by J. D. Allen
The gravel parking lot had only three vehicles. An old Chevy and two compacts. It was ten a.m. Probably just the owner and the cooks prepping for the day. The front door was unlocked. Webb pushed the door in and eased through without waiting for him to open it for her. Jim followed. Scanning.
He was right. Not one customer in the wood-paneled place but behind the counter was a graying man in a T-shirt with an outline of Texas on it. Inside the state lines was a cowboy pointing a gun straight ahead. The caption read: We don’t call 911.
Nice.
“You must be Max,” Webb said as they approached.
His face was tan, like a guy who spent too much time outside. Maybe enjoying fishing now that bartending was his gig and days were free. He had more gray hair then brown. Max put his knife down and wiped his hands, carefully returning them, palms down, to the bar, where they could be seen. This wasn’t his first rodeo.
“Not if you’re the law.” His face was easy. Calm. Not a twitch. This man was guilty of little.
Jim wished he was the one talking to this guy. Figured PIs might do better with guys who don’t like cops than a Fed in a suit with a shiny badge. He was less coppish than her by a mile.
But she had to flash the badge. Protocol.
Max straightened. Pulled away from them. “What’s the FBI want with me?”
She eased onto a barstool. Unbuttoned her jacket. Nonthreatening. “We were wondering if you ever worked for Heffelmire.”
“I did.” Crossed his arms eased back a step. More standoffish. He was ready to clam up completely.
“You ever work with an Elizabeth Stanton?”
He leaned back against the beer cooler. If he could have oozed his body thought the wall of liquor bottles behind him, he would have. His body language couldn’t be any more closed. “Eliza. Yeah.”
“You two have issues?”
His expression went flat, his body stiff. Even his eyes didn’t blink. Jim felt the anger from six feet away. “What’s this about?”
“We’re looking for her.”
He huffed, unfolded his arms. His shoulders dropped. A big relief. But why?
“You ain’t gonna find her here!” He snickered and started cutting limes again.
“Don’t suppose you know where … ”
“Nope. And don’t want to. If you find her, keep her the hell away from me.” Lime juice shot in Webb’s general direction. “Sorry. Can’t help you.”
Jim sat too. Why had the man relaxed so suddenly? “What happened with you two, anyway?”
Max looked down at his work. Hesitated. “Nothing I feel like reliving.” His glance was down and his eyes avoided both of them. “Why are you looking for her?”
“We need to ask her some questions. Having a little trouble finding her,” said Webb.
Max studied Webb and glanced back at Jim. Maybe he did know something. His face lit up as he stopped the cutting again. He leaned forward on the bar. “Feds only show up when something real bad happens.” His accent thickened as he leaned forward, his arms on the counter like he was ready to come over the bar in a big leap. “Crazy bitch done killed someone, didn’t she? ”
Webb glanced to Jim. Nodded. She was going to let Jim go with this one. Fine. “Actually, a bunch of someones,” said Jim.
Max’s meaty fist smacked the bar hard enough to make the cutting board jump. “Told everyone she was a certified psycho.” He rested the knife on the counter. “How?”
“Stabbings.”
Eyes closed as if to ward away some reality Jim and Ava didn’t understand. “She use drugs first? You know, to knock ’em out?”
“We think she sold drugs for a while in Dallas under another name, before she came to—”
“No.” Max’s head shook and his gaze found Webb. “Did she use drugs in the killings? Like date-rape drugs?”
Ava tapped the counter, thinking. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Jim’s heart, meanwhile, thudded in his chest. Each beat heavy, sluggish. He knew what Max was asking. “What do you mean?”
Maybe Jim wanted to know the answer to that question. Maybe he didn’t. Memories of his experience with Sophie assaulted his own head space. Her voice, drug-garbled and vacant, echoed in his ear, ran like a bad music clip. The vague feeling of violation crystallized with every word Max uttered.
