by Vickie Fee
“I’m sorry about having to spend the night at the hospital again, hon.”
“Don’t be silly. I certainly enjoy having you at home,” I said, brushing my leg against his under the table. “But I don’t trust your dad to buzz the nurses’ station for help any more than you do.”
I told Larry Joe about my new clients from rival schools.
“I think people from different religions have a better chance of making a marriage work than couples with opposing football loyalties. But I wish them all the luck in the world,” Larry Joe said.
“I’ve learned to put up with you,” I said, “so anything’s possible.”
“Ditto,” Larry Joe replied between bites of corn bread.
“Seriously, I can’t complain. We have a home. We have each other. And it looks like your dad is going to be okay.”
“I’d order a beer and drink to that,” Larry Joe said, “but it’s going to be hard enough sleeping with one eye open tonight without adding alcohol into the mix.”
“Maybe you should tie a string around your dad’s foot so you’ll feel a tug if he tries to get up during the night.”
“If he tries to get up again on his own, I might just hog-tie him with that string.”
After supper, Larry Joe drove toward our house before heading back to the hospital.
“I’ll take the car to the hospital, and Mama can drive home in my truck,” he said.
“Honey, I can drive your mom home. That way, you’ll have the truck and I’ll have my car.”
“Trust me, Liv, Mama won’t leave the hospital tonight until the nurse throws her out. There’s no reason you should have to hang around waiting for her. I’ll leave in the morning, as soon as Dad’s awake, and I’ll head home for breakfast and a shower. Then you can drop me at Mama’s, and I’ll take her to the hospital on my way to the office. Unless, of course, you need the car for some late-night carousing.”
“Don’t worry. I can always get a ride,” I said with a wicked grin.
Larry Joe pulled up in the driveway. I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss. He pulled me closer to him and gave me a nice long kiss.
“Good night, babe.”
“ ’Night, honey. Be patient with your dad. You know his pride is hurting as much as his leg.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Larry Joe idled in the driveway until I was safely inside. I found his protective streak endearing, if unnecessary.
As I started through the house, Larry Joe’s remark about late-night carousing got me thinking. It wasn’t late, actually. The clock on the microwave read 7:52 p.m. I rummaged through a stack of local newspapers lying on the coffee table in the den, looking for the weekend entertainment section. I flipped through until I found what I was looking for: a notice for “karaoke every Friday at Buddy’s Joint.” The address was on Bass Road, so I surmised that this must be the place Kenny had mentioned. Here was my chance to find Candy and have a chat. Maybe Darrell was one of those guys who talked a little too freely when it came to pillow talk.
I called Di and told her I was going to Buddy’s with or without her, which was a hollow threat since I had no car. Fortunately, it took only a couple of minutes to convince her to come along. I changed into some clothes I thought would be a little more appropriate for a karaoke bar and waited for Di to pick me up.
It took about fifteen minutes to make the drive. On the way, I reminded Di about what Kenny had said about the angry boyfriend and gave her his description of Candy. As Di pulled up to a four-way stop, the only four-way intersection between Dixie and Hartville, we spotted Buddy’s Joint just ahead, on the left. The gravel parking lot was surprisingly full. As we stepped out of the car, someone opened the front door of the concrete-block building, unleashing a cloud of smoke and a roar of music.
“I’m guessing there isn’t a no-smoking section in this place,” Di said.
There was no cover charge, but a large sign at the entry announced a two-drink minimum. It was one of those places that features free peanuts in the shell as bar snacks. I shuffled through discarded peanut shells, regretting my decision to wear sandals.
Scanning tables as we walked to the bar, I spotted only beer bottles and shot glasses. Resigned to the fact that margaritas and daiquiris were clearly not on the drinks menu, I ordered two light beers, and Di ordered a beer and a tequila chaser. The bartender’s low-cut top revealed an ample bosom with a dragon tattoo on one breast, its tail disappearing into an abyss of cleavage. She took our money without offering change and handed us our drinks without comment.
