A Bad Day for Mercy (16 page)

“I am not wanting Benton money!” Natalya shrieked, and Stella had the eerie realization that with the arrival of Benton’s sister, Natalya had more or less forgotten that he was not only dead but disposed of at least partially by her hand.

Stella knew well that the hurts from a failed marriage ran deep. Sometimes it took more than a simple slaying to bring closure—that was a lesson Stella had learned firsthand, when Ollie’s death was only the start of the long and painful process of figuring out exactly who she was without him.

“Benton is bringing Luka here fair square,” Natalya wailed. “I tell Benton I am paying him back, I will take job, I will work waitress or cleaner of house. But Benton is not letting me work.”

“Two things I have to say to you,” Alana said, drawing herself up to her full height, which only further accentuated her skinny and awkward frame, her stalklike neck, and her bony elbows. “First of all, you never told Benton you had a child while he was courting you. You waited until you were engaged and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Secondly, how long was your bas— was your kid here before you ran out on my brother? A week? Two? You only stayed married to him until you got what you wanted all along, which was to bring your son to this country so you could both live off the generosity of the American government, never working a day in your life. You’re leeches, is what you are. Parasites. Well, you’re not the only one who can hire a lawyer, do you know that?”

A sickly feeling started to uncoil inside Stella as she realized that Alana might be the sort of runaway train she wished she’d known about before it came speeding into the station.

“I am not fearing lawyers,” Natalya snapped, but a quick look at Chip’s ashen face confirmed for Stella that of the three of them, Natalya was alone in that view. “You cannot make Benton to divorce me.”

“
Divorce
? Oh, honey, that’s gonna be the least of your worries by the time I’m through with you,” Alana said, stuffing the envelope back into her purse as she strode to the front door. “There’s a phrase we have here in America, I don’t know what it translates to in your language, but maybe get out your little pocket translator and look it up: Eat my shorts.”

*   *   *

“She is trying
beat deadline,” Natalya said worriedly after they sat down at the kitchen table with a pitcher of iced tea. “She is wanting to send me and Luka back to Russia.”

“I don’t think so,” Stella mused. She was thinking about the envelope Alana had produced from her purse. For some reason the woman had put it away, but clearly she’d come here with an ulterior motive. “I’d say she’s got something else on her mind. You know … I’m not a lawyer, obviously, but I’d be willing to try to look into this a little further … What do you think?”

Natalya waved her hand distractedly. “What I think is, whatever you can do to keep that terrible woman away from me and my Luka is big help.”

“Do you have her address? Phone numbers, place of employment—anything at all about her personal life?”

“Yes, I can get this. I am sending card to Alana and her husband, Jeffers, every Christmas. Also I make for them
kutya.
Alana is Benton’s only living relative. I am trying make friends, but…” There followed a quick-fire blast of Russian that Stella could not follow but whose tone implied that her efforts had failed.

“She didn’t return the love,” Stella guessed.

“No, she is capital-
B
Bitch.”

“Natalya!” Chip gasped.

“I am sorry, is no other word.” Natalya went to a drawer in the kitchen and got a vinyl-bound address book and a sheet of notebook paper and began copying an address in a beautiful script.

“There’s one more thing I need, while you’re at it. Please give me everything you have on that Topher Manetta.”

“I thought we are deciding is bad idea?”

“Well, we’re no closer to knowing who killed your husband than we were when I got here. I know we’re all hoping this just sort of blows over, but I think that little incident with your sister-in-law is a good reminder that folks don’t tend to go quiet-like into the hereafter. They got all kinds of attachments and entanglements with life here on this planet that can make for trouble when they’re gone. Now you tell me that this Topher’s on good friendly terms with Benton and that’s great, only sometimes things ain’t exactly like what they seem, ’specially when you throw a few male egos into the mix. So I need to check him out, just the same as I’d check out anyone else.”

“All right.” Natalya sighed and flipped through the pages of her address book and continued writing.

For a few moments everything was pleasantly tranquil. Natalya’s pencil scratched on the notebook paper, and Chip hummed quietly as he rooted through the fridge for a snack, and it was almost possible to imagine that the last twenty-four hours had not occurred at all and Stella could choose among a variety of pleasant activities, like calling Noelle to see what time she could come over with her portable manicure kit, or Chrissy to see if she felt like barbecuing steaks or chops—or even Goat, to flirtatiously remind him of the true date of her birthday and perhaps suggest a kiss for luck.

