by Nene Adams
What’s going on? She couldn’t get a good look at the second person. Deciding to abandon subtlety in favor of full-blown nosiness, she crossed the street. Halfway there, she realized the other person was an ex-girlfriend of hers, Debbie Lou Erskine—a hard-bitten, hard-drinking, hard-partying, blue-eyed blond with a poisonous disposition. If Barbie were a real woman and smoked two packs a day, thought tube tops were fancy dress and preferred quantity over quality when it came to beer, she’d look a lot like Debbie Lou.
The smile slipped from her face when without warning, Debbie Lou hurled herself bodily at Veronica in an enthusiastic hug that knocked off her deputy’s hat. Veronica staggered backward through an oversized gardenia bush, disappearing from view with Debbie Lou clinging to her.
“Oh, hell, no!” Mackenzie growled, marching quickly to rescue Veronica from the clutches of Debbie Lou—forever branded an evil, manipulative, lying cow who had dumped her when she was in the hospital for an appendectomy. Afterward, she’d discovered Debbie Lou had stolen her five-hundred-dollar emergency stash of cash and slept with three men, two women and possibly farm animals, too, while she was being operated on, although she might be exaggerating that last part because she hated the woman’s guts.
Arriving at the scene breathing fire and righteous indignation, Mackenzie pushed through the gardenia bush and into a secluded side yard. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw Veronica beneath the magnolia tree, not rejecting Debbie Lou’s embrace, but apparently returning it with interest. And tongue, she realized a split second later.
A jolt of shock sizzled down her spine. Veronica and Debbie Lou were kissing. No, not just kissing. They appeared to be devouring each other’s faces like they’d been given two minutes to live and only swapping enough saliva would save their lives.
Veronica made a kind of throaty, grumbling moan and clutched Debbie Lou more tightly. Despite her confusion, the sound went straight to Mackenzie’s most private parts.
Shock gave way to a pang of regret, which in turn gave way to a renewed burst of anger. How dare Debbie Lou Erskine, liar and cheat extraordinaire, corrupt the finest, purest, loveliest and most innocent specimen of femininity in the state of Georgia?
Before Mackenzie could voice her ire and whisk Veronica away for immediate drug testing—Debbie Lou must have dosed the poor woman with roofies, the only explanation that made sense—Veronica’s eyes opened. She sprang free from Debbie Lou’s clutches.
“Oh! Mac, I…uh…I didn’t see you there,” Veronica stammered. “Did you need something?”
An explanation and it had better be a damned good one, Mackenzie wanted to say, but the way Debbie Lou, Grand Bitch of the Universe, stared at her with a gloating smirk on her stupid face made the words stick in her craw.
“No, I was on my way to the United Methodist Church and I saw you here and wanted to say hi,” she said to Veronica, forcing her mouth to form a smile instead of a snarl. She turned to Debbie Lou and said through clenched teeth, “How nice to see you again, Deb. It’s been a while. Tell me, has that nasty case of syphilis you got in Tijuana been cured yet?”
Debbie Lou’s grin turned sickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied. “But you always did get fact and fiction mixed up, just like a crazy person.”
“I didn’t know you two had dated,” Veronica said quietly. She was ignored.
“Oh sweetheart, as I recall, you did some crazy things yourself when we were dating,” Mackenzie said, putting on a mask of concern. “Pole dancing and gelatin body shots at the Get-R-Done roadhouse, for instance. Has Ronnie seen the tattoo above your hoo-ha? It’s very tasteful,” she added to Veronica, who watched her with a flat, unhappy expression. Unable to bear the reproachful look any longer, she returned to needling Debbie Lou. “What was that tattoo again? Oh, yes…‘Tastes Like Chicken.’”
“I was drunk,” Debbie Lou said, batting her mascara-laden eyelashes at Veronica.
“Well, I can testify that you do not, in fact, taste like chicken unless we’re talking about rancid, rotten chicken from a KFC dumpster,” Mackenzie said in her sweetest tone.
“Ladies, perhaps we can—” Veronica began.
