The Girl From Blind River

by Gale Massey

  “Then you both owe me. Was Phoebe in on it, too?”

  “No,” Jamie said, drawing the word out and holding her wrist. She couldn’t straighten her fingers.

  “So you clowns run off to Mimawa and I’m in to Keating for six grand.”

  “I can get it back in a few months.” She’d done the math and knew it would take closer to a year.

  He stood over her, his big knuckles in her face. “It’ll take a year, maybe two, for you to win that much. And that’s if it goes your way every time. Which it won’t.”

  She knew that.

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You, Jack, Phoebe. The three of you are going to work that tournament, exactly the way I tell you to, and you’re going to make that money back.”

  “Okay.” She tested her fingers again, flexed them until it seemed nothing was broken.

  “I didn’t ask you. I told you. And from now on you do exactly what I say.” He stepped back inside the trailer. “Born a thief.”

  It was an ancient accusation but she hated when he threw it in her face. He had no idea what her choices were, what it was like being an Elders girl.

  “I’m not like her.”

  “The hell you aren’t,” he said, and slammed the door.

  An engine started beneath the streetlight across the street. She sat in the corner beside the door and peered through the dark. Her first thought was of Jilkins, but it wasn’t her style to sit outside their home, and besides, no one from Family Services would be out in this weather. All Jamie could make out was the shape of a man’s shoulders and a dingy brown sedan. Inside the trailer Loyal banged around the kitchen. In another minute the door to his room slammed shut and she knew he’d gone to bed. But it was safer out here, so she waited a little longer before slipping inside to her cot.

  CHAPTER

  10

  EARLY MONDAY MORNING, Garcia had gone to the Dodge dealership in Bracksville, just south of Blind River, and shown his badge to the owner. It took some convincing, but thirty minutes later he was looking at a fifty-two-thousand-dollar cash sales receipt for Loyal Elders’s brand-new Dodge. The upgraded edition. Who had that kind of cash? Garcia had never seen that much money in one place outside of a stint on the narcs unit ten years ago. He got the address from the DMV and was a little surprised when he ended up in the trailer park on the south side of Blind River. Abandoned cars were everywhere—in the street, in the side yards, up on blocks. There was no way to know which one went with which trailer. The sun had already set by the time he parked his Civic beneath a broken streetlight. He got lucky quick when a half-dozen cars and trucks converged on the address.

  He ran the plates on each car, but nothing hit. Still, he touched his revolver in its holster—an old habit—locked the car doors, and pulled his lapels up around his ears. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees since sunset and now it was sleeting. An hour later a thirty-something white male came out of the trailer and stumbled to a banged-up El Dorado that Garcia had ignored because it was parked three houses down. He got the license number as the truck drove by and ran the plate.

  Mike Tuckahoe, registered sex offender. Fuck. This was not the direction he’d expected.

  By nine, the cars were clearing out. He could have arrested three of these guys for DUIs, but that wasn’t what he was there for. He wiped the fog off the windshield. It was coming down hard again, and his feet had turned to ice but he didn’t want to announce his presence by idling his engine and running exhaust out the tailpipe. He sank lower in the front seat.

  Another man came outside, followed by a young woman who stayed on the porch while the man got in a truck parked in the driveway. Loyal Elders came outside, the bulk of his frame filling the doorway. The truck backed out, briefly lighting the two people on the front porch before it turned up the road. The woman was slight, more like a girl. Garcia looked back at the porch and saw Loyal grab and twist the girl’s arm, smack her once in the face. Garcia reached for the door handle, but then the girl got away from Loyal and crawled into the corner. Loyal went back inside and the porch light went out. She seemed okay.

  A girl, though. It didn’t sit right.

  Garcia pulled up the address for Tuckahoe and started the engine. In a few minutes he was halfway across town and the warm air from the car’s heater was thawing his toes.