Some guy was onstage, singing “Three Times a Lady,” pronouncing the word twice as if it had a t on the end. We zigzagged our way through the crowd. I looked around the room as if I were looking for a suitable table, not that there were many to choose from, as the place was packed. What I was really looking for was Candy. Di and I finally sat down at a table by the wall on the far side of the room from the bar. I was beginning to worry that Candy wasn’t there when I spotted someone fitting her description emerging from a hallway beside the bar, which presumably housed the ladies’ room.
My eyes followed her across the room to a table near the stage. She sat down beside a guy with tattooed arms the size of tree trunks. The woman I hoped was Candy turned in our general direction and waved excitedly to a young woman who had just entered the bar. My Candy candidate certainly lived up to Kenny’s description. She had a small waist and big everything else: big hair, big teeth, big boobs, and a round fanny. And the guy she was with looked like bad news to me.
The noisy room quieted to a dull roar of chatter and laughter as one singer left the stage and another stepped up to the mike. I communicated to Di where the woman I thought was Candy was seated, and we both tried to think up ways to approach her. Unfortunately, since she had just come from the direction of the ladies’ room, I doubted we’d have another opportunity to catch her alone in the restroom anytime soon, unless she had a tiny bladder.
I cracked open a couple of boiled peanuts to munch on and was surprised to realize that I had already finished the first of my two beers.
Candy and her newly arrived friend made their way over to a table by the stage on our side of the room. They began flipping through a notebook that, I surmised, had the list of songs available for karaoke. I nodded to Di, and we headed for this table. There were actually two identical notebooks there, so we stood on the other side of the table, flipping through one notebook, while they faced us, perusing the other. Both notebooks were bolted to the table like a bank pen to a counter.
Candy glanced up, so I smiled and said, “Hi.”
She flashed her huge toothy smile and said, “You two look like maybe the Supremes. Am I right?”
“That’s certainly an idea,” I said as Di and I shared a doubtful expression. “What about you two? The Bangles or the Spice Girls?”
“Aren’t you cute,” Candy said. “I guess those old girl bands were a big deal when you were younger, huh?”
“Yeah. Them and Sinatra,” Di shot back.
“Oh, well, I guess we’re not really up on the current music scene,” I said with what I hoped looked like a sincere smile. “What song are you girls thinking about performing?”
“Probably “Call Me Maybe” or something by Adele,” Candy said.
Even an old-timer like me knew Candy and her Barbie-double friend didn’t have the chops to sing an Adele song with any credibility, but I kept my mouth shut. And, surprisingly, so did Di.
“You pick something. I’m going to run and put on some lipstick,” Barbie said to Candy, apparently worried that people with glaucoma might not be able to see the neon shade of coral she already had smeared on her lips.
I seized the opportunity to talk to my new pal Candy alone.
“You look so familiar,” I said. “Don’t you live in the Howe Apartments?”
She looked nervous.
“It’s just that Kenny Mitchell, who lives there, does a lot of repair work and odd jo
bs for me, and I always pick him up at the apartments, since he doesn’t have a car. I was thinking I’d seen you there, is all,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Actually, I used to live there. I moved in with my boyfriend, Brad, not too long ago. That’s him over there,” she said, pointing him out with the same gesture a model on a game show would use to draw attention to a brand-new big-screen TV.
“Oh, he’s handsome,” I said. “Were you still living at the apartments when those two brothers were killed? That was just such a tragedy. It must have been unbearable for their poor mama.”
“I only knew Darrell and Duane slightly, as neighbors,” she said unconvincingly. “Their mother didn’t strike me as the motherly type. I always felt sorry for Duane, though. He was a sweet boy, just shy and kind of slow, you know?”
“Yes, that’s what I heard. Can you think of any reason someone would want to do them harm? It’s hard to imagine, especially since the one boy was, well, mentally challenged.”
“Like I said, I didn’t really know them well.”
