Deadline

“I don’t know. But it’s a start.”

“All right, kiddo. But if someone else was responsible and they made your father’s death look like a suicide, they aren’t going to like you nosing around. So you watch your back.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” she promised.

“You’d better. I gotta run. Make sure you stay in touch, kiddo.”

“I will. ’Night, Ronnie.”

After she ended the call, Tess felt more alone than ever. Despite what she’d told Ronnie, she couldn’t help wondering if she had made a mistake by coming to Mississippi. While she wanted the truth, and was prepared to deal with whatever she did discover, she hadn’t given a lot of thought to how her investigation would affect her grandparents—in particular her grandmother. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt either of them. Yet, didn’t they deserve to know the truth, too? she asked herself.

Deciding she was too tired and hungry to think straight, Tess stared at the exit signs. What should have been a three-hour drive from Jackson to Grady had turned into four-plus hours because she had left in the middle of rush-hour traffic. And based on the exit number, she still had a good half hour to go before she reached the exit to the Magnolia Guesthouse.

So when she spotted the sign indicating gas and rest-rooms at the next exit, Tess flicked on her turn signal. She’d stop, refuel and grab something to eat, she told herself as she took the dark winding off-ramp from the interstate that turned into a blacktopped country road. She stopped at the end of the exit, looked both ways and noted the light to her left had turned red. She had just pressed on the accelerator when a beat-up old pickup ran the light. Tess gasped as she slammed her foot on the brake. The pickup sped by, narrowly missing her car.

“So much for Southern manners,” she muttered before starting on her way. Five minutes later when she pulled the Mustang up to the gas pumps at the Quick Stop, Tess thought she spied the old pickup parked in front of the store. She considered going over and giving the owner a piece of her mind. And doing so, she reasoned, was not the way to start off her stay in Grady.

Lester De Roach saw the little red Ford Mustang pull up to the gas pump as he shut off his old truck at Bobby Ed’s Quick Stop. Some rich bitch using her daddy’s car, he figured, and chuckled to himself because he’d probably scared the hell out of her back there at the interstate.

Served her right, he thought. She probably didn’t know the first thing about what it was like to have to work for a living. Unlike himself who had been working his whole damn life. Climbing out of the truck, he ignored the Mustang and its driver and headed inside the convenience store to grab a six-pack of beer.

“How ya doing, Mr. Lester?” the kid behind the counter called out.

Lester ignored him and went straight to the cooler at the back of the store. He eyed the six-pack of beer in the cooler, and debated whether or not to spend the extra buck and buy his brewskies cold. He wiped the back of his oil-stained hand across his mouth, barely noticing the dry, cracked skin that never lost the scent of car grease, or the stiffness of the whiskers on a chin that hadn’t seen a razor in days. He’d spent the past seven hours locked up in J.W.’s garage working on a busted engine for that penny-pinching slavedriver. He hadn’t finished it yet. But he was close. And hell, he deserved a cold drink for all his hard work, not warm-as-piss beer. But he also needed to eat, Lester reminded himself. That’s the only way he’d been able to get that skinflint J.W. to give him an advance on his pay—by telling him if he didn’t eat, he wouldn’t be able to work.

He was a damn fine mechanic—the best one in Grady. Hell, he was probably the best damn mechanic in the whole State of Mississippi. He’d just run into some hard times. Wasn’t his fault that bitch Loretta he’d been married to had robbed him blind and bankrupted his mechanic shop, then run out on him. And it wasn’t his fault that he’d banged himself up in that car wreck and had taken to drink and drugs to ease the pain. He’d kicked the drugs and the drink, but not before he’d gotten the bad rap of being a drunk.

Well, he weren’t no damn drunk. He was a top-rate mechanic and he deserved to be working for himself, not for the likes of a prick like J.W. Hell, J.W. wouldn’t even own the garage if it weren’t for his shyster of an old man who had been robbing folks in these parts for years by jacking up the rates on work at that old service station of his. Maybe if his own old man hadn’t cut out on him, his sister and momma like he’d done, he’d have known better than to trust that bitch Loretta with the books. Well, he’d know better next time. Sooner or later, his luck was going to turn. He was due a break and he’d catch one. And when he did, he was going to get his old shop back and then he’d tell J.W. what he could do with his job because he’d be working for himself again. Yes, that’s just what he was going to do, Lester assured himself. Just as soon as he got on his feet again, he was going to show them. He would show them all.

