Three Times Lucky (17 page)

“Well,” she said. “I’d probably give him an extra twenty-four hours. Then I’d call a cop. A friendly one,” she said. She pulled out a card. “Detective Starr could help you. Or here’s my number at Priscilla’s. In case you have any more questions, hypothetically speaking.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure, kid.”

“One more thing.” I reached into my pocket. “I know Starr’s heard about this, but I got this copy of Mr. Jesse’s Final Contribution.
With
serial number. I thought you
might like it. I pay my own way. The Colonel and Miss Lana taught me that.”

She went pale, stumbled, and reached behind her, for the car.

“Deputy Marla? Are you okay?”

“Must be the heat,” she said, shaking her head as she took the paper. “I’m fine. Thanks for this, Mo. I believe Joe’s got the info, like you say, but it never hurts to have backup. See you, kid.”

And she got in her patrol car and sped away.

That night, as the rain Thes had predicted pattered down, I sat close to Miss Lana, on the settee. “The Colonel’s a day late calling,” I told her. “It’s been nearly twenty-four hours since he should have checked in.”

“I know,” she sighed. “Every time the phone rang today, I was sure it was him.”

I pulled Deputy Marla’s card out of my pocket. “Deputy Marla gave me her number,” I said. “She’s a orphan. She’ll help us.”

“An orphan?” she said, taking the card. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“We could call Starr,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure the Colonel wouldn’t like it.”

“Starr?” She took a deep breath. “Maybe I’ll try Marla first.” She strolled to the phone and let her hand rest
there, her eyes closed. “Give me a moment to collect my thoughts,” she murmured. Just as she opened her eyes, the phone rang.

We both jumped.

“Hello?” she said, and then laughed. “Colonel! Where are you?”

Relief flooded through me. All that worrying, for nothing.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “We’ve been worried sick.” She listened for a moment, and then flinched. “Since when do you call me … yes. Yes. Of course. Well, when you broke the Three Day Rule, I …” She glanced at me. “No, I’m sure you left before midnight, but … Yes, she’s right here.”

I started for the phone, but she frowned and shook her head.

“I will, I’ll tell her. Are you sure everything’s all right? You don’t sound like … Yes. I understand. … No, we’re fine.” She nodded, looking puzzled. “Then we’ll hear from you by Thursday, at the latest. I … Hello?”

She lowered the phone, looking stunned. “That was the Colonel,” she said, as if I didn’t already know. “He sends his love.”

“You act like that’s bad news,” I told her.

“No,” she said. “It’s good news. Of course it’s good news. It was just a strange conversation.”

Strange? The Colonel? That wasn’t exactly a news flash. “Strange, how?” I asked.

“Well, he called me baby, for one thing.”

“
Baby?
He never calls you baby.”

“And he called you Moses, for another.”

“
Moses?
The only time he ever called me Moses was when he named me.”

“I know,” she said. She stared at the phone’s face like she could read its mind. “Well, at least he called, and we know he’s safe. He’ll be back in a few days, and then we’ll find out what’s going on.”

“Right,” I said. I hugged her and went to bed. But I slept restless and dreamed thin. My universe didn’t fit together. My world spun wobbly, like a worn-out top.

I woke up once, dreaming my old dream. The one where I’m standing in a creek, and a bottle bobs by. I shake the message out, my heart pounding. But, like always, the words blur before I can read them.

By sundown the next day, Dale and I had developed a genius-level plan to raise money for Lavender’s car. We put it into action Wednesday at the grand opening of the Mimosa Festival.

By then, Dale was sick of fame.

“Letting Starr take me out of Mr. Jesse’s in handcuffs is the dumbest thing I ever did,” he said, dipping his brush into a pint of purple paint.

“No it ain’t,” I said as I shifted our sign on the table. “You’ve done plenty of dumber things. Watch out, don’t drip. I want Lavender’s sign to look professional.”

The festival opened at 5:00, giving us just two hours to finish our booth. We’d already set up Miss Lana’s red-and-white party tent, and put two lawn chairs underneath. All we needed was a sign. Dale hesitated, brush poised. “What did you want me to write?”

I turned my sketchpad:
Race to Riches with Lavender!
Underneath, I’d drawn Lavender’s car, and divided it
into ad spaces. “This race is almost big time,” I reminded him. “Television, radio. If we can sell twenty ads at fifty bucks each, we’ll have the thousand dollars Lavender needs for parts. Here,” I said, taking the brush. “Let me do it. At the rate you’re going, the race will be over before we get started.”

