The Odds of Getting Even, page 13
Divers? EMTs? Starr does think there’s a body, I thought.
“We better get over there,” Dale said, the blood dropping from his face.
“You can’t. It’s time for homeroom,” Attila told him. She looked at him. “Good grief,” she muttered. “How can I get even with someone who won’t even fight with me? Go, Dale,” she said, shoving him. “I’ll cover for you. But don’t ever mention it again.”
Attila knows how to cover?
“Thanks,” Harm said. “You’re . . .” She put her hand on her hip and glared at him. “Thanks Anna,” he said again, and we ran for the door.
If there’s a speed record for getting from the school to the boat ramp, we broke it.
We ditched the bikes beneath a bay tree and ran to the small knot of men pacing at the river’s edge. “What’s going on?” I gasped. “What’s happened?”
“Not much,” Sam said, tugging his knit cap down over his ears. “The divers went in. They took the hooks from the tow truck. Ain’t nothing to do but wait.” He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. “I know your daddy, Dale,” he said. “Macon didn’t go down with a car. But you kids maybe shouldn’t be here.”
Dale shouldered past him, headed for the water’s edge.
Lavender’s truck skidded into the clearing and he scrambled out. “Where’s Dale?”
I pointed to the water, and Lavender said a word I’d never heard him say before—one Miss Rose would never allow even in her barn. He ran to Dale and put his arm around Dale’s shoulders. He bent low to talk in his ear, and herded him back up the hill.
“I want all three of you over here, out of the way,” Lavender said, like a mother hen herding baby chicks. “I’ll call you when I know something.”
“But,” I said.
“No buts.” He put his hands on Dale’s shoulders and bent to look into Dale’s eyes. “Nobody knows whose car that is. It’s just like Daddy to ditch a car, but it is not like him to be in it when he ditches it,” he said, his voice even.
Hearing Lavender call Mr. Macon “Daddy” scared me clear past my backbone. Lavender ain’t called Mr. Macon “Daddy” since he moved out of that house two years ago.
A woman stepped from the group and crossed her arms. Capers Dylan.
“How did Capers get here so fast? She ain’t rescue,” I muttered.
“Somebody must have told her at the café,” Dale said, his eyes following Lavender. The wind swirled across the river, rattling sycamore branches like bones. We stepped closer to Dale. I could feel him shivering, and I knew it wasn’t from cold.
Even from our distance, we could see.
They jacked the car onto the ramp inch by inch, the rusty cables creaking and straining, spooling tight as my nerves. The back of the car broke the muddy surface first, the bumper crisscrossed by branches, the back windshield covered in mud. The current grabbed the front of the car and jerked it at an angle.
The cable screamed and the driver gunned the tow truck’s engine.
Capers looked at her watch, opened her notepad, and started scribbling. I grabbed my camera. Click.
The truck chugged into a deeper gear for a harder pull, and the car sloshed forward. “It’s a black-and-white,” somebody called. “And somebody’s . . .” The voice trailed away.
“Don’t be in there,” Dale whispered, his eyes glued to the swirling water. Dale sat flat down and pulled his knees to his chin. He leaned forward and pressed his face against his knees. Harm and me folded down beside him. “Please,” Dale said.
I bit my lip and watched the car slide up the ramp, its front wheels torqued near sideways by the current. A large, dark form bobbed against the driver’s window.
“Jeez,” Harm whispered.
“Don’t look, Dale,” I said.
The men on the bank stood like scared boys, staring. Lavender squared his shoulders and headed for the car. “Lavender,” Sam shouted. “Stop.”
Sam pushed past Lavender and splashed into the shin-deep water. He grabbed the driver’s door, closed his eyes, and yanked it open. The river rushed him like a rapid. Lavender grabbed Sam’s arm to keep him from toppling over, and then stooped to look in the car, his face a throw-up shade of gray.
“Please,” Dale whispered.
Lavender turned to look at Dale. For a half beat I thought Lavender would cry. Then his face stretched back to its regular shape. “Just his hunting jacket,” he shouted. “He ain’t in here.”