“You bitch!” Debbie Lou ground out, reaching for Mackenzie’s face with frighteningly long acrylic nails that resembled green and white polka-dotted claws.
Veronica caught Debbie Lou’s wrist. “Don’t do it,” she warned. To Mackenzie, she went on, “I’ll call you later, Mac.” She cut a glance at Debbie Lou. “Now’s not a good time.”
Mackenzie had been hoping Debbie Lou would start a fight. She’d have taken great personal satisfaction in whipping the woman’s ass while tearing out those cheap, nasty, peroxide blond hair extensions by the handful.
“There’s no need for you to be angry, Mac,” Veronica went on in a reasonable tone that made Mackenzie itch to smack her too. “Attacking Debbie Lou won’t solve anything. Whatever problem you have, I’m sure there’s a diplomatic solution.”
Her blood boiling, Mackenzie snapped at Veronica, “Well, I can see when my advice isn’t wanted. Good luck with your new relationship. Hope you’ve had your shots.”
“Stay the fuck away from Vera and me,” Debbie put in, always eager to get the last word. “She’s mine, so fuck you, Kenzie. And by the way? You were a lousy lay.”
Vera? Mackenzie thought. The situation got worse by the second. “Only because your genital warts and pubic crabs put me off.” She started to wade through the gardenia bush, headed toward the street.
“Mac, wait. Come on, let’s talk about it,” Veronica pleaded.
Hurrying to get away before she broke down and did something irrevocable, like punch Debbie Lou, or Veronica, or both the women who’d betrayed her, Mackenzie marched down the pavement, her heart aching so much she thought she might expire from the pain.
Chapter Thirteen
Unable to continue to the United Methodist Church, Mackenzie returned to Main Street, got in her car and sped out of Antioch to I-85. She needed to clear her head. A long drive with no particular destination in mind sounded like a plan.
On a whim, she left the interstate after fifteen miles to switch to the lesser-used Jackson Lowe expressway, known to locals as the “Lie Lowe” because of the savage dips the road made as it plowed over a series of steep hills.
“Like a roller coaster designed by the Devil,” she remembered her father grousing once when he’d been driving her to summer camp.
The twenty years since his death from cancer had a blurring effect on some of her memories, but she knew he’d been an average man who loved his family and did his best for them. Even now, she felt the warmth of his affection in her heart.
For once, thinking about her father didn’t bring her happiness or peace. Instead, she found herself dwelling on Veronica as she drove.
It wasn’t fair. Veronica was supposed to be straight.
The day they’d met two years ago, she’d seen Veronica hugging and laughing with a handsome, well-built man. Not merely handsome, but the kind of male beauty that graced magazine covers and catalogs of a much higher caliber than Sears or old Montgomery Ward. Due to their obvious closeness, she had assumed he was Veronica’s boyfriend, though she hadn’t seen him since and believed they must have broken off the relationship at some point.
She’d never known Veronica to flirt with a woman, go out with a woman, or talk about other women in any way that might signal a less-than-heterosexual interest. Conclusion: Veronica Birdwell exclusively liked men. Period. End of statement.
At one time, she’d have bet everything she owned that Veronica would never even think about sex with another woman and been confident she’d laugh all the way to the bank when she won. Discovering it would have been a sucker’s bet came as a blow.
Mackenzie brooded a while longer on how Debbie Lou Erskine, Supreme Empress of Bitchiness herself, could have managed to corrupt Veronica.
She hadn’t imagined the kiss and she sure as hell hadn’t imag
ined Veronica’s reaction to the kiss. That’s what pained her the most, she decided, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel as if she had a strangler’s grip around Debbie Lou’s neck.
Seeing Veronica embrace Debbie Lou really stung. She had been lusting after Veronica since the minute they’d been introduced. She had been careful of Veronica’s feelings, not wanting to hurt her friend or herself by making inappropriate and unwanted advances. She had resisted the urge to take by seduction what wasn’t freely offered.
And then Debbie Lou had come along, a tempting serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Regret and jealousy etched acid into her soul. It should have been me!
