“There was a nasty wreck at that big curve on State Road 98. A fatality. Carlos was headed this way, and pulled over to see if he could help. Unfortunately, the poor guy was beyond all earthly assistance.”
Carlos Martinez had left the mean streets of Miami for a less-stressful position with Himmarshee’s small police force as a homicide detective. Highway crashes—even deadly ones—weren’t part of his job, and this one wasn’t even within the jurisdiction of the town police. But he’d stayed at the accident site to preserve the scene, placing road flares and controlling traffic until deputies from the county sheriff’s office could arrive at the remote location.
Sadness shadowed Mama’s face. “Was the driver anyone we know, Mace?”
I shrugged. “Carlos was too busy to talk. I didn’t get much information.”
“Whoever it was, I hope he didn’t suffer.” She reached for my hand. “We ought to say a prayer, regardless.”
Before we finished—Mama leading with the practiced ease of a Sunday school teacher, me following along awkwardly—her kitchen phone rang.
“Let it go to voice mail.” Head still bowed, she looked at me through a slit of open eyelid. “I had a strange call about an hour ago. Somebody was breathing, real ragged-like. Then they started crying. I kept asking, ‘Who is this? What’s wrong?’ Finally, I heard laughter, and then they hung up. Unknown number. It was probably just kids, fooling around.”
The ringing stopped. Mama closed her eyes, and picked up right where she’d left off, asking God to bring comfort to those who would mourn the dead.
Chapter 2: The Funeral
Tissue-muffled sobs came from the family’s row in the front parlor of the funeral home.
Mourners filed past, eyes downcast, shaking hands and patting shoulders. The cloying scent of lilies filled the air.
I’ve always hated lilies. To me, they smell like loss. They remind me how my sisters and I grieved as young girls, watching our father’s casket lowered six feet down.
“The flowers are impressive, wouldn’t you say, Mace?” Mama whispered. “The folks from NASCAR sent that big white arrangement.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, non-committal.
Mama surveyed the crowd, which included working class folks from Himmarshee, as well as an affluent set from Florida’s east coast. “Pretty posh,” Mama said into my ear. “You can’t swing a cat in here without hitting a thousand-dollar designer handbag.”
It turned out we had known the unfortunate deceased. Robert “Bobby” Tyler Sr. was a member of Mama’s graduating class at Himmarshee High, and one of our town’s most-famous native sons. I’d gone to grade school with his daughter, Amanda. A couple of days before the funeral, she called to ask if I was going to attend. I hadn’t planned to, given my feelings about funerals. But I could hardly say that to a grieving daughter.
“I really need to talk to you, Mace,” she’d said that day. “We don’t believe Daddy’s crash was an accident.”
There was silence from my end of the phone while I absorbed that piece of information.
“We think someone must have forced him off the road. Or maybe messed with his car. Will you look into it?”
I’d heard similar pleas from bereft families before. I’d gained a bit of a reputation over the last few years as an amateur sleuth—a redneck Jessica Fletcher, one county sheriff snidely dubbed me. I’d found myself in the right place at the right time to help unravel a string of unusual murders in usually tranquil Himmarshee. More accurately, in some of those cases, I was forced to get involved because Mama had found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I’d discovered a majority of people who sought my help didn’t really have a murder mystery. They were simply grasping for any answer besides bad luck for the death of a loved one.
“You should go to the sheriff’s office, Amanda.”
“We did. They say Daddy was flat out driving too fast, and failed to navigate the curve. You know his background, Mace. There has to be more to it than that.”
In his younger days, Bobby Tyler Sr. raced stock cars. Skill and fearlessness had combined to make him one of the circuit’s most successful competitors. He’d amassed fame and a small fortune, when it all came to an end with a fatal slip on a rain-slicked track. His best friend, a fellow driver, died that day in an accident Bobby caused. He never raced again, and he never forgave himself for being careless.
