A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel (15 page)

“Mmm-hmm,” Stella said, feeling worse than she usually did about lying.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot of success with the rest of her calls. Between the customers who straggled in, helping
Chrissy with the sewing, and not finding people at their desks or answering their cell phones, Stella hadn’t made much progress at all when closing time rolled around.

She and Chrissy stopped by the FreshWay to pick up dinner fixings. When they got home, Todd was doing skateboard tricks across the street in old Rolf Bayer’s driveway. Stella was surprised, since Bayer had always been hostile to everyone in the neighborhood, and seemed to reserve a special hatred for kids. He’d yelled at Noelle years ago for making chalk drawings on the sidewalk in front of his house.

“Hey,” she called, walking into the street as Chrissy took the groceries into the house. “You tryin’ to get Bayer to call the cops on you?”

Todd shot out into the street, leaping over the curb and landing hard, then skidded to a stop next to her. As usual, he hadn’t bothered to tie his shoes; it was a wonder that the puffy, enormous things stayed on his feet.

“He told my mom he was going to sic the city on us!” he said in a tone of outrage. “Called us trash. So I told him I was gonna skate on his driveway until I broke something and then we’d sue his ass to hell.”

Stella figured she knew what had Bayer’s dander up—the Groffes’ lawn had been neither watered nor cut in a long time, and the girls usually left their Big Wheels and Cozy Coupes in the front yard.

“Well, lemme ask you something,” she said. “You ever thought about cutting that grass of yours?”

“Mower’s busted,” Todd muttered, toeing the ground.

“Ah,” Stella said. Poor Sherilee. In her line of business, Stella occasionally forgot that getting rid of a bad man was
only the first step to getting one’s life back. And with Sherilee’s schedule, she could see how lawn care might have fallen down on the priority list. “Well, look here, mine’s working fine. You go and get it out of the garage. It’s got gas in it. Put the clippings in the garden bin, okay? I don’t want to see them left out on the lawn.”

“Aw, Stella—”

“Shut up, punk, and listen. When you’re done with that, come on back here and I’ll loan you some sprinklers. Hoses if you need ’em, too. That lawn is officially your job, now, hear?”

Todd crossed his arms and glowered at her. “Why the fuck would I want to do any of that?”

It had been a long day, and Stella’s patience was stretched thin. Without thinking she reached out for the collar of Todd’s grimy T-shirt and twisted until she was practically choking him.

“Look here,” she said. “You want to grow up like the dirtbag who walked out on your mom, or you want to maybe be someone she can be halfway proud of? Huh?”

It wasn’t until Todd made a strained gasping sound that Stella realized she might be squeezing a little too hard, and relaxed her grip. Todd rubbed at his throat and glared at her.

“Besides,” she said, softening, “there’s twenty bucks in it for you.”

“Mom won’t let me take no money,” Todd muttered.

“Well, that’s right. She shouldn’t. But I’m going to give it to you anyway. That can be our secret.”

Todd stared at her a moment longer. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll do it for ten,” he said, and as he trudged into her garage
to get the mower, skateboard tucked under his arm, Stella felt an odd little tug at her heart.

Maybe there was a chance for the kid.

Inside, she put a pot of Rice-A-Roni on and tossed some pork chops with bread crumbs and Lipton French onion soup mix, drizzled them with butter, and stuck them in the oven. Chrissy was slicing veggies for a salad and setting the table, so Stella took her cell phone out to the screen porch at the back of the house and dialed Noelle’s number.

“Hi. You’ve reached Noelle! Gerald and I aren’t here right now . . .”

Stella’s throat tightened at the sound of her daughter’s voice. She called a few times a week, always when she knew Noelle would be at work, which wasn’t hard to do, because Noelle worked long hours at the beauty shop.

This Gerald thing on the machine was new. But it wasn’t a surprise.

Stella knew a fair amount about Gerald already. An old client who lived in Coffey e-mailed Stella to let her know when Gerald and Noelle started keeping company. Within two weeks of their first date, Stella had his priors memorized. Could draw his family chart from memory, the whole unremarkable clan over in Arkansas. Knew the details of the warrant he was avoiding across the state line, for putting his old fiancée in the hospital.

