Dead Girl Moon (12 page)

“Yeah, I know. That’s where I found her. But I said I found her at the south bridge around River Park. I thought I wouldn’t get anybody else in trouble.”

“Anybody else?”

Mick didn’t answer that. He was realizing Dovey could be an ally. She had the unofficial ear of the law. And she’d always been nice enough to the kids in the compound. Didn’t seem too judgmental.

“Instead I messed things up. Now they might even think I did it.”

“They?”

“Yeah. What’s his name, Sheriff Paint, and the Highway Patrol guy, Scott Cassel, too. I had a run-in with his son and his son’s goon yesterday.”

“Stay out of their way.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Mick wanted her to put in a good word for him, but he didn’t want to seem too obvious. Wanted her to think it was her idea.

“I can’t afford to get in trouble,” he told her. “I got a job stocking for the hardware and the feedstore. Want to play school football this year.”

“Been here about five months?” she asked.

“Yeah. Yes.”
Manners, idiot!
“Moved here from McCall, Idaho.” Was that right? Mick couldn’t keep it straight. Maybe he shouldn’t tell her anything about where they’d been before. What if, in her job, she’d seen a warrant? “My dad works at the Conoco.”

She didn’t say anything. Gut level, Mick didn’t see she thought much of his dad by the look on her face.

“Cardwell thinks she was killed Monday,” she said, watching Mick’s eyes.

Does she think I’ve been lying to her?

“Monday night, out 200 on the highway to Plains. Whoever it was had to have had a car to put her up on the Salish.”

Where was he Monday night? Mick couldn’t remember.

“Well,” she said, turning to her door, “I have to get to work. Take care of yourself.” She paused at the door. “Tell JJ to come see me one of these days. And watch out. I mean it.”

Mick stood in front of her trailer for another minute wondering what it was like to be old. What was it like to lose a husband? What if it tore your insides out but you had to keep living?

Would he feel that way if his dad died? Mick probably loved him. At least he was grateful that his father kept him, raised him, such as it was. His dad didn’t have to, but he did the duty. Been easier to put Mick in foster care. More and more though, his father was blaming Mick for his own problems. Whenever his dad got in a jam, Mick was a handy goat. Mick knew he’d miss him sometimes, but when he thought of working, going to school, taking care of himself without having to keep covering things up? Mick would be a million pounds lighter. He was getting clear on that.

*   *   *

Grace came out on their porch when Mick walked up their steps.

“Things don’t seem to be getting any better,” she said, hands in her hip pockets.

“What?”

“Cop car?”

“Sheriff. I called 911 that day.”

“You’re a…” Grace took a deep breath and looked away. “Guess that was the right thing to do,” she said, turning back. “You tell him I was there?” Her eyes were bloodshot. Lack of sleep? She had on the same clothes as yesterday.

“No. I said just me,” Mick told her, glancing at the alley, nervous that Paint might change his mind and come back. “I, uh, told Dovey the same thing. She might help us.”

Grace muffled a smirk. “Right. County clerk. People like her don’t help. Not their job.”

Mick didn’t want to argue. Couldn’t remember why he’d wanted to talk with her in the first place. “I got to go to the hardware in an hour or so,” Mick said. “Why aren’t you at work?”

She looked away again. Decided to tell him. “I don’t go in till one, but I already called in sick.”

“Gary tell you Dad might make JJ and Jon and me leave?”

She cut her eyes at him. Pissed. “Right! JJ will be in la-la land in the backseat and Jon will chew your arm off while you drive. There’s a plan. You won’t get fifty miles.”

“Tina’s got relatives in Spokane.”

Rolled her eyes. “Sure. You think they want anything to do with her or hers?”

Good point. “Gary’s got family in Boise.”

“I was there when he said it.” She rubbed at the end of her nose like it was bothering her. “I could see you and JJ bunking with them for a week or two, but Jon? He’ll bring everybody down. Bound and determined. Right now Gary’s got him handcuffed to the bed. Gave him something to knock him out.”

“He can’t keep doing that.” Imagining the scene made Mick’s stomach churn. “Somebody’ll come over to get something fixed, see that, and report him. Or Dovey’ll find out and tell Paint. They jail people for stuff like that.”

“Tell me.” Grace crossed her arms as if she could wall off this reality. “This whole scene is nitro.”