Woodshed, sighed a familiar voice next to her ear.
Startled, Mackenzie almost stood on the brakes. Lacking power steering, the Datsun 510 handled like a tank, but she muscled the car onto the grass shoulder and brought it to a halt. A musty, dry smell crept into the air. Her nose itched. She rolled down the window before turning to regard the empty passenger seat.
Silver-gray fog wavered in the rearview mirror, a reflection from the backseat.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Mackenzie asked, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
Woodshed.
“The famous woodshed where you used to meet your boyfriend. Well, whoop-de-do! You must’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a flaming rat’s turd.”
The driver’s side door swung open.
Mackenzie swore. “Damn it, Annabel, I’m not shitting you. That stunt you pulled today…no, wait, I tell a lie…all of the stunts you’ve pulled have really hacked me off. I don’t appreciate having my stuff destroyed, so I’m not helping you anymore. Go haunt Maynard. He’s the one actually trying to solve your murder. Me, I’m not interested.”
The passenger side door flung open violently, bouncing on its hinges.
“And I’m not impressed by your little tantrum, either.”
Go see, Annabel said.
Mackenzie crossed her arms over her thin chest and shook her head. “Nope.”
The silver-gray fog in the backseat shimmered apart into wisps that floated away.
She blew out a breath, feeling like she’d just avoided a boatload of unpleasantness. Something had to be done about Annabel. She recalled the threat of exorcism she had made yesterday. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pay a call on Father Dominic at Our Lady of the Angels. He might have some insight into—
A little shriek escaped her when a bunch of wild roses dropped into her lap, scattering leaves and pinkish red petals everywhere.
Woodshed, Annabel said. Please.
The roses might be Annabel’s way of saying she was sorry. Or the offering was meant to kill her with the Death of a Thousand Cuts, she thought after scratching herself on a thorn the size of her thumb. She stuck the bleeding finger in her mouth.
“Okay, fine, I accept your apology,” she said, gingerly placing the roses on the passenger seat and brushing off the detritus on her jeans. She would have to stop at the gas station on the way home and use the coin-operated vacuum to clean up the mess.
Mackenzie exited the car. A bush rustled to her right. She went over there, feeling on edge. If a bunny rabbit hopped out, she’d probably wet her pants.
The bush stopped moving when she came closer. Farther away, she saw a stand of ferns whipping back and forth. She followed the signs from ferns to trees to bushes. With each step, she wondered if Annabel was luring her deeper into the woods for some terrible purpose, but she went on. At least she had about three good hours of daylight left.
At last, a structure loomed into view, standing off-center in a clearing surrounded by pines: a crudely constructed house, what used to be called a shotgun shack, long since abandoned. The roof had fallen in, the windows busted out and the front door was missing.
Mackenzie nearly tripped over an object half buried in the ground near a rotting log. She bent to sweep away the forest litter and discovered the remains of a copper pot still. To her amazement, the milk can-shaped boiler looked intact, though green with verdigris.
Four hundred dollars easy, she thought, automatically examining the still with an appraiser’s eye. Collectors loved this kind of stuff, real authentic Americana.
Why had Annabel brought her here? Was this the woodshed where she’d died?
The leaves underfoot stirred. My boy, the ghost whispered.
Understanding dawned. Prohibition had been repealed in 1933, but distilling moonshine was illegal to this day without the proper permits and licenses. That didn’t stop ’shiners from running stills and selling Mason jars of one-eighty proof spirit liquor out of their trucks or under the counters of bars and roadhouses throughout the state, mostly to avoid paying taxes and, of course, give the middle finger salute to the federal government.
She reckoned somebody had been cooking moonshine here for sure, likely within the last fifty or so years considering the pot’s condition. Did the still belong to Billy and his partners? Mama had said he ran ’shine with the no-account Gascoignes, but the copper pot was impossible to date since the same design and materials had been used for a century at least. For all she knew, another moonshiner had set up operations in the sixties or seventies, long after Annabel’s death and Billy’s disappearance from Antioch.
