Small Town Trouble (15 page)

Amy sighed deeply, then she turned to me with a weary, but nice smile. “Wanna come in?”

Chapter 30

Part of me wanted to follow Amy into the Tudor, have a nightcap and a hot shower, then make love to her until the sun came up or the dentist got home, whichever came first. Another part of me wanted to check into the celibacy clinic for a good, long stay. Another part of me wanted to sit in a dry pair of pants in a quiet corner booth at Sparkie’s Lounge with Sherlock Holmes and figure out what the hell Charlene and Officer Mike were up to. Tonight’s developments had certainly been
interesting
, but we still weren’t any closer to getting Rick Rod off the hot seat, a chair I was becoming more convinced that he didn’t belong in.

“Thanks, but better not.”

Amy nodded like she understood, then she glanced up at the dark house and hesitated before getting out of the car.

I reached over and touched her hand. “Hey, you gonna be all right?

Amy managed another smile. “Sure. And thanks,” she said, placing her hand on mine, “for everything.”

I almost changed my mind. I came
that
close. “Night, Amy.”

Tara was as dark as Amy’s Terrace Park Tudor. Quietly, so as not to wake my sleeping mother, I let myself in the front door. I tiptoed upstairs, changed into some dry clothes, then made a beeline for A.C.‘s bar. I’d have that nightcap, then a hot shower and go straight to bed, alone. I poured a healthy shot of Old Crow into a Cincinnati Reds World Series Champs bar glass, pulled up a stool and settled in to let the whiskey work its magic.

When I was just about ready to pour myself a second round, the phone on the bar rang. Maybe Amy was having a little trouble unwinding, too. I snatched up the receiver.

“Hello?”

There was dead silence on the other end of the line.

I repeated myself. “
Hello?”

I was thinking it was a computer-generated sales call from a computer working late, trying to impress the boss, and was just about to disconnect when a muffled and definitely creepy voice came over the line.

“Kim Claypoole?”

I couldn’t tell for sure if the caller was male or female. Whichever, they sounded like they were calling from a phone booth in Hell and talking through Jason’s hockey mask.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

The caller took a long, raspy, Godfather-like breath. “You and your little girlfriend better back off. Got it?”

“
Who is this?
”

The line went dead. “Swell,” I said to the shrunken head swinging there next to the phone, like I needed
that
. I hung up and poured another drink. “Care to join me?” But the homely, shriveled skull acted like he didn’t even hear me.

I’d been on the receiving end of a few threatening phone calls in my time, and none of them, including the one that was no doubt yet to come from Nancy Merit’s husband Dickhead, had
enjoyable
written all over them, but there was something especially eerie about the last caller’s voice. It wasn’t so much the message he or she had passed along, although I wasn’t crazy about that either. I didn’t want to get carried away, but the caller sounded truly evil, like the Prince or Princess of Darkness on an especially bad prom night.

“So,” I said to Mr. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, “looks like I’m not paranoid after all. We
were
being followed tonight.”

Sometimes the only thing to do at the end of a long and particularly trying day is to crawl into bed and snuggle in next to a gnarly, snoring, foul-breathed Pekingese.

Chapter 31

The next morning after I’d hauled myself out of the rack, I hiked downstairs, made coffee, then went out on the back patio and found Evelyn in her shorts and a sun hat, working in her rose garden.

“Morning,” I said, standing barefoot on the warm patio, sipping a cup of hot java.

“More like afternoon, wouldn’t you say?” The sun was high overhead. It was just past noon and hot as hell again. “What were you doing out all night?”

“I wasn’t out
all night.”
I was sixteen all over again, getting the parental grilling for slipping in past curfew. I shrugged. “I was hanging out with Amy.” That seemed a sufficient explanation for a girl my age.

Evelyn yanked up a handful of weeds and tossed them into her plastic weeding bucket. “I still say that nothing good happens after midnight.”

“You may have something there.”

