by R. P. Dahlke
Rodney was still out cold, snoring noisily. I could see some of it; girl reporter and cop. But, he was married, and dangerous. Okay, so he was useful, but still, Rodney?
I looked up and could tell that the mental wheels were now turning as she considered her next move—hang onto the memory of her beloved Del, or go with bucket of charm, Detective Rodney, who was still alive and useful.
I said, "We can't be here when he wakes up."
She thoughtfully bit at her lower lip. "You can't be here. I'm going to have to clean up."
She was right, of course. If it were up to me, I'd roll him out into the parking lot and use him for a speed bump. "What's he going to do when he comes to and wants to know who hit him over the head?"
"I'll think of something, I always do. It'll involve make up sex, something a little kinky, but that's the way he likes it." At my horrified expression, she laughed. "For the stuff I've done to get a story, I should be at MSNBC right now instead of this jerkwater town. I'm thirty-four for crying out loud."
Thirty-four? I decided not to mention it. After all, she was the one offering to 'clean up.'
My arms were now dead weight in their sockets so anything she wanted to do was okay by me as long as I wasn't here to witness it. "How long before he wakes up?"
"Five, ten minutes, tops. Anyway, you've got to get out of here, now." Pressing her lips into a hard line, she tilted up her chin and said, "I won't think about the humiliating things he'll make me do, it's all for Del."
"Fine, fine," I said. The adrenaline that had been holding me up had evaporated and now my knees were in danger of folding. "I'll get a cab or a bus down the road," and wobbled unsteadily for the door.
"Wait," she said, taking out her cell phone. "I'll call someone to pick you up at the corner. It'll be better than taking public transportation, and there'll be no record to trip us up should someone ask. Call me later."
I limped down to the corner of Orangeburg and Evergreen thinking that every time Jan talked to me she got another year younger, whereas I seemed to age another ten years.
In less than ten minutes a street rod pulled up and a kid leaned over to the passenger side, opened the door and said, "Hop in."
I buckled up and looked at him. Short, dark, curly hair peeked out of a gangsta style sideways ball-cap. "I'm Lalla. Do you know Jan from the newspaper?" I asked, looking for something normal to talk about.
"Nah, I'm her son." Seeing my jaw drop, he grinned. "Yeah, I know, how's a babe like her have a goof-ball kid like me?"
"No, it's not that. It's just that I didn't know your mom had ever married." I was going to say that Jan was too young to have a grown up son because in spite of her thirty-five, make that thirty-four, years she was my age and still too young.
"She forgot to mention she had a kid, huh? That's okay. Her parents made her give me up at birth. I don't know anything about my real father, though I can't imagine having a kid at nineteen, and I'm nineteen, same age she was when she had me. Don't get me wrong, I've had a really good life in LA. My parents, my adoptive parents, were cool about me connecting with my bio mom, so here I am."
"You live here now?"
"I'm giving it a try. It's an easy transfer 'cause it's city-college. I've been majoring in business, but I'm thinking of switching to something like journalism, or maybe law enforcement, either one should be an easy A."
If there was a self-conscious, anxiety-ridden teenager under that curly hair, I didn't see it. So Jan had an illegitimate son. I wondered who the father was. Someone from our class, or one of the big city college boys she flaunted at the school dances? Really surprising considering that none of the jealous gossips in high school got wind of this secret. Janice Bidwell, preggers? How did she keep it under wraps all this time?
"So, Jan's kid, what's your name?"
"Arnold, but my friends call me Arny. You're cute. Wanna go out with me sometime?"
I sputtered, "Uh, I don't think that would be appropriate." Good grief. This could be my kid!
Arny laughed. "I'm just foolin' with ya."
Okay, so add smart-ass teenager to the equation.
"Jan took a lot of flak for insisting they put an X where the father's name went, but I think she's rad to not give it up. Last name is Johnson and always will be 'cause my folks have always been there for me, you know what I mean?"
"Makes sense. Are you staying at Jan's?" I asked, wondering what his parents would think if they knew Jan's taste in men.
