Best Served Cold (A Trailer Park Mystery Book 3) Read online

  Rusty stared at him, not saying a word.

  “Were you hiding out in the woods behind the trailer, Elmer Lee?” Wanda Nell tried to keep her voice cool.

  Jack walked by Elmer Lee and came to stand by Wanda Nell. This time it was he who put a warning hand on her arm. She noticed it but didn’t let it stop her.

  “Well, here he is. What are you waiting for?”

  “Calm down, Wanda Nell,” Elmer Lee said. “I just want to talk to Rusty.” He might have been talking about watching a football game with a buddy, he was so relaxed.

  “What you want to talk about?” When Rusty finally spoke, his voice came out hoarse.

  “I reckon your sister’s done told you why I want to talk to you,” Elmer Lee replied. “But I think maybe you ought to come with me down to the sheriff’s department. We can have us a nice long talk there with nobody butting in.” He looked pointedly at Wanda Nell. “Y’all can just go on with what you’re doing and not worry about ol’ Rusty here.” Wanda Nell ignored that last little sally.

  “I know a real good lawyer, Rusty. You want me to call him and have him meet you down there?”

  “I ain’t got money for a lawyer,” Rusty said bleakly.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Wanda Nell said. “This lawyer’s a member of the family, practically, and I know he’d be willing to help you out.”

  Rusty frowned at that, obviously wondering what she meant. He glanced curiously at Jack, who shook his head. “Not me,” he said.

  “No need to be getting a lawyer involved in all of this,” Elmer Lee said. “Leastways, not just yet. Come on now, Rusty. Let’s get going. I’ll ride with you, okay? And we can have us a nice little chat on the way.”

  Rusty got up from the table. Wanda Nell walked around to where he stood and wrapped her arms around him. For a moment, he was stiff in her arms, then he put his arms awkwardly around his sister and returned her hug. Releasing him, Wanda Nell whispered in his ear. “I’m gonna call the lawyer. Don’t worry.”

  Rusty nodded to show that he had heard. Elmer Lee, waiting less patiently now, reached out and tapped Rusty on the shoulder.

  “I’m coming,” Rusty said. He turned and followed Elmer Lee to the door. Jack went with them to see them out.

  Wanda Nell immediately grabbed the phone and punched in Tuck Tucker’s cell phone number. “Come on, answer,” she grumbled into the receiver after three rings.

  Tuck answered on the next ring. “Hello, Hamilton Tucker speaking.”

  “Hey, Tuck, it’s Wanda Nell.”

  “Hey, Wanda Nell. We’re gonna be on our way over there in about ten minutes. That okay?”

  Wanda Nell hated to spoil Tuck’s Sunday evening, but Rusty needed his help. She didn’t trust Elmer Lee and his little let’s be pals act. The sooner Tuck got down to the sheriff’s department, the better. Quickly she filled Tuck in on what had happened.

  “I’m on the way right now,” Tuck promised. “Don’t worry about your brother. It’s a good sign that Elmer Lee let him bring his truck. That means they probably aren’t planning to hold him.”

  “Thanks, Tuck. I’m gonna owe you big time for this.”

  “We’ll work it out in Sunday evening dinners,” Tuck said, and Wanda Nell had to smile as she said good-bye.

  “Thank the Lord for Tuck,” Wanda Nell said.

  Jack smiled. “Kinda nice having him to call on, isn’t it? He’s a great guy, but then so is T.J.”

  Wanda Nell smiled her thanks at him. Her eye fell on the oven. “Oh my Lord, the roast!”

  Fearing the roast had burned to a crisp, she hurried over to check on it. Opening the oven door, she peered in. “Whew. It’s okay. I was afraid I’d let it burn up with all this going on.” She reached for her oven mitts and took the roast out and set it on the trivet on the counter.

  “Smells great,” Jack said. “I like it well done anyway.” Wanda Nell drew off the oven mitts and dropped them on the counter beside the roast. Jack came to her and folded her into his arms. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “I’m okay.” She enjoyed the warmth of his arms around her. He felt strong and safe.

