Tracking Daddy Down Page 10

  “I didn’t feel so good.” Now the flame was too low, so I turned it back up.

  “So you’re sick? You need to go home to bed?”

  “No. I’m feeling better now. Besides, I was all done dusting anyway.” I still didn’t have the heart to look at her. I was afraid I might break down and rush into her arms and tell her everything. I couldn’t do that, though. I had to hold out until Daddy got back to Old Man Hinshaw’s cabin. According to his note, that wouldn’t be for another week.

  But then it occurred to me that if I wasn’t nice to Mama, I wouldn’t have a chance of getting out of the house to look for him again. “I started some egg salad,” I told her. “Daddy Joe said he likes the way I make it. Maybe we can take some home to him.” I threw that in on purpose, figuring it would make her happy if I said something respectful about him for once.

  “Are you trying to change the subject?” Mama said, looking at me suspiciously.

  A tap on the back door saved me.

  “Hey, Wanda,” Mama’s deliveryman said. “Got a big load out here. You got room for all of this?”

  “I’ll be right there, Hank.”

  “You watch the diner,” she told me. “Let me know if anyone comes in.”

  So far Fuzzy was our only customer. He was sitting at the counter, drinking coffee, like he’d done every afternoon since I could remember. He grunted at me when I walked by; then, out of the blue, he said, “For what it’s worth, not everyone thinks you kids took that money. Told your mom as much.”

  I muttered, “Thank you,” and sat at a table near the window, resting my chin in my hands. I was thinking about Daddy when someone tapped on the window.

  Ernestine!

  I waved her in, but she shook her head no and waved me out.

  “Go ahead outside and talk to your friend,” Fuzzy said. “I ain’t gonna need nothin’.”

  I raced out the door, practically tripping over my own feet. I couldn’t wait to talk to Ernestine. She didn’t look that thrilled to see me, though.

  I sat next to her on the bench. “Where’ve you been? I’ve tried to call your house, but no one ever answers.”

  “We’ve been to my grandma’s,” she said. “We left on Tuesday and didn’t get back until this morning.”

  “Bet you had fun, huh? Did your grandma lose her choppers?” I joked, hoping that would crack her up. Ernestine hated visiting her grandparents, because her grandma always took her false teeth out during meals.

  “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it.

  “What’s wrong? Are you mad at me?”

  “How come you and Tommy left the church that day? You said you’d wait for me. You promised.”

  “You don’t think we stole the money, do you?”

  Ernestine pulled two pieces of bubble gum from her pocket and handed me one. I popped it in my mouth, secretly smiling, because now I knew she couldn’t be all that mad.

  “No, but everyone else does. Even my mom.” Ernestine fidgeted with a button on her blouse. “She doesn’t want me to hang out with you anymore. She says you’re a bad influence. She wants me to be best friends with that stupid Ada Jane.”

  The blood drained from my heart in one huge whoosh. A sharp ache took its place. I couldn’t imagine my life without Ernestine. Who would roller-skate with me? Who would stay up all night with me, giggling over the naked people in Daddy Joe’s National Geographics? From the time we’d been in kindergarten, Ernestine, Tommy, and I had always done everything together. Mama even called us her fearsome threesome.

  Ernestine scratched at the bench with a pebble. A warm summer breeze blew wisps of hair across my face, tickling my nose. Every so often the wind would pick up a leaf, causing it to dance around our feet and skip down the sidewalk.

  “Are you going to?” I whispered, breaking the silence. I could hardly get the words out of my mouth.

  “Going to what?”

  “You know, be best friends with Ada Jane?”

  “Not if you tell me the truth about where you and Tommy went that day, about where you really found that money.”

  My mind spun a quick web around my secret, wanting to hold it close, to protect Daddy. But I’d already hurt Ernestine’s feelings by running off from the church without her. If I didn’t tell her about the money, I’d hurt her even more. What if she never talked to me again?

  “Cross your heart, hope to die you won’t tell,” I said.

  “I swear on the Bible.”

  “We found the money in Old Man Hinshaw’s cabin. It’s from the bank robbery.”

  Ernestine’s gum fell out of her mouth and landed on the sidewalk.