If the still dated from the fifties, it was possible Annabel and Billy Wakefield had used “the woodshed” in the middle of the woods as a meeting place.
Now suppose this isn’t Billy’s still, even if it’s contemporary to the time when he and Annabel were an item. If a rival moonshiner had set up a still back then without knowing about the house’s frequent young visitors, that might explain Annabel’s murder, though not why and how her corpse had been hidden in the wall of a building in Antioch. Moonshiners were known to be quick on the trigger defending their property, but the woods went on for miles. Plenty of places to hide a body where it wouldn’t be found.
She needed answers, not conjecture. “Annabel, I want to ask you something,” she said, straightening up and walking to the house. “You there?”
Yes.
“When you and Billy used to meet, was that copper still around?”
Yes. Billy’s.
Her theory down the drain, Mackenzie peered through the glassless window frame at the house’s interior, finding nothing more exciting than bird’s nests, piles of animal feces and trash. A vaguely rectangular shape on the floor might have been a mattress once.
Billy Wakefield made moonshine. He must have had business rivals. She’d have to do further research to learn who might have wanted Billy dead, but only if she couldn’t find any further leads. She stood back, thinking. Why not just ask the victim for clarification?
“Annabel, you did die here, right?”
No answer.
“Who killed you?”
No answer.
Well, that was as useful as tits on a boar hog. “Did you meet Billy in the woodshed the night you were killed? Just tell me straight out, yes or no.”
Yes.
A chill touched the back of her neck like a poke from a cold finger. “What happened?”
My boy.
“Do you mean Billy?”
Doctor Rush.
Mackenzie felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. “Isaac Rush?”
Yes. Annabel began to weep. My boy, my boy, my boy…
The sound receded farther into the woods, growing fainter until it was gone.
Mackenzie glanced around. “Annabel?” She received no answer.
A bird began to call from the top of a tree, answered by another bird nearby. The wind rustled through the pines. Her shoulders knotted with tension.
“Well, isn’t that just peachy,” Mackenzie said to herself. Alone in the woods, abandoned by her guide and no reception on her cell phone. Fortunately, she had a decent memory and a good sense of direction.
As she plodded back to the car, she made a mental to-do list. Talk to Maynard about the case. Find out more on Billy
Wakefield, the murders in Emorysville, and why Dr. Isaac Rush had gone to jail and his possible connection to Annabel Coffin.
She added talk to Veronica to the list and crossed it off.
Twice.
Feeling more sorrow than resentment, she continued on her way.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, after a night spent in dreamless sleep, Mackenzie awoke feeling tired and sluggish, like some sneaky bastard had tiptoed into her head while she slept and wrapped her brain in cotton wool. A shower didn’t help, nor did two cups of coffee—instant espresso until she ordered a new glass carafe to replace the one Annabel had broken.
Opening the front door, she found a warm poppy seed bagel from the bakery. She made a face. She loved bagels, but she’d run out of cream cheese. Since the Winn-Dixie closed last year, the nearest large grocery store was eight miles away. The nearest convenience store that might carry cream cheese was the slightly more upscale gas station three miles away, where she’d stopped last night to vacuum the leaves and withered rose petals out of her car. If only she’d known she was out of schmear then…
Sighing in annoyance, Mackenzie put away the bagel, checked the refrigerator and cabinets and made a grocery list. She’d take a trip to the Little Giant supermarket after work. While she was in the bedroom trying to decide what to wear—her prized vintage Hawaiian shirt or a short-sleeved tobacco brown blouse—her cell phone rang.
She checked the caller ID before answering. “Hey, Little Jack, I wasn’t expecting you to call so early in the morning. Have you got news for me?”
“I’m a journalist, Kenzie, I always have news,” James Larkin replied, chuckling.
“Very funny. You know what I mean.”
“I do indeed, which is why I’d like you to join me for breakfast at Mr. B’s Cafeteria.”
Mackenzie made a quick calculation of her funds. She hadn’t been to the bank lately and it wouldn’t open for another two hours. “Your treat?”
