by Amy Metz
The Goose Pimple Junction mystery series:
Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction
Heroes & Hooligans in Goose Pimple Junction
Short & Tall Tales in Goose Pimple Junction
Rogues & Rascals in Goose Pimple Junction
In memory of Robert Hoffman: the original rogue and rascal.
Mama always said . . . Most people deserve each other.
Early June, Atlanta, Georgia
Sipping sweet tea and browsing Facebook on her iPhone, Wynona Baxter sat with her partner, Zeke, at a table outside a coffee shop. With her toned and tanned bare legs crossed, her left foot—clad in Jimmy Choo black four-inch-heeled sandals—bobbed up and down to a silent beat known only to her.
“Here he comes.” Zeke adjusted his sunglasses and inclined his head toward the street.
There he was—their mark—right on time, wearing his JC Penny ugly tan blazer and brown polyester pants set right underneath his paunch. He ran a hand through his thinning red hair, but demonstrating the man’s definite need for a haircut, a long patch in the front dropped right back down over his right eye.
Wynona muttered, “Get a haircut.” Then to her partner, she said, “His confidence has to be ill-gotten.
Zeke harrumphed. “Just like everything he has in life.”
Over the rim of her glass of sweet tea, she casually watched as he crossed the street, speaking to a few people along the way. His gut preceded the rest of him by a good ten inches. Why on earth a man with no outwardly redeeming qualities—and from what she’d heard inwardly too—could strut like a rooster was beyond her.
Wynona put her glass down and ran her finger along the condensation. “I’ll tell you one thing. It’s obvious from the way he carries himself that there isn’t any conceit in his family: he got it all.
Zeke sat back and propped a leg over a knee. “Yeah, but brains are another question.”
“You reckon he has any of those?” Wynona’s foot continued to bob up and down.
The duo had been watching him, and after a week, they knew his routine. Wynona looked at her iPhone. “He’s right on time and headed for the Dizzy Duck as usual.”
Zeke nodded. “If he hadn’t made someone very angry, this wouldn’t have to be his last visit there.”
“Okay. So he’ll spend thirty to forty minutes in the bar and then head for home.” Wynona put the phone in her purse.
Zeke stood. “Where we’ll be waiting for him.”
She took one more gulp of tea, shook the ice in the glass, and set it down hard on the table, shooting a look that would put frost on a snowman to the guy a few tables away who’d been leering at her for the better part of an hour. Leisurely standing, she smoothed the front of her short linen skirt. As she left the coffee shop, she was aware of the eyes on her . . . well, she could only guess which body part his eyes were on. Wynona preferred to be unobtrusive, but that was nearly impossible with her looks. But no matter, by tomorrow she’d appear totally different anyway. She thought she might enjoy being a redhead next.
The hot Atlanta sun beat down on them as Wynona and Zeke walked across the street in the opposite direction from the person they’d tailed for almost a week: Mr. Sleazy, as she’d come to think of him. They had been sitting at the outdoor table for over an hour waiting for their mark to leave his office building. Feeling like she was melting, bored half out of her skull, and glad to be on the move again, she got into their rented Lexus ES300 and turned the ignition key. She set the air conditioning to full blast and leaned her head against the headrest. The cool air blew across her face, which glowed with perspiration.
She glanced at the dashboard and groaned. “Is it really 104 degrees out there?”
Zeke adjusted the vents. “Considering the humidity is at least in the eighty percent range, it feels more like 150.”
Taking a lace hankie from her purse on the passenger seat, she blotted her face so as not to ruin her makeup. She fluffed the bangs of her brown wig and slipped on her oversized sunglasses before adjusting the air conditioning vents to point straight at her. After putting the car into drive, she eased out onto the road and secretly offered Mr. Googly Eyes an unladylike hand signal.
