Drive Thru Murder

by Colleen Mooney

“You could add some bread pudding to that bag if you like,” I said.

  “Yeah, you know Sherry be your momma’s pet. If I’d known this all was gonna go down, I would’a put more bourbon in my bread pudding for your daddy,” Woozie said shaking her head and filling up my take home bag. “Your momma always be on him if he take a glass of whiskey.”

  My mother thought everything that could go wrong in the world was my fault. Not just wrong in our house—wrong in the world. She even blamed me for having a stripper’s name even though I often asked her how could I have picked out my own name?

  “I came over here, mainly because you called me, but I witnessed a kidnapping and shooting at CluckIt last night,” I said. “I kinda need some Woozie love. The person that was shot didn’t make it.”

  “That CluckIt on Claiborne?” Woozie stopped putting food in the bag to look at me. “What you be doing in dat place anytime, day or night? That a bad section of town at night.”

  She grabbed me and pulled me into her six-foot-four, two hundred thirty-pound bear hug. Buried in Woozie’s arms I could hear her saying in a prayerful voice,

  “Lawd have mercy, you coulda’ been shot your own self and taken away from me. Lawd, Lawd.”

  She rocked us both back and forth until I managed to untangle myself from her. She went back to putting even more food in the bag for me. Food was the answer to all problems according to Woozie.

  “I’m OK. See? All in one piece,” I said twirling in a circle so she could do a complete exam. “It was late after Suzanne and I finished moving so I gave her a ride to work. It was on my way home and I was hungry. I didn’t plan on getting out of the car.”

  “You got outta your car? Oh Lawd,” Woozie’s voice was shaky. She stood looking at me with her hands on her hips.

  “You sound like Dante,” I said. “He came when I called 9-1-1.”

  “Dante be there too?” Woozie was doing a big eye roll saying, “Oh Lawd, why you keep yourself tied up with Dante when that nice fella, the one you kissed in the parade…”

  “Jiff.”

  “Right. Jiff. He loves you, baby. He can give you everything you want.”

  “Woozie, Dante’s a good guy.”

  “Dante is a good guy for somebody else. He don’t know he got a good thing right under his nose. Woozie thinks he not good enough for you,” she said putting something else she thought I needed to eat in the bag.

  My head popped back and I looked at her with eyes wide open.

  “Now, right there, Woozie said it.” Woozie always spoke of herself in the third person when she thought what she was saying was important or she was on the brink of getting in trouble.

  Woozie pointed toward the front of the house where the situation was unfolding and said, “You listen to me. This mess with Sherry and dem twins gonna get way bad before it get any better. And on top it all, dem twins be Dante’s brothers so he gonna take up for them. How dat gonna help you two? Huh?” She was facing me with her hands on her hips.

  “My life is a train wreck. I don’t even know if my boyfriend is my boyfriend. Dante’s always with a dead body when I need him,” I said and sat into a kitchen chair. “At lease Sherry’s life is going somewhere. My mother is gonna be miserable to live with if they don’t get married.”

  “Your momma be old school and won’t rest until she drives that bus to a church for them to get married,” Woozie said. “And I bet she gonna want a big, Catholic wedding wit all her girlfriends as bridesmaids, and won’t rest til she git’s it.”

  “Shhhh…” I said. “We don’t need to be adding to that out there.” I said. Just then, the voices in the living room started getting louder.

  “Don’t worry ’bout what your little sister be doing. You doing your own thing. You got your own life in your own place. You better off out dis house, away from next door. Now you decide things for your own self,” Woozie said. “You want your momma calling the shots for you like she gonna do for Sherry?”

  Woozie made a great point.

  She grabbed me by both shoulders and said, “You know, my boy, Silas, he works down in that French Quarter. He might have heard about dat CluckIt shooting and kidnapping. Silas seems to hear something about everything being a bartender down there. Give him a call.” Then she hugged me. “Silas know he better take care of you too.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “You better get back out there before they kills one another and I gots to clean up the blood,” Woozie said nodding toward the kitchen door to the dining room.

