Dead Girl Moon (13 page)

She hooked her thumb back at JJ. “Eight o’clock this morning. Tim’s Mustang at the recycling center. Him standing out front, waiting. Just luck my girl saw him first.”

Mick nodded. Okay, seemed like running was the right option before anybody got hurt. Had Scott Cassel noticed they were gone? Had he put out a bulletin? Guess they’d find out soon enough.

Still looking out the window, Grace went on. “I’m … not mad.” She distracted herself scratching her knee. Gave up, took a breath. “I’m sick of
guys
!”

Mick kept his eyes on the road ahead. Kept his mouth shut and tried to ease his grip on the steering wheel. He could feel JJ’s attention behind him.

Grace made a rattling sound. Mick couldn’t tell if she was growling or clearing her throat.

“You’re never safe,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Some hard-on wants to do you and then he kills you or you kill him and you run. What kind of life is that?”

Mick didn’t think she was looking for an answer. JJ didn’t reach over to soothe her.

“It never stops. You never get free. Go swimming? There’s a girl’s body…” Grace seemed to run out of energy, leaned her head against her window, put her hand to her mouth, covered it as if that would make her thoughts go away.

*   *   *

Two hours later Mick exited the freeway at Wallace, Idaho, breathing easier since they’d crossed the state line. At a busy service station, JJ bought gas and snacks with Mick’s money. He and Grace thought JJ might be harder for clerks to remember with her hair up under the ball cap she’d found on the back floor.

Afterward, they took streets that skirted the edge of town where it abutted the mountains and drove north on a dirt road along a creek until they saw ruts leading toward a shady spot to pull off out of sight. JJ and Grace went to a flat clearing between the creek and the car, used their jackets for pillows and slept. Mick continued to sit behind the steering wheel, listening to the engine slowly cool. Threats behind him, he considered what he was about to do. Give up the dream he’d had for years. Act like his dad.

Mick had found a town he liked, made a good friend, got a job. Even the football was going to happen. But he was going to trash all that and run. Why? He didn’t like what he was thinking. Because he liked Grace and he wanted to save her? From what exactly? He couldn’t actually say. Never mind what. He wanted to save her so she’d like him enough to be his girl. How feeble was that? She’d had plenty of chances to like him. But she didn’t. Not in the way he was hoping. She was hard as metal, always several steps ahead of him, did what she wanted, kept her own counsel. Truth, he probably couldn’t save her from anything. And there was nothing he could do to
make
her like him. She would or she wouldn’t, not the type to swoon with gratitude. He banged his head on the steering wheel as if that could knock out the stupid notions.

What about JJ? Mick needed to understand the backdrop for Evelyn’s killing. Who did what with whom and how were they connected? Would JJ know that? Some of it. She’d recognized Cassel’s girlfriend. In spite of her spaciness, she picked up on things. And Mick? He had one advantage. He knew how to think like a crook.

So why was Evelyn Edmonds’s car down on Highway 200 when her body was in a river fifteen miles away?

41

G
RACE GAVE HER SPEECH
about Hammond being after her. Thought she’d toss Mick and JJ a bone to knock them off the scent of her money. She needed every bit of it. The more scared they thought she was, the more slack they’d give her. But she’d gotten a little close to the truth with that stuff about men. So close she felt her stomach roll.

The confusion, the frustration she’d been feeling was real, but the farther they got from Portage, the more she worried she’d screwed up big-time. She shouldn’t have run. Should have talked to Hammond when he called. Fed him a story. Said she was there when Jon found the body but of course she didn’t report the death because she was afraid she’d lose her job and her placement.

Hammond would believe her, trust her, if she gave him time to cool down. He’d realize she’d just been afraid and he’d want her close by to find out if she knew more than she was telling about Ev. If he and his guys thought she’d run because she knew something damaging … now
that
was scary.

So if Hammond thought she was safe, he wouldn’t bother her, but Mr. Highway Patrol or the sheriff? Not so sure. Would one of them pick her up for questioning? What Grace didn’t want was either one going national on her. Putting a search on the runaway database. She’d kill herself before she’d go back to San Rafael. The courier envelopes and her referrals, sending truckers and tourists to Hammond’s gambling houses, brought in twenty a pop. Three hundred for the sex sting. In a few more months she would have had five thousand saved. She could’ve moved on then if she needed to, eighteen or not.

