Bad Company

by Virginia Swift

  Brit, out of patience, pulled her toward the back of the bar, shoving past Dwayne and Nattie, who were drinking shots of Cuervo, and Marsh Carhart, still in the duster but not sweating visibly—Joe Cool. Finally Brit pushed her through the swinging doors to the back, past a broom closet, and into Delice’s office, Herman bringing up the rear. “We need privacy.”

  “This has to do with your brother Adolph, I assume?” Sally asked Herman.

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s still down at the sheriff’s. Seems they want to take their time getting a statement from him.”

  Sally flopped down into Delice’s desk chair, winced as she nearly crushed the hat, flung it out of harm’s way, and leaned back again, taking a sip of her whiskey. “Did he kill Monette?” she asked, although she knew Adolph’s alibi was tight.

  “No ma’am!” Herman exclaimed, turning red. “The thing is, it looks like he knew her a whole lot better than he was letting on before,” he admitted.

  But Sally had been aware of that fact ever since she’d stood in the produce aisle, cradling an overloaded basket of fruit and eavesdropping on a conversation that was very much none of her business. “Brit told me about the day Monette was killed. And it appears she was with him at least one time when he was selling marijuana. I take it they had an ongoing thing of some kind?”

  Herman swallowed. For a big, strong cowboy, he looked like he might cry any minute. “From what he told me this afternoon, they started up right after she came into town. She was lonesome, I guess, and, well, even though my brother likes to make out that he’s some red-hot lover or something, he’s never had all that much luck with the ladies. From the sound of it, they were both kind of ashamed of what they were doing, so they hid it. But I guess there was a lot to hide. They snuck off every chance they could.”

  Second oldest story in country music: cheatin’ hearts. But was it really cheating if neither of them had anything else going? Or did the cheating start when Monette came on to every loser who walked through her checkout line? Or when Adolph said mean things about Monette to other people? Or not until the moment when Monette went off with some other guy?

  “Did he say whether she was seeing anybody else?”

  “I guess she tried right enough. Adolph said that one of the reasons he hated himself for going with her was the way she threw herself at every sorry old boy that came into the store. Of course, what with how he treated her, you kind of couldn’t blame her. When it came down to it, they usually ended up with each other,” Herman finished.

  Some attachments, Sally reflected, didn’t even qualify as third-rate romances. “Where did they go?” she asked.

  “Anyplace. To Monette’s apartment, of course, although her landlady lived downstairs, and she’s the nosy type. Adolph didn’t want anybody seeing him around there too much. Since he lives with our folks, they couldn’t go to his place. So when they had time, they’d drive out of town and park,” Herman explained.

  Sally’s stomach lurched. She set down the whiskey. “Where’d they park?”

  Brit answered. “Everywhere you can imagine. Up Ninth Street Canyon a ways. Out past West Laramie. But mostly up east of town. Places in the Laramie Range. Vedauwoo. Happy Jack.”

  Double lurch. “Did Adolph say whether they ever went to the Devil’s Playground?”

  Herman, clearly incapable of speaking, nodded.

  “And that was one of her preferred spots?” Sally continued.

  Another nod.

  “It was Adolph who knew which places to go at first, but after a few weeks, she definitely had her favorites. From what Adolph told Herman, Monette could be fairly bossy about those kinds of things,” Brit explained.

  “So once Adolph had shown her the ropes, she could have taken somebody else to one of their places,” Sally said, realizing too late how poorly she’d chosen her words.

  “Reckon so,” Herman managed.

  Sally closed her eyes tight, thinking. “You know, this time of year there’s a lot of traffic up in the Laramies. Doing it in your car would be pretty public.”

  “Yes ma’am. Adolph wasn’t too crazy about that, but he said Monette got a kick out of the risk. In fact, it seemed to him like every time they went out, she was looking to take one more chance.”

  Sally picked up the whiskey, then put it down once again. “I’m still not seeing what’s urgent here.”

  “Hey, this is hard for Herman—he’s got to kind of run up on his point,” Brit said defensively.

