"Wait a second," Kelly said. "Isn't that us?"
Behind the grocery sat a second garage. Their rental car was up on blocks in the gravel outside, with the hood propped up. No one was working. Case walked closer, Kelly trailing along behind him. The air smelled of fresh pine, coffee and the smoke from wood fires. Kelly closed her eyes, thinking it was a pleasant combination. Meanwhile, Case knelt in the gravel and looked under the car. Then he got up and looked at the engine.
"He took the heater out," Case said. "So it wasn't just the thermostat."
"Ordered the part by Fax."
The voice came from immediately behind Kelly. She opened her eyes and jumped forward, spun around. "Damn, you scared me!"
The young man called Luke was squinting in the morning sunshine. He wore overalls with no shirt and his muscles rippled when he moved. "Sorry, ma'am. I thought you heard me."
Case stepped back from the car. "Did the rental company give you everything you need to get it done?"
Luke nodded. "Got a company Visa number off the lady in Reno. They said call 'em if you don't wanna wait, they'll get a new car down here from somewheres. If you don't mind hangin' in a couple of days, they'll pay you back for anything out of pocket and give you a discount to make it up to you."
Case nodded. "Seems fair enough," he said, smoothly. "And my wife was just saying how much she likes it up here. Do you get many tourists?"
"Hardly ever."
"None lately, huh?"
"Not that I know of."
"Seems like a nice place to relax for a day or two, especially all expenses paid."
Luke spat on the ground. "Some good fishin' up to Angel Lake, but get on home before dark. Easy to get lost up there."
"Thanks. So you figure two days?"
"At the outside, Mr. Case."
Case shook his hand. The kid's grip was firm and dry. "Thanks, Luke. We'll just hang around then."
"Suit yourself."
He kid dropped down onto his back and slithered under another car. They walked away, and when they were out of earshot Case looked at Kelly and shrugged. "Want to go get some breakfast?"
She was clearly still jumpy from having been surprised. "Wow, is there anything else to do?"
"Well, back behind the garage there's a couple of rows of trailer park. We could walk around there and see if anybody has some warm cans of beer and a bag of cheese balls we can borrow."
"Very funny, Case."
"I'll let you know if I get a better idea."
"Hey, you do that."
"Don't take this out on me, lady."
"Oh, right." She rolled her eyes like an adolescent.
Case frowned. "Kelly, look. We're going to be together for a few days, anyway. Could you maybe drop the attitude, at least until we find the bad guys?"
Something flickered in her eyes, but instead of responding she marched away toward the coffee shop. Case followed, his eyes already searching the building. A woman in a sunflower dress had come outside to wipe down the wooden tables and arrange the chairs. Someone else was inside, frying sausage. The odor made his mouth water.
By the time Case walked up the steps, Kelly was already seated and ordering pancakes. Oh, well, Case thought, fighting makes us look even more married.
He smiled at the graying woman in the sunflower dress. "I'll have the same."
"Coffee?"
"Please."
Kelly was looking east, toward the motel, suddenly riveted by two squirrels chasing one another up and down the pine trees. She had gone a bit pale and two red dots blossomed on her cheeks. She seemed about to say something, but a heavy and somewhat muscular figure moved up the steps to their left and sat down at a nearby table. For a long moment, Case thought it was a man; but the person, who wore a checkered hunting shirt, jeans and boots, ordered "the usual" in a high, clear voice.
"Morning."
The woman nodded pleasantly. "Good morning. What brings you folks to a nothing town like Salt Lick, an auto accident?"
"Close," Case grinned. "Our rental car broke down."
"Luke will put that right," the woman said. "My name is Cherry."
"Hello, Cherry. I'm Joe and this is my wife Kelly."
"Nice to meetcha. How long Luke figure this'll take?"
"Maybe two days," Case replied. He was unconsciously already falling into the terse speech pattern of the locals. "Radiator, he says."
"Ah," Cherry said, her head bouncing. She sipped her steaming coffee as if she'd been presented with a koan. "Well, it's nice enough 'round here. Good people. You folks like the mountains?"