  From the street it could’ve been a crack house. The boxwood hedge looked like it had been trimmed with a hatchet, what with the mess of limbs jutting out beneath scant greenery. The glass on the front door was cracked and repaired with glue and tape. The front porch listed toward the street, its floorboards gaping and warped. He parked, got out, and banged on the door, hoping the glass window wouldn’t fall out on his shoes. On the other side of the door he heard bare feet approaching, slapping like wet mops. The porch light came on and Mike Tuckahoe, pulling a T-shirt over his head, peered out through the fringe of curtains. “What do you want?”

  Garcia held his badge up. “You hanging out with kids again, Mikey?”

  “Huh? No. I was just playing poker with a couple of guys. They can vouch for me.”

  Garcia motioned at the door. “Open up.”

  Tuckahoe arranged the T-shirt over his belly and opened the door. The smell of whiskey and backed-up sewage hit Garcia in the face. He put his hand over his nose and stepped to the edge of the porch. From the back of the house a woman’s voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Go back to bed, Ma.” Tuckahoe stood flat-footed in a pair of dingy boxers, scratching his crotch.

  “Who’s the girl?” Garcia asked.

  “What girl?”

  “The girl at the Elders’s place tonight. You’ve got one chance to give me a straight answer.”

  “Hold on there.” Tuckahoe rubbed a thumb over his left eye. “That girl lives there, or used to. No, wait. She stays somewhere else now.”

  “The court told you to stay away from kids, all kids, by a hundred yards.”

  “Those are my buddies. Besides, she’s just some scrawny girl. I can’t help it she lives there.”

  “Yeah, and I can’t help that I saw you breaking the conditions of your parole. You could get sent back for that.”

  “Man, don’t do that. I’ll be out by lunchtime tomorrow and for what? I didn’t touch that girl.”

  “But you looked, didn’t you?”

  “Nobody told me I couldn’t do that.” He scratched his crotch again and looked over his shoulder.

  “What the fuck, dude! Why do you keep touching yourself in front of me? Punk. Sitting on your butt in a warm house while my balls freeze in this crappy weather.”

  “Take it easy. I got bedbugs is all.” Tuckahoe put his hands up. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Same guys every week, just local boys. Dude, it’s just poker.”

  “What are the stakes?”

  “A hundred dollars, winner takes all. Nothing illegal about that.”

  “You ever been to Judge Keating’s game?”

  “Fuck no. He’s the one sent me off.”

  Garcia tapped a cigarette from his pack. “What’s Loyal Elders doing at the judge’s house, then?”

  “How would I know?”

  He blew smoke in Tuckahoe’s face.

  “You gonna stand on my porch smoking, least you could do’s offer me one.”

  A pain started in Garcia’s shoulder, a sharp pinch beneath his clavicle. He’d met too many guys like this. They knew no limits and were easy to buy. He shook another cigarette out.

  “How’s a guy like that come up with the money to buy a brand-new truck?”

  Tuckahoe took the lighter, lit his cigarette, and leaned against the doorframe. “He works at the fertilizer plant, don’t he? That’s a good job.”

  “He hasn’t worked there in years. Not since the explosion. What’s that been? Three years.”

  “I don’t know his business, man.”

  Garcia flicked the ci
garette into the damp yard. “Maybe we should go downtown, get a cup of coffee, and continue this conversation someplace warm.”

  A light came on in the back of the house and the woman hollered, “What kind of trouble is it at this hour?”

  “Leave it, Ma.” Tuckahoe closed the door behind him and blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “I’m just trying to live my life. What do you want?”

  “We were talking about your buddy, Loyal.”

  “Okay. He knows lots of folks, enough to run some numbers now and then. That girl? Maybe she helps him.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Might be, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “That girl, she’s a sweet one, eh?”

  “Heh.” Tuckahoe reached for his crotch but instead hooked his thumb in the waistband of his underpants. “I don’t know. Girl like that, though? Tight little ass. Sweet don’t even touch it.”

