by Sam Cheever
What kind of southern hick Hades had my father brought me to? And more importantly, what was he thinking about coming there himself?
“You Bubba’s daughter?”
I turned to find a petite woman with dark blue eyes and wavy, iron-gray hair, staring at me like she was considering gnawing off one of my legs.
I pressed my lips together as my pulse spiked. Barely overcoming the urge to tell her to mind her own business, I decided to satisfy my curiosity instead. “Who are you?”
She narrowed her borderline hostile gaze and pursed her lips. “I’m with the Bent Society. We monitor all activity in Bent.”
In other words, a bunch of busy-biddies.
“Ookay.” I extended my hand. “My name’s Felicity Chance. I came to Bent because I think my father’s here. I really don’t think the body in there—Bubba—is my father.”
The woman’s hard gaze slipped over me, clearly judging my worth. I doubted it was a monetary thing. “Uh-huh.” She shook my hand. “I’m Irene Pinkerton. I run the BS.”
“BS?”
The frown that had never really left her face since she’d arrived deepened. “Pay attention. I don’t have time to keep repeating myself.”
“Oh. Right, the Bent Society. Got it.”
Cal’s clean, masculine scent suddenly filled the air. I looked up as he joined us. “The sheriff said the coroner’s out sick today, but he’s okay with us identifying the body.” Cal slid his knee-melting gaze toward Irene and smiled.
I almost fainted. I hadn’t been aware his lips could do that.
He offered the older woman his hand. “I’m Cal Amity.”
A subtle pink suffused Irene’s cheeks. She actually sucked air as her hand touched his. “Irene.”
“She runs the Bent Society. They monitor all activities,” I told him helpfully.
Cal didn’t even seem shocked by the idea of a random group sticking their noses into everybody else’s bidneth. To me, it smacked a little too much of Big Brother.
He nodded, his smile widening. Irene’s hand was still enclosed in his. To my immense shock, the crabby geriatric was actually batting her eyelashes. “How lucky for us!” he said. “I need someone to fill me in about…um…Bubba. I spoke to the sheriff…” Cal lifted an eyebrow by way of finishing the thought.
Irene rolled her eyes. “And you realized you needed to talk to someone who had a clue.” She nodded. “I’ll tell you anything you need to know about poor Bubba.” Her gaze skimmed the door leading to the morgue. I saw a spark of sadness before she ruthlessly squashed it. “Why don’t you come over to Bent’s Eats when you’re done here? Bent’s serves up some of the best strawberry cream pie in Alabama.”
Cal patted her hand and released it. “We’ll do that. Thanks for your help, Irene. We’re very grateful.”
She pshawed dismissively and, after sliding a final assessing look over me, walked away from the hospital at a brisk pace.
“That’s a woman who is constantly on a mission,” I told Cal.
“She’s exactly the type of person we need to talk to.” He glanced at me, his blue gaze soft. “Are you sure you want to do this, Miss Chance?”
I sighed. “Look, Cal. We’re going to be together for several days. Don’t you think you could call me Felicity?”
He thought about it for a minute and then shook his head. “No. Are you ready?”
Ready or not, my stomach was jumping all over the place as I approached the body on the table. He was covered with a white sheet, but as Cal reached to pull the top of the sheet down, I couldn’t help thinking that the size of the dead guy was about right for my dad.
Cal met my gaze one last time and I nodded. I held my breath as he folded the sheet back. Though I’d thought I was man enough to handle it, the sight of the corpse’s half eaten face brought bile into my throat. Covering my mouth with my hand, I clenched my lips tight and forced myself to look at him.
The man on the table had light brown, almost blond hair like mine, though it was darker around the face from grease and blood. It was much longer than my father’s had been, but that didn’t mean anything. If he really had been living on the streets of Bent, his hair could have grown long.
There was one area, along the right side of his jaw, where the flesh was mostly intact. A couple of pea-sized indentations made me whimper softly, tears flooding my eyes.