  Chapter 20

  “I’ve got something to tell you. Something that has to do with the secret,” Ernestine whispered in the telephone that night. She called me right after supper.

  “What?” I clutched the receiver to my ear, my heart pounding like a drum. I’d explained everything to her earlier—about Tommy almost getting hit by the train, about finding the money and the note and all about Old Man Hinshaw and his shotgun. She’d sworn over and over she wouldn’t breathe a word of it, but I couldn’t help worry that something had leaked out.

  There was a scuffling noise in the background; then I heard Ernestine’s mom calling her.

  “Okay, Ada Jane,” Ernestine sang to me in a high, fake voice. “I can’t talk anymore now. I’ll see you tomorrow, right after lunch. At. Our. Spot. I’ll tell you all about it then. Byeee.”

  I knew what she meant by “our spot.” It was the bench outside Fuzzy’s. But I couldn’t figure what she wanted to tell me.

  The next day I could hardly wait to report for work at Mama’s diner. Like usual, Tommy and I cleaned the church with Mirabelle all morning. Mama had said we could both eat lunch at the diner, and I rushed him through our chores so we could leave by noon. On the way over I filled him in on everything I’d told Ernestine and how she had something important to tell us.

  Mama had our lunch waiting at the corner booth: hamburger, pickles, and french fries, my favorite. It felt like I was in heaven, especially after eating Daddy Joe’s lunches for the last week. I thought about Carla at home with him, wondering what he’d fixed for her today. Probably chicken pot pie. At least it wouldn’t be tuna fish salad. Daddy Joe had promised Carla he’d never make it again.

  I was clearing our table when Ernestine tapped on the window. “Hey!” I yelled, waving her in. The diner had just cleared out. Mama was in the kitchen, making meat loaves.

  Ernestine stuck her head in the door, then put her finger over her mouth and jerked her head back. “I couldn’t get away without her,” she whispered.

  “Aw, shoot!” Tommy said. “Look who’s coming—Ada Jane the lamebrain.”

  Sure enough, Miss Prissy strutted up the sidewalk and in the door right after Ernestine. She headed straight for the counter and plopped onto a stool, telling Ernestine to come sit by her. “Make us two large root beer floats, Billie,” Ada Jane ordered in her bossiest voice. Then she spun around on the stool at least ten times, until I wondered when she would get dizzy enough to fall off. “You need to hurry up,” she said, “because Ernestine’s mom is taking us swimming real soon.”

  “Too bad,” I said, settling back into my chair. “We’re fresh out of root beer.”

  Ada Jane turned to glare at me, and Ernestine made devil horns behind her head. Tommy laughed so hard he shot spit all over the table.

  “We’re out of what?” Mama said from the kitchen door.

  “Billie won’t wait on me, Mrs. Hughes,” Ada Jane whined. “She says you’re out of root beer. I’ve never heard of a diner running out of root beer before.”

  For a split second I saw something in Mama’s eyes, like a laugh wanting to happen. But the door opened, and a group of men came in. “Billie,” Mama said, “get up right now and serve Ada Jane. I’m going to wait on these folks.”

  I kept my back to Ada Jane while I made the floats,
dumping two measly scoops of vanilla ice cream into her mug, then three heaping ones into Ernestine’s. A pepper shaker just happened to be sitting at my fingertips, so I added four good shakes into Ada Jane’s float. I topped it off with a squirt of whipped cream and a cherry on top.

  “Here.” I slammed her drink on the counter. “That’ll be fifty cents for both of them.” She pulled a crumpled one-dollar bill out of her pocket and threw it at me. I counted back fifty pennies to her. “Sorry,” I said. “Mama forgot to get quarters.”

  Ada Jane put the pennies in her pocket like she couldn’t care less. She sucked a mouthful of root beer through her straw and made a face. “No offense, Billie, but your floats aren’t near as good as the ones in Millerstown.”

  Ernestine took a drink of hers. “Mmm. Mine’s delicious.”

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with your taste buds,” I said to Ada Jane.

  “Yeah,” Tommy piped up. “You might have taste-bud-a-ria.”