Evelyn gave me a wary look, then went back to her weeding. “You’d think with all the attention these roses get, they’d look better. Hand me the pruners.” I passed Evelyn her Felcos and sat down at the patio table, under the umbrella. I was content to watch Evelyn snip and spray for aphids and pull weeds while I finished my coffee and organized my thoughts. If I was the Day Planner type, I’d have pulled one out.

Food was first on the list. Then I’d get on the horn to Bud Upton and see if he’d talked with Larry White about our proposed live meeting. Hopefully, Bud had the stats on the scope of Larry White’s local real estate interests. After that, I’d make a friendly call on WFOG, then sneak off and do some daylight snooping around the back field.

I wasn’t going to let one little old threatening phone call get me down.

At some point in the near future I’d try to check in with Nancy Merit and see if she even remembered me. I also needed to touch base with Ted and check on things at the restaurant. I felt badly for leaving him short-handed during the busiest season, but I’d covered for Ted a time or two for personal reasons that even he’d admit weren’t half-way legitimate and he at least had Katrina which was more than I had at the moment.

Evelyn took a break, got herself a Diet Coke and joined me at the patio table.

“Nice hat,” I said. She did look kind of sweet and motherly in her gardening get-up.

“Oh, shut up.”

So much for sweet and motherly. Evelyn poured her Diet Coke in a tall glass of ice. “Alonzo and I are going to King’s Island after his shift. He’s got some free passes. Wanna come along?”

I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit a trip to the local amusement park into my busy schedule. In fact, I didn’t even want to try.

“They’ve got that new roller coaster. Alonzo’s dying to try it out. You know, a little fun might do us all some good.”

She had
that
part right, but a giddy romp through Hanna Barbara Land with my mother and Cousin Alonzo wasn’t going to fix my wagon.

“Thanks for the invite, but I’ve got some things to do.”

Evelyn eyeballed me suspiciously. “I sincerely hope that snooping around where you don’t belong isn’t on your list.”

I just grinned. “I’m starved. Ready for some lunch?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I am. Now, how about a nice BLT?” I’d spotted some whopper garden tomatoes that one of the neighbors had brought Evelyn, and I was looking forward to putting them next to some crispy bacon, lettuce and mayo.

“Fine, but no mayo on mine and don’t toast my bread.”

Evelyn was worse than a real customer. “No mayo, no toast. You got it.”

“Kimberly,” my mother said, catching my arm, “leave things well enough alone, will ya?”

Reassuringly, I patted her on her sunny, freckled shoulder. “Sure, Mom.” It wasn’t a lie, it was sarcasm.

The BLTs were outstanding. Evelyn went back to her gardening, I washed up the dishes and called Bud Upton’s office. Again, his secretary put me right through. Why wasn’t I dating Bud Upton? He was much easier to get a hold of than Nancy Merit.

Bud was chipper and all business. Yes, he’d talked with Larry White. “Larry says he’ll check his schedule and get back to us,” Bud said. “I did reiterate that a face-to-face meeting was an integral part of this deal, don’t think he liked it much, and as for his real estate wish list? There are four pieces of land and isn’t
this
interesting? The other two properties are smack dab between WFOG and the Deloziers’. One was Ken Soesbe’s place, the other, a little piece of land Scotty Mink owned and everyone has sold to him now but us.

 
And Kim,” Bud said, moving papers around, “as your attorney, let me say that maybe
we
should take one last look at that option before we stir up any more dust?”

I sighed. It was tempting, but so were a lot of other things that would eventually rot one’s soul. “I don’t think so, Bud. No sale until we know more. Evelyn’s with me on this.”

“Well, then that’s how we’ll play it.”

“Thanks, Bud.”

“If this SOB really wants WFOG, looks like he’s going to have to show somebody’s face.”

“Well put.”

“Oh, one last thing. My brother Irvin says he’d love to have dinner. Check back with him in three to five.” It’s always nice to have something to look forward to.

