Calamity Jayne Goes to College (7 page)

"I got it. I got it!" I repeated, just as the multiton SUV lurched to a screaming stop.

Dixie managed to extricate her body from where it was wedged between the door and the floor and pulled herself onto the seat.

"I told you I had it," I said, all of a sudden feeling very shaky. I saw Dixie's hands reach out for me-- well, for my neck
anyway--and I scrambled up and out of the car and out of her range. "We'd better assess the situation before we decide on
a course of action." I said, leaning back in to turn the four-way flashers on.

"Just let me know when we can squeeze in a few minutes for me to put a hurt on you, would you?" Dixie said, slowly getting
out of the vehicle.

I decided it would be safer for the both of us if I kept my distance, and I walked the length of the Suburban, checking out
the sides and back. When I saw how close to going into the ditch--and possibly into a rollover--we'd been, I wiped a hand
over my eyes. Talk about too close for comfort.

I breathed a sigh of relief that nothing on the vehicle appeared to be damaged. Nothing except an even more strained relationship
with Frankie's fiancee, that is. We'd be a ton of fun at family reunions.

I walked along the sides of the dusty automobile several more times for good measure and finally smiled. "Not a scratch on
it," I pronounced. "Some dust and dirt is all. Nothing that a run through a car wash won't remedy."

"I thought you were banned from all the car washes in Knox County," Dixie said, looking a bit better now that it appeared
she wouldn't have to explain a crumpled fender or sprung chassis to her future father-in-law.

"Ah, but we're not in Knox County anymore," I pointed out.

"No, but it felt like I was in a freakin' cyclone back there for a while," Dixie said. "Your driving is worse than an amusement
park ride. No wonder your car looks like it's been used as a bumper car and has been around the block a time or two. And with
you, a block is an eternity. I was rolling around back there and shooting off the sides of the car like a pinball!"

The image brought a smile to my lips, but I quickly covered it with a cough. No sense provoking the little pinball any further.

"Sorry," I said again. "But you know if you'd been wearing your shoulder harness none of that would have happened. Good safety
tip to remember in the future," I added.

"Why, you--"

"Oh, would you look at the time! We'd better get back to Frankie. He'll just be worried sick about his little Dixie bear,"
I said, and heard the far-from-cuddly coed snarl. I shrugged.

Headlights appeared over the hill about a mile and a half down the road. We watched as the vehicle suddenly slowed and stopped.

"Maybe it's a cop," Dixie said.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. Not many doughnut shops on gravel roads," I said.

"Farmer?"

"Could be. Looks like a pickup."

"Could be Keith Gardner's pickup."

The vehicle slowly began to drive toward us. I was suddenly reminded of that movie
Christine,
with the out-of-control psycho car.

I joined Dixie near the front of the Suburban and we squinted at the car in the distance as it approached, still maintaining
a low speed.

"I don't like this," Dixie said, and for the second time that night I found myself agreeing with her. It had to be a record.

"It is kind of odd--in a Stephen King kind of way," I added.

In the time it took me to finish that sentence, the vehicle, now less than a half mile away, suddenly accelerated. I could
hear the rapid revving of the engine and the spinning tires attempting to gain traction on the loose gravel as the car bore
down on us. The headlights suddenly went off, but I could still hear the motor gaining power and speed. I caught a flash of
moonlight on the hood of the car as it barreled down on us, and a sudden short flash of light from inside the vehicle.

"Son of a--jump!" I screamed, grabbing the barrellike girl beside me. She was seemingly nailed to the road, but I used one
of those body-jarring moves football defenders use to illegally take receivers out of a play--and hopefully out of the game.
I thrust my arms out at waist level and shoved Dixie as hard as I could in the direction of the ditch, hurling myself headfirst
behind her just as the car screamed by. The sound of metal scratching metal accompanied my less than graceful dive into the
depths of the ditch.

I lay there a few minutes, taking stock, recalling another time I'd taken refuge in a dark, water-filled ditch and how that
had all turned out. It was not a comforting walk down memory lane.

I remained prone, listening to the sound of my own harsh alto breathing in discordant cadence with Dixie's bass breaths.

"You all right?" I asked after a few minutes.

