Hitting the Wall: A Stonecut County Romance, page 4
In my experience, once Connie gets her foot in the door, she stays.
I’d only need a few months. I’d find a job. Save some money to start over somewhere else. I wouldn’t stay in Stonecut. Mia could have a brand-new start in school. Normal classes. I wouldn’t sign a paper this time.
Mia casts me a stinky look and starts rocking on her stool.
“All right, don’t get impatient. I’m thinking.” I try to picture the tube of animal figurines I bought with the birds in it. “Parrot?”
She snorts.
“Not a parrot. Lord, Mia, this one’s tricky. Can’t you give me a clue?”
She raps her knuckle on the countertop, impatient.
I cock an eyebrow.
She raises hers right back.
“Pigeon.”
Mia rolls her eyes.
“Keep doin’ that with your eyeballs, they’ll roll right out of your head.”
She grins. She always finds that amusing.
I can’t move us to Stonecut County. What if I run into Kellum Wall? What if he sees Mia? It’s a small town. We’re gonna see him. It’s unavoidable.
Will he walk by and pretend he doesn’t know who I am? Who Mia must be to him?
Shit, has he forgotten?
I was nothin’ but a cheap fuck, after all. I choke off the bitterness before it blooms and sours everything. I don’t have time for it. Didn’t then, don’t now.
What if he sees her and realizes I could go after him for six years of support?
What would the sheriff, the big city millionaire, and the man who owns the town do if they decide they don’t want Mia and me darkening their doorstep after all this time? They don’t have Grandpa to threaten this time.
A retching sound floats through the screen door. Willie’s puking on the steps.
Mia blinks at me.
“Parrot.”
She tilts her head, frowning, nose scrunched.
“Crap. I said parrot already, didn’t I? Okay. Penguin.”
That earns me a small smile. She didn’t think I’d remember that penguins are birds.
There’s a groaning and grunting from the porch.
That’s a lot of what ifs, but are any of them worse than what is?
We can keep our heads low. Are the rich folks really gonna remember me after all this time? I don’t flatter myself. Grandpa knew how to get a hold of me, but I never got a call. Not when Mia was born. Not after. They knew, and they didn’t care, or they didn’t want to know. I didn’t keep her a secret.
I bet I could sashay down Main Street with Mia, and none of them would look at us twice. Poor folks don’t matter to rich folks like the Walls. I haven’t been a problem to them this whole time, so there’s no reason they’d bother with me.
A few months of living cheap, and we can come back and get our own place. Maybe in Chamberlain so Mia can go to a new school—no Bryce Adams, no Principal Rice.
It’s a risk. It might end in disaster. I honestly don’t understand people like the Walls well enough to predict what they’d do.
Willie staggers up the stairs and leans against the doorframe, panting as if he’s run a mile. He belches and swipes drool from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Mia gazes steadily at the space above my left ear, expectant.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do for this child.
I love her—her bony elbows, her knobby knees, her big blue eyes that remind me of cotton candy. I love her odd ways and how, if it’s peaceful, she doesn’t seem to notice the wider world at all.
I bet she has no idea Willie’s slumped against the doorframe there, scratching his balls. He doesn’t register.
That’s fine. I’ve got this covered. There is nothing I won’t do for this child.
Even buy a bus ticket back to Stonecut County.
“Emu,” I say.
She unfurls her fingers, blanched white from clutching the small plastic toy so hard for so long. She sets the emu very carefully on its tiny clawed feet.
“That’s a big bird,” I observe.
“Third biggest,” she says in her tiny voice.
“You don’t say?” I nudge the peanut bowl until it’s right in front of her, and she pops one in her mouth.
Willie staggers to the couch, collapses with a groan, and turns on the TV.
“Get me a beer, would you?” he calls over.
I reach over and tuck a loose curl behind Mia’s ear. “When you finish your snack, we’re gonna embark on an adventure.”
Mia doesn’t pay me any mind. She’s munching away and squinting at that emu.
