Bad Moon On The Rise (37 page)

But Alicia’s composure had returned,
and her facade along with it. “Thank you, Miss Jones,” she said
crisply, as if we had just completed a business transaction. But I
knew she’d heard a little of what I’d said and that when she needed
it the most, she might remember some of my words.

A door opened down the hall and Trey
came out, looking grave for his young years. “She wants to see
you,” he told me.

“
Me?” I asked,
surprised.

Trey nodded.

As I turned to visit Corndog Sally for
what would surely be the last time, I saw him hug his aunt and hold
her tight—and I knew, with an unexpected jolt of relief, that they
would be okay after all. Grief over Sally would bring them
together.

Corndog Sally was not long for this
world. That much was obvious. Her flesh had wasted away, leaving
little but bone to support the papery skin that had faded to a dull
brown dusted with gray pallor. But the eyes that stared out at me
from her shrunken face were as bright as black diamonds. Her voice
was raspy, but it was clear that her mind was strong.

“
Miss Jones,” she said,
crooking a finger and beckoning me closer. The room smelled like
disinfectant, medicine and decaying flesh. In other words, it
smelled like death. I stepped closer and placed my hand as lightly
as I could on her arm. It was cold.

“
Did I keep my word or
what?” I asked. “I’m guessing Trey’s grown since you last saw
him.”

“
In more ways than one,”
she croaked. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that tattoo of
his.”

“
Maybe a reminder will be
good for him,” I said gently. “He’ll make thoughtful choices from
now on.”

“
That boy was always wise
for his age. He had to be.” Sally started to cough and I waited
until she could speak again. There was a rattle in the back of her
throat and I knew what that meant. I’d brought Trey back just in
time. “I’m not worried about my boy now and I want to thank you for
that.” She squeezed my hand. “I knew you were a person who kept
their word. There aren’t many of us left in the world.”

I was close to tears and found I could
not answer.

“
You know why I called you
in here?” she asked me. The ghost of a smile flickered over her
face.

“
You want to re-negotiate
my fee?”

She tried to laugh but only ended up
choking and I decided to hold the jokes from there on out. “No fee
for me,” she finally said. “Your boyfriend is going to take care of
all that.”

“
Burly’s not my boyfriend
any more,” I corrected her. “And he’ll probably take care of your
entire family. God knows, he’s got the money to do it.”

“
I’m leaving them plenty
of money,” she said. “But he’s a good man. I feel regret that Tonya
did not think she could bring him home when they were together.
That was my fault.”

“
No,” I said firmly. “That
was the world’s fault. You need to let that go.”

“
Funny you should say
that,” she said gently. “I called you in here to tell you that the
one thing I’ve learned about life is that you have to let go of the
things that are already gone, especially when it causes you pain to
hold on to them.”

I knew she was talking about Burly. “I
let him go,” I promised. “Thanks to you. We’re even now and I can
let him go.”

“
Something new will take
his place,” she promised me. “Just you wait and see.”

“
Thank you,” I whispered
to her.

“
Thank you,” she said in a
fading voice. “And now I’m going to tell you something you have
earned the right to know.”

“
More wisdom of the
ages?”

“
Not really. But I know
you’ll sleep better at night knowing.”

I was intrigued. “Go on,” I told
her.

“
When I was a little girl,
I had a redbone hound that never left my side. That dog slept with
me, ate with me, walked me to school, lay down outside the
classroom window on the lawn and waited for me until it was time to
walk me back home again. I couldn’t take a step without that dog
watching over me. He was my guardian angel with fleas.”

“
A loyal companion,” I
agreed. “What was his name?”

“
Corndog,” she explained.
“Because he’d eat corn right from the fields. Drove my daddy crazy.
That dog would bump a stalk with his rump until it snapped, then
pull the husks right off the cob and enjoy himself an ear of sweet
corn whenever he felt like it.”

“
Your nickname,” I said,
delighted. “That’s why people call you ‘Corndog Sally.’”

“
That’s right,” she said.
“And now you are one of a few people left in the world who know my
secret.”

“
Your secret is safe with
me,” I promised.

“
I have no doubt,” she
said.

“
I’ll look after Trey.
I’ll make sure he stays out of trouble.”

“
Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for that.” Her voice started to fade and I knew she was
slipping into sleep, and that it was the only comfort she had while
she waited for the final sleep. I could not bear to take it from
her, so I took one last look at the dark face surrounded by a halo
of wild and wiry white hair. I saw a tiny woman, barely hitting one
hundred pounds soaking wet with the sweat of all those years of
hard work, a woman born into nothing during a time that gave her
nothing because she had skin the wrong color and a mind too sharp
for anyone’s taste but her own. And yet she’d had the strength to
survive spirit-numbing poverty and get herself an education and
marry a good man and bear his children, then feed them and clothe
them and send most of them to college—and still care about the rest
of the world and the people in it without rancor. And after all
that, she was able to look death square in the face without
flinching.

 
A remarkable woman
indeed.

When I got back to the waiting room,
the rest of my life had arrived. Judgment was upon me—and my heart
felt like it had been stripped and laid bare for all to witness.
There was Shep, shaking Bill Butler’s hands, looking official in
his sheriff’s uniform, which meant he’d gotten his old job back and
whatever had happened on the mountain after I left had done him
more good than harm.

Still, it made me nervous to see so
many men I’d slept with in one room like that. I was the 400-pound
gorilla in the room, it seems, and in no mood to face the
overwhelming and living proof of my somewhat unpredictable taste in
men.

Shep’s arrival must have made Ramsey
nervous because he had disappeared. However he had done it, he was
once again here today and gone tomorrow. I’d have to thank him for
being such a good friend later.

