Rust in Peace (A Giovanna Ferrari Repair-it-all Mystery Book 1)

by J. J. Murray

  Mr. Simmons also trimmed his beard. Would he do that for Curtis Daniels? Not likely since Mr. Daniels had been around the farm for a few days. Mr. Simmons put on a nice shirt, jeans, church shoes, and black socks. He was waiting for someone to visit. Was it Dodie? She said she had never visited him. Whom else might he have been trying to impress? Maybe his daughters were coming to visit him. With Melville just down the road at Pine Lake, it’s conceivable that they came along for the ride.

  Hmm.

  But they would have had to travel with or visit with his mistress, Genevieve. That’s a bit too twisted to believe.

  Maybe he was waiting on Dodie. She said she had never visited him, but maybe she simply doesn’t remember visiting him. Perhaps a trip in the Chevy will jog her memory. And if nothing else, she will know that her first love had been thinking about her for many, many years.

  I think I’ll take Dodie up that mountain tonight. I need to do something nice for someone to get me out of my funk.

  I get in the truck, fire it up, and back it out.

  Nonno waves his hands and walks up to my window. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m taking it for a test drive.”

  “It is not a registered vehicle, and I have not put the hubcaps on it yet. I have been polishing them.”

  “It will run just fine without hubcaps, Nonno,” I say.

  “But it will not be as safe,” Nonno says. “Water, grit, and grime will get on the greased bearings.”

  “What water?” I ask. “And I promise not to go off-roading.” Most hubcaps today are purely decorative, but old vehicles like this truck required hubcaps. “Make me a farm tag. It’s a farm truck, isn’t it?”

  He cuts a flap from a cardboard box, writes “FARM USE” on it, and duct-tapes it to the back bumper. “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Though it shifts stiffly and loudly and turning the wheel is a challenge, the truck rides straight and true. It takes me a few stops to get used to the brakes, but the brakes grip and hold. I go to Pop’s Gas and fill it up. Seventeen gallons later, I pay Millie.

  “Not a record this time, Gio,” she says. “What you got there?”

  As if she doesn’t already know. “It’s Mr. Simmons’ old Chevy.” I hand her my debit card and she swipes it.

  “Oh. The one you got in Tiny’s will, huh?”

  “Yes, Millie,” I say.

  “Sure was awful nice of him to leave it and all those tractors to you,” she says. “Bet that truck will be worth a whole lot of money once you fix it up.”

  I am so sick of this. “Millie, do you think I killed Mr. Simmons?”

  “Did you?”

  She does! “No, I didn’t, and the coroner now says he died a natural death.”

  “Either that or you committed the perfect crime, huh?”

  I sigh. “I didn’t kill him, Millie. And I didn’t convince Mr. Simmons to change his will either.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No, Millie, and you be sure to pass that along.”

  “To who?”

  “To anyone who will listen. To everyone who comes into this store and listens to you. I knew Mr. Simmons for a few hours, and he had already been in the process of changing his will before I met him.”

  Millie squints. “Is that so?”

  She and others like her in this town may never believe me. “It is so.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth, Gio,” Millie says. “I think you got away with murder.”

  Millie is a hopeless case. “Please don’t go spreading rumors without any proof.”

  “If it walks like a duck …” She laughs. “Or in this case, if it rides like a truck …” She hands me my receipt. “You have a nice evening with Mr. Simmons’ truck, Gio.”

  I don’t know if I can now.

  Chapter 32

  When I return to the garage, I stuff Dodie’s letters in the glove box.

  “What are you doing now?” Nonno asks.

  “I’m swinging by Dodie’s to take her for her ride.”

  “And you want her to find these letters.”

  I nod.

  “Are you sure that is a good idea?”

  No. “They’re her property, Nonno.” Sort of. “And knowing that Freddy saved them all these years might cheer her up. She was so sad at the funeral.”

  “Yes, she was. You are going now?”

  “Why not? There’s still plenty of daylight.”

  “At least let me put the hubcaps on.” He goes into the workshop and returns with four shiny hubcaps, “CHEVROLET” emblazoned across their middles. “An old truck looks much better with shiny hubcaps.” He taps each of them on the wheels with a rubber mallet. “Just like new. Try not to hit any potholes.”