“What’s the biggest bird in the world?” I ask, just to hear her voice again.
She blinks and chomps away on her peanuts.
“On my own on that one, am I?”
That’s all right. I can figure it out on my own.
I always have.
4
FOUR MONTHS LATER
KELLUM
I took a long lunch. Knew it was a mistake. Every time I take a long lunch, when I come back, the station’s on fire. We share the building with the Stonecut Volunteer Fire Department. Once they brought some embers back on the truck. Didn’t realize. That day when I came back from the diner, the place was literally smoking.
Usually it’s metaphorical, though.
I try to come in with my head down, but the only thing Nancy and Bev at the front desk like more than gossip is busting my chops.
“You’re late, Deputy,” Bev sings as she grabs the ringing phone.
Both ladies swivel in their padded chairs. Nancy dyes her hair gray and Bev doesn’t, and if not for that, you couldn’t tell ‘em apart from a distance. Both are pushing seventy. Both are never gonna retire.
“You get waylaid rescuing a lady tied to a railroad track?” Nancy chuckles, hand pressed over the receiver of her phone. I can hear the music. She’s on hold.
I’m still getting press from the incident on the Old Mill Bridge. It’s almost died down, but not quite. Nancy used to have to help me with my duty belt when I first started on the force. She’s not impressed by me yet.
“I didn’t get the call, Nance. You sleeping on the job?”
“Now, how could I sleep when this place is going crazy, and you’re off gallivanting around town, looking for kittens to fetch out of trees.”
I wouldn’t say the place is going full-blown crazy. Del’s door is shut. He’s probably still in there with the lawyers. The guy who delivers the water jugs is waiting for a signature, and the guy who maintains the copier has it in pieces on the back counter.
There’s a couple waiting in reception. Sarah Evans is nodding off in a chair. She must be using again. Ed Houser is with her, playing on his phone. They’re an odd pair. He works down at the parts factory—has for decades—and it doesn’t seem to bother him that she comes and goes.
“Ed here to report a robbery?”
Bev hangs up, signs for the water, and shakes her head. “Not this time, no.” She leans forward and lowers her voice. “Sarah wants to talk to Del about her girl. Del says he already talked to her. Nothing he can do. She says she ain’t leaving ‘til he takes a report. He says he already took a report. We’re at an impasse.”
“Del tell you to hand it off to me when I came back?”
“He did.” Bev smiles and winks. “You do have a way with the ladies.”
Both women crack up. They find this very funny.
“Oh, that reminds me.” Nancy rummages around on her desk until she finds a message slip under her keyboard. “Your ex called. She wants you to call her about the Harvest Day Parade.”
“Aren’t you divorced?” Bev asks for the hundredth time. We are. More than two years now.
“You can be friends with your ex,” Nancy says, passing me the message. I shove it in my pocket. I’ll probably forget it’s there, and it’ll end up in the wash.
Bev snorts. “I suppose. If they’re the friendly type.”
I make a show of peeling my sweaty shirt from my back. “It’s a hot one.”
I have to cut off the conversation before they get themselves started.
Bev narrows her eyes, assessing my damp pits. “It still a hundred degrees out there?”
“Feels like it.”
“You’ve got a fresh shirt hanging on the door.”
“Much obliged.”
Bev gives me an indulgent frown. “Don’t drop the dirty one on the floor like Del.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Give me a minute to settle in, then bring Sarah and Ed to my office?”
“Yes, sir.” Bev gives me a saucy salute, and swivels back to her computer.
“You want coffee?” Nancy asks. “I put on a fresh pot a few minutes ago.”
“Not now. Thank you, Nance.”
As I head for my office, Sarah Evans is still conked out and listing over in her chair, and Ed’s still deep in his phone. I take a minute to hang my hat on its hook, change my shirt, and scroll through email.
Since Del’s been dealing with the investigation, he’s forwarded me a lot of his obligations. Community meetings and planning committees and all sorts of business that must be dealt with at a desk. I hate being stuck behind a desk.
