T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality (15 page)

“Seriously.”

“Wow. That comes as a surprise. What woman wouldn’t want me all to herself, forever?”

I might have laughed aloud at his enormous ego if it weren’t a serious conversation. “This woman. I’m truly sorry, Bill, but I’m still not ready for a commitment.”

He shrugged at the paradigm, laughed. “Hey, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it. We still have major good times together, right? So
we’ll stay like we are and I’ll give you time to come around. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

I didn’t know if he’d said it to save face or if he was seriously intent on keeping me in his life until I succumbed. But I sensed that the quick conversation was the beginning of the end for me and Bill. Oddly, I didn’t feel too bad about it, especially after he captured my mouth with his and delivered a long and tantalizing kiss.

We broke the embrace when Spud emerged from the shop, shaking his head and talking to himself, just like I remembered him doing after he’d paid a stack of monthly household bills when I was a kid. He shuffled to the Chrysler and raised the hood.

“What’s he doing?” Bill said.

“Beats me. Checking out the job they did, I guess.” I was about to go take a look myself when Spud’s head emerged and he shot a thumbs-up signal to Bobby. The two of them climbed in the LHS and merged into the flow of traffic with Bobby behind the wheel. Bill and I fell in behind them.

We’d been driving about ten minutes when I noticed black smoke snaking from beneath the Chrysler’s hood. Strangely, Spud and Bobby high-fived each other after they pulled off the road. They ambled out of the LHS and we came to a stop behind them.

I pulled the Chrysler’s hood release and Bill opened it to reveal a mushroom cloud of opaque, pungent smoke. In the next instant, darting flames appeared. The engine was on fire and everyone instinctively moved away from the burning car.

“Well, this is ironic, Spud,” Bill said. “You just got it fixed and now this!” The fire grew and flames licked at the sky. I pulled out my phone to call 911 and ask the dispatcher if any tank trucks were in the area. We needed portable water for the surrounding grass and a dry chemical extinguisher might work on the car.

I flipped open the phone and checked the signal-strength bars. “I’ll call the fire department. That’s about all we can do.” I barely
got the 9 punched in when Spud snatched the cell phone from my hands.

“What did you do that for?”

“For crying out loud! Just let the stupid chunk of metal burn! That was the plan,” he yelled.

“The plan?”

“Yeah.” Bobby backed him up. “Hal and Trip told us how you could cut the fuel line to burn up your car. Just a little snip, then drive until the engine gets hot and there you have it.”

I felt like a mother looking at two eight-year-olds who’d just told me they climbed a water tower and spray-painted graffiti in bright orange neon because their friends told them to send a message to the aliens. They both acted as though sabotaging your own vehicle was a perfectly logical thing to do.

“Good grief, Spud!” I yelled at him. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that a man ought to be allowed to drive his car!” Something hissed and popped and abruptly the fire flared, sending us a few more steps away from the burning car. Still, the intense heat permeated the distance and seared into my skin.

I snatched the phone back from Spud. This time I got two numbers punched in before I was interrupted by the piercing whoop of a siren. A pickup truck screeched to a stop in front of the LHS and two young guys jumped out. One grabbed an extinguisher from an equipment box in the bed of the truck.

“Our timing must be good,” the first kid said. “Lucky for you, we happened to be driving by! We’re volunteer firefighters.” That explained the siren on an unmarked truck.

Spud jabbed his walking cane into the ground, barely missing his own toes. “Oh, damn it to hell! For crying out loud! They’ve got a fire extinguisher!” He threw out a few more curses and the kid looked confused. His buddy was already dousing the flames
with sweeping motions from a chemical foam extinguisher. They went out within a matter of seconds.

“What’s the problem, sir? We’re
helping
you,” the first kid said, spreading a flame-retardant blanket on top of the engine compartment to prevent the fire from flaring up again.

“For crying out loud,” Spud muttered, deflated. Even the previously animated walking cane hung limply at his side.

Bobby sighed. “I guess we’ll need a ride from you, Jersey.”

“You were planning on a ride from me, anyway, weren’t you?”

“Well, yeah. That’s why we did it when you were already behind us. That way we wouldn’t have to stand around on the side of the road waiting for you to come and get us,” Bobby explained. “At the barbershop pond, it took you half an hour to get there.”