Wynona maneuvered the Lexus down the curvy shade-dappled country lane while singing along to Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places” on the radio. She pulled off to the side of the road, stopping just in front of a black mailbox with white lettering that spelled “Reid.” The box stood to the right of a long driveway leading to a large colonial two-story house. This wasn’t Mr. Sleazy’s house but one just down the road from his ticky-tacky run-of-the-mill ranch house. After a few minutes, she was impatient. “Come on, you know this road has hardly any traffic. We’ve only seen a handful of cars in the six days we’ve been tailing Polyster Man.
Zeke cracked the car door, waited, and listened. The only sound was the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker. Convinced no cars were near, he hurried to the rear of the car as she popped the trunk. He pulled out a duffle bag and slid back into the car, laying the bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat.
“Now watch, Wynona. You might need to know how to do this some day. Pay attention.” Reaching under the clothing inside the bag, he pulled out the pieces of a Glock .40 caliber semi-automatic. Grabbing the slide, he took the barrel and slid it in, put in the guide rod and spring, keeping his thumb over it. With the weapon in his other hand, he said, “Make sure there are no obstructions, match the male/female grooves, slide it on, lock it to the rear, and put down the takedown lever at three o’clock.” He quickly snapped the pieces into place and screwed the silencer on.
Wynona recoiled a little when he opened his bag of tricks, as he liked to call his knife set. Her mind went over the different ways she’d seen him use each one in the past. A slow and torturous death was his specialty and why people asked for him.
Wynona glanced at the time on the dashboard. “I reckon we’ve spent five minutes cooling off after leaving the coffee shop and fifteen driving here. It should also take Sleazy fifteen minutes to get here—after his usual thirty minutes in the bar.” Wy reached in the bag, pulled out a CD, and popped it into the player. “If I Had Shot You When I Wanted To, I’d Be Out By Now” came over the speakers, and she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she sang along.
Zeke watched and said, “I love a girl with a sense of humor in this line of work.”
Twenty-five minutes later, she turned off the engine. They got out of the car, and he raised the hood. Zeke crouched in front of the car, while she leaned against the Lexus to wait.
She heard it before she saw it. “Showtime,” Wynona said.
“Do your stuff, Wy.” Zeke shifted slightly in the gravel.
She leaned in under the hood from the side of the Lexus that faced the oncoming car so that her long thoroughbred legs would have a chance to work their full magic. She heard the pop of gravel and an engine slowing as he eased his car to the side of the road.
“What’s the problem?” Mr. Sleazy asked as he approached her.
Holding the gun in his right hand, Zeke rose to his full height, walked past her, and pointed the weapon at Sleazy.
“Honey, you’re the problem.“ Wynona cocked her head. “But we’ve got the solution.” She noticed his Adam’s apple bob up and down; hers did too.
Walking toward him with the gun aimed at his chest, Zeke said, “You’ve made someone awfully mad with your low quantity of moral fiber. You pretended to be someone you’re not. You took advantage of p
eople. You stole money from them. They said to make it a . . .” he stretched out his words, “. . . slow, painful end to your time here on earth.”
Zeke’s smile reflected his intentions.
Meanwhile in Goose Pimple Junction . . .
Junebug Calloway was wiping off a table when she happened to glance out the big plate glass window on the front of Slick & Junebug’s Diner. She did a double-take, ducked her head, and blinked her eyes.
“Great day in the morning, Willa Jean, come here quick. I think I see a unicorn on Main Street.”
Willa Jean, the other waitress at Slick & Junebug’s Diner, joined her at the window. “Ding dang if you ain’t right.” They watched, slack-jawed for a moment. “I thought you’d done lost it, Junie. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. Slick! Come look. There’s a unicorn on Main Street, big as all daylights.”
The phone was ringing off the hook at the Goose Pimple Junction police department. At first, Bernadette, the dispatch operator, was skeptical. “You saw a what trotting down where? Mmm hmmm. What did you have in your Wheaties today? Or should I say Fruit Loops?”
It wasn’t until she’d gotten the ninth call reporting a unicorn walking down Main Street that she began to take the reports seriously.
