by Mike Lawson
46
Carly got the boys out the door at three. One of their friends was taking them to see a Rockies game in Denver and they’d be staying the night. She got dinner ready to go, took a shower, and put on some makeup. Also a short skirt and a low-cut top that she knew were flattering. She may have been the mother of two teenagers but her figure could still turn a head or two.
She was looking forward to tonight; with the boys gone it would give her and Jim a chance for some “quality time,” which to her meant ending up naked and sweaty and tangled in the sheets. It seemed as if it had been forever since they’d had sex and the last time they did, Jim had acted as if he was just going through the motions. Maybe tonight would be different: a nice dinner, an empty house, a bottle of wine—
Jim got home at five, took a shower—which was a bit unusual as he didn’t normally shower until right before bed. That should have set off the alarm bells, but didn’t. Dinner was pot roast, his favorite, accompanied by small potatoes and a fancy salad with cranberries and artichoke hearts. She’d made an apple pie for dessert. It was sitting on the kitchen counter and the smell of it filled the house.
During dinner he hardly said a word, other than mumbling how good everything tasted. He mostly only talked when she asked questions. She noticed him glance at his watch a couple of times, as if he had someplace he had to be. At six—on the dot—his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, frowned and said, “Hello, boss.” A pause, followed by, “Tonight?” Another pause, “Yeah, I get it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“What is it?” Carly said.
“Sorry, babe. Clay’s decided to bring down a meth cooker tonight. The guy’s got a big operation outside Superior, lots of firepower, four or five guys helping him. Clay wants all hands on deck for this one. I have to change and take off.”
He left the table, with her glaring at his back, thinking, Sorry babe, my ass. He was meeting someone.
Ten minutes later, he was in his uniform, all the cop crap on his belt. While he’d been getting dressed, she drank an entire glass of wine and poured another one. As he headed toward the door, he said, “Don’t wait up. This might take a while.”
She didn’t say a word; she just kept sipping the wine. Normally, she would have said something like, “You watch your ass and make sure you don’t get shot.” Not tonight. The last thing she was worried about was him getting shot. She sat for about a minute after he was gone, swallowed the remaining wine in a single gulp, then slammed the wine glass on the table. Goddamn it, she wasn’t going to put up with this shit any longer. She got up, swept her purse and keys off the table near the door, and went barreling out of the house.
She figured he was heading toward the highway. She was going sixty before she reached the corner—it was a good thing she didn’t hit one of the neighbors’ kids—and spotted his car a couple blocks later, heading toward I-80 as she’d thought. She slowed down and stayed behind him.
She was puzzled, when a moment later, the light rack on the county cruiser’s roof lit up. Was he in such a hurry to get laid that he’d decided to use lights and a siren to get to wherever he was going? But then, just half a mile farther down the road, he pulls off the highway and turns into Sam Clarke’s motel. Certainly, he wouldn’t be so brazen as to meet someone there, not after making such a dramatic entrance.
Jim’s phone rang. It was Sam Clarke. All the local businessmen had his number. Sam said, “Jim, those two on the second floor are going at it again. It sounds like they’re killing each other.”
He thought about calling another deputy to take the call but figured he might as well deal with it himself. He had plenty of time. Then there was the possibility that those drunken nuts would actually hurt each other if another deputy took too long to get to the motel. He didn’t want to have to explain why he hadn’t responded himself if someone died or was seriously injured.
He pulled into the motel parking lot, left the blue and red lights on the cruiser spinning, and headed for the second floor. This was the third time he’d dealt with this particular pair, a gas worker and his girlfriend who’d get a load on and then start screaming and throwing things at each other. He went up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. He could hear the couple yelling all the way down the walkway. He hammered on the door, shouting, “Sheriff. Open up, goddamnit.”
A man opened the door, a little guy, eyes red as cherries, hair springing out from his head as if he’d been electrocuted, his breath a Budweiser fog. Before he could say anything, Jim grabbed him by his filthy T-shirt and yanked him out of the room.
