by Unknown
“Well sure, but like I done told you, there’s no way he’d take Tucker. He ain’t crazy that way. He’s all follow the rules and shit, he’d never—”
“Honey, I went over to his place yesterday. He wasn’t there, so I broke in. Now don’t get mad—”
“Mad? It’s a little late for mad, isn’t it, Stella? Anyway, I don’t much care what you do or who you do it to if it means we get Tucker. What-all did you see?”
“Not much, really. He sure is a neat and tidy kind of fella. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at. But I did see one thing that made me think he might have, um, taken a trip of some sort.” She told Chrissy about the cat, the huge mounded supply of food and the full water dish.
“I always hated that cat,” Chrissy wailed, as though the cat had been the one to abduct Tucker.
“Well now, we don’t know if it means anything at all,” Stella said hastily. “Maybe he just went, I don’t know, visiting a friend, or down to Branson for a few days, or something like that.”
Chrissy inhaled a big breath, let her shoulders slump, and blinked a few times. “You got any other ideas about who mighta took my boy? Any more bad news you ain’t told me yet?” she finally asked, in a subdued voice.
Only the worst news of all. Stella considered everything she’d withheld from Chrissy so far, and came to the conclusion that she’d messed up big. Keeping everything to herself had done nothing to prepare Chrissy for this moment, when she needed to hear the entire truth.
“Yes,” she said, and forced herself to look Chrissy in the eye. “These guys, the ones I think beat me up, the ones Roy Dean’s been working for . . . well, they’re very bad men.”
Chrissy sucked in breath. “How bad?”
Stella mulled over possible responses. Chrissy was not, as it had turned out, as dumb as Stella had first assumed. Not by a long shot. And now the girl had come within spitting distance of understanding the true dangers of the situation.
“Like . . . mafia bad. Drug-dealin’ bad.” Crazy stone killer bad, Stella thought, but didn’t add.
“And these guys that done this to you last night,” Chrissy demanded, “they might know where Tucker is? I mean . . . you think somehow they got Tucker or something?”
Stella resisted the urge to bite her busted lip and gave a little nod. “If it ain’t Darla and it ain’t Pitt that took him . . . then yes, I think there’s a chance they might know something, that Roy Dean might have gone to them and, I don’t know, looked for a place to stay, or, or—”
Or what? Why would Roy Dean take a baby into that mess? That was the part that made no sense at all, the part that kept Stella hopeful that answers were far more simple.
Chrissy nodded again, and Stella could tell she was thinking hard. “Did you get a good look at them?” she asked, her voice tight.
“No, dear, I’m afraid not. There was a few of them, and I was stupid. I didn’t take the precautions I should have.”
“Yeah, I’ll say. Why didn’t you tell me what you were fixing to do? Sheriff says you went over to that pond by yourself. Jiminy, Stella, I would never have let you go off on your own like that.”
“Sorry,” Stella managed. “Won’t happen again.”
“You bet your sweet petunia it won’t,” Chrissy said, and to Stella’s great surprise, she leaned over and pressed the button on the bed, so the frame started to rise electronically, pitching her forward and shifting her painfully upright.
“Hey—what are you doing, girl?”
“Getting you out of here. What do you think? We got to find that Darla. Come on, we only got a couple of hours.”
Stella had, as a matter of fact, been thinking along the same lines, but she hadn’t quite expected to be heaved out of the bed. “Okay, but I can’t just get up and walk out of here with this robe thing flapping around my bare butt.”
“No, Stella, I know that. Don’t be an idiot. I got you some clothes in here. I figured they might have kept your old ones, like for evidence or something. Plus I know sometimes they cut ’em off of victims.”
She dug in the gym bag and pulled out a pair of cornflower blue stretch pants and a matching short-sleeved top that had a deep V neck with embroidery around the edges. As eager as she was to be on their way, Stella regarded the clothes with dread.
“Oh shit, where did you get those things?”
“In your bottom drawer. Why?”
“My sister sent them,” Stella hedged—which Gracellen had, for her birthday, after Stella lied and told her she was a size ten. “They just shrunk in the dryer, is all.”
