One Foot in the Grove (24 page)

I put on my “bestest,” brightest smile. I'd never seen or heard Debi be so . . . blunt before. Her usual game was to spar with subtle double entendres. Hissing ugly words was not her shtick. Nevertheless, I wasn't going there. Especially not on Daphne's big day.

Tammy Fae stopped short in the yard and glared while red-faced Debi continued working her way toward me, stomping and aerating the lawn with her pointy heels. Finally, she stopped in front of me by the water's edge, haughty chin held high, manicured hands gripping her narrow hips.

“Don't be cute, Eva. You know exactly what you've done.” She spat the words out.

“Perhaps you can enlighten me,” I said brightly. I wasn't going to give her an inch. “I can't imagine what I've done today to put such a burr under your saddle, Debi. And I thought we had such a
lovely
chat yesterday.”

“Oh, sugar pie, like hell you can't imagine what you've done. Y'all are nothing but a man-whorin' harpy! I told you yesterday in the package store that Buck and I were going to celebrate our anniversary last night. And y'all just couldn't stand it, could you?”

“Debi, you are ridiculous, if not completely paranoid.”

“You little hussy! Y'all went right under my nose and tried to seduce him!”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Y'all know exactly what I'm talking about, sugar pie,” seethed Debi. “Buck never showed up last night for our celebration. That's 'cause he was at your place!”

“And how would you know that?”

“Because I came over here lookin' for him and saw his car out in the drive. He was here for
six hours
!”

Wow, I thought. He
was
here a long time. I remember he'd said that he'd been waiting for a few hours. Guess he hadn't lied about that. Score one for Buck. But, of course, there was no need to concede anything to Debi.

“Well, Debi,” I said, “if you have to go out to hunt the
poor man down every time he's not where you want him to be, that certainly doesn't seem like a sound basis for a marriage, now, does it?” I admit, I was being smug. I figured she had it coming to her. “Maybe it's all for the best.”

“Well,
you
of all people would know about
not
gettin' married!” she shrieked. “Buck and I've been datin' steady for six months. I've
always
known where Buck was, and I've never,
ever
, had to go lookin' for him. That is, until
you
came slitherin' back into town.” Debi raised her voice again. People were definitely looking from the tent.

“Kind of like old times, I guess, huh?”

“When he finally got home last night, he was chock-full of alcohol!”

“And you know that because . . .”

“Because I was sittin' there, waitin' for him! And then he said he was ‘too tired' for me. For us! And on our special night. He actually sent me home. I'd been plannin' our special night for
months
!”

“Just goes to show you: It takes two for romance.”

“You skank,” Debi hissed. “You'll do anything to get him back!”

“I don't want him back.”

“Right. And you've been tryin' to cover your tracks, tellin' folks you're a lesbian. Well, you aren't foolin' me, sister!”

People were wandering down from the big top to where we were at the pond. Tammy Fae started to back away. We were becoming a scene. A bad scene. Tammy Fae had enough sense to know that she didn't want to be a part of it. She'd let Debi do her dirty work.

“You're so desperate, you spent half the night pryin' him with liquor, tryin' to seduce him. Hours and hours you tried to spin your nasty web around my poor Bucky. And, Lord knows, he may have taken a little taste of what you were offerin'—you can hardly blame a man when a woman shamelessly throws herself at him. Still, my Bucky wouldn't stay the night with you,” seethed Debi. “No man wants to wake up next to a skank. When the deed was done, obviously, he didn't care for it. At least he got
that
right.”

Way up at the tent, I saw Detective Gibbit. He was talking to Daphne, and she was shaking her head.

“Well, then, you should be happy about that, shouldn't you?” I said. Debi was getting into my space. I took a step backward.

“You're nothin' but a man-stealin' whore!”

“It's not my fault, Debi, that you can't keep your ‘Bucky' happy. That's on you, sweetheart. Maybe, you should stop calling the grown man ‘Bucky.' That might help.”

Debi stepped up to me and slapped me across the face so hard that my hat and sunglasses flew off into the pond. I was sure I heard a camera click from somewhere. I wasn't going to let her see me flinch.

“Hey, at least I saved you from wasting two very pricey bottles of champagne—or did you finish them yourself?” I smiled and took a step toward her. Really, I wasn't sure what I would've done. I never had a chance. All of a sudden Debi started screaming for me to let go of her. I hadn't touched her. The next thing I knew, I felt a hard shove to my shoulders and I fell backward into the pond.

Things happened quickly after that. Debi was shrieking that I'd hit her and she wanted me arrested for assault. There was a photographer taking pictures—I recognized the woman with the nose ring who'd stayed at the big house. A crowd rushed forward. At some point, I glimpsed poor Daphne's horrified expression in the mob. My hat was floating upside down on the water. My three-hundred-dollar Maui Jim sunglasses had disappeared. I dove back down to see if I could find them. Opening my eyes underwater, it was too dark to see. I felt around on the murky bottom. There was something wooden. A pole? No sunglasses. I swam back up for air. Debi was still screeching. The crowd was jabbering. My ribs were screaming in pain. A few people started to come into the water, thinking I was in trouble. One of my thong sandals floated by. I dove back down again to try to find my sunglasses. I wasn't giving up on them. I'd never be able to afford another pair. I felt around. There were sticks, leaves, rocks, the wooden thing again . . . a branch?
No, a pole of some sort. I snagged it and realized it was a shovel.