  “I’m getting there,” he told them. “Okay. Just last week, up at Happy Jack, they went down a dirt road and practically ran right into a parked truck with two people sitting in it. Adolph wanted to go home, but Monette made him keep driving until they were just around a corner, out of sight of the truck, and then she jumped him. He said she thought it was a big joke, and, well, she made a point of being extra noisy while they were going at it.”

  Talking about this subject was clearly embarrassing to the cowboy. Brit put a gentle hand on his shoulder and said softly, “Go on, Herman.”

  He took a breath, and continued. “After they were done she got out of the car—I guess to go to the rest-room—and when she came back she was laughing her head off. Said the people in the truck had gotten out and been pretty near close enough to join in on what she and Adolph had just been doing in Adolph’s car, but the people were so busy hollering at each other, they never heard a thing. She’d even slipped up, through the trees, practically right on them, and they kept on arguing and never suspected there was somebody listening. And she said that some of the stuff those people were yelling about, they probably would have rather nobody had heard. Said she might be able to find a way to use it.”

  Sally stared.

  “That Monette. She just had a way of looking for trouble,” Brit said gravely.

  “Did Adolph recognize . . .” Sally began.

  The door to Delice’s office opened, and Dwayne stuck his head in. He looked the three of them over with an un-readable expression in his eyes. “Hey Mustang—we’ve been looking all over for you. Sam wants to change the order of the second set. Come on out.”

  “Can you give me just a minute here, Dwayne?” Sally asked, trying to act casual, and feeling sweat pooling between her shoulder blades, sliding down her backbone.

  Now Sam Branch burst in. “Let’s go, Sally. We need to make some changes in the next set, right now. I want to start out with a gospel tune . . .” he began, tugging her to her feet.

  Helpless, she shot a look back at Brit and Herman as Sam pulled her out the door.

  “The answer is, he didn’t!” Brit shouted. “We’ll talk more on the next break.”

  Was Sally Alder really standing on stage at the Wrangler Bar and Grill, shoulder to shoulder with the other members of the Millionaires band, formed in rank and singing in the choir? Were their voices really blending so perfectly that they sounded like one instrument, richly multitonal but a single device, nonetheless? On this one old gospel standard, “I’ll Fly Away,” everybody in the band sang, even Dwayne, putting in a deep bass line you’d never know, looking at him, that he possessed. Make a joyous noise for life after death.

  And then they broke apart, taking up the acoustic instruments and hammering out a ripping fast bluegrass standard, “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (’Til Your Last Dollar’s Gone).” Sally almost laughed aloud. Money and death, cheatin’ and prayin’. Welcome to my world.

  She desperately wanted to collect Hawk, and get back with Brit and Herman. She just knew she was on the brink of making a connection that would lead to the murderer. There was something so close to the surface of her mind, it felt like a splinter in a finger, visible under a translucent layer of skin, poking deep and sharp. Pulling it out would be bloody work, but leaving it to fester could spread poison.

  And all this, just as the party was really starting to crank. As excruciatingly slowly as the time seemed to pass, the music whirled faster and faster, the fiddler sawing away like a maniac,
the drummer’s arms a blur. Sam had insisted on reworking the set so that it was nothing but up-tempo stuff, no ballads, no blues, building and building with nothing to stall the crazy climb. “We can give them a rest in the third set,” he said. “They’ll be drunk enough by then that they’ll want to be holding each other up, swaying to ‘Too Far Gone,’ ” Sam said.

  Hotter. Sweatier. Smokier. Crazier. Ordinarily, by this point in a gig, Sally had drunk some bourbon, loosened up, given herself over to the gods of the night. But tonight the air was smothering, the demons, always close by, closing in. At the edge of her control, she made it, finally, to the last mad number in the set. A crash— somebody had dropped, or thrown, a beer bottle. The crowd was really whipped up now.

  “That’s the way to do it!” hollered Sam, barely audible over the screaming, surging, cheering throng. “See you in fifteen!” Sally fairly jumped off the stage this time, pushing through the crush, peering through the dim barroom light, searching for Hawk and Brit and Herman, and needing a bathroom. She nearly stepped on a cocktail waitress, crouched down with her hand on the throat of a dilapidated broom, sweeping up broken glass and spilled beer.