“Let’s you and me go!” Mick’s new idea. Out of nowhere. “Right now! I got car keys and cash in my pillow.” He winced. That sounded dumb.

She looked at him like he was from outer space. “I can’t leave!”

Mick thought for sure she was going to take a swing at him. Handy again. Rent-a-punch. “Last night you said you have to leave!” Mick, talking faster than he could think. “You can’t save the Stovalls.”

Grace cut him off. “I remembered. I can’t run. If the cops catch on, they could send me back.”

Back? To what?
Runaway in the first place like Mick thought. But he was puzzled. What had changed so much since last night?

She was twisting her hair, pulling hard enough to rip it. “I’m trapped. Can’t go, can’t stay.”

“I don’t get it.”

Grace gave him the look. Of course he didn’t get it, because he was an idiot. “One, Jon’s ballistic and the only thing Gary knows to do is drug him. Sooner or later Jon’ll get away and spill everything. Cassel or the sheriff or both’ll come after us. And how can we leave JJ with Cunneen or Tim out to hurt her? She can’t … she’s not…” Grace looked annoyed by her surge of tenderness and the responsibility it evoked.

Mick thought she had been going to say JJ wasn’t a street rat like him and Grace.

“Yeah,” he said, “but let’s go anyway.” He couldn’t seem to give up on the idea of driving off alone with Grace and where that might eventually lead. Bonnie and Clyde. Fugitives, then lovers.

Her look withered him. “Get away! I mean it!” She was yelling and crying at the same time, tears, snot, everything. “Get out of here!” Even louder. And then the bang of the trailer door slamming.

Mick backed off the porch. Did Dovey see this? Her car was still there. Did she hear Grace?

He was ready to jump in the Bonnie and drive it into the river.

38

M
ICK COULDN
’
T KNOCK
on the Stovalls’ door and talk to Gary about the sheriff’s visit right now. Grace needed to cool off. He went to his place instead, washed his face, drank some water, left for Main Street and work. Turning the corner, he saw the Highway Patrol cruiser sitting in front of the hardware. He didn’t know what the man had in mind, but he didn’t think Cassel was buying fencing.

When he got back to the compound, JJ and Grace were standing on his porch, holding duffels.

Grace wouldn’t meet his look.

“We’re going!” JJ, afraid but excited.

“JJ’s my girl. I don’t leave without her,” Grace said, still not meeting his eyes.

She’s embarrassed, Mick thought, by her quick change of mind.

“Hammond called Gary looking for me,” Grace explained. “Not my boss about why I was sick. Hammond. Like all of a sudden he wants to keep track of me?” She shook her head. “Let’s get moving.”

Suddenly Mick wanted to reason. To figure things out. To have a plan. To be a man. To be in charge. He wanted this action to make sense, to fit into other things. School. Football. His dad. The Stovalls. His thing with Grace. He wanted to know what the bloody hell he was doing. But he couldn’t make it compute. Couldn’t come up with anything to say.

Autopilot.
Mick stuffed an empty grocery sack with another shirt and underwear, grabbed his folding money, threw all their stuff in the Bonneville, and they eased out of the alley, turning right on the highway, heading away from the main part of town.

JJ kept watch out the rear window. After a moment said, “We’re clear.”

Mick set the cruise control on the speed limit, recalling the many times he’d fled. Heart racing, mind spinning, eyes locked on the road. One difference. No Dad.

Mick had said he’d never do this again. Portage would be different. The place he settled. A while ago he’d seen a movie about a gunfighter. The man had wanted to start over, start living a peaceful life, but trouble kept finding him. He got killed before he could change.

39

G
RACE KNEW SHE WAS OUT OF CONTROL
, hyper. It was nerve-racking, watching out for the next attack. JJ had upped the tension running home this morning after seeing Tim Cassel waiting at her work. And Mick’s visit from the sheriff felt like a noose tightening. She might be questioned as a suspect … could they match her description to the California runaway report? She didn’t think so but she didn’t know. And Hammond’s call to the trailer? Like all of a sudden he needed to know right where she was and what she was doing. Why? So he could get rid of her quickly if he needed to?

