Drag Strip

by Nancy Bartholomew

  I whipped open the back door, climbed inside, slammed the door shut, and quickly hit the lock. Outside, as the steamy heat of northwest Florida made everything look shimmery, I watched Frank and Meatloaf start to get frantic. Their boss was alone in the backseat of a car with a madwoman.

  Roy Dell, for his part in things, looked up and clearly thought he saw salvation. His face lit up like a lost child’s.

  “Sierra, honey,” he said. Then, as if remembering Ruby, he cut his eyes downward and let a tear slide down his cheek. “It’s a terrible thing,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Roy Dell, shut your mouth.” He looked shocked. “You and your sorry-assed pit crew left the lug nuts loose on my car and I nearly died last night. The way I see it, your ass is mine over this.”

  Roy Dell frowned. “Sierra, me and the boys didn’t have nothing to do with your lug nuts.”

  “Don’t run that crap with me,” I said. “You were the only people in a position to work on my car, and I’m telling you my left front tire fell off on top of Hathaway Bridge. Now maybe it was an accident, or maybe it was payback for what I don’t know, but I’m telling you, I’m on to you.”

  Roy Dell looked even more puzzled. “Now, Sierra, I won’t say me or Mr. Rhodes was there every second watching them work, but I know my boys and I stand by their work.”

  “Oh, and Frank, too?” I asked. I looked out the window and saw Frank rushing Mickey up to the car, talking and gesturing wildly with his hands.

  “Frank don’t work for me,” Roy Dell said. “He’s a driver. I taught him everything he knows. But I can tell you this, that boy wouldn’t harm a hair on your blond head.” I looked out the window at Frank’s skull-and-crossbones tattoo and laughed.

  “Yeah, right. You know, I’m thinking here, Roy Dell, that maybe you’re not being on the straight with me. You see, the way I’m forced to think now, I’m thinking maybe you’re lying. I don’t know why the cops aren’t crawling your butt, Roy Dell, ’cause you were the last one with her.”

  I wasn’t watching Roy Dell. I’ll have to admit I was staring past him out the window at Frank and Meatloaf, who were now dragging a reluctant Mickey Rhodes over to unlock the car, so I was unprepared for the power of Roy Dell’s reaction. He reached over and grabbed me with such force that my teeth snapped.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?” he growled. “If I was you and I wanted to keep my pretty face and ass in business, I’d shut my mouth and keep it shut. If somebody wanted to communicate with you, honey, they’d need to go upside your head with a two-by-four and couldn’t nobody blame them. Now, quit looking for trouble, ’cause I’m ready to tell you, trouble will find you every time.”

  At that moment, Mickey Rhodes unlocked the car door. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing!” Roy Dell and I snapped in unison. We glared at each other and I pulled my arm out of his grasp.

  “You’re one to talk,” I hissed, then threw open the door and jumped out. Roy Dell Parks, the King of Dirt, had a side to his personality that I bet his adoring fans knew nothing about. How much of Roy Dell had Ruby seen? What if things had turned ugly when Ruby wouldn’t move along as quickly as he wished?

  I straightened the collar on my blouse and moved past the gaping men, back into the house. I walked slowly, like I was out for nothing but a stroll, but inside I felt like Jell-O. The crowd had thinned a bit and the receiving line was down to a few people as the majority had made for the dining room. Raydean was deep in conversation with the two elderly ladies from the church. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do would be to pay my respects to Ruby’s parents and get the hell out of Wewahitchka.

  * * *

  Ruby’s mother took my hand in hers and tried to smile. “Sugar, I’ve heard so much about you,” she said softly. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop them.

  “I should’ve watched her more closely,” I began, choking on the words that had lain hidden in my heart. “It’s my fault.”

  “No, now, honey, that’s not so,” Mr. Diamond said, leaning close to his wife.

  “She was so happy, Sierra,” Mrs. Diamond said. “I can’t say that we supported her at first, but eventually I made peace with her decision to dance.”