But right now. Right now, he needed a drink.

“You finding everything okay back there, Mr. Lester?” the Smith boy called out from the front of the store.

“Yeah,” he snarled in response. Lucky little bastard, he thought, glancing in the direction of Bobby Ed and Mabel Smith’s snot-nosed grandkid. The punk had it made. He got to work weekends at his grandparents’ convenience store and gas station. According to Mabel, the boy was smart as a whip and would be graduating from Ole Mississippi come springtime, then going on to law school. In the meantime, he didn’t need to worry about working for dickheads like J.W. just to pay his rent or buy himself a couple of beers.

Just didn’t seem fair, Lester decided. It seemed that pricks like J.W. and the Smith boy got all the breaks while hardworking decent folks like him had to bust their asses. But then, it was easy to get breaks when you had money. Both J.W.’s old man and the Smith boy’s family had plenty. While he had never had a pot to piss in—except for that one time, back when he and Jody Burns had been friends.

At the thought of Jody, his old friend in prison all those years, and hearing about how he’d hanged himself, Lester’s legs went weak.

“Why are you doing this to me, Les?” Jody’s words echoed in his head. “Please, tell them the truth!”

Bells sounded at the front door of the store, signaling another customer had entered the Quick Stop. Lester tried to shake off the memory, unsure of where it had come from in the first place.

Don’t think about Jody. What’s done is done.

Lester swiped his hand down his face, tried to make that image of Jody swinging from a rope in the jail cell go away. No point in thinking about Jody now, he told himself. It was too late to change the past. Yanking open the cooler door, he grabbed the six-pack of cold beer. His stomach grumbled, reminding him he hadn’t had any food that day. So he snatched a bag of chips from the rack beside the cooler and then began making his way up the aisle.

Damn, but he needed a drink. That’s all that was wrong with him.

“Will that be cash or charge, ma’am?” the Smith kid asked the tall brunette woman at the counter.

“Credit card,” she said and handed over the piece of plastic.

Impatient for a drink and still shaken by the memories of Jody, Lester wrestled one of the beers free from the plastic loops that held them together. He popped the lid, and the hiss had the Smith kid looking his way. Ignoring the disapproving look the boy shot at him, he drained half the can in one swallow. The cold brew hit his empty belly like an icy fist and he sighed with pleasure. While he waited for the chick to finish so he could check out, he took another swig. He could feel the beginning of a buzz. Already he was feeling better. Except for the two beers he’d had when he went home for lunch, he hadn’t had a thing in his belly all day. By the time he got home and finished off the six-pack, he wouldn’t be thinking about the likes of Jody Burns or anyone else that night.

“Here’s your receipt, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” she said and stuffed the receipt and credit card into her purse. “Could you tell me how to get to the Magnolia Guesthouse from here?” she asked the Smith boy.

“Sure thing, ma’am. When you pull out of the parking lot, go down the road to the first light,” the kid explained, gesturing toward the highway. “That road’ll put you back on the main drag. Once you get on it, go down past three lights and then take the first street on your left. You’ll be on Magnolia Lane then. The Magnolia Guesthouse is the big white house. You can’t miss it. Enjoy your visit.”

“Thanks,” she said and turned around.

And as she did so Lester dropped the half-empty can of beer and chips, spilling the liquid on his grease-stained work clothes before it fell to the tile floor with a thud. The rest of the six-pack hit the floor with a crash, breaking free of the plastic loops and rolling in several directions.

“Mr. Lester, you okay?”

Lester’s hands began to shake. Instantly sober, he felt something damp and cold on the front of his pants, and wasn’t sure if it was the beer or if he’d pissed himself. Either way, he didn’t care.

“Sir, are you all right?” Tess asked him.

Unable to move, Lester felt the blood drain from his head as he stared at her face.

“Mr. Lester?” The Smith boy came from around the counter.

“Sir, are you ill?” Tess asked and started to step toward him.