  Sally froze. Wet broom straw. Tuesday morning, helping Nattie get that coffee urn out of the back of her Escalade. Monday afternoon, sitting on a rock, watching the ants carry off what she’d thought was a piece of dry grass, but what she knew, now, had been a broom straw. Yesterday afternoon, practically right where she was standing, Scotty talking about poor Monette, and some kind of penetration, and paint chips.

  Monette was blackmailing somebody. People she’d overheard arguing somewhere up at Happy Jack. A couple of days later, Monette was dead, and Nattie had a wet broom in her Escalade.

  Nattie said Dwayne had taken her truck on a fishing trip.

  Dwayne, who liked things tidy. Dwayne, who’d been the one by Sally’s side when she’d been shoved into the bucking chute. Who had the kind of money Monette would covet.

  Or Nattie, covetous in her own right, dead solid set on this Happy Jack land deal—had she been one of the people Monette had heard arguing? Who was the other?

  Dwayne and Nattie?

  Frantic, Sally searched for Hawk. Finally he materialized at her side, a bourbon in his hand. “Thought you’d need this,” he said, spilling the drink on both of them as she yanked his arm and began to drag him toward the bar. “Dickie isn’t here yet, is he?”

  “No. Delice said he called a little while ago and said he and Scotty were wrapping up a few things and would be over soon. Why?”

  “We’ve got to call him and get him here now. I’m not completely sure what’s going on, but I think I’m about to figure out who killed Monette. And it won’t be good news. Dwayne or Nattie might be involved.”

  Hawk pushed their way to the bar, told the bartender they had an emergency, got the phone, and made the call. Sally, meanwhile, scanned the place, looking for Dwayne and Nattie, and for that matter, Sheldon and Marsh Carhart. She caught sight of Nattie chatting with Carhart and Sheldon.

  “I gotta talk to her,” Sally said. “Can you try to find Dwayne, and keep an eye on Nattie while I take a pit stop?”

  “Okay,” Hawk said dubiously. “But if she’s been going around killing people, how damn dumb is it to go chasing after her?”

  “What’s the choice, Hawk?” Sally snapped. “Besides, she’s not armed. I just want to keep her occupied until Dickie gets here.”

  Knowing that the public restrooms at the Wrangler were no better than they should have been, Sally headed for the small, private bathroom in Delice’s office. She performed her ablutions and was just about to head out when, fortuitously, Nattie blew into the office. “Thought I’d use Delice’s bathroom,” she explained.

  “Just the woman I’ve been looking for,” Sally said nonchalantly. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Nattie did her business, and then opened the door between the bathroom and the office as she pulled a cosmetic bag out of her purse and went to work fixing her makeup. “So what’s the story?” she asked warily, leaning toward the cloudy, cracked mirror, mascara wand in hand.

  “Saw you celebrating last night,” Sally told her. “Did you close the land deal?”

  “Not that it’s any business of yours,” Nattie shot back, “but in fact, yes, we’re signing the papers tomorrow morning.” She finished the mascara, went for her lipstick.

  “I’m a little surprised to hear that,” Sally said. “What with Mrs. Wood being in Ivinson Memorial and all.”

  Nattie grimaced in the mirror, wiping orange lipstick off her teeth with a tissue. “We’re meeting there, at her request. She’s consulted with her family, and they’ve all agreed that this swap is for the best. A broken ankle doesn’t affect her ability to sign her name.”

  Time to inch partway out on a limb. “I suppose not. But it’s a little puzzling that she’d be so eager to sign, since it means trading off her ranch for a toxic waste dump.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Nattie aimed a cold eye at Sally.

  “Are you aware of the fact that the old Golden Eagle tie plant, up the hill from the beaver pond property, spilled all kinds of nasty stuff for twenty years? And there’s creosote and PCBs and dioxin in the groundwater where Molly would be digging her well?”

  “Butt the hell out, Sally,” said Nattie, tossing her makeup bag in her purse, closing the purse with a snap. “If you’re half as smart as you claim to be, just leave it alone.”

