Three Times Lucky Page 2

  As the lunch crowd drifted in, I plugged in the jukebox. The lunch crowd is the breakfast crowd shaved and combed, plus the Azalea Women, who call themselves the Uptown Garden Club. There’s six of them, all told. Add the Azalea Women to our regulars, and the café was bustling when the stranger parked his dirt-colored Impala out front and pushed open the café door.

  “Afternoon,” he said, and the place went still as well water. I glanced at the clock. It was exactly seven minutes past noon.

  Chapter 2

  The Colonel

  The stranger looked slow around the café, his eyes the color of a thin winter sky. “Give me a burger all the way and a sweet tea,” he said, strolling to the counter.

  Already I didn’t like him.

  Didn’t like the starch in his shirt, or the crease in his pants. Didn’t like the hook of his nose, or the plane of his cheekbones. Didn’t like the skinny of his hips, or the shine of his shoes. Mostly, I didn’t like the way he didn’t smile.

  I stepped up on my Pepsi crate. “Sorry, we’re out. You want the special instead?”

  “What’s the special?”

  I hooked my thumb toward the blackboard.

  Carnivore’s Delight:

  Miss Lana’s Practically Organic Soup served up cold, Baloney and Cucumber Sandwich,

  Mountain Dew/$2.75

  Vegetarian Special:

  Miss Lana’s Soup, Peanut Butter and Cucumber Sandwich, Mountain Dew/$2.50

  He frowned. “That’s all you got?”

  “It’s good enough for us,” Tinks Williams growled from the stool beside him.

  His eyes narrowed. “Give me the Carnivore’s Delight, then.”

  Tinks handed me three dollars. “Keep the change,” he muttered, slapping his green John Deere cap on his head. “We tip good around here,” he said, directing his words in the stranger’s direction.

  It was a bald-faced lie, but I appreciated it. “Thanks, Mr. Tinks,” I said.

  I hadn’t even raked Tinks’s crumbs to the floor when Mayor Little took his spot at the counter. “Mayor Clayburn Little,” he said. “Welcome to Tupelo Landing.”

  The room relaxed. The Littles are good with strangers.

  “Starr,” the stranger said, introducing himself as he flipped open a gold badge. “Detective Joe Starr.”

  The mayor formed his mouth into a perfect O. “A detective!” he said, shaking Starr’s hand. “Isn’t that wonderful? We don’t see many detectives around here.”

  “My boat got stole last night,” Mr. Jesse said from down the counter. “You come about my boat?”

  “It’ll show up,” Dale shouted, his voice raw and panicked.

  Mayor Little forced a smile. “Your boat’s a local matter, Jesse. I’ll look into it.” Then to Starr: “Where are you out of, Detective, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Winston-Salem,” Starr said.

  “My, my. You’re a long way from home. Passing through, I imagine. On your way to … a crime scene, of some sort?”

  “Something like that,” Starr said. He gazed at me. “What’s your name?”

  I swallowed hard. I’m not good with authority figures. “Mo,” I said, a blush walking up my neck. Sometimes I could kill the Colonel for giving me a name like Mo.

  “Unusual name,” he said.

  “It’s Biblical,” I told him. “Don’t take this wrong, but the last person to make fun of it got swallowed by the Red Sea.”

  An Azalea Woman tittered.

  Dale slid Starr’s paper plate across the counter. “There you go: a Carnivore’s Delight. I gave you a cucumber strip, on the house.”

  “Thanks, son,” he said. Starr’s gaze traveled from the dollar bill over the kitchen door, to the Colonel’s hand-lettered sign over the coffee urn: NO LAWYERS. Starr picked up his sandwich and studied Dale. “What’s your name?”

  Dale blanched. “Me? My name is … Phillip. Sir.”

  The café gasped, and I gave Dale a sharp kick in the shin. “I mean, it’s Dale,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. Dale’s family is like that. Let the Law come within twenty yards of them, and every male over the age of six—uncles, brother, father, cousins—starts lying his fool head off. Dale says it’s genetic. Miss Lana says that’s poppycock.

  “So,” Mayor Little said. “To what do we owe the honor, Detective Starr?”

  “Just passing through, like you said,” Starr said. “Headed for Wilmington. Who’s that?” he asked, glancing at a black-and-white photo on the wall.

