Authors: Jeffrey Allen
Stay At Home Dead (12 page)
28
I woke the next morning in a surprisingly good mood, given my confrontation with the midget PI and my impending engagement with the WORMS.
One of the things that I missed about coaching was the thing that I missed most when my days as a football player ended. I loved the thrill of competition as a player, and though I had doubted that it would be the same as a coach, I found it to be greater. Having to stand on the sidelines, exhorting my players to do what we were asking them to do, proved much more exciting than I’d ever imagined. And when they did execute and I could see them putting to use what I’d taught them, that turned out to be a much bigger adrenaline rush than anything I’d ever experienced as a player.
So while I was angry at the reason for the showdown, a small spark of excitement over the emergency meeting was percolating in my gut.
Carly’s and my first stop for the day was her ballet and tap class. It was held in a small studio in the middle of town, and she’d been attending for about six months, and much to my chagrin, she loved it. Julianne could complain all she wanted about how I dressed her, but Carly was showing plenty of signs that she was all girly girl.
I dropped her at the hour-long class and took the opportunity to walk a block up to the Rose Petal police station, which was nothing more than a small office at the end of the strip mall that housed the dance studio, a sandwich shop, and the station.
Cedric was sitting out front in an aluminum beach chair.
“Keeping the town safe?” I asked.
“As long as I know where you are, seems most folks will think we’re all safe,” he retorted, adjusting his sheriff ’s hat to block the sun.
“You wanna cuff me? In case I try anything?”
“Naw. Don’t feel like getting up.”
Since he’d been forced into his mostly ceremonial position, Cedric spent most days in the beach chair, drinking his coffee and waiting for something to happen. Usually he didn’t have to move much from the chair, other than to hit the bathroom and find some lunch. He tried to act like it didn’t bother him, but those of us that knew him well understood it irritated him greatly and it sucked to see him relegated to watching traffic from the beach chair.
“You know a guy named Victor Doolittle?” I asked, falling into the chair next to him.
“The midget? Sure, I know Victor.”
“He’s really an investigator?”
“And a royal pain in the butt,” Cedric said, shaking his head. “Annoying, abrasive, and a justified little man’s complex, which I suppose you’d expect. Lives down in Dallas but tends to hang out here, because he thinks people got more money up here. Which they do.”
“He’s legit, though? As an investigator?”
He raised the silver coffee thermos to his mouth for a moment, then nodded. “He’s legit. And, to be fair, from what I’ve been told, he’s actually decent at what he does.” He cocked an eye at me. “Why? You lookin’ to hire that penguin for something?”
“No. He came to see me. Says he’s doing some sort of background check on me but wouldn’t tell me for who.”
“Probably those ladies at Carly’s school,” he said, a sly smile forming on his face.
That had definitely crossed my mind. But the time frame didn’t make sense. If the guy was doing a true background check, it would take more than a day or two. The emergency meeting was tonight. He wouldn’t have had the time to get them whatever he was looking for.
“Doing a background check isn’t illegal, Deuce,” Cedric said, circling the thermos with both hands. “They happen all the time.”
“I know. It just seemed weird, with everything going on.”
“You think it’s related to Benny?”
“Timing of it seems pretty coincidental.”
He thought about that for a moment, then frowned like he thought I was wrong. “The timing is coincidental. But from a law enforcement standpoint, the only person who’d be looking into your background regarding Benny would be Willie Bell.” He processed his own words, then shook his head firmly. “And he wouldn’t hire that out. There’s no reason. He can do it himself, and he can do it faster.”
That made sense. And Bell seemed like the kind of guy who would enjoy doing that stuff all by himself.
“If you’re looking for something to tie it to,” Cedric offered, “I think you’d be better off thinking about your restraining order.”
“How’s that?”
He sipped from the coffee. “If somebody is looking to give a restraining order some teeth, they have to go looking for the teeth.”
“I’m not following, Cedric.”
He peered over the thermos at me. “The restraining order is only temporary. It will expire. If Shayna wants it to stick against you, she’s gonna need to show cause.”
I shifted in the uncomfortable chair and watched a few cars drive past us. I still didn’t understand the restraining order, yet I couldn’t get close enough to Shayna to ask her about it. If Cedric was right and she had hired an investigator to cement her claim, then she was serious, which, until that moment, I didn’t think she was. I had played my visit to her house over in my head a dozen times and kept coming to the same conclusion.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
“I’m not saying that’s a sure thing,” Cedric said. “But if you’re looking for a reason as to why that little munchkin might be digging in your garden, that might fit.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll keep an ear open on it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Got another question for you.”
“Good Lord, Deuce. This what stay-at-home dads get to do all day? Go around asking questions?”
I laughed. “No. You know the guy that runs Tough Tykes? Jimmy Landry?”
“Little bit. Why?”
“I don’t know. Not what I was expecting. Met him yesterday. Seemed like a good guy.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Not sure. Just not what he was. He offered me a job.”
Cedric pushed the brim of the hat up a little higher. “Doesn’t he know how busy
this
job keeps you? Who would I chat with if you took another job?”
this
job keeps you? Who would I chat with if you took another job?”
“Coaching,” I said, ignoring the jab. “He’s running some summer football camps, and he asked if I’d be interested in helping out.”
“Well, that guy’s pretty smart, then.”
“Why’s that?”
“If he can put your name on his flyers in this town, that oughta sell out his camps in about three seconds.”
“I doubt that.”
Cedric frowned. “Son, I have always appreciated your modesty. Your parents did right by you. But if you think the words
Deuce Winters
and
football
don’t still get people fired up around here, you are sadly mistaken.”
Deuce Winters
and
football
don’t still get people fired up around here, you are sadly mistaken.”
On cue, my knee throbbed and I rubbed it, like I wanted to rub away the memories, too.