He flung himself in a lawn chair. “I thought Starr would’ve caught the killer by now, and I’d be a hero,” he said, his voice dull with grief. “Instead, people talk about me and my family worse than ever, which I didn’t think was possible. Attila’s avoiding me. And I’m sick of cops following me. There goes stupid Plainclothes Phil with another funnel cake,” he muttered.

“Where?”

“Behind the Baptists’ Dunking Booth.”

I squinted at the booth, where Sam Quinerly was oiling the springs, just in time to see Phil duck out of sight. “Hey, Sam,” I shouted. “Where’s Lavender?”

“At the garage. But he’ll be here tonight,” he said, striding over.

“Good. We need him here to sign autographs and kiss a few babies.”

“I don’t know about kissing babies, but I’m pretty sure he can sign his name,” Sam teased. “Thanks for doing this, you two. Your confidence has lit a fire under
him. He’s got every part we need lined up and ready to buy. We can have that car together faster than— Hey, nice sign.”

I stepped back to admire my handiwork. Crud. The letters skinnied down near the edge of the board. “I made the letters at the edge thinner so they look like they’re going fast,” I said. “What do you think?”

“Special effects,” he said, nodding. “Looks good, doesn’t it, Dale?”

Dale frowned. “To me, it looks like you run out of room.”

“How about putting this up for us?” I said, nudging the sign toward Sam. “Dale and me are making Lavender famous, and we’re doing it tonight.”

“Famous?” Sam grinned. “Make us solvent and you’ll be a goddess to us both.”

By 7:30 I was well on my way to goddess status.

Miss Lana gave me a big boost, buying the entire hood to advertise the café. “Three hundred dollars? I’ll take it, sugar,” she said, whipping her checkbook out of her kimono sleeve. “Not a word of this to the Colonel,” she whispered.

“Stick around and help us, Miss Lana?” I asked.

“I’d love to, but I want to get a couple of turkeys into the oven for tomorrow’s special.” She leaned close to Dale. “I roast them on low heat, all night long. That’s
why they’re so juicy. Don’t tell anyone,” she added, popping his arm with her fan.

Dale nodded. “Thank you for buying the ad,” he said, blushing. “I know the café don’t need it. Everybody in town already eats there.”

“Pish.” She turned to me. “Mo, I want you home at nine thirty, at the latest. I know Starr’s people are keeping an eye on you two, otherwise I’d never agree to this. Using children for bait,” she said, smoothing her red kimono. “What has the world come to?”

“Rhetorical?” Dale whispered, and I winked.

Moments later, Tammy of Tammy’s Daycare popped by. “I’ll take an ad on the driver’s door
if
you come up with a slogan for me,” she said.

“Tammy’s, the We-Care Daycare,” I replied. “That will be sixty dollars—fifty for the ad and ten for the slogan. Make it seventy dollars and we’ll add your phone number.”

She scribbled her number on a slip of pink paper. “How about giving my number to the driver instead?”

“Dale’s his brother. He’ll do it,” I said. Dale moaned, but stuffed the paper in his pocket.

Mr. Li bought a fender panel (Li’s Karate for a Kicking Good Time), and Buddha Jackson, owner of Buddha’s Bar & Tanning Salon, coughed up sixty bucks for a door panel (Get Toasted at Buddha’s). As he left, an Azalea
Woman strolled over to ask about a spot for the Uptown Garden Club. “A panel costs just eighty-five dollars,” I said.

“Eighty-five?” she said. “I heard fifty.”

“That’s for a tacky spot,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d want it, but okay. Dale, give her the gas tank.”

Her hand flashed to her throat. “The gas tank? We’ll take the nice one for eighty-five.” I winked at Dale. An Azalea Woman would rather be dead than tacky.

Lavender showed up at 8:00, looking devilish handsome. The festival was in full riot by then: hobby horses twirled, the roller coaster rattled, the Tilt-A-Whirl squalled. “You two get yourselves something to eat,” he said, handing me a ten-dollar bill. “I’d recommend something wholesome, like the deep-fat-fried Oreos.”

When we returned, the stand was swamped. With Lavender signing autographs, we sold the entire car by nine o’clock. “I can’t believe it: One thousand ninety-nine dollars and seventy-nine cents,” he told me, snapping our cash box shut.

“Ninety-nine dollars and seventy-nine cents? How …”

“Mayor Little said the town was short, so I cut him a deal.”

