Rebel Without a Cake (21 page)

Number two: I was surrounded by wildlife that might or might not eat me for lunch. Definitely against.

Number three: I hadn't eaten anything since I left New Orleans hours earlier when I'd scarfed down an Asiago cheese bagel smeared with cream cheese. More against.

That brought me to my final conclusion: I was going to die.

The “for” column remained annoyingly empty, but if I didn't want to die (and I didn't), I would have to do something.

It took some work, but I finally got the seat belt unbuckled. Now that I was free, I slid down the seat toward the passenger's door, but dug my feet in and stopped myself from smashing into it.

Okay. That was good. Next step: Find food. I was almost positive I had a Halloween-sized Snickers in my purse. (Don't ask.) The candy wouldn't sustain me for long, so I scrounged in the glove box to see if I had anything else I could call food. There I found three linty breath mints, which I set aside in case the other supplies ran out. The best find of all was half a bottle of water, which apparently had been dislodged from under the seat during the crash. I didn't know how long it had been hanging around in the car. I hoped it was mine and not water left over from when this was Philippe's car, but beggars can't be choosers.

For a long time I sat there alternately contemplating my demise and the best way to remove lint from mints of indeterminate age. The sun had moved toward the west and shadows leaned across the road. A small flock of monarch butterflies flying south fluttered around for a while, and I tried to remember encouraging passages from the Bible. They always seemed to help Aunt Yolanda, but it had been a while. Besides, “Fear not,” the only thing I could call up from memory, had to do with walking through the valley of death. Considering where I was, I didn't find that particularly comforting.

After a long time a strange noise caught my attention, but it took a little while to recognize it as a car's engine. I sat up as straight as I could and noticed dust floating up above the trees. A few minutes later the white Ford Ranger rattled over the bridge and came to a stop beside me.

Its driver, a young man with shaggy brown hair, leaned across the seat and called out to me. “You all right, ma'am?”

I blinked back fresh, hot tears and said, “I'm not seriously hurt, but I don't think I'm going anywhere and I can't get the door open.”

He pulled off to the side of the road and came back to help me. My knees felt like rubber and my head felt as if someone had put it in a vise. My lungs and chest hurt like crazy, but at least I wasn't going to die in the car and turn into alligator bait. All things considered, I was a pretty lucky woman.

My rescuer wasn't carrying any spare toilet tank lids in the back of his truck. I know because I checked as he helped me up the road and into the front seat. There were three paint cans, though, and a number of other dangerous-looking implements he could have used to end my life if that's what he wanted to do.

In spite of my aching lungs and throbbing head, I pulled together enough logic to reason that if he wanted me dead, he would've only had to drive on by and leave me where I was. That made me feel a little better.

In the side mirror I saw him lean into my car. A minute later, he jogged up the road toward me and handed me my keys. “Figured you might need these.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I slipped them into my pocket and wondered if the fissures in my skull were obvious from the outside.

The kid started the truck and we lurched back onto the road. “I can take you back into town. That okay with you?”

I could call Aunt Margaret's house from there so I said that would be fine.

“You new around here?”

I tried to shake my head and quickly decided that any movement from the neck up was a bad idea. Also from the neck down. “No, I'm just passing through.”

He looked surprised. “There ain't no through road out this way. Where'd you come from?”

Seriously? He hadn't noticed me tailing him before? “I, uh—I took the wrong road out of town, I guess. I realized my mistake and turned around, but then something ran in front of my car and I—” I waved a hand vaguely over my head. “Well, the rest is history, I guess. I'm Rita, by the way.”

“Kale,” he said with a grin. “You're lucky I came along when I did.”

Double-lucky. Too bad I was so out of it—what were the odds that I'd be rescued by one of the people I most wanted to talk to? “I know how fortunate I am,” I said. “I'd almost finished planning my funeral when you came along.” Too late, I realized how callous my little joke had been. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean—you just lost your father and that was a really insensitive thing to say.”