But it didn’t become clear until Martha Maye Butterfield, the chief’s wife, called in. She and her daughter (known as Butterbean to most people) had been at a princess-themed birthday party. The parents of the birthday girl had dressed a local farmer’s white pony for the little girls to ride. They strapped a horn on it and even dyed its mane and tail in rainbow colors. She said the party was two blocks south of downtown, and the pony broke free from the back yard while everyone was involved with the cake and ice cream portion of the day.
Apparently, the pony, AKA unicorn, AKA Blondie, liked its newfound freedom. Several citizens tried to approach it, but it let them get just barely out of reach before it whinnied and cantered off. The unicorn acquired a following, and it trotted around the town green for thirty minutes like it was the grand marshal of a parade.
Police Chief Johnny Butterfield, along with Officers Hank Beanblossom and Skeeter Duke, arrived on the scene and were closing in on the escapee. They were trying to corral it in the town green, where they thought they’d have a better chance of getting hold of it and it would be safer than in the public streets.
But it was Moody Church, owner of Fern & Moody’s General Store, who saved the day. He pulled a bushel basket of apples from his sidewalk display and put it smack-dab in the center of Pearl Street in front of his store. Blondie went to it like a bee to honeysuckle.
“The escapee is in custody,” the chief reported to dispatch.
The incident was thought to be an innocent one until that night when Johnny got home. Martha Maye, Butterbean, and Johnny were chuckling over it when Johnny wondered aloud how the pony could have just wandered off.
“Oh no, Daddy, it didn’t.”
“It didn’t? How in the world did it get loose?”
“I saw a guy untie its ropes and smack it on its rump. Then it ran away.”
“A guy? What did he look like, Bean?”
The little girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess he had brown hair and was kind of what you call . . . husky . . . ” She shrugged with her palms up. “And kinda short.”
Johnny looked at his wife. “Nobody ever suspects the short ones.”
Mama always said . . . Nothing too easy or done too quickly is going to be right. It takes time to create perfection, whether it’s your tea or your hair.
Early June, Goose Pimple Junction
Caldonia Culpepper knew something wasn’t right. After twenty years of marriage to Philetus Swift Culpepper IV, she knew right from wrong. And he was acting flat-out wrong. She could practically read his mind although she’d never dream of letting him read hers. Her mama said Southern women must be mysterious.
She flipped her long, naturally blonde hair—just coiffed at Miss Emma’s—behind her back, adjusted her large hot pink handbag on her shoulder, and glided down the sidewalk in her kitten-heeled pink sandals. Walking with her right hand unconsciously splayed out next to her hip at a right angle, it moved in time with each step. As she passed Ernestine And Hazel’s Sundries, she furtively examined her reflection in the store’s plate glass window. Her stomach looked flat, her waist small, her bust ample. The pink and green Lilly Pulitzer dress fell like it should, and the wide green belt helped hide the little blobs of fat that had recently formed at the top of her hips. Aunt Bea’s shrill voice saying, “You’re not a spring chicken anymore,” ran through her mind. She wasn’t sure if aging was better than the alternative. Some days she’d rather be dead than old and fat.
Turning a corner, she wondered, What am I gonna do? Tears swam in her eyes as she stopped in front of the big picture window at the office of Attorney at Law Louis P. Howe. She stood on the sidewalk thinking about her life, absentmindedly staring at the window but not really seeing anything.
Forty years old. Two children. I’ve devoted myself to being a good mother and wife. And now he’s gonna cast me aside like yesterday’s beef roast?
In the window’s reflection, her fisted hand and right foot caught her attention when they made a whack through the air and a stomp on the ground simultaneously with an “Oooooh” in frustration.
I’ve given that man the best years of my life.
