A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel (21 page)

“Yeah, so, what do you think it is anyway? Drugs? Prob’ly drugs; seems like that’s what people get craziest over.”

Stella considered whether she ought to tell Chrissy everything she knew. She owed it to the girl, really; it wasn’t right to leave her in the dark.

“Listen, honey. When I went over to talk to Benning yesterday, I had a little more than a feeling about what-all he was
up to. See, the night before . . . when I said I was going to Lovie Lee’s divorce party?”

“You didn’t,” Chrissy said. “I should have figured.”

Stella told Chrissy what Arthur Junior had said about the car theft. Chrissy, who had finished cleaning and wiping off all the gun parts and was working on putting them back together, stopped working and listened with her head shaking slowly back and forth.

“Figures, don’t it? Do you know Roy Dean still had all his Matchbox cars in this big old paint bucket in the garage? Threw out my box of bridesmaid dresses because he said we didn’t have room, but we got to keep those stupid cars.”

“Boys will be boys, I guess,” Stella shrugged.

“Boys will be assholes, more like,” Chrissy said. She held up the reassembled gun and turned it this way and that, gleaming under the kitchen light.

“Okay, Stella,” she said. “I’m locked and loaded. Show me something I can shoot the shit out of.”

S
tella was relieved to discover that not only did Chrissy know how to handle the Makarov, she wasn’t a bad shot. They drove out to the back side of an old peach orchard, the trees so ancient and gnarled they didn’t give up much fruit anymore, and set up a row of Fresca cans on a folding table she brought from home. Then they started shooting. When Chrissy missed, it wasn’t by much.

The Ruger felt good in Stella’s hand. It had been her father’s personal firearm, and aside from target shooting, it had spent most of its days locked in Buster Collier’s gun cabinet along with his hunting rifles. Stella had always thought it was pretty, with its ivory grip. On the rare occasions that her father let her hold it, he’d cupped her hand in his bigger, stronger ones and made sure her fingers didn’t go anywhere near the trigger, even with the cylinder empty and the safety on.

Buster had died of a heart attack when he was still in his forties. He’d walked her down the aisle, but he hadn’t lived to
see what a monster Ollie turned out to be. Maybe it was better that way. Buster might have killed Ollie himself, and Stella doubted whether the law would have been as lenient with him as it had been with her.

Picking off Fresca cans with her father’s gun, Stella wondered what he would have thought of the career she’d stumbled into. She was certain both her parents would have understood about Ollie. And they’d always preached a duty to lend a hand to those in need. Surely no one was more in need than Stella’s clients, the ones society couldn’t—or wouldn’t—protect, the ones who resorted to begging and promising and praying as their only weapons against the horror in their own homes.

When Stella started helping these women, she remembered how her father dressed so carefully each morning, putting on the Missouri Highway Patrol uniform shirts her mother pressed and starched, the heavy belt that contained the radio and the summons book, and finally, the gun. Buster had only drawn it twice in the line of duty, and he hadn’t fired either time. But it was a powerful symbol of order for Stella.

That gun went back to the Highway Patrol. But the Ruger was hers now. The ivory was slick-cool in her hand. She kept her arm firm against the recoil, sighted carefully, and fired over and over. The smell of the guns firing was acrid on the air, burning her nostrils, but she breathed it in hungrily anyway. Target practice had a calming effect on her, and she did it regularly, even if she’d never fired a gun into a man’s flesh and hoped she’d never have to.

She and Chrissy settled into a rhythm, without speaking, taking turns sighting down the cans and blowing them off the
table, stopping to reload now and then or to stack the cans back on the table.

When the cans were nothing but shredded scraps of metal, Stella and Chrissy gathered them up in a plastic trash bag Stella had brought from home.

“Guess you’ll do,” she told Chrissy, grinning.

“You ain’t too bad either.”

For an instant they just looked at each other. Stella was praying they wouldn’t have to shoot, when it came down to it. She figured Chrissy was doing the same.

