by Ella Goode
Judge scrubs a hand down his face in frustration. “I get that she's scared, but she isn't the only one who was without you for three years. I don’t want you running off somewhere I can’t see the two of you.”
“We’re not leaving,” I tell him but there isn’t a lot of confidence behind my statement because if Chels decided to leave, I’d go with her.
“It’ll all work out.” Now Judge is being the unconvincing one.
“Innocent people are sent to prison every day. I'm a convenient scapegoat. If they can't find the real killer, then a felon with a record is better than nothing.”
“There is no evidence,” he argues.
“There's my record. That's all they need.” I finish off the beer but it sits wrong in my gut. I can’t sit around arguing with the old man about what may happen. He lets me go without an argument.
I bike to the shop where I stick my head underneath the hood of a 1966 Cadillac. There, I’m able to lose myself in work until my stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten all day.
Good food smell hits me when I walk in the door, something spicy.
“What's for dinner, babe?” I toe off my boots and hang my jacket up on the hook. The place looks clean and neat, a far cry from the mess the police left.
“I’m making tamales. There was a new recipe I found on the internet. Thought we needed something different.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come and help you put the apartment back together.”
She turns her face up for a kiss. “Figured you needed some time to yourself. Besides, Abel helped. He seems nice.”
“Guess so.” Nice isn’t the first adjective I’d use to describe Abel. Hard. Capable. Dedicated. Nice? Maybe around the women. It sits heavy on me that I wasn’t here to help her clean up.
The tamales were good and Chelsea kept up a stream of unimportant chatter as if tonight was no different than any other night. As if the knock on the door hadn't happened at two in the morning and I wasn't dragged to jail. As if our new apartment hadn't been picked up and shaken like a goddamn snow globe.
"The tamales are good."
"I agree!" She smiles and forks another portion into her mouth. "Super easy recipe, too. I'm going to try another one next week."
I set my own fork down as gently as possible and lean across the table. “What's going on Chels? Yesterday you were telling me that you didn’t want to be here. That you wanted to go where no one knew us and we could start over. I get arrested for something I didn’t do because Schmidthead has a hate boner for all of us and you’re sitting here like nothing’s happened.”
This time her smile is grim but more real. “I love you Grant. I love Judge. I know I get upset about the Club sometimes but that’s because it’s a convenient target. You protected a member of the Club and everyone around here knows you killed in self-defense.” I open my mouth to tell her that my hands aren’t all that clean but she waves her palm at me. A clear sign that I’m supposed to shut up. “I also don’t care if a thousand Mrs. Trainors call me names in the grocery store. What really gets my goat is the idea of Schmidthead, an asshole who probably hasn’t given a woman an orgasm since the beginning of time, gets to dictate where we live. No. I’m not running away. Besides, I have a plan.”
Those last four words should be a warning, but I can’t help but grinning back at her. “No running then?”
“No. Now I’m not saying I want to live in Fortune forever, but if and when we move, it’s going to be because we want to not because some corrupt police officer is trying to lay a heavy on us.”
“And what’s this plan of yours?” I suspect I already know.
“We need to find out who killed Mrs. Trainor. You and me. The Fortune police department isn’t going to do jack other than cook up more shitty evidence against you. We find out who did it and we take the real evidence to the county Sheriff.”
Sheriff Dahlman is a friend of my dad. They both used to be in the Army and Dahlman didn’t find the club to be a problem—probably because whatever criminal acts we engaged in, we kept them quiet and away from the county. Chels’s plan isn’t all bad except for the part where she wants to play girl detective.
“How do you propose to do that?”
“I don’t know. Let’s go to their house and search it. Maybe log onto their computers and read their emails and shit like that.”
“Don’t you think the police have already taken all that stuff?”
“Maybe. But what’s the harm in looking?”
“Breaking and entering would be a violation of my parole,” I point out.
She rolls her eyes. “As if you couldn’t figure out a way to get us in and out that doesn’t get us caught.”
I ponder her suggestion as she polishes off the rest of her meal. Apparently this idea is invigorating to her. We don't have any investigation skills and we don’t really know what we’re looking for.
“Let’s sleep on it,” I propose, and since my answer isn’t a no she doesn’t pester me about it for the rest of the night.
Of course, I can’t stop thinking about it. How it’s both stupid and smart at the same time. Tonight I’m the restless one while Chelsea sleeps like a motherfucking baby.
6
CHELSEA
Grant is real quiet when we get up. I can tell he’s thinking hard about my little proposal from last night. I can tell by the way he’s short with me that he’s irritated that I brought it up. But part of him is irritated because he likes the idea and that makes him grumpy. It’s perfectly okay for him to do perilous stuff for the Club—which I know he does—but if I’m even in the same zip code as danger—his dander is up.
Whatever dander is.
“So if we aren’t going to case the Trainor house then I’m thinking we should ride south to Mexico. I’m tired of the winters up here.”
“Mexico?”
“Yeah. There are other clubs we can join. True one percenters where you have to cut off a body part as part of the initiation.”
