Calamity Jayne and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Lawn Gnome (21 page)

He shook his head.

"All that roadkill and all. A heck of a mess."

"Road…
kill
?"

"You don't know?"

"Know…what?" Taylor said.

"The county's been out to Ray's," the trooper said, giving me a "the jig is up" look.

I sighed. I hear you loud and clear, Mr. Smokey Bear.

"What is he talking about, Tressa? What exactly happened to your car?"

I took a deep breath.

"Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away there was this beautiful young girl who had this not so reliable Reliant and—"

Once I'd recounted the gruesome story of "The Roadkill and the Reliant," I reached out and pushed Taylor's chin up to close her gaping mouth.

"Oh, God. That is sick!" she said. "Really sick! And that happened after we left

Cadwallader's?"

I nodded.

"Wait a minute. Are you talking about Dusty Cadwallader?" P.D. asked.

We nodded.

"You were out at his place last night?"

We nodded again.

"That is weird."

"Weird why exactly?" Well, apart from the obvious.

"Because Dusty's aunt in southern Missouri got what she termed a 'disturbing call' from Dusty last night, and when she tried to reach him this morning, there was no answer."

I shrugged.

"He's probably out retrieving his four-wheelers," I said.

"Would those be the four-wheelers that are sitting out in the woods a couple miles from his house?" P.D. asked, and I started to get a bad feeling.

"Wait. How do you know about the four-wheelers?" I asked.

"Because I just came from there. We conducted a welfare check for the family and couldn't find hide or hair of Dusty Cadwallader. His vehicles were there, but no Dusty."

I frowned.

"What exactly was it about the call to Dusty's aunt that bothered her so much she felt it necessary for law enforcement to do a welfare check?" Taylor thought to ask.

P.D. adjusted the strap on the back of his trooper hat.

"The last time Dusty's aunt spoke to your four-wheeling friend, Dusty, he was convinced he was about to be abducted by 'black-hooded beings from another dimension.'"

I heard Taylor's quick intake of breath.

From Smokey Bear to
Starship Trooper
in a single bound!

Eat your heart out, Superman.

"Where on earth do you suppose Dusty Cadwallader is?" Taylor asked once the handsome trooper had left us and gone into the high school.

"Where on earth?" I repeated and looked over at her to see if Taylor was making an
Otherworld
joke. She just nodded. I should have known better. Taylor is so…literal. "Maybe they just missed him. Dusty's got a lot of land. He could've been out walking the dog." I stopped. Roswell! "Dawkins didn't mention a dog, did he?" I asked Taylor.

She shook her head.

"So that could mean Roswell is with Dusty." For some reason that possibility made me feel better.

"Roswell?"

I nodded. "Dusty's dog."

She nodded. "So what's next then? You want me to drop you at the
Gazette
?"

I pulled the copies Taylor had made from my bag and flipped through them, eyeballing a group of girls who were making their way, rabbit food in hand, to one of the picnic tables on the high school lawn.

"You speak cheerleader, right?" I asked Taylor who'd been on the cheerleading squad until she'd decided the debate team was more her style.

"What?"

"You were a cheerleader once upon a time. You speak their language. How about we see what we can find out about little miss pink tornadoes from her homeys over there?"

Taylor's forehead crinkled.

"
Oo
kay. What's our angle?" she asked.

I thought for a second. Nothing.

"Most cheerleaders are attention seekers," Taylor said and gave me the eye. "Note I said 'most' cheerleaders, not all," she clarified. "Anyway, we might go in with the idea that you'd like to do a 'day in the life of' story about a cheerleader. That might provide enough of an 'in' for you to get the information you're after."

"That's good," I told Taylor. "That's very good. And if things work out, maybe I'll even pitch the idea to Stan."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Taylor asked.

I shook my head.

"What am I forgetting?"

"Someone tagged your car—oh, and upended heaping helpings of roadkill inside it. If Jada Garcia is involved and you start asking questions, it could get messier."

"But we don't even know for sure that they knew that was my car. It could have been a crime of opportunity. You know. Oh, cool. An abandoned car! Let's trash it! That kind of thing."

