“What do you want?” Wanda Nell demanded, snapping out of her fog. “Why are you here?”
Elmer Lee regarded her grimly as Deputy Taylor carefully shut the door. Wanda Nell looked past Elmer Lee and appealed to the woman. “What’s going on? Did y’all talk to Ricky Ratliff?”
Deputy Taylor’s eyes widened, and she shook her head slightly at Wanda Nell.
“Why are you asking about Ricky Ratliff, Wanda Nell?” Elmer Lee demanded gruffly. “What do you know about him? Have you talked to him lately?”
Wanda Nell stared back at him uncertainly. “Not since the other night at work.” She clutched her housecoat nervously. “Didn’t your deputy tell you I called?”
“Yeah,” Elmer Lee said. “We’ll get to that in a minute. First you tell me when you last saw Ricky Ratliff.”
“I told you,” Wanda Nell said, getting angry. “Night before last, at Budget Mart. Now you tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Elmer Lee watched her carefully for a moment before he spoke. “Ricky Ratliff is dead, Wanda Lee. What do you know about that?”
Chapter 9
Wanda Nell couldn’t speak. Her mouth wouldn’t work, though she tried to say something. She felt an arm slip around her waist, and she turned to see Juliet beside her. Eyes wide with horror, Miranda stood a step or two beyond Juliet, Lavon clutched to her chest.
“My mother doesn’t know anything about that man’s death,” Juliet said bravely. “It was probably the same men that killed my daddy.”
“I didn’t say he was killed, little lady,” Elmer Lee remarked mildly, “just that he was dead.”
Wanda Nell found her tongue. “And I reckon you just expect us to think he had a heart attack or something? Come on, Elmer Lee, why else’d you be here, if somebody didn’t kill him?”
“Somebody did kill him, Wanda Nell,” Elmer Lee said, is face set in grim lines. “And I’m gonna ask you again, when was the last time you seen him, or talked to him?”
“Mama,” Juliet whispered urgently in Wanda Nell’s ear.
“Not now, baby,” Wanda Nell said.
“But, Mama,” Juliet persisted, tugging on her mother’s arm.
“What is it?” Wanda Nell bent her head slightly as Juliet beckoned with her finger.
“Maybe you better call a lawyer,” Juliet whispered. “Before you say anything else.”
Wanda Nell patted her daughter’s arm. “No, it’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered back. Turning to Elmer Lee, she said, “I already told you, Elmer Lee. Last time I saw him was night before last, at Budget Mart.”
“You didn’t see him or talk to him after that?” Elmer Lee’s tone was skeptical.
“No, I did not,” Wanda Nell said evenly. She had to keep her temper. Elmer Lee wanted her riled up, and she was determined not to let him do it.
“When you saw him night before last,” Elmer Lee said, “what’d you talk about?”
Wanda Nell thought for a moment, trying to recall the conversation. “Mainly I was trying to find out what he knew about Bobby Ray. What Bobby Ray’d been up to, where the money he was flashing around came from.” She shrugged. “He liked to carry on like he was still real tight with Bobby Ray, and I figured he might know something.”
“Did he tell you anything?”
“Not really,” Wanda Nell said. “Basically he just told me to mind my own business, and keep outta his way. I tried to get him to admit he knew something about those guys that broke in here, but he wouldn’t.” She shook her head. “Guess I was right after all, if they was using his truck to come here in.”
Elmer Lee didn’t comment on that. Instead he ordered, ‘Tell me what you did from yesterday afternoon till this morning.”
“Same as I always do on a Friday,” Wanda Nell answered, as patiently as if she were talking to a backward child. “I got ready for my shift at the Kountry Kitchen, and I got there on time, at six o’clock. I left a little after ten and drove to Budget Mart. I worked my shift, like I always do, then I came home this morning when I got off work.”
“And someone at Budget Mart can say you was there the whole time, I guess,” Elmer Lee said. “You didn’t see Ricky Ratliff there last night?”
“No, I didn’t,” Wanda Nell replied.
“And he didn’t come by the Kountry Kitchen, either?”
“No, he hardly ever did. I didn’t see him anywhere last night.”
Elmer Lee studied her for a moment. Wanda Nell wished she wasn’t wearing her housecoat. The way Elmer Lee was looking at her, she felt real funny.
“You didn’t see or hear anything odd at the Kountry Kitchen last night?”