  “What about your brother?” Jack said. He pulled back enough to peer into her face. “Do you believe him?” Wanda Nell nodded. “I don’t know why I do, or even why I should, but I do. I don’t think he killed that man.”

  “But?” Jack asked.

  He was getting to know her pretty well, Wanda Nell realized. He had caught the hint of uncertainty in her voice.

  “But,” Wanda Nell said, drawing away from him, “I do think he knows something about it. He may even know who did it. I’m not sure.”

  “He never answered your question when you asked him that,” Jack said. He went to the stove and checked on the potatoes. He picked up a fork and stuck it in one of them. “I think these are done.” He turned the burner off.

  “Let them sit for a few minutes,” Wanda Nell said. “I don’t feel like finishing them right this minute.” She sat down at the table.

  “You sit there and try to relax a few minutes,” Jack said. “I’m perfectly capable of making mashed potatoes.” He grinned. “It’s actually one of my specialties.”

  “Have at it,” Wanda Nell said, smiling faintly.

  She watched as he drained the water from the pot, then retrieved milk, sour cream, and butter from the refrigerator. While he worked, she enjoyed the sight of him perfectly at home in her kitchen, boyishly handsome and intent on his task.

  “I saw him yesterday,” Jack said as he searched in a drawer for her mashing tool.

  “Who?” Wanda Nell asked, startled. “Rusty?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. He had found the masher and set to work on the potatoes.

  “Where?”

  “At the high school,” Jack said. “I was there part of the afternoon, working on cleaning out one of the cupboards in my room. Something I should have done before school started. When I was leaving, I guess it was about four o’clock, I decided I’d take a walk around the football field. You know, clear my head a little and get some exercise.”

  He picked up the sour cream and spooned a large dollop into the potatoes, then added some butter. He continued mashing. “You have to go by the fieldhouse to get to the field, at least coming from the building where I was,” Jack explained. “I was about fifty feet or so from the fieldhouse when the door opened and this guy came out.

  He stopped in the doorway for a moment, spoke to someone, then stalked off. From what I could see, he looked pretty angry.”

  “And that was Rusty?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Did he see you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Jack answered. “The afternoon sun would have been in his face, and I doubt he noticed me.”

  “Did you see who he was talking to?”

  “Yeah, it was Scott Simpson,” Jack said. “The football coach. He was standing in the doorway when I walked by. He had a nasty look on his face, and he wasn’t too happy to see me walking by just then.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Nothing except slam the door shut,” Jack said, shrugging. “Does your brother know Simpson?”

  Wanda Nell nodded. “Yeah, they were in high school together. I think Scott was a year ahead of Rusty, but they certainly knew each other.”

  “Good friends?” Jack took the masher to the sink and rinsed it.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Wanda Nell said, raising her voice to be heard over the running water. “Scott hung out with a different crowd, I think.”

  “Then I wonder why your brother went to see him,” Jack said as he dried his hands on a towel.

  Wanda Nell shook her head. Then a thought struck her. “Tony Campbell,” she said slowly.

  “The veterinarian?”

  “Yeah. He and Scott were both on the football team in high school,” Wanda Nell said, remembering. “I think they were good friends.”

  “And it was Tony Campbell�
��s brother who was murdered.”

  “That means there’s a link somewhere among all of them,” Wanda Nell said.

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” Jack replied. He sat down at the table with her. “But what kind of link?”

  Wanda Nell shook her head. “That I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to try to find out?”

  Wanda Nell regarded him squarely. She had heard the note of concern in his voice. “Yeah, I’m going to have to. Unless Rusty tells me what this is all about, and I don’t think he’s going to, then I’ll have to try to find out for myself.” She frowned. “I could try talking to Tony Campbell or Bert Vines, but I don’t think they’d tell me anything. I haven’t seen Tony in a long time, not since our old dog had to be put to sleep.”

  “No, they probably wouldn’t talk to you,” Jack said. He too frowned. “And I don’t think it’s such a good idea to antagonize them, at least not until we have a better idea what’s going on here.” He regarded her sternly. “And when I say ‘we,’ I mean ‘we.’ I think you should be careful about running around by yourself.”