Dale burst into tears.
“Not now,” I told Capers as she buzzed toward us. “Dale needs a minute.”
“Sure,” she said. “I just have a theory I want to run by you.”
Lavender bounded up. “Capers, Starr’s looking for you. He wants you double quick.” As she walked away, he dropped to his knees. “Dale?” he said, putting his hand on Dale’s shoulder. Dale sobbed, and he wrapped him in a hug. “It’s just a jacket that got caught in the door.”
Dale looked up, his eyes wet. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his face on his sleeve.
Lavender gave him a gentle rock. “Don’t be sorry.” He looked over at Capers, who stood at Starr’s elbow. “Harm, throw the bikes in the truck. I can use a hand at the garage and you all could use a day off.”
Harm grabbed his bike.
“Mo, I’d appreciate it if you and Harm rode in the back to keep the bikes steady. Dale, you’re up front with me,” he said.
Harm and me loaded up.
“Lavender,” I said, looking back at the people milling around the car. “What did Starr want to talk to Capers about?”
He grinned. “He didn’t. I took a page from the Mo LoBeau Handbook of Diversions. Let’s get out of here before she figures it out.”
Nobody knows me like Lavender.
We spent the rest of the morning sorting tools and straightening up Lavender’s garage, the guineas chirping and chattering outside.
Dale didn’t say a word as he worked beside Lavender, lining up wrenches and ratchets. I stacked cans of paint, primer, body putty. Harm sanded the car’s body, his brown eyes smiling over the top of his mask.
By the time we taped plastic over the windshield and fenders, the blush had found Dale’s cheeks again.
Just standing beside Lavender reminds Dale who he is.
Lavender slipped over to me as I tackled the boxes by Capers’s wounded motorcycle. “Dale seems better,” he said, his voice low.
“True.” I picked up a box of clutter. “What’s this? Candy wrappers, papers, a scratched beach music CD . . .”
“Trash from the mayor’s Jeep,” he said. “I meant to throw it away.”
I snared a piece of pale blue paper. “Glad you didn’t,” I said. “This is a perfect match for the toolbox note. Now we know how it got in your shop. I guess Mrs. Little didn’t slide under the car and slit that tire after all,” I said, pocketing the paper.
He gave me his old grin. “Not this time anyway.” He looked around the garage. “That’s as clean as I can stand,” he said. “Anybody hungry? Barbecue cures every ill known to mankind.”
“Sal says it makes a good lip gloss too,” Dale said, and we headed for the truck.
An hour later Harm and me found Grandmother Miss Lacy unloading groceries from the Buick as Dale and Lavender headed to the garage, to paint the 32 car. I grabbed a Piggly Wiggly bag.
“Thank you. Come in and get warm,” she said. “Then we’ll prepare your alibis.”
“Alibis?” Harm said, hooking a gallon of milk. “Why do we need alibis?”
“You’re truant,” she said, heading for the door. “The news is all over town.”
Truant? Doesn’t that mean jail time?
“What in heaven’s name?” she murmured, screeching to a halt. A familiar-looking pot of mums sat by her door. “Such nonsense,” she muttered, her eyes sparkling. “Read the card,” she invited, and I opened it.
Roses are red,
And I’m Red too,
I can’t write a poem,
But these are for you.
She laughed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, whisking them into the house.
She put the mums on her kitchen table, filled her blue kettle, and lined up three cups. “Mo, I developed your film,” she said as her boiler clunked. “In fact, I’ve made your contact prints. I don’t know if you have time today, but . . .”
“I’ve never seen a darkroom,” Harm said, his voice quick with excitement.
“That settles it,” I said, and swiped one of Grandmother Miss Lacy’s old jokes. “We’ll pop in and see what’s developed.”
As it turned out, what developed came as a total shock.
While Grandmother Miss Lacy bustled about setting up the darkroom, Harm and I used magnifiers to examine the tiny images on my contact sheets, to pick the ones we’d develop into photos. “Queen Elizabeth takes a good glamour shot,” he said. He grinned and scooted his magnifier along the images. “Capers does too. Nice smile.”
