Authors: Charlie Price
Three sets of footprints were identified, the larger ones entering from the west, probably from the nearby road, the smaller size nine from the south, but it was impossible to discern the gender of the print makers or to follow the prints past the small clearing as the area was too rocky.
Not nearly enough information to narrow the search for a killer.
28
Y
EAH
,
SHE LOOKED FAMILIAR
. Evelyn. Evelyn Edmonds. Pretty, eager, stupid. Ev and her sex scam. Actually, Grace had thought the plan might work. Not a bad idea, but such a small town. What were the odds somebody wouldn’t catch her, bust her, or cut in on her profits?
Grace had watched the girl wink and linger with several of the male customers that ate alone. Truckers and tourists mostly. Evelyn would ask where they were staying, make a plan to meet. A few local guys, too. Some high school guys got wind of it and tried to make a deal, Tim and Cunneen in that group, but Evelyn shooed them off. Wouldn’t take that big a risk. Maybe statutory if she got caught.
At least once a month, Hammond and his group—Bolton, Mackler, and Greer—came in for a meal. Cookie had filled Grace in. The Gang of Four, Five if you counted Scott Cassel. Teammates from high school, what, twenty years ago? Buddies that had returned after college and built a small empire. Sam Hammond used his inherited family money to start several operations that figured regularly in the town’s gossip.
Since he left Cookie alone to manage the café, Grace didn’t see Hammond all that often, and except for the monthly get-togethers, she never ran into most of the others. Mr. Highway Patrol stopped in for lunch once in a while.
At the partners’ get-together in late April, Grace had waited their table while Evelyn did her thing on the other side of the room. The men made a study out of minding their own business, but they caught the game. For all Grace knew, they ran girls of their own. She’d heard a lot of whispering about kickbacks, gambling, blackmail, even prescription drugs from Canada made available to preferred hardware and feed customers.
Seemed to her like a pretty good setup. Hammond owned several businesses, ran real estate, brokered loans, sold commercial insurance. Bolton the main judge in municipal and superior courts, Greer the banker, Mackler at Human Services controlled the labor pool and was in a good position to obtain insider info about local families. The lawman, Scott Cassel? Grace wasn’t sure. Larry Cassel, Scott’s older son? She heard Hammond used him for collection work. Grace had been waitressing enough to learn more secrets than a priest or a hairdresser.
Not long after that particular dinner, Judge Bolton’s car was waiting in the parking lot when Grace got off work. Waiting for Evelyn? That had been Grace’s guess. Then another coincidence. A few days later, Greer’s car.
Grace had decided to use the girl as a canary. Keep an eye on her. If Evelyn dropped over, the air was poison.
* * *
Since that time, she’d done Hammond’s bidding once or twice a week. Cookie always paid her in cash. And, as Hammond had mentioned, when the arrangement continued to go well, Cookie relayed new assignments. She began keeping a more detailed log of the dates when a particular man or woman ate in the restaurant or visited the motel and who they accompanied. She was given a tiny voice-activated tape recorder to hide and later retrieve in specific motel rooms the days that she did cleaning. Occasionally she received phone numbers and instructions to use a sexy voice to call particular homes, quizzing wives about their husbands’ whereabouts.
Grace figured this was a small sampling of Hammond’s arsenal to bring resistant businessmen around to his way of thinking. She heard that Hammond had much harsher ways at his disposal to put pressure on people. Cookie and others said Larry Cassel played that role.
In a way, Hammond had inspired her. Using her continuing silence as a lever, Grace got Ev to agree on a “finder’s fee” for every customer Grace sent her way. Grace heard a concept she liked—broaden your income stream. She could do that.
But Ev’s killing had come out of nowhere. Grace was more than surprised, she was rocked. Scared. She’d imagined that Ev might be told to quit her sideline … or even arrested, but murder? Grace hadn’t seen that coming. It shook her to realize she had no sense of her own risk level. Was she next, or was she suddenly in a position to make even more money? She had no idea, and her stomach had been churning since she recognized the girl in the water.
Now Grace wondered whether that pretty Latina girl had left on her own a few weeks before. The girl she replaced as courier? Ramona no-showed. Hadn’t said a word to anybody about leaving. And nobody raised an eye. Cookie got Evelyn to cover the day, found another girl to take the rest, done and over. Just like that, she was gone like Evelyn would have been if Jon hadn’t found her.
