Drag Strip

Drag Strip by Nancy Bartholomew Page A

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Authors: Nancy Bartholomew
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’cause after all, I’m just low-rent?”
    Wheeling flushed. “We can talk or you can cuss me out and I’ll leave. What’s it going to be?”
    â€œSay what you came to say.”
    Wheeling hunched his shoulders like he had a stiff neck. “First off, I didn’t talk to the press. We don’t do that here. I issue statements after the fact, not in the process of an investigation.”
    â€œSo what are you saying? That no one in the police department said anything to the press and that they fabricated a story?”
    Wheeling ran his fingers through his hair, making it look even more wild. The gesture made him seem somehow much younger, almost boyish, and frustrated.
    â€œI’d like to say no one in the department talked, but you and I both know that I can’t do that. I’m busting my ass trying to find out who, if anyone, talked, but I’m also working on finding your friend’s killer.”
    â€œSo how many people knew I was a witness?” It was hopeless, I knew. In Panama City, everyone knew everything in a matter of moments.
    Wheeling shifted on the barstool. “Well, the officers at the scene know you were there, but they didn’t know you could identify the killer.”
    â€œI didn’t say I could. I said maybe.”
    â€œWell, then I knew and Detective Nailor knew.”
    â€œWhat? How the hell did he know?”
    Wheeling looked at me, his eyes unwavering. “He’s the other homicide detective. We work our cases together, unless one of us is already on a case. In Panama City, that’s rare. We only have six or eight homicides a year.” He was burning me with the facts while I was still stuck on Nailor possibly being the only other person who knew the details of my statement. I was going to have to do a little investigating of my own. Nailor kept popping up, first at the racetrack, then in my trailer, and now investigating Ruby’s murder. What was the man up to?
    A glint of red outside the bay window caught my eye, drawing my attention to the street. A cardinal-red Porsche was slowly passing the trailer, the windows tinted a smoky gray, with a vanity plate that I knew by heart: MR.TNA Vincent Gambuzzo was circling the block, noting the government tags on the standard-issue beige Taurus, and deciding to keep a low profile until the heat was gone.
    â€œListen,” I said, turning my attention back to Detective Wheeling, “it really don’t make no never mind to me how you want to explain this. I’m just asking that you be a little forthcoming with some police protection.”
    Wheeling started to say something, but I cut him off. “I know, you can’t be placing a cop on my doorstep twenty-four hours a day, and maybe that’s because of who I am and who the victim was, and maybe it’s because you’re short-handed. Whatever. I’m just asking for a profile. A high profile. Send a marked cruiser past my house every hour or so.” I was walking toward my door, holding it open and making like Wheeling should quit acting like a big baby Huey and take a cue.
    He wandered out into the bright sunlight of another steamy Panama City afternoon with Fluffy once again at his feet, trying her best to trip him up. His car hadn’t been gone thirty seconds when Vincent Gambuzzo pulled into Wheeling’s spot on the parking pad and gunned the engine of the tinny-sounding sports car. Whatever version of a Porsche it was, it wasn’t the big-ticket, top-of-the-line model. His car was the best he or any other midlevel wannabe could afford.
    Vincent de-wedged himself from the driver’s seat and lumbered over to my steps, panting from exertion and the heat of wearing a black suit in the friggin’ tropical nineties.
    â€œAbout goddamn time that cop took off,” he said, heaving himself up the steps. “Any longer and I’d have run out of gas. Then them damn juvenile delinquents that

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