Our drive was a lot shorter than we anticipated. We were only two blocks away when we spotted a very familiar truck. It was parked outside a Dairy Dude walk-up frozen custard shop, dominating the tiny gravel parking lot.
“Look!” Daisy said, discovering it at just the same moment that I did. She pointed out the window. “Isn’t that Farley’s man truck?”
It was. Enormous, polished to a mirror-like shine, gleaming tires, NFL stickers on the back window, MANTRK on the license plate. In the daylight, it was an even more startling and garish sight than usual. Farley had been clear in his statement to the world: I am bigger and better than you.
I guess the world had been even clearer in its statement back to him: Nope.
Or at least, his wife had.
Speaking of, Wilma Louise was toddling away from the window in her high heels, slurping a milkshake while chatting away happily on her cell phone, her designer bag dangling from her arm.
“What do we do?” I asked, blowing right past Dairy Dude in a panic, immediately regretting that decision. Chicago Hollis would have never driven by. Chicago Hollis would have been first on the scene. Chicago Hollis would have been greeting police as they arrived, notebook and pencil in hand, questions at the ready, searching out the rookie cop who wasn’t skilled yet at keeping things under wraps.
Yes, but Chicago Hollis didn’t exist anymore. Parkwood Hollis was still feeling her way. We just did things differently here.
“Go back! Go back!” Daisy shouted, pounding on her window as if that would somehow erase the feet of highway I was putting between us and Wilma Louise.
Parkwood Daisy had things under control for both of us.
I turned into a parking lot, did a quick U-turn, and waited in the driveway for traffic to clear so I could pull back onto the highway. We watched as Wilma Louise opened the truck door and started to climb inside. Even with the little step on the running board, it was too high for her, and she had to lean forward to place her milkshake and purse inside to free up her hands.
“Go, go, go,” Daisy chanted, bouncing in her seat. The traffic had cleared and my tires squealed in my startled hurry to get back to Dairy Dude. Wilma Louise glanced our direction, then went back to the arduous process of getting into the truck.
I pulled up alongside her, nearly bumping into a picnic table where two teens were enjoying cones. They both flinched. The girl dropped her cone and the boy started fussing at me. The screen of the cashier window opened and a tattooed and pierced guy—the Dude behind Dairy Dude, I assumed—stuck his head out.
“Hey! That’s not a parking spot! Hey!”
Wilma Louise paused to watch the scene unfold. Daisy and I glanced at each other nervously, then got out at the same time.
I held up one finger at the guy in the window, flung a dollar bill that I’d dug out of my cup holder to the boy at the picnic table, mumbling, “Sorry,” and made a beeline toward Wilma Louise. Recognition and panic fell over her like a shadow and she began scrambling double-time to get into the truck, but the narrowness of her pencil skirt was making it impossible to quickly get her foot up that high. I allowed myself one moment of pride that we were recognized.
“That’s an awfully big truck you’ve got there, Wilma Louise,” Daisy said. “Mind if we ask you a few questions?” That was my line. I beamed with pride. Who knew—if Daisy could pick up reporter habits, maybe I could pick up baking habits. Not likely, but it was a nice thought.
“I’m busy,” Wilma Louise said.
“We’ll only take a minute,” I said.
“Did you not hear me? You need to move your car!” Dairy Dude hollered.
“This was your husband’s truck, correct?” I asked.
“I’ve got an appointment,” Wilma Louise said. She made another attempt to get into the truck, grunting and pulling, but no such luck.
“You know,” Daisy said, patting the side of the truck. “If I had a truck this big, I don’t know if I’d feel comfortable driving it. Would you, Hollis? It just looks so hard to maneuver.”
“I’m talking to you two!” Dairy Dude yelled.
“Definitely not,” I said. “Especially if I owned something smaller, like a BMW or Porsche or…oh, I don’t know, a Jaguar?”
“Me, too,” Daisy said. “I would have such trouble getting into a monster like this one, I’d be much happier running my errands in a little car.”