“What is it?” Cal asked softly. “Is it him?”
I shook my head, sniffling. “I can’t tell.” Swallowing hard, I chewed on my lower lip, terrified I was lying to myself. “He has pockmarks,” I pointed to the jawline. “Just there. My dad had…” Sniffling, I turned away. Tears drenched my cheeks, and I suddenly found myself enclosed in a hard pair of arms, pressed against a broad chest that smelled of fabric softener and sun-drenched man.
Cal’s kindness overwhelmed me, and I gave up trying to control the sobs. I let it go, washing months of doubt and fear out in the copious amount of tears that were unfortunately dumped onto poor Cal’s shirt. Finally, I pulled away, dragging a hand over my soggy cheeks.
Cal handed me a tissue. “Better?”
I blew my nose, honking loudly.
When I looked up, he was grinning.
“What?”
“Nothing. Will you be okay while I search the body?”
I inhaled deeply and nodded.
Extracting a couple of latex gloves from a box on a nearby stainless-steel counter, Cal tugged them on and moved back to the table. He pulled the sheet all the way down, uncovering the victim to his shins. Fortunately, Bubba was still wearing clothes.
I wanted to run out of the room, but some perverse curiosity kept me there, watching carefully as Cal searched the dead guy’s pockets. Despite the fact that the clothes didn’t fit Bubba very well, they were in pretty good shape and relatively clean. “Anything in his pockets?”
Cal shook his head. He was trying to pry the man’s hand open. “He seems to be holding onto something, though.” I gasped as a horrible cracking sound filled the silence. Cal threw me an apologetic look. He reached between the fingers he’d wrenched loose and pulled out something long and white.
“Is that an alligator tooth?” I asked, moving closer.
“It sure looks like it. It’s got a hole drilled through the top like it was hanging from a chain.” Cal handed the tooth to me. “Hold this.”
My eyes widened. “Please tell me you’re not going to check the other hand.”
“I’ll try not to break any fingers this time.”
“Holy horrendous,” I muttered. My mouth filled with saliva and I thought I might throw up. I swung my gaze away as he moved to the other side. I caught the flash of something in my peripheral vision and turned to get a better look. Frowning, I moved closer. “Cal, I think he’s got something in his mouth.”
Cal stuck his head down really close, inches from the mangled mess of the face, and stars burst before my eyes. But it wasn’t until he pried the hamburger lips apart that I squealed and ran from the room, barely making it to the ladies' room across the hall before I threw up everything I’d eaten that day.
Cal met me in the hall a few minutes later. “You gonna be all right?”
“Stop asking me that. I just had to pee.” I glared at him, hoping to distract him from the fact that I was a sissy girl. “Did you find anything?”
He opened his hand and showed me the gold coin, which I knew would be verified to have come from my father’s collection.
I sighed, my eyes filling again.
You want to skip the meeting with the BSers?”
I scrubbed my long-suffering tissue under my eyes. “Not a chance. I still need to figure out what the heck he was doing here.”
“Good.” Cal wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go then.”
“I won’t ask if it was him.” Irene declared as we moved toward the table she’d saved for us. Another woman was sitting at the table with her. She gave me a kind smile, and then her gaze caught
on Cal and got stuck there. At that point, I might as well not have existed.
“This is Dorrie Tae,” Irene told us.
I smiled at Dorrie Tae as I shook her hand. “I’m Felicity. Are you a member of BS too?”
Cal pulled a chair out for me and waited while I sat down. Then he slid lightly into the chair beside me. The other two women at the table watched him like he was the glossy stallion in their pony club. It bothered me. And the fact that it bothered me concerned me even more.
“Guilty as charged.” Dorrie Tae reached across the table and patted my hand. “I’m sorry about your daddy, Felicity.”
To my horror, tears flooded my eyes again. “Thanks.”
“What can you tell us about Bubba?” Cal asked the ladies. “How long has he been in Bent?”
Irene shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly. I think he was here a while before we knew it.
