by Unknown
Next time, there was nothing to stop Noelle from moving even further away. And though Stella doubted there was anyone better at finding people who wanted not to be found, she was terrified of pushing Noelle further out of her life than she already was.
After the dinner was done and the dishes washed, Chrissy settled in to watch Talladega Nights on pay-per-view, and Stella went to check her e-mail. She planned to make an early night of it. Tomorrow, when she had a little more information, she’d put together a plan. Head up to Kansas City, if that’s what it took.
When the phone rang she picked it up right away. No sense taking Chrissy away from her movie. Lots of folks used TV as an electronic babysitter for their kids; Stella was finding it convenient for keeping Chrissy’s mind off trying to get involved in the case.
“Hello?”
“You lookin’ for Roy Dean,” a voice said on the other end. A weird voice, tinny and deep, as if its owner was speaking through layers of Reynolds Wrap.
“Might be,” Stella said slowly, trying to place the voice and having no luck.
“I got some information could help you find him.”
“Is that right? What sort of information?”
There was a pause, and Stella could hear breathing.
“I don’t want to say, over the phone.”
“Whyever the hell not?”
“Line might not be secure.”
Stella sighed heavily. “What, you think the FBI came in while I was at work and bugged my place? Wait—fine, fine, whatever. You want to meet somewhere?”
“Yeah. And I was thinkin’ you could make it worth my trouble. You know.”
Stella was mystified: could it be a friend of Roy Dean’s? Someone he’d blabbed to at a bar? One of Benning’s employees? Benning himself?
“What did you have in mind?” she asked, trying to sound puzzled.
“A hundred ought to do it.”
“A hundred?”
“That’s what I said.”
“That’s—oh, whatever, fine. Where?”
“Bench on the southeast corner of the pond next to the county golf course. Be there in an hour.”
Stella could picture the muddy little pond, a ball-catcher at the bottom of a hill. She didn’t remember a bench, but the county was messing around with the community park and golf course these days, ripping out the landscaping they’d installed in the sixties and seventies and updating it. Bright tubular plastic equipment replaced the swings she’d pushed Noelle in. A mulched plot of azalea bushes grew near the park entrance where there had been an overgrown bank of arborvitae. Worst of all, “exercise stations” had sprouted along the brick walk that used to be a simple muddy track around the pond.
“I’ll find it,” Stella grumbled, hanging up.
She changed into some stretchy black yoga pants and fastened on her holster, a quick-draw abdomen model made of black nylon with Velcro in the back, and tucked the Raven into it. She shrugged on a tank top and slipped a light jacket over it. It was too hot by half to be dressing like that, but Stella didn’t intend to meet up with unknown would-be conspirators without some sort of insurance hidden on her.
As she was corralling her hair into a big plastic barrette, the phone in her bedroom rang. She picked it up, pretending not to notice the gosh-wonder-if-it-could-be-Goat thrill that zipped around her insides.
“Hello?”
There was only the sound of breathing—rather labored breathing—before a young woman’s voice finally said, “Is this Chrissy? Or the other one?”
“Uh, this is Stella Hardesty. Who’s this?” “It don’t matter who I am. Kin I please speak with Chrissy?” Stella considered. It wasn’t likely to be one of the other Lardner girls—presumably they knew their sister’s voice. Ditto any close friends. Which meant that a stranger was calling for her client. A stranger who somehow knew that Chrissy was staying at Stella’s place.
“Chrissy’s occupied at the moment,” Stella said briskly. “May I take a message?”
A bit more silence, then, “How about if I wait? Is she in the bathroom or something?”
“Actually, I’m taking all of Ms. Lardner’s messages at the moment. Can you tell me the nature of your call, please?”
“It’s—I’m—see here, I need to talk to Roy Dean.”
That caught Stella by surprise, but she answered carefully: “Roy Dean isn’t here, I’m afraid.”
“Well, y’all gonna be seein’ him soon?”
“We . . . may be, yes,” Stella said, thinking fast. Whoever the mystery caller was, she clearly didn’t know Roy Dean had disappeared. It was possible she might unwittingly spill information that would lead to him.
“Well, look. I need him to, to come over and get this, uh, this thing that he left here at my place.”
Stella’s heart sped up. The way the girl said thing . . . it was as if she had a secret to keep. “What sort of thing are you talking about?” she asked carefully.
Another pause. This gal required a fair amount of thinking time, Stella decided. “Something of his I don’t want around here no more, that’s what kind of thing. Look here, I didn’t know he was married, not when we first hooked up, okay?”
“Um . . . okay, sure. Can you at least tell me when he dropped the thing off?”
“A few days ago. But look. He said he’d be back for it and he ain’t been. I can’t keep it around here, you know? I don’t want to be responsible.”
Tucker—it had to be Tucker. Roy Dean had dropped the baby off with this girl—his girlfriend, from the sounds of it—maybe even the one he’d been pestering at the speedway. And then, for whatever reasons—reasons having to do with Benning and the Kansas City mafia, maybe, or more likely something a lot more simple, like he got drunk or high or otherwise distracted—he hadn’t been back for the boy.