At home Stella defrosted a couple of rib eyes and microwaved some potatoes. They ate on TV trays out on the back porch, saying little as evening settled down and the sky turned pink and red.

“You probably shot people before,” Chrissy said as they dug into bowls of rainbow sherbet with Cool Whip and Nilla wafers crumbled on top.

Stella was silent for a while before answering. “Honey, I haven’t.”

“Oh.” Chrissy licked Cool Whip off her spoon, a bit of the white stuff perched on her upper lip. “ ’Cause, what they say and all, I just thought . . . and I wouldn’t think no less of you, either.”

“Well, thank you. That means a lot to me. But . . . killing a man. I mean, it changes you.” She paused—that was the first time she’d actually admitted to anyone what she’d done to Ollie. For a second she wished she could take the words back, but it seemed important for Chrissy to know. “It’s a one-way street. You come out harder. And maybe stronger. But I hate
to think what would happen to a person if they made it a regular habit. I sure don’t want to find out. Especially when—so far, anyway—it seems like there’s other ways to handle men that need . . . handled.”

Chrissy nodded. “I imagine I understand. I mean, if we ever do find Roy Dean, I don’t need him dead, just—just really far away from me, and maybe hurtin’ a little bit, too. Or a lot, even.”

That wasn’t a bad summary of what Stella promised to deliver when she took on a new client. She was relieved that the girl got it; she didn’t need a loose cannon for a partner.

She examined Chrissy carefully. She had pulled her hair back with a pair of orange plastic barrettes that featured butterflies with sparkly wings. Her eyelids were dusted with gold eye shadow. She was wearing a scoop neck top that showed a bit of her creamy, youthful cleavage—and the edge of a fading ghost of a bruise.

Chrissy’s eyes didn’t look vulnerable, but they didn’t look bloodthirsty either. They looked alert and hard and determined.

“Tucker don’t have nobody else,” she said. “Sometimes I wish I’d tried a little harder to find out who his daddy was. You know? I mean, back then I thought I could do everything myself, and mostly I have, but right now it sure would be nice if there was some man out there who loved Tucker as much as I do. Who was willing to do anything for him.”

“I know, darlin’.” Stella did, too. She remembered sitting in church years ago, watching other men with little ones on their laps or a hand on their son’s shoulder, and cursing herself for not picking out a better father for Noelle. “But there’s
nothing a man can do here in this situation that you can’t do. You and me.”

Stella prayed that was true.

Thought of Goat, of his broad shoulders and strong arms and determined jaw and—she couldn’t help it—of that heavy belt with his service revolver and cuffs, and was sorely tempted to call him. But Goat couldn’t go in the way they needed to, which was to say, sneaky and immediate.

“Honey,” Stella said. “We’re going to use whatever tricks we need to until we find Tucker. Even, you know, unlawful-type tricks.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I just didn’t want you to think that I was worried about getting caught or something. I don’t mind that. I mean, I’d mind, I guess, going to jail and all that, but Tucker comes first.”

That made Chrissy smile. “Yeah, right. You’d probably love getting arrested. ’Cause then Sheriff Jones would have to frisk you and all. Prob’ly strip-search you.”

“Chrissy!” Stella exclaimed, shocked.

“Well, come on, you’re all googly when he’s around. It’s, like, obvious.”

“I am no such thing!” Stella could feel the blush creeping up her face.

“Oh, please, Stella, when he’s around your voice goes up and you twist your hair and all that. You might as well hang a sign around your neck says ‘do me now.’ Hey, it ain’t a bad thing, is it? I mean, you got to signal to the man you’re interested somehow, don’t you? I guess you could come right out and ask him out, but you probably want him to ask you first or something like that, right?”

“I can’t—I wouldn’t—Chrissy, he’s a
law
man, for crying out loud. I’m . . . not.”

“My ma’s a Baptist and my dad won’t go in a church,” Chrissy said. “She likes spicy food and he don’t. She’s itching to go on one of those RV trips and he wants to go to Branson. But they get on good. Conflict’s like the center of every good relationship, you know?”

