Dead Girl Moon

by Charlie Price

  Grace nodded. There was something dangerous about this guy. Where Hammond was slick and organized, Fitz was rough and lone-wolf. Neither were regular citizens. Hammond was teaching her scams. Who better than Fitz to teach her to shoot?

  It took a while but she finally broke a bottle.

  Fitz clapped. “Have to take a second job to keep you in ammo,” he said, smashing her to him in what he considered a hug.

  18

  EVELYN DIDN’T TAKE HER EYES off the highway as she dug in her purse for the cell phone. A few hours after dark the big ranches had finished their day’s work, loaded their trailer rigs with cattle and hay, and sent them rolling toward Bonners Ferry or Sandpoint. Those big trucks and tired drivers could be all over the road and you had to be careful. She flipped the phone open, listened.

  “Hey, I just saw you ahead of me.”

  She thought she recognized the voice.

  “Going home,” she said. “Long day.”

  “Pull over for a sec, I got you a present.”

  “Uh, give it tomorrow. I’ll be at work.”

  “Can’t. Really, it’ll take less than a minute. Pull over at that dirt road with the mailbox.”

  Evelyn thought it over. In the past couple of months she’d been given several presents and most she’d been able to sell to girlfriends in Plains for more cash. Could be anything from a bracelet to an iPod. She put the phone away, knowing that her brake lights would signal her decision, and concentrated on spotting the unlit gap in the tree cover. Tiny rocks pinged off her undercarriage as she edged off the road and moved forward to give the trailing car room to pull in.

  Looking in the mirror all she could see was the glare of his headlights. She tried to see if she was right about the voice, but he kept in the headlight shine as he walked toward her. All she got was the dark silhouette.

  He stopped before he reached her window. “Come on out. I don’t want to reach it through.”

  “Only for a minute.”

  “Sure.”

  She opened the door and swung her legs out, started to stand and got jerked off her feet as he tugged her the rest of the way out. She got a whiff of alcohol as he pulled her close.

  “Wha—”

  He hit her hard in the ribs and doubled her over. Pulled her upright immediately.

  She got air and tried again. “Why are—”

  He shook her, making her teeth rattle. “You think you’re so goddamn—”

  It was a reaction. She didn’t even think as she slapped him as hard as she could, right in the face. She didn’t see his return punch coming but she felt it ruining her jaw and then a blinding pain in the back of her head.

  He was not expecting her to crumple. He grabbed her by the shoulders, hauled her up and shook her again. Her head rolled side to side with no resistance. She was out cold. He looked at her more closely, held her up in front of him. She was limp. Worse, she didn’t seem to be breathing.

  When he lowered her to the ground he noticed the dark spot on the window. More closely, he saw ooze and a bit of hair at the top corner of the car door that had been left open in the tussle. If the back of her head hit that when he punched her … He touched the point. Blood. On the metal edge and on the rubber insulator, and drops, the first one he’d already seen, inching down the window. He knelt and turned her head to the side. More blood, a lot of it in her hair and down her neck. Put his ear to her lips. Nothing. To her nose. Nothing. Hand on her diaphragm. Nothing.

  Shit!

  Still kneeling beside her, he looked both ways. Headlights just coming around the curve maybe a half mile ahead. He took her wrists, pulled her away from the road and over to the far side of his vehicle. Jumped in, jammed off his headlights, started his engine. Jumped out and ran to open his passenger door. Lifted her into the seat. Hustled back and made a right turn onto the dirt road, goosed it and coasted, engine off now, into a nook in the trees. Hit the parking brake hoping it wouldn’t flash his rear lights. Seconds later the eastbound car whirred past.

  When he ran back to the highway, it was clear in both directions. He had at least thirty seconds. He slid into her seat, started her car and reversed it into the unpaved road, peering through her rear window to guide him. In the nightglow he was able to pick up the lighter color of the graded dirt as he moved maybe a hundred yards down until another recess presented itself. He put it in drive and wheeled the sedan forward far enough to conceal it from the highway. Where did this road go? He may have been on it fishing once or twice, thought it went in another mile or so to a ranch and barn not far from the Clark Fork. It would do.

