Three Times Lucky (13 page)

“Miss Rose threw you out?” I said. “Does Dale know? Because it’s news to me.”

“Mo,” Miss Lana said. “Hush.”

Mr. Macon glared at Starr. “Dale don’t need nothing he ain’t getting from me.”

“Tell me, sir, your kid got blond hair?” Starr asked. “Like to wear black T-shirts?”

Mr. Macon lurched across the room. “So what if he does? Leave my boy alone,” he said, jabbing a finger into
Starr’s chest. Starr stepped back lightly, like a cat. “Don’t nobody tell Dale what to do except me. He’s a good boy. Ain’t he a good boy, Mo?”

“Dale?” Starr kept his eyes on Mr. Macon, but I knew he was talking to me. “That’s your friend, isn’t it, Mo? The spooky kid I met the first time I came in here?”

I didn’t answer.

He turned back to Mr. Macon. “Where’s your son now?”

“Probably home with that no-good mother of his,” he said. “Throw me out of my own house after I treated her like gold all these years …”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Miss Lana said, her hands going to her hips. “That house is Rose’s, not yours. Her father left it to her. If it wasn’t for her good name and good graces, you’d have been locked up years ago. You never gave her anything except a couple of good-looking kids, a mountain of bills, and a heart turned to stone with grief.”

She turned to Starr. “I’ve known Dale since he was a baby, and I’ve never known a gentler soul. I can’t even
pay
him to kill a garden snake. The idea that he murdered Jesse is ludicrous. Please stop wasting time on him and find the killer. We’re all worried to death.”

Starr stared at her a moment. “Miss Lana, I need to talk to Dale and his mother. If you see them, please tell
them I’ll be at Jesse Tatum’s place all afternoon. If I don’t see them by the end of the day, I’ll come looking for them. And when the Colonel gets in, let him know I’d like to talk to him too. You,” he said, looking at me. “Stay away from my crime scene. And you, sir,” he said, looking at Dale’s daddy. “If you ever jab your finger in my chest again, you’ll wake up in handcuffs. Are we all clear?”

When we didn’t answer, he smiled. “I thought so,” he said, and headed for the door.

Miss Lana shoved the bagged lunches into the Underbird’s backseat, tossed her fan beside them, and opened the driver’s door.
“You’re really driving?”
I said, backing away from the car. “Couldn’t we call Miss Rose? Or hire a driver?”

“Bad news is best delivered in person, and I have no driver at the moment,” she said, sliding behind the wheel. “Everybody’s either working or at Jesse’s. Besides, I’ve already called Rose once this morning, to update her on Macon’s condition. That bulletin sent her to the garden for the rest of the day. Dale will be in shackles before I can reach her again by phone,” she said, squinting at the dashboard. “That garden has saved Rose a fortune in therapy over the years,” she muttered.

“It’s cranked out some good tomatoes too,” I said. “But you still can’t—”

“Mo, please get in the car.” She tugged the rearview mirror down and applied a fresh coat of lipstick. “We’ll drop the lunches off on our way.”

I slid in. “Miss Lana?” I said.

“Yes, sugar?”

“I think maybe I better drive.”

She glared at me, her wig glistening gold in the sun. “How old are you?”

“Eleven,” I said.

“And
why
should you drive?”

I looked away. “Because, Miss Lana,” I said. “You don’t know how.” She graced me with a stony silence, the chill rolling off her in the noonday heat. “Everybody in town knows you can’t drive,” I said. “It’s common knowledge.”

“There is nothing common about knowledge,” she replied. “The fact that I haven’t driven doesn’t mean I can’t. Now,” she said, tilting her head. “This vehicle is new to me. Where is the ignition?”

I slumped in my seat, fastened my seat belt, and prepared to die. “Right there,” I muttered, pointing. I closed my eyes as she turned the key.

“I am ready to back up now, if common knowledge will allow,” she said, studying the gear shift.

I sighed. “The Underbird is an automatic. Just put that pointer on
R
.”

“R?”
she said, placing her foot on the accelerator and pressing it toward the floor.

“It means ‘reverse,’” I shouted over the engine’s roar. “You don’t give it gas until after—”

She yanked the gearshift to
R
. The Underbird lunged backward and we skidded across the parking lot in a spray of gray gravel and dust. Only our collision with the sycamore kept us from careening around the building, down into the backyard.

“See?” she said, taking her foot from the gas.