29
T
HE DAY AFTER THEY FOUND THE BODY
, Wednesday, Grace made herself go to work. Bonnie, Ramona’s replacement on breakfast shift, was still there, finishing the lunch crowd. Ev had worked with Grace Monday, Grace had Tuesday off, so how was Cookie going to handle Ev’s murder? One way or another he knew about it. The whole town was buzzing.
At one-thirty a new girl came in, bone skinny, black slacks, white top, hair back in a twist. Cookie brought her over, introduced her, and dismissed Bonnie. Like before with Ramona, no mention of anything about a change.
Grace was left standing behind the counter with the girl, fighting nerves that were getting worse like the old days, when her parents told her good night and left her alone to get ready for bed. Grace made herself focus, made herself talk to what’s-her-name … Meryl. Weird name. She looked fifteen, undeveloped, tall, thin, dark circles around her eyes that didn’t come from makeup. The girl put both hands on the counter, looked at them, took them off. Put one foot on top of the other. Unsure what to say or do. Grace remembered feeling that kind of awkwardness. Not so long ago, really.
“Lived here long?” Grace folded a counter towel, tried to seem polite, not nosy.
“I’m from Lonepine,” the girl said. It rushed out like she was relieved to have a chance to say something.
Grace didn’t know where that was. “So what’re you doing here?”
“Things weren’t good at home. I … my caseworker gave me … I got sent here for placement.”
“Great. That’s kind of how I started. How’d you get this job?” Grace already knew the answer.
* * *
The rest of the day Grace kept expecting Cookie to pull her aside, say something. When he didn’t, her worry ratcheted another notch higher. Business as usual in the café when the customers couldn’t seem to talk about anything else but the killing? Grace was having trouble remembering orders, trouble carrying things.
The new girl gave her a look. Asked her, “Want some help?”
Grace ignored her. Left late afternoon complaining of a headache.
30
M
ICK GOT HOME FROM WORK A LITTLE AFTER FIVE
, sore from lifting and carrying bags of seed, crates of nails, rolls of metal fencing. Unload them, shelve some, stack the extra in the warehouse. Nine hours straight. Okay with him. Get in shape for football.
His hands were stiff and clumsy and he was having trouble turning the pages on his library book when he heard tires crunching on gravel. Figured his dad had gotten off early and was firing up the Bonneville to go somewhere.
“Hey! Come back here!”
Not Dad.
A glance through the window showed him a black Mustang. Tim Cassel standing in front of it clapping a heavy black-metal cop’s flashlight against his open hand, smiling like he was planning to enjoy swinging it. Beside Tim, holding an ax handle, the smaller nut-kicker guy who’d attacked Mick after track with the two other apes. When Mick got up for a better look, he saw JJ, facing them, backed up against the porch in front of her trailer. Jon was peeking out from behind the screen door.
“You been spreading manure.” Cassel, loud enough for the neighborhood to hear. He was a couple of inches taller than his buddy but they both weighed about the same, a little under two hundred.
Nut-kicker had a neck like a barrel. Whacked the ax handle on the ground, raising a flash of dust.
Mick wondered if Mr. Stovall had a gun. He knew his dad had guns, but they were locked. Mick grabbed the putter Fitz used for a walking stick and went outside.
“Back off!” Mick came up to them on Tim’s side, holding the putter down by his leg.
“Well, well, Zipper Woods,” Tim said. “I heard you were in it, too.”
“Get out of here,” Mick said, stopping about fifteen feet to their front, between them and JJ. “We don’t have anything going with you. Nothing. Zero.” His voice slipped on that last word. Croaked. He could smell himself, rank, like fear had an odor.
“I never talked about Tim,” JJ said, behind Mick. “Never think of him.”
“Not what I hear, Bull Butt.” Cassel hitched his jeans like he was readying to move quick. “You’re saying couple, me and that Edmonds girl.”
“Never did,” JJ said. “Git before you do something even stupider.”
Mick stayed on the balls of his feet, ready for Cassel’s charge. Heard the Stovall trailer screen door slam. JJ going in, he hoped. If she was safe he could move behind the broken-down Chevy. Avoid a bloodbath.
“Can I help you boys?” Gary Stovall’s voice, pleasant as could be.