  “There aren’t that many potholes on the mountain, Nonno,” I say. “Most of them are three-oh-three.”

  On the way to the Simmons Farm.

  Delmer said a hubcap rolled in on him like the old days.

  Dodie’s Olds is missing two hubcaps.

  “Do you have enough gas?” Nonno asks.

  “I have a full tank.”

  “Do not take too long,” Nonno says. “We are going to have a big storm. A seventy percent chance this time.”

  “That’s still a thirty percent chance against it happening,” I say. “I won’t hold my breath. Bye.”

  I back out and drive through the alley to Front Street. Instead of turning left to go toward Dodie’s cottage, I take a right.

  I have to examine Delmer’s hubcap stove.

  Doing a three-point turn without power steering is a chore, but I manage to park the truck on the shoulder of Route 303 near Barrens Bridge. I hear Delmer and Skip snoring like dueling chainsaws as I duck under the bridge and look at the hubcap. It’s about fifteen inches in diameter and has the Oldsmobile symbol in the middle. It has to match the hubcaps on Dodie’s Olds.

  I lean over Delmer and touch his arm.

  Skip wakes, howls once, and returns to his snoring.

  “Shut up, Skip!” Delmer yells, and he turns away from me.

  “Delmer? It’s me, Gio.”

  Delmer blinks and sits up. “You hungry? Got some prime rib around here somewhere.”

  Ew. That prime rib is a week old. “No thanks. Delmer, do you remember the day the hubcap rolled in?”

  “Nope. Just know it was hot that day.”

  “It’s been hot for many days, Delmer,” I say. “Was it on a Tuesday about two weeks ago?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Was it on D-Day, Delmer?”

  “Mighta been. Can’t be for sure.”

  “Did you see a lot of American flags that day?”

  “Oh yeah, sure.” He smiles. “That was Flag Day.”

  I might never be able to pin him down. “About what time did the hubcap wake you?”

  “Oh, right around sunrise give or take. I usually get up when the sun hits me in the face. World’s best alarm clock, the sun. Unless it’s cloudy. Then I sometimes don’t wake up for a long time.”

  “Did you hear a vehicle going by when the hubcap rolled in?”

  He looks at Skip. “Skip did. He howled to beat the band.”

  “Why would Skip howl, Delmer?”

  “He musta heard some squeaky tires, you know, like balloons before you pop ‘em. That sound always hurts Skip’s ears. Mine, too.”

  It could be Dodie’s overinflated tires. “Were the tires burning rubber or peeling out?”

  “Don’t know. You’ll have to ask Skip.”

  I will not interrogate a dog.

  “You ain’t found who my hubcap belongs to, have you?” Delmer asks.

  I think I have, but I can’t be sure. “No, Delmer.”

  “Good. My cooking never tasted better. You sure you don’t want to stay? I know that prime rib is around here somewhere.”

  Skip sure looks thicker. I only see two of his ribs now. “No thank you, Delmer. Take care of
yourself.”

  “I always do.”

  I pass Peace Goods and the police station, roll by the trout hatchery and The Swinging Bridge, and start up Motts Mountain. I park behind Dodie’s Olds, set the parking brake since her driveway is so steep, get out, and examine her tires.

  Delmer’s hubcap stove is a match to her hubcaps, and dried mud coats her tires.

  I think Dodie did visit Mr. Simmons.

  I knock on her kitchen door.

  Dodie shambles to the door and smiles broadly. “Why, Gio Ferrari. What a pleasant surprise! Did I call you?”

  “No, Dodie. I wanted to show you something.” I step aside.

  Dodie puts her wrinkled hands on her face. “Freddy’s truck! Oh my goodness! It looks just the same! Look at those teeth!”

  “Teeth?”

  “The front grille. They look like teeth, don’t they?”

  “They do.” I look over at Dodie’s daisies lying nearly flat on her yellowed lawn. Even her cacti looked scorched. “Would you like to go for a ride to the top of Mott’s Mountain?”