I threw my arms in the air and did a mini-pace. Not only did they want to destroy the Chrysler, but they didn’t want to be inconvenienced while they did it.

“You’re both grounded,” I told them. Bill started laughing and each time he tried to stop, he’d look at the expression on Spud’s face and start up again.

“What’s going on?” one of the volunteer firemen asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I answered, and dialed a phone number.

“J.J.’s Auto Repair,” a mechanic answered.

“Jersey Barnes here,” I said into the phone. I told him yes, it was me again and yes, Spud had just picked up his car, and yes, they had done a super job on it. Then I explained what I needed. I told him yes, it was the same cherry-red Chrysler LHS, and yes, use the same towing company to haul the thing back to their shop.

When I hung up, Bill burst out laughing again. “Sorry,” he apologized, trying to catch his breath between spurts of laughter, “I can’t help it. You’ve got to admit, it’s funny.”

Then Bobby joined in, and even the two firefighters, who were not exactly sure what was so humorous, began laughing.

“For crying out loud,” Spud said and waved a dismissing hand at his amused audience. Without another word, he jabbed his walking cane into the ground and plopped himself into the backseat of the Benz. Grunting with the effort, he slammed the door hard enough to rock the vehicle, a valiant effort considering how heavy the hidden armored plates were. Bobby got in on the other side. I thanked the two kids for stopping and asked if I could reimburse them for the blanket that they were leaving with the car. They refused money but handed me a business card with the address of their volunteer fire station and said donations were always welcomed.

Bill and I slid into the front of my car. As we pulled back onto the road, I could see the corners of his actor’s full lips curve up. “You should reconsider my proposal, hon. I think it would be fun to have Spud for a father-in-law.”

An unknown man
and I were sprawled on an oversized hammock that was strung between two perfectly spaced coconut palm trees. A cushy pad covered the woven rope hammock and we sank luxuriously into its depths. The beach was deserted.

We were completely nude, the sun hot on my skin, a caressing breeze blowing as if a sultan’s harem were fanning us with palm leaves. A bucket of iced champagne sat on the ground, and between sips of the bubbly, the stranger fed me whole strawberries. As I savored the sweet ripe flavor, he morphed into a darker skinned and more heavily muscled man. Grinning impiously, Ox poured cool champagne into the crevice at the center of my stomach and was licking it out when I woke up.

It was the kind of dream that one did not want to end prematurely and I wished to know what Ox would do next. But more
sleep was not to come and the vivid dream quickly discolored until it was a thin memory. Cursing, I went straight into a hot shower.

As usual, Spud was already up and reading Monday’s newspaper by the time I reached the kitchen in search of java. Even though he usually drank a cold Yoo-hoo, brewing a pot of coffee was part of his morning routine. I poured myself a cup, grabbed a store-bought muffin and a banana, and joined him. Hearing the crinkle of the plastic wrapper, Cracker immediately positioned himself strategically below my mouth.

“What is the big attraction to driving a dumb S-U-V, for crying out loud?” my father said, pronouncing each individual syllable of SUV as though it were a disease. “It says here that the craze is hybrids and these crossover SUVs. People don’t want regular cars anymore.”

“Morning, Spud,” I responded. I stopped momentarily to stretch in my chair and appreciate the view of the river, which was one of my favorite things about living at the Block. It was an overcast morning but the sky had a wispy layer that promised to allow sunshine through by noontime.

“You tell me, kid, because I just don’t get it. They’re bastardized station wagons, is all. And they’re so big, you can’t see anything when you get stuck behind one.” I almost told him that he couldn’t see anything anyway when he was driving. That’s why his driver’s license wasn’t renewed. But I resisted, not wanting to get him started on the state of North Carolina’s unjust policies so early in the day.

“I guess that’s why people like them,” I said, peeling the banana and giving Cracker a small piece. “Because they’re big.”

“My Chrysler is a much better ride than some stupid S-U-V.” He polished off the last of his Yoo-hoo and threw the automotive section of the newspaper toward the trash can.

“You hear anything from J.J.’s?” I asked, referring to the shop that was repairing Spud’s fire-blackened car.

