Return of the Dixie Deb (11 page)

“Is that what the police are going to think?”

“Do you blame them? It fits, doesn’t it?” He shifted back into gear and checked his rearview mirror. “We need to find cover for a while and try to figure this thing out. See who wants us out of the way and this investigation shut down.”

Chapter Nine

“I’m going to try this place up ahead.” Mac pointed to a whitewashed, cinder-block building off the side of the road. Two aging gas pumps stood in front. A flickering neon sign proclaimed the business to be the Alabama-Rama Cafe. “Maybe we can get a bite to eat and find a newspaper.”

She nodded wearily. It seemed a million years since she pushed herself out of bed at the Major’s and shuffled around Mac on the floor to search for painkillers in the bathroom. After that, the day had gotten really bad. The candy bars he’d brought back from his hike into town still lay in the plastic bag. Neither of them had had an appetite.

He pulled in beside the café and let the engine die. “You go on in. I’m going to use the restroom.” He nodded toward the back.

She pushed through the door into a small lunchroom pausing briefly to inhale a fragrance of sugar, salt, and grease. At the counter, an older woman in a tight-fitting pink uniform and hairnet looked up from filling salt and pepper shakers.

“Come on in, hon.” She stopped her work and scrutinized her. “I’m Etta Wertz. Looks like you’ve had a long day. What can I do for you?”

“Hi, I’m Jan. Yeah, it’s been pretty long. Just ice water right now, if you please.” She took one of the aging cracked vinyl stools at the counter. It was nice to see a friendly face. It’d been a while.

“Sure.” Etta turned to scoop a tall plastic tumbler in an ice bin and fill it with water. She placed it on the counter along with a straw.

“You just passing through?” she asked. “We’re kind of on the road between Nowhere and Nevermore out here.”

“Yeah, we’re um, from the Atlanta area.”

“Well, welcome to the Alabama-Rama. My husband Louis and I bought the diner some twenty years ago. Business is pretty slow this time of day. Most of our crowd comes at lunch. We do catfish dinners. Supper is mainly sandwiches and take-out for folks heading home.”

She took a slow sip of her water. Her neck and shoulders ached with tension. Outside, she could see Mac frowning as he walked around the car. He knelt beside one of the tires to examine it. Was there a problem? Just what they needed. The car looked like the odometer had turned over more than once.

She pulled a plastic-covered menu from the holder and opened it. The prices didn’t look too bad, but how long would their money last? Maybe she should have held on to a few bills from their disastrous heist.

“You and your husband having car trouble?”

“Oh, we’re not married!” She responded automatically, flushing. “He’s just a friend. We’re traveling together.”

Did that sound suspicious? Not in this day and age. She was letting her guilty conscience get the best of her.

She turned as the bell over the front door tinkled.

“Mac, this is Etta. She and her husband own the cafe.”

“Glad to meet you.” Etta smiled at him.

“Hi.” He slid onto the seat beside her. “Water looks good. Could you find a glass for me?’

“Is something wrong with the car?” she asked as Etta turned away.

“One tire is low. I think it just needs some air.”

“The air hose is around the side.” Their waitress returned with his glass. “My husband is making a delivery for Maggie May down the road, but he’ll be back shortly.”

“I can do it. No problem.” He took a long drink, swirled the water and ice in his glass, and drank again. “So what looks good?”

“I don’t know. You decide.” She slid the menu over. “How are we fixed for funds?”

He grimaced. “Getting a little light. Don’t know how long we’ll have to stretch things.” He closed the menu and put it back in the holder.

“Ma’am,” he called to Etta at the other end of the counter. “Do you think you could get us a couple burgers with the works?”

“Sure thing.” She came over with her pad and wrote it down. “Anything else?”

“No, that’ll, well, maybe coffee. What about you, Jan?”

She shook her head.

Etta paused on her way back to the kitchen to greet two men in work clothes coming in. Did law enforcement ever drop by the café?

“We may be sleeping in the car tonight,” Mac said.

“Big change from the weekend.”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t know how much farther we can travel.” Mac glanced at the clock above the coffee urn. “It’s after five now.” He lowered his voice. “The pizza place should have opened up and noticed their car was gone. They’ve probably reported it as stolen.”