  He grabbed her purse and coat and ran with them, opening his door and tossing them in on top of her. Got in. Got out and ran back to her car tearing his shirt off, then his T-shirt, and used that to wipe down her door handle and steering wheel and gear shift with a swipe at the keys. Ran back, made a U, and headed west on the highway.

  He was breathing so hard the windshield was fogging. He lowered the windows and the cool air braced him, like a slap, getting his attention. Brief picture: Standing holding the bars in a cell the size of a coffin. Not him. That wasn’t going to happen.

  First, dump the body. He knew just the place. He’d read that bodies bloat with gas, bob up to the surface. Not this one. He had a tire iron to puncture her stomach. Second, clean up. To get it right he knew he’d need help, knew he needed to make a call. When there was no answer he left a message. Cell phone to cell phone, private, he told what happened, where he was going, and what he was going to do. Give a heads-up so help would be ready.

  19

  SOME PEOPLE WENT LOOKING FOR TROUBLE. Mick’s dad said no need. Trouble will find you. Okay. Sixteen years old, Mick knew trouble. Lived with it, ran with it. Made it through the worst times. With any luck at all, he was done with trouble.

  At the beginning of summer, Mick got a part-time job stocking and doing warehouse work for Hammond’s hardware store and the nearby feed store. Started saving money for school sports fees. Grace continued working for Hammond’s motel and café as a maid and waitress, just upped her hours. JJ got a job mornings with county recycling. Queen of the cans!

  Turned out Grace usually got Tuesdays off, and a couple of days a week neither the feed store nor the hardware needed any grunt work, so there were some afternoons that Grace, JJ, and Mick hung around together.

  In mid-July Mick had an idea. Simple. Obvious, really. Maybe a great idea that would speed things up between him and Grace. The three of them had all afternoon off. Time enough to go to a private swimming place up on the Salish River. Mick figured if JJ went, Grace was more likely to come along.

  A tiny glitch: Jon. The ten-year-old overheard Grace and JJ talking while they were getting ready. He threatened to run to the Conoco and tell Mick’s father that Mick was taking the Pontiac without permission. Extortion. Okay, it might mess up their privacy, but on the other hand, maybe it would make Mick seem more generous and mature. Truth, he was dizzied by the idea of Grace in fewer clothes and agreed to take the kid.

  As they piled in the car, Mick noticed the girls didn’t seem to be carrying bathing suits and didn’t seem to have any on under their jeans and shirts.

  Grace caught him looking. “Don’t have any,” Grace said. “We’ll swim in our clothes.”

  “You don’t have to get your clothes wet,” he said, letting his imagination run.

  “They’ll dry,” JJ said.

  They drove past the popular swimming area on the Clark Fork under the bridge at the east end of town and took Salish River Road north to a spot JJ’d shown him an earlier time he’d “borrowed” his dad’s car. Almost nobody ever drove that road in summer when fishing was poor.

  Two miles past where the narrow pavement turned to dirt, the road got steeper, trees thick on either side. Even in July, the shade in the small canyon let the bordering grass stay green. They parked at a curve and walked about a hundred yards back to a cliff-faced bend that created a pool a few feet deep. It
was maybe forty feet across, with weak current until you got to the end of the hole and the water took off again. Private, bordering on cozy.

  JJ had a blanket for them to sit on and a beat-up life vest for Jon to wear so he wouldn’t drown. When they got to the gravel beach, JJ and Jon began fighting over the vest. Jon wouldn’t wear it. JJ tried to make him. Jon flung it into the current and it disappeared downriver. Case closed. Grace said well then, he couldn’t go in the water. Jon pulled away from JJ, ran and jumped in, clothes and all. Another case settled. Mick told JJ and Grace to go ahead and let the kid drown. Be less trouble in the long run. Jon didn’t hear that. He was already diving, looking for trout.

