A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel (7 page)

“No, nothing like that,” Chrissy said, a little too quickly.

Stella guessed she knew what that meant. Usually women came to her when there had been an uptick in the abuse heaped on them by their men. Sometimes there was a huge confrontation, but more often it was just that the abuse became more and more frequent until the women never had time to recover in between, to convince themselves that it was worth sticking around, that they’d imagined how bad it was, that things would change. In the end, one last straw, usually not so different from those that came before, would be the one that broke the camel’s back and sent them to Stella’s doorstep.

She peeked at Goat and saw he’d knit his eyebrows together in a look of consternation; Chrissy’s quick denial hadn’t got past the man.

Stella also noticed, before she had a chance to stop herself, that Goat had some fine-looking eyebrows: for a man who was out of the hair business on the top of his head, he’d got him some nice thick all-business brows with a rakish slant to them that made him look like the close cousin of a handsome devil.

Goat caught her looking. Winked at her.

Winked!
Just when Stella figured she had a handle on the man, he’d go and do something like that, shake her foundations. Maybe that was his goal, to get her flummoxed enough that she’d let her guard down. As Stella blushed, he turned back to Chrissy.

“Any change in his work habits?”

“Well . . . I don’t think so. I mean him and Arthur Junior been helping their dad on a job at Parkade Elementary School over in Colfax. It’s a big job, so he’s been gone regular, and he doesn’t call me during he day less he needs something.”

“Arthur Junior still on that job?”

“I guess.”

“You haven’t talked to him since Roy Dean left?”

“No . . . me and Arthur Junior, we don’t get along so good. I can’t ever think what to say around him. I don’t guess he much likes me.”

Stella narrowed her eyes. That was news to her, news she would have preferred Chrissy save for later. She coughed lightly, trying to signal to Chrissy to put a sock in it.

Goat didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll talk to him. What about their folks? Mr. and Mrs. Shaw. Have you talked to them?”

“No sir. I just usually wait until I see them. We go over for Sunday dinner once a month or so, and his mom and I catch up then. Roy Dean sees his dad on the job most days.”

“But didn’t his dad call around looking for Roy Dean yesterday when he didn’t show up for work?”

“Well . . .” This time Chrissy glanced at Stella before answering. “See, it’s not all
that
unusual . . . if Roy Dean or Arthur Junior take a day off here and there. . . . They cover for each other, you know? If one of them is feeling poorly or something like that?”

Stella couldn’t help it—she rolled her eyes heavenward. Feeling poorly—yeah, she could guess what that was about. She had plenty of her own mornings when she was feeling that brand of poorly.
She,
however, went and opened up the shop, hangover or no. She didn’t give herself a day off as a reward for misbehaving the night before.

Goat evidently got the drift. He gave those eyebrows a bit of a workout and cleared his throat.

“I see. Okay, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your boy. Tucker, was it?”

“Oh, yes. Here, I got pictures.” Chrissy sat up straight in her chair and grabbed her purse off the table. She dug in it and found a cheap little plastic flip book and handed it to Goat.

He paged through the book, taking a few moments over each photo. “Well, if he isn’t a little dickens,” Goat said, smiling, and Chrissy brightened.

He handed the book to Stella. Tucker was adorable, a big, chubby-handed baby who was laughing in nearly every picture. He had his mother’s wide blue eyes and silky pale hair.

Stella glanced over at the fireplace mantel, where she still
kept one of Noelle’s baby pictures; her daughter had been a big, happy baby too, a good sleeper and nearly always contented.

Funny how they turned out.

Stella turned back to the conversation and noticed that Goat was watching her. “That your daughter in that picture?” he asked.

Stella nodded. She didn’t plan to say anything more on the subject, but to her surprise she suddenly
couldn’t
say any more, because her throat closed up and her eyes stung. Well, it was no wonder, was it, what with all this talk about missing kids.

