2 Heroes & Hooligans in Goose Pimple Junction (35 page)

You can’t unsay a cruel word.

~Southern Proverb

“I
t’s getting late. Who’s next?” Jack asked.

Stopped at a traffic light, Johnny got out his cell phone. As he punched in numbers, he said, “Rita Grayson. Cash indicated she was the woman who bought a car from Lenny. But first I’m—”

“Gonna try Martha Maye again,” Jack said along with Johnny.

“I know it’s getting kind of late,” Johnny said, holding the phone close to his ear but away from his mouth so he could talk to Jack, “but I want to see all three women on the list tonight.” The light turned green and they continued on their way.

Jack nodded his head as Johnny disconnected the call.

“Still nothing?” Jack asked.

“Nope. You think I should worry?”

“Want me to get Tess to check on her?” Jack asked.

“Sure,” Johnny said miserably, as he made a left turn.

Jack quickly called Tess as they pulled up to Rita Grayson’s house, and Johnny raked his eyes over the scraggly grass, the overgrown bushes, and the house in need of paint. An adolescent girl with a dirty face opened the door when Johnny rang the bell.

“Is your mama home?” Johnny said through the screen door.

“How come?” The girl had an attitude. “You gonna arrest her?”

“Do I have cause to arrest your mama?”

She shrugged. “I dunno.” Then she called over her shoulder, “Mama! It’s the law.” She turned back to the men, eyeing them suspiciously.

“The law?” a woman’s voice said. A thirty-something redhead who wore clothes a size too small appeared at the door. “Yeah?” she said, chewing open-mouthed on a piece of gum.

“Mrs. Grayson?” Johnny asked.

“Who wants to know?”

Johnny wore his GPJPD Chief’s hat, although he wasn’t wearing his chief’s badge since he was on leave of absence. Still, Johnny thought she knew who he was; she was just being difficult.

“I’m Johnny Butterfield, and this is Jackson Wright. We’d like to speak to you and your husband for a bit if you don’t mind.”

“What if I do mind?” She popped her gum and then blew a big pink bubble.

“Ma’am?”

“What if I mind?” She propped a hand on her hip.

Johnny put on his most endearing smile. “Now why would you object to speaking to two fine gentlemen such as us?”

“I ain’t done nothing,” she said, shrugging.

“No, ma’am, we’re not here because any of y’all did something. We just want to ask you some questions about Lenny Applewhite. I hear he sold you a car.”

“That’s in my behind,” she said, smacking her gum.

“Yes, ma’am, we realize it’s been a few weeks, but the fact is the man was murdered, and we’d like to see if you can tell us anything that would help us find the killer.”

Reluctantly, she stepped aside. “I don’t know what I can tell you, but come on in.” She led them to a kitchen where a haze of smoke hung in the air and dirty dishes overflowed from the sink. Flies buzzed around a dish with some uneaten cake. She motioned to the chairs around the table as she brushed crumbs off one of the seats and began gathering up papers, mail, and more dishes from the table.

“Can I get y’all something to drink?” she asked as they sat down. “I got just about anything. Coffee?” She opened the refrigerator. “Co’Cola? Beer?”

“No thank you, ma’am.” Johnny said, noticing a sour smell.

“I’ll pass too, thanks,” Jack said, glancing around the stuffy kitchen.

“You don’t talk much, do ya?” Rita eyed Jack.

“Oh, I can talk a blue streak when I want,” Jack said, flashing his lady-killer smile.

“Ma’am, is your husband at home?” Johnny asked.

“Harlan!” she bellowed so loudly both men flinched a little.

A male voice came back impatiently. “What?”

“Get your butt down here.” A few seconds later, a skinny, ferret-faced man appeared at the doorway, wearing a pair of athletic shorts and a torn T-shirt. His stark-white feet were bare, and he had tan lines where his socks would be.

“What’s so important I had to quit watching the game for?”

“Harlan, this here’s Johnny Butterfield, and his friend, Jackson, uh . . .”

“Wright,” Jack supplied.

“Right. Jackson Wright.” She giggled at her pun. “They want to ask us a few questions about that salesman over to Big Darryl D’s what got hisself killed. You know the one?” She put a cigarette between her lips and struck a match to light it. He nodded, and she pointed a thumb at her husband and addressed the men. “This here’s Harlan.”

“How do, sir.” The men exchanged nods.

“Here, hon, have a cold one.”

“Just one? Do those come like a dead man? One to a box?”

Johnny cleared his throat. “Uh, folks,” he said, eager to ask his questions and not be an audience to the Bickersons. “What can you tell us about the deceased?”

“He’s graveyard dead,” Harlan said.

“Besides that,” Jack said, not smiling.

“He sold us an old rattletrap, I can tell you that. Other than selling us the car, we didn’t have any dealings with him, did we sugar puss?”

“How did you know he was dead?” the woman asked her husband.

“I can read.” The man was indignant.

“Did he cheat you on the car?” Johnny asked.
Or did your wife do all the cheating?

“Yes,” Harlan said.

“No,” Rita said at the same time.

“Well, which is it?” Jack asked, looking from one to the other.

“Oh.” She waved her cigarette-holding hand in the air, causing some ash to drop on the floor. “It needed a new distribution cap and a new doohickey—what was that thing called, Har? A Cadillac whatchamacallit?”

