“You from around here?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Been here thirteen years. Moved down from DC with my ex-husband. He was a horseman. Worked on the farm where Secretariat was born,” she said.
“No shit?” Buddy Lee said.
“Yeah, he was better with horses than he was with marriage,” the clerk said.
“Say, you don’t know a girl name of Tangerine Fredrickson do you?” Buddy Lee asked. The clerk curled her lips like she had bitten into an apple and seen half a worm.
“You a friend?” she said.
“Nah, it’s kind of a funny story. I found her purse with her license and stuff in it, but I’m not from around here and for the life me I can’t find this address. You know whereabouts she lives? Maybe give me a landmark or something? Her ID says Adam’s Road but my GPS acting like it got Tourette’s,” Buddy Lee said with a smile. The clerk didn’t smile back.
“Lunette Fredrickson lives out near the water tower on Adam’s Road. The sign got shot down last year and the county ain’t replaced it yet.”
“Lunette, huh? She related to Tangerine, I guess?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Yeah,” the clerk said. The sour expression on her face deepened.
“Okay, well, thank you,” Buddy Lee said. He took his change and headed for the door. He snuck a glance at the clerk on his way out.
You better hope the wind don’t change or your face is gonna stay like that, Buddy Lee thought. He walked out to the truck. Cars and trucks zipped by on the two-lane highway that ran past the gas station. Ike was already pumping the gas. Buddy Lee got in and put Ike’s beer in the drink holder before cracking open his own.
“Thanks,” Ike said. He grabbed the beer and killed most of it in one gulp.
“I think we should be looking for a road next to the water tower. Adam’s Road,” Buddy Lee said.
“How you know that?” Ike asked.
“I had a talk with the clerk inside. She gave some info on a Lunette Fredrickson, who is related to Tangerine.”
“Now what? We go down Adam’s Road and stop at every house and ask them if they know Tangerine?” Ike asked.
“You got a better idea?” Buddy Lee said. Ike shrugged.
“You the one that knocks. This is MAGA country,” Ike said.
In the end it only took two houses. At the first house no one answered. At the second one, a trailer with a wooden ramp, a young white guy with a Confederate-flag tattoo on his chest directed them to the last house on Adam’s Road. They drove past a sign that alerted them they were approaching the end of state maintenance. On the left side of the road was a mailbox at the beginning of a long dirt lane. The name FREDRICKSON was written on the mailbox in small stick-on letters.
“This is it, I guess,” Ike said. Buddy Lee bit at his thumbnail.
“You know, you was right.”
“About what?” Ike said.
“I don’t think those people would have talked to you the way they did to me,” Buddy Lee said. The Confederate-flag tattoo unfurled in his mind.
“I guess you woke now,” Ike said. Buddy Lee saw him smirk out the corner of his eye. He turned down the lane and navigated the potholes that dotted the road like they were driving over a slice of Swiss cheese. Buddy Lee peered out the window as they passed the magnolia trees that lined the driveway. The craggy road ended in a barren front yard and a ramshackle two-story house with a decaying porch that wrapped around most of the first floor. An expansive meadow overgrown with kudzu and honeysuckle that seemed to go on for acres made up the backyard. A four-door sedan with four different-colored doors sat near the bottom step of the porch. Ike pulled up next to the sedan on the passenger side near the far right side of the porch and killed the engine.
“Here we are,” Ike said.
“How you wanna play this?” Buddy Lee asked.
“Play it straight. Tell her what’s up. Ask who was the guy and if he knew about Isiah and Derek,” Ike said.
“How hard are we leaning on her?” Buddy Lee asked.
“She’s a woman. I’m not leaning on her at all. You ain’t, either,” Ike said.
“Okay, but if she stonewalls us, I got some girl cousins we can call,” Buddy Lee said. He grabbed the gun and tucked it in his waistband near the small of his back.
“I don’t think we gonna need that,” Ike said.
“Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” Buddy Lee said.
They climbed out of the truck and made their way to the front door of the house. They both stopped after a couple of steps.