by Gwen Florio
“Lola and the sheriff,” Thor began.
“No,” Lola said, even as Charlotte smothered her in an apologetic hug, “it’s really not like that.” Not anymore it wasn’t, she thought grimly. Not until the two of them had a very long talk, both about Charlie’s background and also as to why he insisted upon checking up on her work in Burnt Creek.
CHARLOTTE’S APOLOGIES only became more fulsome when she found out her husband had let Lola spend the previous night in her truck. Within moments, Lola found herself in a cozy attic room, a stack of sheets and towels in her arms, and the insistence that the room was hers for the next two nights, or however long she stayed in Burnt Creek. Bub wasn’t welcome inside the house—Lola had noted the gleaming, dust-free surfaces and presumed as much—but Charlotte assured her he’d be fine in the mudroom, even after Lola warned her of the havoc a frustrated border collie was capable of wreaking upon an entire house, let alone a single small room. “I’ll check on him before I go to bed,” Charlotte told Lola. “Maybe give him a treat to settle him down. And Thor’s up at an ungodly hour in the morning. I’ll make sure he feeds him and lets him out first thing. The best thing for you right now is a solid night’s rest. You don’t need the dog bothering you.”
“He’s not a bother,” Lola said, but Charlotte went right on as though Lola hadn’t spoken.
“I hope it’s not too quiet up here for you. We added some extra insulation and put in those triple-glazed skylights, too. See where the old leaky window was?” A tall oblong in the wall beside the twin bed had been turned into a recessed bookshelf that held a collection of Raggedy Ann dolls. “Here.” She gave Lola another pill. “You’ll sleep like a baby.”
Lola thought of her restless night in the truck, the whine of passing tires on pavement, the metronome sweep of headlights across the windows. The two skylights, small and square, served as the attic’s only windows. Lola, who could stand upright only in the middle of the room, pressed her hand to one. Her outstretched fingers barely fit within it. The idea of a good quiet night’s sleep appealed. She swallowed the pill dry and bent over the bed to put the sheets on, pain flaring anew as she stretched to reach the corners. Charlotte backed out of a narrow closet with a quilt draped over her arm. “You should be warm enough, but just in case. The bathroom’s across the hall. Lola—” She hesitated in the doorway. Light from the hallway haloed her head. “Do you have to go meet those men tomorrow?”
Lola had asked herself the same question, considering the worst-case scenario that the meeting was likely to yield nothing more than a few additional salacious details about Judith, nothing she’d ever pass along to Joshua. The extra day would only make Jorkki madder. And it would delay whatever reckoning she faced with Charlie. Still. Ralph and Swanny were her only connection to Judith, and maybe to the other girls, too. The latter was the most fragile of possibilities, but Lola long ago had learned the hard way never to pass such opportunities by. “I set it up. It would be rude for me not to show. Besides, I’ve got no way of contacting them to cancel.”
“I see.” Charlotte’s tone said she didn’t see at all. “At least let me know exactly where you’re going and when, and how long you expect to be. If you’re not back by then, I’ll send Thor in. Or better yet, that Dawg. He’d put the fear of the Lord in anyone.”
Lola laughed with her. Even Swanny might quail at the sight of Dawg, she thought. Charlotte turned out the hallway light. “Good night.”
Lola sat a moment in the narrow bed. She’d gotten used to sleeping with Charlie. Even on nights when a call kept him away from home, there was always Bub. She thought about him alone in the mudroom, no doubt reducing a row of boots to scraps of well-chewed leather. And she thought about the child Charlotte had mentioned. Check on Bub, she told herself. Then fire up the laptop and review those birth records. But even as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, the pill Charlotte had given her began its fast work. “In the morning,” she promised herself as she fell back. She scanned the row of grinning Raggedy Anns and chose one that looked old and well loved. She turned off the light and fell asleep with the doll clutched to her chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
About the only sound Lola hated more in the morning than the alarm was that of her cellphone.