  Nattie tried to walk out, but Delice’s office was small and cluttered. Sally stood, blocking her way. “This isn’t about who’s smart, Nattie. It’s about what’s right. You can’t go through with this deal, knowing that in all likelihood somebody’s liable to get real sick drinking the water up there.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Nattie told her. “Get out of my way.”

  But now Sally was gripping her arm. “Just tell me one thing. Was Monette mixed up in this somehow?”

  Nattie flinched. “Monette’s dead,” she said, turning her head, not meeting Sally’s eyes.

  “How?” Sally wouldn’t let go. “Why? You know something about this, damn it, Nattie. You’ve been covering up for days, but you’ve got to come clean.”

  Nattie’s lips were trembling, even as she tried to get herself under control. “I don’t know shit. Get out of my face, I mean it.”

  Sally would never have predicted that at this moment, she’d be feeling pity. “You’re obviously miserable, Nattie. What in God’s name happened?”

  Her eyes filled with tears, spilled over, a plume of mascara cascading down her cheeks. “You’re just like her. Nothing would have happened to her if she hadn’t stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. Listen to me, Sally, leave it alone.”

  She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. “Can’t. Did you kill her, Nat? Did you hurt her with that broom in your truck?”

  “No! No! All I wanted was to make sure the deal went through. You couldn’t understand, Sally. You always had it easy. I’ve had to work for everything I’ve ever gotten, and people still think I’m just the greedy bitch who spends Dwayne Langham’s money. This deal is my big chance to make something of my own.”

  “I know about work, Nattie,” Sally said. “Don’t patronize me.”

  “You don’t know squat. You don’t even know half of what Monette knew. You didn’t have an old man who beat hell out of you and then thought he’d make it up to you in a way that hurt even worse.”

  Sally was stunned speechless. “I’ve survived a lot, Sally. Monette did too. That much about her, I sure can understand.” Nattie paused for a breath. “She called my office early Monday morning to say she heard me and Marsh arguing up at Happy Jack about what to do about that state groundwater report, and she thought we needed to talk. I’ve been worried that the report would cause trouble since I first heard about it, but Marsh kept insisting it was no big deal—if the state hasn’t seen fit to do anything about it, why should we bother? Monette said she expected we’d be interested
in doing all we could to keep the information confidential, and I thought, uh-oh, here it comes.

  “I just wanted to buy her off and make her shut up. But Marsh said we had to meet with her. She took one look at him and decided she could make him pay more than one way. She had some bondage fantasy she wanted to play out with him. It was so fucking pathetic.”

  “What then, Nattie?” Sally whispered. “Tell me. I’ve already got some ideas, and it’s just a matter of time until Dickie and Scotty figure it out. Maybe I can help you.”

  Nattie looked around, panic in her eyes. “We picked her up at her apartment, and drove up to Vedauwoo. I had five thousand dollars in cash. But she wanted Marsh too, and she had that damn rope, and . . .”

  “Come on.”

  “We drank some beer, and she had some smoke, and then . . . he took her over to these rocks. She thought she could make him . . . she said it was part of the bargain. But I guess he couldn’t get it up or something, or maybe he told her he wouldn’t, I don’t know. I was over by the fire ring. I heard her laughing, and crying, all at the same time, taunting him and yelling at him, and then I heard the shots. I didn’t want to look. It was an accident. He told me so. He said she’d driven him to it, trying to force him to have sex with her.”

  This from the guy who’d written Man, the Rapist? “He had a gun?” Sally asked.

  “My gun,” said Nattie. “The little .22 pistol I keep in the glove box.”

  “If it was an accident, why’d he take the gun?” Sally asked.

  “I don’t, I don’t know,” Nattie moaned, mascara in flood. “I can’t think.”

  “And he’d gone out back of the Wrangler and rooted through Delice’s garbage. He took it up there, and scattered it around to make it look like drifters had been partying there. And then, of course, there was that business with the broom—what was that all about? After he shot her, did he come back for the broom, so he could make it look like rape? Was that it? The gun, the garbage, the broom—you’re going to protect this guy?” Sally was relentless.