Drag Strip (11 page)

“No,” I answered, looking him straight in the eye. “Raydean's like that. She gets confused. I mean, she met Detective Nailor last summer when he was investigating a murder. Maybe that's what she meant.” I could feel my neck flush and I felt just like I used to feel in Catholic school when Sister Claude Marie would demand my homework and I would lie about it.

“Sierra,” he said, “it's not like I suspect you of anything. I'm just trying to get at the facts here. It makes no difference to me if you and John have a personal relationship.”

I heard Raydean's car before I saw it. The unmistakable sound of a 1962 Plymouth Fury traveling fast with a small hole in its muffler made Detective Wheeling look up. Raydean was headed for the drugstore, no doubt to rescue me from the clutches of an alien evildoer. I could make out her face, set with a determined expression, her bonnet hanging lopsided over her forehead, covering one eye. She was coming in and she was coming in fast. Only one thing stood between her, the curb, and me: Detective Wheeling's unmarked brown Taurus sedan.

Wheeling realized this at the same moment that I did and jumped out into the street in a vain attempt to ward off her approach. He waved his arms wildly, yelling for her to cut the wheel, but Raydean either didn't hear him or chose not to listen. There was a small, high-pitched scraping noise as the front fender of Raydean's Plymouth tapped into the Taurus and then rubbed a thin even scrape all the way down the side of the car.

Raydean may have noticed this, because she then attempted to correct her error by backing up. This only served to neatly crease the entire left side of his car.

“Oh my God, would you look at that?” he moaned.

I looked. “Detective, I'm thinking a little rubbing compound and you'll be good to go.” Wheeling glowered at me.

“Rubbing compound? There's a dent an inch deep on the side of my car.” Raydean honked the horn impatiently. Apparently she saw nothing wrong and intended for us to put as much distance as possible between herself and this alien.

“Well, then,” I said, “do you want me to get her to—”

“No, hell, no. Just go on. There's no use in me trying to get anything straight with her. Just go on. I'll take care of it.”

“Thanks, Detective,” I said softly. “I owe you one.”

“One?” he said, a hint of a smile escaping as he looked at Raydean. “You owe me, all right, but one won't get it. How about we call a truce and you agree to sit down and talk to me. One on one, no crazy neighbors or attorneys.”

“All right. One on one. Your office. Tomorrow morning.”

Wheeling nodded, his attention turned back to his bruised Taurus. “Go on, get out of here. I'll see you tomorrow morning.”

Raydean gunned the engine to let me know that time was wasting. I didn't want to linger, lest the detective change his mind and decide to make our lives more difficult. I ran around to the passenger side of Raydean's car and climbed in.

Raydean slammed the car into reverse and pulled out into the street without checking the rearview mirror. A car's brakes screeched and a horn sounded, but neither of us looked back.

“I'm thinking the boy was telling you that I'm certifiable,” Raydean said calmly, once the car was rolling down the street.

“You did a damn fine job yourself,” I answered.

“Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you,” she answered cryptically.

Twelve

Ruby Lee Diamond's parents lived on the edge of Wewahitchka in a small white frame house that sat behind a chain-link fence on a manicured stamp of crayon-green grass. Cars lined either side of the road, having been pulled over into the grass that ran to the street's edge. More people were pulling up as we arrived, parking and then making their way to the door with somber expressions and casserole dishes.

“I didn't think…” I said.

“Well, I did,” Raydean replied, reaching over her shoulder into the backseat for a square foil-lined baking pan. “Always keep a spare in the freezer, just in case.” I had no idea what was in the pan, and didn't really want to ask. Knowing Raydean, baked alligator was not out of the realm of possibility.

We walked up to the house and drifted inside, swallowed up by the covey of friends and relations, all come to comfort Ruby's parents. Brother Everitt was nowhere to be seen, and I was glad because I was in the mood to tell someone off and he'd have been my first target. Raydean, who's never met a stranger, wandered into the kitchen to deposit her casserole, leaving me to fend for myself.

The house was larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, but still the house was packed with what appeared to be the entire population of tiny Wewahitchka. Ruby's parents sat on a sofa in the living room and an informal receiving line had been started. The dining room table was quickly being covered with food as women in hastily donned aprons ran back and forth from the kitchen.

