Authors: Kathleen Bacus
“Well, I uh—actually, I didn’t realize I was, uh, driving the wrong vehicle until, uh—” I hesitated, not wanting to admit
even the body in the trunk and the fistful of Ben Franklins hadn’t tipped me off, and that if Townsend hadn’t pointed it out
to me, I might never have noticed. “Uh, Townsend pointed it out,” I mumbled real low and fast through my fingers, hoping neither
man caught the admission.
“Townsend pointed it out? When?”
Nice. “When he brought me back to get my car.”
“Your car is in town.”
“Well, yes, I know that now, but I didn’t then.”
“And you abandoned this car because?”
“Because of the flat tire, for starters.”
“Flat tire?”
“Front passenger side. But I don’t have to worry about that now, do I? You can’t say that was my fault. How can someone be
blamed for a flat tire? It’s like an act of nature or God or something, isn’t it? So I don’t have to worry about the flat
tire. Do I? I mean, it isn’t even my car. Therefore, it isn’t my tire. Right?”
The deputy gave me a strange look and appeared to have difficulty getting his train of thought back on the rail. “And you
couldn’t change the flat?”
I shook my head, feeling I was inching closer and closer to a very deep, dark precipice.
“Why not?”
Townsend cleared his throat several times. I winced, knowing that once I forced the words forming in my brain out through
my tight lips, things would never, ever be the same. Being involved in a murder, however slightly, had a way of changing things.
Lots of things.
“I couldn’t get to the spare tire,” I said.
“Why not?” the deputy repeated.
I hesitated.
“Why couldn’t you get to the spare, Ms. Turner?”
“Tressa.” Townsend’s terse warning didn’t elude me.
I scrunched my face up, struggling to find the right words. Tell me, what is the correct way to inform a police officer that
you found the body of a prominent attorney stuffed in the trunk of a vehicle you’d just stolen? See my dilemma?
I unscrunched my face, opened my mouth, and recited the words that seemed to have become my mantra of late. “Well, you see,
deputy, I couldn’t get to the spare tire because Peyton Palmer’s cold, dead body was obstructing my access.”
“Shit,” Townsend offered from the back seat.
“Holy shit,” echoed Deputy Doug.
“No shit, Sherlocks,” I said.
Ooops. Sorry, Oprah.
You’ve seen it in the movies, especially those oldies but goodies, that not-so-subtle psychology of the interrogation room,
an old standard in on-screen and literary police procedurals. You know what I’m talking about. The heavy cigarette smoke blown
to best advantage. The strategically placed, high-intensity lighting. The two-way mirror the “suspect” is not supposed to
suspect is there. The offer of a cup of coffee or can of soda accompanied by an I’m-your-pal-now-spill-your-guts smile. The
good cop/bad cop scenario played out with flawless precision and painstaking attention to roles.
Not! At least, not Knox County’s production. The only resemblance to silver screen interrogation scenes was the foam cup filled
with a beverage the color and consistency of tar clutched in each of the officer’s mitts. I politely declined. Okay, so first
I pointed out the results of recent studies relating to caffeine and increased impotence rates, then declined.
By the time I got around to reciting my tale of terror in the tall grass to the threesome in the sheriff’s office conference
room at the ancient courthouse, the terrible trio almost had me convinced I imagined the whole thing.
“Let me get this straight. What you’re telling us, Miss Turner, is that you
see dead people?
” Deputy Doug Samuels—or Deputy Dickhead, as I’d come to refer to him—said with a smile that wasn’t a smile at all. You know
the one. The smile that makes you want to stick a Post-it note on that says:
Insert knuckles here
.
“Not people, deputy. Person. As in the singular noun.” I wished my high school English teacher could have heard me.
See?
I’d crow.
I did learn something, after all.
Knox County Sheriff Steve Thomason cleared his throat. Tall and long-limbed, with a shortly cropped, standard police haircut,
a nicely trimmed black mustache, and spit-shined leather shoes, so far he’d contributed little. And Townsend? Townsend had
spent the better part of the last two hours shaking his head.
“Ms. Turner,” Deputy Samuels continued, “I don’t know if you’re aware of it or not, but Peyton Palmer, the individual you
claim to have seen deceased in the trunk of a vehicle, is the target of a county investigation into the smuggling of narcotics
into the county jail facility.”
“I had heard something to that effect,” I sniffed, wondering if they thought I was illiterate as well as delusional.
“While I’m not at liberty to discuss certain details of the investigation, let me just say that we have reason to believe
Mr. Palmer may be involved in other questionable activities. As our investigation is active and ongoing, we would not like
to see it jeopardized in any fashion by wild, uh, unsubstantiated claims of bodies in trunks and holes in heads.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Hadn’t the nitwits listened to a thing I’d spent the better part of my night, thus
forfeiting the better part of my limited amount of REM sleep, explaining? “Investigation? What investigation? The target of
your investigation is at this moment probably in the early stages of postmortem lividity.” I struck a particularly gruesome
pose complete with hands posed like stiff claws, tongue hanging out and my eyes rolled back in my head. The three mouseketeers
exchanged dumfounded looks, probably wondering where the ditzy blonde had picked up such command of the pathology of the dead.