Max looked around as if someone might have invaded the space as they had been talking. If he was going to tell a secret, he didn’t want the world to hear. “Eliza invited me for drinks after work one night.” Aimlessly, Max stroked the tattered bar top with his towel. “I thought it would be a crowd. Usually was. Turned out to be just her and me. No big deal at the time. We were co-workers. No reason to not have a drink with a co-worker, you know?”
He looked at Jim to confirm his feelings. Jim gave him a short head tilt to agree. Max concentrated on the wood surface to avoid looking at Ava.
“Well, it got out of hand fast. I was drunk, real drunk, after just two beers.”
Jim knew where this was going. Wondered if the sweat he felt beading on his forehead was noticeable.
“She offered to run me home. I remember that part. Then I remember a little bit of a hotel room. And her naked. And … ”
“We get the gist, Max.” Jim said it to keep him talking. His own demons were twisting in his gut with each word. It would have been so easy to vomit right there at the bar. Jim swallowed down his own anxiety like dry bread. Didn’t really want to know the rest. But they needed to hear this guy out. “Go on. You can leave out the details.”
“I told this story enough. Hell, the whole town knows about it. I been bartending on the side for years. Everyone knows me. Small place like this, the bigger the secret, the faster it spreads.”
Damn. Jim knew that. “Go on.”
“Woke up in the hotel. I was … well. I knew I had … been … ” He rubbed his fat finger under his nose and exhaled. “Raped.” He stared at the bar for a moment.
Jim didn’t like the word. It was like acid pouring into ears. He accepted that he’d been taken advantage of, even duped over the investigation. But rape?
Ava gave him time before pressing for more. “You confront her? After the incident? Report it to the authorities?”
Max finally looked at her. “I most certainly did. The next day at work.” He shook his head. “I went right to her office and told her what I thought of her little escapade.” He waved his hand. “But that didn’t work out like I expected it to, either.”
“No?”
“She took offense to the accusations. Got all mad. Started yelling. Standing as far from me as she could. Saying I was harassing her. Turns out, the night before she’d filed a sexual harassment complaint against me! Took me hours to get over the drugs. She made her complaint before I could do anything, say anything.” He rubbed the towel across his brow. He was sweating more that Jim, but not by much. “You can imagine my reaction to that. I felt like shit. I’d been taken advantage of. Was worried what the wife was going to think.”
He leaned against the coolers again. All the color was gone from Max’s face. “We got into one hell of a shouting match. The whole office tuned in. Then she came over the desk after me. Looked like a cheetah on attack. Screaming like I was the rapist. The cops came. Then they didn’t know who to believe.”
Jim’s vision went a little blurry with anger. Not only was this guy the victim, he was being accused of the crime. Jim’s unease with his own feelings multiplied. He was going to get this woman and put her away if it killed him. But he had to know if he and Max shared more than Max would ever know. “Did they arrest you?”
“Of course. Who believes the man would be innocent? That I was the victim?”
Jim knew that feeling all too well. He and Max were uncomfortably close to kindred spirits. Both falsely accused of rape. And both …
/>
And both rape victims of Sophie Ryan Evers.
“Flip side of this being such a small town out here is my brother-in-law heard quick. He’s an attorney.”
Max looked Ava in the eye now. Stood his full height. “I’m telling you. I know a Mickey when I see one. The bitch drugged me. Put shit in my drink. Brother-in-law sent me to the hospital, did the rape kit. Tested my blood. It was ketamine.”
“Did they arrest her?” Nothing had come up in the searches, but this was a small town.
“When my brother-in-law took the evidence to the police, they went to question the crazy bitch, but she was long gone. Never heard another peep out of her. Flat out disappeared.”
Ava stepped away to make a call. Jim heard bits of the conversation. Latest vic. Signs of Special K. He knew that was the street name for the drug.
Jim noticed Max didn’t wear a wedding ring. He’d said he was married. Now that it was just the two of them, he asked, “The wife?”