Kale's smile vanished. “You know who I am?”

Oops
. Note to self: Never try to interrogate a suspect on the sly when your brain has just been put through a blender. “I assumed,” I said. “You said your name was Kale, and I was here in Baie Rebelle when your father died.” I mumbled an explanation that wrapped up my connections to Bernice, Miss Frankie, and Aunt Margaret without going into detail.

Kale didn't say anything for a while and I started wondering about all those tools in the back of the truck. “So are you the lady who found him?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Yeah.”

“I thought you went back to New Orleans.”

“I did. But the sheriff's department needed my statement, so I came down today to give it to Georgie.”

Kale's hands tightened on the steering wheel. “They said he was in the ditch. Is that right?”

My heart ached for him, even as my brain wondered if that was a real question or one designed to make himself sound innocent. I didn't know if he was a murderer, but I hoped he wasn't. I
did
know that he was a kid who'd just lost his father. I understood how confused and alone he must feel. I wanted to say something that would make it easier for him, but what would that be? I decided to give it to him straight. “Yeah. He was. In the ditch.”

His eyes flickered toward me. “Was there blood?”

“Not that I could see, but it was dark. The sheriff's deputy said he'd been hit on the head and that's what killed him, so I'm guessing there must've been some.”

Kale nodded and chewed on that information for a few minutes. “Do you think he suffered?”

“I don't know. I never saw his face.”

Kale's expression turned to stone. “No? That's too bad. I hope the sonofabitch died a slow, painful death.”

Maybe his response should have frightened me. At the very least, it should have made me nervous. But I'd been angry with God and everyone on the planet for a long time after my parents died. I wasn't going to take his reaction at face value.

“Were the two of you close?” I asked softly, knowing the answer.

Kale let out a sharp one-note laugh. “Close? Me and Silas? No. Haven't you heard how he walked away from us when I was two?”

“I've heard,” I admitted. “I know that your uncle Junior stepped in and did what he could to take Silas's place. But I also saw you talking to Silas on Saturday night outside the bar.” Okay, so I hadn't actually seen Kale's face, but I'd seen his truck and I was taking a not-so-wild guess.

“So what? You think I killed him?”

I turned my head a fraction of an inch, thinking it might be smart to watch his face more closely. Pain zinged along my spine, and the pressure in my head made it feel as if it would explode any second. “No,” I said. “No, I don't.”

He shot a belligerent look at me. “I could have, you know. I should have. Most of my life I wanted to.”

“I'm not surprised. I can't even say that I blame you. But you didn't do it, did you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Who else knew where he lived? Who might have gone there to see him?”

“Everybody knew where the house was,” Kale said. “That wasn't a secret. The still, though. That was different.”

Thoughts were churning slowly inside my head so it took me a while to realize what he'd just said. “Silas had a still? Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I'm sure.”

Was that a coincidence, or had Eskil been right about Uncle Cooch's disappearance? My heart fluttered with excitement. “Do you know where it is?”

“Naw. I tried following him a few times out of curiosity. Had the idea that if I could find the still, I'd show him I was better'n him. Every time I tried, he lost me, though.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and grinned. “Couple of times I thought I might be getting close, but both times he took a few shots at me to scare me. It worked, too. I backed off.”

Wow. Shooting at his own son to protect his illegal—and possibly stolen—moonshine operation? I guess Silas's aversion to ownership didn't extend to property taken from others. I'm no psychiatrist, but I diagnosed Silas as a certified looney tune. “How long did he have the still? Was it a recent thing?”

“He had it all my life, I guess. I wasn't supposed to know about it at all.”

“You overheard him talking about it?”

“Not Silas,” Kale corrected me. “A couple of the men in town. They were customers of his, I guess.”

“And you're sure they were talking about Silas's still?”

Kale nodded. “They mentioned him by name, which is why I paid attention. There's always talk if you know how to listen.”

A kid after my own heart. “Did you ever ask Silas about it?”