Yet there it was, shrilling in her ear, a good fifteen minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off. “What do you want to bet Jan’s got a wild hair again?” she said, talking to Bub out of habit before realizing he wasn’t there. And indeed, Jan didn’t even bother to say hello. “Jorkki wants to know how your story’s coming. The one on the folks from the rez working in the patch. Isn’t that what you’re working on?” Which meant, Lola assumed, that Jan knew good and well the men from the reservation had lost their jobs.
Until Judith’s death, Lola and Jan had approached friendship. No real confidences, and certainly no talk of shared vulnerabilities as women and journalists, but the occasional beer after work, hikes or horseback rides when Charlie was out of town for training. Jan made a few abortive attempts to teach Lola to fly-fish. Lola liked it well enough, the dreamlike combination of still, pellucid air warming her face and shoulders as the cool water coiled around her thighs. Swallows skated off the limestone cliffs that leapt from the far side of the creek. At the cliffs’ rocky base lay deep pools with the dimpled surfaces that spelled trout. Or so Jan said. Even when Lola, lashing the air with her line, managed to place a whimsically named fly in the general direction of where she’d aimed it, the fish disdained her offerings. “They jump right out of the water at yours,” Lola pouted as Jan, with a mere flick of her wrist, put down her fly wherever she pleased and pulled in fish after fish. Lola admired their startling colors, the bands of emerald and ruby, the way they hung suspended in the water for a moment when Jan released them before flicking their tails and disappearing.
When the weather turned, Jan had tried to talk Lola into some snowshoeing or cross-country skiing. “Maybe next winter,” Lola had protested, thinking privately, if there is a next winter. “So does that mean ice-fishing is out?” Jan pressed. Even Jorkki had hacked up a laugh at Lola’s expression.
But apparently, even in Magpie, ambition trumped friendship, Lola thought now. “If Jorkki wants to know what I’m working on, why doesn’t he call me himself?”
Jan’s reply was fat with satisfaction. “He will. I get the feeling there’s a number of things he wants to talk to you about.” If they were guys, Lola thought, and actually facing each other instead of talking on the phone, they’d be circling, fists raised. Sometimes she envied men, the simplicity of a punch over endless slashing words.
“I need to know when you’ll be back,” Jan said. She waited a beat, then drove in the knife. “So I can head out there.” Twisted it. “To write about Judith. And Maylinn and Carole and Nancy and Annie, too.”
Lola suppressed a smile out of habit, then remembered that Jan couldn’t see her. She grinned back at the Raggedy Anns. Her advice to Jan had worked. Once Jan had determined the girls’ names, she was off and running. Lola was willing to bet she’d talked to their families, too. Maybe the Express had waited too long to do the story. But sometimes the wait turned into an advantage. By this time, pure raw fear over the girls’ fate would have trumped shame over their disappearance. And publicity—at least this was what Lola always told families in such circumstances—could always help. She tried to sound dismissive when she replied. Jan always worked better when she felt competitive. “Why does Judith suddenly rate a story? Did the autopsy show something?”
“She froze to death, just like Charlie thought.” Lola imagined Jan twirling the end of her braid around a forefinger, the way she did when she was particularly pleased with herself. Lola thought about hanging up.
“Then why a story?”
“I had a long talk with Joshua the other day. You know, he and Judith and I practically grew up together. They went to the reservation school and I went to the white school, and I was a few years ahead of
them besides, but I was the leader for the 4-H group they were in. I taught Judith how to rope calves. She and I are still the only two girls to compete in calf roping. Before that, they stuck girls with goat tying. All I’m saying is it helps to have a history here.”
Lola had never considered the possibility that growing up in a place like Magpie might provide any sort of advantage at all. “What did Joshua say? Maybe it’s something I can start checking. Seeing as I’m here already.”
“Nice try. Read my story when it comes out. Which is never going to happen if you don’t get your ass back here. Which will be when, exactly?”
“Nice try yourself. I know a bluff when I see one. You don’t have a story at all, do you?” She started to say something else, then realized she was talking into a dead phone. The Raggedy Anns goggled at her with black button eyes. She sighed, then took a deep breath and sniffed. She took another breath. Yes, she definitely smelled coffee. She eased from the bed, and grabbed at the door. It swung open to reveal Charlotte, swathed in yards of fluffy pink, holding a steaming mug. Until that moment, Lola hadn’t realized that people actually wore bunny slippers.