“Well, we don’t have time to go back,” Chrissy said, “so you might as well get dressed.”
She handed the stack of clothes, a fresh change of underwear on top, to Stella, and pulled a pair of sandals out of the bag.
Stella started tugging off her gown and eyed Chrissy carefully. “Where were you thinking we’d be going, once you bust me out of here?”
“Well, I guess we don’t have no choice but to start with what we know, now do we?”
“I can’t help noticing that I’m hearing a lot of ‘we’ here, darlin’,” Stella said. Telling the girl the truth was one thing; letting her join in the search, with all its risks and dangers, was another entirely. “Did I miss something—did you go getting your P.I. license while I was out cold?”
At that, Chrissy straightened and fixed her with a glare that practically threw sparks. “I don’t really appreciate you being all sarcastic, Stella Hardesty,” she said coldly. “Bad enough you didn’t tell me what was really going on, Tucker being my baby and all. Like I couldn’t handle it or something? Shame on you, I’m his mother. Well, cat’s out of the bag now, I guess, so you ain’t going to be able to get rid of me no more. We’re in this together. ’Sides, last time I looked, you didn’t have no license either, and plus, you done way more law-breakin’ than I plan on.”
Stella paused with the shapeless garment pulled down around her waist and looked Chrissy over carefully. The rebuke was the most impassioned speech she’d ever heard out of the girl, and it occurred to Stella that she might have been treating her more like a child than an adult. She chose her words very carefully.
“Chrissy, you’re right. I have kept things from you, and as my client, you have a right to expect better. I promise I’ll be straight with you from now on.”
“And I’m coming with you,” Chrissy said in the same no-nonsense tone. “We’ll make a plan and then I’m coming along. I want my baby back, and once I get him, I’ll help you whup these—these—devils.”
“I don’t know if—”
“I ain’t asking, Stella,” Chrissy said with an edge to her voice that made Stella take notice.
Silently, she hooked her bra on and slipped into the T-shirt, tugging it over her belly, trying to stretch the fabric a little larger.
Chrissy wasn’t asking. She wasn’t going to be denied.
Every fiber of Stella’s being resisted the idea of taking the girl along. Stella worked alone. And even more important, she didn’t risk women’s lives. Not anymore, not since Lorelle.
“I’m happy to have you come along to this Darla’s place,” she said softly. “And I don’t suppose hunting down Pitt’s really going to involve any special dangers. But this other bunch—they’re ruthless. There are at least four armed men that we know about. Maybe more. There are two of us.”
“Yeah, but we got the advantage.”
“Yeah? How do you figure?”
“First of all, they ain’t expecting us,” Chrissy said calmly. “And second—we’re moms. We’re wired special to be fearless. They have no idea what kind of hell we can raise when we get provoked. Ain’t that right, Stella?”
Stella opened her mouth to speak but realized she had little to add. “Well,” she said, “I guess that’s that. I can promise you, though, this ain’t going to be any walk in the park. It’s gonna be plenty dangerous and someone might end up getting hurt even worse than this.”
“Stella,” Chrissy scolded. “You’re talking to a woman who married Roy Dean Shaw. I got myself hurt every single day. I think I can handle what a bunch of amateurs want to dish out, don’t you?”
At that, Stella couldn’t help but smile. “Sorry, you’re right,” she said. “Now get on out of my way so I can put my pants on.”
With Chrissy playing lookout they were able to slip out of the hospital room and down to the elevator without anyone noticing. Stella left a note for the nurse, written on the back of the dinner menu she hadn’t bothered to fill out: “Sorry, I had to go. I’ll be back to settle up a.s.a.p. P.S. Don’t worry, I’m feeling fine. Best regards, S. Hardesty.”
On the ground floor Stella started to gain confidence. They went out the front door without attracting any attention. In the parking lot she was surprised to see her Jeep.
“Sheriff had one of his guys bring it on home from the golf course,” Chrissy said. “They took the car keys out of your pocket. And I figured, with what all we got ahead of us, it might make more sense to bring your car than mine. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No—good thinking,” Stella said. She wondered if Goat had noticed her little lockbox. There was a reason she used a combination lock on it—a key did no good. “You go ahead and drive. I’m still a little fuzzy from them happy pills they gave me.”
