"Oh, I'm not one for numbers," I said, walking up to the desk and running my finger through the dust outline of Jimmy's nameplate. "I'll just let Jerry do all that."

I hadn't planned on this. Driving up, I hadn't had any idea of where I was going to go with the Mobile Home Kingdom, but suddenly the idea of an audit crystalized. The more Evans seemed to blow me off, the firmer I was in my resolve, Crazy Jerry Sizemore would be just the ticket for this case.

I met Crazy Jerry when I bought the Curley-Que. My lawyer recommended him, and I soon found out why: Jerry was the best in the business, never mind that he was completely crazy.

Jerry had roared up to the Curley-Que that first time on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a big one, chopped with a front end that extended further than the legal limit, I was sure. He wore a fringed suede jacket and a coon-skin cap. His salt-and-pepper gray hair hung down to the middle of his back, and he had a ruby stud in his right ear. I hadn't wanted to hire him, but my attorney made me keep him.

He was a wild man, a Vietnam veteran who drank Wild Turkey and rode with bikers, but he was also brilliant. Jerry would get to the bottom of anything going on in the Mobile Home Kingdom, I felt sure.

"I'll have my accountant give you a call," I said. Evans was too wise to fight it, but the wheels were turning behind his eyes.

I stepped a little closer to Don Evans. "I can't stay too long today," I said. "But I thought it best that I stop by as soon as possible and introduce myself. I'm sure we'll work well together."

He didn't know what to say and I was sure he'd be on the phone to Vernell before my car was off the lot, but that was fine, too. On my way out, I popped in on Miss Sexton. She was staring intently at her computer screen, hoping I'd go away. I stood there for a second, watching her work. Another redhead, I thought. Poor old Jimmy.

"Miss Sexton," I said, stepping right up to her desk, "I'm Maggie Reid." She looked up, a flat, disinterested look on her face. "Jimmy left me his share of the business, so we'll be working together from now on." I let the words hang in the air for a moment, watching as they slowly filtered down through Miss Sexton's brain.

"My accountant will be coming by to look at the books. I'd appreciate all the help you can give him," I said. "Later on, after he's through, maybe we can get together and talk a little bit about the office."

"Yes, ma'am," she said. "We're all gonna miss Jimmy." A little tear welled up and spilled over her eyelid. Unless I missed my guess, she really meant it.

I left her there, dabbing gently at her eyes, and made my way out of the office. I'd had enough for my first visit. I'd know more after I sent Jerry in to nose around. I stepped out into the fresh air of the late fall afternoon and stood, surveying the vast lot of mobile homes. The blue pickup and angry driver had gone, but Tommy Purvis was entertaining another visitor.

He leaned against a late-model Thunderbird, his heavy butt jutting out into the late afternoon sunshine. From the way he had his torso half stuck into the driver's side, I figured it must've been a female admirer. I could've slid right past him, hopped into my car, and made a clean getaway, if not for the fact that Tommy's rear end and his girlfriend's Thunderbird were blocking my exit.

"Hey, Purvis," I called.

Tommy swung around, a displeased look on his face.

"Can you ask your girlfriend to move her car?" I asked.

The Thunderbird lurched forward suddenly, almost carrying Tommy with it. It didn't stop, careening with a rooster-tail of gravel as it left the lot. Tommy stared after the car in shock, but I knew why his female admirer had left so suddenly. It just wouldn't have done for a grieving widow like Roxanne to be caught flirting by her ex-sister-in-law.

Chapter Seventeen

I knew Jerry Lee Sizemore wouldn't disappoint me. His machine had been on when I'd called, but Jerry rarely answered the phone. "I don't like gettin' that personal with folks," he'd say. I knew otherwise. Jerry didn't answer the phone for two reasons: Half the time he was drunk, the rest of the time he was entertaining guests, usually women.

My lawyer explained it to me when she'd given me his name and number to call.

"Jerry Lee Sizemore doesn't have to work another day in his life. Back before he went to 'Nam, Jerry Lee was a geek, a financial genius, but a geek none the less. He invested in computers. Put that together with his partial disability payments, and Jerry could live out his days in modest comfort. Trouble is, Jerry runs to excess." She sighed, but there was a slight, knowing smile creeping across her face. It was the smile of a woman who's been there and liked what she found.

"Poor Jerry." She sighed again. "He's a genius. He'll take a look at the Curley-Que, and if it's right, no one'll know better than him. If he would only lay off the Wild Turkey and give up the hot tub…" She shook herself back to the present and handed me his card. "Have a good time," she said. "He's partial to redheads."

I'd called him that day. I was desperate to make the Curley-Que work. I was newly divorced and scared to death about my future. This just had to work.

His machine had come on after one ring.

"Tell me who you are," it barked. "Tell me what you want. And don't try and bullshit me with ideas. Just tell me the facts."

I was so thrown off by his message, I hung up. Then I rehearsed my message and called back. Jerry Lee Sizemore didn't surface for two whole days. Days that I spent anxiously waiting by the phone.

He called at two in the morning. I was sound asleep, but he sounded as if it were the peak of the day. He didn't apologize, just took down what information I had and hung up. Three days later, he turned up at my cottage.

I heard him long before I saw him. He rode his Harley without baffles, didn't care that it was against the law, and apparently didn't obey the helmet laws, either. I was outside planting pansies when he pulled up. He looked like any other biker with the exception of his fringed suede coat and his coon-skin cap. I knew he wasn't anyone I knew or was likely to know, so I ignored him. When he strode up my little walkway and planted himself in front of me, I finally looked up. Jerry Lee Sizemore was one frighening individual.

"You Maggie?" he asked.

"Maybe."

"Well, you either are or you aren't," he said. "Wouldn't you be the one to know?"

I didn't say anything. I was staring at the bottoms of his tattered jeans and his black scuffed boots, hoping he'd go away.

"Here," he said, thrusting a manila envelope into my hands. "The salon's a keeper if you want it. You want me to explain it to you?"

That's when I realized who he was and practically fell all over myself inviting him inside.

"You got anything to drink?" he asked once we were in my tiny dining room. He was tall, but then every man over five-feet-nine is tall when you're barely five-feet-two.

"Coke, tea, water?" I offered.

He gave me an impatient look. "Hell. I mean liquor."

"I've got the bottle of tequila from my honeymoon," I said, "but it's old and there's a worm in it."

Jimmy Lee Sizemore's eyes lit up. "That'll do nicely," he said. "Bring out two glasses."

"I don't drink that stuff," I said.

"You want to hear about this place or not?" he asked.

"What's one got to do with the other?"

Jerry pulled out a dining-room chair, swung it around backward, and straddled it. He smelled faintly of chlorine and suede, and the ends of his long silvery hair were damp. Jerry Lee was not one hundred percent sober. And from the wrinkles around his fingertips, he had just pulled himself out of the hot tub to make his delivery.