He used his fame and the nest egg he’d saved to start a string of auto parts and repair shops. The business made him rich, and he moved his young family to a big home on the Atlantic Coast. He still gave speeches about safe driving, though, and used a portion of his wealth to fund education and safety initiatives. He was a famously careful driver.
Now, I stole a glance at the front row. Amanda sat on one side of her mother. Bobby Tyler Jr.—Amanda’s twin brother, who everyone called Deuce—sat on the other. The widow’s face was drained of color, leaden and gray like the sky over Lake Okeechobee after a hard rain. Her shoulders shook. Amanda handed her a fresh tissue. Deuce wrapped a protective arm around his mother, pulling her close. I could hear her sob from five rows back as she propped her head on her son’s shoulder.
I decided right then I’d ask a few questions about Bobby’s crash. What could it hurt?
Chapter 3: The Reception
By the looks of things, the whole town had turned out for the gathering after the funeral at the Tyler family homestead. Pickup trucks, some still hauling stock trailers, crowded the front yard. Sleek luxury cars—the coastal contingent—lined the gravel drive leading to an Old Florida style home. The cattle ranch, managed by Bobby’s brother since their parents passed on, sat amidst orange groves. Moss-draped oaks and sabal palms studded the surrounding pasture land. Mama and I made our way across a wide wooden porch, past fragrant climbing roses and rocking chairs.
At least one of those chairs would be vacant the next time Bobby’s family came to the old homestead to visit.
“Fix your hair, Mace. It looks like you drove through a hurricane to get here.” Mama slid a tube of Apricot Ice into my pocket as I knocked at the door. “A little lipstick wouldn’t hurt you either.”
“I’m sure the grieving relatives won’t give two hoots if I’m wearing lipstick or not.”
Mama smoothed at her platinum-colored hair, shellacked in place by what I assume was a vat of hair spray she kept in her hurricane kit. “I’m just saying. It’s a sign of respect.”
“Funny, I never saw that lipstick ad: Pucker Up for the Bereaved.”
She pinched my side, causing me to let out a yelp just as Amanda Tyler opened the door.
“Everything okay?”
Mama piped up, “Mace makes those sounds sometimes, Amanda. Nobody understands why.”
Rubbing at the spot I knew was turning red, I shot Mama a glare.
She ignored me, as usual, taking Amanda’s elbow to lead the three of us into the home.
“We’re so sorry for your loss, honey,” Mama said.
Amanda ducked her chin. A shimmer of tears threatened. “I know my mother will be pleased to see you, Miss Rosalee. Didn’t you go to school with my dad?”
“I did, indeed,” Mama said. “He was a fine man.”
Another mourner knocked at the door. Meeting my eyes, Amanda said, “Let’s talk later.”
I nodded. Mama patted her hand, and then hustled me over to a long table groaning with funeral food.
“I’m not sure Bobby’s widow will be pleased to see me,” she whispered in my ear. “She was his rebound gal after I broke up with him. She always acted like she thought I was plotting to snatch him back.”
She loaded her plate with post-funeral food: Two slices of country ham on buttermilk biscuits, a sampler of cold salads, and a towering slice of red velvet layer cake.
“I see the death of your ex-boyfriend hasn’t curbed your appetite.”
Mama narrowed her eyes. “That was forty years ago, Mace. I’ve had a lot of boyfriends sinc
e then.”
“Not to mention husbands,” I said.
Mama’s current spouse, Salvatore “Big Sal” Provenza, from the Bronx, was the lucky No. 5. “Besides,” Mama swallowed a mouthful of biscuit, “wasting food is a sin.”
I was about to steal a quarter of her cake when a commotion erupted at the front door.
Chapter 4: Bitterness
Mourners jostled and murmured. Plates dropped. Shouts rang out. A gray-haired man, wearing tattered jeans and a sweat-stained cowboy hat, shoved his way past Amanda, knocking her into the wall. Weaving, he stalked to the center of the room.
“I always said I’d see Bobby Tyler rot in hell.” His voice was raised, words slurred. “I came here to make sure all you good people know that’s where the S.O.B. is headed.”