"Nah, that could get awkward. She has her own life and I'm a grown man now." He grinned at me and winked. "It wouldn't be appropriate."
If he only knew. "Can you take a few more minutes out of your way? I'll pay you for the gas, but I need to make a side trip out to my house and it's out in the country."
"Gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free." He slid his eyes at me, and then unable to hold it in any longer, laughed out loud. "Just kidding. Well, sorta. It doesn't sit well with a guy when a girl offers to pay him."
"Listen, kid…,"
"Alright, alright, I'll be honest with you; it wouldn't hurt my image to be seen with a chick like you, and you're some seriously bodacious babe."
There was no way around bruising his male ego. "I'm not going to go out with you, Arny."
"Okay," he said his breezy reply enough for me to think by the end of the ride he would have forgotten all about it. "Where we going?"
Arny rolled to a stop in front of my house. I unbuckled my seat belt and hopped out. "I'll be just a minute."
He nodded, turned up the volume on his radio, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes.
The house was unusually quiet. No Juanita banging pots and pans around, no washing machine churning up the laundry, no Spike to nip at my toes.
I took the stairs two at a time, grabbed a backpack, and stuffed things my father had missed when he brought the suitcase to the police station—shorts, skin cream, mascara and my Kindle loaded with my favorite mystery authors. Then seeing my dad's bedroom door closed, I pressed my ear to the heavy oak door.
Was that music I heard coming from inside his room? Deciding that I'd better check in, I tapped lightly. No answer. Ever since I got a warning tacked to his door, I tended to check on him. Was that Donna Summer on the stereo?
If my dad wanted his privacy, he'd lock his door. I turned the handle and the door opened. The draperies were drawn, the room was dark, his window AC was chugging out cold air, and he was in bed with the bedcovers pulled up to his chin.
"Dad, you okay?"
He pulled the covers up to his chin and mumbled. "Not feeling well. Don't come any closer, I might be contagious."
I went to open the drapes. "And disco is the cure? Why don't I get you some chicken soup?"
Then I noticed the lit candle on his bedside table, two empty coffee cups and a pair of heels next to his bed.
A feminine giggle erupted from under the quilt.
All I could manage was, "Oh, gosh. Sorry." I put up my hands to hide my flaming cheeks and fled, uncontrollable laughter following me all the way out the door.
I threw the backpack into the back seat, hopped into the passenger side and yelled, "Drive, kid!"
He put the car into gear, punched the gas, and we fishtailed around the corner onto the main road, hitting eighty in less than sixty seconds. He slowed down for the freeway on-ramp. "What'd you do, steal the family silver?"
I was sulking, head down, ignoring Arny's reckless driving. "Something like that."
"You got nerves of steel, lady. With your good looks and my excellent driving we could rob banks for a living."
"Didn't Jan tell you anything about me, like that I'm out on bail for murder?"
His happy grin faded. "Uh, no, ma'am, she didn't. But… you didn't do it. Did you?"
Why didn't I think of this sooner, save us both some uncomfortable conversation? But I couldn't hang onto my mad, not in the face of all his young and irrepressible good humor. "No, I didn't, but I may still have t
o prove it."
The ride to town was blessedly silent while Arny digested the idea he was transporting a possible felon, and I digested the idea of my dad sleeping with a woman after all these years.
At Caleb's house, Arny finally took the wadded up twenty I shoved at him.
"Gas money," I said.
He stuffed the bill under his leg and wrote down his number on the back of a service station card from his ashtray. "Here's my cell. I work nights, but I could get away anytime you need me. Anytime, Lalla." He winked to show we were still friends.
I took the card and got out, adding a wave as he pulled away. Smart kid, but I'd bet my lunch money he didn't know about Del Potts—or Rodney.
I carried the backpack into Caleb's house and found him lounging against the kitchen sink, sipping a cup of coffee. His ice-blue eyes raked me with a mixture of wonder, longing, and the briefest spark of regret.
I held up the backpack and opened my mouth to tell him that I left to pick up some things from my house, but he put down the cup and silently lifted a finger to his lips.