  Mick took off his shirt and lay down on the blanket to warm up before going in that cold water. Grace shed her jeans, sat down beside him in shirt and briefs. That might have embarrassed JJ, because she started walking, following the riverbank upstream.

  Grace watched her leave. “She’ll be back in a while,” she said, nodding at JJ.

  The river made its own sweet noise, and Mick was lying close enough to Grace to hear her breathing. Such a good day, such a good idea. Sunny, warm, pure brilliant, and he’d made it happen. He tried not to stare at Grace. Mostly kept his eyes on the water. Pictured her, instead, in his mind’s eye. Began imagining what it would be like if they were a couple. What it would be like to kiss her. Pretty exciting. A little too exciting. He needed to calm down. Mick didn’t have much experience with girls. Better to keep his eyes closed for a while and put his mind on something else. Football? He wasn’t sure it was possible.

  Jon’s yelling jerked Mick into the present. Jon, the little dickwad that blackmailed Mick into bringing him along. Right away Mick figured Jon was caught in the current, getting swept away. He scanned and saw the kid across the river tugging on a log in an eddy. Mick shouted at him to stop because the thing could drown him; could catch on his clothing and roll him under. Mick could see there was already something stuck on it. A rag or a mop.

  But he was wrong. Jon had hold of a body.

  20

  IN A SECOND A LOT CAN GO THROUGH YOUR MIND. You watch junior year go down the drain. You give up the idea of playing football. You drop the dream you’re going to get together with Grace. You see your friendship with JJ disappear. And then a hope fights its way in. An idea. With a little bit of luck, you could skate around this. You could get out of here without being seen. You could say we were never here. You might not even have to lie. You could just return Dad’s car and shut up. You’re not in a hole. This didn’t happen.

  Mick had never thought much about luck. His dad said you make your own luck. If Mick had thought about it before, he’d have said today was his lucky day, his dream come true. JJ, Grace, and him swimming. Anything could happen, most of it good. Might even get a kiss. Or more.

  Grace’s scream yanked him back to the present.

  He’d frozen, watching Jon struggle to drag the thing to shallower water. Mick didn’t move till Grace yelled at Jon to let it go, to get away and come back here. That got Mick started and then he was yelling, too. “Don’t touch that!” Mick was splashing through the water to grab him.

  “Just a sec!” Jon didn’t turn around, busy tugging. “It’s caught on something. I almost got it.”

  Mick could hear Grace clambering behind him. He reached Jon first and pinned the boy’s arms. The body washed around, rubbery-looking. It was a girl, high school or college. Grace reached them and helped Mick break Jon loose. Half wading, half swimming, they pulled him back to the beach side of the river.

  “Let me go, damn it!” Jon was kicking at them. “I almost had it. It’s hung up on something.”

  Mick held Jon while Grace began picking up anything they had brought. Her jeans and his shirt, a beer can that didn’t even belong to them.

  Mick put his face close to Jon’s. “Listen up! We got to get out of here. If the police think we had anything to do with her, even finding her, they might search our places and then everybody’d be screwed big-time.”

  Jon looked at Mick for the first time. Considering. He finally got it.

  “Crap!” Jon said. “I was going to save her.”

  She didn’t stink yet, but Mick knew the girl was way beyond saving. He didn’t say that. He said, “Help us make sure we got everything.”

  Mick saw Jon picking up bits of glass and pieces of paper while he brushed away their footprints on the beach, his mind racing. What if the police believed they did it? What if the law searched their places and found his dad’s stash, and guns, and the stolen tools that connected him with thefts in other towns? What if cops found Gary’s dope and who knows what else they kept in that trailer? Their folks would go to jail and Mick and Grace and JJ would wind up in juvie.

  Behind him, Grace’s voice broke into his thoughts again. “JJ!”

  Right. JJ had split when Grace took off her jeans. Walking somewhere. They all began yelling her name, hoping she wasn’t too far away to hear.

  21

  WHILE JON WAS SWIMMING, JJ was trying to shed her disappointment about Mick and Grace. She had headed away from the gravel beach, upriver past the huge dark rocks that reminded her of buildings, some of them thirty or forty feet tall, carved and polished, and hard to climb but she’d done it before. That day, no, she was just meandering.