Grant coughs to cover up a laugh. “What kind of clubs are these that require a member to maim themselves? Sounds sketchy and not very effective. How are you supposed to enforce the rules or fight other clubs if you’re missing a limb?”
“Prosthetics have come a long way.” I reply with my nose slightly in the air. He comes around the table to lift me out of my chair. It’s a short walk over to the couch where he throws me down. I don’t have a moment to breathe before his big body comes crushing down on mine.
“How about we hook up with the Bedlam Butchers instead?”
I curl my hands around his neck and tug his face close. “I thought you said no other dick got to be inside me.”
The Bedlam Butchers are a club known for their threesomes. Sometimes we joke that Annie, Michigan and Easy might leave us but only when Michigan isn’t around. He doesn’t think it’s as funny as the rest of us.
“Good point.” He pushes his hard on into the notch between my legs. “I’d be okay if all he did was eat you out.”
“Don’t know what man would be okay with just eating pussy and not getting anything in return.”
“He hasn’t eaten your pussy, though.” The words are growled into my neck.
“I am magnificent,” I joke.
Grant licks a line from my earlobe to my collarbone which has me pushing up against him. I’m getting really turned on and I have to go to work in about thirty minutes.
“You are.” His licking stops and he pushes away from me. My hands don’t easily let him go.
I give him a quizzical look.
“Let’s do it,” he says.
Good, because my body is ready for his. I reach for him but he hops off the sofa.
“Do what?”
At my disgruntled tone, he shoots me a laugh. “I’ll take care of you tonight. But I’m talking about the Trainors. Let’s find out what’s up with them. Who’s the number one suspect and any domestic violence?”
“Husband or boyfriend,” I answe
r immediately.
“Right? Where is the grieving Mr. Trainor? Why isn’t he being interrogated? What’s his beef with his wife?”
I get up from the couch and start putting the breakfast away. “She cheated on him.”
“Probably.”
“Would you kill me if I cheated on you?” I dump the dishes in the sink.
“Nah, but I would castrate the dick you slept with. Make him eat his cock. Then I’d have to get you a chastity belt and lock you up inside some room so you couldn’t get out.” That sounded fair to me. “Tonight we’ll go over and take a look at their house.”
“How will we get in?”
An evil grin spreads across Grant’s face as he shrugs into his coat and grabs his keys from the counter. “There’s a Riverside Country Club security car in the shop right now. Tires were bald and there was some weird knocking sound in the engine.”
“Wrong gas?” Ninety percent of the time the knocking, sputtering engines are caused by the wrong fuel.
Grant makes a gun with his fingers. “Right you are. We’ll be driving that around tonight making sure the good residents of Riverside feel extra safe.”
* * *
The shop is super busy today. Likely everyone is here for the same reason—gossip. I’m here for that as well. There’s no better place in town—not even the coffee shop —to hear everyone's crazy and not so crazy speculations. It is amazing what a woman will tell her hairdresser or her best friend while the technician is working on her nails. I swear, people reveal shit in the beauty parlor that they wouldn’t even tell their priests.
Talk stops when I walk in the door, but I march over to my station and unpack my things as if today is just like any other day. And soon enough, the chatter starts up again.
Maggie, the owner, stops to give me a hug. “You holding up okay?”
“Yup, I’m just fine.”
“You need anything, you tell me.”
“Thanks Maggie.”
Given that Judge holds the Cut-n-Curl lease, I suppose Maggie has to be nice to me but she didn’t have to go out of her way, like she just did, to show everyone in the shop that I’m still part of the Cut-n-Curl family. I settle into my station as my first appointment arrives. Shelby Montauk is a dark-haired dark woman with razor-sharp cheekbones. Tall and gorgeous, I often wondered why she never had a steady boyfriend. If I was a guy, I’d totally be panting after her. She supports her deadbeat dad and her brother who has special needs by cleaning houses. I wonder if she ever cleaned the Trainor’s place.
She must use rubber gloves because her hands don’t look like they spend hours getting wet and dirty.
“You want the gel nails or regular?” I ask.
“Just regular,” she answers. “My girlfriend works at the Sephora store at the Mall of America and she bought me some glitter kit. I want to try it out but my cuticles need a trim and my hands are tired from scrubbing so give me a good long massage.”
“You got it.” I dip her right hand into the bowl of soapy water and get to work on her left hand. I frown when I see the perfect nail beds. There isn’t a stray cuticle to be found. An itch sets up residence at the base of my neck. This doesn’t feel right.
I lightly file her already trim nails.
“Your friend give you a manicure too?”
Shelby purses her lips. “She did.”
“She did a nice job.”
Her head dips lower. “But I was cleaning the other day and I worried I may have messed up her good work.”
“Yeah?” I say abandoning the file and deciding I’ll just give Shelby an extra-long massage.
“You wouldn't believe the stuff I have to clean up. Sometimes I wonder what exactly people are doing in their houses. I've even had people tell me they want me to burn the trash.”
The itch turns into an ache and my heart starts beating faster and harder.
“That doesn’t seem right. Aren’t there burn laws?”