  Mr. Diamond nodded and patted his wife’s knee. “I’ll get you some water,” he said, rising from the sofa.

  Mrs. Diamond watched him walk slowly off toward the kitchen, then gestured to the coffee table, where three full glasses of water sat untouched.

  “He can’t bear to talk about it,” she said in a half whisper, “but I just have to, you know?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Mrs. Diamond’s hands twisted a shredded tissue, leaving strings of white against the dark navy of her dress.

  “She was my baby, my only one,” she said as tears once again fell into her lap, splashing on the wrinkled hands. “Some would think it would be different, you know, because we adopted her when she was three. But it wasn’t any different than if I’d given birth to her.”

  I leaned down and placed my hand over hers, and she gestured for me to sit in the spot where her husband had been. “I’m so very sorry,” I murmured, feeling so inadequate.

  “You know, Ruby felt the same way about me,” she said, her fingers restlessly tracing a pattern in the material of her dress. “I kept waiting for the day when she’d ask who her real mother was, but, you know,” she said, turning toward me, looking deep into my eyes, “she never did.” I looked away, remembering Ruby’s sad face as she told me about being taunted for being from foster care.

  “I could’ve told her,” Mrs. Diamond said, “but I didn’t. Maybe I was afraid, but I’d like to think Ruby didn’t want to know. It was over and done with, and she belonged to us.” Mrs. Diamond wasn’t really talking to me; she may as well have been addressing the water glasses on the coffee table. She just needed to talk.

  “Wewahitchka’s a small town,” she continued. “Everybody knows everybody’s business. I pretty much figured out who Ruby came from. You know, I almost called her this morning. I would’ve said, ‘Hello, Iris? You probably don’t know me, and might not even care, but our baby’s dead and I thought you might want to know.’ I didn’t do it, of course. She probably wants to forget, or she might’ve acted like I’d got the wrong number, or some such of a thing. And, you know, I just don’t believe I could’ve stood it.”

  “Who was her birth mother, Mrs. Diamond?”

  Ruby’s mother looked up at me as if she’d been a million miles away. “What, dear?”

  “Her birth mother. What was her name?”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Diamond smiled softly. “I really don’t want to cause any pain to her by speaking her name. She’s gone on, made a good living for herself, grooming dogs or some such of a thing. It’s best just to keep our hearts on Ruby.”

  Mr. Diamond walked up with the fourth glass of water. I stood up, then stooped down and crouched by Mrs. Diamond’s side.

  “Your angel could dance,” I said. “She is dancing. Dancing for joy where no one and nothing can ever hurt her again.” Then I reached up and wrapped my arms around the little woman. We stayed like that for a long moment, and then I released her as the next trio of mourners—Meatloaf, Frank, and a somber Mickey Rhodes—stepped forward to take my place.

  Mrs. Diamond uttered a short gasp and I looked back to see that she’d knocked over the fresh glass of water.

  “It’s all right,” Mickey said, moving forward to embrace the shaken woman. “It’s all right.”

  “But you don’t know, do you?” she said in a quavering voice, shaking her head.

  “I know,” he said, his voice hushed and soothing. “I know.” But how could he? He wasn’t a mother.

  I turned to walk away, my eyes blinded with tears, and bumped right into the woeful little man from the church. His eyes were red and he used a bandanna to wipe them.

  “I’m so sor
ry,” I muttered, trying to step out of his way without flattening him.

  “Honk if you love Jesus,” he whispered. Then, “Oh Lord, pray for us sinners and our salvation. This is my penance. She is gone and I will have eternity without her.”

  He left before I could say a word, pressing himself against the wall and sliding away from me, around the corner, into another room, almost running from the grieving mother and her mourners. It felt like the last straw for me. I would’ve opened my mouth and shouted out for Raydean had she not at that moment materialized beside me.

  “I see you met Wannamaker Lewis,” she said, nodding toward the little man.

  “Not exactly,” I answered. “It was more like he babbled and I tried to stay out of his way. Why? I thought you didn’t know who he was.”