Her thoughts were all over the place. Run? Stay? She was purely scared for the second time in her life. She seldom let herself remember that first night when her two brothers came into her room and held her down. She’d been so terrified she couldn’t even breathe. After a couple of months that fear boiled into hate. But this? Killing Ev? What if it was someone she knew? And what if she was next? She’d never pictured her own death before. Scream! Run! All she could imagine.

So she ran. Told Mick she was backing her girl, JJ, but, no, it was fear and instinct. Grace didn’t feel safe. She wanted some distance from the mess so she could figure her next move.

Hammond or one of his bunch could have eliminated Evelyn to send a message: Compete with us and you’re history. Or maybe Evelyn learned something from one of her customers and Hammond had her disappeared because she knew something that threatened him. Was that what happened to Ramona? If Hammond thought Grace knew too much after finding the body, would he come after her as soon as the dust settled? Did he kill people himself or give the job to someone like Larry?

But what if those guys had nothing to do with it? What if Ev was killed by a customer? What if Ev tried to make more money by squeezing a local guy who was married? Money for the sex, then more money for silence? Evelyn might have tried that. Or, what if the guy was a tourist or a trucker just passing through and this was just a random one-time thing? Then Grace’s running would make it seem like she actually knew something important when she didn’t.

The bottom line? She needed Mick to get her out of town. She didn’t need him or JJ in her business.

40

R
OAD TRIP
. They went east to Plains and made a right on the small two-lane toward St. Regis and the 90 freeway. From there they could go east to Missoula and beyond, or west to Idaho. Driving calmed Mick, focused him, and little by little, his brain came back. He’d left his checks under his mattress. Brilliant. Drove off with forty bucks. Like that would buy them gas, food, or a motel.

Gas? Mick looked at the gauge. Half full. He remembered his dad saying it worked but the damn thing was always optimistic. Okay, twenty-gallon tank, so seven or eight gallons left. Fourteen miles a gallon on the highway. A hundred, a hundred and ten miles. Ten bucks for food, the rest for gas. Another hundred miles. They would be somewhere within two hundred fifty miles of Portage before they stalled.

Grace was up front with him.

“Look for a map,” he told her.

She rummaged through the glove compartment. Tire gauge, a ballpoint, shop rag, tattered receipts. She finally found an old one under her seat. Held it up.

“We need to get away from Sanders and Lincoln counties, out of state if we can.” Mick talked loud enough for JJ to hear in back. “The bigger the town, the easier we disappear.” Mick realized his dad had rubbed off on him a little more than he’d thought. Mick seemed to be better at running from the law than he was at most schoolwork.

“You got any money?” he asked Grace.

She shook her head. Mick didn’t believe her. She made some kind of wage at the restaurant, plus her tips. She could be sending her money somewhere, to a sister or mother, but he didn’t think so. He couldn’t picture her with a bank account, never seen her use a card or anything like it. Come to think of it, Mick’d never seen her pay for anything, period. So he bet she had a stash and she was carrying it. He glanced at her purse. She caught him looking and used her heels to push the purse farther under the car seat. Point made. Whatever she had, she wasn’t going to share it.

He glanced at her face. Grace looked like she was in pain. She’d begun hitting her legs with her fists again, grimacing. Mick thought he knew what she was feeling. She wished she’d ditched them, hitched a ride and gone away on her own. Then she wouldn’t be stuck messing with him and JJ and having to deal with what they needed or wanted.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mick saw JJ reach up and touch Grace’s forehead like she was checking for a fever. She kept her hand there and Grace quieted. After a minute or so, Grace covered JJ’s hand with her own and a bit later JJ withdrew and sat back.

Grace took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, and handed JJ the map.

Mick heard the paper rustling as JJ unfolded the thing and studied it.

“Are you still mad at me?” Mick asked Grace. He didn’t think he deserved it.

Grace looked at him and then out her window at the mountains, rugged and wooded to the west of the highway.

Mick gave up and tried JJ. “What about it?” he asked, watching her in the rearview mirror. “We got to make an east-west decision at St. Regis. Maybe fifteen minutes or so.”

“West,” JJ said.

“Forget about it,” Grace said. “It’s not you…”

Grace went on talking, seemed like more to herself than to them, voice sounding flat, distracted. “I called in sick because I didn’t want to hear about the dead girl all day at work. A few minutes later, Hammond phones like he needs to find out what I know. He’s never called me at home before. Jon must have spread the whole story, us on the river.”