It was too much for Marcus, too. I was
hiding around the corner from the waiting room, trying to get up
the nerve to enter, when he brushed past me on his way toward the
exit and murmured, “Honey, trust me, there is some serious
testosterone in that room.”

 “
Wait,” I whispered.
“Why’d you have to call Shep?” I asked, knowing only Marcus could
have told him where I was. “You ratted me out. Why not call in the
FBI while you’re at it?”

“
Oh, believe me, I was
tempted,” he said indignantly. “And for your information, your
sheriff was already halfway to your apartment in Durham when I
called. He was heading your way and I am not responsible for why.
Don’t ever pull a stunt like this again, you hear me? You
disappearing not only put your life in jeopardy, it put my job in
serious jeopardy, too. By the way, this is yours.”

He retrieved a cardboard box from a
warm corner near a heating vent in the hall. “I’m giving you the
crack-head cat back. Before he destroys my apartment.”

I peeked in the box. The tiny calico
was sleeping soundly, flat on his back, all four paws spread wide
in an ecstasy of relaxation. “This cat destroyed your apartment?” I
asked dubiously.

“
It’s stoned out of its
mind right now,” Marcus hissed. “Otherwise he’d be climbing your
face.”

“
What am I supposed to do
with it?” I said. “I can’t even keep a plant alive.”

“
That is a problem you are
going to have to work out on your own, because I am going home and
I am going to sleep in my own bed. I am going to enjoy a nice night
of rest without some crazy, flesh-crazed crack-head kitten trying
to eat my toes while I sleep.”

I started to laugh and that was a
mistake. Marcus gets very angry when he thinks you are laughing at
him.

“
Oh no, you’re not,” he
said incredulously. “After all I did for you? I protected you while
detectives from here to Poughkeepsie were looking for your ass. I
could have lost my job.”

“
I’m sorry,” I said.
“Really, Marcus, I am sorry.”

“
Oh, go peddle your pussy
somewhere else,” Marcus said acidly as he sailed out the door. “You
owe me. A big one.”

“
I know," I called after
him. But I also knew it would eventually be okay. Marcus gets angry
at me regularly, but he also gets over it just as regularly. You
just had to let him wallow in his snit fits first.

Bill Butler was the next to bail. He
ambled past, hot on Marcus’s heels, with little more then a smile
that told me I was no longer his problem and he was glad of
it.

“
Wait,” I called after
him. “Don’t you want to bring your wife a sweet little kitten as a
gift?”

He just laughed and kept
going.

As I turned with my makeshift
cardboard rehab center, I bumped straight into the last man I was
prepared to explain things to: Shep. Oh my god, he smelled so
clean: like soap and mountain air and freshly ironed shirts. Every
hormone in my body stood up and started to sing.

“
Hi,” I said before I
stuttered into silence because, awkward circumstances or not, Shep
was focusing those amazing blue eyes on me and when I looked at the
crinkles around them, everything else around me kind of faded and I
was left helpless and swimming in a sea of estrogen.

“
Hi,” he said back,
perhaps too firmly for someone I had hoped was equally as
lovestruck. “Fancy running into you here.”

“
What's that?” Trey
interrupted and I felt a surge of gratitude toward his blessed
little teenage soul. Avoidance is a beautiful thing. He peeked down
into the cardboard box I was holding. “Where’d you get
him?”

“
Oh,” I said absently,
still vibrating from the effect of Shep being so near. “Marcus
can’t keep him so he needs a home. He’s a handful. Truth is, he’s
kind of an addict. The kitten, not Marcus.”

“
You can’t just give up on
it,” Trey said, sounding stricken. He cradled the kitten and
tickled its tummy, bringing a feline smile to the cat’s stoned-out
face. The furry little beast looked positively boneless as it
draped over Trey’s arms, purring mindlessly. I thought of how hard
Trey had probably fought to save his mother from drugs and knew he
needed the victory that saving the kitten would represent. 
But would Burly understand?

Trey looked up at Burly, who was
watching his son from across the room, and he didn’t even have to
ask.

“
You can keep him,” Burly
told Trey. “But something tells me he’ll be better off as an
outdoor cat.”

“
Absolutely,” I said
brightly. “Just give him a pine tree and he’ll make enough shredded
mulch to earn his keep.”

“
Come on,” Burly told his
son as he rolled toward the exit doors. “Before Casey sells us
another pig in a poke. Let’s get you home and I’ll show you your
bedroom. Then we’ll come back to see your grandma again. After
that, we’ve got a lot of paperwork to get started on.”

Burly and Trey left, the kitten
sleeping soundly once again on its bed of catnip. And I was left
with absolutely nothing between me and Shep other than a foot of
increasingly warm air.

“
Am I officially in your
custody?” I asked faintly.

“
Yes, it looks like I have
drawn the short straw,” Shep said cheerfully. “You’ve been released
into my custody.”

My heart leapt—no more jailhouse bars
for me. 

In the silence of the hospice, I could
hear my heart hammering in my chest. “What happened?” I asked. “Are
you okay?”

“
I am,” he said, taking
off his hat and twirling it in his hands. “I look like a fool for
not knowing what was going on underneath my own nose, but I’m
cleared. Got my job back. Even got a little glory, thanks to
you.”

I smiled, unable to speak.

“
You got some glory, too,”
he explained. “I told them you tipped me off about the compound.
They’re going to look the other way until your paperwork clears the
system. Debbie Little may end up with a record, but you won’t.
Well, other than the one you already got, of course.”

“
Thank you,” I said
faintly.

“
You need to thank your
friend Butler, too,” Shep explained. “He’s handling Perry County
for you. You may have to go up there to talk to the boys a little
and set things straight but, otherwise, you’re in the
clear.”