“Didn’t like the stigma either way. I was a villain or a victim. She couldn’t hack the aftermath. It’s been years now.” Max started back to the task of cutting the evening’s limes. “Most people have forgotten or at least don’t seem to care anymore.”
“And you, you still care?” The importance of the answer was weighty.
“Life’s short. And if she’s killing folks now, I guess I got something to be appreciative about.”
Jim agreed with old Max on the whole not having your throat cut thing. He hoped this feeling of helplessness passed soon. Last thing he needed was one more thing to drink over.
“But it’d sure be real nice to know if you get her. Feel kind of like vindication.”
Amen. “I’ll let you know if we do. Any idea where she might have gone? She ever talk about any family or friends living around here or out of state?”
Max pulled in a deep breath. “Sure wish I could tell you anything useful. I didn’t even work in the same department she did. She was sales and project management. I was operations. Only knew her from the few times a big group of us went out.”
Jim handed Max a card. “If you think of anything.”
He knew he should probably tell Ava about his own experience with Sophie. The thought only lingered a moment. Wasn’t going to happen. Unlike the good folks from small towns, Jim could keep a secret. It in no way jeopardized the case or his client, so Ava didn’t need to know. If Sophie was drugging vics, they’d figure that out. They didn’t need his word for it. Max had fixed it for him, actually.
He would file his experience, that freakish night, away with a few others he’d buried in the never think of again file.
It’d be easier to accomplish once the bitch was behind bars.
36
Mary Callas’s trailer was, at one time, pink. Flamingo pink, Jim would guess. Now it was faded I-don’t-give-a-shit salmon-ish. A tiny porch was missing half the handrail and the driveway was more weeds than gravel. The surrounding lot had not been mowed all season. Haphazardly placed along the mobile home skirting were crumbling plastic pots with the skeletal remains of long-dead flowers.
A lone red Ram Raider from the eighties sat covered in dust by the steps.
Agent Webb, looking particularly starched and official in this crumbled surrounding, put her hand on the hood. Jim wouldn’t have bothered; thing looked like it hadn’t moved in weeks given the weed growth around the tires.
“Haven’t seen one of these in a while.” She looked back. “Dated a guy who had a black one years ago.”
Three steps and she was on the porch. Jim stayed on the ground. No room up there for the both of them. Not without being really close to her.
No bell.
Webb pounded. Jim figured she would shout an announcement, a proclamation the FBI was on the premises. Open up. But she waited. Silent.
“No appointment here, huh?”
She raised an eyebrow. “No. Someone told me it was best to catch them off guard.”
His own words. But she’d obviously made this decision long before he’d made that statement at Heffelmire.
She knocked again.
Jim indicated he was going around back with a head tilt. From the side, he saw a second trailer several hundred feet behind the faded flamingo. No driveway led back that far. The thing was old. Rust stains dripped down the corners and window edges. Overgrown shrubs and trees had taken over to the point he was sure no one had lived in the place for the last decade. Windows were busted out. What was left of the porch was detached and leaning off into the bushes.
But after finding the ex-showgirl in the abandoned housing unit in Dallas, who knew? His thoughts were drawn back when a woman started singing. At least, he thought she might be singing. It also might have been a cat gargling razors. He eased to the back corner of the trailer.
Sure enough, it was a woman in her sixties, squeezed into a plastic lawn chair two sizes too small. Her double chin wriggled as she mouthed the words to a tune he didn’t know. She tossed something to the ground and a flutter of crows swarmed to her feet. Bread crumbs? She didn’t look to have the income to be buying bird seed.
Webb joined him. “I’ll go first. Stay behind me.” She loosened the strap on her holster. Ready to draw. Started walking confidently toward the mother. “Ms. Callas?” She walked on.
“You worried an old woman might be killing black birds with a machine gun or something?” Jim asked.
“Given what her daughter’s done … ” Which was laymen’s speak for protocol. “Mary Callas?”