“Yeah. Sal called and said that Jerry’s got all the rubber hoses and stuff replaced, but Mike had to order a couple of parts. So it’ll be a few more days before it’s ready. Sal’s a good kid. Good mechanic, too.”

Spud was becoming well acquainted with the entire family at J.J.’s. If things kept up the way they were going with his mission to get rid of the car, he’d be joining them for the company party at Christmastime.

I alternated bites of muffin and banana. The good thing about not cooking is that it forces you to eat a relatively healthy breakfast. I’d much rather pig out on a steak and cheese omelet with hash browns and bacon than the fruit and muffins I usually eat. Unless Bill was around and made us breakfast, Spud always ate the same thing every morning. Toast with apple butter, prunes, and a chocolate Yoo-hoo. If he was feeling adventurous, he’d substitute a strawberry Yoo-hoo in place of the chocolate one.

“You learn anything more about the accountant, the one who took a slug between the eyes?” Spud wanted to know. If there was nothing interesting in the newspaper, he would turn to me for his fill of daily gossip.

“Not much,” I told him, dropping another pinch of banana into Cracker’s ready mouth. He swallowed it noisily without bothering to chew. “Chesterfield hired a firm to do an internal audit and told them to focus on the SIPA stuff. But so far, they haven’t uncovered anything unusual. They can’t find whatever it was that Eddie Flowers found, which got him killed.”

“What about the secretary lady?”

“Nothing there, either. They found a bottle of mixed pills in her handbag. Even though she didn’t have a prescription for them, they’re still treating the death as an overdose.”

“And the kid?”

“Well, he’s alive, or at least he was when they put him on the phone. Oh, and I found out that Jared is gay.”

“What the hell does that kid have to be happy about right now, for crying out loud?”

“Gay, as in homosexual, Spud.”

“The kid don’t like girls?” Spud said. “When I was twenty, a girl could just look at me and I’d get a boner.”

“Thanks for the visual.”

Spud shook his head. “That just ain’t normal for a boy his age.”

“I don’t think age has anything to do with it. Anyway, he’s deep in the closet.” At Spud’s confused look, I continued, “Jared doesn’t want anyone to know, so he keeps it a secret. The public doesn’t know and Chesterfield doesn’t know.”

I turned my attention to refilling my coffee cup and Cracker’s food bowl. The dog danced in anticipation. I always fed him each morning and Spud fed him at night. By splitting the duty, if either one of us ever forgot, Cracker wouldn’t go hungry. For that matter, we could probably both neglect to feed him for a week and snacks from customers at the Block would keep his belly full.

“So, maybe you should go find some of the boy’s, ah, boyfriends. See if they know where he is,” Spud suggested.

“That is my plan, to find out who the boyfriend was, or is. Bill has a friend who might be able to help me out, an art museum curator.”

“How come Bill has gay friends?”

“A lot of people have gay friends. Especially models and actors.”

Spud pursed his lips in distaste, like I’d just fed him a bug. Trying to penetrate his old-school mentality was futile. He’d contentedly spent his entire career with various small-town police departments. He got to pal around with the boys, serve warrants,
investigate an occasional vandalism or burglary, rarely saw a homicide, and probably never encountered any gay rights issues.

The phone rang, saving us from further discussion on the matter. It was Bill, who gave me the information on the museum curator. As I jotted it down, Bill said he was spending the day at Kure Beach, catching some rays and memorizing his few lines for an upcoming movie.

“Are you going to the museum to ask about Jared Chesterfield?” Bill wanted to know.

“Probably. Or I may just shop for art.”

“Bring your high-limit plastic,” he said and added something about loving me bunches before hanging up.

“Have a good one,” I said, wondering why he kept saying he loved me even though I’d never replied in kind. Like trying to leave the house without a weapon during my one day of retirement, telling Bill that I loved him wasn’t going to happen. At least not anytime soon. Why couldn’t a relationship just stop at its second or third month of maturity and remain there, happily carefree and uncommitted?

“When do we leave?” Spud asked me.

“We who?”

“You and the twins and me,” he said. “I don’t have anything going on until the poker game tonight. So I’ll go with you to talk to the artsy-fartsy fellow.”