Lavene Jim - Swapping Paint

Swapping Paint: A Stock Car Racing Mystery 2007 by Joyce and Jim Lavene.

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First e-book edition 2011

E-book ISBN: 9780738720432

Book design by Donna Burch

Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

Cover driver image Colin Anderson / Brand X Pictures

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For my brother-in-law, Don Harmon,
who taught me everything I know about cars and racing.

Thanks for spending time with a scrawny kid
who had too many questions.

Jimmy

Shh! Do you hear that?

She shoves her hand against my mouth, pushes me against the wall, and waits.

Im not talking, I mumble through her fingers.

I was making sure.

We cant break into someones RV!

The Branfords took our Rusty Wallace plate last year, and I mean to get it back.

This is stealing.

This is taking back whats rightfully ours , Glad.

You dont argue with a woman like Ruby. At least I try not to. Shes got a race car engine inside a Rolls Royce body. Shes not a little thing, but shes someone you can hold on to. Unless shes up and running in another direction, like now.

We finally move away from the side of the hot dog stand. Its closed for the nightor whats left of the night at three in the morningbut the smell of beer and bratwurst lingers. The lights on the towering superstructure of Lowes Motor Speedway still illuminate the sky.

Were camping on the infield this year for race week leading up to the Coca-Cola 600. Every year, a group of us put in some money and pick a name. I won the draw this year after five years of putting in money. The only other speedway Ive stayed inside is Talladega. Too expensive.

A hundred thousand fans will eventually line up to see if their driver of choice wins the races on the narrow circle of blacktop. Around us is a sea of RVs and buses, some of them special-order, which can cost a million dollars. Not mine, but they do exist. The infield is just one of a dozen campgrounds around the speedway. Im sure the hotels are full too. And if youre rich, there are always the VIP suites and condominiums. But even if I had ten million dollars, I would still want to camp to see the race.

My wife, Ruby, and I are searching for a license plate that someone else took after a race years ago. Rubys parents, Zeke and Louise Furr, were leaving a race at Darlington, North Carolina, when popular driver Rusty Wallace lost his personalized plate during an off-track wreck. The Furrs pulled for Rusty before he retired. One of the first questions out of any racing fans mouth in conversation is who you pull forlike I pull for Joe Nemechek. Good driver who gets a lot of bad breaks. I still like him.

The Furrs passed the plate down to their youngest daughter, Ruby, on our wedding day. For anyone not into racing, its a little like catching a home run ball at Wrigley Field during a Cubs game. Or reeling in a record-breaking swordfish. Or finding a diamond in a can of soup.

Rusty is next to Sunday clothes and fried chicken in the Furr household. Giving Ruby the plate that was solemnly enshrined between the kitchen door and the china cupboard for fifteen years was a tearful event. It was hard for me to tell which the Furrs hated losing more. But one thing is certain: Ruby has waited for this moment since we left Lowes last year. Nothing I can say is going to stop her from getting Rustys old plate.

How did the Branfords get Rubys plate? Im not sure. I wasnt there. I was playing poker with some friends. It has something to do with Ivey stopping by to talk to Ruby. Rustys plate was on the wall when Ruby went to get a beer for each of them. When she came back, the plate and Ivey were gone. Ruby had a security guard search Iveys motor home, but the plate wasnt there and Ivey swore she didnt take it. And thats why were here tonight.

We sneak around the campground in a left-to-right fashion, hiding behind trash barrels and motor homes. In the distance, someone else is awake, torturing an old guitar and baying at the dark sky. It seems like fifteen years as a cop in Chicago wouldve prepared me for this undercover operation. But, like meeting Ruby in the first place, nothing from my former life can help me here. Im on my own.

I see it! She points one perfectly manicured pink nail toward an orange-and-black-striped Bluebird Custom LXI motor home with the words tiger in the tank emblazoned across the side. The green awning is still up over some deserted plastic lounge chairs and a lighted fountain where the water cascades from a tiny version of Jeff Gordons number 24 car. A few empty Pepsi cans lie on the flattened grass, but no one seems to be outside anymore.

What now? Im looking at the closed door to the motor home and seeing myself doing eighteen months in a county jail for breaking and entering. Will they be harder on me because I understand the law and did it anyway?

Ruby shrugs, her large blond curls bouncing on her shoulders. We go in and get the plate. I saw Sam go in a couple of hours ago. Hes dead to the world by now. And Ivey sleeps with a mask and earplugs. I know where the plate is. We can be in and out in a minute.

Im not going in there. Come on. Lets go back. If you want, Ill smash Sam in the jaw tomorrow. But Im not sneaking into their RV.

Ruby has a face for everything. Its something I love about herexcept when Im annoyed. Like now. I dont appreciate her petulant frown or her big blue eyes looking up at me like I just drowned her cat. She calls this her boo-boo face. I call it a pain in the ass coming my way. It must be the age difference. Ruby is twenty-five, seventeen years younger than me.