Free Drowning Barbie by Frederick Ramsay Page A

Smut also knew about the father. Perhaps he had a brother or close relative who decided to even things up. That would explain going to all the trouble of having them share a grave.
    Likely or not, he’d post the connection as a possibility on the tack board he’d set up in the outer office.
    ***
    Charley Picket stood on the sidewalk outside the Cross Roads Diner and stared at its glass door. It was that time of the year when the humidity level caught up with the temperature. He mopped his forehead with a red bandanna. He could smell the food cooking inside and his stomach started to growl. He had not eaten anything since five o’clock and he’d missed lunch because he had to chase some redneck in a pickup for miles before the boy finally gave up and pulled over. The truck was a mess, the kid not much better. Charley had given him a ticket for failure to stop at a four-way and another for not yielding to an order to stop. He called in the plates and turned the kid loose.
    Charley was close to sixty, which side and how close were not clear. He had never eaten a meal or even had a cup of coffee in the Cross Roads Diner. Growing up, it had been forbidden territory. “Coloreds” were expected to eat in their own restaurants. All that had changed a good while back, of course. It had taken a long time, but the changes came. Still, he hesitated. Laws can change what people do and where they can do it, but not how people feel. Until this moment he had never had any desire to find out if the attitudes of local white folk had changed since Brown v. The Board of Education out there in Topeka, at least as it related to the Cross Roads Diner. But he was hungry and Jack’s Lunchroom was located over on the other side of town.
    â€œWhatcha waiting for, Charley?” Billy Sutherlin had somehow snuck up behind him. “Flora can be mean as a snake, but she’s an equal opportunity mean snake. She’ll as likely yell at me as you.”
    â€œYeah, I guess so. It’s just I never been in this place.”
    â€œYou’re kidding? Hell, Charley, you must be the only man in town that ain’t.”
    â€œWell, it’s just that—”
    â€œCharley…hey, all that stuff was a lifetime ago. Ain’t nobody in there going to come at you and I ain’t just saying that ’cause I’m white. So come on.”
    Billy shoved open the door and held it aside for Charley. Flora Blevins glared at the two of them.
    â€œGet in or get out, but either way, shut the door. I am not in the fly farming business. You must be Deputy Picket. How come you never eat here? Jack’s food can’t be that much better. I do reckon I’ll never match his ribs, though. Billy, shut the damned door.”
    Charley grinned an apology and took a booth with Billy in the corner. Flora plunked down a slice of apple pie with a wedge of cheddar and a cup of coffee in front of him.
    â€œExcuse me, Ms. Blevins, but I didn’t order anything yet.”
    â€œYou will and that is what it’ll be. Billy, your chili is on the way.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œIt don’t do any good to complain, Charley. Flora decides what you need and you get it. After you’ve eaten here a while you might be able to change it, but for now, your afternoon between-meals eating at the diner will be coffee and pie. It’s good pie, by the way. Flora, what’s the hold up on my chili?”
    â€œI told you once already, it’s on the way.”

Chapter Twelve
    Friday finally arrived and with it the prospect of an uninterrupted weekend. However, Ruth and Ike had work to do. Not work related to their professions, but tasks connected to their behaviorally rash evening in Nevada. They had to decide the means by which their hasty and irregular marriage should be announced to the public. For ordinary folk, the problem would not loom so large, but for a popular public servant and the respectable