“Look here,” Stella said in as kind a voice as she could muster. “Is this thing . . . being well looked after?”
“Huh? Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Look, tell Roy Dean to come get it tomorrow at noon. I’ll come home on my lunch hour, and he better be there.”
“Sure. Just give me the address.”
“He has the address,” the girl spat, with a full measure of disdain. “He’s been here plenty.”
“Oh. Well, could I at least have a name?”
“He’ll know, okay? He’ll know damn well who it is—just tell him Darla said he better be here.”
Click.
Stella slowly lowered the receiver back to the cradle on her nightstand. She finished with her hair and went out to the living room, hesitating in front of the TV and wondering what to tell Chrissy. On screen, Will Ferrell was saying the Baby Jesus prayer. Somehow it seemed fitting.
“Chrissy . . . sweet pea . . . you happen to know a gal named Darla? Might have been keeping company with Roy Dean?”
Chrissy shook her head, glancing away from the television. “No, but I feel sorry for her if she has been.”
“Yeah. It’s just . . .” Stella considered describing the conversation she’d just had, but without knowing who and where the girl was, there was nothing they could do for now, other than get Chrissy completely riled up—just when Stella had finally gotten her all settled down. “Well, nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow.”
At least, until noon. Somehow, between now and then, Stella had to find Darla. Which shouldn’t be too impossible, in a town the size of Prosper. Though if Roy Dean had taken his lovin’ out of town, she could quickly have a monster search on her hands.
Stella sighed. One damn problem at a time. Right now she had a date with a park bench.
“Hey darlin’, I got to run out for a bit,” she said.
“You meeting up with the sheriff?” Chrissy asked, sitting up straight. She had changed into what Stella figured passed for pajamas: a pink T-shirt with a kitten screen-printed on the front and the words Sweet Pussy.
“Why would you think that?”
“Well, just ’cause of him calling earlier. I
figured maybe you called him back and he talked you into a date.”
“Oh . . .” Stella was about to dismiss Chrissy’s guess, but the truth was she didn’t have any better excuses. “Going out for Pringles” would work, but it might not give her enough time. “Yes, you got me, girl,” she said. “Ought to make you into a detective or something.”
That got her a wide grin. “You think?”
Stella took care to lock the door as she left.
On the way to the golf course, she went back over what her caller had said. The thing about the hundred bucks was a joke. Stella had about fifty-five dollars in her purse, what was left from her once-a-week ATM visit. Taking out another hundred would put her a little too close to overdraft territory for comfort.
Stella had some money put away. Not a whole lot, but enough, if she was careful, to get by on as long as the store continued to bring in its usual unspectacular haul every month.
Because of the circumstances of Ollie’s death, insurance hadn’t paid out a penny. Luckily, when Stella’s mother passed, there had been enough to pay off the mortgage and the car loan and set some aside. After Ollie died, Stella used a chunk to employ herself a fancy financial adviser up in Independence. The man taught her a few things Ollie’d never seen fit to explain, and recommended a few books. Now Stella knew enough to scrape by.
The idea, of course, was to supplement her income with her little side business. And sometimes that actually happened. The bonus the Kansas coff ee importer’s wife had given her, for instance, had paid for the new dishwasher and gas range. But many of her clients had to work out payment plans, and Stella never had the heart to turn anyone away for lack of creative financing.
She had one gal who settled her account by making drapes for every room in Stella’s house. That one was worth it: seeing the ex-girlfriend of the chief of police of a small town near the Iowa border—a woman who’d once believed that no one could help defend her from the most powerful man in town—up on a ladder installing the curtains, whistling and shimmying to an old Pointer Sisters song, was a rare privilege.
She had a couple women who sent her plain envelopes of cash every month. Sometimes it was a few twenties, sometimes more. Occasionally less.
With Chrissy, Stella hadn’t even bothered bringing up the subject of a payment plan beyond the fistful of rolled fives, tens, and twenties the girl handed over at her initial consultation. Chrissy already had too much on her mind. No matter; they’d work it out eventually.
Stella pulled into the access road that ran along the park. Bright streetlights had been installed in the parking lot, an improvement she welcomed. As she parked, she could make out a figure sitting exactly where he’d promised to be, on a bench they’d sunk in concrete across the pond. He was a heavyset man, and sat with his arms stretched out casually along the back of the bench, legs crossed.
Had it not been dark out, he could have been there to feed the ducks.
Stella patted the outline of her gun and slipped her car keys into her pocket. As she made her way around the pond, following the curvy outline of the fancy schmancy brick walk, she was relieved that the man made no move toward his pockets. When she got within twenty feet, she could see his eyes shining in the moonlight.
“Hello,” she called. “Here I am, right on time.”
“I appreciate that. Can’t stand a tardy bitch, myself,” the man said, and chuckled. His voice was slightly high-pitched and had a flat, nasal quality, and he seemed to find himself plenty amusing, which irritated Stella.
“So what is it you have to tell me?” she asked.
She heard the slightest shuffle behind her, coming from the left side of the path, away from the pond—a leaf against a rock, or maybe trash blowing—and turned to look.