“Black, right? Breakfast is ready whenever you are.” Charlotte floated away, a cloud of pink.
Lola eased into jeans and a couple of sweaters. The bruises shrieked. As Charlotte had promised, they’d turned green and yellow and a shade of purple that was nearly black. One just above her knee, below the extra padding of her coat, featured a row of clearly outlined triangles. She inched down the stairs. Thor sat at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, a plate of eggs and sausage untouched in front of him. Charlotte busied herself at the stove. “Lola, how do you take your eggs? Thor, you’ve got to eat.”
“Over easy,” Lola said. “Is the dog all right?” She headed for the mudroom without waiting for an answer. Bub greeted her with an enthusiasm that threatened new injuries, but to Lola’s relief, the mudroom appeared to have survived intact.
“He’s already been outside,” Charlotte called.
Lola ruffled Bub’s fur a final time, and returned to the kitchen, ignoring the scratching at the closed door behind her. Thor raised his head. The skin beneath his eyes bagged loose. Grey bristles poked from his chin. He picked up his fork and stabbed at an egg until the yolk ran. He watched the orange tendrils as they crept across the plate. Charlotte reached over his shoulder and ran a piece of toast through the yolk and handed it to him. “Eat. Now.”
He bit and chewed, the movements automatic. His gaze found focus, registering the food in front of him, sweeping the kitchen, finally alighting upon Lola. “Bad night?” she asked.
He swallowed. “The worst.”
Charlotte put a plate in front of Lola, whose idea of breakfast was a bowl of cornflakes consumed while standing at the kitchen counter. On special occasions, she added a banana and sat at the table. Now she confronted three—three!—eggs, a half-dozen small sausage links and a stack of toast saturated with butter. Lola was pretty sure Charlotte wouldn’t be caught dead using margarine. “I almost forgot.” Charlotte set a jar of strawberry jam next to Lola’s plate. “It’s homemade.”
“Of course it is.” Lola wondered how she’d be able to move after finishing. Maybe she’d be able to squirrel away a sausage or two for Bub. She heard him pacing in the mudroom. She braced herself, then went for one of the eggs. At least they’d slide down easy. “What happened?” she asked Thor.
“Dead girl.”
The egg did not in fact slide down. It lodged somewhere in the back of her throat. Lola gulped at her coffee. “Excuse me?”
“Not all nice and frozen like that girl you asked me about. No, the element we’ve got in Burnt Creek these days had to get creative. Terrible thing to see. Especially at two in the morning, which is when the call came in.”
Lola gnawed at some toast. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
“I told you that room was quiet,” Charlotte said. “Besides, over the years, he’s learned to creep out of bed like a thief. So as not to disturb me.” She joined them at the table and took one of Thor’s hands between her own. He snatched it away.
Lola ate a sausage in three bites. “What happened?”
“Somebody apparently took a dislike to one of our dancers. I say ‘our’ in this case because she was a local girl. It’s hard when someone you know gets treated like that. Anyone, actually. But worse when you remember her twirling her little baton in the Fourth of July parade.”
Lola paused with a piece of toast halfway to her mouth.
“Somebody—maybe more than one somebody—beat her to a pulp and threw her into the middle of the street. Stark naked. Blood everywhere. And her neck. Broke so bad it was twisted almost backward on her body. It’s like they wanted her to be found, leaving her in front of the Sweet Crude like that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The eggs and sausage and toast declared war upon one another in Lola’s stomach. “Where was she?” Even though she’d heard perfectly well the first time.
She knew, of course. Even before Thor told her, she could see DeeDee as a freckled ten-year-old, high-stepping in white go-go boots, grinning skyward as her baton floated back down toward her sure grasp, her innate showmanship even as a child making her such a success at her later unfortunate choice of career. “I met her,” she said. Something she’d said entirely too often. She’d known foreign correspondents who were killed in Afghanistan, too. But only in an across-the-room, jostling-for-position-in-the-same-media-scrum way. Not someone she knew by the color of her eyes, or—she shuddered—the feel of her fake breasts.