Flummoxed, I put the backpack on the table.
He reached out and pulled me into his arms where he mouthed against my ear the one name I'd been hoping I'd never hear again. "Rodney."
I felt the shock skitter down my arms in much the same way as that frying pan did an hour ago. I choked out an expletive. "Here?"
"Mm-mmm," he answered, pulling me with him until he was leaning back against the kitchen sink, legs spread, drawing me against the length of him. He whispered into my ear. "He was in the house when I got here."
I had two things going on in my head at that moment: a protest at the blatant invasion of Caleb's home, and a burgeoning lust at having his body so close to mine in the middle of the day.
That fantasy died when Rodney walked out of the bathroom wiping his hands on a towel.
"Miz Bains, he said, eying the bulging back pack on the kitchen table. "I was just telling the sheriff here that it is no longer necessary for you to be on house arrest."
I blinked once and gushed, "Really? How come? I mean, does that mean you've found Del's killer?"
A smile played around the edges of his eyes. "All you need to know is that you're free to go. Home, if you like."
It wasn't going to get any better than this, so I took it. "Home?"
Caleb turned away to run his cup under the faucet, but not before I saw the flash of hurt in his eyes.
"So, you'll be going back to your ranch?" Rodney said, reaching up and rubbing the back of his head.
I nervously licked my dry lips. If he turned around I'd see a goose egg the size of Kansas right about where I'd bashed him on the skull, and if he got a whiff of the fear nailing my feet to the floor, I'd be back behind bars in a flash.
To hide my mounting anxiety, I turned to Caleb. "Well, that's great news, isn't it Caleb? Will you give me a ride home? Or should I call my dad?" I had no intention of calling him. My dad was undoubtedly in post-coital bliss with Mrs. Hosmer. I blew out another deep breath in a vain attempt to keep all my wildly conflicting emotions in check.
"No need to bother your dad or Caleb, Miz Bains," Rodney drawled. "I can give you a ride."
Caleb, knowing my suspicions of Rodney, looked to me for a signal he should jump in and say something. But Caleb didn't know the full extent of my culpability, that I'd been at Del's apartment and I was the reason that the detective had a lump on the back of his head.
Best to leave it that way, at least for now. "Let's go, Detective."
As my daddy would say, 'From the frying pan into the fire.'
Chapter twenty-one:
I got into Detective Rodney's unmarked police car, snapped the seatbelt on, and hoped to God he meant it when he said he was taking me home. "So, Detective, did you find out who put Del Potts in the trunk of my car?"
He glanced at my fisted hands and chuckled.
"You sure know how to show your appreciation, don't you?"
"What're you talking about?" I asked, now sure Rodney knew that I was the one who hit him with that frying pan at Del's. Watching the cars whizz past, I also wondered if I jumped out at this speed if I'd ever make it to the side of the road.
"You shoulda seen the look on your boyfriend's face back there. You did everything but hand-flips at the thought of getting out of his house."
Oh, yeah, that. I'd screwed things up good with Caleb, but it was Rodney I was worried about.
"Well," I said, fumbling for a plausible reply. "I have a business to run, and... and if the investigating detective thinks I'm good to go, who am I to argue?"
He slapped his hands on the wheel and laughed out loud. "You're a piece of work, you know that? Sheriff Stone thinks the sun shines out of your butt, and what do you do? Typical woman, you twist his nuts in a vise and blow him off. Okay by me. Whadya say we get us a room and I'll show you what you've been missing?"
I swallowed the bile threatening to come up. Rodney was slimy, obnoxious and married, not to mention prone to rough sex with the single women he dated. But so far nothing in his conversation indicated that Jan had squealed on me.
"I think we both know it's a no-go, Detective."
At the ranch I unbuckled my seatbelt, and before sprinting for the house, remembered to say, "Thanks for the ride."
He called after me, "The pleasure may still be all mine, Miz Bains."
Maybe he did know, or at least suspected, that I was the one who beaned him with that skillet. Or maybe this was simply his way to throw me off balance.
Inside the house, I shook off the last few hours of drama and looked around.