He slammed him up against the wall and said, “I don’t have time to mess with you tonight. But I’ve told Sam that if you two start up again after I leave, he’s to call the deputy on duty and he’s going to take your ass to jail, whether your girlfriend presses charges or not. I’ve also told Sam, that if you’re arrested, he’s to evict your dumb ass and good luck finding another place to stay.”
“Hey. She started it. She said—”
Jim slammed him against the wall again and said, “Did you hear what I just said?’
“Yeah, I heard you.”
Jim returned to his car, and while standing outside it, made a call to Bob Parker, who was patrolling tonight, and told him to swing by the motel in half an hour and see if everything was okay.
He’d just hung up when Shannon Doyle came out of her room. It was six-thirty and he was supposed to be in Rock Springs in an hour.
Lisa left the ranch at three p.m. She’d told Hiram she was meeting Cherry in Denver. Cherry was her best friend and a girl she used to work with at Hooters. She’d said that they were going to a Lady Gaga concert, and because it would be so late when the concert ended, she’d spend the night at Cherry’s place. She’d gone to concerts with Cherry several times before—or so Hiram thought. She’d reminded him twice about the concert during the preceding week, and had even asked him if he wanted to go with her, knowing he wouldn’t. But instead of making the four-hour drive to Denver, she drove to Rock Springs, arriving a little after four, and checked into the Best Western. She spent the next hour studying for a business class she was taking at the college and at exactly six p.m., she called Jim.
When he answered his phone saying, “Yes, boss,” she laughed. “Ooh, I like it when you call me boss.” He ignored her and said, “Tonight?” like the call was a big surprise. She responded saying, “If you’re late, I’m going to start without you. Picture that, big boy.” Call completed so Jim would have some excuse to give his wife, Lisa walked over to a nearby store and bought a bottle of expensive wine, most of which she’d drink herself. Jim wouldn’t arrive until seven-thirty, giving her plenty of time to take a shower, splash on some perfume, and put on the outfit she’d bought online from Victoria’s Secret.
Shannon said, “Hey, how you doin’?” when she saw Jim Turner standing near his cruiser. She walked over to him.
He said, “The couple upstairs was going at it again and I had to have a talk with them.”
Shannon rolled her eyes. “They need to find something they can do together other than drink and fight. And if I were you, I’d be more worried about him than her. She outweighs him by a hundred pounds.” Jim laughed.
Shannon said, “I was just going to get Sam, but maybe you can help me. I can’t get the window shut.” She pointed at one of the two sliding windows next to the larger picture window at the front of her room. “I open it because the air conditioner doesn’t work but I don’t like to leave it open when I’m gone. But the damn thing jams in the rail and you need really strong fingers to push it back.”
Jim glanced at his watch. Shannon noticed and said, “But, hey, if you need to be somewhere.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ve got time. But let me get my cruiser out of the way.” He hopped into his car, which had been sitting in the middle of the parking lot, and pulled it into a parking spac
e near the end of the lot.
Then followed Shannon into her room.
When Jim turned right into the motel’s parking lot, Carly made a left turn and pulled into the lot in front of the truck stop convenience store. She backed into a parking space so she could see across the highway and watched Jim go up to the second floor, where he bounced some scrawny little guy off the wall a couple of times, and then returned to his cruiser. It looked as if she’d been wrong about him meeting someone at the motel—and could feel the relief washing over her.
But then Shannon Doyle walks out of her room, dressed in a pair of skintight jeans, and walks up to Jim, who’s standing near his cruiser. They talk for a second or two, and Carly sees her husband laugh, then get into his car. Carly thought he was leaving the motel, but instead he parks in a spot a short distance from Shannon’s room. While he’s parking the car, Shannon stands in the doorway to her room.
Then Jim walks up to Shannon, follows her into her room, and closes the door.
Carly shrieked, “You bastard!” and slammed her fist on the steering wheel.
