A MATTE BLACK Crown Vic screeches into the parking lot of the Marriott Courtyard, and the tinted window spools down. Behind it, Wawrinka holds up her pinkie and forefinger, grins in a way that ought to be illegal at 5:15 a.m.
“Road trip.”
A pair of iced coffees sweat in the cup holders and there’s a stack of CDs between the seats, but Wawrinka, in wifebeater and jeans, is the real wakeup call. On the job, O’Hara buries her ample curves under Clintonian pantsuits and reinforces the effect with self-administered haircuts and rubber-soled shoes. Wawrinka’s butch aesthetic is kept under wraps even more thoroughly.
“Look at fucking you,” says O’Hara. “Nothing but baby girls and muscle cars.”
“What else is there?”
“For one thing—dogs.”
Neck to wrists, collar to cuffs, every bit of skin that would otherwise be concealed under Wawrinka’s buttoned-up oxford shirts is tattooed with a female or an automobile or something that pertains to either. Circling her neck like a choker is the inscription “need for speed,” and on her breastbone the heavy metal band “Rage Against the Machine.” On her right shoulder a sailor-style tart in a negligee rides a wrench like a broomstick, and bumper-to-bumper down her left arm are scaled-down illustrations of a ’68 Camaro, a ’72 Malibu convertible, a ’74 Chevy Monte Carlo, and finally a dull black 2001 Crown Vic. “That’s what we’re in now,” says O’Hara, pointing at a spot above the elbow.
“Very good. I bought it when it was decommissioned by the department three years ago. Did all the work myself.” When O’Hara makes the mistake of asking what that involved, she hears more than she needs to know about MagnaFlow mufflers, 2.5-inch piping, K&N cold air, and a custom tune. “She can do one-forty all day without breaking a sweat,” says Wawrinka, and as she rips out of the parking lot, the pleasure she takes in her inked-up persona is so palpable it makes being a freckled Irish hetero feel like a bore and a half.
A dull black Crown Vic with big side mirrors earns a certain amount of goodwill from local law enforcement and removes whatever stress a couple cops might feel about mocking the speed limit. Slouching in her seat like Richard Petty, Wawrinka rolls the speedometer up to 110 and sticks a pin in it, and when she spots a state trooper lurking behind some bushes in the dim predawn, taps her brights instead of her brakes. A deep sonorous growl percolating beneath them, they do 260 miles in their first three hours, and that includes a stop to use the bathroom and get more coffee.
The sun comes up north of Tampa, and by Jacksonville, O’Hara’s face has settled into the squint that has become her default expression. By now, she takes as a given that the old man and the kid were shot at about the same time in Levin’s condo, but what connects them, beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Why was the kid there at all, and why did he make the trip from New York? From there she turns to the obdurate riddle of Levin’s wooden spoon and the upward flight of the bullet that struck the kid.
When Wawrinka’s energy lags, she shoves early Stones into the CD player, or one of her compilations of garage punk with bands who sound like perps—Little Willie and the Adolescents, the Intruders. When Wawrinka joins in on a chorus, O’Hara discovers another advantage of being a lesbian beside the most obvious. Nine out of ten rock songs are about girls. If you’re gay you don’t have to transpose the gender. When Mick croons about some Siamese cat of a girl, Wawrinka can sing along without losing a thing in translation.
The tricked out Crown Vic devours the miles, and they’re half an hour into Georgia, west of the Okefenokee Swamp, before O’Hara associates her queasy stomach with the growing realization that this entire trip is a fool’s errand. The closer they get to Walterboro, the more tenuous her belief/hope/hunch/prayer that the Volvo was stolen by the same people who raced out of Banyan Bay in a green van. Now O’Hara has an even more disquieting thought. One detail that helped her zero in on the Volvo is the age of the victim, which seemed to fit a pattern, but short of a handicapped parking sticker, how would the perps have known the owner was old?
Eighty minutes later, they cross into South Carolina. A couple miles after that they exit the highway and pull up to the barracks of the Colleton County Police Department. Deputy Sheriff Carter Barnwell is waiting and drives them in his vehicle to 1560 Western Highway, the address where the ’93 Volvo wagon was stolen from the driveway six months before. O’Hara has driven to Florida a couple times over the years but never strayed from the interstate. The country roads are her first taste of the rural South.
At 1560 Western Highway, they find a well-kept but faded ranch house, and O’Hara is relieved. As long as there was enough light, the perps would have had little trouble discerning that the home was occupied by an older person or couple. From the curtains in the windows to the porch furniture to the mailbox, everything is dated. At the top of the drive there is only a single garbage can, and in the garage window an ancient sticker commemorating the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Before 9/11, which this clearly predates, the only people who put up VFW stickers were people old enough to have fought in World War II.
For the next couple hours Barnwell patiently works his way out from the spot where the car was stolen, taking them to a dozen locations where there is a chance, however remote, that an abandoned van might have escaped attention, and as the sleepy tour enters its third hour, O’Hara’s pessimism blooms anew like a dark spring. For some reason, Walterboro has five high schools, and they check them all, as well as the hospital, the playgrounds, the cineplex, and the shopping centers.
“The problem,” says Barnwell as they’re idling in a parking lot, “is that, except for the hospital, these lots are empty by ten or eleven, midnight at the latest. Anything in them after that is going to get noticed.”
In the early afternoon they stop at a diner on Main Street, where Barnwell steers them to the meat loaf and key lime pie, and O’Hara picks up the tab, the least she can do for wasting half the man’s day. “Any gay bars in town?” asks Wawrinka.
Jesus Christ, thinks O’Hara. This is all we need.
“A couple. Why?”
“For one thing, they tend be out of the way, particularly in a little town like this. And if someone did leave a vehicle behind one of them, people might be hesitant to report it.”
Pretty far-fetched, thinks O’Hara, but no more than driving to Walterboro in the first place.
Without batting an eye, Barnwell shows them all gay Walterboro has to offer, which consists of a piano bar attached to a motel at the edge of town and a lesbian joint called Christy’s in the basement of a bed-and-breakfast in the boonies.
“Ever been here?” O’Hara asks Wawrinka.
“No, have you?”
In the midafternoon, both are closed, but at Christy’s two old cars are parked in the dirt lot, and to O’Hara’s annoyance, both are VW Jettas. I drive a dyke car, she thinks. Great. Depressed by the folly of their excursion, she summons the little self-discipline she has not to ask Barnwell to stop at a grocery so she can pick up a couple six-packs.
“Sheriff,” says Wawrinka, “you said that everything in Walterboro shuts down by midnight. Any big twenty-four-hour shopping centers in the vicinity?”
“There’s a Walmart superstore. That big enough for you?”
“How far?”
“Four miles north on 95. Couldn’t miss it if you wanted to.”
Barnwell drives them back to Wawrinka’s car, then has them follow him to the highway. “Sorry about this,” says O’Hara.
“What are you talking about, Darlene? The meat loaf alone was worth the trip.”
“By the way,” says O’Hara, “guess what kind of car I have?”
“A Jetta,” says Wawrinka.
“How’d you guess?” says O’Hara, laughing.
“Pretty obvious to me what you’d be driving.”