"And they just happened to have buckets of rotting roadkill on hand to dump in some unfortunate soul's car at random?" Taylor said. "I don't know. I've never been a big believer in coincidence."

One familial trait we shared.

Was it simply coincidence that Jada Garcia was dating Mick Dishman?

Or…perhaps.

"You don't suppose Manny's cousin could be involved in these incidents, do you?" I asked Taylor.

She shrugged. "I have no idea. I don't know the kid. But you do. What do you think?"

I shook my head. It was hard to picture a kid who—by hook or by crook—had somehow managed to whip enough votes to elect a girl called "Sasquatch" and a guy with the nickname "Tiny Tim" as homecoming queen and king.

By hook or by
crook
?

I swallowed, recalling how I'd first met Mick's Uncle Manny and wondering just how much a chip off the ol' block Mick might really be.

"Are you all right?" Taylor asked.

I nodded and held out my hands.

"Take me to your cheerleaders," I said.

She shook her head.

"Did you see the capri pants Bethany Adams has on?"

"Oh, God. Who wouldn't? They make her ass look wider than a billboard!"

"She ought to rent space out on her butt. She'd make a fortune!"

"What about Sofia Bedford's haircut? It's so short! She looks totally gay!"

"Maybe she
is
gay!"

"I heard she could go either way."

The girls at the table—three blondes, one redhead, and a brunette—laughed.

I lifted my gaze skyward.

"Dear Lord, save us from judgmental twits," I whispered.

"Shhh!" Taylor elbowed me.

I cleared my throat.

"Er, excuse me ladies. I'm sorry if I'm interrupting your grazing—" another sharp jab from Taylor, "er your meals, but I wonder if you could help me out. You see, I work for the
Grandville Gazette,
and I'm planning to do a 'day in the life of a cheerleader' type story and—"

"I know who you are," Kiera Radcliffe interrupted. "You're the ditzy reporter who discovers dead bodies and gets into all kinds of trouble with the law."

I frowned.

"As far as the dead bodies go, it was only the two and any investigative reporter worth their salt will inevitably butt heads with law enforcement," I said, recognizing a teaching moment when I saw it.

"Lois Lane here is also the reason Kylie didn't get homecoming queen last year, and Bigfoot and one of the seven dwarfs were elected instead."

"Now just a minute—"

Taylor grabbed my elbow and hauled me away from the danger zone.

"Let it go, Tressa. Obviously, Kiera here prefers to remain hostage to her sister's disappointing achievement record and has no personal aspiration to rise above Kylie's so-so performance. I totally get it. I really do. Sisters have to stick together, don't they, even if it's at the expense of the younger sister who is forced to remain at a rather mediocre level of recognition and achievement to protect her big sister's ego?"

I wasn't sure exactly which of Kiera's buttons Taylor meant to push by her little 'she's keeping you down, sister' mind game, but it seemed to be working.

"You want to do a story on us?" Natalie Jorgensen asked.

I looked at Taylor and she nodded.

"Yes. Both individually and collectively," Taylor said. "You see when I was cheerleading I got the distinct idea that nobody really appreciated the fact that cheerleading is also a sport and it requires just as much time, hard work, and guts to be successful as organized athletics." I'd have to be blindfolded to miss the pointed look Taylor gave me.

Okay, okay, so maybe I hadn't fully understood the level of commitment cheerleading required. It seemed to me shaking one's pom-poms and bootie while yelling out lame cheers wasn't all that taxing.

"You were a cheerleader?" Dani Colridge asked.

Taylor nodded.

"And we would be in the paper?" Portia Patterson asked.

"Of course. Pictures and quotes. A full spread," I said, thinking no way would Stan Rodgers go for an exposé on cheerleaders unless they wore crop tops and knee high boots and cheered for professional athletes.

"You can think about it, if you like," I said, pulling out a stack of business cards and handing them out. "I suppose I should speak with your coach—you know—clear it with her first."

"We have a new coach this year. Miss Banfield," Portia said.

"Oh. I see." I put a finger out and acted like I was counting heads. "Is one of you missing?" I asked.

"Jada. Jada Garcia. She's sick today." Natalie said, earning a glare from Kiera.

"Oh. That's too bad. I hope it's nothing serious," I said.