The woman lost her balance as she reeled back in the chair. Arms flailing to catch herself on a concrete step. Quick as a whip, she recovered and reached for something next to her. Jim was three steps behind Agent Webb. The mother swung a shotgun in his general direction.
Webb drew lightning quick.
Chalk one up for the Fed’s protocol.
Jim held up his hands. “Whoa, Nelly.”
“Who in the tarnation are you assholes?”
“I’m Special Agent Ava Webb, FBI.” She said it calm. Collected. “Put the weapon down and I’ll show you my ID.”
“Ha!” she barked out. “Put your weapon down an’ I might let you live long enough to get your first hemorrhoid.”
Jim chuckled. “I think she’s calling you a baby, Agent Webb.”
“Shut up, Bean.”
He poked his head around his female protector. Didn’t like the idea of using the woman as a shield. And Momma didn’t look too intent on shooting anything but the shit.
“Jim Bean. I ain’t got no government ID. Private investigator from Vegas. You’re not in any trouble, Ms. Callas. We just wanted to see if you could help us with something.” He shrugged. “At least, you ain’t in any trouble as long as you put that gun down.”
She pointed the gun off toward the woods where there was no immediate danger of killing anything human. She looked at the old gun. “Just for robbers, snakes, and such.” She pointed it at the ground, seemingly unconcerned that Special Agent Webb still had her sights dead set on the woman’s center mass. And boy, was it a center mass.
Webb pulled out her billfold and flipped the badge out as she let the gun point straight up. But she didn’t put it away. “Wondering if you can tell us anything about your daughter.”
“Ain’t got no daughter.”
“Sophie Ryan Evers?”
“I said, I ain’t got no young’uns.”
“No kids?” Webb asked.
Momma Callas didn’t answer. Sufficiently convinced she wasn’t getting robbed, she put the gun on the ground next to her chair.
Webb kept hers out. “I have records that say you have three children.”
“I popped out three spawn. Give them up, so’s they not mine. Hear one’s dead, the other two is off somewhere that’s not here. They are not my daughters. Ado
ptions is supposed to be private. Seems everyone and their dog been out here about those girls.”
“The youngest.” Webb stepped closer. Jim followed.
“She’s a piece of work, that one.” The mother turned her head and spat between two crows that had resettled on the food scraps.
“You have seen her?”
“Suppose I has. Stupid girl came around here few years back.” She shielded the sun from her eyes to look up at Jim. Sweat trailed down her face and neck. “Crying about being broke and mistreated by the folks that raised her. Looking for a handout, I reckon.” She tossed some more of the scraps on the ground. Crows swarmed. “I look like the handout kind to you, Mr. PI?”
“You’re feeding birds.”
“I’m littering. The fucking birds is scavengers” She pried herself out of the chair with a great deal of effort. The distortion and near destruction of the plastic made Jim feel the need to go and assist, to prevent a fall, but she seemed the type to be offended by chivalry.
“Sophie?” Webb turned the conversation back to the papers. “So she wasn’t working then?”
“Pfft. No good little whore. Couldn’t hold no kind of job. Pathetic. Weak. Stupid. That’s what I told her too.” She shook her finger at Webb. “If she was gonna whore with her stepdaddy, or whatever the man was, she might as well go do it on the street. Make some cash. I wasn’t gonna let her come here and use up my check.” She shook her head, chin swinging. “Kids gotta make their own way. No one ever gave me a thing in life. Told her that much too. Stupid bitch just cried.”
Webb flinched at the harshness. “She’s your daughter.”
“She’s a fucking useless waste of air. Girl got no backbone and no sense. Just like the others. All she wanted was a handout. Little snot wouldn’t never bring a thing into my place but trouble. And you being here is proof enough of that, now ain’t it?”
Webb took in a deep breath. Her face got that determined look again. “You have any idea where she went from here?”
“Do you think I asked the girl her travel arrangements? That was years back, anyhows.” Momma Callas was trying to get up the stairs and into the house. The crows were landing close to her feet, looking for their crumbs.