Chrissy slid into the driver’s seat and turned to Stella. “Well, I guess this is my first lesson,” she said. “How do you find someone when you don’t know much about ’em? You know someone down at the courthouse or something, can look up all the Darlas in the county?”
Stella snorted. She wished—that would be a handy contact to have. “No, but I got something about as good. Head us over to the Popeyes.”
“Why—you got a hankerin’ for biscuits or something?”
“No, you’ll see.”
From the way Chrissy lurched out of the parking lot, Stella figured she was still getting used to the handling. A thought flashed through her mind—Ollie would have had a fit to see Chrissy snugging the tires over the curb—and she laughed. It hurt, but it felt good, too.
“What’s so funny?” Chrissy asked, cutting her a glance.
“Nothing. I just didn’t expect to be chauffeured around today.”
“Well, get used to it. We got to save your strength.”
Stella closed her eyes and settled back and wondered what exactly Chrissy expected her to do. “They got my gun,” she said after a moment.
“Oh, I got that took care of,” Chrissy said. She reached behind and patted a cardboard box sitting on the backseat. “Picked up a few things from my folks’ house. Go ahead, take a look.”
Stella reached for the box, the type used to hold a ream of paper, and pulled it onto her lap. It was surprisingly heavy. She lifted the lid and found herself staring at an eclectic arsenal of weapons.
Lying on a pile of old rags was a grimy, blocky old steel handgun. There was also a wicked-looking big hunting knife with a hook, two smaller knives, a couple of holsters, and three boxes of cartridges, one open and half empty.
“Holy shit, Chrissy,” Stella said. “Your folks some kind of survivalists or something? Fixing to hunker down for the big standoff with the FBI?”
Chrissy’s face hardened and she didn’t look at Stella. “I don’t appreciate that,” she said after a moment. “My family ain’t much, but they ain’t criminals. Well, I mean they get into stuff here and there, but they ain’t that kind of criminal—the crazy kind.”
“Sorry, hon,” Stella said hastily. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just, you got to admit, this is a hell of a lot of firepower, and I wasn’t exactly expecting it.”
Chrissy shrugged. “Well, the gun, that’s an old Soviet Makarov, my uncle Fred brought it back from Vietnam. Daddy used to let us kids shoot it sometimes when he took us out for rifle practice.”
“They didn’t let anyone bring these back,” Stella said, picking up the handgun. It was heavier than it looked, with a star carved in the pistol grip and a simple safety catch at the rear of the slide. There were two magazines in the box, both empty.
Chrissy snorted. “You didn’t know my uncle Fred. I don’t think he cared much what he was allowed to do or not do. He s’posedly smuggled that gun back wrapped up in a hollowed-out Bible. I think Daddy just keeps it around for sentimental reasons. It ain’t been fired in ages.”
“Yeah—it looks it, too.”
“Nothing a little solvent won’t take off. That other stuff is just mostly for fun, you know, things my brothers pick up here and there and then they get tired of ’em and leave ’em lyin’ around and they end up in Mom and Dad’s attic.”
“Your brothers have an interesting idea of fun,” Stella said, putting the gun back and hefting the biggest knife in her hand.
“I wouldn’t be talkin’ smart, Stella,” Chrissy said. “People say the same thing about you. Besides, you should see all the junk I didn’t bring.”
She lowered the knife carefully back into the box and considered Chrissy for a minute, the girl’s ramrod straight posture, the firm set of her chin.
This was a different girl from the one who’d spent most of the last two days lying on Stella’s couch. This new Chrissy had a hell of a lot more backbone and she sure seemed a lot less inclined to take any guff.
“I think I might need to apologize,” Stella said carefully.
“Thought you already did that. When we agreed how I’m going to be your partner on the rest of this thing.”
“Yeah, but—I think I need to maybe say I’m sorry for underestimating you. Chrissy, I do believe you got some iron in you.”
