Southern Poison (12 page)

“Anything else?” Ashton said.

“Nope, other than I’d like to learn more about the death of John’s twin. He actually saved his brother’s life when they were teenagers, you know.”

“Need I reiterate that you are in place to observe and report—not investigate?”

“No, sir.”

“Was I unclear in explaining your assignment?”

I busied myself securing the truck’s refrigerator and freezer compartments. “No, sir.”

Ashton cleared his throat, a sure sign of agitation. “I’m pulling you off mobile meal truck duty. Go straight to the warehouse and secure Mama Jean’s truck as usual. Stay away from the ammo dump. And if Mason calls you, make an excuse as to why you can’t see him.”

“But he’s actually a lot of fun,” I protested. “Maybe another date or two? I might learn something useful.”

“Negative.”

Why had the mention of John Mason spooked my handler?

“At least let me stay on the roach coach another week? I think I’m getting close to learning something.”

“Again, no.”

“But I’m just getting good at cooking breakfast biscuits. I was going to expand the menu to croissants!” Not to mention that my tips had already added up to nearly three hundred dollars and I was saving for a new La Perla camisole with matching boy shorts and silk striped robe. Another week of tips would put me there.

Ashton hung up.

I made the drive and, after stashing Mama Jean’s truck inside the warehouse, headed to the Barnes Agency in my Beemer. Both Rita and our new partner, JJ, were in the office, as was the masseur that came in three days a week to answer phones and revive tired muscles. His portable massage table stood in the middle of the room and JJ was prone on top of it. Instead of hiring a temp to replace our secretary, who was out on maternity leave, Rita had chosen to spend the money on stress reduction.

“Hey, Jersey,” JJ said, facedown. “Those are your feet, aren’t they? How ya doing?”

“I should ask you the same thing.”

“I’m doing great.” She lifted her head. “Gotta love a job where I can get a deep-tissue massage in the office, even if I did get thrown off a moving bus last week in Savannah.”

“She’s fine,” Rita told me. “The bus wasn’t going that fast. Besides, she wasn’t pushed off. She fell off.”

JJ settled her head back into the massage table and the masseur went to work on her neck. “Thrown, fell, whatever. I caught the woman when she got off at the next stop. And she had the DVD in her beach bag, which made for another satisfied Barnes Agency client.”

Rita handed me some mail. “We’re still getting a few clients that refuse to deal with anyone except you, but they mostly come around. You enjoying retirement?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I’ve been cooking and selling breakfast out of a truck on the side of the road for the past two weeks.”

“Did I forget to direct deposit your profit-share check last month?”

“You’re funny, Rita. I got called back into service for Uncle Sammy and that’s my cover.”

“Do they know you can’t cook?”

I stayed long enough to get a neck and back massage, and left feeling good about the status quo at the Barnes Agency. Rita and JJ were doing a great job without me. But I didn’t feel good at all about the status of munitions shipments being processed through the ammo dump. I ended up at my kitchen table, nursing a beer, rubbing Cracker with my feet, and mapping out the locations of upcoming social events. Once done, I compared the dates with incoming munitions shipments. For my trouble, I ended up with nothing. I studied Mama Jean’s autopsy report and photos, that—as Ashton had promised—had just been delivered to the Block. I came up with more of the same: nothing. And I wasn’t sure if my nauseous stomach was due to stress over Ox’s love life or due to the fact that I was missing something obvious. I felt sure I’d gotten close to uncovering one of Ashton’s so-called pointers, or clues. I could almost taste it. Like a hungry junkyard dog, I’d caught a scent of something rotten. When that happens, it’s against my nature to just let go. Stubborn might equate to stupid, but time would tell. I went over the shipment schedule and social calendar for a second time with the same result.

“Well, crap,” I said to the dog. “You think John gave me a bogus schedule? Or, do you think the schedule is legit, but I’m not looking in the right place?”

Cracker yawned and flipped over so my feet could reach his other side.

“I won’t see
you around Sunny Point anymore,” I told John over orange juice and sweet rolls. As I expected, he called to ask why Mama Jean’s truck was absent and I agreed to meet him at a café. I wasn’t ignoring Ashton’s orders—not really—since breakfast doesn’t qualify as a date unless it’s a continuation of the prior night.