  “Miss Lana,” I said, ringing up Tinks’s bill and dropping the extra into my tip jar. “She doesn’t always look like that,” I added. “She’s dressed up like Mae West.”

  Mayor Little propped his elbow on the counter and beamed at Starr. “Hollywood Night here at the café, don’t you know,” he said, crossing his chubby legs and waggling one loafer. “We’re a wonderfully creative community.”

  “I see that,” Starr said, glancing around the room. “Miss Lana own this place?”

  “Goodness, no,” Mayor Little said. “The Colonel does. He’s not in today. A bit under the weather, I suppose.”

  The crowd’s attention swiveled to Starr, who sauntered toward the photograph. As he passed the Azalea Women they leaned away from him, like rabbits shying away from a bobcat. “She looks familiar,” he said, squinting at the photo.

  “Well, that was the idea, Detective,” Mayor Little said in a pained voice. “We had Hollywood Night here at the café, and we all dressed up. The whole town. Miss Lana came as Mae West, I chose Charlie Chaplin. I went silent for once, you see. Sort of an inside joke. We made an evening of it. Skits. Impressions.”

  Dale seemed to have regained his composure, even with a detective within arresting distance. Or so I thought until he opened his mouth. “The boobs aren’t real,” he squawked.

  Mayor Little frowned. “Dale!”

  “In Miss Lana’s photograph, I mean. Those boobs aren’t real,” he babbled. “Neither is the hair.”

  “Dale, go check our Mountain Dew supply,” I said, giving him a shove. The kitchen door swished shut behind him.

  “Well, sir, what are you investigating?” Mayor Little asked as Starr settled back onto his stool. “Anything exciting?”

  “A murder,” he said, and the Azalea Women shuddered.

  “Where?” Mayor Little asked.

  “Happened in Winston-Salem, a couple weeks ago,” Starr said, picking up his soupspoon and leaning over his bowl. “Good soup,” he muttered.

  “Miss Lana put it up last summer,” I told him. “It’s practically organic.”

  Mayor Little smoothed his tie. “Who is the, uh, dearly departed?” he asked.

  “Fellow named Dolph Andrews. Ever hear of him?” Starr pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket and slid it down the counter. The mayor and I leaned over the counter, studying it. Even upside down, Dolph Andrews was a good-looking man.

  “Looks a little like George Clooney,” Mayor Little said. “No, Dolph Andrews has never been here. I’d remember.” He slid the photo back. “Who killed him?”

  “Don’t know.” Starr nudged the photo toward me. “Go ahead, pass it around. Let everybody take a look.” The photo went from hand to hand, around the café.

  “Somebody slit his throat?” I guessed, and an Azalea Woman dropped her spoon.

  “Interesting thought, but no—somebody shot him dead,” Starr said. “Cut his phone line, came into his house, and pulled the trigger.” At the end of the counter, Mr. Jesse studied the photograph for a long moment. His hand shook as he passed it on.

  “Who would kill a nice young man like that?” the mayor sighed as Starr polished off his sandwich and pushed his plate away.

  Starr shrugged. “Somebody who thought Dolph needed killing, I guess,” he said. “Could have been right too, for all I know. What do I owe you, Biblical Mo?”

  “Two seventy-five, plus tax.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mayor Little said, reaching for his wall
et. “Lunch is on me.”

  Joe Starr handed me a five. “Keep the change,” he said, a whisper of a smile in his eyes. “And that spooky kid in the kitchen—”

  “You mean Phillip?”

  “I mean Dale,” Starr said, slipping the photo into his shirt pocket and buttoning the flap. “Tell him the next time I come in here, I expect to see shoes on his feet.”

  He strolled to the door and stopped, looking out over the parking lot. “Nice Thunderbird,” he said. “Whose is it?”

  I hesitated. The Colonel always says not to lie, but sometimes the truth doesn’t feel like a good fit. “Well,” I said, my voice trailing off.

  Fortunately, at that moment, the kitchen doors behind me swung open, slamming against the wall. The dollar bill over the door tilted. The café jumped. “It’s my car, you nosy son of a gun,” the Colonel growled from the doorway. “What’s it to you?”