  In a small clearing she crossed drag marks to the river’s edge. There were gouges in the soil and some broken branches close to the riverbank. A big raft? There was a large enough gap in the brush that something like that could be launched. In the dirt near the edge of the water a bright glitter caught her eye. Kneeling, she found a black jewel, square, inlaid with a silver design, a small diamond in the middle. Never seen anything like it before. It was small, about the size of a stamp, but it was elegant, like something a king would wear. She shined it on her shirt and put it in her pocket.

  As she stood again, she saw a slender ghost moon hanging above the western ridge. Its faint glow in the daylight sky lifted her thoughts, back to the familiar daydream, up through evergreens, up above the sparkling river, up through the clouds, her outstretched fingers trailing in the thin blue sky, until space turned dark and the moon became a huge powdered disk.

  She didn’t imagine looking down, didn’t want to think of her friends holding hands or kissing. That would drop her, hard, to the canyon floor.

  When she reached the moon, she didn’t stop at the glowing part. She never did. She sailed around to that far side nobody sees. She glided to her castle with its stone walls and towers and pointed spires, through the huge arched door, through the great hall under the flickering torches, up to the throne in front of the tapestry. And there, she turned. And sat. And waited for someone. Waited because the throne was wide enough for two, wide enough to lie down with someone and begin a kingdom. She knew it was a fairy tale, but she let herself stay there. Chose to be there. Chose the castle. Safe, comfortable, her other home.

  She couldn’t stand to be around Grace and Mick when he was flirting. Couldn’t stand to watch Grace tolerate him. Couldn’t stand to see him so oblivious, to see him sniff around Grace like a dog. It was pathetic.

  At some point the yelling broke through her dream and she had to shake her head to clear the images before she could move. She guessed it was some kind of trouble with Jon. She skirted the boulders and took the road back toward the car. Close, she saw them cleaning up the beach area. That made no sense.

  “What happened?”

  “Found a naked girl!” Jon, proud as punch.

  Mick was all business. “Get in. We’ll tell on the way.”

  JJ shrugged his hand off her arm. “Who? Show me.”

  Jon grabbed her hand and led her to the water’s edge, pointing across the stream to the still eddy under the cliff.

  Grace came behind them, getting hold of Jon by his wet shirt. “Doesn’t matter who,” she said, nodding across the water. “We got to go.”

  JJ shaded her eyes. “Is that Cassel’s
girlfriend?”

  That question echoed above the noise of the river. Mick might have grimaced. Not something he wanted to hear.

  Grace shook her head and began tugging Jon back to the car. The kid was grinning like the information was a wad of dollars.

  22

  AT THE CAR, Jon was jabbering, full of questions. Grace pushed him into the backseat, hopped in, and pulled the door shut, shushing him the whole time. Mick jumped in the driver’s seat and cranked the engine while JJ piled in beside him, slamming the passenger door. He made the U-turn, stopped, got out, and smudged the tire tracks they’d made parking. It didn’t come to him that he might be wrecking other tracks as well. He tore out, dust barreling behind them.

  “Cassel’s!” Jon crowed.

  Grace shushed him again, harsh.

  “Killed her,” Jon getting the last word. Obnoxious.

  “Killed?” JJ asked, looking at Mick.

  “We don’t know,” he said. “Could have drowned.”

  “Everybody shut up,” Grace said.

  Her words held while the engine burred and the gravel sprayed and rattled against the car. After a few minutes they got on the pavement and the noise settled, but there was no more conversation on the ride home.

  * * *

  When Mick pulled off Main and into their dirt parking lot, Grace kept hold of Jon to keep him from jumping out.

  “Nobody says a word about this,” Grace said. “We went swimming right where the main highway crosses the river. Right under the highway bridge there. We never drove up River Road.” She was looking right at Jon when she was saying this. “Promise.”

  Jon pulled his arm out of her grip and scowled. Finally nodded his head.

  JJ didn’t move.