  “It won’t be the Diva. They might kill me if I go out there,” I said.

  “You the only one can talk sense to your daddy. Now go,” Woozie popped the dish towel she was holding at me, and I had to scamper to miss the snap.

  My dad was standing again, and his face was redder than a boiled crawfish.

  “So, Dad, maybe you and Mother should go over and talk to Mr. Albert and Miss Ruth and tell them what’s happened so they can help work it out with Sherry and their twins,” I said.

  Sherry was still crying, just regular tears, nothing over the top, but loud enough so we wouldn’t ask her any more questions. I had no patience for her when she wouldn’t help herself.

  “Maybe you should call Dante and get him to talk to the twins,” my mother snarled.

  “Why? Did she have sex with him too?” I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but it just popped out. I wasn’t even sorry it did as I squared off at my mother who was getting up from her chair. Years of her sanctimonious parenting on how nice girls should act was being called into question, and by Sherry no less.

  “Ok, you two,” Dad stood up holding an arm out at each of us with his hands bent at the wrist like he was stopping traffic at an intersection.

  “She’s acting like this is my fault,” I said to my dad knowing full well she was standing within earshot. “I don’t think anyone on this planet would think I was to blame other than her. But, you know what, I would call Dante, but he is in the middle of an investigation with multiple victims, one shooting and kidnapping I witnessed, but don’t worry about me.”

  The only way they would have paid any attention to my problem with CluckIt was if I got shot—okay, maybe not if I got shot—but definitely if I shot Dante. This news went right by them and didn’t even offer a minor distraction from Sherry’s predicament.

  I looked directly at my mother when I said, “So, since this happened on your watch—and remember, I don’t live here anymore—you need to help her handle it. I think it would be prudent for you both, or maybe just Dad, to go speak to them before one of the nosy neighbors hears about this and broadcasts it over the worldwide web.”

  “C’mon Sherry,” my mother started for the front door dragging my sister by the hand. My Dad reluctantly rose from his chair.

  “Sherry ought to stay here.” I grabbed Sherry’s other arm and sat her back at the dining room table. “Both sets of parents need to get out in front of this. Talk to the Deedlers, and try to come up with a solution, jointly, as two families willing to support your children. Remember, Miss Ruth thinks her boys do no wrong. If Sherry is over there crying, it will look like she is blaming them. Don’t let it sound like that.”

  “Oh, now you’re going to tell us how to be parents?” This from the mother of the year.

  “Brandy’s right. We need to keep focused on what is in the best interest of our daughter and their son, or sons.” Dad said as he stood up and headed for the door.

  “I’m suggesting an approach that is not confrontational, so maybe, Mom, you better let Dad do the talking,” I said.

  She stormed out past my dad, and he hurried behind her to catch up.

  “At least you’re taking ownership of the situation,” I said to Sherry when they left. She wasn’t really, but this was as close as she had ever gotten. “Woozie!” I yelled.

  Woozie ran into the living room, opened one of the windows facing the Deedlers house and said, “Hush, I can see from the kitchen they got
one of their dining room windows cracked open. Maybe we’ll hear what’s going on.”

  Woozie and I ducked down below our dining room window to try and hear what was being said next door. Pleasantries were exchanged after the Deedlers answered the door and invited my parents into their living room. Well, that was about to come to an abrupt stop.

  “With any luck, maybe one of the twins will cop to it,” I said. I asked Sherry, “Whatever made you drop this on them like a ton of bricks? Why didn’t you come to talk to me first? Why didn’t you talk to both of the twins first? Maybe we could have come up with a different plan. I don’t know what I could’ve done to help, but I would’ve tried.”

  “Don’t be so high and mighty with me, Miss Know It All,” Sherry said looking at me with a smug look on her face. “I don’t need your help.”

  Woozie’s head and mine snapped around at the exact same time and we both asked, “What?”