“Stay back. Stay away from me,” Lester warned as he shrank back and stared at the face of a dead woman.

“Mr. Lester, what in the devil has gotten into you?” The fresh-faced young man who’d waited on her had come out from behind the counter. Although the boy was only of average height, he was built like a football player and had placed himself between the disheveled-looking guy and her.

Tess didn’t feel in any real danger and didn’t know what to make of the man’s outburst. She’d watched him exit the beat-up pickup truck that nearly hit her when she’d exited the interstate. When she’d spotted him at the back of the store eyeing the beer in the cooler she decided not to bother confronting him. Last year she had done a feature for the news station on alcoholism and the senior citizen. So she recognized the signs. The unsteady hands, the restlessness, the total focus on that next drink. She knew from her interviews that the urge for a drink was a daily battle, one that never went away. Judging by the man’s demeanor, she assumed that he had been struck by that urge tonight. And given his appearance, she’d concluded that he’d either just come off a drinking binge or was about to start one.

Seeing him up close now only reaffirmed her suspicions. The stench of beer and perspiration on him was strong. He was dressed in a set of standard garage-issue workman’s clothes that she suspected had once been navy, but were now faded with wear, axle grease and sweat. The beer he’d spilled left a new set of stains to compete with the engine grime on his clothes. His black work boots were scuffed and dull, stained with what she assumed was engine oil. The man’s hair was mostly gray and looked as if it hadn’t been shampooed or combed in days. His face was thin, his lips chapped, his skin pasty. Surprisingly, his teeth were white. Several days’ growth of salt-and-pepper whiskers covered a weak chin line and a jaw that had gone soft. But it was the man’s bloodshot brown eyes that surprised her most. She’d expected to see despair, hopelessness, maybe even regret. Instead, what she saw was fear.

“I mean it. I don’t know why you come back, but you stay away from me,” the man yelled at her. “Stay away,” he shouted again, staggering backward as though terrified, until he crashed into a display of two-liter sodas. The plastic bottles went tumbling to the ground.

“Look out,” the clerk warned and grabbed the man by the arm to stop him from falling to the floor.

One of the two-liter bottles came barreling toward her like a bowling pin hit by a ball and Tess jumped, dropping her purse and keys in the process.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” the boy asked, glancing back in her direction.

“I’m fine,” Tess assured him as she stooped down and retrieved her purse and keys. She still didn’t know what to make of the man’s reaction to her. Was it possible that he thought she was her mother? From old family pictures Tess knew that she resembled her mother. She had the same almond-shaped gray eyes, the same strong cheekbones and pointed jaw. But she had her father’s straight dark hair, not her mother’s honey-blond curls. And her lips were fuller, her nose a shade longer. Still she supposed it was possible that the man had mistaken her for her mother.

“You okay now, Mr. Lester?” the clerk asked, having turned his attention back to the older man he was holding upright.

But Lester didn’t respond. He simply continued to stare at her face through dark, terror-filled eyes.

“Mr. Lester?” the boy repeated. “Are you all right?”

Finally, he jerked his gaze back to the young man. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Let go of me,” he said, shrugging off the boy’s hold.

“You don’t look okay to me,” the young man insisted. “You want me to call Doc Howell for you?”

“I said I’m okay, you little twerp,” Lester spat out. He looked around as though only now realizing the mess he had made. “I didn’t mean to knock over the sodas.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the clerk told him. “Maybe you should just go on home now.”

“I need to get my beer first,” Lester told him and, stooping down, he began gathering up the fallen beer cans.

“Maybe you should just forget about that beer,” the boy said.

Lester glared up at the young man from his position on the floor, where he had three cans of beer gathered against his chest. “I ain’t leaving here without my beer.”

The young man hesitated. He looked over at Tess for a second as though he was unsure whether or not to challenge Lester. Tess shook her head, not wanting the younger man to get into a situation with someone who didn’t seem stable.

“I tell you what,” the boy said as he picked up the bag of chips. “I need to clean up that beer that spilled and pick up those drink bottles before somebody comes in here and slips and hurts themselves. So why don’t you just take your beer and chips and go on home now. You can pay for them the next time you come in the store.”

