Three Times Lucky (12 page)

Slipping past the bay tree where Starr had tied his crime tape, I headed for the bend just below Mr. Jesse’s. I froze as Starr’s voice sliced through the honeysuckle: “Ben, try over here.”

I peered between tupelo branches. Starr’s deputy stood in chest-deep water. Even in a wet suit he looked strong. I took out my pad.
Deputy Ben,
I wrote.
Muscles.

Ben sloshed toward Starr, on the pier. “Water’s awful muddy,” he said. “But if the murder weapon’s here, I’ll find it.” As he adjusted his mask and slipped beneath the
water’s dark surface, a woman stepped out of the shade thirty yards downstream.

“Hey,” she shouted. “I got another set of footprints over here!”

“Good, Marla,” Starr called. “Which way are they headed?”

I wrote,
Deputy Marla. Loud
.

“Into the woods. Looks like they might be a boy’s,” she said. “Size five. Nike sole.” My heart tilted. Dale’s prints.

“Make a mold,” Starr shouted. “Then see where they lead.”

Ben surfaced. “More trash,” he said, slinging an old reel up on the dock.

“A couple more dives and we’ll trailer Jesse Tatum’s boat,” Starr said. “It’s going to rain, and I don’t want to lose the blood evidence on the gunnels.”

Blood evidence? I eased forward, bending a branch out of the way.

“Narrow your search. For the blood to spatter this way, he would have been hit like this,” Starr said, swinging his fist. “If the weapon flew out of his hand, it should be over there.”

Where? I couldn’t see. I eased forward.
Snap!
The branch broke.

Starr reached for his pistol. “You,” he barked, aiming
about ten feet to my left. “Put your hands where I can see them and come out. Now.”

I turned to run, and my foot snagged. I staggered and splashed sideways. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Starr adjust his aim. “Don’t shoot!” I screamed. I threw my arms wide, for balance. My order pad flew out of my hand as I fell into a perfect back flop. The creek closed around me, swallowing the sun. I reached back to the thick creek bottom and pushed off. “Don’t shoot,” I wheezed, raising one hand. “It’s Mo!” I cried, wiping the mud from my eyes. “I’m a possible orphan. Don’t shoot!”

“Hold your fire!” Starr bellowed. “It’s the kid from the diner.”

I yanked at the root that tripped me. That’s when I made the find of the century.

That was no root: It was Mr. Jesse’s oar. And was that water glistening on its splintered blade? Or were those bloodstains?

Starr splashed to me. “Mo LoBeau, what are you doing at my crime scene?”

I smoothed my shirt and grabbed my soggy clue pad as it drifted by. “Good day, Detective,” I said, keeping my voice professional as I pushed the oar toward him. “Here’s your murder weapon.”

He grabbed the oar. “What the … ?”

“Mr. Jesse’s oar,” I said. “He carved the handle last winter, to fit his hands.”

I stood up straight, pen poised, the way Miss Lana taught me. “Welcome to the café’s cater division,” I said. “Have you made your luncheon selection, or do you need more time?”

“I knew I’d end up cruising in an unmarked patrol car one day, but I always figured I’d be the one driving it,” I told Starr as we purred down Mr. Jesse’s drive in Starr’s dirt-colored Impala. Briars crowded the path, squeaking down the sides of the car.

“Driving? You’re lucky you’re not in handcuffs,” he growled. “It’s illegal to disturb a crime scene.”

“I didn’t cross your tape,” I said, brushing my wet hair back from my face. “I came in on the creek, perfectly legal. You don’t believe me, ask Skeeter, my attorney-in-training.”

Starr grinned. “Funny name for an attorney.”

I thought so too, but I didn’t like him saying it. “The Colonel says
all
attorneys should be named for blood-sucking insects so we know up front who we’re dealing with,” I said. Starr’s grin widened. He looks younger when he smiles. His eyes crinkle, and the side of his mouth dimples.
I could almost see why Miss Retzyl might like him.

“You can’t interfere with an investigation. No matter what your friend says.”

“I wasn’t interfering, I was finding the murder weapon,” I said as we rounded a bend. “Hey, you’d better slow down. Most of the town is at the end of this drive, waiting for word on the murder. Besides,” I added, “folks are gonna want to see who’s riding with you.”

Starr tapped the brakes as the crowd came into view. I rolled down my window.

“Hey, Mr. Li,” I shouted. “I found the murder weapon!”

Mr. Li waved. “Very good, Mo. Ask Miss Lana to double my fries. I’m starving!”

“Me too,” Thes shouted.