There’s nothing urgent in my inbox, so I’m ready to go when Nancy brings Sarah and Ed back. Del mentioned the situation briefly the other day.
Sarah’s daughter Rory finally had enough and left town: no notice, no note, no forwarding address. Sarah insists the girl is missing, but she’s eighteen. Del ran her through the system. She’s living in New York. He called, and they had a chat. She got herself a job at a restaurant and a place in Brooklyn.
Good for her, getting a fresh start. Sarah’s not taking it well, though.
Nancy shuts the door after my visitors shuffle in. Both have steaming Styrofoam cups of coffee in their hands. Sarah’s is shaking slightly in her yellow-stained fingers.
Ed grunts as he lowers himself into a chair and stretches his legs.
“Deputy,” he nods. He sips his drink and makes himself comfortable.
“Ed. Good to see you. Sarah.”
Sarah has crossed her thin legs, and she’s leaning forward, all bones and angles. Del says she discovered pills in high school, and she’s been lost ever since. Heroin. Fentanyl.
Before she took up with Ed, she spent a lot of time in the holding tank. Racked up charges for prostitution, possession, public intoxication. Ed keeps a roof over her head, and if she’s out of her mind, he’ll come and get her.
I don’t pretend to understand the relationship, but I’m not one to judge. My marriage was its own kind of mess.
“Del pawn us off on you?” Ed asks good-naturedly, scratching his belly.
“He did.”
Ed chuckles. “Surprised you got time for us. Ain’t you due for an interview somewhere?”
After the bridge incident, I was highly sought after. On local papers and TV stations, but also national programs. Apparently, I’m photogenic. Del asked me to do the interviews. The sheriff’s office needs the good press. Bev and Nancy gave me a script of what to say, but I was still awkward as hell. I don’t have the gift of gab.
“I’m yesterday’s news.” I force a smile. “Now, how can I help you folks?”
“My Rory is missing.” Sarah swings her crossed leg and tightens her grip on her cup. “I told the sheriff, but he won’t do anything.”
Ed casts me an apologetic look. “He says she’s eighteen, and he looked into it. She’s fine.”
“Then why won’t he say where she is?”
“You remember, Sarah. He said he couldn’t. Privacy.”
Sarah snorts. “Bullshit. I’m her mother. And Rory wouldn’t leave without saying anything.”
Ed and I share a glance. Sarah herself has disappeared plenty of times over the years. She always turns up, but we’ve all fielded the calls. Before Ed was the one hunting her down, it was her parents.
“Del’s briefed me on the case.” Slight exaggeration. I’m remembering that he vaguely mentioned it in between bitching about the F.B.I. investigation and the ever-increasing number of nuisance complaints we get each day. “He ran her through the system. Everything checks out. He spoke to her. She left town of her own accord.”
“Someone’s got her.” Sarah drums her fingers on the arm of her chair. “They could be making her say she’s okay.”
Ed rolls his eyes.
“Is there a reason you believe this?” I’m careful with my tone. I’ve learned a lot since I started this job. Half of the time, you don’t know what you think you know. Truth is stranger than fiction.
“She had that good job up on the hill.”
That’s right. She cleaned for my folks and Van. Actually, I think she was friendly with my sister Dina, too. Dina’s not like other folks. She doesn’t take to people. But she liked Rory; I know that. She mentioned her, and she never mentioned people. I bet she’s bummed that Rory left town.
“Is there anything else that has you concerned?”
I maintain eye contact, watch my tone. People won’t tell you anything if you act like you’ve already made up your mind.
“She would have said goodbye.” Sarah’s eyebrows spear down. “And Pandy Bullard knows something.”
I school my features. Pandy Bullard stirs up more drama in this county than any ten other people combined. She’s the one who told me the girl at the bonfire, the one with the auburn hair, was her cousin from out of town. I was wasted that night. I didn’t think to question her age. Turns out she was a minor. I didn’t know ‘til years later when Cash was reminiscing on a hunting trip.