“I’m not talking about
conflict
here, I’m—listen, can we drop this subject? We got to get ready, don’t we?”

Chrissy shrugged and gathered up the plates and glasses, but she had a smirky little expression that didn’t fade even as they worked side by side in the kitchen cleaning up.

Stella retired to her room to prepare for the rest of the evening. The stitches in her face itched fiercely, and any lingering effects of the pain medication had long since dissipated. She dabbed around the edges with the Betadine swabs they gave her at the hospital, and smoothed on a little antibiotic ointment. At first she tried to apply it just to the worst spots, but eventually she gave up, squeezed out a glob and rubbed it all over her face, then frowned at the result: now she was puffy, bruised, scabbed,
and
cursed with excess shine. She considered dabbing on a little concealer and then realized how ridiculous the idea was: pretty didn’t really play into her agenda.

Which led her to go over the plan. Essentially, there wasn’t one, other than to get close enough to Benning and Funzi and the others to find out what they were up to. Yeah. Maybe they’d be sitting in a kiddie pool unarmed, drinking root beer and talking about where they’d stashed Tucker and the best way for someone to sneak up and take him back.

Stella snorted with disgust as she pulled her hair back and secured it in a short ponytail with an elastic. It was far more likely that she and Chrissy were going to have to beat the information out of one of them. With any luck they’d be able to separate one of the losers from the rest, and somehow make him tell them everything, all without causing the others to wonder where their friend had got off to.

And that’s if Funzi and his associates were even at Benning’s. Maybe it was bowling night, or maybe they’d got tired of the local color and gone back up to Kansas City. They could try to get something out of Benning and his skinny-ass girlfriend, if that was the case, but if Roy Dean had somehow ended up bringing Tucker into the mess, and now the goons were gone, Tucker was probably gone with them. Stella didn’t like thinking about that one bit.

No, it would be better if it was another boys’ night at the play house.

She pulled on the pair of loose camo pants and black T-shirt they’d bought at the Wal-Mart, and laced up her hiking boots. She surveyed herself in the mirror: with her hair up and her mangled face, she looked like a kid who couldn’t decide what to be for Halloween, Rambo or Frankenstein.

Disgusted, she went to the garage and loaded up her backpack with supplies. In addition to a pair of powerful LED flashlights she packed a coil of nylon rope, a utility knife, a compact set of bolt cutters, pliers, her cell phone, and bottled water.

Chrissy was in the kitchen with the box she’d brought from home, strapping a shoulder holster over her own black T-shirt. It crossed in the back and bisected her generous bosom in the
front. She picked up the Makarov, gave it a fond little dusting with her fingertips, and slipped it in the leather holder.

She’d tucked her camo pant legs into pink high-top Converse sneakers. Stella couldn’t help grinning at the sight of her; with her ample curves and blond ringlets spilling from her baseball hat, she looked like a demolition cherub.

Stella put on her own abdomen holster and patted the Ruger. After shooting it earlier, it had become comfortable in her hands, and she liked the feel of it close by.

“You take the big knife,” she told Chrissy, rummaging in the box for an ankle holster. She found one, a Velcro and nylon model that fit the knife as though it had been made for it.

“What about you?”

Stella thought for a moment. The other knives that Chrissy brought were small and wouldn’t have much stopping power, and there didn’t seem to be much point to bringing them, especially as she’d packed her utility knife.

Stella had a sudden thought and went to Noelle’s old room, where she stored all her sewing supplies. Since she started her second business, her sewing machine had been gathering dust, but her best Gingher scissors were in the tool caddy where she left them. They were weighty in her hand, a good pair of nine-inch trimmers.

On a whim she grabbed her rotary cutter, too. She made sure the safety was on and slipped it into her pocket.

Back in the kitchen, she found another ankle holster, an old leather one with buckles, which she fitted carefully to her leg. The scissors fit well in the sheath, their handles sticking up in easy reach.