Sal darted to the window. “Mo, Anna Celeste said she and her mom are eating free of charge today,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do …”

Blackmail. Attila had enough on Dale and his whereabouts the night of the murder to shake me down for eternity—another reason to clear Dale’s name.

“I’ll handle it, Sal,” I said. “Thanks.”

Starr sped up, and the crowd parted. “Buckle up,” he said, his voice like gunmetal.

“Pretty snazzy ride,” I said, clicking my seat belt and waving to a clump of high school kids. “You get to drive
this over to Miss Retzyl’s, for dating? How long you known her, anyway? As a rising sixth grader, I got a right to know.”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Occupational hazard. Detective,” I added before he could ask.

He snorted. “It takes years of training to become a detective.”

“Lucky I didn’t know that earlier,” I said, lifting the radio from its hook. “You wouldn’t have a murder weapon. Speaking of which, you sending my oar to the lab?”

“We don’t know if it
is
the murder weapon,” he said, putting the radio back on its hook. “But yes, my deputy bagged it for the lab.”

“You find any other clues out there? One investigator to another.”

“Nothing comes to mind,” he said. He shot me a cool look. “How about you? You know this town. What’s your take? One investigator to another.”

So
that
was why he was being nice. He wanted my clues. “Beats me. You can let me out at the head of that path,” I added, pointing. “I got to pick up my bike.”

He didn’t even slow down. “I don’t mind giving you a lift to the café,” he said. “I don’t want you out by yourself. Besides, I’d like to have a word with the Colonel.”

My confidence wobbled like a bike in heavy sand. “The Colonel?” I said.

“Yeah. That’s not a problem, is it?”

I shrugged. “Not for me,” I said, hoping I was right.

A few minutes later Starr parked beside the Colonel’s Underbird and followed me into the café. “Come in,” Miss Lana sang from the kitchen. “I’ll be with you in a minute!”

Starr swept off his hat. “Things have changed a little since I was here,” he said.

That was an understatement.

You can tell who’s running the café the instant you walk through the door. The Colonel keeps the café military crisp; Miss Lana prefers a theme. Glancing around, I pegged today’s theme as 1930s Paris—her favorite. A miniature Eiffel Tower graced the counter, and scratchy accordion music crackled from the ancient Victrola she’d placed near the jukebox. The red Formica tables sported white lace cloths, which she’d turned catty-corner, lending the café a bohemian flair. The blackboard behind the counter read:
Le Menu
.

“Bonjour,” Miss Lana said, backing through the kitchen’s swinging doors. Her calf-length, pale pink dress clung to her body like a fine, shimmering mold. “Welcome to la café.” She wheeled gracefully, placed a tray of sparkling glasses on the counter, and beamed at Joe
Starr. “Mo, where are your manners? Take the gentleman’s hat,” she said, picking up her fan and, with a practiced flick of her wrist, snapping it open. “Welcome,
mon capitán
.”

When Miss Lana goes into character, she goes into character.

I popped Starr’s hat onto the counter. “He ain’t a captain, he’s a detective,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows in the universally recognized sign for Be Quiet. “He’s here about the murder.”

She ignored me. “Wine, sir? Unless you’re on duty …”

“Iced tea,” Starr said, his eyes traveling past Miss Lana’s Jean Harlow wig to the 1930s black-and-white Hollywood photos on the wall.

I elbowed back into the conversation. “Detective Joe Starr, this is Miss Lana. Miss Lana, DETECTIVE Joe Starr,” I said. “The one I told you about. The one investigating Mr. Jesse’s murder. Are those our lunches over there?”

“Yes, sugar,” she said, glancing at the neat row of brown paper bags lining the counter. “All packed up and ready to go. Sal brought me the takeout list. She said Anna’s lunch was prepaid … ?”

“Right,” I said, cutting her short. “I got her money right here. You want to carry some of these lunches out for me?” I asked Starr. “Maybe give me a ride back to
the driveway? Folks are hungry, and you are a public servant, after all.”

Now
he
ignored me. “It’s slow for lunchtime,” he said to Miss Lana.

“Naturally,” she said. “No one’s thinking of the café today. All eyes are on you.”

Starr glanced at the café’s one occupied table. Miss Lana’s lone customer had slumped forward, cradling his head in his arms. “Too much wine?” Starr asked, nodding toward the man.

She sighed. “Too much drink well before he arrived at my door.” She picked up the coffeepot, swayed across the room, and carefully topped off the man’s cup. He sat up and focused blearily in our direction.

Crud. Dale’s daddy. Could my day get any worse?

