Best Served Cold (A Trailer Park Mystery Book 3) Page 16

  “I appreciate it, Ruby,” Wanda Nell said, softening her voice. “Look, let me give you my phone number. If you remember the name, call me, no matter what time it is. Will you do that?” She reached into her purse for something to write on.

  “Sure,” Ruby said. “I’ll look through some of my things at home. Maybe something will jog my memory. We had to do some team projects in that class, and I might have something with her name on it.” She laughed in an embarrassed way. “I hold on to stuff and just never throw anything away. My mama is always fussing at me about it.”

  “I really appreciate it,” Wanda Nell said, handing Ruby a slip of paper with her number on it. “I’m glad you hold on to things, if you can find that girl’s name for me.”

  “I’ll check as soon as I get home,” Ruby promised. She gave Wanda Nell a hug.

  “Thank you,” Wanda Nell said, returning the hug. “Now, you and Gladys get on home. I’m coming right behind you. You ready to go?” She called out to Melvin as she walked out the door.

  Melvin yelled for her to go on, and she went on to her car. Feeling grateful that she didn’t have to face a night shift at Budget Mart, she drove home, hoping for a decent night’s sleep. There were so many things weighing on her mind right now, she might never get to sleep, though. She would just have to take things as they came. I’m doing everything I can, she told herself. And that’s all I can do.

  Slightly cheered by these thoughts, she sustained the mood until she turned into the trailer park entrance. As her headlights swept the end of her trailer, she slammed on her brakes and stared.

  Someone had spray-painted a message across the end of her trailer. Hands trembling on the steering wheel, Wanda Nell read the words, “nosy = dead.” For a moment Wanda Nell was terrified. She could hardly breathe.

  Then she was angry—blazingly angry. “Bastards!” Who they hell did they think they were? Spray-painting a threat on her home. She’d get them for this. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by anyone.

  Chapter 16

  Easing her foot off the brakes, Wanda Nell drove her car to the carport and parked it. Still shaking slightly, she got out of the car. For a moment, she leaned against the car to steady herself. When she felt stronger and more in control, she climbed the steps to her front door and let herself in.

  “Hey, honey,” Mayrene said, looking up from the couch. “You’ll never guess what the boys and me found after you called earlier.”

  Wanda Nell paid no attention to her words. “I’ve got to call the sheriff’s department.”

  “Well, yeah,” Mayrene said, frowning, “I think you should. But don’t you want to know what we found first?” Intent on getting to the phone in the kitchen, Wanda Nell didn’t even hear her. She punched in the number, and when the dispatcher answered, she demanded to speak to Elmer Lee.

  “Just a moment, ma’am,” the dispatcher said. “I think he’s still here.”

  When Elmer Lee came on the line, Wanda Nell said, “You need to get out here to the trailer park right now, Elmer Lee. I want you to see something.”

  She listened to him sputter at her about being too busy for any of her foolishness, but she cut him off. “You get yourself out here right now. Do you hear me?” She slammed the phone down. Her temper had flared again, and she was surprised she hadn’t knocked the phone loose from the wall where it was mounted.

  “Honey, what’s going on?” Mayrene, watching from the other end of the kitchen, now came forward to put an arm around Wanda Nell’s shoulders. “Calm down.”

  “Did you hear anything outside tonight?” Wanda Nell asked.

  Obviously puzzled, Mayrene shook her head. “No, honey, we was all watching TV, and I reckon it was kinda loud. We didn’t hear anything. What happened?”

  Tersely, Wanda Nell explained what she had seen. “Good Lord,” Mayrene said. “I can’t believe somebody had the gall to do that, and us just sitting here inside the whole time.” She squeezed Wanda Nell hard against her. “You just wait. If I get ahold of the bastards who did this, honey, I’ll take my shotgun to ’em.”

  Wanda Nell almost laughed at that. That shotgun was Mayrene’s answer to everything. “Let’s let the sheriff’s department do their job first.”

  While they waited for Elmer Lee to turn up, Mayrene sat Wanda Nell down at the table and got her some water. “You want something to eat?”

  Wanda Nell shook her head. “No, I’m fine. This water is all I need.” She drank down half the glass. “Are the girls already in bed?”