“Suit yourself.” Lester grabbed the bag of chips from him, hugged them to his chest with the beer, then scrambled toward the exit. When he reached the door, he paused and looked over at her once more, holding her gaze for long seconds.

And there it was again, Tess thought. The terror. The man was terrified of her.

Then he shoved through the door, sending the overhead bells clanging in the silence as he disappeared outside into the night.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know what got into old Lester tonight. He drinks some, but he’s usually harmless. That’s the first time I ever saw him get all crazy like that. I guess he’d had one too many for him to go off on you like that.”

“Don’t worry about it. There was no harm done,” Tess assured him. She picked up the plastic bottle that had fallen closest to her. Walking over, she handed it to the young man who was restacking the soda display.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Just out of curiosity, who is he?”

“His name’s Lester De Roach. He works off and on as a mechanic at a garage in town. According to my grandpa, Lester really knows his way around a car’s engine when he isn’t drinking.” The young man, who had continued to restructure the display of bottles, paused and scratched his head, ruffling the thick brown hair. “Funny thing is, I didn’t think he was drunk when he came in here. I mean, he looked like he was hungover, but not drunk. Otherwise, I would have sent him on his way and not let him get anywhere near the beer case.”

Sure, he had smelled of beer, but when he’d looked at her, his eyes had been as clear as glass—not dulled by the effects of alcohol. No, for some reason, she had spooked him. And the only thing she could think of was that he had thought she was her mother—Melanie Burns. She could understand his being shocked, even a little frightened at the prospect of seeing someone he thought was dead. But terrified? It didn’t make sense. “He seemed more scared than drunk to me,” she told him.

“He did, didn’t he?”

“Either way, I’m not sure he should be behind the wheel of a vehicle. You might want to alert the local police that his driving might be impaired. I would hate to see him cause an accident.” Like the one she’d almost had with him, she added silently.

“It’s sheriff in these parts, ma’am,” he corrected. “And I’ll give him a call. Sorry again about him carrying on like that.”

“As I said, no harm done.”

“Thanks for being so understanding,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to have a poor impression of Grady because of Mr. Lester. Most of the folks here are really nice, friendly people.”

“I’m sure they are.”

The bells on the front door sounded and in came a pretty blonde wearing tight-fitting jeans and a sweatshirt with Ole Miss emblazoned across the front. She sashayed over toward them. “Hi there, Bobby. Ma’am,” she said with a nod of her head to acknowledge Tess. “Gee, what happened in here?”

“We had a little accident,” Bobby informed her. “Don’t forget your candy bar, ma’am.”

Tess scooped the chocolate bar off the counter and dropped it in her bag. “Then she started for the store’s exit, leaving the two young people alone.

“Enjoy your visit in Grady,” Bobby called out to her retreating back.

“Need some help cleaning up?” the girl offered, but Tess didn’t hear Bobby’s reply as she pushed open the door and headed out into the parking lot. Outside, the air had turned a bit cooler, and Tess hugged her arms to herself, glad that she’d worn the heavy sweater. Quickly she made her way over to the gas pumps where she’d left the rental car. After unlocking the door with the keyless remote, she slid behind the wheel and immediately relocked the doors. She started up the engine, then took a moment to reset the mileage gauge and fasten her seat belt before putting the Mustang into gear.

Recalling the directions the clerk had given her, Tess drove to the edge of the parking lot. When she reached the road, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Pausing, she glanced back in the rearview mirror at the parking lot. She saw no one. But as she pulled out onto the main road, she continued to look in her rearview mirror, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her.

Chapter Four

Lester stood in the dark behind the Quick Stop where he’d parked his truck and watched the little red Mustang drive away. Once she was gone, he debated about what to do. Still shaken, he decided he needed to make a phone call.

But not there at the Quick Stop, he reasoned. Too many eyes and ears in that place. Damn cell phones he thought, as he opened the door to his truck. Everybody and his brother had one of the blasted things these days. Everybody but him. Hell, he didn’t even have a regular phone anymore—not since the greedy phone company had disconnected the thing when he hadn’t paid the bill. He needed a pay phone. Trouble was, there weren’t nearly as many places to find one these days. Then he remembered the one in that old vacant shopping strip a few miles from his place. Hopping in his truck, Lester headed toward home.