"I'll live," Dixie replied. "I have to. 'Cause as soon as I feel up to it, I am so gonna put a hurt on you," she told me.

I grunted. "Take a number," I said.

CHAPTER 5

Once we dragged ourselves out of the weeds and pulled ourselves together, we met up again at the front of Uncle Frank's Suburban.
The other vehicle was gone.

"So, what did you see?" I asked Dixie. "It was Keith Gardner, wasn't it? Did you happen to get the plate number of the truck?"

"Uh, let's see," Dixie said. "I have this monstrous truck accelerating straight for me, do I take the time to record a plate
number? Hell, no, I didn't see the plate. What about you?"

I shook my head. I had just learned what they meant by the term "paralyzed by fear." It sucked.

"I'm pretty sure it was Keith Gardner, though," I said. "Too coincidental not to be. We'd just followed him onto this road.
He was driving a dark blue pickup. And, like you said, the truck was heading straight for you, not me. He'd do that, you being
in his class and all." For once I was content to be left out.

"That makes me feel so much better," Dixie said.

"Ohmigosh! Do you know what this means? We've just experienced the next 'by-the-book' crime!" I told Dixie. "Hit-and-run!
With attempted vehicular homicide thrown in as an added bonus."

"You can quit making me feel better any time, Turner," Dixie said.

I nodded. "Okay. Then you can check out Frank's vehicle," I told her, motioning toward the passenger side of the car. "After
all, you're gonna be one of the family."

"What? No way! You're already one of the family, so you do it," she said. "Besides, after this little demolition derby, the
chances I'll become a Barlowe any time soon have probably bit the dust as well."

I sighed. "Fine," I said. "I'll do it."

I rotated my head to crack the tension from my neck and straightened my spine. I took a deep breath. Suck it up, Tressa. You
can do this, I told myself. Besides. How bad could it be?

Bad, I decided. Very bad, I revised as I stepped around the front of the truck and discovered the passenger-side rearview
mirror was missing and a long, nasty scratch ran the distance of the passenger door.

"Bastard!" I hissed as I bent over to pick up the busted part. I looked at my reflection in the cracked mirror, wondering
if it was a vision of the Tressa to come when Uncle Frank was through with her.

We'd just decided to stay put and call the police to report the hit-and-run when Frankie's phone started chirping from the
front seat of the Suburban.

"Get it!" I said when Dixie made no move to answer.

"Forget it. What if it's Frank? Or Frankie? Or my dad? No way."

I grabbed the phone and checked the incoming number but it was no help.

"H'lo?" I said.

"What's going on? Where the hell are you and where the hell is my dad's Suburban?" It was Frankie.

"Aren't you going to ask about your fiancee?" I asked. "Don't you want to talk to Dixie?"

Dixie made a slashing motion around the area of her neck and then pointed to mine.

"What is going on, Tressa? Where are you?"

"Uh, are you still at the Campus Security office?" I asked, prolonging the inevitable due to sheer cowardice.

"Where else would I be? You have my vehicle."

"Yeah, about that, Frankie...," I started. "Could you have security contact the state police"--I
so
had a better track record with the state than the county--"and tell them there is a report of a ten-fifty p.d. about two
miles east of Highway 69 on the second--or is it the third--gravel north of Carver College Road?"

I held the phone away from my ear to protect my auditory nerve from damage resulting from the shrieks and screams coming from
the cell phone. I held it out to Dixie.

"He wants to speak to you," I said.

Eventually a squad car pulled up to our location. By this time I'd gotten real used to hearing "I knew it, I knew it," complete
with knuckle-cracking and murderous looks intended to intimidate aimed in my direction by Dixie the disgruntled. When I spotted
the light brown patrol car and recognized the badge number inside the cute little red stars, my lower lip began to tremble.

Patrick stepped out of the cruiser and headed in my direction and I found myself walking right into his arms. They closed
around me.

"Frankie called," he said. "He took a chance I was still on duty. I was just heading home when I got his call."

I sniffled, my nose at badge level.

"I can explain everything," I said.

Patrick gave my back a rub. "Don't worry. I'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to explain your actions," he said.

And, as luck would have it, I'd had lots of experience doing just that. Sigh.