Nobody at the table said a word.

"Does Jada have a best friend or boyfriend or someone I could give this card to?" I asked.

"We'll pass it along," Kiera said.

"Fine." I turned to the brunette who'd remained silent and impassive the entire time. "You're Cissy, right? Cissy McCoy, squad leader? Here." I put the card on the table in front of her.

She slid the card back in my direction.

"No thanks. Not interested."

I frowned.

"Oh. Okay. That's fine. But if you should change your mind—" I slid the card in front of her again.

"I won't," she said and pushed the card in my direction a bit more forcefully.

"Keep it anyway," I said, sliding it back over to her. "Just in case."

"No. Thank. You." Cissy picked the card up, ripped it into four separate pieces, laid them back on the table in a stack, and pushed the stack over to me.

A long, ass awkward silence followed before the remaining four cheerleaders picked up their cards and performed the same exercise, ripping their cards and sliding the scraps to the middle of the table.

I blinked.

Interesting.

Before I could respond, I watched the cheerleaders' gazes slide past me.

"Can I help you, ladies?"

I turned.

Martina the Mentee, wearing snug white capri pants and a black-and-white striped V-neck T-shirt with a white camisole underneath, crossed her arms and cocked her head at us in a 'state your business please' kind of way.

"Oh, hello," I said. "We were just introducing ourselves to the girls here. We're thinking of doing a feature on cheerleading." I handed her a card. "I'm Tressa Turner. This is my sister, Taylor. And you are?"

She smiled. One of those big, bleachy, successful orthodontic treatment ones.

"Martina Banfield."

"Oh yes. I've heard of you," I said. "You must be Brian's mentee!"

She frowned.

"You know Brian?"

"Know him? Why, I was in his wedding just last year," I exclaimed. "Fabulous affair. Very elegant and classy. His wife, Kari, is my BFF," I added, giving her my own not-so-perfect grin right back.

"I see," she said, frowning down at the card in her hand.

"And you want to do a story on my cheerleaders?" she said.

"If that wouldn't be a problem," I said.

"The administration and parents might have an issue—"

"Oh, please! What parent wouldn't like to see their daughter showcased in the newspaper? And the school admin?" I made a raspberry sound and waved my hand. "They eat this kind of thing up." I moved closer and put a hand near my mouth in a conspiratorial move. "Makes the head honchos look good."

"Oh, yes. I see."

"Here's an extra business card," I handed her a second card. "For Jada. I understand she's under the weather. Poor girl. I told your girls I hope it's nothing serious, but they didn't seem to know very much."

"Oh, yes, well, I'm sure it's nothing serious," she said. "I'll see that she gets your card." She turned to the girls at the table. "Ladies, if you have a few minutes before the bell rings, I've got some changes in a routine for the donkey softball benefit tonight I'd like for you to look over. I'll be in my classroom."

I looked at her.

"You're performing at the county park tonight?" I asked.

She nodded. "We're cheering for the city team and doing a couple of routines. Why?"

"That's awesome! I'm covering the festivities. Hey, just a thought. Kari will be there, too. Maybe you'll get a chance to meet her. She's just the sweetest, nicest, most wonderful person. Just an all-round peach of a girl. Well, I guess we'll see you there! Ta-ta for now!" I gave her a fluttery little wave, and she walked away.

One-by-one the cheerleaders got up from the table and followed after her—leaving Cissy alone at the table.

"You coming, Cissy?" Kiera paused and called back to her fellow squad member.

Cissy raised her chin and looked up at me, giving me a cold look before she took a deep breath and let it out in a big ol'
whoosh
sending the business card scraps on the table flying off the edge and onto to the ground. She got to her feet, sending me another scary look for the road and walked away.

"That wasn't very 'sis, boom, bah' of her," I said to Taylor.

"Well, maybe the 'boom' part," Taylor replied. "You know. As in lower it."

I winced.

See Tressa.

See Tressa run.

Run, Tressa, run!

Taylor dropped me at the newspaper office. I'd catch a ride home with my dad, clean up, and head out to the park with Taylor who would be helping with concessions. Uncle Frank would donate a portion of his sales to the Historical Village fund. I was looking forward to covering the event.