Murder Buys a T-Shirt

by Christy Fifield

  “Hey, you’re not supposed to be out here,” he hollered. “You either,” he added, looking over my shoulder to where Ernie followed behind me.

  I batted my eyelashes in a vain attempt to play innocent Southern belle. “I didn’t know that,” I said, smiling like a fool. “I just came out to see what you found out about my car.”

  He wasn’t buying it. “Joe will give you the report at the service desk. But you have to get out of here. There’s too many ways you can hurt yourself.”

  “And you wouldn’t want to get sued, right?” Ernie’s cynical tone implied he believed a lawsuit was a much greater motivation than any concern for the welfare and safety of the customers.

  “That’s why the boss worries,” the young man (his shirt said his name was “Chet”) said. “Me, I just hate the sight of blood. Even when it isn’t mine.”

  That brought a grin from Ernie, and he stuck his hand out to Chet. “Ernie Jourdain. Glad to meet you, Chet.”

  A confused look flashed across the man’s face, and he glanced down at his chest, then shook his head. “Damned uniform service. Pardon my French, ma’am,” he nodded to me. “Sent over the wrong batch of uniforms. But I wasn’t going to work in my own clothes, so I guess I’m Chet today.” He shook Ernie’s hand. “Any other day the name’s Roy.”

  “Miss Glory!” Jimmy Parmenter appeared around the front of the tow truck. “Glad to see you got the car in. Roy here’s one of our best guys; he’ll do right by you.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy,” I said. I walked around the front of my car, stopping in the narrow space between it and the tow truck, which was backed into the bay.

  Jimmy had been tweaking something on the back of the truck when we first walked over. He hopped back up on the flatbed and went back to whatever he was fiddling with, looking back down to catch my eye.

  “I appreciate you bringing your car in,” he said quietly, as though he didn’t want anyone else to hear. I doubted it was possible in the din of air-powered tools whining and pounding and the clang of metal on metal, but he kept his voice low.

  “You were right,” I said. “It did need a good checkup.”

  “Well, thanks anyway.”

  I wanted to ask if he got in trouble for not charging me, but I never got the chance. From behind me I heard a disturbance and turned to see what the problem was.

  Matthew Fowler stood close to Ernie, his head bent back so he could look him in the eye, and he was telling him quite forcefully that he needed to get out of the shop.

  Behind me, Jimmy cleared his throat noisily. When I turned around he caught my eye and gestured at me to squat down so I wouldn’t get kicked out, too. Or maybe he was just protecting himself for not throwing me out on his own.

  Not wanting to get in Fowler’s line of fire, or make trouble for Jimmy, I took the suggestion and crouched down near the cab of the tow truck, straining to hear what was going on.

  Looking under my car, I saw Ernie’s immaculate white sneakers pivot smoothly and head out the open bay doors. Fowler’s expensive loafers remained where they were for a minute, and I could picture him with his fists on his hips and a grim smile of triumph on his face.

  I stayed in my hiding place until I saw Fowler’s tasseled loafers turn and head back toward the office area. Once they were out of sight, I steadied myself against the running board of the tow truck to stand up.

  That’s when I saw it. A faint blemish on the shiny black finish of the oversize truck that hit me like a hard right to the midsection.

  A tiny streak of baby-blue paint.

  HEART POUNDING, I RETREATED TOWARD THE FRONT end of the tow truck. Jimmy was still on the flatbed and couldn’t see me.

  I crouched next to the front wheel, which towered over my head, and peered carefully around the back of my car, toward the rest of the service bays. No one appeared to be looking in my direction.

  I sprang to my feet and ran out of the service area into the parking lot. My head swiveled frantically, looking for Ernie.

  I had to tell someone what I’d seen, and right now Ernie was the only person nearby that I could trust.

  Trying to look every direction at once, I walked quickly across the parking lot and around the corner of the building.

  Still no Ernie.

  I leaned against the wall for a moment, savoring the relative security of having something solid at my back.