  “You know they both think I’m so perfect,” she said. There were no tears or trembling voice, only an icy stare. “I told them I didn’t know which one because now they’re over there and Mr. Albert and Miz Ruth will surely make the one who got me pregnant marry me.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You manipulated them,” I said. “and us. All of us.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. She’d been manipulating everyone for years with the crying. She had snowed us all. I started to feel sorry for the twin who was going to wind up in the hot seat.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Woozie added and then she put a finger to her lips to shush us because now they were broadcasting from next door.

  We knew the second my parents dropped the bomb on them because Miss Ruth started screaming like a banshee and yelling for the twins to come downstairs. Woozie and I sat eavesdropping on the floor under the open window after we’d told Sherry to go upstairs to her room. I was so disgusted with her I didn’t even want to look at her.

  Woozie and I took turns running back and forth to the kitchen to look out our closed window because we could see straight into the Deedlers’ living room from there. No one at their house was paying attention to our house. We could see what they were doing from the kitchen, but we could hear what they were saying from the open dining room window. We took turns at each window.

  Nothing indicated my father or Mr. Albert would come to blows. Both dads’ personalities were more get along. Miss Ruth, on the other hand, was over the top in the reactionary department. When I was five years old and Dante was six, her boys wrapped me up in the living room velvet curtain and pushed me through the front plate glass window.

  The azaleas broke my fall, and I wasn’t hurt, but Miss Ruth thought I was dead. She started screaming until she passed out, fell and hit her head on the floor with a loud thump. The boys thought she was dead and called 9-1-1. Chaos is the order of the day at the Deedler home. When she thought Dante and I broke up, she cried. She cries a lot, sort of like the Senior version of Sherry.

  On one of my kitchen jaunts, I could see Miss Ruth leaning back in a chair while my mother held a cold compress to her forehead. My mother never held a cold compress to my head when I was sick. My dad and Mr. Deedler were standing face-to-face looking intense.

  Woozie, under the dining room window, heard both boys called downstairs by their father. One confessed he was the one having sex with Sherry after Mr. Albert asked them point blank. Without hesitation one of the twins said it was him.

  Mr. Albert asked if both had sex with her, one said no, and the guilty twin admitted he told Sherry he was his brother after they had been intimate just to tease her. I’ll bet my conniving sister knew all along and used this against him, acting like she didn’t know she was having sex with the same twin.

  “This get Sherry out the hot seat,” Woozie said.

  “You think?” I asked Woozie in disbelief. “I don’t think either set of parents will feel like Sherry is less of a floozy. They think she thought she was having sex with both twins. We know she played him.”

  “All this time everyone thinks she like them dodo birds. She be a floozy all right. Your momma and daddy don’t know what kind, but Woozie got her number now. Humph,” she said shaking her head. “I do now. I sure have her number now.”

  “At least Romeo stood up to be the father. Now he’s responsible for contributing to the baby’s support.”

  “You watch,” Woozie was saying in a hushed voice. “As soon as this blows over, your momma and Miz Ruth gonna be stone crazy over a baby coming.”

  Woozie was right. My sister handed them a leftover fruitcake from last Christmas, and my mother and Miss Ruth would think they had been invited to the Queen of Rex’s Mardi Gras Brunch at The Boston Club.

  Just then there was a knock on the front door, and we both jumped. Thank God my parents didn’t just walk right in and catch us eavesdropping under the open window. I helped Woozie to her feet, and she went to answer the door. It was one of the twins.

  “I guess you be the baby daddy?” Woozie asked.

  “I’m here to see Sherry,” he stammered looking down at his feet.

  “Go on. She’s up in her room.” I said and pulled Woozie aside to let him pass. He darted looks at Woozie and me, then ran upstairs. I looked at Woozie and shrugged my shoulders, “Sherry has him snowed too.”

  “Looks like Miz Ruth is gonna get her wish after all,” Woozie said to me sashaying back to the kitchen twirling her dish towel over her head like she was leading a second line.