Apparently, there’d been gossip at the time. Cash got coy and wouldn’t spill all the details—he said it was total bullshit—but apparently, it could have turned real ugly. Especially since that night happened right before Elizabeth finally decided she wanted to stop doing the on-again, off-again thing and get serious.
The girl moved back to where she was from, though, and if Cash hadn’t gotten drunk, I would’ve never known how badly I’d fucked up.
The old sick feeling of guilt creeps into my chest. The girl was so sweet, and I was a jackass.
Shit. Now is not the time. I shake my head to clear it, and I refocus. “Why do you think Pandy Bullard knows something?”
“Rory was staying with her before she went missing. I asked to see her room. Pandy wouldn’t let me past the front door.”
“Where does Pandy say Rory went?”
“She won’t tell me anything. She says—” Sarah stops and scrubs roughly at her eyes. “She won’t talk to me.”
“She says that Rory left town,” Ed volunteers.
“She’ll talk to Ed, but she won’t talk to me.” Sarah starts jiggling her knee.
“Why was Rory staying with Pandy?” I’m careful to keep the accusation out of my voice, but Sarah bristles anyway.
“She’d graduated, hadn’t she? She had a job. Pandy’s place was closer to work.”
“Rory is eighteen, correct?”
Sarah jerks her chin and stares past me out the open blinds of the window behind my desk, her eyes shiny with tears. “I know what you all think about me, but Rory wouldn’t just leave. She’s lived here her whole life. Everyone she knows is here in Stonecut County.”
“Del spoke to her. She left town. There is no evidence of foul play.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t know the specifics.”
“Someone could have been making her say she’s okay.” Sarah rises abruptly to her feet. Ed blinks in surprise, but he lumbers up beside her. “Listen. I know you don’t believe me. None of you do. I should have figured. That’s how it is in Stonecut County.”
I stand, too. Sarah’s gripping her cup so tightly her fingernails dent the Styrofoam. “If you’re hot shit in this town—if your name is Price or Wall—whatever you say goes. And if you’re regular folk, you’re on your own. I should have known.”
She sets her coffee on the edge of my desk.
“At least you’re consistent.” She shoots me a scathing look, turns on her heel, and leaves.
Ed lingers, his face flushing red. “Uh. Sorry about that, Deputy.”
He gulps the rest of his drink and tosses the cup into my wastebasket. “You, uh, gotta know, though. Rory didn’t ever talk about leaving town. She didn’t have any money. Del said she’s using her credit cards, but she didn’t have no credit cards. She got paid under the table for cleaning your folk’s houses. She couldn’t get one if she tried.”
He stands there, phone in hand, stained T-shirt and jeans worn through at the knees, and he meets my eyes.
“Something happened. Here—” He scrolls through the phone, and then he holds it up for me to see.
It’s Rory. She’s holding an enormous pumpkin. Thirty pounds, easy. The sun glints off her reddish-brown hair, and she seems caught by surprise, but she’s still smiling shyly. In her overalls and pink headband, she doesn’t look like a woman. Not at all.
“This was last Halloween. She might not have told Sarah she had plans to leave town, but she would’ve told me. She’s a good kid.”
“I’ll talk to Del.”
“Look into it. Please. I just want to make sure she’s okay. She ain’t had an easy go of it. I wouldn’t blame her if she left. But—just make sure she’s okay.”
I nod and step around the desk to offer my hand. He shakes it in his meaty grip and shuffles out.
By the time I sit back down and open my email, Nancy has forwarded me the report Del ran. According to this, Rory is working at Franco’s Italian Grille. She’s shopping at a pharmacy and a corner store. No one’s kidnapped her and wracked up charges. It’s all ten dollars here, twenty dollars there.
There’s no current address, but if she’s new to the city, she’s probably renting a room. No phone, either. She could be using a disposable.
