Junkyard Dogs (12 page)

“Yes, I do.” He wandered down the aisle to look for something more suited to his epicurian tastes.

I pulled a chicken and cheese out for me and an extra shredded beef and cheese for Dog and called after him. “Snob.”

I put the veritable cornucopia of freeze du jour on the counter along with a tall-boy can of Rainier, pulled out my wallet, and waited for the young woman to see me. After a moment, she looked up, annoyed that someone was interrupting her evening, but when she saw me she brightened a little. “Oh, hi, Sheriff.”

I laid a twenty on the Plexiglas that protected the plastic counter and read the poster that informed me about the available career opportunities in the country’s third-largest convenience store chain with, easily, the most sexually suggestive name. “Hi, Gina, what are you watching?” I thought I could make out Cary Grant’s voice and possibly Deborah Kerr’s.

She chewed on a strand of her blondish hair. “It’s that movie where the man and the woman are supposed to meet at the Empire State Building, but she gets hit by a car.”

Must be the season for it, I thought.

She rubbed some crumbs off her jeans and dropped the empty cracker wrapper in a trash can behind the counter. “I think it’s supposed to be romantic—you know, for Valentine’s Day. I’m not supposed to be watching the TV during business hours, but the manager put it up there, and we don’t have television at the house.”

She paused as she looked past me to where Henry was opening another of the coolers along the back wall. “I get bored, and it makes me feel better when I watch a movie, but not because of the movie, though.” She thought about it, and I watched her profile as she looked past my shoulder and continued to study the Bear. “I think about all the other people around the state that are watching the same movie, and it’s like we’re watching it together. I mean they’re lonely, they’re bored, and we’re all watching the same thing.” Her eyes came back to mine, and her voice dropped. “You have to keep your eye on those Indians; they steal.”

I raised an eyebrow but ignored the remark. “It’s more than just the state.”

“Huh?”

I leaned back and traced the cable coming out of the display stand above me that then disappeared into the broken corner of one of the acoustic ceiling tiles. “It’s cable, Gina, which means you’re watching the movie with the whole country.”

She smiled. “That makes me feel even better.”

I smiled back. “How’s Geo?”

She thought for a moment. “I think Grampus’ fine, but I don’t know. Since I missed my shift on Monday they made me come in and cover tonight.” She leaned a little forward and confided. “I don’t like working nights; a lot of creepos come in here.”

Henry joined us with a bag of mixed salad and an unsweetened iced tea. “Present company excluded?”

She stared at him blankly. “Huh?”

I looked at him. “Gina here says she has to keep an eye on you Indians because you steal.”

He nodded. “We do, but only small stuff, unlike you whites.”

I pointed to the items I’d hunted and gathered. “I’ll treat to save you from petty theft.” I turned to Gina. “How much?”

Her fingers tripped across the keyboard of the cash register—she seemed relieved to have escaped the conversation. “Nineteen dollars and thirty-seven cents.”

I slid the twenty a little closer so that Gina would notice. I couldn’t think of anybody in our little community that I’d identify specifically as a creepo. “Creepos like who?”

She took the money and handed me my change. “Ozzie Dobbs for one. He’s always coming in here, standing around and looking at my butt, and hitting on me. It’s totally gross.”

That was surprising. “Really.” I took the change and stuffed it in my pocket.

A Volkswagen Jetta rounded the corner at Main, and the driver took advantage of the ice to hit the gas and drift the vehicle outrageously sideways. I raised my arm and hit the remote on my truck to blip the lights and draw attention to my unit, whereupon the driver slowed and drove on with a little more circumspection.

Henry’s voice rumbled. “Rachael Terry—she is a wild one.”

“Yep.” I nodded, making a mental note to call Mike and Susie. I looked back at Gina. “Ozzie Dobbs, really?”