  “Will it get us there?” she asks.

  “Yes. At least I hope so.”

  “That’s what I used to ask Freddy all the time,” she says. “Will it get us there? And he always said, ‘Yesiree, Dodie.’” She clutches at her necklace, which disappears under her shirt. “I’ll get a jacket.”

  “It’s ninety degrees, Dodie.”

  “Oh, it’s ten degrees cooler on top of that mountain and I have low iron, dear. I’ll only be a moment.”

  Dodie returns to the truck ten long minutes later wearing a zipped up green windbreaker, her Winchester rifle slung over her shoulder. She also carries a red and black Thermos and a plate of something under aluminum foil. Those have to be some more of her infamous cinnamon chocolate chip cookies.

  “Dodie, what’s the rifle for?” I ask.

  “There are cougars up on that mountain, dear.”

  I open the passenger side door. “No one has seen a cougar up there in over twenty years.”

  Dodie crawls in, leaning the rifle barrel against the dashboard. “Freddy and I saw plenty of cougars up there. He always kept a rifle with us just in case one of them decided to pounce.”

  I grip the barrel. “I’ll put it in the back.”

  “I want it up here with us, Gio. If it’s in the back, we can’t get to it if a vicious cougar attacks us.”

  “We’ll be okay, Dodie. We’ll stay inside the truck.”

  She shakes her head. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  She crosses her arms. “It wouldn’t be any good to us if it wasn’t loaded.”

  “We can’t be driving around with a loaded weapon, Dodie,” I say.

  “Everybody does it.”

  “I don’t.” I remove the bullets and put them into my pants pocket. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “What if a cougar gets the jump on us?”

  “I can load fast, Dodie,” I say. I lay the rifle on the floor.

  “You’re not as fast as a cougar,” she says. “Those cougars are as fast as greased lightning.” She looks through the windshield. “Oh. Did you see? More heat lightning. I think it’s beautiful, don’t you?”

  I nod. “My grandfather thinks we’re having a storm tonight.”

  “So do I,” Dodie says. “I can’t wait.” She closes her door. “Come on, Gio. Let’s get cracking.”

  I get in and start the engine.

  “Now we’re cooking with gas.” She slides the plate toward me. “I brought us a snack for when we’re at the overlook. Cookies and tea.” She taps the top of the Thermos.

  “Good idea.” Though I will not be eating any of her cookies.

  She bounces up and down on the seat. “Oh, listen to that, will you? It still squeaks.”

  “I haven’t finished the restoration, Dodie,” I say. “I’ll make sure to get that squeak out.”

  “Why? Freddy and I put this squeak here in the first place. It didn’t bother us.”

  Thanks for sharing that, Dodie.

  Ew.

  She pats the seat. “No seatbelts. Drive carefully, Gio.” She turns the crank in the middle of the dashboard to raise the windshield slightly. “Let’s roll!”

  I back out and start up the winding, switchback-filled road, the headlights dim and yellow, the speedometer bouncing between twenty and twenty-five.

  “Oh, don’t be such a fuddy-duddy, Gio,” Dodie says. “Punch it!”

  “I’m babying the engine, Dodie,” I say. “This truck hadn’t left Mr. Simmons’ barn in over seventy years, right?”

  “It’s a Chevy, Gio,” Dodie says. “It can take it.”

  I keep it between twenty and twenty-five. I do not want to break down if it does storm.

  “Steve McQueen owned a truck just like this one. Oh, but he died of cancer.” Dodie rolls down her window. “I used to let my hair fly out this window. I once had long brown hair, almost as long as yours.” She drums on the dashboard above the glove box. “I wish this old heap had a radio. We could listen to Glenn Miller, Sammy Kaye, and Jimmy Dorsey, oh, and the Andrews Sisters. ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ was Freddy’s favorite song, but I liked ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’” She hums it loudly and badly. “Oh, and I really liked ‘Chica, Chica, Boom, Chic.’ My parents didn’t like me listening to that song. It was so shameful. Chica, chica, boom.” She giggles. “I used to giggle like that when I heard it, too. Sometimes we would dance. Oh, Freddy was a dead hoofer until he met me. I turned him into a ducky shincracker, all right.”