Frankie arrived at the scene a few minutes later. I bit my lip when he ran first not to his bountiful betrothed, but to his
borrowed bucket of bolts. From Dixie's unhappy expression, Frankie's misplaced priorities weren't lost on her either.

I almost teared up again when I saw that familiar, somewhat dazed, hangdog look on Frankie's face as he held the Suburban's
mashed mirror in his hands and stared at his distorted reflection in the cracked glass. I felt like something left on my cowboy
boot after a walk through the barnyard after a rain.

I walked over and gently pried the mirror from his impossibly tight grip and handed it to the trooper, who then put it out
of sight.

"I know this looks bad, Frankie," I said, "but it's really only the mirror and the one door that's dinged. And see!" I opened
the damaged door and closed it, then opened it again. "It works just fine. And there is a silver lining, you know. We've nabbed
the campus criminal! We know who it is! So when they arrest him for the dirty deeds on campus, they'll charge him with hit-and-run
and Uncle Frank will be able to get him to pay for damages!" I tend to chatter when I'm nervous. Or when I'm trying to make
myself feel better. Sometimes it takes a lot of words to accomplish that.

I saw a muscle bunch in Frankie's cheek and, although it was hard to tell in the limited light, his face appeared to take
on a rather sickly shade of gray, his eyes as big as our ancient librarian's behind her pop-bottle-bottom glasses. A woman
so blind she never noticed patrons visiting inappropriate sites on the library computers. Or dropping bits of chocolate-flavored
Ex-Lax in poor little Hamlet the Hamster's cage. Or leaving snarky notes in all the how-to sex manuals for horny library patrons
to discover. (Hey, it's not as if there was a heckuva lot for kids to do in good ol' Grandville, USA, folks. And back then
I was easily bored. And hated being stuck at the library. And I wasn't the mature, thoughtful, considerate young woman I am
today. Uh, I heard that snickering. Don't make me come over there.)

"Uh, Frankie? Bud? You okay?" I asked.

Frankie's shoulders began to jerk up and down. He suddenly let out a long, loud gasp and clutched his chest.

"Frankie!" Dixie yelled and grabbed his hand. "Frankie, what's wrong?"

His breaths now came in shallow, rapid bursts of air, kind of like you find in childbirth classes. "He's having a seizure!"
Dixie screamed, and Frankie's eyes, if possible, grew even bigger.

"No! He's hyperventilating!" Patrick said.

I'd seen enough shows on TV to know just what to do. I pushed Frankie into the front seat of the Suburban and shoved his head
between his knees.

"Breathe. Breathe," I coached. "That's it. Nice and easy."

"Here." Patrick had left and returned with an empty McDonald's sack. It smelled of a Big Mac and fries. Ah, a man after my
own heart. "Put it over his nose and mouth so he can breathe into it."

I yanked Frankie back to a sitting position.

"Slow now, Frankie," Patrick urged. "Nice and slow."

"Is he all right?"

A woman had joined us at the Suburban. Really tall and broad-shouldered with short dark hair, she dwarfed poor Dixie by a
good half foot. I looked down to see if she was wearing three-inch heels--I always check out the shoes--and was surprised
to find what looked like pricey Manolo Blahniks two-inch tan suede bow pumps on her feet. (I go online sometimes to drool
and dream.)

"Professor Billings?" Dixie greeted the newcomer. "What are you doing here?"

I took a closer look at the fashionable newcomer. So this was the professor whose lesson plan was being used as a blueprint
for the campus crime wave.

"Barb." Patrick nodded at the professor.

"Hello, Dixie. Patrick." She acknowledged the greetings. "Is he going to be all right?" She motioned at Frankie, who was still
holding the Mickey D's bag to his nose and mouth. When he saw his professor, he dropped the bag and looked up with one of
those guilty faces you expect to find on a high school kid who's just been caught smoking on school grounds. Uh, or so I've
heard.

"I'm fine," Frankie said, his dilated pupils saying otherwise. "I just got a little light-headed there. I didn't eat much
supper and I'm a tad hypoglycemic."

I looked at Frankie with admiration. That was a pretty good recovery considering it was on the fly and all. I'd have to remember
that one. Except I wasn't hypoglycemic. And I rarely ate too little at mealtimes.

"What happened here?" Professor Billings asked.