Color flowed back into Thor’s face. “You did? How is that possible?”
“I thought that my friend might have been a dancer here. So I stopped by the Sweet Crude. I talked to DeeDee there. Then I left and some jerk attacked me.”
“May I?” Thor helped himself to one of Lola’s remaining sausages.
Charlotte stood. “How about I put on some pancakes?” Thor took no notice of his wife’s question and spoke to Lola. “You got attacked. And then, just a few hours later, this girl gets attacked. And killed.”
“It’s different. I got punched in broad daylight, and then he left me alone. But—that business about her neck,” Lola said to Thor.
“What about it?”
“A trucker got killed back in Magpie right before I came out here. His truck went off the road in the snow. His neck was broken, too.”
Thor shrugged. “I don’t see what a motor vehicle accident five hundred miles away has to do with a cold-blooded murder here. Necks get broken in car accidents all the time.”
“But Charlie said he’d never seen one like this.” Lola wished, too late, she hadn’t referred to Charlie so familiarly.
Thor twinkled at her, letting her know he’d noticed. “That’s because your Sheriff Laurendeau has only been at it a little while. Give him my years and he’ll see more varieties of broken necks than he knows what to do with.”
Charlotte hovered, skillet in hand. “Really,” said Lola. “I’m full.” A couple of pancakes landed on her plate, anyway. Lola reckoned she’d gotten off easy. Thor merited the Empire State Building of pancake stacks. He upended the syrup pitcher over it. Charlotte stood at the counter, eating directly from the griddle. She’d poured some syrup into a small bowl, swirling each forkful of pancakes through it. In between bites, she poured more batter in perfect circles onto the griddle.
“Maybe you were just the warm-up,” Thor said to Lola. A thought she’d pushed away just moments earlier. “Which makes anything you can remember even more urgent. It’s not unheard of, people getting killed here. Bar fights, jealous husbands, that sort of thing. But this business of somebody killing a girl and throwing her away like trash—I don’t care if she is a stripper. It’s going to upset people who already think the town is going to hell. When do you meet up with those people you’re talking to?”
“Tonight at six. At The Mint. I already told Charlotte.” Lola smiled
at her erstwhile protector.
“I want you to think about what I said. Any new details come to mind, I need to know. Your truck’s still back at the office, right?”
“Yes. And Bub’s food is in it.”
“Don’t worry about him.” Charlotte stood by the sink, filling it with scalding water. “I gave him a couple of sausages.” Lola thought that Charlotte’s version of “a couple” meant that Bub had probably gotten the equivalent of half a pig for breakfast, beyond whatever bedtime treats Charlotte had given him. No wonder he’d left the mudroom unscathed.
“Even so, you need your truck. You might as well gas it up today so you can be ready to leave first thing tomorrow. You can ride over to the office with me. Besides, I’d like you to look at some mug shots.” Thor stood. His plate, improbably, shone clean. “Just give me a couple of minutes to wash up.”
Thor’s mention of Charlie had reminded Lola of how badly she wanted to get on her computer and see if she could find any references to a child. “I have some work to do,” she began.
Help came from an unexpected quarter. “I can take her later,” Charlotte said, her voice a plea.
“That would be stupid. I’m going now.”
Lola flinched at the rebuke. Behind Thor’s back, she offered Charlotte an eye roll at the reliable intransigence of men. But Charlotte fixed her gaze on a blank space on the kitchen wall, likewise ignoring Lola’s mouthed, “Sorry.”
“Do you need help with the dishes?” Lola tried. Their leavings—the sticky plates, the juice glasses frilled with pulp, the platters for sausages, pancakes, toast, the pitcher with its real cream filming over—made for a daunting display. When Charlotte said nothing, Lola gave up and followed Thor out the door, Bub pacing beside them, his uncharacteristic dignity enforced by a stomach still distended from his breakfast feast.