Mick kept his eyes on the bullies, ready for their next move.
“Your kid’s been telling lies about me,” Tim said. “Apology won’t cut it. Lesson’s got to be learned.”
Mick could imagine Scott Cassel saying those same words. Or maybe the other guy’s dad, knocking him to the floor and punishing him in ways that wouldn’t show at school. He knew about that. His own dad had beat him a few times.
They were glaring, breathing hard, pumping up to hurt somebody, and Mick could feel them getting ready to spark.
“You fellows know what this is,” Gary said. “I know you do.”
Mick wanted to turn around and look but he didn’t. They might throw something.
“You think it’s not loaded?” Gary asked. “Triple-aught, full choke,” he said. “Blow a hole right through you and your ride, and I don’t care if your father is Wyatt Earp.”
“You wouldn’t shoot us, you junkie piece of shit.”
Probably Tim talking, but Mick had spaced out, getting ready to move.
Gary didn’t say anything.
Then Grace’s voice. “Sheriff’s coming!”
Might be yelling this through the screen.
Gary again: “You want to explain this to your dad?”
They stayed in place for a few more seconds and then Tim turned on his heel.
The other guy was in the car before Tim finished saying, “We’ll be back.”
31
“Y
OU WANT TO COME IN HERE A MINUTE
?”
Mick turned to see Gary on the front steps of his trailer, holding a 12-gauge. He followed the man inside and had to keep himself from gagging. The odor was thick. Toilet, sour laundry, old garbage. The trailer was almost always like this.
Tina was on the couch, lying down, napping with most of her legs showing.
Gary tapped her on the shoulder. “Could we have a minute to figure something out here?” he asked her quietly. “You can rest in the bedroom. I’ll go turn on the fan.”
Tina had trouble gathering herself to get up. JJ moved to help her stand and took her arm, steadying, as they followed Gary to the back. When Tina was off the couch, a new wave of smell was released. Mick didn’t know how the others could put up with it.
Jon peeked his head out of the bathroom and closed the door again.
Gary came back in a minute, walking behind JJ and Grace. As he passed, he opened the bathroom. Jon yelled. Gary didn’t say anything, reached in and tugged Jon out by the arm, towed him to the kitchen table, where he sat on the bench and pulled Jon down beside him. He broke the double-barrel open, took out the shells, and stuck them in his shirt pocket. Leaned the gun on the wall behind him.
JJ and Grace stood facing him. Mick was still standing just inside the front door.
“I need to hear something from somebody,” Gary said. He was his old self, quiet, low-key. You’d never know he’d just backed down two creeps with clubs. He took hold of Jon and aimlessly sorted through some diodes or some such on the table. After a little bit of silence he looked up at Grace.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t said word one about the Cassels. I know what they’re like.”
Gary’s gaze moved to JJ. He’d seen her flinch when Grace said “Cassels.”
JJ was shaking her head. “I didn’t say he did anything,” she said.
Gary turned to Mick, clearly puzzled.
Mick was equally stumped. JJ had asked if the dead girl wasn’t Cassel’s girlfriend. It was just a question. He couldn’t imagine JJ talking about what they’d found to anybody else. She hardly spoke to anyone outside the compound.
“Uh, I remember hearing that maybe a Cassel had something to do with the dead girl,” Mick said, looking briefly in JJ’s direction, “but I didn’t tell anybody. Not even Dad.”
“The dead girl,” Gary repeated.
“The girl they found in the river yesterday,” Grace explained.
“You all know anything about that girl?” Gary asked.
Nobody spoke.
Then Jon. “JJ said Tim Cassel did it,” he said, his eyes shining like somebody was going to get in trouble and he was going to enjoy it.
JJ’s eyes cut toward the front door. She shook her head again.
Mick tried to remember. Tim? Didn’t she just say Cassel’s girlfriend? Maybe he didn’t hear right. He hadn’t been as close as Jon. Mick couldn’t think what to say that wouldn’t make things worse.
“JJ,” Gary said, looking at her. “Did you say anything to anybody about the Cassels killing that girl?”
“I said ‘Is that Cassel’s girl?’ is all. Once. Yesterday. I…” She tilted her head to include the rest of them as if they could help her.
“Not to nobody else?” Gary asked her. “Not a word?”