  “Colonel!” I cried. The Colonel opened his long arms and scooped me in.

  Miss Lana says hugging the Colonel’s like hugging a turning plow, but I like the scrawny steel of his muscles and the jutting angles of his bones. “I thought you’d still be in bed, resting,” I said.

  He tightened the belt of the green plaid robe I gave him for Christmas the year I turned six. “Dale told me you had a stranger,” he said, eyeing Starr.

  I pointed. “That’s Joe Starr,” I whispered. “He’s a lawman.” Everyone in the café pivoted to squint at Starr, who stood stock-still, the way you do when a mad dog comes near. “He looks like trouble,” I continued, keeping my voice low, “but he’s nothing I can’t handle.” I smiled at Starr. “No offense,” I said.

  “None taken,” Starr said easily.

  “Except for that, everything’s going great. Well,” I added. “There’s been a murder and we’re out of soup.”

  At the end of the counter, Mr. Jesse leaned forward and cleared his throat. “Oh, and Mr. Jesse’s boat went missing,” I said.

  The Colonel patted my shoulder. “Good job, Soldier,” he said. “You are temporarily relieved of duty.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  An uneasy silence fell over the café.

  “My goodness, where are my manners?” Mayor Little sputtered from the counter. “Detective Starr, this is Colonel LoBeau, proprietor of the Tupelo Café. Colonel? Detective Joe Starr, from Winston-Salem. As I believe Mo mentioned, he’s looking into a murder.”

  “Afternoon,” the Colonel said.

  Joe Starr’s gaze drifted from the Colonel’s close-cropped military haircut, to his acorn-brown eyes, to his rough beard. He scanned past the frayed bathrobe to linger on the Colonel’s tan bedroom slippers. “Colonel,” he said, and from his tone I knew he would have tipped his hat if he’d been wearing one.

  The Colonel faked a thin smile.

  Everybody knows the Colonel handles authority figures even worse than I do. Some say it’s because of a tour of duty in Vietnam. Or Bosnia. Or the Middle East. Miss Lana says it’s because he’s an arrogant fop who can’t tolerate somebody else being in charge. Either way, the lunch crowd fluttered like nervous wrens.

  “Colonel LoBeau,” Starr repeated, and glanced at me. “So, that makes you …”

  “Mo LoBeau, with the accent at the end,” I said. “It used to be Mo Lobo, with the accent up front. But Miss Lana changed it when I went to first grade. She says it makes us practically French.”

  “Plus, Lobo means ‘Wolf,’” Dale chimed in. “Who wants to lug around a name like Mo Wolf when you’re headed for something like first grade? That’s like heading for Niagara Falls with a cinderblock strapped to your ankle.”

  Starr ignored him. “Colonel, you look familiar to me,” he said. “Have we met?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Ever visit Winston-Salem?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Mayor Little swiveled on his stool. “The Colonel? In Winston-Salem?” He barked out a little laugh. “Unlikely indeed. The Colonel’s avoided cities since when … Bosnia?” He looked at Dale, who shrugged.

  For some reason, Starr ignored him too. “Know a fellow named Dolph Andrews?” he asked the Colonel, flipping Dolph’s photo onto the counter.

  “Nope,” the Colonel said. “Is he your murderer?”

  “He’s my victim.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” the Colonel said, turning toward the kitchen. “So if there’s nothing else. …”

  “One more question,” Starr said.

  The café went tense. The Colonel had already been polite longer than anyone expected, and when he turned back, the smile had slipped from his face. He put his hands on his hips and jutted his chin forward. “Let me ask a couple questions, if you don’t mind,” he suggested. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No sir.”

  “Do you plan to take me in for questioning?”

  “No sir.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No sir.”

  “Then please help me understand what business remains between us.”

  The café relaxed. That wasn’t bad at all, not for the Colonel.

  “It’s about your Thunderbird,” Starr said. “Where did you get it?”

  “Robeson County, I believe,” the Colonel said, his voice glassy smooth. “Cash transaction. Is there a problem?”

  Starr shook his head. “No problem. When was that?”

  “A couple years ago, maybe.”

  Dale’s face reflected my shock. The Colonel just got that car! What on earth? The Colonel never lies. My shock went molten in a heartbeat. “You stop picking on the Colonel,” I shouted, stepping on the Pepsi crate for extra height.

