“Is that a fact.” Bode paid for the beer and groceries. Then he tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter. “Tell you what, Mister Shiner. Give me five Quick Picks, assuming you still got the magic touch.”
The clerk smiled. “You come to the right place. Town’s famous for miracles.” He pulled the tickets from the Lotto machine and handed them to Bodean Gazzer.
Chub said, “She a local gal, this Joleen?”
“Lives acrost from the park. And it’s JoLayne.”
Chub, scratching his neck: “I wonder if she’s lookin’ for a husband.”
The clerk grinned and lowered his voice. “No offense, sir, but she’s a little too tan for you.”
They all had a laugh. Bode and Chub said goodbye and walked out to the truck. For a while the two men sat in the cab, drinking beer, gnawing on jerky, not speaking a word.
Finally Chub said, “So it’s just like you said.”
“Yup. Just like I said.”
“Goddamn. A Negro.” With both hands Chub tore into the coffee cake.
“Eat quick,” Bode told him. “We got work to do.”
Tom Krome spent three hours with JoLayne Lucks. To call it an interview was a stretch. He’d never met anyone, politicians and convicts included, who could so adroitly steer conversation in a wrong direction. JoLayne Lucks held the added advantages of soft eyes and charm, to which Krome easily succumbed. By the end of the evening, she knew everything important there was to know about him, while he knew next to nothing about her. Even the turtles remained an enigma.
“Where’d you get them?” he asked.
“Creeks. Hey, I like your wristwatch.”
“Thanks. It was a gift.”
“From a lady friend, I’ll bet!”
“My wife, a long time ago.”
“How long you been married?”
“We’re divorcing… ” And away he’d go.
At half past ten JoLayne’s father called from Atlanta. She apologized for not picking up when he’d phoned earlier. She said she’d had company.
When Tom Krome rose to leave, JoLayne told her father to hang on. She led Krome to the door and said it had been a pleasure to make his acquaintance.
“May I come back tomorrow,” he asked, “and take some notes?”
“Nope.”
She gave him a gentle nudge. The screen door slapped shut between them.
“I’ve decided,” she said, “not to be in your newspaper.”
“Please.”
“Sorry.”
Tom Krome said, “You don’t understand.”
“Not everybody wants to be famous.”
He felt her slipping away. “Please. One hour with the tape recorder. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
That was the lie, of course. No matter what Krome wrote about JoLayne Lucks winning the lottery, it wouldn’t be fine. Nothing positive could come from telling the whole world you’re a millionaire, and JoLayne was smart enough to know it.
She said, “I’m sorry for your trouble, but I prefer to keep my privacy.”
“You really don’t have a choice.” That was the part she didn’t understand.
JoLayne stepped closer to the screen. “What do you mean?”
Krome shrugged apologetically. “There’s going to be a story in the papers, one way or another. This is news. This is the way it works.”
She turned and disappeared into the house.
Krome stood on the porch, contemplating the hum and bubble of the aquarium pump. He felt like a shitheel, but that was nothing new. He took out one of his business cards and wrote on the back of it: “Please call if you change your mind.”
He inserted the card in the doorjamb and returned to the bed-and-breakfast. In his room he saw a note on the dresser: Katie had phoned. So had Dick Turnquist.
Krome sat heavily on the edge of the bed, pondering the slim likelihood that his New York divorce lawyer had tracked him down in Grange, Florida, on a Sunday night to deliver good tidings. He waited twenty minutes before making the call.
JoLayne Lucks worked as an assistant to Dr. Cecil Crawford, the town veterinarian. JoLayne had been trained as a registered nurse, and easily could have earned twice as much money at the county hospital if she hadn’t preferred animal patients over human ones. And she excelled at her job. Everyone in Grange who owned a pet knew JoLayne Lucks. Where Doc Crawford could be cranky and terse, JoLayne was all tenderness and concern. That she was rumored to be eccentric in her private life was intriguing but immaterial; she had a special way with the animals. Just about everybody was fond of her, including a number of lifelong bigots who confided that she was the only black person they’d ever trusted. JoLayne found it interesting that so many of the local racists owned small, neurotic, ill-tempered breeds of dogs. The women favored toy poodles; the men, grossly overfed Chihuahuas. In Dade County, where JoLayne grew up, it was German shepherds and pit bulls.