Stella still didn’t understand what it was that made a girl who grew up in a house filled with anger and violence seek out the same. Even if Ollie never smacked Noelle, she was barely six the first time she saw him punch her mother—and Ollie doled out a steady stream of verbal abuse to both of them. Why hadn’t
Noelle arrived at adulthood, looked around, and said to herself, “Oh goody, look at all these perfectly nice, ordinary men—they’re not one bit like Dad”?

But Gerald wasn’t the first man her daughter had dated who treated her badly.

He was the second.

Unfortunately, Stella had dealt with the first one so decisively that he lived in Alaska now, not daring to show his face in the continental U.S. Stella didn’t regret it—not even when Noelle called her up sobbing and cursing and promising never to speak to her again for the rest of her life.

No, she only began to regret it when Noelle went out and found herself someone worse.

Stella dialed her daughter’s number again and listened to Noelle’s voice, that sweet voice that had called her “mama,” had shrieked with laughter during tickle fights, had sung in every concert the Prosper High School chorus put on.

“Oh, sugar, why do you want to do this to yourself?” Stella whispered, then hung up when the phone beeped.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket and rocked back and forth on the glider. She was keeping a close watch. If things got to where she needed to intercede with Gerald, she would. But she’d learned a lesson, and the fact that it broke her heart didn’t make it any less important that she stay a little further out of her daughter’s life than she wanted.

Next time, there was nothing to stop Noelle from moving even further away. And though Stella doubted there was anyone better at finding people who wanted not to be found, she was terrified of pushing Noelle further out of her life than she already was.

After the dinner was done and the dishes washed, Chrissy settled in to watch
Talladega Nights
on pay-per-view, and Stella went to check her e-mail. She planned to make an early night of it. Tomorrow, when she had a little more information, she’d put together a plan. Head up to Kansas City, if that’s what it took.

When the phone rang she picked it up right away. No sense taking Chrissy away from her movie. Lots of folks used TV as an electronic babysitter for their kids; Stella was finding it convenient for keeping Chrissy’s mind off trying to get involved in the case.

“Hello?”

“You lookin’ for Roy Dean,” a voice said on the other end. A weird voice, tinny and deep, as if its owner was speaking through layers of Reynolds Wrap.

“Might be,” Stella said slowly, trying to place the voice and having no luck.

“I got some information could help you find him.”

“Is that right? What sort of information?”

There was a pause, and Stella could hear breathing.

“I don’t want to say, over the phone.”

“Whyever the hell not?”

“Line might not be secure.”

Stella sighed heavily. “What, you think the FBI came in while I was at work and bugged my place? Wait—fine, fine, whatever. You want to meet somewhere?”

“Yeah. And I was thinkin’ you could make it worth my trouble. You know.”

Stella was mystified: could it be a friend of Roy Dean’s? Someone he’d blabbed to at a bar? One of Benning’s employees? Benning himself?

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, trying to sound puzzled.

“A hundred ought to do it.”

“A
hundred
?”

“That’s what I said.”

“That’s—oh, whatever, fine. Where?”

“Bench on the southeast corner of the pond next to the county golf course. Be there in an hour.”

Stella could picture the muddy little pond, a ball-catcher at the bottom of a hill. She didn’t remember a bench, but the county was messing around with the community park and golf course these days, ripping out the landscaping they’d installed in the sixties and seventies and updating it. Bright tubular plastic equipment replaced the swings she’d pushed Noelle in. A mulched plot of azalea bushes grew near the park entrance where there had been an overgrown bank of arborvitae. Worst of all, “exercise stations” had sprouted along the brick walk that used to be a simple muddy track around the pond.

“I’ll find it,” Stella grumbled, hanging up.

She changed into some stretchy black yoga pants and fastened on her holster, a quick-draw abdomen model made of black nylon with Velcro in the back, and tucked the Raven into it. She shrugged on a tank top and slipped a light jacket over it. It was too hot by half to be dressing like that, but Stella didn’t intend to meet up with unknown would-be conspirators without some sort of insurance hidden on her.

As she was corralling her hair into a big plastic barrette, the phone in her bedroom rang. She picked it up, pretending not to notice the gosh-wonder-if-it-could-be-Goat thrill that zipped around her insides.

“Hello?”

There was only the sound of breathing—rather labored breathing—before a young woman’s voice finally said, “Is this Chrissy? Or the other one?”