Of course, Noelle was twenty-eight now, and she wasn’t exactly
missing
; she just wasn’t speaking to her mother.

“Tucker’s eighteen months and thirteen days old,” Chrissy said. “I got his fingerprints done at the Home Depot on Safe Kids Day. You want me to go home and get the card?”

Goat snapped his notebook shut and slid his pen into the ring binding. “Well, I don’t see any need for that just now, Chrissy. I don’t want you to worry too much about Roy Dean and Tucker just yet. There’s all kinds of reasons why he might be gone, hear, and you’ve given me lots of ideas for where to look for him.”

“You’re going to start right now?” The longing in Chrissy’s voice tugged at Stella’s heart; the girl was desperate enough to get her baby back that she was eager to launch a hunt for her no-good husband.

“Might as well. I’ll be in touch soon’s I find out anything. You think of something, or hear from him, you call me.” He stood, unfolding his lanky legs like a carpenter’s rule, and took a card from his pocket and laid it on the coffee table in front of Chrissy. After a moment’s hesitation, he laid a second one in front of Stella. “I suppose you might as well have one too.”

He gave her that same long, studied, know-too-much look before he threw in a grin, nodded to Chrissy, and made his way to the door. Stella stood and watched him warily. “Thanks for coming so quick,” she said.

“Anytime.” He shut the front door with care, holding the handle so it wouldn’t slam. Through the screen Stella and Chrissy listened to him start up his department-issue Charger and drive off.

“Well,” Stella said uncertainly. “I guess that went about as well as it could have.”

“He sure is
tall,
” Chrissy said, “for a sheriff.”

“Why, you known any short ones?”

“Short what?”

“Sheriffs, hon.” Stella’s opinion of Chrissy was taking a turn for the dumber, and she was sorry to see it. Dumb wasn’t going to help find Roy Dean any quicker. Still, it could just be the stress of the situation. Poor girl had a lot on her mind, and besides, talking to Goat did weird things to Stella’s own brain, so she supposed she shouldn’t judge Chrissy too harshly.

“Oh! No. Well, there was Sheriff Knoll, of course, and he was about medium, I guess.”

“Chrissy.” Stella sat back down, scooted a little closer to Chrissy, and leaned in close. “This is important. What you told the sheriff, was that all true?”

Chrissy nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“Did you leave anything out?”

“You mean, like what he done to me lately? Yes, I guess I did.” Chrissy lifted up her shirt, showed the shadow of a wide black-and-blue bruise that stretched across her rib cage. “He’s got more careful about hitting me on the arms, ’cause sometimes
it showed. Done this one with his fist though. And got me right above the butt, too, here.”

“All since that fight in the bar?”

Chrissy sighed. “Yes, these ones . . . they’re taking their time fading. I never do heal up very quick. But before that it kind of seemed like things might be looking up a bit, you know?”

Stella didn’t say it, but she remembered well. How you’d go a week or two, a month, sometimes maybe three with nothing. Start thinking things had changed, that your man wasn’t really so different from other guys, that he’d just come through a bad patch, that was all. That if you were just a little extra careful, a little more attentive, it would be different this time.

Until one day he saw fit to remind you.

“Okay. Well now, look. I want you to go on home and try not to worry, just like the sheriff says. If he calls you, you tell him whatever he wants to know. But then you call me up and tell me about it, hear?”

Chrissy nodded, only a little wobbly. “I just want Tucker back. I’ll do anything to get Tucker.”

“Me too, sweetheart. And I’m going to work hard to make that happen. We’ll get your boy. But if Roy Dean comes back too, then we’re going to be right back where we started. And we need to make sure that you’re still ready to do what needs done. Do you follow what I’m saying?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’re gonna whup Roy Dean’s ass.”

For the first time that day, Stella managed a smile. “That’s right,” she said. “That’s the spirit.”