Kelly spoke for the first time. "Why wouldn't we?" Case already knew her well enough to catch the slightly fragile quality in her voice. She was clearly scared, frustrated and upset. "My God, there's dust and dirt and dead animals everywhere, and a physician who works on animals as well as people."
"How about that, a people vet." Cherry grinned widely. "Kind of unique where you come from, huh?"
"You might say that," Kelly offered. She hugged herself, despite the increasing warmth of the morning. "All I can say is we'd better not get sick or hurt between here and Salt Lake City."
Cherry winked. "You're probably right. Hurt your foot, you might end up shod or something."
"Or worse yet," Case said, playing along, "neutered."
"Ouch." Cherry laced her fingers together. She had long, delicate fingers that seemed to belong on another woman's body. "No, I think the worst of it is when that idiot mixes up the injections. Why, one time I heard some kid that needed stitches got a cow tranquilizer and damn near died."
Kelly's eyes went wide. "You're kidding me."
Cherry nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I'm kidding you." She got up and put out her hand to Case. "Dr. Cherry Davis, at your service."
Case chuckled. "You got us."
Cherry sat down again. Her twinkling eyes showed no animosity. Nonetheless, Kelly seemed mortified.
"I'm actually a regular-assed GP," Cherry said. "Went to med school in Ohio. I do most of the basic veterinary duties around here as well. There aren't enough humans around to keep me in business, and I like living this way. I tried, but I just couldn't adjust to life as a flatlander."
"I'm so sorry," Kelly offered. "I'm under a lot of stress lately. That was very rude of me to say."
"Yup." Cherry grinned again. "Relax, girl. Do you really think that's the first time somebody passing through has said that? I was just having some fun with you." She raised her coffee mug. "Cheers."
Breakfast arrived, and it was good. For the most part, the three of them just inhaled the food and spoke very little from that point on. Finally, Case finished his meal and pushed away from the table. The sun had superheated the entire area, and the day was shaping up to be beautiful. "Have you always lived up here, Cherry? Other than going to school, I mean."
The large woman rubbed one eye. "I'm actually from the Dry Wells area, over more to Elko. Drove through here once on a fishing trip a couple of years ago and ended up staying." She caught Case's eye. "Up here, people don't ask a lot of questions about who you are."
"Just a couple of years? I took you for a local."
"I tend to feel like one. That's why I stayed."
"I don't feel well." Kelly got to her feet. "Have I apologized enough, Cherry?"
"Another grovel or two wouldn't hurt. Come on, don't be silly. I told you I was just funning you."
"I'm going to walk around a little, maybe even lay down," Kelly said. She did not look at Case. "I'll see you back in the room, sweetheart."
Cherry watched Kelly walk away with real appreciation. "She's a beautiful girl."
Case was still amused. "Yes, she is."
Cherry stared directly into his eyes. "You look like the kind of man can read other people, Mr. Case. You a shrink, or a cop?"
"Neither," Case responded. He figured she could tell he was lying. "But you're probably right. I'm pretty good at reading folks."
"Then you know why I'm he
re."
Case shrugged. "I'd say there's more than one reason."
"True enough," Cherry said. "And I'd say that applies to you, too."
A woodpecker rapped a pattern on a nearby tree. Something rustled in the green undergrowth nearby. A grey squirrel ran out into the clearing with something in his mouth; another followed. A small comedy ensued, one chasing the other, before they disappeared again.
"Anybody come through here besides us in the last few days, Cherry?"
"Don't think so."
"You're sure about that?"
Cherry shook her head. "I'm just saying not that I saw, anyway. Some smelly biker boys showed up last month and started raising a little hell, but that's about it. It's been deader than Abe Lincoln around here."
Someone way up the mountainside started a power saw. The faint grumbling echoed through the empty hills. "I can see that."
"Mr. Case?" Cherry stood up, dropped some cash on the table near her ravaged plates. "Can I ask you something?"
Case paid too. "Joe," he said. "And sure, go ahead."
Cherry walked down the steps, her wide and muscular body oddly squat for her gender. She paused at the bottom, turned. "You just lied to me, didn't you?"
"Sure did."
"So which is it?"