As Amanda’s Uncle Randall started toward him, the man pulled a knife. Raising his hands, Randall backed off. So did the rest of the crowd.
“Tyler earned all he got on the backs of people like me.” He waved the knife, its blade gleaming under the light of a wagon-wheel chandelier.
I was behind him, out of his sight, but close enough to smell his boozy cloud. Catching Randall’s eye, I touched my fingers to my forehead, as if tipping a hat. When Randall gave a barely perceptible nod, I rushed the man from the rear, sliding his hat down over his eyes. Randall came at him an instant later, tackling him to the floor. When someone in cowboy boots stomped his wrist, the man released his knife.
Several men rustled him outside. Deuce rushed across the room to check on his sister.
“You all right?” he asked.
Amanda touched a temple, where her head had struck the wall. “I think so. I can’t believe he showed up.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Deuce, helping Amanda to a couch. “We’ve gotten enough threats and letters from him over the years.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Lamar Johnson. He lives in Fort Pierce.” Amanda pointed vaguely toward the east coast.
I nodded. “I know him, by reputation. People say he’d start a fistfight with a fence post.”
“He owned a struggling garage,” Amanda continued. “Daddy bought him out.”
“He was paid a fair price.” Deuce’s tone was defensive. “Lamar had run that garage clear into the ground.”
“He’s a bad gambler,” Amanda said. “Plus...” she mimed raising a bottle to her lips.
“Yeah,” I said. “I sniffed out that particular problem.”
“After he blew through the money he’d made from selling the garage, Daddy did everything he could to find him work, but...”
When Deuce’s voice trailed off, his sister finished his sentence.
“...but nobody wants to hire a drunken mechanic.”
Just as I mentally tucked that tidbit away, Mama stepped out from behind the living room drapes. From long experience with jealous ex-husbands and excitable family members, she’d learned to take cover when trouble broke out. Once, a fistfight at a family wedding turned into a free-for-all. Mama tried to play peacemaker. As small as she is, one of the brawlers picked her up and tossed her headfirst into a huge vat of macaroni salad. She hasn’t cared much for macaroni—or peacemaking—since.
She pointed to her watch. It was getting late. But I had one more topic to broach with the Tyler twins. I shook a wait-a-minute finger at Mama. It brought her running, as I knew it would. When we were kids, my sisters and I discovered two sure-fire ways to get under Mama’s skin: backtalk and finger-wagging. I still indulge in both occasionally, just to keep her sharp.
As she sidled up, I linked my arm through hers—mainly to ward off pinching.
“I was just about to ask Amanda and Deuce about their younger brother,” I said. “I was surprised he wasn’t here today.”
The twins exchanged a look. Amanda traced the embroidered words on a cowboy pillow, Ain’t My First Rodeo. Deuce took an extra-long swig from a can of soda.
Mama said, “He was born after y’all moved to the coast, wasn’t he?”
Amanda nodded.
“What’s his name again?” I asked.
“Ronnie,” said Amanda, her voice soft.
“We don’t speak of our younger brother.” Deuce shot his twin an angry look. “That boy is nothing but a stain on this family.”
Chapter 5: Something Strange
After the funeral reception, I gave Mama a ride home. Acres of Florida prairie rolled past, as cattle bunched into dark shadows under a sliver of moon. With Halloween just around the corner, the night air was finally cooling. The scent of orange blossoms blew in through my Jeep’s windows, along with the faint sulfurous smell from a distant cypress swamp.
“Did you really not know Ronnie Tyler’s name, or were you just fishing?” Mama asked.
I glanced over and winked.
“Thought so. I’d never call him a stain, but that child has sure brought a lot of heartache to his folks. He’s on the Okie Coke, real bad.”
Now I wasn’t pretending. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Okie Coke, Mace.” Mama waved a dismissive hand, as if everyone knew the term. “Crank. Tweak. Methamphetamine.”
“Oh. That.” The meth scourge that had ravaged so many rural areas was now taking aim on Himmarshee County.