  Ernestine’s face turned pink, and I knew she was trying not to laugh. “Uh…B-B-Billie,” she stammered, winking at me. “Can I see your pencil?”

  “What do you need a pencil for?” Ada Jane said.

  “Oh, nothing,” Ernestine said. “I just want to draw something on my napkin.”

  And then Ada Jane, being the biggest copycat in the world, said she wanted a pencil, too. So they sat there drinking their floats and doodling on napkins. Before they left, Ernestine slipped me hers. “Read. It,” she mouthed.

  Tommy and I hurried back to the kitchen where I unfolded the napkin: “B and T. I think A.J. has the church money. I’m going to try and find it. Your friend, E.”

  Chapter 21

  Daddy and Uncle Warren had outsmarted the cops. They were due back at the cabin in four days to pick up their car.

  I found out about it July 3, when my uncles, Russell and Gary, came to the diner for Mama’s special patriotic breakfast.

  The day hadn’t started too good. I’d been so busy with customers I barely had time to talk with Ernestine when she’d rushed in to give me an update on Ada Jane. She’d managed to sneak to the diner two times since last Thursday—to fill me in on her search for the money—but she’d never been able to stay more than a minute or so. Today she had a new plan. “I still haven’t found anything,” she’d whispered in my ear, “but I’m going to look inside you-know-who’s closet. I’ve got a hunch that’s where she’s hiding it.”

  And then Castor Oil and Chipmunk Cheeks had showed up, ordering two of Mama’s biscuits and gravy specials. I could hardly stand to wait on them the way they kept bragging how the cops were closing in on Daddy and Uncle Warren. I was in the kitchen filling their plates when Denny whistled real loud and Bud said, “That’s right. Captain of the Indy force says he’s got an informant on the street who’s heard some stuff. Guess one of them was spotted a few days ago.”

  What I wanted to do was go after that pepper shaker I’d used on Ada Jane’s float and dump the whole thing over their biscuits. Instead, I settled for a pinch of the cornstarch Mama had left sitting out, then covered it over with gravy. I didn’t get to see their expressions when they took that first bite, though, because Aunt Charlene delivered their plates. She’d been helping us out with the patriotic breakfast and said she wanted to be the one to serve Bud and Denny.

  The good news didn’t come until Castor Oil and his sidekick left the diner. That’s when my uncles showed up.

  Mama finally let me have a break, and I was in my corner booth eating sausage and a waffle. I’d leaned down to pick up a piece of sausage I’d dropped on the floor when my uncles Russell and Gary slid into the booth next to mine. I guess they hadn’t noticed me, because right off the bat Uncle Russell started talking in a real low voice. “So you think you’ll have it ready to go by this Saturday, huh?”

  “No problem-o,” Uncle Gary said. “Just got a little transmission work left. I’ll have that baby ready to make it cross-country, count on it. You said they’re hitting the road Sunday afternoon, right?”

  “That’s the word,” Uncle Russell said. “They can’t stay more than a night out there. Earl says Hinshaw’s a nutcase. Says if they stay any longer, he’ll likely wig out on ’em.”

  “Man, that old guy’s one brick short of a load,” Uncle Gary said. “They’re smart to get the heck out of Dodge.”

  I’d been scrunched under the table the whole time they were talking, too excited to even swallow the waffle in my mouth. Daddy was going to be at the cabin on Sunday!

  I slipped out of the booth, careful to keep my head turned and not attract my uncles’ attention, and hurried back to the kitchen.

  Mama was just hanging up the telephone. I grabbed the potato peeler and headed to the sink, my heart feeling like it might leap out of my throat. I tried not to act jumpy, though. I didn’t want her getting suspicious.

  “That was Joe,” Mama said, looking all gooey-eyed. “He’s got plans for the weekend. He wants to take us to Polly County for that Civil War reenactment, and then we’ll spend Saturday night at a motel. He says to tell you it’s got a swimming pool.” Her lips stretched into a smile. “Won’t that be fun, honey?”

  She might as well have punched me in the nose. I couldn’t even answer; I just stared at her with my mouth open.

  I couldn’t go to any Civil War reenactment, not over the weekend. Sunday was the only day I had to find Daddy.

