A Bad Day for Pretty

by Sophie Littlefield

  “They told you who that gal was?” she asked, avoiding his question.

  “Yeah, some woman named Laura.”

  “Laura Cassel.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Neb … I got to know. You swear you never had anything to do with this gal? Never met her, even just in passing, nothing like that?”

  Neb’s lips quivered as he spoke, his voice hollow with exhaustion. “Stella, on my life. On Donna’s life. I never even heard that name ’fore today.”

  Stella, watching closely, figured there was no way he was lying. If he had killed her, it was without even knowing who she was.

  “What do they got on you, anyway?” Stella asked, darting a glance over at Kinhara, who held her magazine a few inches from her nose and appeared to be absorbed in the small print, evidently uninterested in their conversation.

  “That’s the craziest thing,” Neb said, shaking his head. “They got a letter I wrote, sayin’ to come and meet me at the track. It was on that dead gal they dug up, in her pocket or something. It’s got my signature and everything.”

  “You sure it’s your signature?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Neb said. “I only got a quick look. It sure looked like mine. The rest of it was typed. Or printed on a computer or something. They got some handwriting expert going over it now—I guess after he gets done looking at it, I’ll know if I wrote it or not.”

  “Well … that letter could have been faked.”

  “It gets kind of worse, though,” Neb went on. “There was, uh, blood on the body? They’re doing all that DNA testing on it, and they took swabs from me. I guess they’ll know before long if it’s a match or not. But already they’re sayin’ it’s type B negative and how only two percent of folks got that type. And Stella … I’m B negative.”

  Dang. That was bad.

  “Look, Neb, you haven’t been talking, have you? I mean, not without Priscilla here … right?”

  Neb toed the tiled floor dejectedly. “Aw, maybe one or two things,” he mumbled. “Priscilla couldn’t get away early. You know, she’s low man on the totem pole at that law firm and all. But she’s gonna come up first thing tomorrow if her boss lets her.”

  Stella’s heart sank. “What have you told them, Neb?”

  He shrugged, but try as Stella might, she couldn’t get anything further out of him. She could only hope that the questioning hadn’t gone too far—she could just imagine Simmons with her pinched face, staring Neb down in an interrogation room, looking for angles to make him incriminate himself.

  “Look,” he finally said, “I’m kinda tired. I’m thinkin’ I ought to hit the hay. It was really nice of you to come, Stella, but I reckon I ought to be fresh for tomorrow. Donna’s gonna…” He paused as a little hitch stuttered through his voice, cleared his throat, and tried again. “Donna’s gonna be here soon’s visiting hours start, plus Priscilla and all. But I sure do appreciate it.…”

  If ever there was a man who needed a hug, Neb was that fellow, but as Stella stuck her hands through the bars to try to grasp his hands, he shrank away from her and retreated back to his cot.

  Stella could tell that he was ashamed. And not just because he wasn’t sure if he was a cold-blooded murderer or not, but because Stella had to see him here, stripped of his dignity, his pride—even his shoelaces. Stella read his misery and nodded briskly.

  “All right, then,” she said. “I’ll be back soon’s I can. Meantime you just—just—hang in there, and keep the faith, hear?”

  The fact that she was pretty sure he hadn’t heard, not through his layers of misery and humiliation, did not quite make up for her embarrassment at having uttered a platitude so inadequate that even a minister of the Universal Life Everlasting Church ought to have been able to do better.

  • • •

  Kinhara Walked Stella back through the echoing halls and the suffocating little double-doored chamber to the visitor desk.

  Officer Halpern practically jumped out of his chair and nodded smartly. “Reverend,” he said. “Sheriff Jones was just here asking after you.”

  “Reverend Hardesty,” boomed a familiar voice before Stella could react. Goat strolled into the room from a hallway leading in the other direction and held out his hand. A hint of mischief showed in his navy blue eyes as he took her hand in his and pressed it delicately. “I’m so sorry I’ve missed services lately. Duty … you know. It calls.”

  Stella blushed furiously, staring at a button halfway down his uniform shirt. “Sheriff,” she muttered hoarsely. “Good to see you.”