  “Sierra, that was afore someone mentioned his name. Don’t you know who Wannamaker Lewis is?” Seeing the blank look on my face, she continued. “The famous Honk-if-you-love-Jesus folk artist.”

  It came back to me then. Eccentric Lewis, the unwilling millionaire, or so everyone supposed, as his work was now featured in trendy galleries around the country.

  “Today’s trend, tomorrow’s garage sale,” I said.

  “I don’t think so, Sierra,” Raydean answered. “I invested a bit in his work myself. Of course,” she added hastily, “that was afore he became famous.” Raydean is very paranoid that someone will find out she came into a little chunk of money when her husband died.

  “Let’s blow this pop stand,” I said.

  Raydean scanned the room and nodded. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Never stay in one place too long,” she said, heading for the door. “You’ll gather moss. A psychologist told me that one time.”

  Thirteen

  I didn’t go to work that night after Ruby’s funeral. I called Vincent and told him to let Marla have the house to herself for a night; the Tiffany could do without me. I was expecting him to fight me on it, but he didn’t. I guess he knew it wouldn’t have done any good.

  I shut all the blinds, pulled the curtains across the bay window in the living room, and started lighting candles. That’s what I do when I’m depressed: I light candles, put on sad music, and dance. I wandered over to the CD player and started hunting up just the right music. Fluffy walked into the room and climbed up onto the futon, ever the observer.

  “I don’t get it, Fluff,” I said, heading for the kitchen. “Ruby’s dead and nobody seems to know what happened. And, you know,” I said, pulling a jug of my father’s homemade wine off the counter, “not one person knows why or who.” I poured a hefty portion of Chianti into a Flintstones jelly glass and opened the kitchen door to let the cooling night air circulate through the trailer. When I walked back into the living room, I found Fluffy was actually listening, her moist brown eyes reflecting pools of sadness. “It’s up to us, girl,” I said, taking my first swig of wine. “We should be able to figure it out.”

  Fluffy sighed. She knew I was right. She also knew it was going to mean a lot of activity and trouble. Fluffy has a delicate temperament. Stress makes her cranky. I sat there next to her, stroking her tiny body, drinking Chianti from Pop’s cellar, and listening to music. In the back of my head, I was turning over the facts of Ruby’s death. I hadn’t just run into the trash bin in my attempt to reach Ruby. I was pretty sure I’d been hit or pushed. There ought to be some memory, some sound or scent that would help me identify the killer.

  “I got an idea, Fluff,” I said. “I’ll go back out to the racetrack tomorrow. Surely something will come to me. At least I can talk to people, see if anyone saw Ruby with anyone, or saw John Nailor.” Fluffy growled low in her throat. Probably thinking it was dangerous to sniff around a crime scene. I ignored her and drank the rest of my wine. It felt warm going down, spreading through my body and easing all the tension of the day.

  I got up and poured another glass, realizing that I ought to stop at one and that I ought to eat something, but not doing either. The music was calling me. I walked softly into the middle of the living room. Sarah McLachlan was singing “I Will Remember You.” I reached up and unfastened the clip that held my hair in a neat bun, shaking my head gently to let my hair fall down around my shoulders. I closed my eyes and began to move.

  I unfastened my robe, tossing it onto the futon and dancing in my panties and bra. The tears came again, running unchecked down my cheeks as I danced. At some point I thought of John, but it wasn’t the vision of his kiss that held me. Instead I remembered his arm around the woman at the racetrack, the way he held my gaze, deliberately, before he bent down and kissed her.

  I leaned over, my hair spilling over my head and almost sweeping the floor in a blond waterfall. The room was golden with candlelight, the only sounds being Sarah McLachlan’s voice and that of my feet as they moved across the floor.

  I played the song again and again, dancing through my visions and feelings, forcing my body to work out the pain. I was sweating, my breath coming in short gasps. Ruby’s face floated before me, the piano softly carrying me from one image to the next. I whirled slowly around, my hair spinning a golden wheel, my arms extending the circle. I opened my eyes as the song again came to a close. John Nailor stood in the doorway of the kitchen, his arms folded across his chest, watching.