  “Yeah,” Mayrene said. “They went to bed about ten minutes before you got home.”

  “Good,” Wanda Nell said. “I don’t want them upset about all this. Maybe I can paint over it tonight after Elmer Lee’s been here.”

  “I’ll help you,” Mayrene said.

  “Thanks,” Wanda Nell said, drinking the last of her water. “I think I’ve got enough paint left from that paint job I did last year.”

  Moments later, they both heard the sound of a car outside. They both got up, heading outside before Elmer Lee could reach the door.

  “What’s going on now, Wanda Nell?” Elmer Lee stopped about two feet away from her and stood, arms crossed, waiting.

  He was peeved about something, and maybe it was her he was annoyed with. Right now, though, Wanda Nell didn’t really care. “Somebody’s threatening me again, Elmer Lee,” she said. “Didn’t you notice it when you drove up?”

  “No, I didn’t. What are you talking about?”

  “Have you got a flashlight?”

  Elmer Lee called to his subordinate, who brought him the requested light.

  “Come around here,” Wanda Nell said, turning and walking to the end of the trailer. “Just flash your light up there.” She pointed.

  Elmer Lee switched on the light and aimed the beam where Wanda Nell had indicated. The words stood out starkly against the pale blue of her trailer.

  After a moment, Elmer Lee switched the light off. “So what have you been doing to make somebody threaten you?”

  “Now look here, Elmer Lee,” Mayrene said hotly, “Wanda Nell’s the victim in this situation. Nobody’s got the right to blame her. You need to be looking for the sonofabitch who spray-painted her trailer.”

  “I sure do appreciate you telling me how to do my job, Mayrene,” Elmer Lee said, his face expressionless. “If it wasn’t for you and Wanda Nell here, well, I reckon I wouldn’t ever know what to do.”

  Mayrene took a step forward, her hand raised, but the deputy accompanying Elmer Lee suddenly moved up and blocked Mayrene from going any farther.

  “Now let’s all just calm down here,” Wanda Nell said. “And you stop being a jackass.” She looked straight at Elmer Lee as she said it.

  “What’s been going on, Wanda Nell?” Elmer Lee asked. “And don’t give me any crap about you being an innocent victim here. I know you ain’t killed anybody, but you must be doing something to stir up this kind of thing.”

  “Just talking to a few people,” Wanda Nell said. “Anything wrong with that?” Without waiting for a response, she continued, “And some of them are coming to me.”

  “Like who?” Elmer Lee asked.

  Wanda Nell lowered her voice. “Like Marty Shaw, for one.”

  Elmer Lee went completely still. Then he muttered a curse under his breath, but Wanda Nell heard what he said.

  “Exactly,” Wanda Nell said, with grim satisfaction. “He showed up at the Kountry Kitchen, asking me about Rusty and how he was doing. He even asked me for Rusty’s phone number in Nashville. Said he was going to be up there on business, and he might look him up.” She snorted in disgust. “You ever heard such a load of bull hockey in your life?” Beside her, Mayrene shifted from foot to foot, obviously uneasy.

  Elmer Lee stared at her for a long moment. “I’m just going to say this once, Wanda Nell. And you’d better listen to me—for once in your life.” He paused to be sure he had her attention. “Back off from this, and let me do my job. This i
s no time for you to be running around playing Nancy Drew.”

  Something in his tone chilled Wanda Nell. She could feel the flesh crawl along the back of her neck and shoulders. She stared back at him, trying to figure out why this was so disturbing to her. Then it hit her.

  Elmer Lee was afraid.

  Feeling she had to tread more carefully now, Wanda Nell said, “What are you going to do about this?” She pointed to the graffiti.

  “We’ll do what we can,” Elmer Lee said, “but unless one of your neighbors saw something, I don’t know that there’s much we can do.”

  “Then while you’re getting on with whatever it is you can do,” Wanda Nell said, careful to keep the sarcasm from her voice, “I guess we’ll go back inside.”

  “You do that,” Elmer Lee said. He turned away to talk to his deputy.