Wanda Nell’s gaze flicked uncertainly to Deputy Taylor, who still stood behind Elmer Lee. Taylor shook her head slightly, and Wanda Nell understood she wasn’t to say anything to Elmer Lee about Taylor’s visit to the restaurant.
“No, I didn’t,” Wanda Nell said. She tried to act like she’d been thinking about it, to cover up the awkward pause. “It was just a regular Friday night.”
Elmer Lee motioned toward the chairs and couch. “Let’s sit down,” he said, his voice softer.
Wanda Nell stood right where she was for a moment, wondering at the sudden change in him. Then she walked over to a chair, her legs stiff and uncertain, and sat down.
Juliet came and stood behind her, placing a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Miranda stayed where she was, whispering softly to the baby to keep him quiet. Elmer Lee sat down on the couch, facing her. Deputy Taylor remained standing, her arms crossed behind her back. Wanda Nell glanced at her, but the deputy’s expression told her nothing.
“Wanda Nell,” Elmer Lee said, and Wanda Nell’s attention focused on him. “Ricky Ratliff’s body was found this morning. Somebody’d dumped it in the dumpster behind the Kountry Kitchen.”
“Oh, my Lord,” Wanda Nell said. Her stomach lurched. “Who... who found him? Was it Melvin? Melvin Arbuckle?”
Elmer Lee nodded. “Yep. Seems Melvin was out back, about five-thirty this morning, having a smoke. He flicked the butt into the Dumpster and lit himself another one. While he was smoking the second one, he smelled smoke. Something in the dumpster caught fire.”
Wanda Nell smiled faintly. “I warned him about that, time after time. I told him he was gonna set something on fire.”
“Yeah, well, he sure did,” Elmer Lee said grimly. “He ran and got a bucket of water to put out the fire, and when he reached in to dump the water, he got a real big shock.”
Swallowing hard, Wanda Nell asked, “Ricky?”
“Yeah, Ricky Ratliff,” Elmer Lee replied. “Fortunately, the body was on the other side of the dumpster from what Melvin set on fire, but it still didn’t help nothing, all that water in the dumpster.” His nostrils flared in disgust, and Wanda Nell kept her eyes wide open. She didn’t want to see the image of Ricky’s dead body that was trying to press itself into her mind.
Realization hit her, and Wanda Nell glanced at Deputy Taylor. Her eyes asked a question, and the deputy answered with a quick nod. When Wanda Nell had called her to pass along the information about Ricky’s truck, Deputy Taylor knew right where Ricky was.
Wanda Nell moved her eyes back to Elmer Lee. He was regarding her suspiciously, and suddenly his head whirled, and he was looking at Taylor. After a moment, he turned back to Wanda Nell. “What’s going on between you two?”
Not knowing what to say, Wanda Nell kept quiet, keeping her eyes down. She heard Deputy Taylor step forward. “I can explain, sir,” she said. Wanda Nell looked up.
“Then you damn sure better do it,” Elmer Lee snapped.
“Yes, sir.” Deputy Taylor gazed straight ahead. “This morning, Miz Culpepper called me on my cell phone. She wanted to report that she had spoken with a witness who saw a strange pickup truck at the trailer park the night of the alleged break-in here. According to Miz Culpepper, that pickup belonged to the victim, Ricky Ratliff.”
Elmer Lee stood up, his hands clenching and unclenching
at his sides. “And do you wanna explain to me why you’re just now telling me this?”
Deputy Taylor didn’t flinch. “At the time Miz Culpepper called me, sir, you were busy talking to the sheriff and the coroner. Upon thinking about it, I decided it was better to wait and let Miz Culpepper tell you about it herself.”
“That’s what you thought, was it?” Elmer Lee’s voice could have cut through steel. “Next time somebody calls you with information regarding a case, Deputy, you damn sure better let me know ASAP. You don’t think about it, you just do it, if you expect to remain employed by the Tullahoma County Sheriff’s Department. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Deputy Taylor said. Her chest heaved once, like she was trying to hold something back. Wanda Nell hoped she wasn’t going to break down and cry.
Elmer Lee turned his back on his junior officer, and Wanda Nell watched him warily. “Supposin’ you tell me about this witness of yours, Wanda Nell.” His tone had mellowed again. Wanda Nell didn’t know what to think about Elmer Lee sounding almost friendly.
“His name is Jim Ed Woods,” Wanda Nell answered slowly. “He’s a truck driver, and he and his wife live in the next-to-last trailer on this side of the trailer park.”