And goddamn Shannon Doyle to hell. The first time she’d seen Shannon talking to Jim and later accused her of having an affair with him, she’d almost believed Shannon when Shannon denied it. She should have known better.
Shannon Doyle had everything. She was beautiful. She was famous. She was rich. She had the greatest job in the world—but it wasn’t enough for her. She had to have Jim, too.
Carly was so mad the veins in her temples were throbbing. She opened the door to the glove compartment and pulled out the little .22 that Jim had given her.
Then she thought: What are you doing? You can’t kill them. You have two sons.
Her next thought was: Okay, I’ll give them ten minutes to get their clothes off and then go pound on the door and embarrass the shit out of him and his fucking girlfriend.
Yeah, she could see the scene play out in her mind. She hammers on the door. After a moment Shannon answers, maybe a towel wrapped around her so she could claim she’d been in the shower. But Carly shoves past her, knocking her out of the way, and there’s Jim lying in the bed.
Then what? She screams at Jim for being a lying, cheating, son of a bitch. Maybe she slaps Shannon across the face for being a man-stealing bitch. But what happens after that? She leaves in tears, totally humiliated, and Jim comes home and swears he’s sorry, swears he loves her, swears he’ll never cheat on her again? But of course he would.
Well, she wasn’t going to be his fucking doormat forever.
And there was a way for her to get back at him.
She peeled out of the truck stop parking lot and headed for the Desert Bar. Normally, she drank at the Grill but the Grill wasn’t the place to find what she wanted. The Desert Bar was a dive, not somewhere a respectable married woman would go, and that’s what she wanted: a dive. At this time of the evening it would be filled with horny drunks who worked for the gas companies and she was going to pick up the best-looking one she could find and fuck him.
If her husband didn’t want her, she’d find a man who did.
Five minutes after entering Shannon’s room, Jim left. The damn window had been harder than hell to shut. He checked his watch. He had plenty of time, mainly because he drove a vehicle equipped with a siren and the speed limit didn’t apply to him.
After Jim shut the window—God, he was a dreamboat—Shannon left her room. She put her laptop case in the trunk of her car—she never left her laptop in the room after Lola Clarke stole her earrings—and headed toward the Grill for dinner.
Carly Turner walked into the Desert Bar, and picked a spot near the center of the long bar. She was glad she was wearing the short skirt that she’d put on for Jim. She normally drank wine but tonight she wanted something stronger and ordered a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Before she could finish it, a guy walked up and said hi.
At seven-thirty, right on time, Jim arrived at the Best Western in Rock Springs. He called Lisa and asked what room she was in. She said, “108.” Jim knocked on the door and Lisa called out, “It’s open, sugar.” He walked into the room and she was lying on the bed in a transparent nightie which was more erotic than if she’d been nude. He took off his hat and sailed it toward the chair in the corner of the room.
By nine o’clock Carly Turner had had four, maybe five, drinks but she’d only paid for one. This lanky guy with curly dark hair spilling over his forehead had bought all the rest. She’d told him her name was Julie and that she was a teacher in Rock Springs. She thought his name was Dave, but wasn’t sure. He took his time, asking her a lot of questions about herself, maybe thinking he had to romance her a little. Finally, he worked up the nerve to ask if she’d like to go back to his RV, which was within walking distance of the bar and where they could enjoy a quiet drink alone. She slammed down the last drink he’d bought her and said, “Hell, yes.”
Sex with Dave or Dan or whoever the hell he was, was awful. The whole time he’d been on top of her, all she could think about was Jim and Shannon doing the same thing in Shannon’s room. After he finished, she started crying. He kept asking her what was wrong as she got dressed—he seemed like a decent guy—but she just yelled at him to shut up and leave her the hell alone.
She stumbled out of his RV and walked back to the bar—and started drinking. She didn’t want to go home. She sat alone at the end of the bar, thinking about that bitch, Doyle, and her husband, and whenever a man would approach her she’d snarl at him to get the fuck away from her.