  Pulling Mayrene with her, Wanda Nell went back inside her trailer. She was disturbed by Elmer Lee’s behavior, but she recognized the fact that she could do little, if anything, about it. But he wasn’t going to stop her doing what she felt she had to do.

  “Wanda Nell,” Mayrene said, calling her back to the present. “You think you can deal with something else now? I found something I thought you should know about.” Grateful for a distraction, Wanda Nell said, “Sure.” She sat down on the couch and motioned for Mayrene to join her. Reaching for the TV remote, she turned the volume down. “What is it?”

  That was all the encouragement Mayrene needed.

  “Well, T.J. and Tuck showed up here about six o’clock to have dinner with me and the girls. And you’ll never guess, honey, but Tuck said he and T.J. was going to do the cooking. I like to have fell out of my chair. I had no idea that man could cook.” She laughed. “He’s gorgeous, makes a lot of money, and he can cook to boot. Too bad he don’t play on my team, or I’d have him in my locker so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him.”

  Wanda Nell usually didn’t mind Mayrene’s rambles, but tonight she was on edge. “So what did you find?”

  Hearing the impatience in her friend’s voice, Mayrene got on with what she had to say. “Like I said, T.J. and Tuck came over for dinner. I been meaning to search through my guest room ever since you and I talked about it, but I felt kind of funny about going through your brother’s things. I mean, Lord knows I’m nosy enough for three people, but it just felt strange for me to be doing it.”

  “I understand,” Wanda Nell said. “I should have come over there and done it with you, but I haven’t had much time.”

  “No, I know that, honey,” Mayrene said. “But with T.J. here tonight, I figured we ought to do it. So Tuck stayed at your place with the girls, and T.J. came over to my place with me. That was after you called me, what was it, nine o’clock? We started looking through everything in here, but there wasn’t much to see.” She sighed in annoyance. “Your brother travels light, and he didn’t bring much with him.”

  “But you found something,” Wanda Nell prompted her. Try as she might, she wasn’t having much luck in hurrying Mayrene along.

  “Yeah, we did,” Mayrene said. “We were about to give up. I mean we had looked through everything twice, and even under the mattress. Nothing. Then T.J. got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed and the night stand and everything.” She chuckled. “I could have done it, but I’d have had a heck of a time getting back up. At first, T.J. didn’t see anything, but then he found a scrap of paper that had slipped under the nightstand.”

  Wanda Nell was beginning to get aggravated. She loved Mayrene dearly, but if her friend didn’t get to the point soon, she was going to scream.

  “Anything on the paper?” she asked in a mild voice. “Yeah,” Mayrene said. She pulled a scrap of paper from the pocket of her pants and handed it to Wanda Nell.

  She examined it. There were sets of numbers on the paper. Phone numbers by the looks of them. She turned to Mayrene for an explanation.

  “A couple of them are toll-free numbers, and the other one had a 601 area code. Turns out it was a Jackson number. We called all three of them, honey, and you’ll never guess what they were.”

  “What?” Wanda Nell almost shouted, she was so tired of this dragging on and on. “What were they?”

  “All three of them was closed, it being so late, of course, but they all had recordings,” Mayrene said, seemingly oblivious to her friend’s impatience. “All of them are DNA testing places, honey. What do you think about that?”

  Chapter 17

  Whatever answer Wanda Nell had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t that one. Why would Rusty need the numbers for DNA testing facilities?

  “You understand what I’m saying?” Mayrene asked. “Wanda Nell?”

  “Yeah, I understand,” Wanda Nell answered. “Just stunned, I guess.”

  “I know,” Mayrene said. “You reckon Rusty was going to have to take a paternity test or something like?”

  “I don’t know,” Wanda Nell said. “I just don’t know.”

  “You think you should let Elmer Lee know about this?” Mayrene asked.

  Wanda Nell almost laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Maybe he’s still outside. We’d better get him in here if he is.” “I’ll go,” Mayrene said. “You just sit there and try to keep calm.”

  Wanda Nell sat with her eyes closed while she waited for Mayrene to return. She hoped Elmer Lee hadn’t left yet, otherwise he was going to be really annoyed if he got called back here.