“Yeah, he comes in here once a week at least. That’s the only reason I don’t mind covering other shifts—at least then he doesn’t know when I’m working.” She picked up the beer and the tea and stood them in a plastic sack. Her eyes strayed back to the television. “He always wants to buy me things, which is nice ’cause Duane is tight as the bark on a tree.” She dumped the frozen burritos and the salad on top. “You know, most people warm these up in the microwave before they eat them.”

I picked up the package. “Buy you things?”

She shrugged her narrow shoulders, and the parka fell off. She was wearing an oversized, gray sweatshirt that had UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS in orange stenciled across her chest. “Yeah, one time he offered to buy me anything in the store if I’d give him a kiss.” She glanced around. “Like I’d fuckin’ do
that
for anything in
here
.”

 

 

The lights on Main Street were swinging in the wind and blinking yellow, the way they always did after midnight, and it was as if the whole town, like a pinball game, had gone tilt. It was odd and depressing, thinking of somebody like Ozzie Dobbs targeting Gina; sometimes it meant something, but most of the time it was just the flotsam and jetsam of the human tide. “I’m concerned about the younger generation.”

Henry nodded. “Do you think she paid for those crackers she was eating when we came in?”

I was looking forward to my burrito and figured I could rummage a couple of extra blankets from the linen closet at the jail, since on seriously cold nights it sometimes got a little nippy in the all-concrete holding cells. I wondered if I was getting to be like those old cons who couldn’t sleep unless there were bars on the doors and windows—now that was a really depressing thought.

When we got back to the office, the flakes were basting themselves against a familiar, forest-green Chevy parked in the visitor’s spot. From the sculpted drifts, it had been there awhile.

Both Henry and I could see that Ozzie Jr. was in the driver’s seat, just sitting there, staring; speak of the devil soon to arrive. I shut down the Bullet and climbed out with our plastic bag, ambled my way around the front with Dog at my heels, and joined the Bear as we stood there looking at Ozzie, whose eyes were open but who still hadn’t moved. I could hear the radio and could see the condensation in the windows from his breath. Henry and I looked at each other, the vapor from our breath whipping into our faces.

I tapped on the hood of the one-ton Chevrolet, and Ozzie’s eyes shifted to us. I stepped closer and could see that he was dressed in the same clothes he’d had on earlier today but that there were smears of something dark on the sleeves of his jacket and the front of his shirt.

I slipped by the Cheyenne Nation. My hand fumbled with the door handle of the truck before I flipped it open and stuck my head into the cab. The heat was on high, the interior of the truck was stifling, and Roy Orbison was singing “Only the Lonely.” It was blood on his shirt and jacket with some on his jeans and even on the brim of his hat.

“Ozzie, are you all right?” His eyes shifted to mine in a dull and listless way. “Are you hurt?”

His voice was slurred, and I could smell the liquor. “Walt, I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

I put a hand on his shoulder and saw that there was an empty bottle of expensive tequila on the seat beside him along with a collection of cheap valentines spilling from a bag. “Hurt who, Ozzie?”

“He was with her, Walt.” His eyes darted around and toward Henry. “Hello.”

I grabbed his chin and swung his face back to me, aware that for legal purposes, he had to say it. “Who did you hurt, Ozzie?”

“He walked her back like it was some kind of date.”

“Where, Ozzie, where did this happen?”

Tears streamed from his eyes, and he sobbed, his lower lip pulsing in and out with his breath. “I’m scared, Walt.”

“Ozzie.”

“I didn’t mean to hit him that hard, I swear I didn’t.”

I took his arm. “Come with me.” He didn’t resist, and I took his keys. Henry helped me get him up the steps. I opened the door, flipped on the lights, and we seated him on the bench by the dispatcher’s desk. “Henry, could you watch him?”

I snatched Ruby’s phone from the cradle and hit the second auto-dial. Vic answered on the third ring, her voice a little groggy but deep and sultry. “And what fresh hell is this?”

God she sounded good, half asleep and snarky. “I need you at the office,
now
.”