  “Are you all right?”

  I jumped about a foot, and my heart hammered like it was going to burst right out of my chest.

  “Easy,” Ernie pulled me into a tight hug and stroked my head as though I were a small child.

  I must have looked as panicked as I felt.

  I stood, leaning against Ernie for a minute, while my galloping heart settled into something resembling a normal rhythm. I opened my mouth a couple times, but I couldn’t force any sound through my trembling lips.

  Finally I drew a deep, shuddering breath as the adrenaline rush subsided, leaving me weak-kneed and tired. I managed to squeak out an assurance to Ernie that I wasn’t going to pass out, and he let me go.

  “What happened, Glory? I purely thought some demon was chasing you the way you came barreling out of that shop.”

  “That’s kind of how it felt,” I replied. I braced one arm against the wall for support. My legs still didn’t feel as though I could trust them to hold me up.

  “I don’t want to talk about it here,” I went on. “Let’s see if I can get my car out of here, and I’ll explain once we’re safely back home.”

  His brows drew together at my choice of words, and I tried to soften what I had said. “I saw something, that’s all. And I don’t want to talk here. Okay?”

  “Why don’t you just let me take you home right now, and you can call to check on the car later? I’ll even volunteer to be your driver until the car is ready if that’s what it takes to get you out of here.”

  The decision wasn’t difficult. The car could wait until the next day. Or the next week. Just as long as I got far away from Fowler’s and that damning scrape of blue paint.

  “Let’s go.”

  I followed Ernie to his vintage red Miata. The van was the shop vehicle, and Felipe had a motor scooter for anywhere that was too far to walk. Ernie had his prized Miata, which he’d purchased new in 1991, and I always felt privileged to ride in it.

  We pulled out of Fowler’s and rode in silence to Southern Treasures. Ernie parked on the highway in front of the shop, preferring to keep the car where he could see it.

  To his credit, he held his questions until we were through the door. Fortunately, Karen was alone in the store.

  Unfortunately, Bluebeard was awake. The moment I came through the door, he unleashed a string of cursing and flapped his wings in agitation. “Bad man! Bad man!” he squawked, then added another string of curses.

  “Language, Bluebeard!” My voice was back to normal.

  He flapped his wings again, then settled down to his usual muttered invective. The words weren’t distinct, but the meaning was clear.

  He was upset.

  Angry.

  I had been around the Bad Man.

  I spent several minutes with Bluebeard, talking to him, feeding him biscuits, and generally making sure he knew I was okay. It was weird to be fussed over so protectively by a bird, but then I didn’t really think it was the bird doing the fussing. Uncle Louis was trying to watch over me and protect me from the Bad Man.

  Once Bluebeard had settled down, he retreated to his cage, and I draped the blanket over it. It was becoming a pattern: he got upset, I reassured him, he calmed down, and then he needed to retreat and recuperate.

  It was like having a very young child.

  With Bluebeard settled into the cage, I was able to turn my attention back to Karen and Ernie, who had waited semipatiently for me. I didn’t realize how long I had spent with Bluebeard until Karen set a freshly brewed cup of chamomile tea on the counter.

  “No coffee,” she explained. “E
rnie says you had some kind of freak-out and you need to relax. So I made you chamomile.”

  She pushed the cup toward me. “Now, tell us what happened.”

  Ernie had already given Karen the basics of our visit to the Fowler lot and why we had hurried back without getting the verdict on my bucket of bolts.

  I bit my lip, not knowing exactly how to explain what I had seen. “I think,” I said slowly, “I know how Kevin ended up in that field.”

  Karen’s mouth dropped open.

  “Was it something you saw in there?” Ernie demanded. “And you wanted to go back in? Are you crazy, girl?”

  “How do you know what happened?” Karen always cut to the heart of every issue. “What did you see?”

  “I was kind of hiding next to the tow truck when Fowler started talking to Ernie.” I turned to Ernie. “What was that all about? It looked like you guys were arguing.”