Dorrie Tae nodded. “Pim Gordon down at the pawnshop said Bubba’d been trading stuff for a few weeks before we first saw him. I guess he would only come into town at night.”
“Trading stuff?” I asked.
Irene nodded. “Old coins and bottles of Kentucky Bourbon. I guess it was pricey stuff.”
I shared a glance with Cal. He broke eye contact almost immediately. “Nobody knew where he was staying?”
“We heard he lived out on Stink Island,” Dorrie Tae offered.
“Where’s that?” Cal had opened his notes app on his phone and was typing with his thumbs. I watched him, impressed by his dexterity.
I filed that away. You know. Just in case.
“An island not far from here,” Irene said. “They call it that because it smells like poo.”
I laughed. “Wonderful.”
The two older women across the table grinned.
“He had a shack out there. It was made of sticks and old boxes,” Dorrie Tae offered. “A few people spotted him when they were fishing. He liked to hang out along the shore, staring at the water.”
Her words painted such a lonely picture I found myself tearing up again.
“The sheriff said Bubba died from several blows to the back of the head,” Hal said.
“That’s right,” Irene agreed, nodding. “I checked the body myself when they brought him in.”
My eyes widened. “Are you the coroner?”
Dorrie Tae blew a raspberry, earning her a glare from Irene. “She does keep Doc Ye busy, but she’s more like the supplier than the distributor.”
“Shut up, Dorrie Tae!” Irene redirected her hostile gaze toward me. “I told you. The BS knows everything that happens in Bent. If somebody dies, I make it my business to find out why.”
“So why did Bubba die, Irene?” Cal asked softly.
She held his intense blue gaze for a long moment and then said, “Let’s get some strawberry cream pie, shall we?”
3
“What now?” I asked Cal as we emerged from Bent’s Eats into a fading Alabama sun. The coming night promised to be only slightly less sultry than the day had been. My pores sprouted copious amounts of sweat as soon as I removed them from the blissfully cool air of the diner.
After a trauma-filled day, I was ready for a long shower and a short meal.
“Let’s go talk to the pawnshop owner before we call it a day. If we get lucky, he’ll be able to tell us where to look for Bubba.”
Gordon’s Pawn Shop was two blocks from the diner and three buildings down from the Catholic church, across the street from the Baptist church. “There are sure a lot of churches here,” I observed crabbily.
Cal gave the opposing structures a quick look. “Especially since the entire town is only about four blocks square.”
Dragging an arm over my forehead, I realized I was likely to run out of bodily fluids if I didn’t hydrate soon. “I haven’t seen any bars in town. Have you?”
Cal opened the door to the pawnshop and ushered me through. “We passed one a couple miles out of town. I’m guessing Bent might be a dry town.”
I grimaced. “Of course it would be. A place with a name like Bent has to be the epicenter of Hell.”
“Only if you get on the wrong side of the busy-biddies,” a disembodied voice offered in response to my statement.
Looking for the source of the voice, Cal and I glanced toward the back of the long, narrow space that comprised Gordon’s. A wide, rosy-cheeked face blinked at us from just above a cloudy glass counter. As I was trying to figure out if it was one of those carnival machines where you feed a quarter in and something slides out through the lips, said lips moved. “Welcome, folks. How can I help you?”
Cal touched my elbow and guided me forward. I kept a close eye on the disembodied head, in case it suddenly spewed a long, forked tongue or pea soup in my direction.
I was pretty sure Voodoo ran rampant in the state of Alabama. What better place than a town called Bent to showcase its best stuff?
But as we got closer, I realized the massive head was indeed attached to a monstrously large body, which seemed molded around an armless chair that creaked as the man placed two meaty hands on top of the glass. “We close in fifteen minutes.”
Cal inclined his dark head. “This won’t take long. Are you by any chance Pim Gordon?”
“In the flesh. All of it.” He grinned widely, sliding me a look. His eyes were small and dark in the pale abundance of his face. They looked like beads surrounded by bread dough.
