Dead Man Falls (11 page)

Mother either didn’t notice the stares from customers and staff, or she was just enjoying them in her own way (my vote), as she led her troops into battle. Once we had filed past the check stands, Lucille cut left and made a beeline for the bakery department in the far back corner. I moseyed along behind, and by the time I caught up with her she had already picked out the biggest sheet cake in the store--and she was darned pleased that the roses happened to be purple.

I valiantly took charge and asked the bakery lady to fancy it up with the standard wording. She did and I took it in my arms, cradling it like a pillow with the royal crown. "Well, this worked out just great," I said, smiling at Deputy Max, then at Mother. "Let’s grab the rest of the stuff and get going."

"Now, just a minute, Jolene." Mother wagged a cautionary nail in my direction. "I was thinking that not everybody might like that plain old white sheet cake, and that we really ought to have something else because we just don’t know who all will be there."

I knew I wasn’t going to get off so very quickly or easily, but it had been a nice try. "Fine. There’s a carrot cake right over there. You like that, don’t you?"

She stepped over a few feet and nabbed a round carrot cake from the refrigerated case, along with some kind of triple chocolate thing, then paused in front of a twenty-four pack of neon pink and green cupcakes. "These might be handy to have."

"Three cakes will probably be enough." For a small army. "We’ll have the ice cream from the Dairy Queen too, remember."

"Yes, that’s right."

She said the words, but she was still looking at the cakes and would be grabbing another one if I didn’t work fast. "Okay, that leaves paper plates, cups, napkins, and balloons." And we’re done. "Which way do we go for those?"

She’d popped her head up at the mention of balloons and was now craning her neck, looking toward the front of the store on the opposite side. "Balloons might be with the toys, we’ll have to check. But I was thinking we might get some of those fold-out table decorations with the honeycomb centers too. Merline got a whole bunch of little pink rabbits at Easter time for her grandchildren that she thought were awfully cute. I think something like that would dress up the place, not rabbits, of course, but flowers or something. Oh, and tablecloths. We surely can’t forget those." She handed the two round cakes to Deputy Max then scurried, presumably, toward the paper goods section. "And wouldn’t it be nice if they matched."

Oh, wouldn’t it. My credit card shook in my billfold. I liked it much better when I did the selecting myself. Alone. I smiled an encouraging little smile to the deputy. "Shouldn’t take much longer."

The look on his face said "fat chance," but Deputy Max followed stoically, carrying the cakes--carrot stacked on top of chocolate. His mustache twitched, his eyes darted this way and that, and he approached every aisle as if it were an enemy hideout. I guess he was trying to make sure somebody didn’t nail me in the United grocery store--or maybe he just didn’t want anyone to see him aiding and abetting the Jackson Gang. Probably a little of both.

The store was on the large side and the bakery department was tucked in the back left corner, whereas the cards and paper goods were on the far right side toward the front. Creative merchandising run amok.

As we walked along, I got into the rhythm of things, turning my head to check out the aisle right along with the deputy. On my third look-see down the rows, I screeched to a stop. "Wait! I know her."

Deputy Max stopped and we stood there staring at an attractive dark-haired woman about fifty years old. She was engrossed in coffee beans, but I still had a good look at her face. Yes, she looked familiar, very familiar, but didn’t they all? I did a quick movie star review, but Linda Gray from the old
Dallas
show was the closest I could come up with and that wasn’t very darn close. "Sorry," I said to the deputy. "I thought I recognized her."

Why that was a big deal or why we had to stop to see, I didn’t know. I guess I was just a little more skittish than I wanted to admit--or maybe curious. "This sort of thing has been happening a lot lately."

I took a step forward, but the woman called my name. My head automatically snapped back toward her. The voice. High and mousy with a lilt that tried for sophistication, but got all tangled up in a tinny Texas twang. It was a voice no one could forget. And it belonged unmistakably to my old pseudo-English teacher, Sharon Addleman.

Great, just great. Now what was I supposed to do, say, "Read any good romance books lately?" or was "Sorry I almost got you fired twenty-five years ago" more to the point? I settled for "Hi."

Sharon speed-walked her basket to the end of the aisle, closing the distance between us to an uncomfortable three feet. "I’d heard you were in town."