In the last few weeks she’d been seeing Larry Cassel more often than anyone else. Publicly, in the restaurant, she ignored him. People talk. But he found lots of ways to run into her from time to time, offering a cold beer or a tiny bottle of liquor on her way home from work. Earrings. Little treats. The out-there casino trips. He was sort of intriguing, sort of attractive, and he had mega-power. She’d probably call him when they got wherever they were going. Maybe he could smooth things over with Hammond.

So running was probably a mistake and now she had to deal with it, needed to recalculate. Maybe she better go all the way. Go to another city. Set up shop. Use what she’d learned from Ev and Hammond. Pick up where Ev left off but be more careful.

Her neck and shoulders ached. Was she overlooking something? Probably just paranoid.

42

M
ICK FOUND THE GIRLS
several yards away wading in the creek. “Hey,” he yelled over the noise of the water. “This won’t work. We have to talk.”

They dipped hands in the stream, rubbed their faces, and came back to the clearing to dry.

“… think we know something,” JJ was saying as she sat, nodding to her side to include Mick.

“Hammond’s call just freaked me,” Grace said. “Like he thought I was involved.”

“Like what?” Mick asked. “What do we know?” Mick could easily imagine Grace holding things back.

“What about this?” JJ took the jewel from her pocket and showed them.

Mick didn’t know what it was, but Grace seemed hypnotized by it.

“I found it at the river. When I went for a walk. It was near the ban—”

“Did you show that to anybody?” Grace’s voice was shrill.

“No. I meant to tell you before but—”

“It’s Hammond’s. His ring,” Grace said, closing her eyes, picturing. “Or Mackler’s? Or Larry? I think he had one like it.”

Mick put it together. “Hammond, where we found the body?”

“Upriver where I walked…” JJ said.

“You didn’t tell us?” Mick, disbelieving, then angry.

“I didn’t know what it was,” JJ, her own voice rising. “I’d never seen … there were, uh, it looked like somebody, looked like a spot where somebody put a boat in the water. It could have—”

Grace’s cursing cut her off. The girl stood, turned around a couple of times like she was looking for a way out, seemed to give up and sat again. Put her head in her hands.

JJ kept talking, defending her reasoning. “I was going to ask Gary but everything happened so fast I never got a chance. And this morning … it never seemed like the right time. It’s just been in my pocket.”

Mick cut his eyes toward JJ. Saw the pain on her face. Kept from saying he thought she was a dunce.

JJ shook her head and looked up at the sky as if a ghost moon might be out there to help her.

Mick was trying to digest what this ring meant. He’d never seen one before. Who had that kind of ring? Several people, or just Hammond? “This is what I mean,” he said. “Running’s going to make things worse. We need to figure out who did it, get ourselves off the hook.”

Neither Grace nor JJ looked at him.

“I screwed up,” JJ said, “but we never really talked about this till today.”

Grace shrugged. Mick nodded. It was true. Jon telling other people about finding the body had started a gas fire.

Mick tried again. “We could start simple. We tell Hammond we have this jewel from his ring that puts him at the murder and we tell him to leave us alone. Like a standoff.” Mick glanced at Grace to see her frowning. Went on. “I go to the sheriff and tell him I’m innocent and let him fingerprint, make a recording, whatever. Doesn’t matter because I didn’t do it. I never even saw the girl until we found her.”

“You wouldn’t tell him about the ring part?” JJ asked.

“The sheriff? Paint? No. We hide that … No, we put it in an envelope and give it … to Dovey. Like for insurance. She’d keep it and we’d tell her if anything happens to us, give the envelope to Paint.”

“You guys have no idea how much is going on,” Grace said, disdainful. “Hammond and Bolton? The banker Greer? Mackler at Social Services? There’s big money. Lots of deals. Larry Cassel, too. If they’re messed up with Evelyn at all and they know one of us has major evidence? They’ll get it from us, one way or another.”

“No way, the sheriff—”

Grace interrupted him. “The sheriff? Dovey? They’re fossils. They’re a joke.”

“What deals?” Mick asked.

“Hammond’s a county supervisor?” Grace, tone of voice like teaching a dull pupil.

“Yeah.” Mick was guessing. He didn’t know anything about a supervisor or that Hammond was one.

