Death of a Domestic Diva (19 page)

I frowned. “I didn't really have anything to tell them. Except that apparently you and Paige ran off with Aguila and Ramon, from what I heard. But I didn't even tell them that.” I didn't mention that Paige had been writing an incriminating letter to Tyra, since doing so would mean I'd also have to mention I'd been snooping through trash cans in their motel rooms. “Now what is going on here, Billy—”

Billy grabbed me, hugging me really hard. “Oh, Josie, you're the best! Okay, look, you must not trust these two, must not tell them I'm here—”

I pushed away from Billy, gasped for air, then said, “Why are you afraid of the Crooks pair, for pity's sake? They're just writers—at least, that's what they say they are—although—”

Something in the serious way Billy was looking at me made me stop. Billy usually always has a twinkle in his eye, like he's not really taking very seriously what's going on around him, like whatever he's doing is just for his own amusement. He was that way with the Cut-N-Suck demos. He was that way with preaching. But now, he looked really serious.

“They're not writers. They're FBI agents.”

I stared at Billy. No, he really didn't look amused.

“How do you know that?”

“Just trust me—I do. And it is very, very, very important that you not let them know Aguila and Ramon are around here.”

“From what they said, they're interested in Tyra Grimes. Billy—what have you gotten yourself into?”

“I'll tell you sometime—but not right now. Has Tyra said anything about why she's in town?”

I lifted my eyebrows at that. “Why, because she wants to interview me for her show, of course.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. I sighed. “Right. Okay, it seems she wants to make a donation to Stillwater. She says she read about it in an article, came here with my story as a cover, so that her donation could be a big surprise.”

Billy looked stunned. “Stillwater? She's here because of Stillwater?”

“That's what she says. Why did you think she was here?”

“We were worried that it was because of the T-shirts, but if she's here for some other reason, and if she doesn't know about the T-shirts, then we can go ahead with our plan . . .”

Billy gazed off, as if he were previewing the steps of the plan taking place in some not too distant future.

All the chocolate I'd had for breakfast suddenly curdled in my stomach. “Uh, Billy,” I said, “just what sort of plan have you cooked up?”

He snapped his focus back to me. “I can't tell you right now. But you've been a lot of help. Just don't let anyone—especially Tyra or the Crookses—know I've been here. Or that Aguila and Ramon are around.”

He turned and stepped to the back door.

“Uh uh, Billy. Not so fast. I'm going to tell everyone—especially the Crookses—that they're around and that they're up to something with stolen goods, unless you give me more information.”

Billy turned back around, looked at me with disappointment. “Josie, now, that's not like you. What's gotten into you?”

I could have told him that I was still hurting over Tyra using me as a cover for her real reason to come here, a reason that had me uneasy. That I was not looking forward to being the laughingstock of the town once the truth came out that Tyra had never really planned on having me on her show. That I was still sore over Owen leaving this morning before I woke up, without even writing me a note. That I knew just what he, Billy, meant by his question—good old Josie, always the soft pushover, always eager to please, how could that change?

But I have a stubborn streak, too, and getting irked makes it widen, and I was mighty irked at Billy taking for granted that I'd be a pushover for him.

So I crossed my arms and said again, “Billy, I need information. So give it to me. Or else.”

Billy sighed. “All right. What do you want to know?”

“What's Paige doing with you?”

He looked surprised at that, which made me grin. I was always able to surprise him into telling me stuff, even as a kid, like who his latest crush was on. It worked now, too.

“We told Paige the situation, what Aguila and Ramon are up against,” Billy said. “She's helping us.”

“Voluntarily?”

Billy nodded . . . and something in his gaze softened. “Paige is really . . . a woman of great depth.”

Uh oh, I thought. Looked like Billy had found his latest crush. But I didn't want to get sidetracked by pointing out to Billy that Paige was also a woman of great sophistication, and wouldn't want anything to do with the likes of him. So I said, “Okay, then, did Aguila and Ramon somehow know Tyra was going to be here in Paradise?”

Billy shook his head. “In fact, they're really upset that she is here.”