“We’ll check it out,” Elmer Lee said, nodding. “But you tell me what he said to you.”
“Jim Ed said he saw a strange pickup here the night those men broke into my trailer,” Wanda Nell replied. “He reckons it was about two in the morning. He was just coming back from a run. He’d never seen the pickup at the trailer park before, but he’d seen it around town. Only one like it, as far as he knew.”
“He describe this truck to you?”
Wanda Nell nodded. “Yeah, black with a streak of lightning down the side. And when he said that, I recognized the truck myself. Only one like it I ever seen around here was Ricky Ratliff’s truck.”
Elmer Lee sucked in his breath. “Yeah, that’s Ricky’s truck all right. And now Ricky’s dead, too, just like Bobby Ray.” He slammed his right fist into his left hand. “Goddammit, what’s goin’ on here?”
“I don’t know,” Wanda Nell whispered. “But now you gotta believe me, Elmer Lee. I didn’t kill Bobby Ray, and I sure didn’t kill Ricky. You gotta try to find those men that broke in here. Ricky must’ve known ’em, else they wouldn’t have been using his truck that night.”
Elmer Lee’s eyes bored a hole right through her. Wanda Nell shifted uneasily in her chair. She wished she could tell what he was thinking right then.
Abruptly, Elmer Lee stood up. “Come on, Taylor,” he said. “We need to find that goddamn truck.”
“You mean Ricky’s truck is missing?” Wanda Nell asked quickly.
Elmer Lee scowled at her. “Yeah.” He motioned for Taylor to precede him to the door. “And we’re gonna be looking for it.”
“I’ll bet if you find that truck,” Juliet said, surprising her mother, “you’ll find the men that killed my daddy and Mr. Ratliff.”
“Maybe so, little lady,” Elmer Lee said. Then he and Taylor were out the door.
“Thank the Lord,” Wanda Nell murmured.
“What, Mama?” Miranda asked. She came and sat down on the couch, Lavon in her lap.
“I said, ‘thank the Lord,’ ” Wanda Nell repeated. “Thank the Lord, Elmer Lee finally stopped thinking I killed your daddy.”
Juliet sat on the arm of the chair beside her mother. “Maybe they’ll find that truck real quick, and those men, too, and this will all be over.”
Wanda Nell patted her daughter’s leg. “I sure hope so, baby.”
“Mama,” Miranda said, her head down as she watched Lavon squirm around in her lap, “if they find that money Daddy had with him, what do you reckon they’ll do with it?”
Frowning, Wanda Nell regarded her older daughter. “Why, honey, I don’t know. Guess it depends on whether it was really your daddy’s money.”
Miranda flushed. “Mama, why do you always have to think so bad about Daddy? Maybe he earned that money, and if ’n he did, then it ought to come to us. Isn’t that right, Juliet?”
Juliet stopped swinging her leg against the side of the chair. “Well, I guess so, Miranda. If Daddy came by it honestly, then it was his. And we’re his next of kin, so I guess we’d get it. Unless Daddy made a will somewhere and left it to somebody else.”
Wanda Nell snorted. “I can just see Bobby Ray making a will, of all things.”
Miranda cut her eyes over at her mother. “Then I guess if we find that money, Mama, we just oughta keep our mouths shut and not tell anybody. Just in case. That way we could keep it, couldn’t we?”
“You seem awful concerned about that money,” Wanda Nell observed. “If your daddy’d still had it with him, the police would’ve found it. They hadn’t said anything to me about it, but I can ask.” Then a thought struck her, and she stared hard at Miranda.
“You sure you don’t know something about that money, Miranda? Is that why you’re asking all these questions about it?”
Miranda’s eyes widened. “Uh, no, Mama, I don’t know nothing about it, I swear. I just remembered it, and I got to wondering. You know. It sure would come in handy, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, it would,” Wanda Nell said shortly. “In the meantime, what did you do with the money I saw your daddy give you?”
Miranda got shifty-eyed, a look Wanda Nell knew only too well from years of experience. “Aw, Miranda, don’t tell me you done spent all of it already? On what, for heaven’s sake?”
Not meeting her mother’s gaze, Miranda mumbled, “I kinda loaned it to somebody.”
“What?’ Wanda Nell said. “What d’you mean, you loaned it to somebody?” She shook her head. “Tell me you didn’t give the money to that sorry friend of yours Chanelle. You’ll never get it back.”