“Uh, this is Stella Hardesty. Who’s this?” “It don’t matter who I am. Kin I please speak with Chrissy?” Stella considered. It wasn’t likely to be one of the other Lardner girls—presumably they knew their sister’s voice. Ditto any close friends. Which meant that a stranger was calling for her client. A stranger who somehow knew that Chrissy was staying at Stella’s place.

“Chrissy’s occupied at the moment,” Stella said briskly. “May I take a message?”

A bit more silence, then, “How about if I wait? Is she in the bathroom or something?”

“Actually, I’m taking all of Ms. Lardner’s messages at the moment. Can you tell me the nature of your call, please?”

“It’s—I’m—see here, I need to talk to Roy Dean.”

That caught Stella by surprise, but she answered carefully: “Roy Dean isn’t here, I’m afraid.”

“Well, y’all gonna be seein’ him soon?”

“We . . . may be, yes,” Stella said, thinking fast. Whoever the mystery caller was, she clearly didn’t know Roy Dean had disappeared. It was possible she might unwittingly spill information that would lead to him.

“Well, look. I need him to, to come over and get this, uh, this
thing
that he left here at my place.”

Stella’s heart sped up. The way the girl said
thing
. . . it was as if she had a secret to keep. “What sort of thing are you talking about?” she asked carefully.

Another pause. This gal required a fair amount of thinking time, Stella decided. “Something of his I don’t want around here no more, that’s what kind of thing. Look here, I didn’t know he was married, not when we first hooked up, okay?”

“Um . . . okay, sure. Can you at least tell me when he dropped the thing off?”

“A few days ago. But look. He said he’d be back for it and he ain’t been. I can’t keep it around here, you know? I don’t want to be responsible.”

Tucker—it had to be Tucker. Roy Dean had dropped the baby off with this girl—his girlfriend, from the sounds of it—maybe even the one he’d been pestering at the speedway. And then, for whatever reasons—reasons having to do with Benning and the Kansas City mafia, maybe, or more likely something a lot more simple, like he got drunk or high or otherwise distracted—he hadn’t been back for the boy.

“Look here,” Stella said in as kind a voice as she could muster. “Is this thing . . . being well looked after?”

“Huh? Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Look, tell Roy Dean to come get it tomorrow at noon. I’ll come home on my lunch hour, and he better be there.”

“Sure. Just give me the address.”

“He
has
the address,” the girl spat, with a full measure of disdain. “He’s been here plenty.”

“Oh. Well, could I at least have a name?”

“He’ll know, okay? He’ll know damn well who it is—just tell him Darla said he better be here.”

Click.

Stella slowly lowered the receiver back to the cradle on her nightstand. She finished with her hair and went out to the
living room, hesitating in front of the TV and wondering what to tell Chrissy. On screen, Will Ferrell was saying the Baby Jesus prayer. Somehow it seemed fitting.

“Chrissy . . . sweet pea . . . you happen to know a gal named Darla? Might have been keeping company with Roy Dean?”

Chrissy shook her head, glancing away from the television. “No, but I feel sorry for her if she has been.”

“Yeah. It’s just . . .” Stella considered describing the conversation she’d just had, but without knowing who and where the girl was, there was nothing they could do for now, other than get Chrissy completely riled up—just when Stella had finally gotten her all settled down. “Well, nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow.”

At least, until noon. Somehow, between now and then, Stella had to find Darla. Which shouldn’t be too impossible, in a town the size of Prosper. Though if Roy Dean had taken his lovin’ out of town, she could quickly have a monster search on her hands.

Stella sighed. One damn problem at a time. Right now she had a date with a park bench.

“Hey darlin’, I got to run out for a bit,” she said.

“You meeting up with the sheriff?” Chrissy asked, sitting up straight. She had changed into what Stella figured passed for pajamas: a pink T-shirt with a kitten screen-printed on the front and the words
Sweet Pussy
.

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, just ’cause of him calling earlier. I figured maybe you called him back and he talked you into a date.”

“Oh . . .” Stella was about to dismiss Chrissy’s guess, but the truth was she didn’t have any better excuses. “Going out for
Pringles” would work, but it might not give her enough time. “Yes, you got me, girl,” she said. “Ought to make you into a detective or something.”