“Then why are they staying around these parts? Why don't they just skedaddle elsewhere? It's a big country.”

“They're here to sell the T-shirts. That's part of the plan.”

Oh fine, now my cousin Billy was helping a pair of illegal immigrants—escapees from a labor camp, true, but still, illegal immigrants who were described as armed and dangerous by undercover FBI agents—traffic in stolen goods. Stolen from an illegal labor camp, true, but that somehow probably made it doubly illegal to be selling them. I couldn't stand trying to stay all calm and logical, with all of this information—which I had asked for, true—swirling in my head.

“What plan?” I burst out. “Why do they have to sell the T-shirts here? Why do they have to sell them at all? Why, why, why are you hooked up with them at all?”

Billy gave me one of those long, fiery looks he used to give from the pulpit, a look that was always accompanied by silence, like it was now. Just Billy staring right into me. But this time, his stare did not seem to be just for effect. He seemed to really be trying to see something, to be struggling to make a decision from whatever he saw in me. It made me uncomfortable, but I stared right back at him.

At last, he said, “All right, Josie. Here's what I can tell you. I'm hooked up with them because they need help. Because a young child's life depends on getting the right help. And right now in my life, helping someone else is what I need to help me, too. Anything else you want to know, I'll have to show you.”

I wanted to scream again—this time, what child? Show me now! But I still had to get Tyra to Stillwater. So I said, “Fine. How about this afternoon.”

“All right,” he said. “Come to the Red Horse this afternoon, about three o'clock.”

“Why there? You just checked out of there—”

“Josie, don't ask so many questions right now. Just trust me.”

Billy moved to the storage room door, opened it, and stuck his head out, looking around. Then he stepped back in and looked at me. “Listen, thank you. You've helped more than you know.”

“I don't suppose you could repay me by watching my laundromat today?”

He grinned, shook his head. “I have my own business to attend to.” Then he pointed his finger at me. “Three o'clock. Sharp.”

He darted out the door again.

This whole situation, I thought, was as wrinkled and knotted up as a bunch of socks stuck in a spin cycle.

I went to work, making sure the lint traps were cleared out, the change machine full, everything in order. I'd be gone for a few hours, I told myself, then I'd go back to paying attention to running my business.

Then, I went to meet Tyra to take her to Stillwater, wondering again what she was really up to. I just couldn't fully believe her mission here in Paradise was to be a generous benefactress.

11

In fact, Tyra was not in a generous mood at all as we headed up the state route toward Stillwater, even though it was a beautiful spring day—one of those days with an impossibly bright blue sky—and even though I kept diligently pointing out, in the cheeriest voice I could muster, numerous items of local scenic interest: fields being plowed for corn and soybeans, farmhouses and stands of trees, horses out grazing in a field, the Raybells' free-range chicken farm, Margo Putney's dairy farm and ice cream stand, and the Bloomin' Beauties Garden Shop.

I'd say, “Look, Tyra! Horses!”

Or, “Look, Tyra! A tractor trailer!”

Or, even, “Look, Tyra! Mrs. Susy Whitfield's got out on her clothesline the choir robes from the Second Reformed Church of the Reformation—that's where my cousin Billy used to preach, but Harvey Welter's taken over now. 'Course, the choir robes will be wrinkled, because I'm not doing them anymore since Billy was let go from preaching. I always did them at half price . . .”

But Tyra just wasn't interested in items of local scenic interest . . . or in local gossip. She was just plain nervous. The only thing she wanted to know was if I had her papers back yet, and when I told her no, she kept fussing with trying to adjust her seat just so. Finally, she pulled the seat adjustment lever so that she and the seat were leaned all the way back. She gave a little moan of dismay.

“You know, if you keep doing that,” I said, “you're going to break the springy things that adjust the seat, and—”

“Ow! Gosh darn it!” Tyra howled. Well, she didn't really howl exactly that. But what she did say, I don't feel quite bears repeating word for word. No need to offend the good Lord twice through the retelling.