Stella had let herself go quite a ways down the wouldn’t-it-be-nice-path, had in fact arrived at the you-deserve-it-honey cul-de-sac, when a blast of the doorbell broke up her pleasant fantasy.

“That’s an awful
strident
bell you got,” she groused.

“It’s a rental,” Chip shrugged, as he got up to answer.

“Maybe get set to make yourself scarce,” Stella suggested, but Natalya was miles ahead of her, racing down the hallway to hide in their bedroom.

Chip turned to give her a brief thumbs-up. Then he opened the door.

BJ Brodersen stood on the other side.

Chapter Fourteen

“Aw, I’m sorry,” Stella said for the fifth time. “I can’t even believe my poor manners. Why, I wouldn’t blame you for never speaking to me again.”

“But I don’t care about the truck, Stella,” was BJ’s rejoinder. This, too, had been trotted out several times without resolution. “All’s I care about is your safety. I’m just glad I’ve got the tracker on the GPS, so I knew where you was at.”

Stella exchanged a glance with Chip, grimacing briefly while her face was turned away from BJ. It was one thing to have a man concerned about her—kind of nice, actually, in a chivalrous sort of way—but damned inconvenient in this particular instance, when she had been just about to take the gentleman’s truck on an errand of interrogation.

“What-all have you got in the back, anyway?” BJ asked, as though reading her mind.

“You helped me load it all in there…”

“Yes, but … I didn’t want to pry, only I got to wondering, in between worrying about you being dead in a ditch or lost or held up by robbers.”

“That’s just so awful nice.” Stella beamed and helped herself to a cookie, her fifth. It was almost impossible to resist a nerve-steadying snack while she was working overtime on dealing with BJ’s unexpected arrival and keeping her story straight. Natalya had emerged from the bedroom to say hello, upended a package of Pepperidge Farm Geneva cookies on a china plate and brewed a quick pot of coffee, and then tactfully disappeared, claiming that she needed to lie down.

Chip, for his part, had been employing an increasingly dramatic set of gestures to indicate his willingness to join Natalya and give Stella and BJ privacy, maneuvering himself behind BJ’s chair while pretending to fetch milk for the coffee or fill a glass from the sink. It was sweet, the way he was trying to create privacy in the name of romance, Stella thought—and the timing was reasonably good since the only truly immediate problem, locating Todd, had been taken care of, though the boys had managed to slip out while the adults were occupied and were wandering the streets of town, a notion that worried Stella enough that as soon as she dealt with BJ, she meant to go out and retrieve them.

BJ was looking good in his pale green golf shirt and what appeared to be a fresh haircut, sticking pretty much straight up in a way that complemented his broad and ruddy face. He smelled nice, some cologne that he might have been just a tad too generous with.

“It was unforgivable of me to take such a valuable … piece of machinery out of state without keeping you apprised of my whereabouts,” Stella continued. Then she grimaced—her nerves were making her all wordy and silly sounding, and it really was ludicrous, BJ worrying about a fender bender after the actual events of the last couple of days. “I’m especially sorry you had to drive the Subaru up here.”

The car in question, an ancient Subaru Impreza, belonged to BJ’s helper at the bar, Jorge, who was a much smaller man and hence didn’t mind driving a car whose driver’s seat practically lined up with the windshield, to hear BJ tell it. He’d been unable to sit down for the first few minutes of his visit while he worked all the kinks and cricks out of his back and neck, twisting and popping this way and that.

Stella had tried not to stare, but when BJ lifted his arms above his head to stretch, she couldn’t help but get an eyeful of that broad torso tapering down to those neat pressed slacks. BJ had a bit of a spare tire on him, but Stella found herself thinking that it would be kind of nice to cuddle up against a substantial man like that … and she had even considered that if things got going in a vigorous fashion, it would be good to know she wouldn’t accidentally asphyxiate the man, which was something she might worry about with a skinny partner.

BJ twisted to the side, and Stella could see that the man had a nice profile, the kind of butt you could get a good grip on, and a broad neck with a hint of a tan already, though it was barely lawn-mowing season.

