here,” Wanda Nell said, sliding into the car.
“Amen,” Mayrene said, slamming her door shut. “We oughta thank whoever called the police, but they probably wanna see the back of us by now.”
Wanda Nell made a U-turn right there and headed the car back the way they had come. She was surprised to note, when she glanced at her watch, that it was barely one o’clock. So much had happened, surely it ought to be later than that.
“I don’t know about you, honey,” Mayrene said, “but I wouldn’t mind a little something to eat. All that excitement’s made me hungry.” She laughed.
Wanda Nell laughed with her. She felt very tired now and wanted nothing more than to crawl in a bed somewhere and sleep. But she couldn’t do that. Maybe something to eat, and something with caffeine in it to drink, would perk her up.
“We got time, I guess,” Wanda Nell said. On their way back out to Highway 82, she spotted a small restaurant that didn’t appear to be too busy. “How about there?”
Mayrene followed her pointing finger. “Looks just fine to me, honey.”
The place wasn’t much more than a hole-in-the-wall kind of diner, but the food turned out to be very good and very cheap. They both ordered the day’s special, country fried steak with mashed potatoes, cream gravy, and corn on the cob. Dessert was lemon icebox pie.
Neither Wanda Nell nor Mayrene said much as they ate. Mayrene asked for a second slice of the pie. Wanda Nell grinned at her.
“It sure was good,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” Mayrene said, savoring the last bite of her pie.
“I sure would like a cigarette about now,” Wanda Nell said, sighing. She missed them most after eating. Somehow a meal just didn’t seem complete without a cigarette.
“I know, honey,” Mayrene said, “but you’re better off not smoking. You notice you don’t cough the way you used to.”
“Yeah,” Wanda Nell agreed. “Even so.”
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Mayrene said. “Watch my purse for me.”
Wanda Nell nodded. She glanced at her watch as Mayrene departed for the ladies’ room. One thirty-five. They’d better get a move on. The drive back to Tullahoma would take about ninety minutes, and they had stop to pick up Miranda and Lavon before they picked up Juliet at school. They’d be a little late, but Juliet could wait inside for a few minutes. There’d still be plenty of teachers around.
Wanda Nell grabbed up Mayrene’s purse and her own and took them to the ladies’ room with her. Mayrene was washing her hands. “It’s getting late,” Wanda Nell said. “We need to get going.”
“I’ll pay and meet you outside,” Mayrene said. She waved away the money Wanda Nell tried to give her. “Next one’s on you, honey.”
A few minutes later they were on the road again. After what had happened to them today, Wanda Nell felt a sense of urgency to see her daughters again. She wanted to be sure they were safe. She didn’t trust that bald man not to do something to her kids. She kept looking in her rearview mirror, just in case, but far as she could tell, nobody was following them.
Wanda Nell pushed the accelerator up to seventy out on the highway, and the little car buzzed along. Traffic was fairly light, and Wanda Nell said a short prayer that they wouldn’t run into a highway patrolman. “High-tailers” was what T.J. had called them when he was a little boy. She smiled, thinking about that. She wanted her baby out of jail, and soon. “Where do you think that money is, Wanda Nell?” Mayrene’s question broke through her thoughts.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that,” Wanda Nell said. “I sure don’t think it’s anywhere in my trailer, and the only other place I can think of that Bobby Ray might’ve hid it would be at his mama’s house.”
“Did he even go see his mama before he was killed?” Mayrene snorted in disgust. “I thought he stayed pretty far away from that ole biddy.”
“Usually,” Wanda Nell said. “She even called me that night, asking me to tell him to come see her when I saw him. And you know she had to be pretty desperate to do that.”
“Do you think he did?”
“I think maybe he did,” Wanda Nell said. “Yesterday, when I went to see her about helping T.J. with the lawyer, Charlesetta said something about Bobby Ray. I didn’t pay it too much attention at the time, but now I’m thinking maybe she was referring to Bobby Ray visiting his mama that night. It would’ve been pretty late, but he never paid much mind to the time.”