“No, Mama,” Miranda said, “I didn’t loan it to Chanelle.”
“Then who?” Wanda Nell demanded. “Tell me who!” “She loaned it to me, Mama,” a deep voice spoke from behind Wanda Nell, nearly scaring the life out of her.
“T.J.!” Wanda Nell couldn’t believe her eyes. “Where’d you come from?”
Chapter 10
Wanda Nell couldn’t get over the change in her son. The shoulder-length hair was gone, replaced by a short cut that made his handsome face easier to notice. Gone also was the scraggly beard he used to wear, though he still sported an earring—a small gold hoop—in his left ear. His jeans were neat and clean, his shirt didn’t sport some obscene picture, and his cowboy boots, though worn, shone with a high polish.
Her eyes filling with tears, Wanda Nell stared up into his face as he stepped closer to her. Uncertain of his welcome, T.J. hung back a little at the last minute, until Wanda Nell opened her arms. T.J. pulled his mother close to him.
Sobbing against his shoulder, Wanda Nell clutched T.J. hard against her. TJ.’s big hand caressed her hair lightly as he rested his chin on the top of her head. “It’s okay, Mama. I’m glad to see you, too.”
Pulling back a little, Wanda Nell tilted her head and met his gaze. He was crying, too. She hugged him fiercely again. “I’m so glad you’re home, honey,” she said, her voice muffled against his broad chest.
“So’m I, Mama, so’m I.”
Sniffling, Wanda Nell stepped back. “I just can’t get over the way you look, honey. It’s so different.”
T.J. grinned, and Wanda Nell’s heart turned over. He was the spitting image of his daddy at that age, except for the earring, and Wanda Nell had to shut her eyes for a moment to let the wave of emotion pass through.
“And clean, too, huh, Mama?” T.J. was laughing through his tears.
“Yeah, you clean up real good,” Juliet said, alternately laughing and crying. T.J. reached out to tousle her hair.
“Thanks, Bug,” he said, grinning happily, and Juliet simply laughed at the nickname she used to hate.
Wanda Nell collapsed into her chair. “How long’ve you been here, honey?” She fixed accusing glares on her
daughters in turn. “And how come y’all didn’t tell me he was here?”
“We wanted it to be a surprise, Mama,” Miranda said, wiping away a few tears of her own, “and we woulda told you soon’s you woke up, but we couldn’t with those cops here.” “Have you been hiding in Miranda’s room all this time?” Wanda Nell asked.
“I got here about two hours ago,” T.J. replied, sitting next to Miranda on the couch, “so it wasn’t too bad.” He made a face. “And I could see real quick Miranda still ain’t much on cleaning up her room.”
Miranda punched her brother lightly on the arm, and Lavon squealed and almost fell off her lap. T.J. reached for him and pulled the baby onto his own lap. “Come here, little guy, before your mama drops you on your head. We can’t let that happen to you, or you’ll be just like your silly old mama.” T.J. held his face close to Lavon’s and grinned while the baby explored his uncle’s face with small fingers. “Your mama got dropped on her head an awful lot when she was a baby, and that’s why she’s the way she is.”
Wanda Nell sat speechless while Miranda sputtered in outrage and Juliet howled with laughter. She had expected an entirely different reaction from T.J. when he caught sight of the color of his nephew’s skin. T.J. met her eyes as he gently pulled Lavon’s probing fingers away from his earring.
“I’ve learned a few things since the last time I saw you, Mama,” he said. He bent his head and kissed Lavon on the cheek. Lavon chattered away in the language that they were all still struggling to understand.
“I guess so,” Wanda Nell said slowly. It looked like the change in her son wasn’t just on the outside. Her heart lifted. Maybe her boy had finally grown up into a man.
“How long’ve you been in town, T.J.?” Wanda Nell asked.
For the first time, he wouldn’t look at her when he answered. “A few days, I guess. I had some things I wanted to take care of before I came to see you, Mama.”
Deciding not to press him for the moment, Wanda Nell merely responded, “Well, I’m just glad to see you, honey.” She hesitated. “I guess the girls told you about your daddy.” A shadow passed over TJ.’s face. Abruptly, he stood up and deposited Lavon in Miranda’s lap. “Randa, Bug, I need to talk to Mama alone for a little while. Y’all go on back to your rooms, okay?”
Flamingo Fatale (A Trailer Park Mystery Book 1) Page 13