“It's Sierra, isn't it?” a low voice said. I looked up to see Meatloaf standing next to me, distinctly uncomfortable in his too-tight polyester pants and short-sleeved white shirt.

“And you'd be Meatloaf,” I answered. He smiled tentatively and extended a hand that, even though scrubbed, still looked gray with car grime. “Did you bring the rest of the boys, or are you doing this on your own?” Somehow I didn't think Meatloaf would brave a funeral alone. I tried to look around behind him, but he took up too much space for me to get a clear view.

“Nah, them others is here. I just saw you standing all alone, looking like a flower, and I thought, well, I wanted to say hello.” His face was scarlet. Who'd have thought a big guy like that would be shy around a woman?

“There you are. Come on.” I looked behind Meatloaf and saw his buddy Frank, who hadn't bothered to clean up much. He wore dark blue mechanic's pants, steel-toed work boots, and a pale blue shirt with short sleeves that showcased his tattoos. His one concession to formality was a too-short clip-on paisley tie.

Frank glowered at me, probably still remembering how I'd clocked his idol, the great Roy Dell Parks.

“Come on,” he repeated impatiently. “Mr. Rhodes said we'd best git on.” I looked around again and this time saw Mickey Rhodes standing in the corner, a Panama straw hat in his hand and a somber expression on his face.

“Where's Roy Dell?” I asked, suddenly remembering my damaged Camaro.

“Aw, he's outside in Mr. Rhodes's Caddy. He was so tore up at the graveside, he couldn't face coming in,” said Meatloaf. Frank snarled something about Meatloaf needing to shut up.

“Well, I need to see him about something, so let's step outside.” I started walking out the door with Roy Dell's boys behind me. Mickey Rhodes made an attempt at a polite greeting, but I had one thing on my mind: retribution. Roy Dell and I had business to settle concerning a certain lug nut.

I heard Frank behind me. “I don't like the look on her face,” he was saying. “She looks just like she did the last time.” Meatloaf giggled nervously.

Mickey Rhodes's Cadillac was easy to spot. It gleamed white in the sunlight of the early afternoon. White exterior, fire-engine-red interior, and a magnetic sign on the driver's side door that advertised the Dead Lakes Motor Speedway. Hunched down in the backseat, his head lowered miserably, sat Roy Dell Parks.

I whipped open the back door, climbed inside, slammed the door shut, and quickly hit the lock. Outside, as the steamy heat of northwest Florida made everything look shimmery, I watched Frank and Meatloaf start to get frantic. Their boss was alone in the backseat of a car with a madwoman.

Roy Dell, for his part in things, looked up and clearly thought he saw salvation. His face lit up like a lost child's.

“Sierra, honey,” he said. Then, as if remembering Ruby, he cut his eyes downward and let a tear slide down his cheek. “It's a terrible thing,” he said, shaking his head.

“Roy Dell, shut your mouth.” He looked shocked. “You and your sorry-assed pit crew left the lug nuts loose on my car and I nearly died last night. The way I see it, your ass is mine over this.”

Roy Dell frowned. “Sierra, me and the boys didn't have nothing to do with your lug nuts.”

“Don't run that crap with me,” I said. “You were the only people in a position to work on my car, and I'm telling you my left front tire fell off on top of Hathaway Bridge. Now maybe it was an accident, or maybe it was payback for what I don't know, but I'm telling you, I'm on to you.”

Roy Dell looked even more puzzled. “Now, Sierra, I won't say me or Mr. Rhodes was there every second watching them work, but I know my boys and I stand by their work.”

“Oh, and Frank, too?” I asked. I looked out the window and saw Frank rushing Mickey up to the car, talking and gesturing wildly with his hands.

“Frank don't work for me,” Roy Dell said. “He's a driver. I taught him everything he knows. But I can tell you this, that boy wouldn't harm a hair on your blond head.” I looked out the window at Frank's skull-and-crossbones tattoo and laughed.