“And did he have the money with him, you think?”
“Probably.”
“How was he getting around, all over the place like that? He sure wasn’t walking everywhere.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Wanda Nell said. “I figure he must’ve had Ricky Ratliff’s truck at least part of the time. Ricky was in on it somehow, else he wouldn’t’ve got killed like that. But Bobby Ray wouldn’t have trusted him too much, because Ricky couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life.”
“I reckon not,” Mayrene said dryly.
“Nope.” Wanda Nell felt a twinge of regret for Ricky. Poor, dumb, slob Ricky, whose only excitement in life came through whatever stunt Bobby Ray was pulling.
“So, what you gonna do? Just march right up to the door and ask for the money?”
“Yeah, right.” Wanda Nell laughed. “That old witch has no idea all that money’s right under her nose. I’ll just have to go there and look. And maybe I’ll take you and your shotgun, just in case.” She laughed again.
“Did you see the look on that asshole’s face?” Mayrene guffawed. “Honey, I bet he like to wet all over himself. Some man, waving a gun at women like that. Who the hell’s he think he is?”
“You showed him,” Wanda Nell said. “But the whole thing was like a nightmare. What am I gonna do if they come after me again?”
“All we got to do is find that money, and there ain’t gonna be a next time. You find it and turn it over to the sheriff ’s department. End of story.”
Wanda Nell sighed. “I sure as hell hope so.”
They drove on in silence. They made good time to just beyond Greenwood, where they left 82 and headed northeast on highway 7 toward Tullahoma.
At five minutes to three they pulled into the driveway at Laquita’s house. Miranda had seen them and came hurrying out with Lavon on her hip.
“I thought y’all’d be back way before now,” she said. “We’re gonna be late picking up Juliet.” She handed Lavon to her mother, who’d gotten out of the car to help her. Not waiting for any answer, Miranda ran back to the house and got the baby’s diaper bag and other things. Wanda Nell had Lavon fastened in his car seat by the time Miranda returned.
“I appreciate you hurrying like that, Miranda, but we won’t be but a few minutes late picking up Juliet,” Wanda Nell said.
“I know, Mama,” Miranda said, “but I just been feeling anxious all day. I don’t like this.”
“I know, honey,” Wanda Nell said. She wasn’t going to add to the girl’s distress by telling her what had happened in Greenville. “Let’s just go get your sister and get on home.” They drove up to the front of the high school at eleven minutes past three. Wanda Nell waited a moment for Juliet to appear. A number of students and teachers were still milling about, and she thought maybe Juliet hadn’t spotted them yet.
They waited a few more minutes as the crowd continued to thin, but still no Juliet.
Frowning, Wanda Nell got out of the
car. She walked up the steps into the front door of the school. No sign of Juliet anywhere in the hallway.
A sick feeling settling in the pit of her stomach, Wanda Nell hurried down the hall to the school office. A woman looked up as Wanda Nell stumbled to a halt in front of her desk.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for my daughter, Juliet Culpepper,” Wanda Nell said, trying to catch her breath and talk at the same time. “I was supposed to pick her up, and now I can’t find her.”
“There must be some mistake,” the woman said, staring at Wanda Nell suspiciously.
“What do you mean?” Wanda Nell demanded. “What kind of mistake?”
“We had a call about fifteen minutes ago from someone in the sheriff’s department that you’d been injured in a car accident,” the woman said. “And that a deputy would be coming to pick up your daughter and take her to the hospital.”
Wanda Nell gripped the counter in front of her to keep from fainting. “Somebody’s lying,” she managed to say.
“I assure you, Miz Culpepper,” the woman said in frosty tones, “I am not making this up. We summoned Juliet from her class to tell her, and one of the secretaries waited with her until the sheriff’s department car arrived to pick her up. That was about ten minutes ago. And I assure you everything was in order, or Miss Belson wouldn’t have let Juliet leave.”
“I wanna talk to this secretary, this Miss Belson,” Wanda Nell said. “Somebody lied about an accident, and I wanna know who took my daughter off.”