Brad came lumbering over. I guessed Candy had been out from under his thumb for too long. She gave him a quick kiss and said, “Hi, baby. Barbie and I are just about to go onstage.”
So, plastic girl’s name actually was Barbie. Di and I shared a knowing look and bit our lips to suppress laughter.
Candy waved to her friend and hurried over to the deejay to let him know their song selection. Brad crossed his beefy arms and leaned against the wall by the table as the deejay cued up their song and they stood stage left, waiting to make their entrance.
Di seized the bull by the horns.
“Excuse me,” she said in a syrupy tone. “Don’t you live over in the Howe Apartments?”
Brad glared for a moment. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s just I was sure I’d seen you there. I thought maybe you were friends with those poor boys that got murdered.”
Brad turned our way, giving us a frontal view of his brawn. “Lady, I don’t live there, never have. And I certainly was not friends with ‘those boys.’ Too bad they went and got themselves killed like that.”
Brad gave us one more dirty look, for good measure, and walked quickly back to his table as Candy and Barbie started singing their song in a shrieking soprano punctuated by giggles. I couldn’t help noticing that the same throng of people we had barely elbowed our way through parted like the Red Sea for Brad.
We eased back to our table and decided to make a hasty retreat while Brad was focused on the stage. We scrambled to the car, and Di punched it out of the parking lot, slinging gravel as she turned onto the roadway.
“Candy and Barbie, for real? What kind of names are those, anyway?” Di said.
“The kinds of names that often indicate bigger boobs than brains. Did you notice how Candy said she only knew Darrell and Duane slightly? And yet she knew them well enough that she had met their mama and had concluded she wasn’t the motherly type?”
“I noticed that her boyfriend is a baboon.”
“Kenny was right about Brad being bad news,” I said, still a bit shaky after our brief encounter with him. “He certainly wasn’t grieved by Darrell’s and Duane’s demise.”
“And Candy actually looked scared when you mentioned the Farrell brothers,” Di said.
“She’s probably afraid of Brad. I know I am. I think we need to suggest to Dave that he ought to check up on Brad. If he’s not a suspect in the murders, I think he should be.”
Chapter 22
Di dropped me off at home. By a little after 10:00 p.m., I had showered, put on my jammies, and curled up on the sofa to watch the TV news. I must have nodded off, because I woke up to a late-night talk show host interviewing some starlet I didn’t recognize. I turned off the television, and as I stood up, I felt the beers I’d had earlier in the evening weighing heavily on my bladder. I switched off the light in the den and switched on the light in the downstairs bathroom.
Just as I pulled up my pants, I thought I heard some movement in the garage. I initially dismissed it as a neighborhood cat, until I heard the very distinctive squeaking of the door leading from the garage into the kitchen. I started to call out, “Larry Joe, is that you?” But a growing sense of unease trapped the words in my throat. Instead of saying anything or going to investigate, I quietly stepped into the tub and hid behind the shower curtain, wishing my cell phone was in my pocket instead of in my purse, which was sitting on the floor next to the kitchen table.
I steadied myself against the tile wall and listened to the thud of heavy footsteps, followed by the sounds of cabinet doors and drawers slamming. I heard a muffled voice say, “I’ll look upstairs.” The realization that two men had actually broken into my house caused my Adam’s apple to swell to the size of a melon. I tried to breathe quiet, shallow breaths, which is hard to do when your Adam’s apple is crushing your windpipe.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of stuff being tossed around in the den, followed by a loud crashing noise. At the sound of the crash, I gasped and my muscles involuntarily jerked, one arm flailing against the shower curtain. I grabbed the errant arm, praying that the intruders had not heard the slap of my arm against the plastic curtain.
A moment later I heard footsteps again, closer now, in the hallway just outside the open bathroom door. I held my breath. At that very moment, the Newsoms’ car alarm started blaring. Since it was such a regular occurrence, it barely registered with me, but fortunately, it spooked the intruders.