How do people hear these things? Is there a camera at the city line that sends out an alert when my face is recognized, what? "Really?"

"Actually, Russell told me. Russell Clements. He said he talked to you at the falls yesterday, although I didn’t necessarily know whether to believe him or not."

"Well, he got that one right." The reference was to Russell’s well-known drug problems, meaning he used to say a lot of things that weren’t necessarily so, except maybe in his own hallucinogenic mind. "He told me he’s on the straight and narrow these days, and seemed pretty proud of it."

"Yes, well, Russell still isn’t quite in touch with reality on a full-time basis, but he is doing better."

"So, you’ve kept in touch since he graduated?"

She paused for a second then said, "I keep up with a few old students who are still in the area, not the Holt boy, however. Very unfortunate." She shook her head. "I don’t really recall much about him, but I’ve taught so many people through the years and I can’t very well remember them all." She smiled, but it wasn’t necessarily a heartwarming look. "Of course, some faces I’ll just never forget."

Meaning me. Okay, decision made. I was not apologizing nor was I chatting any more. Mother was already out of sight and I needed to catch up to her for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was my bank account. Deputy Max was also shifting from side to side, cueing me to move along. "Nice running into you, Miz Addleman. You look terrific as always. I’ve got to get going now or my mother will buy out the store--with my money." Ha, ha, ha. I laughed and took off. I would have waved for effect, but I carried the queen’s royal sheet cake.

A moment later, Max whispered, "One of your old teachers?"

"Yeah, English, or so she claimed. I tried to get her fired."

He cocked his head with a "Huh?" kind of look.

"It’s a long story."

We found Lucille in the wrapping paper and novelties section, a stack of non-essentials at her feet and a pile of colorful cellophane-wrapped table decorations in her arms. "This should just about do it," she said. "I don’t think we need to put up any of those self-stick window decals, do you?"

"No!" said Max and I in chorus.

She gave us a little evil look then began piling her selections in each of our arms. I jostled napkins, plates, cups and sundry item on top of the cake until I was reasonably sure nothing was going to fall off. Deputy Max did likewise with his two round cakes, the balloons, tablecloths, plastic forks, a loaf of bread and two containers of pimento cheese spread. The birthday girl reluctantly carried the table decorations.

"They have peaches on sale." Lucille looked longingly back toward the produce area. "Those real good local grown peaches. I’d really like to get a couple of pounds."

Okay, enough already. "Why don’t I just go get a basket?"

"Good grief, Jolene, I just want some peaches. We don’t need a grocery cart for peaches. If you’re going to make such a big deal about it, I’ll go get them myself." She took off, and with a "Let’s go" look to me, Deputy Max followed.

I did not race after them, just ambled along at a snail’s pace, mumbling to myself. "Now, it’s peaches, then it’ll be tomatoes, then paprika and corn starch." No, wait, better scratch those last two items as they would be used in actual cooking activities to which Mother is morally opposed. Besides, she’d already grabbed everything she needed for a semi-formal dinner--that would be the pimento cheese spread and loaf of white bread. "You’re losing your mind, Jolene," I muttered aloud to myself.

No sooner had the words mumbled out than I felt a cold prickle run up my back. Cosmic confirmation of my lunacy was my first thought. The second was that someone was watching me, which made more sense--at least in the short term.

Miz Addleman was probably regretting that she hadn’t yelled at me for my teenage covert operation and that the opportunity was just too good to pass up. Fine. Swell. If she needed to get it off her chest, I suppose I should just let her do it. She’d been the one screwing up, but I hadn’t necessarily needed to do what I did either, so fine. I could take the high road. Maybe we’d both feel better after she chewed me out.

I spun around to where I sensed the source of the glare, but Sharon Addleman was nowhere to be found. Oh, no. Glowering at me like a psychotic blond water buffalo was none other than Rhonda-The-Lying-Slut Davenport.

Chapter 7

My lungs sucked in an involuntary gulp of air and the muscles of my face tensed in displeased shock. Rhonda Davenport was indeed the very last person on the planet I wanted to see, especially in the United Supermarket. I’d let Addleman rake me over the coals thirty or forty times rather than have to look at, much less talk to, Rhonda Davenport. Couldn’t I just smack her and leave?