Shannon had dinner at the Hacienda Grill, then hung around for a while afterward BS-ing with some of the cowboys drinking in the bar. She got back to her room around ten. She booted up the laptop and fiddled for about an hour with a scene involving a herd of wild horses she’d seen that morning, but she couldn’t get it right. She just couldn’t capture in words not only the beauty of the animals but how they were a metaphor for the spirit of the Wyoming plains.
She looked across the highway and saw a single light on in the café and Harriet sitting alone at a table. She decided to go talk to her—and then made the mistake of telling Harriet what she’d learned from John Bradley. At eleven she was back in her room working. She made an entry in her journal then went back to trying to describe the horses, but again the words refused to come.
At eleven, Jim told Lisa he had to leave. “What the hell?” she said. “Slam, bam, thank you ma’am?” She’d been expecting him to spend the night.
It had hardly been slam, bam. They’d been in bed for the last three and a half hours. And he actually had been planning to spend the night, but the look on Carly’s face when he left the house told him that it would be better if he got back home. So now he had not one, but two women pissed at him.
As soon as he was back in his cruiser, he called a deputy and asked how the meth lab raid had gone. The sheriff actually had planned a raid for tonight but it hadn’t been that big a deal, had only involved about six deputies, and had gone down without a hitch. Jim just wanted a few details he could relay to Carly, like the one he got about one of the deputies getting bitten by the asshole’s Rottweiler.
He figured he should be home a little after midnight. He might even try to make love to Carly if she was still awake, although he doubted he’d have the strength to do so.
A few minutes before midnight, Shannon walked down to the ice machine. She had a can of Coke in her room and felt she needed the caffeine to keep working, but the Coke was warm. She looked over at the café. It was dark; Harriet must have gone to bed. Along the way to the ice machine, she passed a bearded, bear of a man named Phil Parker. He worked for an outfit called Black Hills Energy and had just gotten off his shift. They nodded to each other.
Phil knew who Shannon was—he’d even read her book—but he didn’t have the nerve to approach her and tell her how much he’d enjoyed it.
At midnight, the bart
ender at the Desert Bar told Carly he was cutting her off. When she yelled that she wanted another drink and he damn well better pour her one, he said, “Mrs. Turner, you really don’t want me to have to call your husband.” God, she hated this fucking town where everyone knew everyone else. But she wasn’t worried about the bartender telling Jim she’d left with Doug, Dan, whoever he was. She didn’t give a shit if her husband found out or not.
She staggered back to her car. She’d really had too much to drink; she could barely walk. She climbed into the driver’s seat, then immediately flung open the door and vomited. Then she made the mistake of putting her head back and closing her eyes—and passed out.
She woke up a while later, not knowing how long she’d been unconscious. She glanced at her watch. It was a little after one. She started the car and headed toward the highway—and then noticed the little .22 sitting on the passenger seat. What was it doing there? Had she taken it out of the glove compartment because she’d been thinking about shooting Shannon again? She reached over and tossed the gun back into the glove compartment. She hoped she could make it home before she passed out again.
Jim walked into the house about twelve-thirty, surprised to see Carly’s car gone and the front door unlocked. He wondered if something had happened to the boys. He called her cell phone but it immediately went to voicemail, meaning she most likely had the phone turned off or the battery was dead. Where the hell could she be? He took off his uniform, took a quick shower to wash away Lisa’s scent, but didn’t go to bed. He called her cell phone a couple more times, and again she didn’t answer. Finally, at one thirty, she walked into the house, glassy-eyed, reeking of booze.
He said, “Where have you been?” She answered, “Fuck you,” stumbled into the bedroom, and collapsed face down on the bed.
At four thirty a.m., Henry Clemson left his ground-floor room at Sam Clarke’s motel. He normally started work at six but there was a problem with a leaky relief valve on one of the wellheads, and he had to go in early to see if he could get it working right. As he passed Shannon Doyle’s room he noticed the door was open and he glanced inside.