"One of your students nearly had two one-of-a-kind human hood ornaments, that's what," I told her.

"Who are you and what on earth are you talking about?" the professor asked, giving me the same onceover I'd given her earlier.

"I'm Tressa Turner. I'm an investigative reporter." Okay, okay. So I gave myself a little promotion there. I was earnestly
trying to follow the tenets of that motivational infomercial I mentioned earlier. You remember. If you perceive it, you can
achieve it. Unfortunately, the infomercial host didn't quite cover how you got other people to believe it. "What I'm talking
about is Keith Gardner and his no-budget production of
Denting Ms. Dixie,
and how he almost plowed the two of us over," I told her.

"Keith Gardner?" She shook her head. "I don't understand."

Poor woman. One couldn't really blame her. After all, she probably only held a master's degree. Or two.

"Join the club," Frankie said, giving me an aggrieved look.

"I promise we're going to get to the bottom of this," Patrick said, bringing out the legal pad much as he had the first time
we met. Ah, memories. "Okay, ladies," Patrick said. "Let's start from the top."

We filled the handsome trooper in on the events leading up to the hit-and-run, including Keith's criminal record, our suspicions,
the short pursuit that I refused to characterize as a chase, and the fact that the driver of the vehicle had deliberately
aimed for us-- and the Suburban--and fled the scene.

"Did you get a look at the driver? Plate number?" Patrick asked.

I looked at Dixie. "I was too busy pushing
that
out of the path of the oncoming vehicle," I said, pointing to Dixie's ample behind. "It kinda filled my field of vision,
you know."

Frankie got out of the car. His gait was unsteady as he moved over to me. "You mean you saved Dixie's life?" he asked. I blinked.
I'd never stopped to think about it in those terms, but now? Now that Frankie had introduced the possibility of real honest-to-goodness
heroism on my part--well, contrary to what you may have been led to believe, my mama didn't raise no dummies, and I planned
to milk this particular cow till its teats fell off.

"Well, I suppose you could say that," I said, trying not to sound too eager to take credit for said heroic feat. "But I didn't
do anything that any other loving, caring, supportive, potential family member wouldn't have done."

A loud snort could be heard from the direction of Frankie's apparently less than grateful fiancee.

"You seem to forget if you had followed my advice, I wouldn't have been out here in the boonies in the path of that maniac
in the first place," she pointed out.

"Yes, but we wouldn't have been any closer to finding out who is terrorizing your classmates and campus either," I responded.
"I'm sure you've heard of 'the greater good,' Dixie, and it's just your recent brush with death, which was narrowly averted
by my swift actions and quick reflexes, that is clouding your assessment of the situation right now. I, like, so totally understand,"
I assured her.

All of a sudden I felt like I was in a remake of the horror flick
A Howling in the Woods,
as Dixie let out this shrill from-yer-gut growl and went for my throat. Patrick and Frankie restrained her before I had to
put the hurt on. Lucky for her.

Once Dixie calmed down, Patrick returned to his patrol car to run Keith Gardner through the system. I decided to accompany
him rather than risk further incidents with Dixie.

I sat in the front seat of Patrick's cruiser while he fiddled on his computer.

"Your car smells much better than the other patrol cars I've been in," I told him. "Knox County's cars smell like dirty sweat
socks and stale coffee. What do you use this for?" I asked, reaching out to pick up a stopwatch and click it on.

"Speed enforcement," he said, and took it from me and put it back where I'd found it. "I time speeders through predetermined
and measured speed zones. Like the airplanes do, only from the ground."

"Sweet," I said. "What about this?" I picked up a plastic case and opened it. There was an assortment of instruments like
compasses and protractors and little plastic stencil thingies. I took the metal compass out and snapped it open and closed
a couple of times.

"Technical accident investigation," he explained, and took the math tool from me, replaced it, and stuck the case in the backseat.

"Interesting," I said. I flipped his passenger-side visor down and found myself staring at a picture of the handsome trooper
at the fairgrounds with his arm around a very attractive blonde.

I looked at the trooper. "Care to explain this?" I said, holding out the picture to the trooper.

He looked at the snapshot, paused for a fraction of a second, and shrugged. "It's a photo," he said.

I frowned. "I know it's a photo, but what's it doing here?"