I went back up for air, shovel in hand. Someone grabbed my other arm and yanked me hard toward the muddy shore. I released the shovel as I looked up to see stony-faced Detective Gibbit, up to his knees in pond water, shaking his head with disgust as he hauled me toward the muddy shore. For a geeky skinny guy, his strength surprised me.

“Arrest her!” shrieked Debi. “She threatened me and assaulted me!”

“Please, let go, you're hurting my arm.” Detective Gibbit gripped my arm so hard that I could feel his bony fingers making impressions in my skin. He didn't let go.

“Miss Eva Knox,” whined the detective through clenched buckteeth, “you're under arrest for disorderly conduct and assault.” He gave me a disdainful look and, in a flash, snapped handcuffs on my wrists. The weedy, jug-eared man wrenched my arm and started dragging me across the lawn.

“What the . . . ? What are you doing?” I cried. “I haven't done anything! What about
her
!” I gasped for a breath as a sharp pain shot from my ribs. “Ow! Go slow! I can't walk this fast!”

I still remember Debi's gloating sneer as the detective dragged me across the lawn, hobbling barefoot, muddy, and dripping wet with my soaked sundress stuck tight to my legs. He was reciting my rights. I was going to jail.

“So, how was it?” shouted Precious from the backseat. “Did ya set that weaselly little detective straight?”

“I think we agreed to disagree,” I said. “At least he didn't really arrest me.” And I was genuinely grateful for that. I stepped on the gas to the convertible. I was hungry, dirty, exhausted, and eager to get home. And I could smell the whiff of pond mud coming from my filthy sundress.

“Well, that's good, Sunshine! I figured that fella's got more bite than bark. In fact, Tilly Beekerspat—she works in dispatch, remember?—she tells me he's about as useful as a screen door in a submarine. Most folks outside the department just ain't caught on to him.”

“Thanks for picking me up.”

“No problem. Miss Daphne sent me in your car 'cause she needed to stay with her kids. She wants you to check in with her as soon as you get home. You still look damp. I wish you'd let me drive. You warm enough?”

“I'm fine. Better now that I'm out of the air-conditioning. One of the deputies brought me a blanket. I wrapped myself
up in it for most of my six-hour ‘interview.' They didn't even let me go to the bathroom. That would have been nice.”

“Sunshine, ‘nice' isn't on the list of stuff to do in the
po-leece
interrogation room. In fact, I hear they bring criminals a lot of soda to drink just so they'll have to pee. Once the bad guys confess, then they get to pee.” Precious chuckled.

“I won't ask where you heard such a thing.” I remembered how the detective kept insisting I drink the Mountain Dew he'd slammed on the table in front of me.

“I know all about it, Sunshine. I'm a crime expert 'cause I read murder mysteries.”

“Got it.” We soared past a white board fence and a big field with corn.

After I'd been dragged off muddy and soaking wet, someone had called the sheriff's department to complain about Detective Gibbit manhandling me. Probably Daphne. Amazingly, someone else said that I hadn't laid a hand on Debi and that Debi'd been the aggressor. The coup de grâce was that someone had videoed the whole thing. I hadn't touched Debi. In any event, by the time Detective Gibbit and I got to the station, the detective had been ordered not to proceed with the assault case. Had Buck called him off? Still, since he had me handily in his clutches, the detective wasn't going to let his opportunity pass by. After all, he had bigger fish to fry.

For six hours, he'd interrogated me, over and over again, with combative, grueling, and often absurd questions about the murder, and my alleged connection to organized crime. Even after I'd told him about the mobsters threatening me, the rank detective never let up. He'd just sneered and said it was my word against theirs. Then, finally, after getting nowhere, the detective agreed to let me go home. Albeit, with a strong warning not to leave town.

He'd only quit because it was probably his dinnertime, I thought. And as Precious and I rode past a big white farmhouse and I smelled barbeque in the air, I wondered if there
was a Missus. Gibbit waiting at home to serve her hubby homemade fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, and fruit cobbler. I hadn't eaten all day. I was hungry. I thought about stopping at Carter's Country Corner Store. But when I got there, I decided to keep going. It brought back memories of my sick stomach the night before, after all the sugar. And I couldn't bear to be in my mud-sodden dress another moment. I'd take a warm, scented bath at home and then grab a snack from the big house. Maybe I'd order a pizza.