Twenty minutes later he dropped a quarter into the coin slot and punched in the number he had committed to memory—a number he had been warned never to call unless it was an emergency. Seeing a dead woman come back to life was an emergency in his books.

As the phone started to ring, he drained the last of the beer in the can, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He dropped the empty can to the ground and crushed the aluminum beneath his work boot. But the beer did little to ease the fear that had knotted like a fist in his stomach since he’d seen the woman in the Quick Stop.

A cool blast of wind whipped through the concrete strip of deserted shops with broken windows and sagging roofs, but Lester barely felt it. He jumped as the sign in front of a burned-out dance studio squeaked from a rusty chain. Growing more on edge by the minute, he gazed over to his truck just to be sure he was still alone. “Come on, come on. Answer the phone,” he demanded as he listened to the phone continue to ring.

Finally, it was picked up. “Hello?”

“Jesus! I thought you’d never answer.”

“Who is this?”

Lester gritted his teeth. “It’s Lester. Lester De Roach,” he spat out, irritated that he’d had to identify himself to the man. Considering what he’d done for him, he’d think the SOB wouldn’t forget his voice so easily. But then, he was always the one who’d come up with the short end of the deal—even all those years ago.

“Didn’t I tell you never to call me,” the man said, his voice cool, angry.

“You said I wasn’t to call unless it was an emergency. Well, it’s a fucking emergency, okay?”

“Hang on a minute,” he ordered, and while Lester waited he heard a door shut. Then he came back on the line. “All right. What’s the emergency?”

“Melanie Burns. She’s alive.”

The man swore. “Listen to me, you drunken fool. Melanie Burns is dead and has been for twenty-five years.”

“And I’m telling you I seen her with my own eyes. She’s come back—just like old lady Burns said she would. She’s come back to make us pay for what we did.”

He swore again. “You stupid piece of shit!” he said furiously. “You did not see Melanie Burns. She’s dead. Understand?”

“But—”

“No buts. Go home and sleep it off and don’t call me again.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not drunk,” he insisted, despite the beers sloshing through his system. “Melanie Burns is here. In Grady. I saw her not thirty minutes ago with my own two eyes at Bobby Ed’s Quick Stop. She was paying for gas. If you don’t believe me, fine. But you better remember, I’m not the only one who lied about what happened that night.”

After a pause, in a somewhat calmer voice, he said, “All right. Start from the beginning and tell me exactly what happened.”

Lester told him. “…then after she paid for the gas and got directions, she turned around. That’s when I saw her face. It was her, I’m telling you. It was Melanie Burns.”

“How much have you had to drink tonight, De Roach?”

“I told you I’m not drunk.”

“How much?” he demanded.

“A few beers,” he lied. “But I’m nowhere near being drunk. I know what I saw. I saw Melanie Burns.”

“Do you hear yourself, De Roach? Do you have any idea how crazy you sound? You’re telling me you saw a woman who’s been dead for twenty-five years.”

“Don’t you think I know how the fuck it sounds?” Lester fired back, feeling scared and confused, but needing the man to believe him. “But I’m telling you, it was her.”

“What you saw was a woman who reminded you of Melanie.”

“It was her I tell you,” Lester insisted. “I looked right into her eyes. They were Melanie’s eyes. There’s no way I’d ever forget those eyes.” Hell, he’d seen them in his nightmares for more years than he wanted to remember.

He paused again. “All right. Tell me what this woman you saw looked like.”

“I told you. She looked like Melanie.”

He released a breath. “Describe her to me, you moron.”

“She was tall, a little on the skinny side. Her hair was darker than it used to be and shorter, but everything else was the same. One thing I’m sure about, she had those same spooky gray eyes.” He bit back a shudder. “You remember those eyes of hers.”

“Yeah, I remember them.” After a moment, he said, “She must be Burns’s kid.”

“Melanie’s kid?” Lester repeated.

“Yeah. Don’t you remember, you moron? Melanie and Jody Burns had a kid, a little girl. She was sleeping in the next room. And when she woke up, she found Jody Burns standing over his wife’s body. It was her testimony that helped put her old man away.”