She snapped the receiver down on the other end, and I hung up, quickly punching the Red Cross emblem on Ruby’s color-coded phone. Henry was kneeling in front of Ozzie, holding him up with one hand. “Ozzie, where did all this happen?”

He paused, but I guess I’d asked enough times that he finally got it. “My house.”

“Is Geo at your house?”

“Yes.” He slumped against the back of the bench, but the Cheyenne Nation kept him steady.

“Ozzie? What’s your address?”

“101 Eagle Ridge, the one on the hill.”

“911.” I recognized Chris Wyatt’s voice, and I told him what I needed and where.

There was a pause. “Walt, where the hell is that?”

The development was relatively new and still mostly unoccupied so even the EMTs didn’t recognize the street addresses. “It’s in the Redhills Rancho Arroyo subdivision.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I hung up the phone and hustled over to the water-cooler to get a paper cup full for Ozzie. He reached out with a shaking hand to pet Dog, who was sniffing the blood on his pants.

I sat on the edge of the bench, glanced at Henry, and handed Ozzie the water. “Was it Geo Stewart that you hurt?”

He looked at the cup of water but didn’t make any attempt to drink it. “I don’t have any friends.”

“Ozzie?”

“I really don’t.” He listed a little toward me, and Henry righted him. The small man looked at the Bear in appreciation. “Thanks.”

The Cheyenne Nation nodded. “No problem.”

“I mean I know lots of people—acquaintances, you know?”

I was forceful with the next question. “Is he hurt?”

He paused. “Yes.”

“How bad?”

He began crying again. “Walt, I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

I nudged the paper cup toward his mouth. “Take a drink of water and tell me what happened.”

The cup hesitated there for a moment. “Walt, I think I’m going to be sick.” He burped, and then he heaved. “I’mhh . . . I’m gonna be sick.”

Henry hoisted him up, ushered him into the hallway bathroom, and flipped up the lid. Ozzie no sooner sat on the floor before he leaned forward and spewed forcefully into the toilet. He seemed capable of the action without hurting himself, so I draped a washcloth onto his shoulder and stepped back along with Henry, closing the door to give Ozzie a little privacy. “If you need anything, we’re right out here.”

I could leave Henry in charge, but it wasn’t his job. I had to wait until Vic got here to babysit Ozzie, then I could take off. I leaned a hand against the doorjamb, tipped my hat back, and thought about how I hated these kinds of cases.

“Are your nights usually like this?”

I threw him a look. “Pretty much.”

Dog stood in the hallway as well and looked at the two of us uncertainly. I crouched down and put a hand out, and he hurried over. I pulled him in with my arm, and we all squatted there until my foot wouldn’t take it any longer and I slumped against the wall. I sat with Dog’s head in my lap, and the three of us listened to Ozzie Dobbs puke his guts out.

“I can stay with him until Vic arrives.”

I sighed deeply. “That’s okay, she’s usually quick.”

He continued to study me. “Then I will go with you.”

“No need in the both of us going.”

I heard the front door jangle and the couple of thumps as Vic’s Browning tactical boots struck the steps on her way up the stairs. She vaulted across the dispatch area and was standing in the hallway in front of us in her fur bomber hat, down jacket, PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT hoodie, pajama bottoms, and duty belt, complete with cuffs, extra mags, and Glock. “S’up?”

I struggled to my feet as Henry stood. “I did not know you slept in pajamas.”

“Gun belt, too. I’m kinky that way.” Another round of regurgitation erupted from behind the door, and she raised an eyebrow at me. “If you called me from a sound sleep for a DWI then I’m going to kick you till you’re dead.”

I left Dog with Henry, Henry with Vic, and Vic with Ozzie. The roads were still relatively dry, and with the lights and siren I was able to make good time to the red hills east of town, especially since there wasn’t a single other vehicle on the roads this late. I blew through the blinking red lights and straightened out on Route 16, bellowing and bringing all ten cylinders up like a pack.