  “He was just telling me to get out of the service area. Said no one was allowed back there but employees, for liability reasons. That part makes sense,” he conceded. “If anybody got hurt back there—and there are a million ways that could happen—his insurance carrier would have a hissy fit. But that’s beside the point. Go on with your story.”

  “Okay. So, I’m crouched down behind my car, next to the tow truck. I could see you and Fowler from the knees down. After you walked away, I waited for Fowler to leave. I didn’t want him to find me in there, too.”

  They both nodded at my sound reasoning.

  “But then I was going to get up and walk out. I reached out to steady myself on the truck, and that’s when I saw it. A streak of baby-blue paint just on the underside of the running board of the tow truck.”

  “Is that all?” Ernie said, shaking his head. “Didn’t they use that wrecker to get the car out of the field? It could have gotten a little paint on it while they were getting it towed out or when they took it off at the lot.”

  “No.” I was as sure of this as I was of my own name. “That paint didn’t get there because the car was towed. There’s no way the car was even near that part of the truck.”

  “How do you know that?” Karen asked. “Besides, the truck wasn’t there until after the accident. We passed it on the road. And we don’t know what happened after it arrived.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. I was being defensive, but I was convinced the paint didn’t get on the truck when it was towing Kevin’s car.

  I couldn’t convince Karen and Ernie, however. Nor could either Karen or I remember who had been driving the truck the day of the accident. We’d passed it on the road, sure, but neither one of us was paying much attention to the tow truck. We had both been focused on the accident and the kegger at Thompson’s Corner.

  I finally had to admit Ernie had a point. The paint could have gotten there while they were working to get the car out of the field. I was busy jumping to conclusions, based on my own panicky response.

  Trying to divert the conversation from my overreaction, I asked Karen, “Do you know who called in the accident?”

  She shook her head. “There was a 911 call, but it was listed in the police report as an anonymous female caller. The dispatcher said she sounded young, but beyond that I wasn’t able to get any information.”

  “So somebody saw the car in the field and called the police,” Ernie said. “But there wasn’t anyone else out there when you two arrived?”

  I thought back, trying to pull the details of that day from my memory. “We heard the radio call,” I began. “Karen practically did a bootlegger’s turn to get off the freeway, and we headed out to where it happened.”

  “I just made a quick lane change,” Karen said. “We drove out to County Road 198, and on the way there, the dispatcher nearly lost his mind.”

  Ernie frowned. “What?”

  “We told you,” I said. “Everyone on site went tunnel vision, and the dispatcher couldn’t get anyone to respond.”

  Ernie nodded. “I remember that. Strange description, but it makes sense.”

  “It’s what the emergency responders call it,” Karen said. “Anyway, the place was swarming with official types by the time we got there, and they were keeping everyone back.”

  She looked at me as though I might remember something more, but I just shook my head. “I don’t remember anything but official cars and trucks,” I said. “In fact, I do remember thinking you were the first newsperson at the accident. So there must not have been any other civilian vehicles out there.”

  “Whoever called it in,” Ernie said, his voice low, “saw the car in the field but didn’t stay to help.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t,” Karen said.

  “Or maybe,” I added, “she didn’t want the police to know she was there. Even if it was an accident, maybe she was responsible somehow, and she didn’t want to be there when the cops arrived.”

  “But who is it?” Karen asked, cutting to the chase. “We don’t know of any woman who had a reason to hurt Kevin.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I might. Remember, I told you. Frank Beauford’s niece, Tricia. She broke up with Kevin because he was ‘getting too wild,’ according to Frank. And since he was cleaning up his act, she wanted to get back with him. We don’t know how Kevin felt about it. What if he didn’t want to get back together? What if he had a new girlfriend? That would be enough to make some girls really crazy.”

  “Not Tricia,” Ernie said, firmly. “I know that girl, she lives down the street from us. She might be upset, but she wouldn’t kill somebody over it.”