I just love those medical examiner thrillers, don’t you? The ones that make you leave the lights on long after you go to bed
and compel you to get back up to check out the closet and under your bed, “just in case.”
Sheriff Thomason drained his cup of tar, crushed the biodegradable-in-about-a-zillion-years cup and tossed it in a nearby
trash can. He folded his arms, crossed his long legs, and leaned on an adjacent table. At well over six feet tall, in his
late thirties to early forties, the sheriff appeared to me to be one of those just-the-facts-ma’am types. No frills. No finesse.
No sense of humor. But maybe that was just with me.
“Listen, Ms. Turner,” the sheriff began, his body language sending a silent but discernible message that the psycho who’d
handed his beloved pet over to the enemy had a credibility problem to hurdle the size of China’s Great Wall. “You’ve told
us a rather unlikely tale here. And say, for the moment I’m prepared to believe you. Tell me, where’s the physical evidence
to support your story? Where’s this suspicious envelope of money? Where’s the blood? For that matter, where’s the body? We’ve
done a cursory search of the trunk, and I promise we’ll do a top-notch forensic examination, but so far we haven’t turned
up one iota of physical evidence to corroborate your story. Nothing.”
“Maybe it’s the remake of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
Sheriff,” Deputy Dickless, or was that Dickhead, said with another stupid grin.
“You ever actually do any police work between movies, Deputy?” I asked. “You know. Solve crime? Catch the bad guys? That sort
of thing.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Townsend put his head in his hands. “What? What did I say?” I batted my eyes.
“What?”
“About that evidence,” Sheriff Thomason prodded.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know where the body or the money went. I don’t know why there weren’t any bloody guts
in the trunk. You guys are the pros here. You figure it out. I told you he was wrapped up in a big, gray tarp of some kind,
so maybe there wouldn’t be any seepage.”
“Seepage?” Townsend lifted an eyebrow. “Seepage?”
“Shut up, Townsend!” I snarled. “Listen, Sheriff, I don’t have all the answers you’re looking for, but I do know this. Someone
took that body from the trunk while I was going for help. It was there when I left, and gone when I came back, and as dead
men tell no tales, I am relatively sure they can’t haul ass either.”
A loud, long-suffering sigh, attributable to almost anyone in the general vicinity, including me, echoed off the walls of
the conference room.
“If what you say is true, Ms. Turner,” the sheriff continued, “how would these—”
“Body snatchers?” Townsend offered.
“—individuals know you were there at that exact location at that exact time of night?”
The little hairs on the back of my neck began to get that creepy, don’t-look-in-the-basement sensation. A chill I hadn’t experienced
the likes of since I bit into a giant Chilly Willy dill pickle with my two front teeth, sent a quiver through me. My tongue
took on the texture of the extra coarse sandpaper we sell in the hardware section of Bargain City. “They followed me,” I whispered.
“They must have followed me. From the time I left work ‘til the time I discovered the body in the trunk and hit the gravel
running. That means they saw me. They might even know who I am. My name. Where I live.” I slammed my hands down on the table
and jumped to my feet. “Protective custody! I demand protective custody. Twenty-four hour guard! The federal witness protection
program! Something!”
“Now who’s been seeing too many movies?” Deputy Doug quipped.
I looked from man to man, waiting to see who could hold out the longest without laughing. It was a three-way tie. The fiends!
“I fail to see the humor in the situation, gentlemen,” I said. “I’ve just informed you that a homicide has occurred within
your jurisdiction. Now, are you going to investigate or not?”
“Sure, sure, we intend to investigate your report, Ms. Turner.” Sheriff Steve pushed away from his perch. “But I’m going to
tell you up front here that I think we’ll find this has all been a mistake, much like the mistake you made taking the wrong
automobile earlier this evening. Like Townsend here said, circumstances played a role in convincing you that you saw something
that you didn’t. Woman on her own. Stranded on a dark country road. Insufficient lighting. The imagination has a way of playing
ugly tricks on a person. How many hours did you work today, Ms. Turner?”
I was taken aback by the abrupt subject change. I resisted the urge to tick off my work hours on my fingers. “Let’s see, I
opened up the Dairee Freeze at nine or so and worked ‘til almost one, then pulled an eight-hour shift at BC. Why?”
“And the day before?”
“Pretty much the same, except I didn’t get out of BC until after midnight because we had to unload a truck.”
“So, you’ve been working two jobs on a pretty regular basis?”
“When she’s not between jobs.” Townsend apparently thought he’d gone long enough without hearing the sound of his own voice.