"Cop. Ex-cop, actually."
Cherry nodded. "That's what I figured."
"You've had some experience with cops, I take it."
"Now and again."
"All bad?"
Cherry shrugged. "Not all."
"That's good," Case said, sincerely. "That's good."
"I'll let you know if I hear anything about anybody else come through here," Cherry said. "You just keep your mouth shut it came from me."
"Dr. Davis, we have a deal."
13
"You need anything, lady?"
Money. Hired killers. Missing in-laws. Kelly realized she'd been walking in a wide circle for several minutes. She was standing near the lamp pole, outside the motel office, and had almost worn a pattern in the half-baked lawn. She looked up. The young man who'd spoken wore jeans and a black t-shirt. He had bright red hair and sported a wide, toothy grin. She smiled back.
"No thanks, just thinking."
"I figured I'd ask," he said. "I'm being friendly, is all." His face seemed vaguely familiar. Kelly struggled to recall why, then suddenly it hit her. "Are you related to Jake, the garage mechanic?"
"One of my half-brothers." His smile was quite infectious. "There are four of us."
"I thought so. You look a lot alike."
"I'll take that as a compliment. You coming to the town picnic later?"
"Excuse me?" Is this kid hitting on me?
"We're having a picnic later on, when things cool off a bit. Everyone in town is invited, not that that's a lot of folks."
"Oh. Well, maybe my…husband and I will see you there." Kelly put special emphasis on the word 'husband.'
His expression remained exactly the same; open and cordial. "Sure thing. You have a nice day, ma'am."
"You too."
Kelly left the patch of sunshine and sat down on the wooden porch. She grabbed a twig and traced doodles in the hard-packed soil. Thought: How the hell did I end up in this position?
She said it aloud: "How the hell did this happen?"
"Huh?"
Kelly looked up and saw Joe Case standing there. She didn't dislike Case, in fact she was starting to like him a lot, but the heat had been building in her gut for two days, fueled by fear and confusion. She jumped to her feet and resumed pacing, her voice compressed into a tight, strained semi-whisper. "Look at this, Case. One missed assignment; a mistake due more to irritation than anything else, and here I am running from some low-life killers, sleeping in a beat-up motel near some funky mountain trailer park, hanging around with a burned-out cop."
"You left out about to go on a picnic with some rednecks."
"This isn't funny." But a small smile crept to the corner of her mouth and twitched.
Joe Case glanced down at the half-dead grass at her feet. "You're wearing a hole in the ground. Want to go sit down in the shade?" He moved before finishing the sentence; marched to a short wooden bench with a blackened iron frame that crouched in the brush like a gargoyle.
They sat quietly in the cooler area, listening to the bird calls and the low, comforting whistle of fresh air moving through the tallest pines. Case broke the silence. "So what's going on with you?"
"Isn't that kind of a stupid question?"
"I read it in a self-help book one time," Case said. "It's supposed to open the other person up and make them feel like you actually give a hoot."
Kelly chuckled. "Look…now that we've stopped in one place for a bit, it's just all so overwhelming. A couple of days ago I was on my way to being rich, and now I'm in the middle of nowhere, hiding from somebody who wants me dead."
"Not to mention sleeping with a stranger."
"That, too."
"Hey, it's not boring, right?"
"You know what I mean, Joe. I'm scared." When she said the word aloud, her lower lip trembled, just like it had the first time he'd seen her. Case responded, fortunately without connecting the expression to his daughter this time. His heart opened another quarter of an inch.
"I'd be scared too, if I slowed down long enough. But my experience is we just keep things simple and take them one day at a time."
Her eyes narrowed. "That self-help book wasn't 12-Step, was it?"
They both laughed this time. The tension abated. "Good advice is good advice," Case said. "Doesn't matter who wrote it."
"Can I ask you something, Joe?"
"Sure."
"Why are you being so secretive? Why not show the pictures and just ask if they've been here?"
Case studied his tennis shoe. "Look at it this way," he said, finally. "A, There's a lot of money involved. B, some rough people seem to be after you. And C, at least two people we know of seemed to have vanished. To me, it's pretty simple. We're better off covering our tracks and playing it safe, at least until we know a whole lot more about what was in that package and who's after it."