  Wanda Nell smiled at him. “I appreciate your concern, Jack, and I can promise you I’m not going to do anything foolish. If I need backup, I’ll make sure you’re with me. Or else Mayrene and her shotgun.”

  They both grinned at that. Mayrene and her shotgun had been very helpful to Wanda Nell a few times when she’d found herself in tight spots. There wasn’t much that scared Mayrene, at least that Wanda Nell had ever seen. Especially when Mayrene had her hands on Old Faithful.

  “How are you going to find out what you need to know, then?”

  Wanda Nell had been thinking about that. “I know someone who might know, someone who can maybe tell me how all these people are connected.”

  “Who?”

  “Was Miss Ernestine Carpenter still teaching at the high school when you started?”

  Jack shook his head. “No, I think she retired a year or two before I was hired.” He grinned broadly. “But I’ve heard about her. She’s a legend.”

  Wanda Nell laughed. “She probably is. She taught me when I was in school, and she was pretty tough. She always knew what was going on and who was in trouble or even who might be about to get into trouble.” She looked down at her hands. “She was a good friend to me when I needed someone to talk to, someone outside my own family.”

  “She sounds like a good person.”

  “She is. She was always one of those teachers you had to respect, because she expected things of you. She was tough on us, and she expected us to do our best. But if we had problems, we could talk to her. She wasn’t self-righteous, like some of the teachers were.” Wanda Nell had bitter experience with the self-righteous ones, because when she turned up pregnant in her senior year, she quickly found out who they were.

  “Then I guess you’ll try to go see her,” Jack said. “Want me to come with you?”

  “No, I think I’d better talk to her on my own,” Wanda Nell said after a moment’s thought. “I’d like for you to meet her sometime, though. You’d like her, and I think she’d like you, too.”

  “Well, anything I can do to help, you just let me know.” Jack stood up. “Guess we’d better finish getting dinner ready. The troops are arriving.” He nodded at someone standing behind Wanda Nell.

  Juliet, with Lavon holding her hand and walking beside her, came into the kitchen. Lavon started telling his grandmother all about his bunny, and Juliet turned him over to Wanda Nell. While Wanda Nell kept the baby occupied, Juliet and Jack set the table, and before long they were enjoying a hearty dinner.

  All through dinner and the movie they watched afterward on TV, Wanda Nell fretted alternately over her brother and Miranda. She wondered what was going on at the sheriff’s department and whether Rusty would end up arrested. T.J. had turned up for dinner about half an hour after they had sat down at the table, and all he was able to tell her was that Tuck was at the sheriff’s department. Then she worried about Miranda. Where was she, and what was she up to?

  Miranda came in at nine, and Wanda Nell could tell right away she had been drinking. Deciding she wouldn’t make an issue of it tonight, Wanda Nell just told her to go to bed and they’d talk in the morning. Miranda acted like she wanted to argue with her mother, but one look at Wanda Nell’s face and she meekly ambled off to her bedroom.

  Trying to concentrate on Jack and the movie they were watching, Wanda Nell did her best to relax and forget about family problems for a while, but she was only partially successful. At about nine-thirty, Tuck called, to Wanda Nell’s relief.

  “Did they keep Rusty in jail?”

  “No,” Tuck said, “they really didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him. Plus, they turned up someone who saw Campbell alive after your brother left him.”

  “Does that mean he’s in the clear?”

  “No. He’s still a person of interest to the investigation, and it was clear to me, and to the sheriff’s department, that your brother’s not telling all he knows. He’s hiding something, but none of us could get it out of him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He ought to be there in a few minutes,” Tuck said. “He told me he was going back to Mayrene’s to go to bed.”

  “I’ll talk to him and see if I can get him to tell me anything,” Wanda Nell said.

  “I hope you can,” Tuck said, “because he could be in a lot of trouble if he’s keeping something back. They may yet arrest him.”

  Wanda Nell thanked him for his help, and he brushed that aside. He asked to speak to T.J., and Wanda Nell called her son from the living room.