“Great.” She buried her face in her hands.

Etta returned with Mac’s coffee.

“Cream?”

“Black is fine. Excuse me, do you get a paper here? A newspaper?”

“It should be here soon. We get
The Fawcett County Herald
. They usually deliver it about this time. Dennis,” she called to a man just entering. “I’ve got your take-out ready.”

“Fawcett Country?” she asked as Etta returned to the kitchen.

“I knew we were near it. We’re back on the Major’s home turf, although I figure it’s ten or fifteen miles north of here. I think that river we’ve been following along the levee is the same one that runs by the Major’s.”

He drank his coffee in silence as she played with her glass.

Her mouth watered as Etta returned with their plates. She thought he was hungry too by the way he grinned. It was the first time she’d seen him relax since the disaster in Titusville.

“Looks wonderful,” he told their server. From Etta’s smile in return, it looked like she wasn’t immune to Mac any more than most women probably were.

Transfixed she reached over to pick up the thick bun. The steaming meat dripped juices down onto the crisp lettuce, sweet onion, and red tomato. She took a bite and didn’t stop till Etta returned with two dishes of coleslaw and a plate heaped with golden, fried-cornmeal balls.

“It’s just hush puppies and slaw from lunch. They’re no good left over so help yourselves.” Etta waved off their thanks. “Enjoy,” she said as she went over to ring up a sale at the cash register.

Mac was finishing the hush puppies when a pick-up pulled up beside the door. A young man got out of the truck and reached in the back to pick up a load of newspapers. He brought them in to sit beside the cash register and paused to talk to Etta.

“Let’s see what the news is,” Mac said.

She laid her fork down as he went to get a newspaper, stopping to look at the front page as he put some change in a glass bowl. Mac’s face was grim as he sat down beside her.

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She pushed her dishes to the side as Mac spread the paper out between them.

She stared at the picture at the top of the page, forgetting to breathe. The photo showed the burned-out frame of a car sitting alone on the blacktop, a group of men standing to one side.

Mac fingered a man in a suit, his back to the camera.

Warren Whittaker.

She moistened her lips and looked again at the headline. It hadn’t changed—F.B.I. Agent Injured in Titusville Explosion.

She drew a long breath as Mac bent over to read.

“Special Agent Jacob Derossiers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was critically injured today in the explosion of a car in the parking lot of the Titusville, Georgia, Savings and Loan. The F.B.I. had been called to the scene to investigate the robbery earlier that day as part of an on-going investigation of similar crimes. The robbers, a man and woman, fled the scene in a local delivery truck leaving their original getaway vehicle locked with the keys inside.

“Agent Derossiers was attempting to gain entry into the car when he inadvertently triggered an explosive device left behind by the couple. He was airlifted to a burn center in Atlanta where he is listed in critical, but stable, condition.”

Critical? She shaded her eyes for an instant. Beside her, she felt Mac bow his head in his fists.

She opened her eyes and continued reading.

“Authorities have not yet released figures as to how much was taken in the robbery. Cash reserves at the bank had recently been increased due to building activity in the Titusville area. Law enforcement officials are reviewing surveillance tapes of the robbery taken in the bank, but it is believed the pair is also responsible for a series of robberies this summer across Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. Dubbed the new Dixie Deb, the well-dressed woman, along with her silent male companion, have apparently patterned themselves on the original Dixie Deb robbers of a quarter-century ago. That couple, involved in similar bank robberies, disappeared at the height of their notoriety and the case was never solved.

“An APB has been issued for the Titusville Feed and Seed delivery truck the pair stole in Titusville—Georgia plates GA 127VIK. The couple is to be considered armed and dangerous. Please do not approach them—just contact your local 911 dispatcher. An F.B.I. spokesman said the pair may have been carrying explosives with the intent of blowing up the vehicle and staging their own disappearance with the proceeds from their crimes.”

“So what about dessert?” Etta refilled Mac’s coffee cup.

As casually as she could, Jan turned the page.

“I think we’ll pass.” Mac cleared his throat.