“That’s too bad. I’m going to miss seeing you every morning. Not to mention your sausage biscuits,” John said. “You working the food truck somewhere else?”

I shook my head and tried to think of something plausible. “Nope. Since Mama Jean died and she has no heirs, there’s no reason to keep the truck operating. I guess it will be sold or given away with the rest of her estate.”

John thought about that. “Are you still on Sunny Point duty, then?”

I put on my indulgent smile. “As I’ve already told you, I’m just a simple person leading a simple life. I don’t know what you mean by Sunny Point duty.”

“You’re still not going to tell me who you work for, are you?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway.” He finished his juice. “I’m thinking about taking today off. Why don’t you follow me to the mall, park your car, and then we’ll go take a drive? Do something fun. Maybe hit a museum or go bowling.”

Before I could agree, my personal cell rang. “Your daddy needs a ride,” Dirk said when I answered, “and I’m not putting his belligerent ass in the back of my unmarked unless he pipes down.” Lieutenant Dirk Thompson is a Wilmington cop who has a soft spot when it comes to Spud. Or a tolerant spot, at least.

“Good grief. What’s he done now?”

“It’s actually all four of ’em.” Dirk paused to tell Spud to be quiet. “In Bobby’s van. They didn’t feel like taking the seats out of the back to create a cargo area, so they strapped a”—he paused to quiz Bobby—”a giant alligator to the van’s roof. Came from a mini-golf that shut down. Oh, there were also planks of scrap metal and four life-sized mannequins up there, too. Bought those at a thrift shop.”

“Oh, hell,” I said. When his friends had collected Spud earlier in the morning, they said they were going shopping. I assumed they meant for staples like Bengay sports cream and prescription drug refills at the CVS and pork loin specials at the Piggly Wiggly. Not alligators and mannequins.

“The whole lot of it fell off. Had traffic backed up in both east-bound lanes. Not all that horrible in itself, but then Spud went and got himself in a fight with a woman on a Vespa scooter.”

Spud’s voice came over the line. “She mowed down one of my mannequins! Tore both its arms right off, she did. And I still can’t find the head, for crying—”

Dirk took the phone back from my father. “The woman is eighty, she swerved trying to miss what she thought was a dead body lying
in the road, and Spud ought to be glad that she didn’t hurt herself. There’s still a hand stuck in the front wheel spokes of her gas-powered scooter.”

I told Dirk I’d get there as soon as I could.

“Listen, thanks for the invite John, but I’ve got to run.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“No, thanks.” I dropped some bills on the table and rushed out, thinking that—while I was smart enough not to involve John with my personal business—it would be great to have Ox along. He was accustomed to dealing with Spud crises and would have gotten a good laugh out of this one. I thought about calling him to meet me. But I’d been purposely keeping my distance, and martyr-like, I couldn’t stop now.

By the time I got to the scene, Bobby, Hal, and Trip were sitting on the rear edge of the van, back hatch open, laughing and drinking Pepsi. Spud stood on a grassy median, staring at the pile of debris that Dirk had cleared from the road: an animatronic alligator with the tip of its tail slowly moving back and forth, scrap metal, and various body parts. A silver-haired woman in a bright orange, long sundress sat on her Vespa, arms crossed, watching my father. Her eyes were covered by oversized black sunglasses. A slim plaster hand, detached at the wrist, was wedged in her front wheel.

“Well, at least he’s quieted down,” I said to Dirk and gave him a hug. “Thanks for calling me.”

“Nobody was injured, so if Spud settles things with Miss”—Dirk consulted a notepad—”Fran Cutter, he’s free to go. Of course, somebody’s going to need to haul this trash to the dump.”

“It ain’t trash,” Spud said, thumping his way over with a mermaid walking cane. When angry, he always pokes his walking stick into the ground much harder than necessary. “It’s supplies to make another sculpture. That is the makings of
art.”

“Oh, you’re a metal sculptor?” Fran asked, fluffing her short hair.

“For crying out loud, woman! Of course I’m a sculptor. Why else would we have been hauling this stuff to my workshop?”

“What workshop?” I said.