“She’s already gone home,” the woman said. “I’m sorry, Miz Culpepper, I’m sure there’s just been some kind of misunderstanding. If it wasn’t you that had the accident, could it’ve been somebody else in the family?”
Wanda Nell wanted to scream in frustration, because none of this was helping. Then she realized what the woman had asked.
“Oh, my Lord,” Wanda Nell gasped as the implication hit her. “Maybe it was Juliet’s grandmother.” She frowned. “But that don’t make no sense. Why would they come get Juliet? She hardly knows her grandmother.”
“Maybe she was the only member of the family they knew where to find?”
Wanda Nell stared at the woman. What should she do?
“I need to use a phone,” she said.
The woman pointed to one on a nearby desk. “Just dial nine first, then dial your number. It’s not long distance, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Wanda Nell said shortly. She moved over to the desk and punched in the number for the sheriff’s department.
“I need to speak to Elmer Lee Johnson. This is an emergency.”
The dispatcher’s voice squawked in her ear.
“Then where the hell is he?”
More squawking.
“Then is Deputy Taylor anywhere around?” Wanda Nell listened for a moment. “All right, then. Maybe you can tell me something. My name is Wanda Nell Culpepper, and I’m here at the high school to pick up my daughter Juliet. But they tell me somebody from the sheriff’s department called and told ’em that I was in an accident, and they’d be coming to pick up my daughter. Do you know anything about that?” The voice disclaimed all knowledge of such a call. “Then where the hell is my daughter?” Wanda Nell shouted at the dispatcher. Without waiting for an answer, she slammed the receiver down so hard her arm tingled.
“Miz Culpepper!” The woman stood up from her desk. “Please. That’s school property.”
Wanda Nell turned to glare at her, and the woman backed away. “You got more than school property to worry about, lady. If something happens to my daughter on account of this, I’m gonna sue your ass up one side and down the other. Why didn’t somebody call the sheriff’s department and check out this story? They say they never made any such call.”
The woman paled and sat down abruptly, almost missing her chair. “Oh, my Lord.”
“I ain’t got time for this,” Wanda Nell said. She ran out of the office and back down the hall. She burst out through the doors, almost knocking down a man.
“Sorry,” she muttered, “but I’m in a hurry.”
“Mrs. Culpepper, are you okay?” He laid a hand on her arm.
When Wanda Nell finally saw him clearly, she realized it was Jack Pemberton.
“I’ve got to find Juliet,” she told him. “I don’t have time to talk.”
“Juliet? What’s happened?”
Wanda Nell read the real concern in his face, and despite her impatience to be on her way, she explained briefly.
“Let me come with you,” Pemberton said impulsively. “You may need help.”
“Thank you,” Wanda Nell said, “but—
“Wanda Nell,” Mayrene called, interrupting her. “Your cell phone’s ringing.”
Wanda Nell ran down the steps to the car and plucked the cell phone from Mayrene’s hand. She was trembling so much that she almost dropped it and didn’t take time to read the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Mama, it’s me,” Juliet said faintly. “I’m here at Grandmama Culpepper’s. You need to get here right away.”
“I’m on the way, baby. Are you all right?”
“Just hurry, Mama.” The line went dead.
“Oh, my Lord,” Wanda Nell said. She thrust the cell phone back at Mayrene and ran around to get in the car.
“Wait up, I’m coming with you,” Jack Pemberton said as he hurried down the steps toward them.
“Well, get in the car, honey,” Mayrene said.
Pemberton opened the back door on the passenger side and stuffed himself in. Miranda and the baby’s car seat took up a lot of the room.
Wanda Nell didn’t waste time arguing. She floored the accelerator, and the Cavalier surged past a couple of cars moving down the driveway toward the street. If it was Elmer Lee that pulled a stunt like this, she vowed she’d serve his balls to him on a plate and make him like it.
“Careful, honey,” Mayrene said. “It’s not gonna do us any good to run over somebody.”
“Sorry,” Wanda Nell muttered, “but we gotta get to oF Miz Culpepper’s house.”