Everything was back to normal; Juanita's radio was tuned to a Mexican station, my dad whistling tunelessly as he tucked his shirt into a pair of recently ironed pants, old scuffed Justins' sagging around his ankles, his ornery buddy, Spike, close at his heels.
Of course, this was after I'd come home unexpectedly and accidentally walked in on him and my third grade teacher.
Unable to stop myself, I had to go and rub his nose in it.
"Where's your date?"
"Never mind that. What happened to your house arrest at Caleb's?"
If circumstances had turned out differently, if I'd stayed where I was supposed to, I wouldn't have been in Del's apartment to see Detective Gayle Rodney slobbering over Jan Bidwell, or to be the one to clobber him with that skillet. And if I'd stayed at Caleb's like a good girl, I'd also still be in the dark about my father's afternoon dalliance with Shirley Hosmer.
Boy, howdy, the things I'd miss out on if only I did as I was told.
"Lalla? I asked you a question. Aren't you supposed to be at Caleb's?"
"Huh? Oh, I'm happy to say that Detective Rodney says that I've been exonerated from all charges. Oh, I have to make a call!" Then I ran for the stairs.
I settled onto the bed, pulled out my cell phone, and called Jan.
"Jan? It's Lalla. What did you do with Rodney after I left?"
"Oh, Lalla, I have great news, but not over the phone. Can you meet me, uh tomorrow, same place as today, ten a.m?"
"Sure," I said to dead air. She'd hung up. Good news? What were the chances that she got Rodney to confess and she got it on tape?
Punching memory dial, I waited as Caleb picked up in the middle of the first ring. "Caleb? I'm so sorry. Please don't think I wanted to leave you like that. I—"
He interrupted. "Are you okay?"
"Me? Sure. I'm fine, fine. I'm sorry. I should've left you a note where I was going."
There was a moment when neither one of us said anything. Then we both started again.
"Sweetheart, I just wish—"
"—Caleb, please, there's so much we need to talk about, but not now. Can you come out tonight?"
"You don't want to come back here?"
I heard the ache in his voice and wished I hadn't been responsible for putting it there.
I also thought of the reason why I didn't want to be at Caleb's tonight
and hoped my excuse would hold him until we could talk. "I'll be coming in from work. We can eat here and talk, okay?"
Knowing how tired I would be by the end of the day, he agreed to come out. Besides, Caleb had a weakness for Juanita's seven-layer casserole, and it was on the menu for tonight.
My dad was sitting in the office chair I'd come to call mine. "Look at the facts, Lalla. It was your job, your mistake."
Mad-Dog did a fly-over on a field I'd meant to do two days ago, something I should have done, would've done, if I hadn't been stuck at Caleb's for the last two days. Now there were white streaks in the alfalfa field from the larva that eat the tender corn in its husk and leave the stalk. It should never have happened, and I had no one to blame but myself. I'd been neglectful, worrying about things I couldn't change instead of paying attention to business. And now my dad knew because the farmer had called him and complained, saying we'd get his next job but he wouldn't be paying for chemicals or the time it took to do it. It was pilot error, and it would come out of my paycheck.
"I'm sorry, Dad, but…,"
"I would've chalked it up to your recent worries, but that's not all of it, Lalla. I checked the regs on that cylinder you said was kicking. That engine is already hours beyond its TBO. So now someone gets to do the overhaul, and maybe replace the damn thing."
"I'm sorry, Dad. I'll help, I promise."
"You can bet your buttons you're going to help. You're also grounded as of today."
"Noah Bains! That's just not fair. This is my living too, you know." What I didn't say, and we both knew, was that flying, even in a pokey Ag-Cat was the nearest thing to heaven. Up there I was free of the constraints of the earthbound. My troubles became small and insignificant. Flying was usually the cure for what ailed me and I hated to lose it.
"You're too distracted, and it ain't safe. Not for you or anybody else."
"So what am I supposed to do in the mean time?"
"Paperwork's done for today, and the boys are all out on jobs. We can't start on that engine until tomorrow, but I have something that will keep your mind occupied till then."