Dakota (23 page)

“Never mind.” Lola figured it wasn’t the time to ask about Charlie’s child. She rang off. But she didn’t leave, not yet. The truck was parked across from the Grub Steak, the last place she’d seen Bub. She’d give it fifteen minutes more, she told herself. Given that she had a ten-hour drive, it wouldn’t make an appreciable difference. Then she’d leave. Although, as happy as she was to flee Burnt Creek, the thought of returning was scant comfort under the circumstances. Tina gone, and not a single way to view that fact as anything but ominous. Bub missing. Her relationship with Charlie tenuous. And the reservation in turmoil with the loss of the first decent jobs people had seen in decades. She wondered, yet again, if it had been a mistake to walk away from the suburban assignment her newspaper in Baltimore had offered her as a sop to downsizing her from Kabul. Magpie was, and always had been, small, obscure, and hardscrabble. She supposed she could leave and come back fifty years later and, but for a new crop of faces with familial resemblance to the old ones, nothing much would have changed—and that went double for the reservation. Baltimore, at least, would have had energy and options. Bub could have adapted.

Her breath had fogged the windshield as she sat in the truck. She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and rubbed a clear circle and scanned the street for Bub. She checked her watch. Seven more minutes. The truck’s cab smelled of the lunch Charlotte had packed her. She unfolded the top of the bag and extracted the sandwich from its plastic container and unwrapped the origami of waxed paper that enfolded it, and took a bite. It was, of course, slathered in mayonnaise. Still, it was delicious, the meat dark and moist. “I love dark meat,” she said, speaking out of habit to a dog who wasn’t there. She glanced around, even though she knew no one would have heard her, and took another bite. The words of the Sweet Crude’s manager came back to her, hawking the appeal of the darker-skinned dancers. Most of the clientele was white. “Where else are they gonna taste dark meat? Makes me think there’s a tanning booth in Double Derricks’ future.”

Lola had never heard the crude term before. Men had probably patronized Judith and possibly the other girls, too, solely because of the color of their skin, a thought that roiled Lola’s stomach anew. Lola thought back to Judith’s body in the snow, the way her brown skin had gone pale in death, making the ugly tattoo on her arm even more prominent. A slanted brand was called “running,” Charlie had told her. Had the brand been used on a calf, it would have signified the Running Heart ranch. Lola unwrapped another sandwich and lifted the top piece of bread.

“More dark meat.” Now that she knew the term’s other meaning, it made her squeamish to say it aloud. And yet she did. “Dark meat.” And again. “Dark meat.
God.”
No longer caring that she didn’t even have the pretense of a dog to talk to.

“Not chicken. Girls. Mama’s was exactly what Dave said it was. That place sells girls.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

S
he hit the gas so assertively that the truck’s wheels spun in the snow before the studded tires caught, shooting her into the street, where she narrowly missed a Grub Steak patron, whose curses followed her down the street as she sped toward the sheriff’s office. But when she got there, all she found was Dawg, feet propped up, lug sole boots dripping melted snow onto the desk, sliding a buck knife with precision beneath his fingernails.

“Where’s the sheriff?”

“You’re letting all the warm out again. He’s not here.”

Lola kicked the door open wider behind her. “I can see that. Where is he?”

Dawg held up the knife, inspected it, and blew something from its tip. He started on his other hand, working the blade beneath a yellowed and horny thumbnail. “Don’t know. Working on some trouble you stirred up, no doubt.”

Lola let go of the door. It slammed shut behind her. The room shrank. Dawg and his knife were three feet away. “What do you mean?”

“That girl from the titty bar. I saw you talking to her.” He wiped the knife on his pants. The blade was a good six inches long. It caught the fluorescence from the ceiling light and flashed it around the room.

“So?”

“So now she’s dead.”

Deciding to ignore Dawg’s unsettling comments, Lola reached for the doorknob. “I need to see Thor. Right away.”

“You mean Sheriff Brevik. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“I don’t think so.” Lola would just as soon have stood in the middle of Burnt Creek’s main street and shouted her suspicions to strangers before saying a word to Dawg.

He held up his middle finger and shaved a sliver from the nail. “Might be he went home for lunch. Maybe a nooner with the missus. Woman like her can keep a man warm at night and in the daytime both.” He put down the knife and retrieved something from beneath the desk. A paper bag. White, with grease smearing its red lettering. “Mama’s.” He pulled a drumstick from the bag and gnawed at it. His laugh followed her out the door. She stood a minute on the other side and flashed her own middle finger before heading back to the truck.

L
OLA RAN
up the back steps to the Breviks’ house and pulled open the door, ever unlocked, and ran in without shedding her boots. Charlotte stood at the sink, up to her elbows in soapy water. Steam rose from its surface and her hair curled damply around her flushed face.

“Why, Lola. Whatever are you doing here? I thought you left hours ago. Did you find your dog? Honey, you’re tracking snow.”

Lola looked uncomprehendingly at the white patches melting across the floor. “I’m sorry. I need to talk to someone.”

Charlotte lifted reddened arms from the water and dried them on a hand towel. “Sounds like you’re in trouble. You’ll want Thor. I think he’s at the station.”

“I just came from there.” She followed Charlotte’s glance toward her feet and belatedly pulled off her boots. Charlotte handed her a paper towel. She wiped up the floor and carried her boots to the mudroom and tossed the sopping paper towel in the small trashcan by the back door. She padded back across the damp floor in stocking feet and sat at the table and gave reluctant voice to the kernel of a suspicion that had sprouted into full flower the minute she’d seen Dawg with his bag of fried chicken.