“Exactly, so sometimes I just leave the trash in the garage because I’m not taking that stuff home with me and frankly I don’t know what kind of mess I’d create if I did burn it.”
“Sounds like leaving it is the smart thing to do.”
“But you have to do what your clients ask you to, because otherwise word gets around that you’re not trustworthy or careful.”
I squeeze her hand. I know exactly what she’s telling me. Being a cleaning lady means you go into people’s houses and are privy to a lot of shit that goes down. If the people of Riverside or even the rich folks that own the munitions plant got word that Shelby was loose lipped, she’d lose her clientele and with her responsibilities, she can’t afford that.
“It’s the same thing here.” I tell her truthfully. “If a customer can’t say something in your shop without worrying about it being blabbed all over then people aren’t going to come back and sit in these chairs.”
Her stiff shoulders relax. In an even lower tone, she says, “No one thinks Wrecker did anything with Mrs. Trainor. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“Thanks.” I answer but don’t lift my head. Instead, I concentrate on giving Shelby the best hand massage she’s ever received.
Two seats over Victoria, a blue hair, says something that catches my attention. “He's an accountant or something to do with numbers with offices in the IDS Tower.”
“Where'd you hear that Victoria?” Maggie calls out. She’s giving Laura Kramer blonde highlights.
“My daughter started working at the clubhouse over at Riverside and that’s what she tells me,” Victoria answers proudly. “And he’s never home and when he is home, he spends all his time up at the clubhouse. In the summer, he’s on the golf course. 36 holes and sometimes more.”
“Your daughter just started. How’s she know this?” Laura challenges.
“It’s all over the clubhouse. He probably has a woman in the city and his poor wife is here all by herself. Emma says he hasn’t been home since that poor woman was shot.”
“I heard she was getting it on with the tennis pro,” Laura says.
“They don't have tennis courts out there just the golf.” This tidbit is from Jeanette Verrier. Her husband owns the bank and they have a membership at the country club. She twists in her chair causing her stylist Jolene to bite back a curse. “Where was Wrecker that night, Chelsea?”
“With me.” I answer truthfully. Laura raises an eyebrow in disbelief. While most people in Fortune like the Death Lords, there are those like the Riverside set who think the association brings the town down. Some people view them as a gang, a dangerous one. It's true that the Death Lords don’t operate wholly inside the law. Judge’s opinion is that most laws are pretty dumb. And when you had someone like Chief Schmidt trying to throw his weight around, and doing it in real inappropriate ways, then following laws didn’t make much sense. But that’s a convenient sort of excuse because even if we had a good police chief, there’d still be things that Judge and the Death Lords did that most folks wouldn’t approve of.
“That alibi doesn’t sound real good if you ask me,” Jeanette sniffs.
“No one is asking you.” Maggie marches over to Jeanette and spins her around so that she is facing the mirrored wall. “You better sit still or Jolene will end up cutting your layers at an angle.”
Jeanette shuts up right away once she realizes her vulnerable position given that her hair is half cut and Jolene’s got a fierce frown on her face.
Despite all my talk this morning, running away is starting to look more attractive by the minute. But then I remember the information that Shelby took the time to deliver. We’ve got a lead, a small one, but it’s something. The rest of the day is much the same. Lots of speculation is tossed around and there are a few arrows shot my direction but I manage to shrug them off.
Wrecker texts me about lunchtime to let me know he is working straight through.
You okay?
Fine. Got some info for you. Discuss later.
OK. Love you.
Love you too.
7
CHELSEA
“Which garbage can?”
“Don’t know. She said that sometimes she leaves the trash behind even though she’s supposed to get rid of it.”
We parked the security car in one of the visitor bays that are peppered throughout the club. Those are spots that hold two or three cars so that the club resident’s don’t have people’s cars in their driveways. After parking, we jogged down a cart path that the members of the club apparently use for running. It’s dark but the pavement is clear.
Once we arrive at the back of the Trainor house, we climb up an embankment with Wrecker dragging a couple of pine branches behind us. Our footsteps aren’t totally obliterated but there’s been a lot of activity around here given the shooting so we aren’t the only visitors.
The nice thing about the golf course is the lack of lights. It’s dead-ass dark back here. We have two black garbage bags tied around our waists and Wrecker has a set of lock picks. I made him leave the gun at home. If we did get caught, having a weapon on us was just begging for trouble. The house looms before us, huge, silent, and dark.
“Just two people live here?” I ask. I’ve never stepped foot inside the Riverside Country Club and until now I didn’t realize just how humungous these houses really are.
Wrecker nods. There’s a wide deck that spans nearly the entire back of the house and stairs that lead down to a flagstone patio. Several chairs are centered around what is likely a fire pit. Wrecker bends over and picks up a rock which he throws toward the house.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Checking to see if there’s any motion activated lights.”
“Oh, good call,” I say, mollified. Good thing I didn’t try to do this myself.
When no lights flicker on, Wrecker leads me up to the backdoor of the garage.
“You know I’m never gonna be able to give you a house like this,” he grunts as he fiddled with the back lock.