“Okay. I’ll bring your ticket. Find anything in the paper?”

Mac flipped the pages to the inside.

“Not really. We were looking for some kind of local jobs, quick cash, you know. We’re a little short on funds right now.”

Etta put her coffee pot down on the counter and looked sympathetic.

“Well, I might be able to put you on to something if you aren’t too picky. Louis should be back soon from Maggie’s. That’s Maggie May’s Trout Farm just down the road a piece before you come to the old sorghum mill. She needed some extra help out at the hatchery, and Louis went down to lend a hand with the evening chores. He should be back anytime now. Maggie had a couple high school boys there, but summer conditioning for football has started and she’s short-handed.”

“Sounds great.”

“That’s Louis pulling in now. Come out with me and I’ll introduce you. Maybe he can take you down to Maggie’s and you can talk to her.”

“Okay. Jan if you want to stay here, I’ll be back soon.”

She nodded as Mac laid a bill on the counter and followed Etta out to the parking lot where a hefty, middle-aged man in overalls was getting out of a pick-up truck.

She folded the paper and placed it picture side down on the counter. Finishing her water, she stood up and stretched before going in search of the restroom.

Mac and the man in the pick-up were gone when she returned. Collecting their dishes, she returned them to the kitchen where Etta was loading the dishwasher.

“Thank you. You didn’t need to do that.”

“I don’t mind. I’m just waiting on Mac.”

“Yeah, Louis is giving him a lift down to Maggie’s. You folks got somewhere to stay tonight?” Etta straightened up and studied her.

“No, we ah…” How to explain? She picked up glasses and handed them to the woman who was filling the top tray, playing for time. “We left in pretty much of a hurry. It was kind of an emergency.”

“You’re a nice looking couple. Him big and solid, you willowy and graceful.”

Willowy and graceful. That was a nice way to put it. Better than calling her Sticks and Bones as they had in junior high when suddenly she had towered over the boys in her eighth-grade class.

“Thank you. Not everyone sees it that way.”

“I was kind of that way myself before I starting eating too much of Louis’ cooking.” Etta added soap powder to the dishwasher. “So you leaving someone behind? You were doing a real job on your fingernails out there.”

“Well.” Maybe that could be an explanation for their time on the run. “My ex-boyfriend wasn’t the nicest person. Mac pretty much rode to the rescue.”

Etta nodded sagely. “Thirty years of waitressing, you can tell a lot about people. Your man now, he’s the quiet, silent kind. Keeps things bottled up, but that don’t mean he doesn’t feel them. He’s the protective type. I thought you seemed scared when you came in.”

She didn’t know the half of it.

“So your ex, was he abusive?”

She started to shake her head, then stopped. Emotionally, perhaps Tim had been. To keep her dangling while years went by and he checked off the goals he’d set for himself. Maybe the time since he’d broken things off had given her the opportunity to see what friends and family had hinted at even before Pammy had entered the scene. Years invested in the relationship had convinced her to stay, to overlook the subtle digs and put-downs that had slowly eroded her sense of worth. Maybe play-acting as the Dixie Deb had given her a little more backbone.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish. Sometimes you just gotta head on out and keep going.” Etta dried her hands on a towel. “Why don’t you come with me while I take the trash on out back? I might have an idea about something that can help the two of you get back on your feet.”

She helped Etta lug the black plastic trash bags to a dumpster in the rear of the café. In the west, the sun was setting in a rosy glow. A mockingbird began its evening serenade in the branches of a nearby pine.

“There’s an old cabin back here on the river.” Etta dusted her hands and led the way to an overgrown path away from the sounds of the road and the lights of the cafe. Their footsteps sank into the deep green moss. Wildflowers edged the way. She thought she recognized mountain phlox, trillium, and lady’s slipper.

“It isn’t much. Sometimes we have guests who want to rent it out for a couple days to do some fishing on the Braided River. No one’s here now so maybe the two of you could use it for a spell.”

Shooing a cloud of midges away, she followed Etta through the pines into a clearing. A small sun-bleached clapboard house stood in a clump of scrub pines. Down the sloping bank beyond the cabin, she could hear the tumble of the river as it fell over some rocks.