  “I’m just asking a few questions,” Starr said. “Dolph Andrews here collected vintage cars and a couple seem to be missing.”

  Mayor Little’s mouth dropped open and he gaped at the lunch crowd, inviting everyone to share his horror. “Surely you’re not suggesting the Colonel’s—”

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” Starr said. “There’s nothing wrong with driving old cars. I like them myself.”

  The mayor forgave him with a wobbly smile, and the café relaxed again. “If you like old cars, Detective, eastern North Carolina’s perfect for you,” he said, smoothing his tie. “We have oodles of vintage vehicles around here, don’t we, Colonel? In fact, I like to think of them as one of poverty’s little perks.”

  Starr didn’t smile. “Thanks again, Mo,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you. Soon.”

  “Another visit?” Mayor Little said, holding out his hand. “I know we’ll all look forward to that.”

  I bet we won’t, I thought as they shook hands.

  As the door slapped shut behind Starr, the Colonel shuffled toward the kitchen, yawning. “Give a man a badge, and he thinks he owns the world,” he muttered to no one in particular. “Only thing worse is a lawyer.” Like I said, the Colonel hates lawyers.

  Outside, Starr slowly circled the Underbird.

  “Can you handle checkout, Soldier?” the Colonel asked, and I nodded. “Very well, I’ll take the supper patrol.”

  Dale stood on his tiptoes, trying to see over the Azalea Women’s hair and into the parking lot. “What’s Starr doing?” he asked.

  “He’s squatting to write down the Colonel’s license number,” Grandmother Miss Lacy Thornton said from her table by the window. “For a man of his age, he has excellent balance.”

  The Azalea Women murmured in agreement.

  As Starr settled into his Impala and began scribbling on a clipboard, the lunch crowd stampeded the cash register. Only Mr. Jesse hung behind. “Don’t see why folks care about a murder a half day from here when they don’t give a Fig Newton about my boat,” he said, pushing his three dollars across the counter and holding out his hand for change.

  “Yes sir, that’s a pity,” Dale said, straightening the salt and pepper shakers. “Too bad there’s no way to get your boat back. Hey!” he said, his blue eyes flying wide. “Maybe we could … No,
” he said, his face falling, “that would never work. I guess I really am dumb as dirt, like my daddy says.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Mr. Jesse snapped. “What’s your idea? Spit it out.”

  “Well,” Dale mumbled. “I was just thinking if you offered a reward …”

  A reward! My heart leaped like the cheerleader I will never be. Dale shows glimmers of genius at times, no matter what our teacher, Miss Retzyl, says.

  Mr. Jesse scowled. “You think I should pay a thief to return my own property?”

  “Don’t you listen to him, Mr. Jesse,” I said, dropping his change into his hand. “The thought of rewarding somebody for bringing your boat back. … That’s wrong. Shoot. It would be better if they kept it, and that’s the dog-honest truth. You don’t need a boat. Besides, you can use that dab of reward money for … for …”

  “For canned goods,” Dale suggested.

  “Right. For tuna,” I said. “That way you’ll still get plenty of fish in your diet.” I buffed a napkin holder to a high sheen with my shirttail. “Too bad, though, losing a nice boat over a little finder’s fee.”

  Mr. Jesse drummed his fingertips against the counter.

  “A finder’s fee,” Dale said mournfully. “See? That’s smart.”

  “Sure,” I told him. “A reward is like welfare, which Mr. Jesse here has said a million times will bring about the end of civilization. Isn’t that right, Mr. Jesse? But a finder’s fee! That’s more like a minimum wage job.”

  Mr. Jesse squinted at me, his eyes glittery hard. He snagged my pen and scrawled a notice on my order pad:

  “Put this on the bulletin board,” he said, and slammed the door behind him.

  We watched Mr. Jesse cross the parking lot, giving Starr a wide berth as the Impala roared to life. “Think Starr will really be back?” Dale asked as Starr’s taillights disappeared around the curve.

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking of the Colonel’s Underbird.

  “Me too.”

  I could feel it in my bones: Trouble had come to Tupelo Landing for good.

  Chapter 3

  The Three Day Rule