“She shows up a lot,” I admitted, looking through the evidence photos. “In the café, at the inn, at the river . . .” I checked out my wide shot at Attila’s. “What’s that?” I asked, squinting at a blip at the edge of the photo.
“We have an enlarger, dear,” Grandmother Miss Lacy said. “Let’s find out.”
She slipped the photo’s negative into the old enlarger—a giant insect-looking machine hulking on the counter—and gave it a crank. The image widened and, with another crank, zoomed into focus.
At the edge of the field across from Attila’s stood a woman. “What’s that she’s holding?” Grandmother Miss Lacy asked, squinting at the grainy image.
“Binoculars,” Harm said, his voice shocked.
“She’s spying on us,” I said. “Capers was spying.”
Chapter 18
Room Service
A couple hours later, with my newly developed photos hanging like flags on the darkroom drying line, Lavender pulled into the café parking lot and I hopped out.
“See you tomorrow,” I shouted as Harm helped me drag my bike from the back of the truck.
They pulled away as I pushed through the café door. “I’m home,” I called. A group of strangers looked up from their burgers. One read a newspaper article: Old Inn Profits from Crime Spree.
Miss Lana says the articles are good for business. The Colonel says they’re a plague. I tend to side with the Colonel.
Miss Lana tapped her chalk against the Specials Board and smiled her hello. The overhead light glinted off her short platinum blond Jean Harlow wig and flapper dress—1920s Hollywood, all the way.
“Where’s Capers?” I asked. “I got some questions for her and her binoculars.”
“At the inn,” she said. “We’ll see her at supper.”
A stranger headed for the cash register.
“I got this one,” I told Miss Lana, and smiled at the pasty young man, who wore a pink Mohawk. “I am Mo LoBeau—a possible orphan saving for college—and I’ll be ringing you up today,” I said. He plunked down a five as I grabbed his bill and read Miss Lana’s neat handwriting. “A Tupelo Burger with a side of collards. That’s four dollars and one cent. Avoid the horror of Unexpected Change,” I added, nudging my tip jar forward and counting ninety-nine cents into his hand.
He leaned toward me, his breath reeking of collards, his Mohawk glinting. “Who’s the weirdo with the bizarro hair?” he asked, cutting his eyes toward Miss Lana.
“That would be you,” I replied.
He shoved the change in his pocket and slammed out. Sadly for me, the door swung open again almost at once.
“Mo LoBeau,” Miss Retzyl said, her voice like ice.
My life screamed into slow motion. Why did I spend all afternoon in the darkroom? Why didn’t I have an alibi for missing class?
I zipped back into Real Time. “Welcome,” I said. “I was just thinking what an excellent role model you are. May I treat you to supper with double desserts?”
She slammed a stack of papers on the counter. “You, Dale, and Harm. Truant.”
The strangers looked up. So did Miss Lana and the Colonel.
This is the last time I’m trusting Attila Celeste to cover for me, I thought.
“Anna did her best to cover for you, Mo,” she said with a terrifying display of All-Knowing Teacher Wiles. “But it’s hard to cover for three people at once, even with Anna’s skill set. Joe told me where you were and I understand why you went there,” she said. “But if you cut school again, you’ll suffer consequences. Real consequences.”
I looked at the folders. “I hope that’s my punishment homework,” I lied.
“It is.” Her eyes went softer. Or else I imagined it. “I know Dale’s your best friend,” she said. “But dropping this case might be the kindest thing you can do for him. Let Joe do his job, and let Dale focus on his puppies and homework.”
Drop the case? Is she mad? That’s the last thing Dale wants.
“You’re very wise,” I said.
She snorted. The door slapped shut behind her.
I looked at Miss Lana. “I can explain this.”
“No need, sugar,” she said. “Capers stopped by to tell us you went home with Lavender.” She looked at the Colonel. “As father figure, perhaps you’ll say something of a disciplinary nature?”
He looked like she’d slapped him with a cat. “Don’t break any more laws, Soldier,” he said, his voice stern. Then he smiled. “And thanks for standing by Dale. You’re a good friend and I’m proud of you.”
