I’m too cheap to pay the phone company an extra monthly fee for caller ID. But I can usually discover the last number that called me by punching in star-69 on my phone’s keypad.
The display panel flashed: Number Unavailable.
I cursed the fact there’d be a charge for the service, even though it failed to retrieve Emma Jean’s cell number. Then I reminded myself to stop being a petty cheapskate. A fellow woman was in crisis, after all. And it was only ninety-five cents.
Clicking channels on the remote, I found an ancient rerun of The Andy Griffith Show. Sheriff Taylor was teaching some kind of life lesson to his boy, Opie. Deputy Barney Fife was wreaking havoc on an otherwise peaceful Mayberry.
And that’s the last thing I remember, until my alarm went off from the next room at 7:30 am.
The sun streamed through the living room window. The glare bounced off one of the gator’s teeth, hitting me dead in the eye. I lifted my head from the couch, which was wet where I drooled in my sleep. The TV blared. One candle flickered, weakly. The other was burned out.
And Emma Jean Valentine was nowhere in sight.
___
I microwaved the leftover chamomile tea. No sense in wasting it. Along with a sliced banana between two pieces of buttered wheat toast, that was my breakfast. After last night’s pig-out, I wanted to get something wholesome down my gullet for a change.
Within fifteen minutes, I showered, dressed, and was out the door. My second cup of honeyed tea was still steaming when I shook the rain puddles off the VW’s tarp, and headed for Mama’s house.
On the way out, I saw the aftermath of the raccoon fiesta. It was worse than I thought. My yard looked like the picnic grounds at Himmarshee Park after the Fourth of July: beer bottles, paper scraps, and chicken bones gnawed clean. I’d clean up after work.
The VW bounced under a canopy of live oaks. The air smelled clean from the rain. The downpour had revived the resurrection ferns that grow on the trees’ branches, turning them from dull brown to deep green.
No sooner had I pulled onto Highway 98 than my cell phone started to ring. It was in my purse, which was on the floor. Of course. Bracing the steering wheel between my knees, I placed the mug of tea on the dashboard’s least perilous spot and reached for the phone with my free hand. Thank God there was no other traffic on the highway.
“Hey, Mace. I’ve got some interesting news for you.’’
At a bump in the road, the tea started to topple. To rescue it, I had to drop the phone. I played it safe and dumped the rest of the hot chamomile out the window.
“I’m sorry,’’ I said, jamming the phone back to my ear. “Who is this?’’
“Donnie Bailey. From the jail?’’
I flashed on a massive chest and manly mustache.
“Of course, Donnie. How are you?’’
“Pretty good. I hope you don’t mind me calling you on your cell. When your mama stayed with us, she listed you as her emergency contact. She gave us both your home and cell numbers.’’
I dabbed with a napkin from my purse at a small puddle of herbal tea on the dashboard. “Did you say something about news, Donnie?’’ I was an advertisement for dangerous distractions behind the wheel.
“I thought you might want to know you were right.’’
“About?’’
“The other night on the road, when you said there was another car there? You were right and I was wrong. I owe you an apology. I just saw the report.’’
Now Donnie had my full attention. Driving was on automatic pilot. The road to Mama’s rolled past, nearly unnoticed.
“They found a second set of tire imprints where your car went off the road, Mace. Both tracks veered off the pavement onto the shoulder. Yours kept going, on into that ditch. But the other vehicle steered back onto the roadway. The investigator took a bunch of black-and-white pictures and made an impression with casting powder.’’
“What’s that?’’
“It’s kind of like pancake batter, except you’d never want to eat it. You pour it into the track, it gets real hard, and then you can lift it out. You can use the impression to compare to the bad guy’s tire. That’s the good news. The bad news is you have to find the bad guy’s car first, so you can compare.’’
“Can they tell what kind of tire it is?’’
“The impression wasn’t the greatest. They know the tread was worn, and it’s a big tire, like for a pickup.’’
“Great. That means it could have been just about anybody in Himmarshee. Trucks are as common here as taxicabs in New York. Everybody’s got one; or knows someone who does.’’
“Guilty as charged, Mace.’’ Donnie laughed. “I’ve got a brother drives a pickup.’’
“See? That’s my point.’’
“That’s not all, Mace. They couldn’t find any usable paint chip evidence, either. The other driver must have just tapped that spare tire that sticks out where it’s mounted on the back of your Jeep. It would have been better if they’d really hit you hard, painted metal to metal. That would have left behind something to analyze.’’
I remembered my terror on that dark road; the black water swirling around my legs. All that from a tap.
“Yeah, well, a harder impact might have made me flip. And we probably wouldn’t be having this talk right now.’’
“Oh, Mace … I’m … I’m … sorry.’’ Donnie was flustered. “I sure didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Of course it’s better that you’re alive.’’
“That’s all right, Donnie.’’ I thought of babysitting him. Teary eyes on the floor, he’d stammered out an apology for breaking his mama’s vase. “I know what you meant.’’
I was approaching Himmarshee. I’d been so intent on talking to Donnie, I could barely remember getting there. Luckily, it wasn’t an auction day, when the traffic on the highway would be busier.
“Listen, I better get off the phone. You being in law enforcement, I’d hate to tell you how little attention I’ve paid to my driving this morning.’’
Donnie chuckled. “You’re not the only one, Mace. Have you seen all the things people do in their cars these days? I saw a girl yesterday with a hamburger in one hand, putting on her mascara with the other.’’
“Did you bust her?’’
“Nah. She poked herself in the eye and dropped the hamburger in her lap when she saw me in my uniform. Nobody pays attention to the road anymore, Mace.’’
Donnie was right about that. And, on this morning at least, that wasn’t a good thing.