  “Yeah, I was just meeting with my colleague, Detective Simmons. … Hey—” He snapped his fingers. “—you know, I wonder if she might like to attend services sometime. As my guest. You got a copy of the schedule on you? We could…”

  He tilted his head back down the hall the way he’d come, where, presumably, Simmons was gnashing her pointy teeth in her lair while she worked on her plans to string Neb up and get her claws in Goat.

  “Actually, I’m kind of busy,” Stella said. “I’m just on my way to, uh, do my hospital ministry. Got a … scarlet fever victim. Probably be dead by morning, I gotta do the last rites and all.”

  “Ah. No rest for the soldiers of God’s army. Well, at least let me walk you out.”

  “It’s really not necessary.…”

  Goat took her arm and guided her firmly toward the door.

  “Good night, Reverend,” Halpern called.

  Stella scowled, but she had no choice but to go along with Goat down the hall to the exit.

  Out in the parking lot, Goat chuckled. “I guess we’re even.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well, I dragged you out to my place last night for nothing … made you deal with Brandy and all.”

  That was true. Stella brightened at the idea of evening a score with Goat while pulling off her little jail-cell ruse.

  “Does Simmons know?” she asked. “About my … um, visit?”

  “Naw, I just saw your name on the register when I was saying good night to Halpern. You get anything out of Neb?”

  “Nope.”

  “He tell you what we found on the body?”

  “Nope.”

  Goat regarded her for a long moment. Clearly, he didn’t believe her, but he wasn’t going to make an issue of it, for which Stella was tremendously grateful.

  “You seen Brandy today?” Goat asked as they started walking across the lot toward the visitor parking, where Stella had left the Jeep.

  Stella glanced at Goat to see if he was yanking her chain. “No, but I’ve been gone since this morning.”

  “Oh … she didn’t call you, maybe? Leave a message on your cell or something?”

  “No. What’s the matter, did you go and misplace her somewhere? ’Cause I got to tell you, last night it seemed like you wouldn’t mind being shut of her.”

  That was putting it mildly—as Stella beat a hasty exit, Goat had been trying to fend off Brandy, who was following him around the smoldering mass of metal that had once been her car, making suggestive comments and sloshing her drink. It was a miracle the alcohol on her breath didn’t catch a wayward spark and set her on fire.

  Goat didn’t say anything, just scowled and lengthened his stride so Stella had to practically jog to keep up.

  “Look,” he said, stopping abruptly when they got near her Jeep, “how about a beer? Or a cup of coffee? I mean, if you don’t have plans or something.”

  Stella did her best to hide her surprise. “Well … I guess. I can maybe move some things around. I just—let me make a quick call, okay?”

  Goat jammed his hands into his pockets and waited, gazing out to the street, where one of the older residential areas of town sloped gently away from the municipal buildings.

  “Oh,” said Stella. “I mean, you don’t have to wait for me or anything.”

  “Uh.” Goat’s face, a little stubbly after all the hours of crime-solving that had intervened since his mor
ning shave, screwed up into an embarrassed expression. “You mean you want to make a private call.”

  “Eh, uh, yeah.” Stella felt her own face reddening. It wasn’t so much that she needed privacy; she was planning only to check in with Sherilee to make sure she knew where Todd was, and Jelloman to make sure he found the key under the rock—and Chrissy, to make sure things had gone all right at the shop. But somehow these homey conversations, with people she cared about, were too intimate to have in front of Goat.

  Which, Stella realized, was ridiculous. Except … it almost, maybe, felt too good, too tempting to open the door on everything she held dear, to let Goat in where she’d promised herself she’d never let another man tread. Her personal stuff. Her private world. The things she cared about enough not to risk anyone hurting her with them.

  Thirty-some years ago, she’d married Ollie Hardesty and let him drive his huge smoke-belching bulldozer of an evil-ass presence right into her life. She hadn’t known how to set boundaries. She never thought to demand her share. For decades, she just let Ollie ride roughshod over her feelings, her memories, her dreams.