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” Miss Lana said, tapping her green chalk against the Specials Board. “Let’s do something creative with Rose’s collards tonight,” she said as the Colonel loaded the coffee machine. “How do you spell salade de chou?”
“S-L-A-W,” he said.
“Collards again,” I said, watching her. “I’m not the only best friend in this café.”
Another stranger handed me his check.
“I’m merely a cog in the cosmic wheel, sugar,” Miss Lana said. “Rose’s business is off because of Macon. Because of Macon, strangers eat here and boost her business. The wheels on the bus go round and round. Wouldn’t you say so, Colonel?”
“No,” he said, and headed for the kitchen.
She smiled at me. “Why don’t you invite Dale and Harm for supper? You can do your catch-up homework together.”
“Excellent,” I said, ringing up the stranger: “Double collard casserole with sweet potato pie. Six dollars and one cent.”
“Aren’t you the stupid kid that lost the patrol car?” he asked.
I counted to ten while I pretended to study his check. “Maybe I am stupid,” I sighed. “I added wrong. That’s seven dollars and one cent,” I said, and nudged my tip jar forward.
Dale and Queen Elizabeth sauntered in with the supper crowd. “You said we got punishment homework,” he said as Queen Elizabeth settled by the jukebox.
“Metaphors,” I said. “Harm’s staying home. Mr. Red needs him.”
Miss Lana rumpled Dale’s hair. “Poetry. Perfect for you, Dale. Your lyrical nature, your timeless perspective, your spiritual je ne sais quoi.” Sometimes Miss Lana talks like a blizzard. You have to shovel your way through and even then, when you look back it’s hard to see your own tracks.
“Just remember Cinderella, and you’ll be fine.”
Cinderella?
“Cinderella. Because . . .” My voice trailed away.
She smiled. “The Fairy Godmother turned the pumpkin into—poof!—a carriage. Mice into—poof!—horses. Poof one thing into another and you have a metaphor. As Shakespeare used to say, ‘All the world’s—poof—a stage . . . ’”
“Poof,” Dale said. “Why didn’t somebody say so?”
Mayor Little shot through the door, smoothing his plaid tie. “Mother’s down,” he said. “The stress of Starr searching our home, strangers prowling about town trying to cash in on that reward. Mother’s immune system’s flat as that cake,” he said, eyeing Miss Lana’s fallen red velvet. “All thanks to Macon Johnson’s shenanigans.”
“That’s not a cake,” I lied. “That’s a Discus Delight. The Colonel mashed the calories out of it.”
“Not fattening?” an Azalea Woman asked, her sketched-in eyebrows arching.
“Where did the calories go?” Dale asked, looking around. Dale is to ad-lib as Queen Elizabeth is to ballroom dancing.
“The Colonel blowtorched them,” I replied as Sal strolled in.
Hannah and Little Agnes zipped in behind her. I handed Dale three waters. “Please take these to table three.” Dale swaggered over and took a seat.
“I’ll have a fat-free dollop of discus,” the mayor said.
“Whipped cream and chocolate sauce?”
“Mercy, yes,” he said, putting his napkin in his collar.
An Azalea Woman watched Dale shrug out of his jacket. “I just hate it that little Dale has to wear Lavender’s hand-me-downs,” she said. “If only Macon—”
“Dale’s a musician. He enjoys vintage outfits,” I said. “Besides, Miss Lana says most everything in life worth having is handed down.”
Miss Lana nudged me aside. “I’ve got this table, sugar. You get Thes.”
Thes sat at the counter, his chin in his hands. “Burger and fries. Sorry you lost the car, Mo. Tough break. I wanted to ask you something,” he said, green eyes serious.
“Car loss happens. And I will not go to a movie with you.”
“It’s not that. I’m over you.”
Over me? Has he lost his mind?
“Do you think Dale might add me to the puppy list? He could see the puppy every Sunday at church and more if he wanted. I’d do a good job. And I’m sorry for what I said at the church the day it got robbed. I was wrong.”