“What’s going on, Mama?” Miranda demanded. “And who is this guy?”
“Jack Pemberton,” he said. “I’m Juliet’s English teacher.”
“Oh, him,” Miranda said, her voice cool.
“Yes,” he said. “And you must be Miranda.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jack Pemberton,” Mayrene said, twisting around to look at him. “I live next door to Wanda Nell and the girls. I’m Mayrene Lancaster.”
“My pleasure, Miz Lancaster,” he said. “I apologize for barging in like this, but I thought maybe I could be of some use.”
“Maybe so, if somebody would just explain what the heck is going on here,” Mayrene said, “and why we’re in such an all-fired hurry.”
Tersely, Wanda Nell recounted what she had learned in the school office.
“Something smells pretty fishy to me,” Mayrene said:
“Mama, you think somebody kidnapped Juliet?” Miranda bounced up and down on the seat in her excitement. Lavon, startled by his mother’s actions, began to cry.
“Everybody just shut up,” Wanda Nell said. “Please. I can’t even think. We got to get to Miz Culpepper’s house and see what’s going on. Maybe something happened to her, and they got Juliet to come. Maybe that’s all there is to it.”
Wanda Nell wanted desperately to believe that herself. It didn’t take much imagination to see the old woman falling down the stairs and hurting herself, not the way she drank. Or maybe she ran over somebody in her car or smashed herself into a tree. Wanda Nell didn’t really care, as long as Juliet was safe and unhurt.
Miranda quieted Lavon, and no one else said anything as Wanda Nell maneuvered through the afterschool traffic. The high school wasn’t all that far from Main Street, just on the other side of the highway.
Wanda Nell turned onto Main two blocks from the old Culpepper house. Looking up the street, she didn’t see any signs of an ambulanc
e, police cars, or anyone from the sheriff ’s department.
When she pulled into the driveway, she saw a small, beat-up Toyota parked to one side of the concrete apron by the garage. Whose car was that?
“Something seems mighty strange about all this,” Mayrene observed as they all got out of the car.
“Maybe y’all had better stay here,” Wanda Nell said, “and let me go in.”
“Nope,” Mayrene said. “Miranda and Lavon can stay out here.” She pointed to a nearby tree with a wooden bench beneath it. “They can sit over there in the shade. You just pop open the trunk, honey, and let me get my insurance policy.”
Jack Pemberton eyed her curiously, but Wanda Nell ignored him. “Mayrene’s right, Miranda,” she said. “Why don’t you take the baby over there, and y’all sit out in the shade.” She tossed the keys to Mayrene. “Help yourself.” Miranda had a mulish look on her face, but for once she didn’t argue. She took Lavon over to the bench and flopped down.
Wanda Nell strode up the walk to the front door, ignoring Mayrene’s instructions to wait for her. Jack Pemberton was only a step or two behind her.
Wanda Nell stuck her finger on the doorbell and held it down. She could hear the strident ring through the door. Peering through the beveled glass, she saw a shadow ap-proaching them. She took her finger from the bell.
Slowly the door swung open, and Charlesetta’s dark face brightened when she saw Wanda Nell. “Thank the Lord, you here,” she said. “Y’all come on in.”
“What’s going on here, Charlesetta?” Wanda Nell demanded. “Where’s Juliet?”
Charlesetta didn’t reply. Her eyes were fixed on Mayrene and her shotgun. Wanda Nell tapped Charlesetta on the arm. The old woman’s eyes focused on her.
“What you say, Miz Wanda Nell? Oh, Miss Juliet, she be in the parlor with her grandmama and that other lady.”
“Other lady?” Wanda Nell pushed past Charlesetta and ran for the parlor. So it wasn’t Elmer Lee.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Miz Culpepper,” Tracy Taylor greeted her. She sat with Juliet to her right on the sofa, and old Mrs. Culpepper stared with bleary eyes from a chair to the left of her.
Flamingo Fatale (A Trailer Park Mystery Book 1) Page 24