B
y the time Stella pulled into the Parkade Elementary parking lot, the day had moved into asphalt-melting, breezeless midafternoon. The place looked to be locked down tight as a drum, but there were a few cars in the lot, and Stella figured the handful of teachers and administrators still hanging around during summer vacation had themselves barricaded in with the air-conditioning.

Over at the far end of the parking lot was a white pickup with
SHAW PAINTING
spelled out in a mostly straight line in black stick-on lettering. It wasn’t a bad-looking truck, maybe six or eight years old, with a recent-enough wash. A nice Dee Zee aluminum toolbox was bolted in the bed, and a utility rack had a variety of tools and ladders lashed to it, neat and orderly. Stella’s dad always said you could tell a lot about a man’s character by looking at his workshop. If he didn’t respect his tools, according to Buster Collier, then he likely didn’t respect himself either, and you could forget about him respecting anyone else.

Well, this sure as hell wasn’t Roy Dean’s truck, then.

Stella got out, lugging her water bottle—she was trying to be mindful of staying hydrated in this heat, and she figured the iced tea had worn off by now—and leaving the gun behind in the box. She took a discreet sniff under her arm: not too bad, considering that this was one of those days when you’re sweating two minutes after you get out of the shower. This meeting wasn’t any beauty contest, of course; but the morning’s encounter with the mirror had Stella in a self-conscious frame of mind.

Stella ignored the
VISITORS, PLEASE CHECK IN AT THE MAIN OFFICE SIGN
and started across the campus. In addition to the main building, there were several others, a two-story gymnasium and a science lab and a long, low shed labeled
FUNBEARS AFTER-SCHOOL CARE
.

It was around the far side of this last one that Stella found Arthur Senior, up on a ladder painting the trim a creamy color a few shades warmer than white. In contrast, the old paint looked dingy.

“That looks nice,” Stella said. “Amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do.”

Arthur set his paintbrush carefully down on the pan that was attached to the ladder, and backed his way down. Once his feet were on the ground he squinted at her and wiped his hands on a rag he kept attached to his belt, then offered it to shake.

“Stella Hardesty, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes sir. Good memory.”

“Well, you’ve had your face in the paper in the last year or two, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Oh, that.” Stella could feel a flush rise to her face. That had been a close call; she’d been hailed a hero for dragging Phil Rivka out of his burning house. In truth, she’d intended only to torch the garage and Phil’s treasured Camaro, the one he bought the day after he sent his wife, Irma, to the hospital with series of injuries requiring overnight observation.

Luckily, even Sawyer County’s crack fire investigation squad hadn’t figured out how Stella got the blaze started in the first place, which was a good thing. Stella had refined her technique since then, and there was no longer much risk of her killing herself or anyone else with a botched attempt.

Despite Stella’s protests, photos of her and a very dejected-looking Phil had appeared not only in the local papers but all the way up in
The Kansas City Star.
Goat himself had called to congratulate her on her heroics. And to apologize for having been out on another call during the rescue. “If I’d been there,” he’d said in that inscrutable voice of his, “maybe we’d have figured what got that fire started in the first place.”

“Guess you’re a bit of a hero,” Arthur continued, but he sounded more wary than admiring.

“No, no, not me. Hey, I was wondering if Roy Dean or Arthur Junior were working with you today.”

Arthur didn’t answer right away. He took a tin of Skoal out of his pocket and slowly opened it, then just stared at the brown-black shreds of tobacco inside. Stella stared right along with him.

Nowadays you couldn’t find many fans of chew. Every doctor’s office in the county had warnings posted—mouth cancer, throat cancer. And Lord knows the spitting and the chawing
were nasty, vile habits; the black bits stuck between the teeth didn’t do much for a guy’s appeal.

But Stella had a soft spot for the stuff. Her dad used to treat himself to a chew now and then, out on the back steps where her mother wouldn’t have to watch, and Stella’s own first sweetheart kept a tin in the glove box of his truck, hidden from his parents. He’d have a chew sometimes after football practice when he and Stella went for drives in the country.