  And while Stella was well aware that she needed some manly attention, while she hoped and intended to indulge in all manner of sins of the flesh and other varieties of rollicking good times, her heart remained off-limits.

  That’s how the promise went, anyway. It had seemed obvious and even necessary at the time, when Ollie was still fresh in the ground and the prospect of building a future was terrifying. Which made it so darn peculiar that every time she got around Goat, that damn heart she’d worked so hard to protect started banging a spoon on the bars of its cell and demanding to get out.

  FOURTEEN

  I’ll just be a minute,” she said, her voice wobbly.

  “Okay. There’s a bar … can’t remember the name of it, nothin’ fancy—I mean, we could drive somewhere if you rather—”

  “No, I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “Block or two that way.” Goat jerked a thumb to the right, down the darkening street, and ambled off without looking back, hands still stuffed in his pockets.

  Stella watched him go, until he disappeared under an overhanging dogwood branch, ducking his lanky frame to avoid being scratched. She stood rooted to the spot a little longer before she remembered that she was supposed to be making calls.

  No one was home at the Groffes; seeing as it was Saturday, the girls were probably already at the sitter’s and Todd and Sherilee would be digging into their Taco Bell Fiesta Gorditas right about now.

  A call home got her a very cheerful Jelloman. “Tigers, twenty-three to twenty-one!” he shouted into the phone, nearly bursting her eardrum. He sounded like he’d already got into the postgame celebratory substances, but Stella didn’t mind. A tipsy Jelloman would be just as effective against a prowler as a sober one, perhaps even more aggressive, and it would take so much to actually knock him out that Stella figured he’d run out of things to drink and inhale first.

  “This is one fine dog you got here,” Jelloman said after he assured her that nothing was amiss. “I’m teachin’ her to fetch me a beer from off the table. She’s only bit a hole in one can so far. Gotta see if I can teach her to open the fridge.”

  “My, that sounds useful.”

  In the background, she heard Sabine holler something.

  “Sabine says Roxy got a package of wieners off the counter. She’s threatening to make hamburgers out of her. Hey, listen, I had her out in the backyard doin’ her business, and I come across some sort a plaster mess on the ground outside the back windows. Picked it up and it looked to me like you got you a footprint there. This have something to do with that guy who was hanging around here?”

  “Uh—yeah, maybe. Yes. Did you take it in?”

  “Yup, got it sitting here in the kitchen. It’s about the only thing your dog ain’t tried to eat yet. Gotta tell you, that’s a dainty foot your fella’s got. Probably only a size nine or so.”

  Stella smiled. “Well, then I guess he’s probably no match for you, so I guess you can quit worrying.”

  Jelloman laughed, a hearty, welcome sound. “Worry? Stella, the only thing I’m worried about is if Sabine gets to him first, there won’t be nothing left for me to take a swing at. She’s all worked up ’bout this.”

  “Be careful!” This time Stella could make out Sabine’s voice loud and clear—she must have snatched the phone away. “There are keelers out there!”

  Stella promised not to get killed and made her final call.

  “You’re goin’ drinkin’ with him?” Chrissy demanded. “With the sheriff? He gonna let you drive home? He shouldn’t, you know. ’Less you plan on stickin’ to Fresca.”

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing … I just put in a long day at the shop an all … Nadine Schleusner was in tryin’ out the Husqvarna again.”

  “Oh. You have my sympathies.” Nadine came in at least once a month with a basket of mending and sat herself down in front of the most expensive Swedish sewing machine, loaded it up with her linty cheap-ass thread, and sewed crooked patches on her husband’s dungarees. Which wasn’t really a problem, since the demo machines were there to be used, except that the old woman’s real reason for coming was to talk. Loudly. Incessantly. Mr. Schleusner had long ago learned to turn down his hearing aid, and so Nadine sought out her conversational fill from Stella and Chrissy, bobbing her snowy bouffant-coiffed head along with her running commentary and keeping the volume full blast. There was no stopping her until she ran out of things to sew and say, which could take hours.