“I’d say drop dead, Townsend, but I’ve seen enough corpses for one day,” I snapped, and turned back to the sheriff, not liking
where this line of questioning was going. “I suppose next you’ll be asking me if I’m taking any prescription or illegal drugs,
whether I’m under the care of a physician for any psychological problems, if I hate my mother, suffer from acute PMS, or if
I’m currently menstruating.” I straightened my work vest and fished my keys out of my pocket. “You have my statement, officers,”
I said with as much dignity as someone who was padding around in dirty, bare feet could. “What you do with it is up to you.
If there’s nothing further?”
An uneasy silence followed. Sheriff Thomason finally shook his head and crossed the room to open the door for me. “We’ll be
in touch,” he promised.
Yeah, right, if they wanted to sell raffle tickets so they could buy new reserve uniforms, they’d be in touch. Or, if I had
a delinquent parking ticket, I’d hear from them. Or the next time they needed a good guffaw, they’d look me up.
“We’ll get someone to drive you back to your vehicle,” the sheriff said with special emphasis on
your
. He looked at Deputy Doug, who shook his head so violently I thought he’d give himself a case of whiplash.
“That isn’t necessary,” I said. “I’ll walk.”
All eyes in the room dropped to my feet. Townsend, who’d had a ringside seat in the corner, stretched and rotated his shoulders.
“I’ll see she gets home.”
I placed my hand against my chest. “Be still, my heart,” I muttered, and grudgingly accepted the ride. I’d need skin grafts
on my feet if I walked much more.
As we wheeled into the Bargain City lot, depression settled over me like a heavy shroud. Where before my it-could-have-happened-to-anybody
defense seemed plausible, seeing my jalopy parked right where I’d left it back by the greenhouse gave me second thoughts.
Townsend was right. Stuff
did
happen to me. All the time. Like the time I worked as a delivery person at Town Square Florists. Somehow I got the cards switched
on the floral bouquets and ended up taking the
“Long Distance Best Wishes to the Happy Couple: Today is the first day of the rest of your life”
arrangement to the double funeral of an elderly couple killed in an auto mishap, and delivered the
“With Deepest Sympathy at this Tragic Time”
plant to the newlyweds.
Or the time I was looking at bubble gum machines, couldn’t find where the balls went, and happened to look up and see another
customer who appeared to be having the same problem. “I see you’re having the same difficulty I am,” I said to the other prospective
gumball purchaser, only to find out I was speaking to my own reflection on the mirrored wall. Or the time I shut the light
out on my mother in the windowless restroom of a Chinese restaurant, leaving her to grope for the toilet paper and perform
her ablutions in the dark. To this day my mother will not visit a Chinese restaurant with me. Of course, that may be because
of the time I stuck bean sprouts up my nose to entertain the grandson of one of mother’s friends. Several days later he was
rushed to the hospital for extraction of a lima bean. That’s one way to get out of eating those nasty vegetables, I suppose.
The inevitable consequence, however, of my Murphy’s Law lifestyle was the acquisition of a rather unpleasant reputation. My
mere presence was enough to guarantee one of three reactions from local residents. One, they’d snicker. Two, they’d tease
me mercilessly. Or, three, they’d run for cover. It was almost as if they thought if they got too close to me, a little white
farmhouse might come tumbling down out of the heavens and fall on them. Ding-dong. I hadn’t decided yet which reaction hurt
the most.
“I’ll follow you—see that you get home all right.” Ranger Rick pulled up to my car. I took a real close look this time just
to make sure it
was
my car.
“No thanks.” I mustered as much spunk as I could, considering I felt weak as a newborn filly. “I can manage on my own, Ranger
Townsend.” I hoped the chill in my voice gave him a case of frostbite.
“Be reasonable, Tressa,” he said.
After the night I’d had, I was as likely to attain reasonable as I was to land a job as a foot model for corn-remover pads.
I opened his truck door and stepped down, wincing as my tootsies made contact with the pavement. “Good night, Townsend. I
won’t forget how wonderfully supportive and helpful you’ve been this evening.”
Townsend shoved a hand through his hair. “Come on, Tressa, cut me some slack here. What do you want from me?” he asked.
“Respect,” I said. “Just simple respect. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” I paused, wondering why I’d never demanded it before.
“I’m right about Peyton Palmer, you know. Dead right. And once that is shown beyond a reasonable doubt, I’ll expect a heck
of a lot more from you than a simple apology, bucko. Let’s see, maybe something along the lines of a full-page ad in the
Gazette
. Or perhaps you could wear a T-shirt that says ‘Tressa Turner is not a ditz.’ Because, whether or not you and those small-town,
small-minded rumdums believe me or not, there’s trouble here in good ole Grandville. Trouble with a capital ‘M’ as in murder.”
Townsend rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Tressa, if your tale of murder and mayhem turns out to be true, I’ll have your initials
tattooed on my butt.”
“Your bum’s mine, Townsend,” I vowed, then felt my cheeks grow warm when his eyes widened and I caught a glimpse of something
there I hadn’t seen before. “Uh, that didn’t exactly come out the way I meant it to, but you get the drift. And no welshing.”