He twisted the other way and she just about convinced herself that she might as well take him for a spin and
then
do all the soul-examining and heartfelt getting-to-know-each-other part of the romance.

Now, though, with him sitting across the table from her, much of his appealing physique concealed beneath the table, Stella found that she was able to see things a little more clearly, and there were lots of things wrong with the scenario. For one thing, if they went to bed right now, or at least as soon as she located the boys, Stella would be asleep within moments, her exhaustion reaching a critical level. Even if she got a nap in, it wasn’t like they could go on a proper date here in Smythe, and they couldn’t really even have a romantic drive home to Missouri, since two cars had now made the trip north as well as a pesky teen who needed to be delivered home.

“You know, I’m worried about the boys,” Stella said.

“Oh, don’t fret, Stella, Luka stays out all the time. Natalya likes him to come home for dinner so she can see for herself he’s eating good, but then he’s off again with his friends.”

Stella considered pointing out that neither Chip nor Natalya had a good grasp of the dangers lurking on the streets of even the tiniest rural midwestern towns these days, but that was a conversation she probably needed to have with them in private, when she had their full attention. She figured that Chip, who had been raised on the neglect plan by his pill-popping mom and absent father, meant no harm and probably didn’t know any better. As for Natalya, the woman was clearly devoted to her son, but she seemed to be truly naive about what went on in America. Besides, it seemed prudent to assume that Luka’s would-be kidnappers might still be in the mood to kidnap him.

“All the same, I’m thinking maybe BJ and I will go for a walk and see if we can find them.”

“Oh.” Chip blinked, and then his smile broadened. “Ohhhh. Sure. I get you.”

Stella rolled her eyes at the lack of subtlety, but she carefully noted down the places Chip suggested she look: a sandwich shop that was apparently quite the hangout for local teens, and the little veterans’ memorial park near the town hall.

As they strolled outside, afternoon shadows lengthening along the streets, BJ slipped his hand around Stella’s. He stared straight ahead, his hand warm and very slightly damp, and Stella was charmed that he was nervous.

“I got to tell you, Stella, I was so worried about you I called over to the sheriff’s office. Thought I ought to check did they have any reports from the Highway Department, or whatnot.”

“You did? You didn’t speak to … Goat, did you?”

BJ gave her a funny little sideways glance, his mouth set in a sort of grimace. “Nah, I talked to Irene and she checked with Ian. Goat was out somewhere, I guess.”

“Oh.” Stella tried to look like she didn’t much care, but the damage was done. Ian Sloat, one of Prosper’s two deputies, was sure to say something to Goat—if Irene, the departmental assistant, didn’t beat him to it. All of them were aware, one way or another, of the ongoing whatever-it-was between Goat and Stella, which was a funny thing because Stella herself couldn’t decide what it was half the time.

“Listen here, Stella,” BJ said earnestly, and Stella knew what was coming. Damn, but the man had an uncanny way of going straight to whatever was on her mind—especially things she was trying to keep concealed from him. “I’m just, ah, wondering. Are you seeing the sheriff? I mean like is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” Stella said quickly—probably too quickly, judging by the relief that washed over BJ’s face. “We’re friends, good friends. But there ain’t any, not anything really going on between us.”

“Oh! ’Cause I thought … I mean, I seen you with him here and there, and folks say … well, you know how folks talk, but I guess I should know as much as anyone most of it’s just a bunch of horse manure. I mean, you wouldn’t believe some a the rumors I heard about … uh, some people.”

“Is that right.” Stella knew the rumors he was referring to were about her, and she could only imagine, given that much of BJ’s time was spent across a narrow wooden bar from drunk folks who felt like revealing their deepest secrets and wildest conjecture—and at times that conjecture probably touched on her exploits. Stella had chased down more than a couple of ne’er-do-wells at BJ’s, though she was always careful to conduct her business far away from the establishment—aside from that one time when she’d hid out in a lawn chair on the other side of the electric cattle fence on the side of the parking lot that butted up against Neils Persson’s buckwheat field late one Thursday evening, waiting for Cray Tollifer to lurch drunkenly out to his wife’s Pontiac, the same one he’d been driving since she was laid up with a broken wrist that made it difficult to drive.