“That’s how he found out there was going to be new construction on the dam and bought all that property so he could fleece the Army Corps when they had to buy that same land for the staging area.”

Mick looked at JJ. He could see that she didn’t know what Grace was talking about either.

“Hammond and the banker are partners in the card rooms. Have private gambling in Belknap and Plains. Make all kinds of under-the-table money. Sports bets, loans, you name it. Maybe girls, too. Evelyn’s small-time tricking might have been cutting into their business. Hammond got Larry hired as building inspector so he could rake money from construction. They all get kickbacks from local businesses … insurance or something. Patrol guy probably hassles people that get in their way. They got me to—”

Mick interrupted to slow her down. “Evelyn … the girl we found was a prostitute? I thought she worked at the café.” He turned to JJ. “Er, how…? Uh, did you know about any of this?”

JJ shook her head.

Mick, back to Grace, “How do you know this stuff?” He wasn’t sure these weren’t just wild accusations.

“I listen. I hear conversations all the time in the café. And the motel? I hear that trash, too. Who’s sleeping with who.”

“People wouldn’t talk about
that
kind of stuff in a public restaurant.” Mick could hardly believe it. Portage? She made it sound like the Mafia.

“Everything I just told you?” Grace said. “Heard it all. And Cookie. He’s worked there for years. He’s like the town wiki. I want to know something, I ask him.

“I didn’t show for work and ran. Hammond’s thinking I have something. Like maybe Evelyn told me something. Him and the judge, him and Larry, even the doof at Social Services. Any of them might be doing something that Evelyn found out about. Or, it could be the escort thing.”

“Are you making this up?” JJ asked. “Anybody in western Montana could have killed Evelyn.”

“So why was Hammond calling as soon as he learned I was there when we found the body?”

“Uh, he was worried about you?” JJ offered.

“No way. He knows my name. Flirts. I’ve done a couple of things for him outside work. But he collects lots of girls like me and he doesn’t call to see how they are. We’re just the help, just advertising. End of story. Until Evelyn was killed.”

“You did things for Hammond?” Mick remembered. “Like what?”

Grace shook her head.

Mick would go after that later. Maybe when JJ wasn’t around in case Grace was embarrassed to tell in front of her. Right now he was thinking about men he’d met that were like his dad. “I don’t see a guy like Hammond killing Evelyn. I don’t see him needing to. It’d have to have been an accident.”

“Maybe,” Grace said, “but Bolton? He’s like the whole law. A judge. He can do whatever he wants and no one can touch him.”

“Yeah, but same deal,” Mick argued. “Why? Why would he put himself in that position? Risk everything?”

“Okay, Scott Cassel,” Grace said.

“What about Larry?” JJ asked. “You think he couldn’t kill a girl if she said no to him? Or how about Tim? Tim and his buddy sure want us to shut up and I wasn’t even thinking of him and Evelyn.”

That statement stopped the conversation.

“You weren’t?” Mick, incredulous. “Who did you mean when you asked if the body was Cassel’s girl?”

“Larry,” JJ answered.

Mick and Grace looked at each other openmouthed.

“You couldn’t have said this earlier?” Mick asked, sarcastic.

“Cassel’s girlfriend?” JJ held her hands up like stop, let me explain. “I’d seen her talk to Larry a few times and I wondered. That’s all.”

Grace was leaning forward. “Larry Cassel? Evelyn? She wouldn’t give him the time of day. Not even for money. She was afraid of him.”

“I don’t know about that. I just saw them together … or maybe not exactly together, uh, with each other. On the street, in a store, I just assumed—”

“You’re wrong,” Grace interrupted.

Mick was surprised by Grace’s energy on this subject. She couldn’t have a thing for Larry Cassel. Not him. Just the edge of the idea made his heart sink.

“It was just a thought. I reacted,” JJ said, defending herself. “It’s not like I knew anything. I didn’t even know the girl’s name.”

Nobody spoke for a minute or two.

Finally, JJ. “Okay, Mick’s right. Doesn’t seem like the killing is something a person like Hammond or Bolton would do. It could have been somebody passing through, somebody none of us will ever meet. So, what’s next?”

“Dovey told me the girl was killed Monday night,” Mick said, eager to keep figuring it out. “She said whoever did it had to have a car, ’cause her car was left east of town on the highway to Plains. So she was probably killed there. Right? And then taken to the river.”