“I’m calling the cops!” Dairy Dude yelled.
By then, Brooks had caught up with us and pulled into the lot on the other side of my car. He looked thoroughly perplexed.
“Ha ha!” Dairy Dude yelled. “Guess they read my mind. You’re gonna get a ticket now. Good job, Officer! Doing great work, there!”
Brooks ignored him. “The thing about letting someone follow you is not taking off before he’s in the car,” he said to me. “What’s going on here?”
“Throw the book at her, Officer! Can’t have people like her running around Parkwood, just taking spots that aren’t meant for parking.”
“I mean, what would make you take a truck like this out and about if you had something sleek and small—and much more suited to your wardrobe—at home?” Daisy pointed at Wilma’s ensemble. “That skirt and those shoes—wow, where did you get those shoes?—would look great in a Jaguar. Don’t you own a Jaguar, Wilma Louise?”
“You guys are in over your heads here,” Brooks said. “And you broke about ten traffic laws, by the way.”
I turned to him indignantly. “In over my head? I have worked murder cases with much tougher suspects than this one.”
Wilma Louise’s eyes got big. Dairy Dude’s eyes got big. The eyes of the two teens got big. “Murder?” they all said at once.
“I can’t talk right now.” Wilma Louise was trying doubly hard to get into her truck, but the more panicked she got, the harder it seemed to get for her and she kept plopping back into the parking lot.
“Hey! Why aren’t you giving her a ticket?” Dairy Dude yelled. “She’s parked illegally!”
“I wonder how many Jaguars there are in River Fork,” Daisy said contemplatively. She leaned against the truck as if deep in thought. “Any guesses, Wilma Louise? I mean, since you own a Jaguar and all. Probably not that many. Someone’s Jaguar would really stand out in a crowd around here, don’t you think?”
“Why are you talking about murder and Jaguars?” Wilma Louise asked. She shook her head. “I’ve got errands to run, and my milkshake is melting. I don’t know anything about murder. And I don’t know anything about a Jaguar.”
She gave another oomph at getting into the truck. This time she was successful.
“I would like to press charges,” Dairy Dude yelled. “Trespassing!”
“Stop yelling!” Brooks and I both hollered at the same time. Dairy Dude’s mouth hung open, then he slammed the screen shut and then the window behind it, angrily slapping up a CLOSED sign.
“Hey,” the boy said, sadly waving his dollar bill. “I was gonna buy a cone.”
“Hollis?” Daisy said.
I turned back to Brooks. “I’m hardly in over my head. My partner and I are solving your case. While you were running around after Evangeline—”
“You were blaming a kid!” He put his hands on his hips.
I matched his hands-on-hips pose. “A kid who publicly threatened to kill Farley! It wasn’t that far of a leap.”
“Guys?” Daisy said.
“Open up! I want a zebra cone!” the boy said, pounding on the closed window. Dairy Dude shook his head defiantly inside, jabbing his finger at the CLOSED sign.
“At least we knew that our suspect was somehow involved,” Brooks said.
“Yeah, she was another victim!” I said. “What kind of victory is that?”
“You guys!” Daisy said, stepping between us, wild-eyed. “She’s getting away.”
We all turned toward the truck. It roared into life and immediately began backing out of the parking lot.
“No!” I said, scrambling after the truck. “I just want to talk to you!”
But Wilma Louise whipped the truck around to leave the lot.
Brooks had gone back to his car and picked up the radio.
“You distracted me,” I said.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Daisy yelled, hopping into the passenger seat of my car. She leaned over and turned the ignition.
“You distracted me,” he said.
“Come on!” Daisy growled from inside the car. “You guys can fight later.”
“We weren’t figh—okay.” I slid in, threw the car into reverse, and went after Wilma Louise.
For such a huge vehicle, that truck could really move. I had my pedal pressed all the way down trying to keep up. Of course, it didn’t help that Wilma Louise basically ignored all traffic laws.