  I wanted to scream. Good old Joe Hughes was at it again, messing in my business. Of all the times to pick for a trip, how come he chose this weekend? And how could Mama stand there with that big smile on her face, acting so excited about a weekend away with Daddy Joe and a field full of cannons?

  “I don’t want to go,” I finally managed to say. “Can’t I stay with Aunt Charlene and Tommy?”

  “Absolutely not. You’re going with us.”

  “That’s not fair!” I flung the potato peeler in the sink. Her and Daddy Joe were going to ruin everything. It’d be all their fault if Daddy got caught before I found him. “You just don’t trust me. You still think Tommy and I stole that money.”

  “Keep your voice down, Billie. We’ve got customers out there.”

  “I don’t care about any customers! I don’t care about any stupid Civil War, either. All I want is to find Daddy and get away from you.” I backed into the wall, already sorry for what I’d said. Big sobs heaved up my chest. I buried my eyes in my hands. Everything in my life had gone so wrong, I wished I could just slip down the drain with the dirty dishwater.

  I wanted Mama to put her arms around me, to say she believed me, to say how sorry she was, and that I could stay home this weekend. Instead, she started working on an onion—chop, chop, chop—cutting it into a thousand little cubes. “I’d like to think you’re telling the truth. But you two were caught red-handed. If that money you had wasn’t from the church, then where did it come from?” Her eyes beamed in on mine. “I want to know, and I want the truth.”

  “Can I go home now?”

  “No. Billie, I said I want the truth. Your Daddy Joe and I think you’re hiding something.”

  “He…ain’t…my…daddy. And I don’t want to go anywhere with him this weekend.”

  Mama set the knife down and looked at me again, her eyes softening. “What is it, honey? Why do you still resent Joe so much? He just wants to do something nice for you and Carla.”

  “Because he’s the reason Daddy left, that’s why. He wanted you to himself, so he fired Daddy from Firestone on purpose. And then Daddy couldn’t find another job. That’s why he had to go to California.” There. I’d finally said it.

  Mama sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know where on God’s earth you got that idea, Billie. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m going to give it to you straight: Joe fired your dad because he stole equipment from the company. And I divorced him because he gambled all of our money away, then chased off to California after God knows what, probably something in a skirt. He left me al
one—broke—with two children to feed.”

  I felt another sob bubbling at the bottom of my chest. How could Mama say that? She was wrong. I knew she was wrong. Daddy never had another girlfriend. “I love your Mama,” he’d told me after he came back from California. “She’s always been the one for me.”

  “That’s not true,” I said to Mama. “He went out there to work a special construction job with Uncle Gary. He told me so.”

  “He’s told you a lot of stories, Billie. I’m sorry to say it, because I know how much you love your daddy. And in his own way, Earl loves you. But that doesn’t make him a good father. A good father wouldn’t leave his family. A good father wouldn’t run out and rob a bank, causing his daughter this much pain.”

  “It was because of Uncle Warren he robbed the bank,” I said. “Uncle Russell said so. He said Uncle Warren got into a bad mess, that he owed money to someone and was in a lot of trouble.”

  “It doesn’t matter who owed what to who,” Mama said. “What matters is that Earl made his own choices. The man’s never grown up. Can’t you understand that?”

  I understood it, all right. She hated Daddy. I stood against the wall, my arms crossed, my teeth clamped together.

  “Joe cares about you and Carla,” she said, “like a father should. It’s about time you started to appreciate him.”

  She stuck a spoon in her potato salad and swung back into the dining room. I followed her, stomping around the tables and out the front door, slamming it behind me. I figured she was too busy to chase after me.

  I was sitting on Fuzzy’s bench, wiping my eyes, when Aunt Charlene came outside. “What’s wrong, honey?” she said.

  “Nothing.” I didn’t feel like going into it all again.

  She sat next to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “Sometimes life ain’t all that easy, is it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s pretty rough going now,” she said. “Things will get better, though; they always do. Lord knows, I’ve had my share of troubles over the years. But one thing you’ve got going for you, hon, is a family that cares.” She nudged me in the side and winked. “Even the one guy you’re not so wild about.”