Southern Fried Read Free Page B

seat wasn’t yet visible.
    As the car emerged from the water, the front end canted sharply downward. But I didn’t have to move for a better look. The car’s passenger obliged me by floating into view against the rear window.
    I’ll never look at a kid’s Magic 8 Ball in the same way again.
    Murky water filled the car. Inside a shape floated into view, undefined at first. Then the face—or what remained of it—drew close to the window and took form through the murk. A human head. Not exactly a head. But not quite a skull either. A waxy yellow padding outlined the cheeks, jaw, and neck. The eye holes gaped, hollow and black.
    Floating limply, the head tilted. The grinning teeth tapped once against the glass. Then the apparition floated back into a shapeless form in the murk.
    The guy who’d been glad they hadn’t had to flip the car clamped his hand over his mouth and stifled a gagging sound.

Two
    T he unexpected resurrection at the lake must have I unnerved me more than I realized, for I immediately made two mistakes: stopping by my parents’ house and calling Sheriff L.J. Peters.
    L.J.’s guffaw as soon as she heard my voice told me she’d already learned about Donlee and the invented drowning of Pee Vee Probert. Pee Vee himself had shown up at the detention center to ask Donlee why he’d tried to drown him when he, Pee Vee, hadn’t even been at the lake. Then the two of them had headed off in Pee Vee’s pickup.
    “Practically arm in arm,” L.J. said. “Probably headed to Tap’s to celebrate Pee Vee’s near-death experience.”
    Tap’s Pool Room, the bar where Donlee worked and where Pee Vee regularly drank. And where Donlee drank and alternately lost and remorsefully reclaimed his religion.
    “They’ll most likely both be back down here in detention by sometime tomorrow morning,” L.J. finished in a wry tone.
    I hoped Pee Vee was the only one drinking to celebrate that he hadn’t drowned. I didn’t want a late-night call from Donlee.
    As soon as I hung up the phone on L.J’s barking laughter, my mom corralled me.
    “You finished, Avery? Then you can come with me to the Frank Dobbins circle meeting.”
    “I don’t—”
    “Those ladies would love to see you, now that you’re back in town. Some of them probably haven’t seen you in years.”
    “I really need—”
    “And you’re already dressed up. Though you need to spot-clean the hem of your jacket. Looks like you backed into something.”
    She stuck the corner of a kitchen towel under the faucet, then proceeded to damp-mop the back of my blazer.
    “Mom, I really need to stop by the hardware store—”
    She picked a couple of stray red-gold hairs from my jacket. “Stayin’ up at that cabin isn’t one of your better ideas, Avery. Lord only knows, though, you’re as pigheaded as your grandfather ever had time to be. Anything could happen up there. Take that drowning this morning—”
    “Mom, nobody drowned this morning. A guy made the whole thing up. It was a joke.”
    “Still, that car with the body in it. That’s not the kind of place you need to be staying by yourself. Who’d they think it was?”
    “I don’t know.” I didn’t want to think about itright now. I suppressed a shudder. The picture was too fresh in my mind—and too gruesome.
    The drowning, I could believe she’d heard about. How she knew about the submerged car already was beyond me, though not much happens in Dacus that Mom doesn’t know about, mostly through her various projects.
    Come to think of it, Donlee Griggs had been one of her little projects. She and I would have to have a talk about that one of these days.
    But not right now. Right now, we were on our way out the door to the Frank Dobbins circle meeting.
    I couldn’t very well insist on driving, since I didn’t have a car. Nothing made me question what would become of me more than reminders that I had no wheels. I’d have to attend to my lack of transportation, probably sometime after I