Before I hit the road for WFOG, I rang Nancy Merit’s office. I don’t know if it was just my lucky day or if Shirley was taking lessons from Bud Upton’s secretary, but she put me right through to Nancy.

“Hello, gorgeous.”

There was a somewhat frigid pause. “Your concept of a breather is apparently very different than mine.”

“We can work around that, Nancy.”

She gave more of a snort than a laugh, but I could tell I’d put a crack in the ice.

“Go ahead,” I said, “admit it. You miss me, don’t you?”

“All right, I miss you,” she said, rather matter of factly.

“Now was that so difficult?”

“When
are
you gonna get your butt back here? Dickhead is actually trying to make nice. It’s sickening.”

“That
is
sickening.” I went on to tell her that I’d be back as soon I found out who was responsible for a couple of dead men with missing winkies, and how, if at all, that fit into Evelyn’s offer on WFOG.

“Don’t they have a police department there?”

“Sort of. It’s a long story.” Unfortunately, it seemed to be getting longer.

“Well, don’t lose
your
winkie over it.”

“Nancy, I don’t have a winkie, at least I didn’t the last time I checked.”

“You know what I mean, Bonehead. Now goodbye.”

I did know what she meant. After the creepy, unsettling phone call I’d gotten the night before, winkie or no winkie, I needed to play heads-up ball to ensure the continuation of my own vital signs and so did Amy.

Chapter 32

I dialed Amy’s home number and the dentist answered. He sounded pompous and anal, exactly as I expected. No, Amy wasn’t at home, she was teaching class and no, he didn’t know when she’d be back. Yes, he’d let her know I’d called. Have a nice day.

I could only hope that Dr. Smith had just stopped by the Tudor long enough to pick up clean underwear and he was already headed back home to Mommy or, at least he was off to the tennis court to have a heart attack. What
had
Amy been thinking when she’d married this guy?

I wasn’t looking forward to telling Amy about the threatening call. As it was, she had enough stress on her plate, but it wouldn’t be fair, or even safe, to leave her out in the cold. I figured that Amy couldn’t get herself into too much trouble conjugating French verbs with a roomful of first-year francophiles, but I left a message for her with the community college office secretary anyway.

The call to Ted could wait.

“See you later, Evelyn.” I headed out the door to the Toyota. WFOG was my destination. She looked up from her gardening and shook her finger at me. “Don’t forget what I said.”

“I won’t forget,” and I wouldn’t, but that didn’t mean I was going to take her advice. At this stage of the game, it was a little too late for that anyway. “Have fun at Kings Island,” I said, sliding on my Elvis shades and starting up the car.

“If you change your mind...,” she said.

I wouldn’t do that either.

I parked next to Abbott’s Dodge Charger in the gravel lot in front of the radio station. Either Abbott’s ghost was the DJ on duty or one of the boys had taken to driving the Dukemobile. I was itching to nose around the field, but that would have to come next. I’d found myself checking the rearview more than once on the drive over, but all I’d spotted was a ribbon of empty road, miles of rolling, green countryside and a baby-blue sky dotted with sheep-shaped clouds, a gratifying outing—almost.

The cooled air hit me immediately when I walked into WFOG and it felt good. It was probably close to 100 degrees outside again and the humidity was starting to get oppressive.

The music was loud and energetic. It was bluegrass instrumental, the good stuff. Cousin Alonzo waved to me, then nodded over at the fridge. “Grab yourself a cool one,” he said. “Be with you in a minute.”

“Thanks, Alonzo.” I took him up on his offer. Inside the fridge there were a couple of six-packs of Hudy Delight and a rotten banana. I grabbed a beer, popped it open, took a cold sip, then got comfy on the sofa. I settled back, enjoyed the icy beer and watched Alonzo for a while. Like probably nowhere else in his life, at WFOG he was confident, competent and totally at ease behind the controls. He’d been at this for years. It was kind of sad to think it might all come to an end.