Chrissy said nothing for a moment, keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead, and then she nodded. “All right. I accept your apology. You know what, I didn’t know I had it in me either. I kind of wonder now, what if I’d got this kind of determined back when Roy Dean was around? I mean, right now I’m so mad I feel like I could just beat the shit out of him myself.”
“I imagine you could,” Stella agreed softly.
Vengeance was a funny thing. You got a little taste of it, and it brought out things in you that you never knew were there. What was it they said? Vengeance is a bitter drink. Stella didn’t much mind. She drank hers straight up, and now it looked as if she’d found herself a drinking buddy.
“Hold on to all that determination,” she said. “We’re gonna need it.”
Chrissy coasted across two lanes without checking the rearview mirror when the Popeyes came into view, ignoring the outraged laying on of horns. Stella flinched, then forced herself to relax; risk was inherent in her business, after all, and she wasn’t really in a position to micromanage at the moment.
Chrissy managed to align the Jeep more or less straight in a parking spot. When they walked in the doors of the restaurant, she took one look around and smacked herself in the forehead. “Well, dang, why didn’t I think a them? Stella, you’re a genius.”
“Oh, now,” Stella said modestly. “I’ve been doing this a while. You’re just starting out—you’ll get there.”
“Yeah, but the Green Hat Ladies . . .”
Just then Novella Glazer spotted them and hollered out a greeting; her tablemates turned and followed suit. As Chrissy and Stella made their way over, purses of the large and floppy style favored by older ladies were moved out of the way, and the remains of the meal—plastic plates of chicken bones and a smattering of biscuit crumbs—were stacked and shoved into the trash.
“Oh Lord above, Stella, what happened to you?” Lola Brennan said, placing a hand over her heart and squinting up at Stella’s stitched and bruised face.
“Oh, nothing much—just took a tumble in the shop. I’ll be fine.”
“You ought to be home in bed,” Shirlette Castro scolded. “You must have good reason to be out and about. I don’t guess this is a social call?”
Stella had consulted with the Green Hat Ladies before when she needed information. One of them ha
d even been a client, but that was hush-hush; her husband had needed only a light touch to be reminded that a foul mouth and ungracious commentary were not welcome in the house, and she didn’t care for anyone to know about their past troubles.
It was a funny thing about that generation, Stella reflected; they kept their own problems to themselves, but they loved to discuss everyone else’s—so much so that this bunch of septua-and octogenarians gathered for an early lunch and gossip at Popeyes nearly every day.
“I believe you all know Chrissy Shaw,” Stella said as they sat down. Greetings were exchanged.
“You ladies sure look nice today,” Chrissy said. “I do like those hats.”
The hats were bright green caps embroidered with the John Deere logo. Gracie Lewis’s husband ran a feed and supply store, and the Deere folks sent a regular supply of swag his way. When his wife and her friends caught wind of the Red Hat Ladies trend, being a thrifty type, he proposed a way to save some money and stand out in the crowded field of mature ladies’ clubs.
“I am surely glad you got shut of that Roy Dean,” Gracie said. “If you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”
“Oh, not at all,” Chrissy said. She twisted her gloss-sticky lips into a thoughtful frown and added, “I guess I might ought to have done it awhile ago. I’m not sure where my good sense went.”
The ladies made sympathetic clucking sounds. “Oh, now, we all have us a confused spell now and again,” Gracie said. “ ’Specially when it comes to the gentlemen.”
“You wouldn’t be the first to pick a rotten apple off the tree,” Novella added.
Stella laid out an assortment of facts about Roy Dean’s wandering ways as the ladies took turns patting and cooing over Chrissy. It was probably a misunderstanding, she said, but did any of the ladies know any Darlas in the surrounding area? Especially skinny youngish ones with blond ponytails?
“Oh my yes,” Lola piped up. She was a tiny thing, and her hat practically swallowed the top half of her head, nearly obscuring her eyes. “There was that one, over in Harrisonville, by the strawberry stand—”
“Ungainly thing, wasn’t she?” piped up Shirlette. “Large bust, unfortunate overbite?”
