Chapter 39

 

Amy and I left Charlene in the back office with what remained of her bottle of Jack Daniels and we hot-footed it for the front door.

It was kind of shame to be leaving Jimmy’s Place. The fun was just starting. Pebbles had dropped her top, and she and her major attributes were just getting warmed up and so was the crowd. Someone pinched my butt on the way out, and I certainly didn’t want to turn around to find out who.

“Sure you don’t wanna stick around?” Amy said.

“Maybe another time,” I said, practically diving for the door. Amy was right behind me. I hoped that no one was right behind her.

 

Amy cranked up the Lexus. “What the hell did we just do?”

“We? You’re the one who pulled the gun.”

“Hey, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

Between the two of us there was enough adrenaline flowing to fuel the U. S. Olympic Team to numerous gold medals.

“Let’s assess later.” I checked over my shoulder and fully expected someone or something ugly to burst through the front door after us.

“Good idea,” Amy said, peeling out of the gravel lot.

 

We had a couple of hours to kill before our arranged rendezvous with Charlene. I didn’t feel much like bowling, but I thought the lounge at Fogerty Lanes might be a nice little late-night, out-of-the-way spot for us to cool our heels. On almost any other night I would have preferred Sparkie’s Lounge, but it was still a bit tainted due to my all-too-recent braining in Sparkie’s parking lot. I hadn’t even worn out my first Sesame Street Band-Aid. Like I’d said only moments before, maybe another time.

 

We parked around back between a rusted, steadily dripping air conditioner and a towering mountain of cases of empty beer bottles. The place was seriously run-down. My father had probably been the last owner to make improvements and that was long before the Bicentennial.

There weren’t many cars in the lot. Maybe everyone was over at Jimmy’s Place watching Pebbles and Charlene get up and boogie.

“I think I might throw up,” Amy said, grabbing her purse off the seat.

I put my hand on her purse. “Promise me you won’t shoot any bowlers.”

“Only if I have to,” Amy said, yanking her purse back.

 

The lounge was nice and dark and dead, just like I’d hoped.We took a table in the far corner away from the jukebox which was playing Barry Manilow’s Weekend in New England. I wouldn’t have minded being in New England, even with Barry Manilow, right about then.

We ordered coffee. Neither one us probably needed coffee, much less a cup of bowling alley coffee, but it seemed like the right thing to do. One could hardly be too alert for a midnight meeting with a potential serial killer on a deserted road in rural America.

“Charlene’s a big, fat liar,” Amy said, sipping out of her styrofoam cup.

I nodded. “She’s lying all right, but is she lying all the way around, or just here and there?”

Amy looked wistful. “That is the question.” She added three packs of sweetener to her coffee and stirred. “You know, I hate to get my hopes up, but I’m starting to think that just maybe we can get Rick Rod off the hook.”

I didn’t want to say what I was thinking. I didn’t even want to think what I was thinking, but I knew that if Rick Rod was ever going to get off the proverbial hook, Amy and I had to land one big, nasty, man-eating fish before it ate all of us alive, and soon.

 

We sat tight, sipping wretched coffee and listening to the staccato sounds of the skittering and scattering bowling pins, all the while trying to ignore the oppressive smell of grease from the kitchen. Amy chain-smoked and I played pick-up sticks with the coffee stirrers and made about twenty trips to the bathroom. Occasionally, a small group of hungry, thirsty bowlers came and went. Not counting Barry Manilow and Billy Joel, that was the extent of our entertainment.

Amy and I went on like this until it was time for us to get up and boogie.

“Are we up for this?” Amy said.

“Let’s assess later.” Putting off any and all assessments until much later seemed prudent, if not inspired and Amy agreed.

At five minutes before the Howling Hour, Amy and I packed it in and made for the Fogerty Lanes parking lot where the Lexus sat ready and waiting to deliver us straight to the Gates of Hell.

 

Charlene’s empty car was parked next the old building in the same spot Officer Mike’s car had occupied very recently. Amy wheeled in next to Charlene’s car and cut the engine. 

There was almost no moon, but it was clear as a chapel bell in a country hollow. Amy popped the trunk and grabbed her industrial-strength flashlight.

“You want the flashlight or the gun?” she said.

Decisions, decisions. “Flip you for the gun?”

“No,” Amy said firmly, handing me the flashlight.

“Why did you even bother to ask me?” I mumbled. Well, it was her gun.

 

Somewhat reluctantly, we hiked around to the backside of building. The lightning bugs were out in full swing, flashing all around us like teeny weeny yellow neon lights. It would have been a pleasant moment on some other occasion. I let the light sweep out ahead of us.

“Where the hell is she?” I made the beam travel as far out as it would go.

“She’d fucking better be here,” Amy said, a debutante no longer.

Once again, I couldn’t help but throw a few glances in the backward direction. I was really hoping, even praying, that we weren’t walking into a trap of epic proportions.

“Charlene!” I called out. “Hey, Charlene!”

“Where are you, damn it?” Amy said, waving her gun. “Show yourself!”

Then my shoe hit something in the underbrush with an unappealing thud. All that coffee I’d poured down over the past two hours was now swiftly moving north, back up my esophagus.

“Hold up,” I said to Amy. I shined the light down at my feet and held my breath.

Amy screamed like an authentic banshee. Her scream seemed to go on and on, like some horrible echo in a horrible nightmare.

“Holy sheeit,” I said, staring down at what looked like one very expired Charlene.

I hadn’t majored in forensics at Maryville College, but even someone with a PE degree like mine could tell that someone had slit Charlene’s throat. I forced myself to reach down and feel for a pulse.

Negatory. I looked up at Amy and shook my head.

“Let me try,” said Amy.

Gladly, I stepped aside. Amy cringed as she probed around trying to come up with Charlene’s thumper, but I had a sick feeling that I wasn’t going to be only one who couldn’t find the beat.

“I think she’s dead all right.” It looked like Charlene was out of the running all the way around.

I forced my mind to take a jog down the trail of logic, and, after a few false starts, it told me that if Charlene was dead, she couldn’t have been dead for long and that meant whoever was responsible wasn’t far away.

“Good God,” Amy whispered, still hunkered down in the brush next to what used to be Charlene. “What do we do now?”

“Don’t put your gun away just yet.”

“We’ve gotta call the police,” Amy said, as we loped like spooked antelope, high-stepping it for the Lexus. “Don’t we?”

“Ask me later.” So far, I was winning the footrace back to the car, and making it back to car was eating up all of my concentration.

 

But Amy wouldn’t have to ask me later, and we wouldn’t have wondered about whether we should perform our civic duty. As we hustled around the corner of the building, we were greeted in a big way by a police cruiser wheeled in sideways, blocking the Lexus and there was an officer of the law in full possession of a drawn weapon climbing out of it.