  “Here he is,” Mayrene said. Wanda Nell opened her eyes and looked up to see Elmer Lee glaring down at her. He was definitely in an even worse mood than he was before.

  “What is it?” Elmer Lee almost spit out the words.

  “Mayrene found a piece of paper with some phone numbers on it in the room where Rusty was staying,” Wanda Nell said. “I think you should check them out. Give it to him, Mayrene.” She wasn’t going to tell him that Mayrene had already called the numbers. He’d have to do it anyway.

  Elmer Lee took the paper from Mayrene and squinted down at it. “What are these, phone numbers?”

  “Sure looks like it,” Mayrene said with a quick glance at Wanda Nell.

  Elmer Lee swore under his breath as he tucked the paper into his pocket.

  “You’d better check those numbers out,” Wanda Nell said, then immediately wished she hadn’t.

  The look Elmer Lee gave her could have peeled the paint off her trailer, but she pretended like it didn’t bother her. She did have the grace to mutter, “Sorry.”

  “You want to show me where you found this?” Elmer Lee turned to glare at Mayrene, who suddenly had a very startled look on her face.

  “Oh my Lord,” Mayrene said. “I plumb forgot. T.J. and Tuck are over at my place watching TV. They wanted to watch some special on PBS, and I sent ’em over there.”

  “Where’s the car?” Wanda Nell asked. “I didn’t see it when I drove up.”

  “It’s over there with mine,” Mayrene said. “Lord, Elmer Lee, come on with me next door.” She glanced at Wanda Nell. “Honey, why don’t you just sit here for a few minutes and rest.”

  “I think I will,” Wanda Nell said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Good night, then,” Elmer Lee said. “You try to stay out of trouble for an hour or two, okay? I can’t be running out here every fifteen minutes.”

  Wanda Nell ignored that. She sat quietly with her eyes closed, even after she heard them shut the door behind them. She needed to unwind, or she was going to have a doozy of a headache before long.

  She had been sitting there for maybe two minutes when the phone rang. Sighing with tiredness, Wanda Nell got up to answer it. Who would be calling her at this time of night? Most people knew she were either at work or in bed asleep by this time. She hoped it wasn’t some boy calling Miranda.

  Then her heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was Ruby. She had almost forgotten about Ruby’s promise to search among her papers for that strange girl’s last name. She grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”

  “Wanda Nell,
it’s Ruby.”

  Breathing a hearty sigh of relief, Wanda Nell said, “I’m so glad you called, Ruby. Have you got good news for me?”

  “I sure do,” Ruby said triumphantly. “As soon as I got home, I started looking through my old papers and things. And I found it. I had a copy of the team assignments we did for that class, and there was her name.”

  “What is it?” Wanda Nell could barely control her impatience.

  “Lily Golliday,” Ruby said. “As soon as I found it, I got out the phone book and looked. There’s about twenty-three Gollidays listed in the book, but there’s no Lily. I sure am sorry.”

  Wanda Nell’s heart sank a little. She had thought as soon as she had the girl’s last name, she could find her right away. Now she’d probably have to call every Golliday in the phone book until she found her.

  “That’s okay,” Wanda Nell said. “The main thing is, I know her name now. I really appreciate you going home and looking it up for me.”

  “I’m glad I could,” Ruby said. “Anything else I can do?”

  “You don’t remember anything else about her, do you?”

  Ruby thought for a moment. “No, not really, except that she was always kind of shy. She seemed like a nice girl, but she hardly ever said a word in class.” Ruby paused to clear her throat. “Maybe that was because she was what my mama would call ‘high yellow’.”

  Wanda Nell hadn’t heard that saying in a long time. “You mean she’s mixed race.”

  “Yeah,” Ruby said. “I noticed that the black students in the class didn’t seem to want to have much to do with her, and neither did most of the white ones. I tried talking to her a couple times, but she just didn’t want to talk to me.”

  “That’s too bad,” Wanda Nell said. “It sounds to me like she could have used a good friend like you, Ruby.”

  “I don’t know what happened to her after that class,” Ruby said. “I haven’t had another class with her since then and I haven’t seen her at all, until she showed up at the restaurant tonight.”