  A dead hoofer? A ducky shincracker? Dodie Loney is becoming seventeen years old again.

  At the top of the mountain, I turn in to Mott’s Mountain Wayside, a parking area overlooking the valley below. I shut off the engine, roll down my window, and feel a cooler breeze coming through Dodie’s window from the southwest. We are going to have a storm all right. A conga-line of thunderheads drifts around us and throws lightning to the ground.

  “Oh, it’s so gorgeous,” Dodie says. “Smell that clean air. Freddy and I used to watch storms up here.”

  The air smells like ozone. I sure hope the single windshield wiper works. “You came up here with Freddy a lot.”

  “Oh yes, but we didn’t always look at the view, if you know what I mean.”

  I never had any boy bring me up here to “park.” I look at the smile on Dodie’s face, and she seems overjoyed. This has to be what Mr. Simmons wanted to happen. This ride is his apology for not marrying her.

  “I am so glad the windshield could open,” Dodie says. “Otherwise we might have cooked in here when we were, well, you know, cooking. We fogged up all the windows.”

  Even old people can give out too much information.

  “We didn’t always just … you know. We talked, too.”

  I turn and rest my back against my door. “What did you talk about?”

  “Oh, getting married, having children, running the farm together. Largest farm in Gray County till those Hemmingsfords moved in. Buffalo. Who eats buffalo?”

  I do, unless the buffalo is named Big John.

  “Freddy had it all planned out.” She sighs. “It just didn’t include me.” She unzips her jacket, and I clearly see a huge ring on the chain through her thin shirt.

  Dodie has Mr. Simmons’ wedding ring on that chain.

  “It is getting a bit warm in here,” Dodie says. She cranks the windshield until it rises half a foot from the hood. “Oh, that’s much better.”

  Should I show her the letters now? Or should I wait to see if she opens the glove box? I wish I knew how she would react. “Dodie, when you and Freddy used to come up here, did you ever have a little picnic?”

  She giggles. “Sometimes there’d be a little flask of something naughty in the glove box. Freddy called it ‘giggle water,’ and it sure did give me the giggles. I only sipped it, but one sip was enough for me. Whoo!”

  “Dodie, I want you to see something.”<
br />
  “Freddy used to say that, too.”

  Ew. “Why don’t you open the glove box, Dodie?”

  “Don’t tell me there’s a flask of hooch in there!” Dodie opens the glove box, and some of her letters spill out onto the floor. She snatches several out of the air. “My letters! Where … where did you get these?”

  “I found them in that glove box yesterday when I was working on the truck.”

  Dodie gathers a stack and puts them in her lap. “They’re all open.” She smiles and hugs several letters to her chest. “Freddy saved them all.”

  Do I tell her that Blanche most likely saved them? I can’t tell her that. It would ruin her joy. “It seems so.”

  “I’m so happy, Gio!” She laughs. “Ha! Right under Blanche Zengler’s hincty fat nose!”

  Okay, I think I can tell her now. “Blanche was the one who always went to the post office, wasn’t she?”

  “Well, sure,” Dodie says. “Freddy had to run the farm.”

  “So Blanche knew you sent them, Dodie,” I say. “And Blanche most likely opened and read them, too.”

  “Oh, Blanche wouldn’t have opened them. They were addressed to Freddy.”

  “You put your return address on every envelope, Dodie, and you signed the return address as Dodie Simmons.”

  “I was only doing that to get her goat,” Dodie says.

  “Dodie, I think it’s possible that Freddy didn’t read any of these letters until after Blanche died.”

  “What? You found them in this truck. They were in his truck.”

  “He didn’t drive this truck for many years, Dodie,” I say. “Not after his children were born. He drove a Buick Roadmaster, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, I hated that car,” Dodie says. “It looked like a hearse.” She retrieves more letters from the floor. “You … you don’t know when he read them. I think he read them the day he got them.”

  I wish I could dispute that. “What did you hope would happen, Dodie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “By sending Freddy all these letters. What did you hope would happen?”

  “Why, Freddy would divorce that cow and marry me.”