“
D
means ‘drive.’ This time, shift before you give it gas. That way—” Spinning wheels and flying gravel chewed up the end of my sentence, spitting it across the parking lot like a fighter spitting teeth, and we were on our way.

To my relief, Miss Lana had the Underbird somewhat under control by the time we swerved into Mr. Jesse’s drive. I thought so, anyway, until she took dead aim at a throng of our neighbors. “Use the brake!” I cried, diving into the foot of the car and slamming both hands onto the brake.

“Lunch, dears!” she called as a pine branch whipped across our windshield. “Mo,” she said, “get up. People will think you’re daft.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, wiping the grit from my hands.

Ten minutes later we headed for Miss Rose’s. “Dale’s house is around this curve,” I said. “I mention that because you might want to slow down. By using the brake,” I added.

She hunched over the wheel. “Rose is already depressed, so we’ll present our news gently,” she said, easing up on the gas. “Be positive. Follow my lead.”

She gave the steering wheel a tug to the left. The tires screamed as we skidded across the asphalt, bounced off the drive, and crunched across Miss Rose’s petunia bed. As we lurched to a halt with our front left tire on the porch step, Miss Rose dropped her hoe and sprinted toward us. “
P
for ‘park,’” I instructed as the Underbird issued an ominous hiss. I opened my door and stepped out.

“Remember,” Miss Lana said. “Be positive.”

“Hey, Miss Rose,” I said, smiling. “I’m sorry Mr. Macon took drunk again, but at least there ain’t nobody in jail yet. That’s positive.”

“Mama,” Dale cried, pounding around the corner of the house. “I heard tires. Is Lavender here? Oh!” he said, spotting me and Miss Lana. He stared at the pine branch trapped beneath the Underbird’s windshield wiper, his mouth falling open.

“Hello, dear friends,” Miss Lana said, opening her door as far as the front porch would allow. She slithered out sideways, wiggling her butt along the porch until she reached the back of the car.

“Gosh,” Dale said. “I didn’t know you could drive.”

“She can’t,” Miss Rose said, her voice flat as her petunias. Like Dale, Miss Rose has a firm grasp of the obvious.

“Rose,” Miss Lana said, “if you don’t mind, we need to talk. You don’t have any tea, do you? I’m parched.”

A half glass of iced tea later, the four of us roared back toward Mr. Jesse’s place, with Miss Rose at the wheel. Dale and me huddled in the backseat. I could feel him trembling. I pressed my shoulder against his, trying to will my calm into his body. “I just know I’m going to jail,” he whispered.

“No you ain’t,” I told him. “You’re a juvenile. Besides, even if you do, it won’t be so bad. You can bond with the incarcerated side of your family. And I’ll bring you your homework assignments so you don’t fall behind in school.”

“Great,” he muttered. “Jail time and math. My life can’t get no worse than this.”

He was wrong.

Dale’s life got a lot worse just about the time Detective Starr started asking questions.

“So, you admit to stealing the boat?” Starr asked, taking his notepad from his pocket and sitting on Mr. Jesse’s porch rail. I tugged my clue pad out of my pocket and settled in the porch swing beside Dale.

“Dale didn’t steal nothing,” I said.

“Stealing is such a harsh concept,” Miss Lana agreed, popping her fan open. “Dale didn’t say he stole Jesse’s boat, he said he returned it.”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Dale?” Starr said. “I’m talking to you, son.”

“I … I guess it might look like I stole it, but I didn’t,” Dale stammered. “I just borrowed it good and strong. Me and a friend wanted to go fishing is all.”

“Fishing ain’t no crime,” I added quickly.

“Depends on what kind of license you got,” Starr said, and the blood ran from Dale’s face. It’s just like Dale to worry about getting caught without a fishing license after he admitted to stealing a boat.

“Who were you going fishing with?” Starr asked.

“Me,” I said, saving Dale having to rat me out.

“Dale?” Starr said. “I’m talking to you.”

“I was gonna take it back.” Dale looked at Miss Rose. “I
did
take it back,” he pleaded.

Miss Rose nodded. She sat in Mr. Jesse’s rickety old rocking chair, her hands folded calm as prayers in her lap. To me, she looked worried.

“When did you return it?” Starr asked.

“Right after my brother invited me and Mo to time laps at Carolina Raceway,” Dale said. “Yesterday. Same day we saw you at the speedway with Miss Retzyl.”

“Such a good boy,” Miss Lana said, beaming at him. “You took that boat back out of the goodness of your heart, didn’t you, Dale?”

“No, ma’am,” Dale said. “I took it back because we needed the reward money for fried baloney sandwiches.”