  Garcia fought the urge to hit this perp. “There you go again, you stupid shit. You don’t know how to act.” He slammed his hand against the doorjamb and Tuckahoe jumped.

  The lights in the house came on. A dog started barking across the street. Mrs. Tuckahoe, wrapped in a pink housecoat, came to the front door. Her mouth opened, then snapped shut, and she pulled the housecoat tight to her neck.

  Garcia rubbed the back of his neck. This wasn’t what he was after. He stepped off the porch. “Don’t let me see you near a kid again.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  PHOEBE WATCHED KEATING put on the robe and tie it at his waist before getting out of bed. They were older now, but he showed less wear. Living on the outside did that for a body. Doctors, dentists, supplements. He was pudgier than he’d been in high school, but he wore his hair in the same style as he had back then. Longer, though, than suited her taste in a man, and gray at the temples, but still as wavy as in their youth.

  High school. The prom. Going with Keating had been an inside joke among her friends. It still made her smile, how she’d agreed to go with him and then left him holding her shoes and standing beneath the basketball net on the opposite side of the gymnasium while she danced with every other boy there. Oh, how she had loved torturing him.

  One week later she’d gone and eloped with Jim Elders. Eventually Keating had left for college anyway. She knew his type. Screw a local, marry a highbrow. But he had never married.

  He returned from the bathroom and crawled under the covers still wearing his robe. The modesty surprised her. He touched her lips and cupped her chin a little rougher than she liked.

  “I always liked your smile. Sly and cocky. The crooked little mouth of a liar.”

  She didn’t know how to take that. He hadn’t been gentle with her when she arrived, hadn’t even offered dinner. Earlier at the diner, he’d slipped her a note that read, 8:00 tonight, my place. She’d been adequately late, but he’d seen through her fake ambivalence and taken her straight upstairs to the master bedroom. The room was dowdy, though she could get used to it. She’d never felt sheets so soft, carpet as thick as pudding.

  “A sly smile hints at a quick mind,” he continued. “I always thought you were smart. Maybe too smart for your own good.”

  She wondered if he meant then or now and just how much resentment he still held against her. Well, two could play that game. “Is that what you thought when I eloped?”

  His face turned hard. “I thought you got what you deserved.”

  She sat up. “And now? Do you think I got what I deserved?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “No. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Whiskey and sex had made her drowsy and she wanted to lie back down and close her eyes. But she wasn’t comfortable here anymore. She’d finally given him what he’d wanted all those years ago and now she felt foolish. Now he’d turned mean.

  “I only meant you deserved Jim. I mean—That’s not what I mean.”

  “Well, what do you mean? Just say it, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Look, that jail sentence wasn’t my fault. I don’t know why you agreed to it. That was all the prosecutor presented me with. All I did was sign off on it.”

  Her only weapon was silence and she decided to let him stew in it. She lay down, closed her eyes, hoping for a few hours of sleep and to leave before he woke. It was dicey, being here in his house, much less in his bed. But it was riskier for him. A judge with an ex-con. He had more on the line than she did and she wondered if she’d stumbled across a secret weapon. If anything, he could improve her image around town. At least get her a better job. As she contemplated the possibilities, her mind began to drift to white. Then a dull thump from downstairs startled her.

  “What was that?”

  He dismissed it as noise from the foundation settling but sat up at the sound of a small crash. She sat up, too, suddenly alert, and moved quickly to pull on her blouse. He found his slippers.

  “Don’t you have a security system?”

  “I left it off in case you left in the middle of the night,” he whispered. He opened a drawer, got a handgun from the nightstand, and walked across the carpet to the door. “There’s another pistol in the drawer if you need it, but you stay put.”

  “You’re not leaving me here,” she said, and found the second pistol. Briefly she thought to hide, but there was no way out of the house from the second floor.