  We didn’t speak. Instead he covered the short distance between us with a few steps, gently folding me into his arms and standing silently as the sobs that had been held back for so long finally came.

  At last I felt the surge of emotion ease and then stop. I lifted my head and took the handkerchief he offered. I was standing in my underwear, sweaty, my nose running and my eyes swollen from crying.

  “I must look like hell,” I said, breaking free of his arms and crossing the room to get my robe from the futon.

  “Not really,” he said calmly. His white oxford-cloth shirt had black mascara stains on the shoulder now.

  “How long were you there?” I asked.

  “Long enough.” He picked up my glass of wine from the bar that divided the kitchen from the living room and drank.

  “So, don’t you knock?” I pulled the sash on my robe tighter and began gathering my damp hair into a bun.

  “Sierra, everybody needs to let it go sometime. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He crossed the room to the futon and sat down, pulling me with him. For a second, I felt dizzy. I wanted him to touch me again, and yet I didn’t want him to ever touch me again. I didn’t want to feel the way I did when he kissed me, as if our bodies were melting together and I might lose myself.

  I straightened up and looked into his eyes for a brief second. “All right,” I said. “This has to stop. I don’t know what this thing is between the two of us, but I’m not going to do this.” He smiled and reached out to touch the side of my face. His fingers burned a trail down my cheek, softly caressing my neck.

  “You’re not, huh?” he whispered, his face moving dangerously toward mine.

  “No,” I said, my voice squeaking an octave higher. “No!” I pushed back again. “You’ve got some questions to answer, Nailor. For one, what were you doing at the track?”

  John shook his head. “I’m not going there with you, Sierra,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “If it had to do with your job,” I continued, “Wheeling would’ve known about it.” John said nothing. “Are you in trouble?”

  He laughed, but I could tell he didn’t find the question funny. “You could say that,” he said.

  “Then let me help you.”

  “I’ll handle it on my own, Sierra. It’s nothing I can’t take care of. I just want to make sure you stay out of the way.”

  “Who killed Ruby?” I asked suddenly.

  “Sierra, I told you, I don’t know anything about that. Just let Detective Wheeling do his job, all right?”

  “Well, I can’t do that,” I said. “He’s not doing his job. That’s the whole problem.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said
. “The police aren’t going to come running over here to let you know what they’re doing.”

  “I can see that,” I said sarcastically. “You could tell me if they were doing something, but you boys are all in the same club, no matter what. Even when—”

  “Even when what?” he interrupted. “Even when I’ve got personal feelings involved, Sierra? Is that what you were going to say?” He reached out and grabbed both of my hands, pulling me closer. He bent his head and kissed me, letting go of one hand to reach up and cup my chin.

  My heart was pounding and my body was screaming, “Go for it, forget all this other crap. You want him. Go for it!” His hand moved down my neck and across my robe, gently circling my breast. I felt myself moan softly.

  “No! Damn it, Nailor! You’re not going to do this to me!” I pushed him away. “Answer my question!”

  I’d made him mad, but I didn’t care. He opened his mouth to speak, but the phone rang, startling both of us.

  “Who could that be?” I said, reaching across him for the phone. “It’s one o’clock in the morning, for Pete’s sake! Hello?”

  “Sugar,” Raydean said in a husky whisper, “you got company.”

  “Raydean,” I sighed impatiently, “I know I’ve got company.”

  “No, honey,” she said. “Additional company, outside.”

  “What?” John was close enough to listen to the receiver, and he moved cautiously toward the window.

  “Outside, about to the corner, three lots down. There’s a car there, been there for a while, with somebody in it. I’m thinking it looks like po-lices.”

  “Oh, man,” I said, fuming. “All right, honey, thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Well, I just thought you oughta know, being as how you got inside company.”

  “Raydean, how’d you know that?” I asked.