“People will go nut crazy to get their kids on a field with you,” Cedric said. “And don’t take me the wrong way. I think that’s a good thing. Kids would be lucky to have you screaming and yelling at them.”
It was a nice thing for him to say.
“Of course, maybe them ladies at the school might try to have you removed from there, too.”
That, however, wasn’t so nice.
29
Carly and I dropped off some clothes at the cleaners, stopped at the bank to deposit a check, and then headed home.
Billy Caldwell was waiting in our driveway.
We really needed to look into moving to a gated community. Dwarves yesterday, jerks today.
Carly immediately recognized him from when he was in our living room several days prior. “That’s that man with the boots.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, unbuckling her seat belt.
Her little brows furrowed together. “I don’t like him.”
“Me either.”
She jumped out of the car and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go inside, Daddy.” She led me around the van.
Billy greeted us with a half wave. “Hello, Deuce.”
“Stay right there,” I said to him as Carly led me in a wide circle around him and up the steps to our front porch. I opened the front door and wriggled my hand free from hers. “I have to go talk to him. I’ll be in in a minute, okay?”
“I’ll watch from in here,” she said.
“That’s fine. It’ll just take a minute.”
“Watch out for his boots, Daddy.”
I left her behind the screen door, standing there with a serious look on her face, as if she might charge out and bite Billy in the shin if he tried anything shifty.
I hopped down the stairs and met Billy in the driveway. “What do you want?”
He looked past me, up at the house. “I was gonna apologize to your little girl, Deuce. For the other night.”
“She doesn’t like you, Billy,” I said. “She’s a smart kid. She doesn’t need you apologizing to her.”
His cheeks reddened, and he fiddled with the bright green tie knotted at his neck. The suit today was light gray with pinstripes; the shirt was a light green. The boots were still ugly.
“You don’t need to be like that, Deuce,” he said.
“I know I don’t, but you just bring it out in me. What do you want, Billy?”
He reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a folded-up group of papers. He held them out to me. “Shayna’s decided to go ahead with the lawsuit.”
I took the papers but didn’t look at them. “Julianne will get a kick out of these. I think she’ll be happy, because it might be a chance for her to kick your ass in court.”
He fiddled with the tie again. “Julianne doesn’t handle civil suits like this.”
“But you’re special, Billy. She might just do it so she can embarrass you. Would give her a thrill, you know?”
He stuck his hands in his pockets and shuffled the boots against the driveway. “I’m just here as a courtesy, Deuce. That’s all.”
“Was the restraining order a courtesy as well?”
He pursed his lips and rocked on his heels, a tiny spark in his dark eyes. “Shouldna gone botherin’ her, Deuce.”
“Bull,” I said. “Shayna called me and asked me to come over. It was stupid of me to go over, but she asked. She knows it, I know it, and I’ll bet everything I have that you know it.”
He continued to rock, giving a tiny shrug, an ambivalent expression on his face.
“Why’d she file it, Billy? I didn’t do anything, and you both know it. Whatever’s going on here, it isn’t gonna fly. If you think I’m gonna sit around and just take this garbage, you’re wrong.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Same old Deuce. Arrogant and determined to right the wrongs of the world.”
“Same old Billy,” I said. “Jealous and weak.”
The smile slithered off his face. It had been like that between us for almost two decades. He’d been the quarterback of our team in high school, a position that should’ve been the movie star role in our town. Billy Caldwell should’ve been the biggest man in town for his three years on the varsity and should’ve been able to run for mayor when he was done.
Only Billy handled it exactly the worst way you’d want to handle a situation like that. He got arrogant. Didn’t realize that the key to getting the accolades was acting like you didn’t deserve them. He thought he deserved them and told everyone just that. And it was a problem for him because he couldn’t back it up. He was an average football player at best, lazy in his work habits and big in the mouth. It was a combination that didn’t make him popular in Rose Petal and didn’t make him popular in our locker room.
And when some of us started fielding offers from colleges to go play after high school, it stuck in his gut that those schools weren’t looking at him. Burned a straight line right through him, and he blamed everyone but himself for it. We were stealing his thunder, we weren’t helping his cause, and we were just lucky.
Twenty years later I could see it in his face. He hated that I had Julianne and Carly and my life. It bothered him. He was a low-rent ambulance chaser, and I wasn’t. It all showed right there on his face in my driveway.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them in front of himself, palms up. “Say what you want. But I think we can both agree I’ve got the upper hand at the moment.”
“There is no upper hand, Billy,” I said. “I didn’t kill Benny, and I didn’t do anything to Shayna. And if you think some lawsuit based on something that happened twenty years ago is gonna keep me awake at night, you are very, very wrong. But you keep pushing me and I’m gonna push back. Hard.”
“Wish I had that on tape,” he said. “Some folks might see that as a threat.”
“Screw you.”
“We can settle it all. Right here and now.”
I laughed, thinking he wanted to fight. “An ass kicking in your thirties isn’t gonna be any different than it was when we were kids.”
His expression wavered a bit, but it didn’t completely fold. “Not what I was talking about.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Shayna would be open to a settlement,” he said.
“I’ll bet she would be.”
“Don’t discount it, Deuce,” Billy said. “You can make all this go away. You give me a number and we’ll work from it.”
“Two,” I said.
His features scrunched together. “Two? Hundred? Thousand? Two what?”
“Two seconds to get the hell out of my driveway.”
He started backing down the driveway.
“And if you wear those boots over here again, I’m calling animal control.”
His mouth twitched in anger; he turned on those boots and got in his car.
A settlement? Did I look that stupid? There was zero doubt in my mind that he and Shayna had something going on and somehow I’d landed in the middle of it.
As I walked back up to the house and waved at Carly in the window, I was determined to find out what exactly I was in the middle of.
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