Cabinet doors slammed in the laundry room. I heard the thunder of footsteps down the stairs and through the kitchen.
“Find anything?” said a muffled voice from the kitchen.
From the hallway, a familiar voice bellowed, “No, but they could have burned the damn tapes by now, for all we know. Let’s get the hell out of here before the sheriff shows up to check out that alarm. I’m taking this.”
I didn’t know what “this” was, but I honestly didn’t care what they stole as long as they went away.
Clacking sounds, hurried footsteps, and the squeak of the door into the garage.
I waited a couple of minutes, listening intently. When I felt confident the intruders were gone, I gingerly stepped out of the tub, tiptoed into the hall, and peered carefully into the kitchen. Seeing and hearing nothing, I hurried to my purse, fished my cell phone out, and retreated behind the shower curtain again—just in case they decided to return.
I called Di, figuring she was my fastest, surest connection to Sheriff Dave.
“Don’t talk. Just listen. Get Dave to come to my house right this minute. Two men broke in. I think they’ve gone, but I’m afraid they might come back.”
Exactly six minutes later, according to the clock on my phone, I received a text from Dave.
Open front door in sixty secs, or will break it down.
I drew a deep breath, sprinted to the front door, and stepped back as Dave and Ted rushed in, weapons drawn.
“I’m pretty sure they’re gone,” I whispered.
“Wait right here,” Dave said. He looked at Ted and pointed to the stairs. The deputy went upstairs, while Dave searched the downstairs. Di slipped in quietly through the front door, and I collapsed on her shoulder, sobbing.
Di gently guided me over to the sofa, which, along with all the other furniture in the living room, was draped with a drop cloth and covered with dried paint spatter. When the lawmen returned from their search, I was holding on to Di’s arm like a drowning man to a life preserver. I wouldn’t say I had regained my composure, but I was beginning to inhale and exhale with regularity.
“It’s all clear,” Dave said, taking off his hat and taking a seat in one of the chairs opposite the sofa. “Stuff’s been tossed around, and a couple of things are broken. You’ll need to look and tell me if anything’s missing. But first, did you get a look, even a brief one, at the perpetrators? Do you think you could identify them?”
“I didn’t see them. Just heard them. I have
no idea who one of the men was. I only heard his voice from the kitchen, kind of muffled. But the one doing most of the talking was Ralph Harvey.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“I know Ralph’s voice. I talked to him just this afternoon at the hospital. There’s no doubt it was him. I’d be willing to swear to that under oath. And I’m also pretty sure I know what they were looking for—and that they didn’t find it. Ralph said something like ‘They could have burned the tapes already, for all we know.’”
I told Dave—and Ted and Di, who were also listening intently—about Ralph’s cryptic comments at the hospital about the videotapes, and how I had wondered at the time if this was some kind of veiled threat.
We looked in the den, and I immediately noticed that the desktop computer was missing. The monitor screen was broken, and the TV was smashed and lying facedown on the floor. It had probably made the loud crashing sound I’d heard. The kitchen was also in disarray, with cutlery and canned goods strewn about. But none of the appliances were missing, and I didn’t think it likely they’d stolen any pots and pans. I went upstairs and did a quick inventory of my jewelry and Larry Joe’s guns. Nothing seemed to be missing.
“I have more questions,” Dave said. “But if you’re sure it was Ralph, I don’t want to waste any time before tracking him down. You feel up to riding along with me?”
“Sure. There’s no way I’m staying in this house tonight, anyway.”
“I’m coming with you,” Di said.
We climbed into Dave’s truck, and Ted got into the patrol car. They drove first to Ralph’s house, but Ralph’s truck wasn’t there, and no lights were on. Ted peered through the windows, then turned to Dave and shook his head. After a brief discussion, Ted drove out to McKay’s to look for Ralph, and Dave drove around the block and parked on the street, with a clear view through the neighbor’s yard into Ralph’s driveway.
