Bad Moon On The Rise (12 page)

“
Disappeared?”

“
Pretty much. That
boyfriend of hers started showing up more and more her second
semester. I didn’t like it. Tonya was different around him.
Quiet.”

“
What was his
name?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.
Larry, Leonard. Something like that. He never stayed at the
apartment. He’d come by, she’d leave with him. She’d come back a
few days later, quieter than ever. Not saying much. She’d make up
time she missed out of class and go from there, until the next time
he showed up. I didn’t like him, so I stayed away from
him.”

“
And she was with him when
she disappeared?”

“
I don’t think so,” the
woman said. “I had a couple of roommates, they graduated last year,
who were there when she left for the last time. It was about a
month before the end of the semester. They said two guys came to
get her in a silver car, you know, like an official state car. They
figured they were cops. Tonya packed up her things and left with
them. Didn’t leave a note or anything. Never called. I owed her
money, too. But I never heard from her again.”

“
No one knew where she’d
gone?” I asked.

The woman shook her head and her beads
clacked to silence as she thought. “A rumor went around she’d been
arrested. I figured it was probably true. I was one of the few
people who knew she’d served time and that she had hated it. That
was why I was surprised when it looked like she was back to dealing
drugs. I just figured she’d violated her parole or something. That
she’d been caught selling and that was it. She was going back
in.”

“
She wasn’t on parole,” I
said. “I’ve seen her official records. Tonya had competed her
parole by the time she enrolled here.”

“
Then I don’t know what to
tell you,” the woman said. “One of my roommates said the men who
came to get Tonya had on jackets with something about Silver Top
Detention Center printed on them in the front and big initials on
the back. I remember because we couldn’t believe those guys were
dumb enough to walk around with jackets that had ‘STD’ on the back
of them in big letters. I thought maybe they were parole officers
or something.”

“
Silver Top?” I knew the
name from the records Marcus had given me. “That was where Tonya
did most of her time. It’s in the mountains.”

The woman shrugged. “Maybe they sent
her back there?”

It didn’t make sense. There were no
records indicating Tonya had been sent back to jail anywhere. I
sighed and I guess I sounded as frustrated as I felt. The woman
shot me a look of sympathy before she stood up.

“
I got a class in five
minutes,” she said apologetically. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more
help.”

“
You helped,” I assured
her. “Believe me, you helped.”

“
Listen,” she said. “When
you find her son, will you do me a favor?”

“
Sure.”

“
You tell him that his
mother was a good woman and a smart woman, that she was working
hard to make something out of her life. I always wondered why she
was working so hard, why she studied so many hours, what was
driving her, you know?”

 
I nodded.

“
Now I know. She was doing
it for him. Will you let him know that?”

“
Yes,” I promised. “When I
find him, I’ll let him know.”

I hoped it was a promise I could
keep.

Marcus was mortally offended when I
implied his search of official records had been lax.

“
I do not make mistakes,”
he snapped, his voice rising like it always does when his pride has
been wounded. “I practically wrote the code for the reporting
system. If my data says Tonya Blackburn completed her parole two
years ago, then the woman completed her parole two years
ago.”

“
Her roommate says some
guys who looked official came in without warning and dragged her
away.”

“
Perhaps you should be
poking around Guantanamo Bay?”

“
Very funny. Are you sure
you didn’t miss something?”

“
Look,” he said archly.
“I’m just going to pretend that you are unaware of my stellar
reputation for thoroughness. And I am just going to explain that if
Tonya Blackburn was taken into custody for any reason, there would
be a record of it. Even if it was just for questioning and she was
later released. Gone are the days of gunny sacks over people’s
heads and us black folk disappearing in the night.” He hesitated.
“At least in most parts of the state.”

“
Maybe those guys were
renegades?” I suggested.

“
Well, obviously they were
renegades, Miss Casey,” Marcus said, slathering on the sarcasm like
cream cheese on a bagel. “I suggest you get your big old butt up to
Silver Top Detention Center and find out what’s going
on.”

“
Oh, god, you’re right,” I
said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“
Because you need to get
laid properly. Your blood is congealing somewhere a lot further
south than your brain.” He hung up without waiting for my reaction.
I wasn’t done paying for doubting him, I knew.

My next call was to Bobby D. For
someone who was as big as Jabba the Hut, the man was a master at
blending in. He’d be the perfect cover when I went up to the
mountains and poked around.

Plus he had a cooler head about this
case than I did—when I’d told him about Burly being Trey’s father,
he’d just laughed at how smart Corndog Sally had been to hook me in
the way she did. He said I had no right to feel betrayed, that I
wasn’t the one who had lost a daughter and was in danger of losing
a grandson.

He was right, of course.

So I asked him to go with me to the
mountains. When I explained where I was going and why, there was a
long silence. I heard the sound of cellophane being torn off a
Little Debbie snack cake—Bobby was addicted to them and ate them
like other people ate pretzels.

“
Well?” I asked, before
his mouth became too full to answer. “You in?”

“
You want me to pose as
your father?” he asked dubiously. “Why not your
boyfriend?”

“
Because I have a
finely-tuned gag reflex, that’s why.”

“
I suppose you’re right.
No one would believe a man of my refinement would have a girlfriend
like you.”

“
But a trashy daughter is
so much easier to explain?” I asked dubiously.

“
Certainly. I’ll just say
you went wrong in your teens. Every parent on the planet will
believe that one. No further explanation needed.” He was silent and
I could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. He loved
going undercover and inventing new histories for himself. God knows
what he’d turn up posing as. Once he had actually tried to palm
himself off as a former wrestler. Just the thought of Bobby D. in
latex had made it hard for me to keep a straight face. But we
needed to be grounded in reality to pull this one off. We’d be
dealing with law enforcement, and they’d be tougher to fool. I’d
have to rein in his fantasies.