  They went down the carpeted stairs, and when he stepped into the kitchen, she was right behind him. The deadbolt on the back door had been jimmied loose and the door was ajar. She thought about running out the door, but it occurred to her that a second person might be outside. There was safety to numbers, so she stayed behind Keating. The door to the basement and game room was half open, and inside it a flashlight flickered across the walls. Keating released the safety on his handgun and went down the stairwell first. He pushed the door open. A man was stooped low over the bottom drawer of the bar. When Keating flipped on the light, TJ Bangor stood to his full height and smiled slowly. The crystal decanter in his hand was half empty. He took another swig.

  Recognizing his face made her feel better—until she remembered what they’d taken from him.

  Keating lowered the barrel of the gun to the floor. “What are you doing in my house?”

  “I came for what’s mine.”

  “You’re not welcome here. Get out.”

  TJ pulled out the drawer he’d been looking through and carelessly dumped its contents on the floor. He threw the drawer down and it broke in half. “I’m not leaving here without my ring.”

  “You set the alarm off and the police are on their way. You leave now and I’ll tell them it was a misunderstanding.”

  TJ laughed at the lie. He was so big, he made Keating’s gun seem like a toy, like he could just walk over and take it if he wanted. Keating had taken this too far and she wished he would give the man his ring and end this now.

  “Good. Maybe they can help me find my damn ring.” TJ waved the decanter at Keating and took another drink. “Nice stuff you got here. A lot better than the swill you served the other night.” He threw the decanter against a bookcase and it shattered, leaving amber splotches on the wall and carpet.

  “What the fuck! That belonged to my mother!”

  TJ wasn’t threatened by the gun or Keating’s advantage, which, if he ever had one at all, was fading every second they stood there talking.

  Phoebe thought about running for the back door, but a man that big could overtake her in two seconds.

  “Give me my ring,” TJ said.

  “We both have a lot at stake here, son.”

  TJ slurred, “Don’t call me son!” He swayed like a pine in a windstorm. “I’m not leaving here without it.”

  “Okay, calm down. It’s right there on the bar in the humidor.”

  TJ lifted the lid. The Super Bowl ring was on the center cigar.

  It seemed like it was settled. He could take the ring and leave. Phoebe started to back away from the door, but TJ caught the motion
and wheeled toward her. His face shifted to comprehension. “You’re that bitch.”

  Her heart pumped in her ears.

  “Take it easy. It’s not what you think,” Keating said, but TJ lunged—or maybe he tripped. It would never be clear in Phoebe’s memory. Shots blasted the air and bullets lodged in the man’s midsection. He looked surprised as his legs gave way and he hit the floor. TJ let out a gasp of air as blood bubbled in his mouth, oozed down his cheek. He convulsed once, then again, and finally stopped moving altogether.

  CHAPTER

  12

  JAMIE WOKE TO the sound of Loyal’s cell phone ringing in the kitchen and his footsteps thudding down the hallway to answer it. She refused to open her eyes, flopped onto her back, and pulled the blanket over her head, but she heard Loyal say, “Goddamn it, I’ll be right there.”

  In another moment he came back up the hallway, opened the door, and pointed a flashlight at her.

  The light hit her eyes through the threadbare blanket. “I’m sleeping. Can’t it wait till morning?”

  “Get up.”

  “It’s still dark.”

  “Get up.” He yanked the blanket off her.

  Across the room, Toby sat up. “What’s going on?”

  “Go back to sleep,” Loyal said.

  “You two going somewhere, I’m coming, too.” Toby threw his blanket off and groped to find his sweatshirt.

  “Stay put,” Loyal said. He pointed at Jamie. “You, grab some jeans and come out here.”

  She recognized the tone in his voice and knew from the frown on Toby’s face that he did, too. “It’s probably nothing,” she said, hoping to appease him. “Go back to sleep.”

  In the kitchen, Loyal poured a cup of day-old cold coffee into a glass and guzzled it. “Goddamn, it’s early.”

  The oven clock read three AM. “Can’t Toby do whatever this is? I mean, it’s rare when he actually wants to help.”