She didn’t use to understand that statement, but in the last few years as wrinkles began forming and pounds attached to her midsection, hips, and thighs, its meaning became crystal clear. Maybe that’s why he went for a newer model, she thought. As her granddaddy used to joke, “He traded in his forty-year-old wife for two twenties.” She’d always laughed when he’d said that, never dreaming it would one day apply to her. She studied her reflection for another moment and then plastered a smile across her face even though she felt like doing anything but smiling.
Her eyes went from her reflection to that of Miss Penny’s Dresses, the store directly across the street. She turned to look at the dress in the window, and her breath caught in her throat. A gorgeous halter style, sleeveless red dress with a deep v-neckline and a swooshy skirt stood like a beacon in the middle of the store’s bay window. It was almost an exact replica of Marilyn Monroe’s famous white dress. She could hear a choir in her head singing in high pitch, “Ahhhhhhhh.”
Caledonia’s head swiveled as her eyes went from the dress across the street to the picture of the legal scales of justice painted on the attorney’s window next to her and then back to the dress. She could either go into the lawyer’s office and discuss a possible divorce, or she could march herself across the street, buy that dress, and try to woo her husband back. She hated to patronize Miss Penny’s because the woman could be . . . well, she could be a patronizing witch. Butter wouldn’t melt in that woman’s mouth. But Caledonia’s motto was “never underestimate the value of retail therapy to treat depression.” And what man could resist a woman in that dress?
“By golly, I am not going down without a fight,” she said out loud.
Caledonia opened the door to the lawyer’s office, giving herself a burst of cool air, and stuck her head in. She saw Melba Davis, her friend from church, behind the reception desk. “Melba toast, tell him I need to reschedule, okay, sugar?” she said in her genuine Southern twang.
“Well sure . . .” but she didn’t hear the rest of what her friend said; she had closed the door and was already halfway across the street before the woman had half a sentence out.
The store’s bell tinkled as she stepped through the door. “Good afternoon, Caledonia,” Miss Penny said with a pasted-on smile.
“Good afternoon, Penny,” she said, thinking rather than saying her favorite nickname for the woman: Bad Penny. “Do you by chance have that red dress in the window in a size six?”
“A six? For you?” She gave Caledonia the once-over as if judging her size and deciding a six was preposterous.
“Yes. For me.” Caledonia forced a smile and stared at the woman, daring her to come out with another one of her veiled insults. Caledonia’s mama always drilled into her how to be a gracious Southern woman, and a Southern woman didn’t make catty remarks or act rude in public, no matter what she may be thinking. Her smile held.
“Well, I imagine so. Let’s have a look-see.” The store was full of round racks of clothing, and Miss Penny walked through the tight aisles, her hands adjusting the clothing she passed. She stopped at a rack of dresses against the far wall. Finding the size on several of them, she pulled out two dresses.
Penny turned and said, “We’ll take the size eight back there too, just in case.” She winked at Caledonia and turned to lead the way to the fitting room. Sticking her tongue out, ever so quickly, at the woman’s back erased Caledonia’s smile.
The dressing room door closed. As soon as she had her dress off, she heard Miss Penny, a woman two years older than her and a constant burr in her butt since high school, say in false sincerity, “You just let me know if you need a bigger size now, you hear?”
Caledonia took a deep breath and said, “How lovely.”
She was delighted with the size six. The knee-length dress did wonderful things for her figure. She thought it showed off her size 34C bust with just the right amount to look sexy but not slutty, and it showed off her toned calves. She turned and checked the view from the back in the three-way mirror. “And it clings to my behind and shows off my greatest ass-et,” she said under her breath, giggling at the pun.
“Uh-oh,” came the sing-songy voice of Miss Penny on the other side of the door. “I hear laughter. Surely it isn’t that bad. Should I get you one of our body shapers? They’re tummy and thigh trimming, you know. Some people say it really helps hide those unwanted extra pounds that so many older women have. Or do you want me to see if I have a size ten?” Her voice went to an annoyingly high pitch at the end of the sentence in her attempt to be not-so-innocently helpful.