I smiled back, liking him immediately. Anybody who had the confidence to laugh at himself won instant points with me.
Cal offered him his hand. “I’m Cal Amity, and this is Miss Chance.”
The man’s smile froze. He blinked before laughing good-naturedly. His chins and belly wobbled like paint in a mixing machine. “That’s very funny. Ever have anyone page you in an airport with those names?”
Cal frowned slightly, but I laughed. “It gets worse. My first name is Felicity.”
Pim Gordon threw back his big head and roared, the sound breathy and loud in the cluttered space. He swiped tears from his beady eyes and shook his head. “Thanks for that, folks. You capped my day.” He leveled his gaze on Cal and the smile evaporated. “We have twelve minutes to conduct our business.” He leaned forward, causing the chair he was on to roll closer to the glass. “You have something to pawn?”
Cal shook his head. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions about one of your clients if I could.”
Pim frowned. “I don’t gossip about my customers, Calamity.” He winked in my direction, and I pressed my lips together to keep from grinning.
Cal stiffened, the giant stick up his fine posterior unwilling to bend, even a little. “No gossip. Just information. We’re looking for Miss Ch…Felicity’s…”
Pim snorted and then rubbed a hand over his lips to hide the smile.
Cal expelled air. “My client’s father is missing, and I’ve tracked him to Bent.” He pulled the picture of my father out of his pocket, sliding it across the glass countertop. “Have you seen him around here?”
Pim clutched the photo between fingers that looked like bun-length hot dogs and frowned. “I’m not exactly sure. He looks a little like Bubba.”
Cal and I exchanged a glance.
“Bubba? The homeless guy?” Cal clarified.
Pim slid the picture back across the glass. “That’s what folks think, but he ain’t no ordinary homeless guy. Pim pressed his hands on the counter and skidded sideways on the chair, reaching into a cabinet against the wall and pulling out a dirty plastic basket. He shoved back to the counter and set it on top. It was filled with Gold Eagle coins. “He brings me one or two of these a week. They’re 1/10th ounce gold, worth around two hundred bucks each, give or take. I figure he’s pawning just enough to live on each week.”
“We were told he’s living on Stink Island.” Cal reached out and picked up one of the coins. “What would he need that much money for if he’s living in a shack on a fishing island?”
Pim’s big head me
t his fleshy shoulders in a shrug. “You might want to ask Miles at the Bayou Bodega about that. I think Bubba gets his supplies from him.”
I reached for my wallet and pulled out my credit card, handing it to Pim. “I’ll buy all of these back.”
His bead eyes widened, but he didn’t question my purchase. He simply nodded and reached for a paper receipt. As he was filling it out, Cal continued with his questions. “Anything else you can tell us about Bubba?”
“He’s a pretty rough looking character.” Pim nodded toward Cal’s pocket. “He doesn’t look like that anymore. He smells like Stink Island. His clothes are ratty and filthy, and his skin is red and peeling like he’s been sunburned one too many times and it’s gone permanent. Especially his face.” Pim handed me the itemized receipt to sign and took my card, running it through a reader. “His eyes are dark blue, close to the color of your eyes, actually.”
I frowned, bothered by his description because I hated to think of the polished, well-groomed man I’d known all my life succumbing to that. “Did he ever talk about his life before Bent,” I asked.
Pim handed me my credit card receipt and I signed it, avoiding what I assumed would be his look of pity. “No. He didn’t talk much. He always showed up right before closing time, and we did our business fast. I tried asking him once where he was getting the coins and the booze.”
“Booze?” Cal asked.
“Yeah, sometimes he’d bring in a bottle of Kentucky Bourbon to sell.” Pim grinned. “I don’t have any of that to show you. Your suspicion was right. Bent is a dry town. I keep any alcohol I come by under the counter, but word spreads fast around here.”
I nodded. I didn’t need to see the bottles. My father’s favorite adult beverage was Kentucky Bourbon, and he had a favorite blend. “Racer’s Mark?”