What happened next will live as one of the great moments in history: Lavender smiled, bent down, and kissed my face.

My first kiss! And it was from Lavender!

“Mo,” he said, “you really are a goddess of free enterprise.”

Me! A goddess of free enterprise!

I shoved Dale into Lavender, and Lavender laughed. “Race you,” I shouted at Dale, and bolted from the stand. The crowd slipped by in a blur of lights. I ran faster than any human has ever run, speeding to the edge of town, turning toward the creek, zipping to the café.

My sneakers pounded out
Lavender’s kiss, Lavender’s kiss
as I ran full-tilt around the corner of the café, down the walk, and up the steps. “Miss Lana!” I cried, the screen door slapping the wall as the soles of Dale’s shoes hit the porch behind me. “Miss Lana! Guess what!”

My view of the living room hit me like a fist.

The mahogany bookcase lay facedown. Miss Lana’s velvet chairs lay on their sides, their seats slit and torn. Sofa cushions lay helter-skelter across the floor, and the lamp dangled headfirst from the table, hanged by its own cord. The photos from my sixth birthday party tilted haphazardly across the wall, peering blindly through cracked glass. The desk’s gaping drawers spewed papers. “Miss Lana?” My voice sounded small and distant as Dale skidded to a halt behind me.

“Find her!” I shouted. We ran across the wrecked living room, calling her name. The other rooms stared
back at me, untouched but shocked and vacant and still.

“What’s this?” Dale demanded, scooping a note from our kitchen table.

I grabbed it, surprised at how far away my fingers felt, at how difficult it was to focus on the note’s block letters:

STARR—WE BOTH NEED SOMETHING. YOU HELP ME AND I’LL HELP YOU.

“What does it mean?” Dale whispered.

“It’s the killer. He’s got Miss Lana. Run!” I shouted, pushing him toward the door. “Run!”

As we crossed the living room, the front door slammed open and a man stood silhouetted against the stars.

“My room, Dale,” I shouted, turning. “Go!”

“Stop!” the man bellowed. “It’s Joe Starr! Everybody calm down!”

I grabbed Starr’s hand. “This way,” I panted. “The killer’s got Miss Lana.”

For the rest of the night, light flooded our house and yard as Starr’s people and our neighbors searched for Miss Lana. Deputy Marla found the double footprints along the café wall. “There was a scuffle. Looks like he dragged her the last few feet,” she told Starr, avoiding my eyes.

I tried not to think about the instructions Starr had given his men as he’d sent them to search the woods:
“The killer left his first victim in the creek,” Starr had said. “He could go there again. Be careful. Call me if you find anything.”

Starr slid the killer’s note to his deputy. “What do you make of this, Marla?”

A slow flush burned her face. “‘We both need something,’” she read, and scowled. “He’s playing us.”

“Right,” Starr said. “But why?”

“Maybe he’s angry,” Dale said. “Maybe it’s like you said when you took me out of Mr. Jesse’s in handcuffs. Maybe he doesn’t like me taking credit for his crime.”

I glanced out the window. The yellow beams of the search party’s flashlights flickered high in the trees and low along the water. “Look like fireflies,” I murmured.

“What?” Starr said, studying the road map on the kitchen counter.

“The flashlights,” I said. “They look like fireflies.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see anybody?” he asked again. “An unfamiliar car …”

“Nobody,” I said. “I told you. Why don’t you stop picking on me and go find Miss Lana? She might be …” My voice broke up like a radio from too far away.

The shaking started next. “Get a blanket,” Starr told Deputy Marla. “Dale, where’s your mother? I think Mo might like to spend some time with her.”

“I already called her,” Dale said. “She’s waiting for
Lavender to pick her up. She could have drove her own self, except Daddy swiped her Pinto and brought it back empty.”

Deputy Marla settled the Colonel’s scratchy green army blanket over my shoulders and gave my arms a squeeze. The blanket smelled like pine and wood smoke, like camping in the backyard.

I closed my eyes and the shaking stopped. My fear melted, and Dale’s voice drifted away. I imagined I was camping in the springtime, in the backyard, just the Colonel and me.

“There’s nothing like camping out to restore a sense of size, Soldier,” the Colonel was saying. “Remember that. When you lose your way, wait under the stars.”

I spread out my blanket. “Wait for what?”

“You’ll know,” he said, and closed his eyes, peaceful as a baby. “What do you hear?”

“Well, I thought I heard a car crank. Might be Lavender. What do you hear?”