Although I hated to admit it, the questions Buck had posed to me during his unexpected visit the night before had inadvertently helped prepare me for Detective Gibbit's interrogation. And, much to my surprise, the detective didn't seem to know my answers ahead of time; it was as if Buck hadn't shared what I'd told him. So, due to my newfound, intense distrust and dislike of the detective, I'd decided not to tell him anything that he hadn't asked about directly or specifically. I didn't tell him about Loretta's photo, which he probably knew about anyway. Or about the missing gun under the mattress, of which I was sure he didn't know.

Maybe I'd cut off my nose to spite my face.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Precious was using the camera in her sparkly gold phone as a mirror, painting a fresh coat of bright coral-colored lipstick on her lips. She pursed her lips together before smiling, apparently pleased with the look. She saw me watching and flashed a big white grin. “Gonna be a pretty sunset tonight,” she said.

“Yep!”

Precious snapped a selfie in the backseat.

We whizzed around a corner and swooshed under a tunnel of great live oak trees. We were almost home. Just before Benderman's Curve, I slowed down to look at the side of the road as we passed another deer carcass. What a shame, I thought. And my mind flashed again to Boone Beasley's apartment.

“Here we go again,” laughed Precious. “Miss Eva's drivin' as slow as turtles!”

I looked up at the curve ahead.

Out of nowhere, a black car appeared on our side of the road. It was speeding right for us. There was no time for me to get out of the way.

The small black car must've been going at least seventy or eighty miles per hour. It was impossible to imagine how it could have made it around the curve without the driver losing control. And at that speed, no one could have seen it coming any sooner than Precious and I had.

Right before the impact, I remember hearing Precious say, “Holy shhhh . . .”

Then there'd been that terrible sound of crunching metal and plastic.

Afterward, I was afraid to look down. The air bag hadn't worked. Surely, I'd been injured.

“Sunshine!” Precious said from the backseat. “You alright?”

“I think so,” I whispered.

I was frozen. My arms, which had taken the brunt of the front-end impact, were still outstretched, fingers clamped tight around the steering wheel. My left collarbone, breast, and lower abdomen ached where the seat belt had locked and stopped me from flying forward. I'd hit and cut my left knee on either the bottom of the dashboard or the steering
column. Already, it was beginning to swell. I looked at Precious in the rearview mirror. She was still holding her phone in the air, just like she had when she'd been taking her selfie.

“Precious, are you alright?” I asked.

“I'm fine,” said Precious. “Didn't feel a thing, actually. Good thing I'd already finished puttin' my lipstick on. I'd have been pissed if I'd messed up my makeup.”

I tried to laugh, but nothing came out.

“Goddamn, that little bitty black car was going like a bat outta hell!” said Precious.

After careening around the wrong side of the sharp curve, the black car had plowed across the front of the BMW and pretty much taken the entire front end off. Especially the driver's side. The front end of my engagement gift-car was lying twenty feet away on the other side of the road, near the edge of the woods. After hitting us, the black car had kept going another hundred feet or so, until it finally ran off the road and flipped over in a ditch.

Precious was on her phone. “Mister Collier! Mister Collier! Miss Eva and I've been in an accident at Benderman's Curve! Come quick! Miss Eva's car is totaled!”

I was still gripping the steering wheel. Frozen. And, remarkably, my car was still running. And the air bag hadn't deployed. I turned the key, shutting off the engine, and fumbled around for the emergency flashers.

“C'mon, Precious, we've got to see if the other driver is okay.”

I'd said it but still hadn't managed to move. I heard Precious rustling around in the back, and the passenger seat flipped forward as she began climbing out of the car. The passenger-side door didn't open, so she hoisted herself over the side of the car and onto the pavement. Finally, still shaky, I managed to ungrip the steering wheel and push open my door. I stumbled out of the car and began hobbling slowly down the road toward the flipped car. Adrenaline. Huffing and puffing, Precious passed me. As she marched ahead of me, wearing tight jeans, an orange silky top with
slits that exposed her big shoulders, and matching orange Louboutin pumps, she was still on her phone, talking with Ian Collier.

“No,” she said, “I don't know. Some crazy driver plowed right down the middle of the road goin' the other way, like a streak of greased lightnin' . . . Wait . . . We're almost there . . . No, we haven't called 911 . . . okay. Thanks.”

We were about halfway to the wrecked car when we saw someone behind it running toward the woods. All of a sudden, the person turned to look at us.

“Oh my God.” I called out, “Loretta! Wait!”

Precious and I stopped short, breathless, in the middle of the road. We watched as fleeing Loretta, wearing jeans and a black jacket with a gold and white Boston Bruins “B” emblem on the back, ran deeper and deeper into the woods until she'd disappeared.

“What the hell! Is that your cook?” asked Precious. “The missing Loretta woman?”

“Yes.”

“The woman everyone says you killed?”

“Yes.”

“Well then,” huffed Precious, “there's one damn thing for certain.”

“What's that?” I bent over and put my hands on my knees to try to catch my breath and keep from fainting.

“That ol' bitch sure as hell ain't dead!”