Daisy held onto the center console with one hand and gripped the ceiling handle with the other, shouting out directions. “Left! She went left!”
I could see Brooks in my rearview mirror, lights blazing and sirens sounding. To all the world, it looked as if he was trying to pull me over and we were involved in some sort of high-speed chase. I saw people stop and stare as we passed them by, and was overcome with an urge to roll down my window and say, “It’s not me! He’s not after me!” But a part of me thought maybe he kind of wished he was. After our argument at Dairy Dude, he’d looked like he’d love nothing better than to put me in jail.
However, it was not lost on me that Chief Henderson never joined in the chase. Had Brooks been bluffing when he picked up his radio? Was he letting us solve the case first after all?
Daisy let out a yelp. “Through the square! Oh, sweet muffins, we’re going through the square.” She rolled down her window and hung the top half of her body out, waving her arms around. “Get out of the way, people! Save yourselves!”
We zipped through the square and past the Hibiscus.
And nearly rammed into Wickham Birkland at Tutor and Oak, missing his fender by mere inches. He instantly got red in the face and stormed out of his car, ranting. I paused and rolled down my window.
“Have you ever thought that maybe it’s you?” I asked, then kept going, leaving him looking perplexed at the four-way stop.
Soon we were on the highway, racing toward River Fork. And still no Chief Henderson. I started to feel a curious warmth toward Brooks that was more than just the electricity I’d been feeling. He was a good guy. And he believed in me. He didn’t think I was a failure in my career, and he liked the same speck I liked. There was a lot about Brooks Hopkins that was just…right.
Wilma Louise took the first exit into River Fork, jerking hard onto the ramp at the last possible second. I followed her. She rolled through a stop light at the top of the exit, cutting off two oncoming cars. Both honked at her, skidding to a stop. Slowly, slowly, they started up again, backing up traffic in their hesitation and putting at least a dozen cars between us. Shoot. She was going to get away.
“What do you think—pumpkin or apples?” Daisy asked.
“Huh?” I was afraid to take my eyes off the truck, which was getting smaller and smaller in the distance.
“Well, lemon is my favorite, but it’s kind of a spring flavor. I was wanting to do something a little more seasonally appropriate. But I can’t decide between pumpkin and apples.” I flew over a pothole, making her voice break on the word apples. She gripped the handle and kept going. “I mean, pumpkin is great. Everybody loves pumpkin. But it’s overdone. Although I do have a pumpkin buttercream that is to die for—what?”
I was giving her an incredulous look as I got stopped behind another traffic clog caused by Wilma’s erratic driving and confused drivers trying to get out of the way for Brooks, who was still running his lights behind me. I could barely see the truck up ahead now. “This is what you’re thinking about right now?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“We’re in the middle of chasing down a murder suspect, and your mind is on buttercream.”
“I’m a professional,” she said. “I have an audience to satisfy.”
“Oh, brother.”
“What? I stress-bake, okay? And I don’t know if you noticed, but this is a highly stressful situation.”
The light turned green and I left rubber on the pavement in haste to get to Wilma Louise. We turned, and then turned again. And then we got to a railroad track. The arms had just come down, and we could hear the whistle of the train. “Yes!” I exclaimed, following Wilma Louise toward the tracks. “We’re caught up, she’s ours n—”
Daisy and I both screamed and covered our eyes as Wilma gunned it and wove through the safety arms only moments before the train sped through.
“Did you see that?” I asked, uncovering only because I hadn’t heard a crash.
“Is she dead?” Daisy asked, eyes still covered.
“No,” I said. “She got away.”
There was a knock on my window, grim-faced Brooks on the other side, reminding me of the first time I met him. I rolled down the window.
“Did you see that? She’s crazy. Only a murderer could be that crazy,” I said. Not exactly true, but it sounded good. “And now she’s gone. And who knows where she went?”
“Eventually she’ll go home,” Brooks said.
I grinned. “ It just so happens we know exactly where that is. Follow me.”