Bobby was chewing as he considered the
situation. It sounded like some small wet animal was crawling
through the phone wires toward me. “I suppose I could swing a few
nights. I’ve been hearing about a bed-and-breakfast up that way I
want to check out.”

“
We’re not staying at a
bed-and-breakfast,” I told him. “They’re just an excuse for crappy
bathrooms and nosey proprietors. You have to talk to all the other
guests or everyone else thinks you’re snooty. I’m not doing
it.”

“
You think you have a
choice? We’re talking about Bartow County, darlin’. There are no
hotels. There are no motels. We’ll be lucky to find a place with
indoor plumbing. It’s this joint or camping.”

The thought of sharing a tent with
Bobby D. or, even more horrifying, a cramped trailer, gave me a
whole new perspective on the downside of bed-and-breakfast living.
“Fine. You make the reservations. I’ll bring cream puffs from
Guglhuphf’s for the ride.”

“
Bring a couple dozen,” he
suggested. “It’s a five-hour drive from Durham.”

“
Sure two dozen will be
enough?” I asked sarcastically, but when his silence told me he was
actually doing the math, I hung up and started to pack. I wasn’t
sure why I was headed up to the mountains. I only knew I had to
keep moving or die.

We passed the time to the mountains
quickly, fighting over who got the next cream puff while we tooled
along in Bobby D.’s vintage Cadillac, and reviewed our cover story
for who we were and why we were there.

Yes, I had wanted us to stick close to
the truth—but he hadn’t exactly gone out on a limb, so far as I was
concerned. He was going to retain his own name, under the theory
that no one knew who he was or would give a rat’s ass if they did,
although I suspected it was more because that was the name on the
American Express Platinum card that his rich girlfriend had given
him. He was going to be a highly successful lawyer on a trip to the
mountains to bird watch and to console his dear daughter, whose
husband had recently left her for a younger piece of trailer trash.
My name was to be Debbie Little, in honor of his favorite junk food
brand. 

“
What’s wrong with that?”
he demanded when he noticed me pouting.

“
There was a time when I
would have been the younger piece of trailer trash,” I pointed
out.

“
Sorry, babe, but we’re
all getting older.”

“
Don’t you think ‘Debbie
Little’ is a little obvious, what with you pulling out Little
Debbie cakes every five minutes and eating them like
peanuts?”

“
It’ll help me remember
your name,” he said. “Frankly, I think it’s genius.”

For him, it probably was. “How
desolate am I supposed to be?” I asked.

“
Desolate enough to want
to spend a lot of time alone.”

“
I like that part of the
cover,” I admitted. “I can ditch you at will.”

“
Absolutely. Besides,” he
added mysteriously, “I’ve got my own little project up my
sleeve.”

“
You did not bring that
thing along,” I said. ”Please tell me there is not a six-foot
fiberglass hot dog in our trunk.”

“
You bet there is,” Bobby
said cheerfully. “At this very moment, you are riding with the
biggest wiener in all of North Carolina.”

“
I’ll say I am,” I
mumbled, but Bobby didn’t hear me. He was too busy eating the last
cream puff.

We reached silver mountain in late
afternoon, just as the sun was setting behind the tops of trees
that were just starting to display the vibrant yellows, reds and
oranges that would soon bring thousands of tourists flocking down
from the North to clog our mountain turnpikes and triple the prices
on accommodations. It was a migration so reliable it put those
Capistrano sparrows to shame. Thank god that chaos was still weeks
away.

The road was steep and precariously
narrow, especially for a land boat like Bobby’s. But its engine
could have powered a cruise ship, and Bobby steered it around the
looping turns with practiced ease, taking turns licking the last of
the cream filling off his fingers every time he hit a patch of
straight-away.

We were heading for the Pampered
Princess Lodge, which, from its Internet photos, looked to be a
massive faux log cabin monstrosity jammed into the side of Silver
Mountain. Fortunately, high season was a good two weeks away and
Bobby had not only been able to book adjoining rooms there, he’d
been able to book them for a week without mortgaging his condo.
Burly was footing the tab and would reimburse us without question,
which was a damn sight better than billing Corndog Sally for the
digs, but I was not about to be beholden to Burly for more than I
had to. I wanted to end this episode in our lives with him owing
me, not vice versa.

By the time we reached the
bed-and-breakfast, the sun had disappeared behind a distant peak,
the air had cooled and a half dozen deer had gathered at the edge
of the adjoining forest to watch us unpack the car. Those deer made
me nervous. The lodge’s website had promised that the “deer would
browse at you from only a few feet away,” which, frankly, sounded
vaguely menacing.

“
Leave that thing in the
trunk,” I ordered Bobby when he started to hoist the giant hot dog
on his back. “You’ll freak out the deer and, frankly, they look
angry enough as it is.” In truth, the deer had not so much as
twitched since we’d arrived, but Bobby was a city slicker and I was
willing to do anything to keep that hot dog under wraps.

Fortunately, Bobby’s idea of wildlife
was the oversized ceramic rabbit he kept in his front yard, even
though someone had shot its right ear off years ago, then planted a
bullet right through the center of its mouth, leaving it with an
expression of perpetual dismay. So he took me at my word that the
deer were dangerously excitable and put the giant hot dog back in
his trunk. “It would be hard to explain to the other guests
anyway,” he conceded.

“
Plus then they’d all want
one for their own,” I pointed out.