“He’s ruined, honey. High all the time. Rotten teeth; meth mouth, they call that. He’s even stolen from his family.”
“He has?”
“Oh, yeah. I heard from the shampoo gal at Hair Today, Dyed Tomorrow that Bobby Sr. was about to disinherit him. But Ronnie’s mama wanted to give him one more chance at rehab...”
Mama prattled on about all the times Ronnie had been in-and-out of expensive treatment centers, how he’d been living in a flop house, how he’d cheated and disappointed his parents. Meanwhile, my mind was forming a conclusion: In just one night, I’d discovered at least two people who might have been motivated to kill Bobby Tyler Sr.
Soon enough, I parked the Jeep at Mama’s place.
Entering, she flicked on the front hallway light. Nothing happened. Teensy pranced around our ankles in the dark. “I just replaced that bulb.”
Mama’s voice was absent any exasperation. She sounded...unsettled.
“That’s not all, Mace.” Just as she started to close the door, the wind caught it and slammed it shut. She gave a little shiver.
“I’ve had a couple more strange calls on the house line.” She turned on a table lamp by the living room phone, and then dialed her voice mail. “I’ll put it on speaker.”
You have three saved messages...
My cousin Bubba’s voice came on, asking Mama if he could borrow her vintage convertible for a special date. Before I could imagine what kind of use Mr. Redneck Romeo would find for that roomy back seat, Mama advanced to the next message.
The sound of rushing wind filled the room, followed by moaning. Then I heard a child say, “Daddy, are you there? I’m scared. It’s dark. Where are you, Daddy?”
The call went dead.
The next caller, a male, seemed grown-up, but confused. “Can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? Please... help me.” Then, we heard a loud bang, almost like an explosion. Just before the call disconnected, a woman screamed.
Mama hung up the speaker phone and raised her brows at me. “What do you think?”
I’m not superstitious or easily scared. But when I heard that high-pitched, terrified-sounding shriek, the hair on my arms stood up. Even so, I still believed Mama’s first theory on the calls.
“Kids,” I said. “What with voice sound effects and editing apps, their phone pranks have gotten more sophisticated, that’s all. Nobody calls up anymore just to ask if your refrigerator is running, and then why don’t you go catch it.”
Mama shook her head. “I don’t think so, Mace. Hear me out, because this sounds strange, but what if Bobby Tyler is trying to get a message to me from the great beyond?”
I burst out laughing. “I think you’ve been wa
tching too many scary TV shows. First of all, aren’t you a Christian? I didn’t think your church was big on supernatural beliefs.”
Mama frowned. “You’ve got a point, but I asked you to listen, not laugh at me.”
I made a motion to zip my smart lip.
“Okay, think about these recent messages: Bobby died in the crash, and his kids are grieving. ‘Where are you Daddy?’ a child’s voice says. Then, on the second one, didn’t that loud bang sound like a crash?”
“Maybe. So?”
“So, in the message, a man asks ‘Can you help me?’ I think it’s Bobby, and he needs our help to figure out what really happened in that car crash. What should we do, Mace?”
Mama has never lacked for imagination, but even for her this was really out there. I needed a moment to decide how to answer.
I was still thinking when the framed picture from her wedding to Sal suddenly flew off the hallway wall. Teensy barked at the sound of shattering glass. We stared at the picture, face down in the tiled hall.
“Probably loosened when the door slammed,” I said, stealing glances over each of my shoulders.
“Yeah, probably,” said Mama, still rooted to her spot on the pale peach living room carpet.
I inched across the room to pick up the photograph. Mama crowded up behind me as I turned over the frame.
An ugly crack ran down the picture’s center, cleaving the happy newlyweds in two.
As I handed the frame to Mama, the TV in the living room abruptly switched on by itself, volume blaring. A judge on a Law & Order rerun was handing down a stiff sentence to some criminal ne’er do well.
“That clinches it, Mace. Get Marty over here with that Ouija board you girls used to play with, hiding in the bathroom. I’ve got me an honest-to-goodness ghost.”
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 55