  T.J. left a few minutes later, and Jack went right after that. Wanda Nell waited anxiously for the sound of Rusty’s truck, but by ten-thirty, he still hadn’t turned up. She debated calling Hick or even the sheriff’s department, but finally, with a heavy heart, she went to bed and had a restless night.

  Chapter 7

  Wanda Nell grimaced when she examined herself in the mirror the next morning around six-thirty. After the night she’d had, she wasn’t surprised she looked like death warmed over. She splashed her face with some cold water, then dried herself.

  Slipping on her robe, she stepped into the hall and checked to see that Juliet was awake. “Are you doing homework, honey?”

  Juliet turned away from the computer screen and smiled. “No, Mama, I was just checking my e-mail before school. Marijane Marter wants me to help her with her English project in study hall today, and I was just e-mailing her back.”

  “Okay,” Wanda Nell said, “but don’t be too long. You’ve still got to get dressed and have your breakfast before the school bus gets here in about an hour.”

  “I’ll be done in a minute,” Juliet promised her.

  Wanda Nell watched her daughter for a moment, blonde head bent toward the computer screen. She felt completely out of date because she had no idea how to use the computer, and she was still trying to figure out exactly what e-mail was and how it all worked. She kept meaning to sit down and have Juliet teach her about the computer, but there never seemed to be enough time.

  Sighing, she headed down the hall toward the kitchen. She peered out the window to see if Rusty’s truck was anywhere around. She didn’t see it. Sighing again, she picked up the phone and punched in Mayrene’s number. All her worries about her brother were coming back with a vengeance.

  “Morning,” Mayrene said in response to Wanda Nell’s greeting. “Where’s that brother of yours done got to, Wanda Nell? He never did show up last night.”

  “I don’t have the foggiest notion,” Wanda Nell said. “Elmer Lee Johnson showed up and took him down to the sheriff’s department last night.” She explained why and listened to Mayrene’s shocked response. “I called Tuck to go look after him, and the last I heard from Tuck was that he was sending Rusty home. He never made it back here as far as I know. I don’t know what’s happened or where he could be.”

  “Are you worried something bad
happened to him?”

  Wanda Nell hesitated. “I just don’t know. Seeing as it’s Rusty we’re talking about, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already back in Nashville by now. It would be like him to run away from trouble. He’s done it before.”

  “Maybe,” Mayrene said. “But what if he didn’t? Where could he be?”

  “That’s what’s got me worrying,” Wanda Nell said, her head aching slightly. “What if he’s had some kind of accident? He could be lying in a ditch somewhere needing help. I’ve been trying to decide whether to call Elmer Lee, but if Rusty’s just run off to Nashville, I don’t want to get him into trouble.” That was the guilt talking, she knew. She had let Rusty down in the past, and she didn’t want to cause more bad feelings between them.

  Mayrene snorted into the phone. “If he’s done run off to Nashville, then he’s going to be in trouble anyway. I don’t think Elmer Lee wants him gallivanting out of the state, for Pete’s sake. You’d better go ahead and call Elmer Lee, just in case something else has done happened.” “You’re right,” Wanda Nell said, strengthened in her resolve by her friend’s firm tone.

  “Call me the minute you hear something. I’ll be leaving about eight-thirty to get to work, so you can reach me after that at the beauty shop,” Mayrene said, and Wanda Nell said she would.

  Moments later she was connected with the sheriff’s department, and she gave her name and asked for Elmer Lee. The dispatcher put her on hold while he determined whether Deputy Johnson was available.

  After nearly three minutes, Elmer Lee came on the line. “What is it, Wanda Nell? Something wrong?”

  Wanda Nell took a deep breath. “Rusty never made it back here last night, and I’m worried something might have happened. Do you know where he is?”

  Elmer Lee swore into the phone, and Wanda Nell held the receiver away from her ear for a moment.

  “I guess you don’t know where he is, either,” she said. The pain in her head intensified.

  “No, I sure as hell don’t,” Elmer Lee said, his tone grim, “but I’m damn sure going to.”

  “Maybe he went back to Nashville,” Wanda Nell said, rubbing a hand across her eyes.