“Hey, Mo,” Mr. Macon mumbled. He looked horrible—like time had grabbed his face with both hands and stretched the life right out of him.

“Hey,” I muttered, heading for the jukebox. Maybe if I stood here long enough, he’d go back to sleep. Dale’s was the last name I wanted to come up with Starr in the room.

“Where’s the Colonel?” Starr asked. “I’d like a word with him, if you don’t mind.”

“The Colonel?” Miss Lana hesitated. “Why, I don’t
believe he’s here. Then again, he’s so hard to keep up with … Such a mercurial personality.” She smiled. “Is his car out front?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Go to the kitchen and call him, sugar,” she told me. “Maybe he’s out back, fishing.”

If he is, he ain’t the only one, I thought.

I shot Dale’s daddy a quick look. Out cold again, thank heavens. I tromped through the kitchen to the side door and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Colonel?” I called, so Starr could hear me. “Miss Lana wants you.” I waited a minute, and came back inside.

“Very well, Detective,” Miss Lana was saying. “Two hamburgers to go. Pity you’re not staying for lunch. We could get better acquainted.”

“The Colonel didn’t answer me,” I said. “I guess he couldn’t hear me.”

“That man will be the death of me.” She sighed, giving Starr a baleful look. “Oh, he’ll come slipping back in when I least expect it with some ridiculous story about a bass or a … What are those other things he talks about, sugar?”

“Catfish?” I suggested. It was all bunk, the idea of the Colonel fishing. The Colonel’s only fishing story involves a stick of dynamite and a bushel basket.

“Catfish,” she said, beaming. “Of course.”

She smiled her most leisurely smile, but moved like lightning as she slapped Starr’s hamburgers together, folded them in crisp tissue, and put them in a bag. She wanted Starr gone as bad as I did. “There you are. On the house,” she said, sliding the bag toward him.

“Thanks anyway,” he said, putting a ten on the counter. “Keep the change.”

“Très bien,”
she sang.
“Au revoir!”

“Merci,”
Starr muttered, heading for the door. “Oh,” he said, turning. “You haven’t mentioned the murder, which I find odd. That’s the first thing most folks ask about.”

“Well,
pardonez-moi,
” she said. “How is your investigation going, Detective?”

“Fine. And don’t worry about not asking. After all, there are a few things I haven’t asked
you,
” he said. “For instance, any idea who might want Jesse Tatum dead?”

I stood behind Starr, waving my arms, mouthing the words
No! No!
as Miss Lana studied me.

She shrugged delicately. “Well,” she said, “his girlfriend may have wanted him dead. Or her jealous husband. I’m sure you know about them. Selma and Albert Foster, from Kinston?”

I went dizzy. Those were my best clues!

“You know them, then?” Starr said, taking out his pad.

“No,” she said. “But you hear things when you run a café.”

Starr nodded. “And where were you the night Jesse Tatum died?”

“On a Greyhound, coming home from Charleston.”

“Alone?”

She smiled. “In the existential sense, we all travel alone, don’t we?” she said. “At times I feel it like a dull, aching pain, right here,” she said, bringing her hand to her heart. “Don’t you? Like a child yearning to go home.”

Starr frowned. “Right,” he said. “I had the same thing last Thursday. But I’m asking more in the alibi sense of things. Were you alone physically?”

“I was on a
bus,
” she said, her smile slipping. “I’m sure that’s easy to confirm.”

Starr nodded and snapped his pad shut. “Probably so. I’ll find out for you. You want a ride back to Jesse Tatum’s driveway, Mo?”

Before I could say yes, Miss Lana’s hand fell on my shoulder. “No, thank you, Detective,” she said. “I’ll drive her back.”

Now what? Miss Lana can’t drive.

“One more question,” Starr said. “Somebody mentioned seeing a boy near Mr. Jesse’s the day he died. Scrawny kid, blond hair, black T-shirt. Any idea who that was?”

“My goodness,” she said. “Surely you don’t suspect a child.”

“I’ve seen murders done by kids younger than Mo, there,” Starr said. “Shrinks say bad parenting’s to blame, but who knows?”

“Yes, they can be such mad dogs, the poor dears,” she said, patting my head.

Behind me, Dale’s daddy’s chair scrubbed against the floor. “Hold it right there, you slick-talking son of a gun,” he slurred.

“Macon!” Miss Lana cried.

Mr. Macon rose unsteadily, his face twisted in rage. “There ain’t nothing wrong with the way I’m raising my boy,” he said, his voice thick. “If anybody’s to blame for the way he’s turned out, it’s his mama. Ain’t that right, Mo? Who does she think she is, telling me to get out of my own house?”