"I see your point."
A lithe grey squirrel burst from hiding and stood on its hind legs, chattering their way. Then he dug furiously, extracted something from beneath the carpet of dirt and pine needles and scampered away. One fat bee hovered nearby and then drifted off. Case stretched his legs out, crossed them at the ankles.
"I used to come up to the mountains when I was a kid," he said. "My Dad liked to take my brother and me fishing. My mother stayed at home. Her idea of roughing it was doing without cable television."
"Where does your brother live?"
"He died in the Gulf War. Hell… Everyone's gone."
Kelly felt and saw the bleakness in him. She winced. "I'm so sorry. No wife, no kids, either?"
"They're dead, too," Case said. The flatness emerged again. This time it gave Kelly a slight chill. It was as if Joe Case had momentarily ceased feeling. He went on talking like nothing had happened.
"One time we came up through Bishop and Tonopah and camped near the Truckee River. My Dad was FBI and it wasn't easy for him to get away. He'd pulled a few strings to take this trip, and he wanted to milk every second out of it, so he kept driving with no breaks, round and round that mountain. Well, my brother Jack got car sick and barfed on the floor. We tried to get the stink out, but we couldn't. We got back in the car and I got sick. Man, it was awful." The intonation suggested he'd just told an amusing anecdote. But Case's eyes were still somewhere else. He did not laugh.
This guy Joe Case is scary. Kelly McCammon wondered, not for the first time, what lay hidden deep inside of him. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"Howdy! Good morning, folks!"
They looked up, their heads swiveling almost in unison. A tall man with a cadaverous, lantern-jawed face entered the clearing. He seemed a bit dim, perhaps even retarded. The man wore slacks, a patched blu
e work shirt with the sleeves rolled up at the elbows and a beige cowboy hat. He was dragging a Styrofoam picnic case behind him; it had an American flag and a cheesy 4th of July slogan stenciled on the side. The huge chest was packed with ice cubes and overflowing with generic cans of beer.
Case looked at his watch. "I guess it's still good morning by a notch. Howdy yourself."
"My name is Hondo," the man said. "I live in the trailer park. Right over there. I heard there was new blood in Salt Lick. Ya'll coming to the picnic this afternoon? Should be fun. If you have an ax, bring it."
Kelly looked puzzled. "An ax?"
Case smiled. "A musical instrument. Guitar, fiddle, banjo or whatever."
Hondo giggled like a child. "Yeah. Hell, wax paper and comb will do. We're gonna have us some fun."
Case waved, smiled. "Wouldn't miss it for the world." He let the huge retarded man drag the chest a bit further before continuing. "Not a lot of strangers come through here, I'd guess. We the only ones in a while?"
The man paused again. "Nope."
Case and Kelly sat up. "Someone else find their way up here recently?"
"Yup." The guy started dragging the chest. He threw the rest back over his shoulder. "You and just a couple of minutes ago some other couple. Just checked in at the motel. I saw them in the lobby."
Case and Kelly exchanged glances. He motioned for her to wait on the bench. A male voice shouted from inside the nearby building.
"What?"
The voice dropped down to a drone. When the man called Hondo vanished into the trees, Case checked that his .38 was tucked firmly into his belt and walked briskly over to the motel office. He paused on the steps as if to wave at Kelly, rather than to listen in on the conversation.
"You mean this dump doesn't even have room service?"
Joe Case turned, opened the screen door quietly and stepped into the lobby. He relaxed within seconds. A young blonde, overdressed and wearing high heels was making irritated faces at the ceiling. She stood next to a tall, balding man in what Case took for a thousand-dollar Hugo Boss suit. The suit was grey, the tie salmon and the man's face beet red.
The young woman smiled knowingly at Case. He figured her for a high-end call girl, the john for a true nerd. His hands were soft; the nails carefully clipped, sanded and lacquered. He had the slightly puffy look of someone recently blundered into riches, a shallow fellow who'd rapidly grown accustomed to champagne and French cuisine.
CLAN Page 10