“Yeah, right. You know, I'm thinking here, Roy Dell, that maybe you're not being on the straight with me. You see, the way I'm forced to think now, I'm thinking maybe you're lying. I don't know why the cops aren't crawling your butt, Roy Dell, 'cause you were the last one with her.”

I wasn't watching Roy Dell. I'll have to admit I was staring past him out the window at Frank and Meatloaf, who were now dragging a reluctant Mickey Rhodes over to unlock the car, so I was unprepared for the power of Roy Dell's reaction. He reached over and grabbed me with such force that my teeth snapped.

“You don't know what you're talking about, do you?” he growled. “If I was you and I wanted to keep my pretty face and ass in business, I'd shut my mouth and keep it shut. If somebody wanted to communicate with you, honey, they'd need to go upside your head with a two-by-four and couldn't nobody blame them. Now, quit looking for trouble, 'cause I'm ready to tell you, trouble will find you every time.”

At that moment, Mickey Rhodes unlocked the car door. “What's going on?” he asked.

“Nothing!” Roy Dell and I snapped in unison. We glared at each other and I pulled my arm out of his grasp.

“You're one to talk,” I hissed, then threw open the door and jumped out. Roy Dell Parks, the King of Dirt, had a side to his personality that I bet his adoring fans knew nothing about. How much of Roy Dell had Ruby seen? What if things had turned ugly when Ruby wouldn't move along as quickly as he wished?

I straightened the collar on my blouse and moved past the gaping men, back into the house. I walked slowly, like I was out for nothing but a stroll, but inside I felt like Jell-O. The crowd had thinned a bit and the receiving line was down to a few people as the majority had made for the dining room. Raydean was deep in conversation with the two elderly ladies from the church. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do would be to pay my respects to Ruby's parents and get the hell out of Wewahitchka.

*   *   *

Ruby's mother took my hand in hers and tried to smile. “Sugar, I've heard so much about you,” she said softly. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and there wasn't a thing I could do to stop them.

“I should've watched her more closely,” I began, choking on the words that had lain hidden in my heart. “It's my fault.”

“No, now, honey, that's not so,” Mr. Diamond said, leaning close to his wife.

“She was so happy, Sierra,” Mrs. Diamond said. “I can't say that we supported her at first, but eventually I made peace with her decision to dance.”

Mr. Diamond nodded and patted his wife's knee. “I'll get you some water,” he said, rising from the sofa.

Mrs. Diamond watched him walk slowly off toward the kitchen, then gestured to the coffee table, where three full glasses of water sat untouched.

“He can't bear to talk about it,” she said in a half whisper, “but I just have to, you know?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Mrs. Diamond's hands twisted a shredded tissue, leaving strings of white against the dark navy of her dress.

“She was my baby, my only one,” she said as tears once again fell into her lap, splashing on the wrinkled hands. “Some would think it would be different, you know, because we adopted her when she was three. But it wasn't any different than if I'd given birth to her.”

I leaned down and placed my hand over hers, and she gestured for me to sit in the spot where her husband had been. “I'm so very sorry,” I murmured, feeling so inadequate.

“You know, Ruby felt the same way about me,” she said, her fingers restlessly tracing a pattern in the material of her dress. “I kept waiting for the day when she'd ask who her real mother was, but, you know,” she said, turning toward me, looking deep into my eyes, “she never did.” I looked away, remembering Ruby's sad face as she told me about being taunted for being from foster care.

“I could've told her,” Mrs. Diamond said, “but I didn't. Maybe I was afraid, but I'd like to think Ruby didn't want to know. It was over and done with, and she belonged to us.” Mrs. Diamond wasn't really talking to me; she may as well have been addressing the water glasses on the coffee table. She just needed to talk.

“Wewahitchka's a small town,” she continued. “Everybody knows everybody's business. I pretty much figured out who Ruby came from. You know, I almost called her this morning. I would've said, ‘Hello, Iris? You probably don't know me, and might not even care, but our baby's dead and I thought you might want to know.' I didn't do it, of course. She probably wants to forget, or she might've acted like I'd got the wrong number, or some such of a thing. And, you know, I just don't believe I could've stood it.”

“Who was her birth mother, Mrs. Diamond?”