  “And … well,” Chrissy continued. “Larry was wondering could I come over and barbecue, and he’s all like go ahead and bring the baby, but I know where he’n me would end up and it’s no place to have Tucker around, you know what I’m sayin’, and I was hopin’ you—Oh, sorry, Stella, that totally makes it sound like I take you for granted, and I don’t, I would have tried to get someone else to watch Tucker but—”

  “You know I’d ordinarily love to,” Stella interrupted. It was true—she’d love to watch Tucker, but not quite so much as she’d love to head down to that bar and rub knees with Goat in a booth back in a dark corner. “Maybe later…”

  “Aw, to tell the truth, I’m a little beat from last night. Maybe I’ll just get Tucker to bed and take a hot bath or something.”

  “Thought you said that after getting in the hot tub, you were clean enough to last a few months, remember?”

  “Yeah…” Chrissy yawned audibly. “Only, I been having these dirty thoughts all day—I figure I might just need a good scrub.”

  Stella Almost walked right past the bar. It was set back from the street in between a couple of shabby brick apartment buildings, the old-fashioned kind with concrete stoops and windows open to the breeze and abandoned balls and scooters on the lawn. The bar was a humble affair, little more than a converted shed, with no sign to identify it. A single neon coors light burned in a grimy window.

  Inside, it took a minute for Stella’s eyes to adjust to the gloom. An Alan Jackson tune played in the background while a few older gents studied the lay of the break on a pool table. Two or three solo drinkers looked like they were settling in for a long night at the bar, and a bartender was stacking glasses on a shelf. Goat was sitting by himself in a booth, a couple of tall frosty beers sweating on the table, a basket of pretzels untouched in front of him.

  Stella slid into the booth and picked up her beer straight off, raising the chilly glass to her lips and getting down a good, soothing swallow. She had too much on her mind, and as pleased as she was with this unexpected opportunity for a little time with Goat, she appreciated the nerve-steadying powers of that first icy delicious sip.

  “It’s Bud,” Goat said. “I seem to recall you being a Bud gal.”

  When he wasn’t plying her with red wine, Stella thought wistfully. The ruined evening seemed much longer than two days ago. She decided not to mention that she usually liked her be
er to follow a nice neat slug of Johnnie Walker Black.

  “Thanks … I’ll get the next one.”

  “Your calls go okay?”

  Stella nodded. “Just had to check in with Chrissy. Make sure the shop didn’t fall down while I was gone.”

  “How’s that young lady faring?”

  If it hadn’t been for Goat and the Ogden County emergency services’ quick response to the bloodbath down at the Lake of the Ozarks a few months back, Chrissy wouldn’t have lived to raise her baby and draw men like flies and act as Stella’s partner in crime. Goat had taken a shine to the girl, and visited often while she was hospitalized.

  “Fit as a fiddle,” Stella said. “Well, maybe fit as an old guitar with busted strings, but she’s getting better every day. She ought to be good as new by the holidays.”

  “And the boy?”

  Stella grinned; couldn’t help it. Sometimes she felt like Tucker was her own grandbaby. “Couldn’t be sweeter. You’ll have to—”

  She had been about to say, You’ll have to come over and visit him when I’m babysitting, but the old familiar awkwardness stopped her midsentence. Casual visiting … that implied a level of ease, of intimacy even, that Stella could only imagine, since every sighting of the man brought on stammering and blushing.

  There was a silence as they pushed around their little cardboard coasters and sipped at their beers. Goat couldn’t maintain his smile; it slipped by degrees, his broad mouth turning down at the corners and his eyes reflecting trouble.

  Stella figured it was up to her to jump in. “So what’s this about Brandy going missing?”

  “I called her a few times today,” Goat said. “She wasn’t picking up. I mean I imagine she’s got her a hell of a hangover, and maybe she decided to sleep it off all afternoon—or hell, maybe she’s still pissed at me for, uh, for…”

  Not giving up the goodies, Stella thought. For which she had to give the man credit. She’d seen for herself how determined Goat’s former spouse could be when she wanted something. Lots of men would have just given up the fight when the first few attempts to peel off a horny woman failed.