The nagging little voice chanted something about karma and dharma and embracing my suffering, but I mentally flicked it off my shoulder and wondered what the evil fairy’s take on the situation would be. With a nice little fake smile and perky tilt of my chin, I said, "Hi, Rhonda."

Rhonda did not immediately reply to my attempt at a warm overture as she was concentrating on scrunching up her ugly old face into a childish scowl and beaming me her classic "I’m gonna kill you" look.

I’ll admit that several--okay, about four hundred--ugly thoughts raced to the tip of my tongue, some of them really good zingers. But since she already looked homicidal, I thought it might not be the best time to spring them on her. Rhonda never did have much of a sense of humor anyway.

While Rhonda hyperventilated, I gave her a critical once-over, and I’m sorry to say that I could not come up with one good thing to report. She towered over me by a good eighteen inches and outweighed me by a couple of metric tons. Okay, if you want to get technical about it, she was about five-seven and maybe a hundred sixty pounds, but every ounce of it was lumpy. And her hair--ick. Her formerly waist-length tresses--which she had flipped and wiggled like a mare in heat--were now bobbed off at chin level, ratted up a good six inches on top and shellacked into place, old-lady style. Not cool. And the color? Yikes. What did she use, a neon yellow highlighter pen?

She’d also seen fit to enhance her bugged-out eyes with some of those new retro glasses, the ones that are only slightly bigger than half-frame bifocals and made of thick black plastic. Oh, yes, very trendy, added just the right accent to her cranberry-colored wind suit. If you asked me, she looked like a mildewed bowl of art deco grapes. And I am being perfectly objective in my assessment. Honest.

I adjusted the cake and party goods in my arms, strongly hinting that I needed to be moving on. "Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about?" Or should we just stand here all day and stare at one another? I forced my lips back from my teeth and tried to look sweet and cheerful. "Well, then, I guess I’ll just be running along. Nice seeing you again."

Rhonda's left eye began to twitch spasmodically behind the dark frames, while a feral-type growl gurgled from her throat. "I saw you with Jerry yesterday."

Yesterday? How many people had been watching me yesterday? Oh, wait, she hadn’t been watching
me
, she’d been looking at Jerry. It was always about Jerry. Well, fine.
But if you want to talk about Jerry, let’s start with how you lied about sleeping with him in high school and ruined my life, you bimbo. Why I ever listened...
I stopped myself and smiled very congenially, or at least as congenially as I could, considering. "Yes, I swear that man just gets better looking every day. Gosh, that reminds me. He’s waiting for me to call so I better run along now."

She sucked in a couple of quick breaths and her face turned kind of splotchy red. "You remember what I used to say to you in high school?"

Oh, yeah, I remembered. It’s kind of hard to forget somebody saying "I’m gonna fucking kill you" every time we passed in the hall. I plastered on a quizzical look. "Hmm, don’t guess I do."

Her jaw quivered, and with barely controlled rage, she growled, "It should have been you yesterday, coming over those falls."

Me? Instead of Calvin? Is that what she meant? The murderous glare in her eyes told me that was exactly what she meant, and it kind of pissed me off. I was thinking up a reply--actually I had plenty to choose from, but I was culling the herd for the best of the lot--when I heard the rapid clip-clop of feet behind me. I spun around to see a little boy racing up the aisle holding a carton of ice cream out in front of him.

"Gramma, Gramma, look, look!"

Oh, surely it couldn’t be.... Oh, but indeed it could, because right on cue Harley Senior appeared behind Junior to confirm the coincidence. Oh, shit.

Big Harley was wearing green camo pants, an olive-colored tee shirt, snake tattoos on his forearms and a disconcerting resemblance to Jean-Claude Kicks Butt. This was not good. Not good at all.

"Hey, Harley Junior," I said, finding my voice in a hurry. I talk to calm myself, and as the intensity of the situation increases, so does my compulsion to chatter. "How’s it going, kid? You must like ice cream as much as I do. What kind have you got there? Chocolate? Looks like chocolate." He held it out for me and I peered over my armload of goods. "Ooooh, Rocky Road. That’s really good stuff."