  “Maybe she didn’t mean to kill him,” I argued. “Maybe she just meant to hurt him. I don’t want to think that anyone deliberately tried to kill Kevin, but if we accept what Bluebeard said, it wasn’t an accident, either.”

  I took a swallow of tea. It was cold, the bitterness of the chamomile reinforced by the chill. I made a face and set it back on the counter.

  In the momentary silence, the ringing of my cell phone made us all jump.

  MY HANDS TREMBLED AS I PULLED THE PHONE OUT of my pocket and answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Glory? This is Shiloh.”

  Shiloh? Had she found out I’d been in the service bays? Did she know I’d seen the paint smear on the tow truck?

  My heart pounded, and my palms got sweaty. I nearly dropped the phone.

  “Shiloh.” My voice squeaked, and I swallowed and tried again. “Shiloh, hi! What can I do for you?”

  “I thought you were going to wait to see about your car,” she said. “But when I went back into the break room to look for you, you weren’t there. Mr. Fowler said something about your friend being out in the shop and then leaving. I was just closing up for the night, and I found the work order without any notes saying you got a copy. I wondered if you want me to drop it by on my way home?”

  “I, uh, I’m just getting ready to go out,” I lied.

  “Without your car?”

  “I have some friends here, and we were just on our way out the door. Tell you what, you can e-mail it, or I’ll switch the store phone over and you can fax it to me. Okay?”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” She sounded tentative, but she agreed to fax the work order.

  “I’ll need a signature before we can order parts and start the work,” she said before hanging up.

  “What was that about?” Karen asked. “And where are we going?”

  A shaky laugh escaped my lips. “Shiloh was worried because I didn’t get the estimate for the work on the car,” I explained as I switched the phone line to the fax machine. “I didn’t want her to come by here, so I told her I was just on my way out.”

  Ernie laughed. “You feeling a little better now?”

  He had me. Shiloh’s call was completely innocent, and maybe I’d been freaking out over nothing. And we still hadn’t found out anything more about Kevin’s car, so the entire trip was wasted.

  The fax machine whirred, and I walked back into the cubbyhole that I grandly calle
d an office to retrieve the estimate.

  I tried not to choke when I read the total at the bottom of the page. I could just about buy another car for the cost of the repairs if I did everything they recommended.

  Shaking my head, I handed the estimate to Ernie. “So, just how rich do they think I am?”

  His eyes widened at the total. “I don’t think you’ll be doing all this, girl. But they’re gonna charge you for the diagnostics if you don’t do something.”

  With Ernie and Karen’s help, I winnowed the list down to a couple essential repairs that were within my budget. I would drop by the service department in the morning—with Karen this time—and authorize the abbreviated list. And I planned to try to find out more about Kevin’s car.

  I just needed to know which of the employees was the biggest gossip.

  “That’ll be easy,” Karen said with a smug smile. “I just tell them I need to talk to someone ‘off the record’ for a follow-up on the radio. The biggest gossip is the person who is willing to talk to me as long as I don’t divulge my source.”

  “Speaking of gossip—did you ever hear anything about Jimmy Parmenter and steroids? Ernie here seems to think Jimmy’s been using.”

  “Not that I remember,” Karen said. “But I don’t always hear everything, despite what you two think.”

  Ernie glanced up at my clock. He dug his keys out of his pocket and bounced them on his palm. “I have to get going,” he said. “Unless you two want to go grab a beer. I can call Felipe.”

  But when he got Felipe on the phone, there was some kind of customer emergency at the shop, and we scrapped the idea. Ernie trotted out the door with a wave after extracting a promise that we would give him a full report from our trip to Fowler’s the next day.

  I called my part-time clerk, Melissa, and she was free for Saturday morning, so I had time to deal with the car repairs. Which was a great plan, right up to the moment on Saturday morning that Karen’s cell phone rang.

  We were standing at the service counter, and I was discussing the repair options with Joe. He kept urging me to do “just a little more,” and I kept juggling numbers in my head and saying no.