I glanced over at her. She'd pulled on the seat adjustment lever yet again, and now she and the seat were folded in half, pitched all the way forward.

Then I focused my attention back on the road.

“I'm going to throw up if I stay like this,” Tyra gasped.

“Straighten the seat up, then,” I said, pushing back a wave of panic at the thought of Tyra puking into the passenger side foot well of my car. The sickly cloying smell of puke stays around long after the stains are gone.

“I can't straighten back up!” Tyra gagged.

“Okay, look,” I said desperately, trying to find some place I could pull over without my car getting stuck in the mucky mud left from the previous night's rain. “Take some deep breaths—slowly, in and out, in and . . .”

“I can't breathe at all like this.” Tyra gasped, as if each word were being squeezed out of her.

Just then we went over a bump in the road—a small bump, one I barely felt, considering how slowly we were going, but I guess being all bent over with her face nearly in the floorboard, Tyra felt it mightily, because just as we went over it, she hollered, “Damn it! I bit my tongue!”

“Are you bleeding? Do you need a tissue? I keep a box in the glove compartment—here, let me open it for you . . .”

I reached over and unlatched the glove compartment. It fell open onto Tyra's head—barely tapping her, really—but she started bobbing her head up and down and around, like a panicked mule in a too-tight harness, and jolted the compartment door so that the entire contents showered down on her head: papers from Elroy's shop, from the times I'd had my oil changed or repairs done. A tire gauge. A flashlight. And the box of tissues.

“What is going on here? Are you trying to kill me?” Tyra thrashed about as she hollered. Apparently the barrage of stuff on her head made it possible to breathe, and also holler again, “Be careful!”

There was the gravel driveway to Ed Crowley's farm just ahead. I could pull in there.

Tyra's fist hit the center gearshift hard enough that she knocked the shift to neutral. My car slammed to a stop. The force was enough that it threw Tyra, and her seat, all the way back. She started screaming. I started screaming too, mostly because I was horrified at the thought of my car's gears being stripped and having to deal with one very large repair bill.

Then I heard a siren. I looked into the rearview mirror and saw a police car coming up the road behind us. If I didn't move, and fast, the cruiser was either going to ram right up my tailpipe or have to swerve around us—and on this narrow country road, that would be dangerous. I needed to move. I grabbed for my gearshift, got us into drive, and suddenly—just as the police car was about to plow into the back of mine—we were moving forward again.

I glanced into my rearview mirror. Yes, that really was Chief John Worthy in the car behind me, right on my tail, his mouth hanging open like the shock of seeing me careening all over the road had unhinged his jaw.

I gave a little oops-sorry wave—to no effect, as Chief Worthy kept on his siren and his flashing lights.

Now, you know how in a traumatic situation your brain kind of splits off, and while the main part is still dealing with the situation, the split off part is kind of analyzing it and thinking about it, and in a half second can go through thoughts that would normally take minutes . . . or longer?

I am ashamed to admit it, but that little split off part of my brain had this idea—just for a little bit, as I am a law-abiding citizen—that I should just put my gas pedal to the floor and try to outrun Chief Worthy. I had this momentary fantasy that if I did so, maybe the passenger side door would fly open, and Tyra would go flying out, and Chief Worthy would be obliged to stop and help her. I only envisioned her scratched up a little. With a few bruises. Maybe bleeding here and there. But definitely not too hurt, or dead, or anything like that. Then, with Chief Worthy delayed by Tyra's needs, I could drive on and on, beyond Paradise, beyond Mason County, even beyond Ohio . . .

My mama had done that. Just up and left after our trailer burned, left behind whatever problems plagued her. I never found out what those problems were. I've never tried. I've never really wanted to know. Knowing can be worse than imagining.

But just before our trailer burned and she ran off and left me alone, she'd told me, “Mark my words, little girl, you can't run away from trouble, it'll just stink worse as it follows you.”

I guess I only remember her saying it because she left after that. But even though it was advice she hadn't taken, it was advice that was still good. And even as my foot pressed down just a little on my gas pedal, I thought of Guy, over at Stillwater. He needed me.