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “One of you girls is gonna marry one of her boys, but I think she still has her heart set on you marrying Dante.”

  “Please, don’t say that when my parents get back,” I said following Woozie to the kitchen.

  When the twin got back home, my parents must have taken the cue from his return that it was time for them to leave the Deedlers. My mother blasted through the front door like a storm trooper. My dad walked in and looked drained like he has just run a marathon. He plumped down in his favorite chair while my mother barked a litany of orders for Sherry to do after they get married.

  My mother issued a mandate that they were to live with my parents until the Deedler twin who wronged her (my mother’s exact words) got a job paying enough to support the three of them.

  “It might be four of them if she has twins,” Woozie yelled from the safety of the kitchen, and those knives. “He be a twin. She might be having twins.”

  Silence hung in the air while everyone seemed to ponder the very real possibility Sherry could be having twins.

  As I went out the front door, I heard Woozie yelling from the kitchen in a loud, happy voice, “Oh, good, there’s gonna be a baby in dis here house again. A baby—or two—make a home happy.”

  What bothered me the most was my little sister was probably getting married, if my mother had anything to do with it, and having a baby before me. The big shocker was she planned it. My little sister was doing something first, before me. I was the oldest. Up until now, I always did everything first. I figured I would be the first to get married and the first to have a baby. This was a new world order I found myself in. It was very disturbing how Sherry’s life took a leap forward while mine felt stuck in a big mud puddle. I wondered how Dante would react to this news and how it was going to affect us.

  Chapter Five

  It was late afternoon when I arrived home from my parents’ house and I found Dante leaning against his unmarked police car waiting for me. His arms were crossed and he was looking at something to the right of my front door. He was wearing his Ray Ban aviator sunglasses which made him look more like an FBI or DEA agent than a homicide detective.

  His jacket was off, most likely in the backseat of his car, and his blue button-down shirt was open at the neck, fitting tight across his chest and arms. It showed off his body and made someone think twice before tangling with him. I assumed he knew the latest family fiasco and was here to discuss it. Instead, when I walked up, I saw he was looking at a s
alt and pepper colored schnauzer tied to my front gate.

  “How did he get here?” I nodded toward the dog.

  “I don’t know. He was here when I pulled up,” he said. As I was about to walk past him toward the dog tied to my fence, he grabbed me and pulled me close to him.

  Although Dante could block out a nuclear disaster that lay a wasteland around us and keep working, it seemed like he was in too good of a mood to know what was going on back at his parents’ home where he still lived.

  “Should we move this inside, Detective?” I asked when he stopped kissing me but didn’t let go. Maybe the family news had him thinking of our future together.

  “I only have time for a cup of coffee,” he breathed in my ear.

  Or not.

  “Then you better quit doing that, or I’ll make you late for work,” I said.

  I secretly wished I could make him late for work, just once. Dante never would let himself get that distracted with me. Since high school Dante would come over to my house every morning and we’d have a cup of coffee on my porch before we took the streetcar to school. I always thought we’d have our own place and talk about our kids, our day and our future every morning. He was still in the habit of having coffee with me on his way to…wherever.

  The dog tied to the fence started barking. I leaned my head back and nodded toward the little guy. “I think the dog is paging me.” When Dante released his hold on me, I added, “Not too shabby, Detective, for two people known to each other.”

  “I knew I was going to take some heat for that. I only have a few minutes and I thought we could have a cup of coffee.”

  His attention went across the street to Sandra filling food bowls from the trunk of her burned-out car and setting them down on the ground as the cat rodeo got underway. He stared at her.

  He nodded his head toward her and said, “I see you have a cat lady living across the street. You need to tell her it’s illegal to have that many cats.”

  “You’re the law. You tell her. I don’t want to start off on a bad foot with my neighbors. Besides, she said the gal who lived here before me used to call the cops on her for all the good that did. The cats are still here.”