At that moment something came at her from the right: a low, broad dark shape moving fast thudded into her hip and knocked her to the ground. Stella reached for the Raven, but before she could get to it her arms were yanked hard from behind. There were two of them—plus the man on the bench, who was getting up slowly, like he had all the time in the world. Fuck me, Stella thought, just like a damn greenhorn, not even checking her periphery first.
“Check this out,” she heard a voice say. She felt hands roving her body as the other guy held her, kicking and struggling, in place. The man searching her wore a stocking cap with eyeholes, pulled low on his face. His hands found her holster; in the next second it was yanked from her waist. For a second she was sure she was about to be shot with her own gun, a feeling that intensified when she felt its barrel pressed against the hollow behind her right ear. She scrunched up her whole face and waited for the shot.
In what she figured was her final half second on earth, Stella marveled at a new revelation: waiting to get shot was different from waiting for a man to punch you on a jaw that was still healing from the last time, or hit you on the temple with a beer bottle, or knee you in the gut.
Or maybe it was Stella herself who was different, who had changed since the last time she’d been victim to the violent reckoning that Ollie routinely dished out. Three years, sixteen days, in fact—that counter had been put in motion when Ollie slumped to the floor and bled out, a counter that would never be turned off again.
Three years, sixteen days of freedom. Of calling her own shots.
And what she felt now wasn’t anything like she used to feel. It wasn’t dull dread, a sense of the inevitable, a wish that he’d just get on with it, even a longing for the relief that would come from being knocked out.
What Stella Hardesty felt, with the barrel of her own gun jabbed a few inches from her brain, was mighty pissed off. To her surprise, it suddenly mattered a great deal to her that she not go down for the last time here, by the little mud pond on the edge of town, at the hands of two men she didn’t even know.
“You cocksuckers!” she screamed and tried to wrench her arms away from the man holding them behind her back. She managed to work one leg free and kicked with everything she had, connecting a solid hit to the balls of the guy in front of her.
She had the satisfaction of seeing him double over and start to vomit before she took a hit to the face that sent her sprawling.
And a second one that sent her out.
FIVE
Stella could open only one eye. She could see enough to know she was in a hospital room, but the details were flickery and vague. It was her right eye that still seemed to be working, and for a moment she thought that was a good thing, her being right-handed and all. Then she realized that made no sense at all.
Her next thought was that she must have had a stroke that not only left half of her body incapacitated but also played havoc with her reasoning. Great, she thought, not just the lurching and the drooling, but embarrassing conversational gaffes, too?
And then it occurred to her that such a state wasn’t all that different from lots of the customers down at BJ’s as the evening wore on, and she felt a little more cheerful, despite a splitting pain that seemed to bisect her head as though someone had stuck a shiv in one ear and shoved until they saw the point coming out the other.
Might have to blow Big Johnson, she thought, just to celebrate if and when she got back on her feet again—and to cement her new status as a regular in his joint, since she probably wouldn’t be fit to drink anywhere else.
“That so.”
The sound of Goat’s voice—deep, rumbly, and close—gave Stella a shock that started in the gut and blasted out, causing her arms and legs to spasm and her reluctant left eye to gap open just a little. So, she could see out of both her eyes. And what she was looking at was Goat Jones’s broad, tanned face leaning in and staring at her with what appeared to be equal parts concern and amusement.
She could smell him, too, his woodsy scent that had notes of laundry softener and coffee and a faint hint of man, just sheer sweaty testosterone-y man. That final bit gave her a different sort of tremor that let her know that another quadrant of her anatomy had also pulled thr
ough.
“Goat,” she said, licking her lips, which felt sticky and crusty. It occurred to her that it was unlikely that anyone had bothered to brush her teeth, and Goat was leaning close enough she was going to have trouble talking to him and sparing him the effects of her breath at the same time. “You got any gum?”
He stared at her hard, then split into a grin. “Gum? You get the shit kicked outta you, get left to marinate in the golf pond, dragged out by a couple of stoned teenagers, and all you can think to ask for is gum?”
Ah . . . that. Goat’s words filled in the details on the sketchy framework of last night’s history. She’d remembered getting into a jam . . . oh, yeah, and there was the thing with her gun, too—and then—
The entire sequence came back to her, right up to landing that sweet kick to the asshole’s gonads. Bet he was a little worse for wear today. Probably lying on a couch with a bag of frozen peas duct-taped in his skivvies.
That made her feel a little better.
“What’s so funny, Dusty? You still thinking about goin’ down on Big Johnson?”
Stella felt her one good eye go wide. Shit. She’d said it out loud. “I didn’t say that,” she protested. “What are you talking about?”
“Yup, just a minute ago you were coming out of la la land. All these drugs they got in you for the stitchin’ up and what-not must be wearing off. And you were saying—”
“I said I got to show Big Johnson,” Stella said, feeling her face grow hot. She could also feel little itchy pinpricks of sensation, and she put her fingertips to her cheek. Felt stitches. Well, damn. Traced them from close to the bridge of her nose down to the back of her jaw on the left. And there was some sort of bandage-and-tape thing going on up on top of her skull, too. She continued her exploration and found a little nest of stitches buried in a shaved patch on the other side of her head, the skin there raised up in a sizable goose egg.