Ignoring me, Spud thumped his way back to the pile of debris and stood there, talking to himself. We managed to fold down all the van seats and shove everything in. Dirk separated the alligator’s long tail from its body and the two pieces of the damaged animal fit perfectly. We stuffed the mannequin parts anywhere they’d go. Before he left, Dirk got the hand out of Fran’s wheel by breaking off the fingers. After Spud settled down, he promised to repay Fran for any repairs the scooter would need. They exchanged phone numbers, Fran fluffing and my father grumbling. Bobby drove Spud in the van and I followed, toting Hal and Trip.

I quizzed them about our destination—the workshop.

“Your daddy leased an old welder’s place,” Trip explained. “We were on our way there when Bobby swerved to miss a squirrel and everything went kaplooey.”

It was another ten minutes to Spud’s rented workshop, which turned out to be a dilapidated building about the size of a large two-car garage. When we’d all piled in, Spud pointed out that he was allowed to use the welding equipment and tools, as long as everything was accounted for at the end of his lease.

“Isn’t it great?” my father said, arms outstretched until he lost his balance and almost fell over. “We can use the power tools, weld, and do whatever we want in here. It’s a perfect art studio.”

It was a dingy, cobweb-coated structure with a roof that appeared to have several leaks. And the words “power tools” and “weld” do not belong in any sentence referencing Spud and his poker buddies.

I envisioned more than just mannequin parts lying around. “Just be careful in here, will you?”

“I know everything there is to know about welding and such,”
Trip assured me. “I was a shop teacher before I retired, so I’ll keep an eye on your daddy.”

Trip’s announcement made me feel an infinitesimal bit better about Spud’s newfound hobby. We unloaded the road-rash-coated alligator and its tail—which had ceased moving—and the anatomically correct human body parts. I left the four artists sitting around a folding table, collaborating about their sculpture.

Ignoring Ashton’s orders, I pointed the X5 toward John’s house. I wasn’t going to stop and search anything, but I wanted to see where the AJAT contractor lived, partly due to curiosity but mainly because I felt there was more to him than met the eye. Maybe something would jump out and announce itself as a clue. Since I’d turned down his offer to spend the day playing hooky, John probably went to work. If I happened to run into him, I’d just say I changed my mind about spending the day together.

According to the address in his personnel file, John’s place sat in an unincorporated area of the county, just outside the town of Boiling Spring Lakes, which put his house a five-minute drive to Sunny Point. I took the same route I’d driven when going to work in the boxy truck. The roads proved much more pleasurable in my road-hugging BMW with the sunroof open and speakers blasting Santana. When my mobile rang and the caller ID told me it was Ox, I punched the ignore button to send the call to voicemail. The phone immediately sounded again, caller ID the same.

“What’s up,” I answered, leaving the music volume up. Any news in his world would involve Louise and I didn’t really want to hear it, unless the woman was on a plane headed back to California.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Heading south. Just out for a drive, enjoying the day.”

“Are you alone?”

As if he had a right to ask, or care. “Yup.”

“Is everything okay?”

I muted the music. “Sure, why?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

I made the left turn onto Highway 87. “Oh, please, Ox. What, did you have a vision or something? If so, maybe it’s Louise you need to check on.
I’m
perfectly fine.” I snapped the phone shut and had barely gotten the volume back up when he called again.

“Yes, I did have a vision, sort of. Somebody wants to hurt you.”

“So what else it new?” I said, knowing that I was being a total bitch but unable to stop myself.

“I think you should stop whatever you’re doing and come home.”

“I told you, I’m not doing anything except driving.”

“Then you should stop doing that. I’m serious, Jersey. Let me come pick you up.”

I spotted a high-pressure car wash and, just to humor him, pulled into one of the concrete bays. The Beemer needed a bath, anyway. I hopped out and fished through my handbag for some quarters. One spilled out of my wallet and rolled into the parking lot. I jogged after it. “Okay, I’ve stopped driving. Are you happy now?”

“Where are you?” he demanded and the urgency in his voice spooked me. Before I could answer, a rumbling explosion sounded and I felt a hot pain sear into my back as a wave of force slammed me several feet through the air and into a patch of grass and weeds. I still gripped the cell phone when I landed, and heard Ox’s voice, faint and tinny, calling my name as my world got smaller and smaller and then went dark.