“I’m not sure Thor is the right person. Charlotte—”

Charlotte twisted a knob on the stove until the gas caught beneath the teapot. “Yes, Lola?”

“I think Thor and Dawg might be involved in something. Something bad.”

Charlotte opened a cupboard door and contemplated the boxes within. “Regular or herbal? I’m thinking herbal. You’re upset. It’ll calm you. Honey, I think you have a wrong idea in your head about Thor. I know you think he can seem hard on me. But, you’re not married, are you?”

Lola shook her head.

“Maybe someday you will be.” Lola took full note of the insult beneath the
maybe
. The same sort of dig Charlotte had aimed at her husband the previous day. “If that day comes, you’ll understand how complicated marriage can be.” She held up two teabags. “Which one?”

Lola pointed to the darker of the two. “This goes beyond however I might feel about Thor. If he and Dawg are mixed up in what I think they’re in, it could mean trouble for you.”

Charlotte put the teabag—the herbal one, Lola noticed, despite her choice—into a cup and poured boiling water over it. “Whatever it is, I think you’d better share it with me.”

What the hell, Lola thought. Before she was halfway through her recitation, Charlotte’s arms were around her. “What a terrible thing. And you were right there at that place. Are you sure, though? It seems awfully farfetched.”

Lola let her head fall onto Charlotte’s bosom. “I’m almost positive. That’s why we need to talk to somebody. Somebody who isn’t Thor.”

Charlotte turned to the cookie jar. Lola jumped when it oinked. Charlotte sat the tea in front of her with a cookie on the saucer. “Losing that dog has hit you hard. You’re all worked up. Things will turn out fine. You’ll see.”

Lola picked up the cookie and put it down without tasting it and sipped instead at her tea. Charlotte rose and stood behind her. She massaged Lola’s neck with the sure, firm touch that Lola remembered from the first time they met, when Charlotte had examined the injuries inflicted by Lola’s attacker. “Your back is like a board. It’s no wonder. So many bad things have happened to you here. You’re overwrought.” She dug a fist into Lola’s shoulder.

“That feels nice. Thank you.” Something snagged at Lola’s skin. “Ow!”

Charlotte’s hands lifted away. Lola’s muscles snapped back into quivering tautness. “I must have broken a nail,” Charlotte said. “Sorry.”

Lola rubbed at the spot on her neck. “It’s fine. You’re right. I’m jumpy.” Charlotte sat down across from her. Lola blew on her tea and took another sip. “Do you think I’m crazy?” She
felt
crazy. Her tongue was fat in her mouth.

Charlotte’s head moved back and forth in slow motion. “No, honey.” The words came from far away.

Lola sat down her tea, very carefully, and watched the cup tilt onto its side. She tried to raise her hand and couldn’t. The amber liquid beaded up on Charlotte’s snowy tablecloth before sinking into it. “Oh, no,” she tried to say, but couldn’t form the words.

Charlotte’s face swam before her, a cellphone pressed to her ear. “I think you need to come home right now. Our house guest is back and she’s got some funny notions in her head.”

Lola listed to the side and thought she was just like the teacup, falling and falling, with no way to catch herself. She blacked out before she hit the floor.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

C
onsciousness returned in a series of discrete details, none good.

She was cold.

Naked.

Bound.

Gagged.

Without opening her eyes, she blinked, feeling for the brush of cloth against her lashes. There was none. At least she wasn’t blindfolded. She kept her eyes shut, unready and unwilling to face her new reality.

“Go ahead. Open ’em. I know you’re awake.”

Someone was with her. An accent.
Ah
know. So that someone was Dawg.

Lola jerked and screamed, forgetting the bindings, the gag. The cords around her wrists and ankles tightened. The scream died against the wad of cloth in her mouth. She sucked in air through her nose and blew it back out. And again. In. Out. Trying for something like calm before she opened her eyes. Oh, hell, she thought. Get it over with. Then wished she’d kept them shut a little longer.

Dawg loomed above her, shirtless. The tattoos on his chest and abdomen writhed when he laughed. “It’s nice and warm in here. I don’t even need my vest. Specially since I don’t have to worry about you busting in and leaving the door open the way you always done at the sheriff’s office.”

Lola let her eyes roam, eager to look at anything but Dawg. She was in her room at the sheriff’s house. The skylights leaked grey light. She wondered how long she’d been out. Half a day? Or a day and a half? She had a fierce need to pee. But something else was even more worrisome. Impossible not to imagine what Dawg might have in mind. She finally let herself look at him again. He regarded her with knowing eyes.

“You’re pretty. But not as pretty as those other girls.”

Lola nodded. Or maybe, she thought, she should shake her head. What was the best way to convey that no, she was not pretty at all, certainly not worth raping? But if it came to that, she thought as her discomfort increased by the moment, at least she’d have the satisfaction of peeing all over him. Maybe that would make him stop. Or maybe that would just make him mad. She whimpered.

“Shoot,” said Dawg. He reached for a gun on the nightstand. Lola hadn’t noticed it before. It was the one Charlie had given her. Largely useless except at close range, he’d said. It didn’t get much closer than this, she thought.

“No,” she screamed uselessly into the gag. “Don’t shoot!”

Dawg frowned at the frantic, inarticulate sounds. “Mama said I was supposed to take you to the bathroom when you woke up. She didn’t want you to mess up the bed. So I’m gonna untie you. Don’t mess up. Or”—he waved the gun—“we’re gonna have ourselves an even bigger mess.”

By the time he had freed her wrists and ankles, Lola had abandoned all thoughts of escape. “Mmpph! Mmmpph!” she said, pointing to the bathroom. And rushed toward the door, ignoring the pressure of the revolver against the small of her back.