I winced. Dale is not cut out for a life of crime.

“Tell me about the boat,” Starr said.

“Well, Mr. Jesse hardly ever used it, and I only hid it a ways down from his place. He coulda found it if he really wanted to.”

Starr looked at Dale, his eyes hard. “Tell me about taking it back.”

Dale shoved his hands in his pockets. It made him look smaller, somehow. “Well,” he said, “I walked the boat up the creek. Then I went over to Mr. Jesse’s house and knocked on his door. And Mr. Jesse, he come to the door and he said, ‘Afternoon Dale, how’s your mother?’

“And I said, ‘She’s fine, Mr. Jesse. I sure hope you are. I got exciting news for you: I found your boat. I hope it wasn’t a hardship, not having it.’

“And he said, ‘Not at all. Thank you, son. Here’s your reward money,’ and I left.”

Starr looked up from his notes. “No kidding,” he said. “That was real cordial.”

“Sure,” Dale said. “Mr. Jesse was a real cordial man.”

Starr scratched an eyebrow. “Well, I guess I’m a little
surprised,” he said. “From what folks have told me, I didn’t think Jesse Tatum was a particularly cordial kind of guy. Did you find him cordial, Miss Rose?”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, you stop this foolishness,” she said, cracking her words like a whip. “You tell Detective Starr the truth and you tell it now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dale said. His chin quivered, and he looked at Starr. “Maybe just you and me could talk,” he said. “Man to man.”

“Dale, whatever it is, just say it,” Miss Rose said, her voice gentler now.

He looked across the yard, fixing on Starr’s car like he could stare the shine right off of it. “All right,” he said. “I walked the boat up the creek to Mr. Jesse’s dock, and I knocked on the door, like I said. Mr. Jesse come to the door in his pants and his undershirt, and he unlatched the door and pushed it open, and …” Dale took a deep breath. “And he said, ‘What are you doing on my door stoop, you no-good son of a white trash drunk.’”

Miss Rose gasped, but Miss Lana nodded. “That’s the Jesse I knew,” she said.

Dale’s voice was low. “Then Mr. Jesse said, ‘You get your scrawny good-for-nothing self off my land before I call the law. And you tell your daddy if I see him on my land again I’ll call the law on him too, no warning given.’

“Then I said, ‘I’ll be glad to get off your filthy scrap of swamp soon as you pay the reward you owe me for getting your boat back, you ugly old waste of human skin. And if you got a message for my daddy, you can deliver it yourself, if you ain’t scared.’

“Then he said, ‘You think I’m shelling out ten bucks on the word of Macon Johnson’s leftovers? You show me my boat if you got it.’ So we walked down to the creek and he saw his boat. He gave me ten dollars and no thank you, and I skedaddled.”

Starr nodded. “Which way did you go?”

“Through the woods.”

“Who was with you?”

“Nobody.”

I raised my hand. “Even if somebody was with him, which there wasn’t, it wasn’t me,” I said. “I can tell you an alibi, if needed.”

Starr didn’t take his eyes off Dale. “Don’t lie to me, son,” he said. “There were two sets of footprints where you hid the boat, and there were two sets on the creek bed, by the dock. Yours, and an adult’s.”

Two sets of footprints?

“I’ll ask you again,” Starr said. “Who was with you?”

“Nobody,” Dale said, looking scared. “I got the boat and walked it up the creek. I tied it right about where I found it.”

“Where it was when you stole it?” Starr asked.

“I object,” I said. “We’ve already established this wasn’t a technical steal. This was more like a surprise borrowing between neighbors. Don’t say nothing, Dale,” I warned.

Starr turned to Miss Rose. “Doesn’t sound like Mr. Jesse thought much of your husband.”

She looked suddenly tired. “Nobody thinks much of my husband,” she said. “Can’t say that I blame them.”

“Where was he last night?”

“He came home around eight. He left maybe three hours later. I’m not sure where he came from, or where he went.”

“Had he been drinking?”

“He’s always been drinking,” Dale said. “You leave Mama out of this.”

Starr ignored him. “What size shoe does your husband wear?”

“Nine, nine and a half.”

“Well, here’s the situation,” Starr said. “I’ve got Dale’s footprints and an adult’s footprints at the scene of a crime. Dale admits stealing Jesse Tatum’s boat. Your husband was drinking and his whereabouts at the time of the murder are unknown. So, I need you to fill in some blanks for me—unless you really
do
want to call a lawyer.”