Harlan mouthed the word
women
to Jack and Johnny
and drew a circle in the air with his finger next to his temple. “A catalytic converter,” Harlan said, shaking his head. “And it’s a distributor cap, woman. How many times were you dropped on your head as a child?”

“Yeah, a catalytic converter, that’s it,” she said, ignoring her husband. “But now that we got all that fixed, it runs real nice.”

“Humph,” Harlan grunted.

“Did he do that often? Sell clunkers to folks?”

“It wadn’t no clunker, I’m telling you!” Rita protested.

Johnny waited a beat, then said, “Do you know if he sold many cars that had things wrong with them?”

“How would we know? We just bought the car and never saw the man again,” Harlan said.

“Did
you
ever see him again?” Jack asked Rita.

“No,” she said quickly, before shooing a fly from her husband’s can of beer and putting it to her lips.

“Have y’all heard about anyone being mad at him? Anyone he might’ve argued with?”

“I hear
you
had a right smart argument with him.” Harlan looked pointedly at Johnny.

“That’s true,” Johnny allowed. “As you know, the man could be real irritating. Half the time I think he was walking on a slant.”

“You mean drunk, Chief?” Rita asked.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. What do you think? Was the man an imbiber?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Rita turned toward the sink and moved a few dishes around.

“Oh yeah? A little bird told me he saw you talking to Lenny Applewhite over at the Mag Bar.”

Rita turned back toward them. Harlan’s head snapped up, and his beady little eyes bored into his wife’s. “Is that right?” he said very slowly and deliberately.

“Well, sure hon, I told you that,” she said nervously. “That’s how come we went to Car Country to buy the car. I told you about me meeting him.” Rita talked fast, suddenly intent on getting the dishes washed.

“Back to the question, Mrs. Grayson.” Johnny stood and leaned against the counter next to her. “Did anything come up during your talks with him? Do you know of any women he might’ve been seeing? Someone who had a beef with him? Anyone he might’ve cheated? Just any little thing you can remember that might seem inconsequential, but might actually be a lead.”

Rita shook her head, and when Johnny stopped talking, she said, “Nothing I can think of, but we really didn’t talk all that much.”

“I’ll bet,” Harlan snorted.

“Maybe you know of some women he’d been seeing? One theory we’re working is that a jealous husband found out about his wife and Lenny,” Jack said, looking straight at Harlan to see his reaction to the jealous husband theory, “and the husband went after him for revenge.”

“Don’t look at me,” Harlan said. “No need for me to be jealous.”

“Why is that, Mr. Grayson?” Jack said.

“Shoot, Rita was too old for Lenny Applewhite. She’s almost past her expiration date.”

Rita’s face flushed bright red, and her eyes turned cold as she returned her husband’s gaze. “I thought you didn’t know the man,” she said with measured calm.

“I didn’t, but I heard a thing or two about him. Saw him at Big Darryl D’s.” Harlan’s smug smile registered his happiness that his comment had gotten to Rita.

Johnny got to his feet, not entirely sure they should leave the happy couple by themselves, but he’d been watching them and didn’t think they were hiding anything except Rita’s affair.

“Do you both have an alibi for the night of October twenty-second?”

“Sure we do. We were up to the Oktoberfest, like everyone else in town. I was a gangster”—he nodded at his wife—”and she was a Playboy bunny.”

“Y’all call me”—Johnny got a business card out of his wallet, scribbled something on the back, and placed it on the kitchen table—”if you think of anything, all right? The station’s number is on the front and my cell is on the back.”

“Yeah, we’ll think real hard on it, and if anything comes to mind, my waff’le call you.”

“Thanks for your time, folks.” Johnny put his hat on as he reached the door.

Walking to the car, Jack had a perturbed look on his face.

“What?” Johnny asked.

“His waffle’s gonna call you?”

Johnny smiled, opened his car door, and looked over the roof of the car at Jack.

“Wife. His wife will call.”

Jack nodded and looked as if a light bulb had come on in his head. “You learn something new every day, huh?”

As they drove away, Jack called Tess again. “Hey, darlin’. Did you talk to her?” Johnny hit the turn signal and stopped at a stop sign.

“Okay.” Jack listened some more. “And where’s she—” More listening, and then, “Okay. Mmm-hmm. Thanks a lot, sweetheart.” He hung up and said, “Martha Maye’s fine. She’s been at Lou’s most of the night.”

Johnny checked his phone to see if he’d missed any calls while they were talking to the Graysons. “So why didn’t she call me back?”

“
That
, Tess didn’t ask, but she did tell her you’ve been trying to reach her, and she said Martha Maye acted surprised.”

“I don’t know why she’d be surprised. I’ve left three messages.”

“You need to talk to her face to face,” Jack advised.

“What if she’s avoiding me?” Johnny asked, looking worried.

“Then you’ll know. Some smart folks can’t tell a rotten rail without sitting on it.”

Trust everybody, but brand your cattle.

~Southern Proverb

B
right and early on the Saturday following the Oktoberfest, Johnny sat in a window booth in the back of Slick and Junebug’s Diner, watching folks in the restaurant and out on the street. The usual smell of grease hung in the air, just enough to make a stomach rumble. He saw Junebug coming toward his table with a coffee pot in her hand, and he smiled at her.