“Nope.” Kale spit something out his window and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “Me and him never talked at all until a month or so ago. He came and found me after church one day. He said he had something important to tell me. I didn't want nothing to do with him and I told him so. But that didn't stop him from trying.”

“You didn't actually speak to him?”

“Sure I did. I told him to get the hell away from me.”

“How did he react to that?”

“Same way he did to everything else. He didn't care. He just did whatever he wanted.”

“So he kept trying to talk to you, but you don't have any idea what he wanted to tell you?”

Kale shook his head. “I didn't want to know. I wanted him to go to hell. The way he ignored Ma and me wasn't right.”

We bounced over a series of ruts, and pain shot through my head.

Kale asked, “You don't think that's why Silas got killed, do you?”

“Because of whatever he wanted to tell you? I don't know. It's possible, but it also might have been completely unrelated. Does your mother have any idea what he wanted?”

Kale looked sheepish. “I never told her about him coming around. It would've upset her too much.”

“Are you sure it would have upset her? Is there any chance she was still in love with your dad?”

Kale actually laughed. “Oh,
hell
no. I think she liked Junior better'n she liked Silas—and she don't like Junior all that much.”

“Well, then why did she stay married to him? And why did she let Junior take care of her all these years?” The questions popped out before I could stop them. I winced at my own audacity.

“What is this? Freaking
CSI
or something?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I'm not with the police or anything. I'm just curious. You have to admit, it's a strange situation. Your father walked out on your mother twenty years ago but he lived just a few miles away the whole time. She knew where to find him, but she never filed for divorce and she let her brother-in-law take care of her and help raise her son. Anybody would be curious.”

“Yeah, but not everybody would be rude enough to ask about it,” Kale shot back.

I dipped my head in agreement. “You're right. I'm sorry. I'm not feeling so good after the accident and I'm just trying to keep myself distracted.” I told myself to let it drop, but Kale's assessment of Nettie's relationships with the Laroche brothers had piqued my curiosity.

“I only asked because I saw her talking to Junior earlier today. I'm pretty sure they were talking about you.”

Kale curled his lip and cut a glance at me. “Let me guess. It was about me going to work for Junior?”

“Yeah. I take it you don't want to do that.”

“Nope,” he said, and fell silent. I was afraid I'd lost him, but finally he said, “I know that Eskil hated Silas.”

“So I hear. Do you know why?”

Kale shrugged and this time he didn't answer.

“I heard that maybe Silas helped Cooch Percifield disappear years ago. Do you think he could have done that?”

Our friendship was cooling rapidly. “What's it to you?”

He'd been pretty honest with me—at least I thought he had—so I gave him a straight-ish answer. “Eskil's cousin Bernice is a friend of mine. She's worried about him. There are some people in town who think Eskil killed Silas, and if it's true that Silas helped Cooch disappear, Bernice might have good reason to worry. It would give Eskil a pretty solid motive, wouldn't it? So what do you think? Could Silas have done something to Cooch?”

“Sure. My old man was mean as a snake. But
why
would he?”

“The family still disappeared when Cooch did. Maybe Silas took over the operation.”

Kale looked intrigued, but he didn't say anything. Junior's place loomed into view but Kale didn't even glance at it as we passed. “He used to give Eskil a rough time about Cooch disappearing the way he did,” he said at last, “but I never thought it meant anything. Silas was mean, but he wasn't stupid. You can't be dumb and survive in a place like this. I think he knew what Eskil thought, and he got a charge out of acting like it was true.”

Somewhere inside my head a bass drum of painful throbbing began to beat a steady rhythm. The thought of arranging for a tow truck and waiting inside T-Rex's or the Gator Pit for someone to pick me up made me want to cry. I sighed, but it came out sounding more like a whimper.

“You okay?”

I offered up a weak smile. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Tell you what,” he said. “I'll take you on up to Miss Margaret's if you want, but I've gotta stop by and take something to Ma first. You mind a quick detour?”

My smile gained a little strength. “I don't mind at all.”