“There’s a pile of tires right there,” Stella said, pointing to the haphazard mountain of decaying rubber.
“With a broken-down Buick next to it,” Manny replied as he turned off the ignition and grabbed an oversized flashlight from his console area. He started to get out of the vehicle, then paused. Turning to Stella, he said, “Stay in the car, till I see what’s what. The perpetrator could still be here.”
Stella fixed him with a determined eye, yanked her door open, and said, “If he is, then you’re gonna need somebody to tend the girl whilst you beat the puddin’ outta him. Unless you wanna do the tendin’ and let me do the beatin’.”
Manny didn’t reply. He just groaned, got out of the car, and began to shine his light’s beam into the darkness all around them.
The smell of an old garage—gasoline, dirty oil, and rotting rubber and vehicles—nearly choked Stella. She thought of the station owned by Flo, located in the center of town. Flo’s establishment looked like a persnickety woman owned it. The restrooms were spotless. Stella swore they were clean enough for a body to cook their supper in.
Some folks even claimed that Florence had the garage floor scrubbed regularly with lavender-scented bleach.
The second station might have been only a short distance from Florence’s, situated just outside the town limits. But it was a world away in character. Dark, dirty, and depressing.
The garage had been there for as long as Stella could remember, and that whole time it had been a run-down mess. The owner had long since left McGill and moved to Orlando. He visited the place once a year and was contented to see that Yolanda Ortez had managed to keep the doors open and the roof from caving in.
A nineteen-year-old girl could only do so much, and Yolanda had done all she could.
Stella couldn’t bear the thought of the industrious young woman hurt. Or worse.
“Heaven forbid,” she whispered.
They both peered into the areas that the headlights and Manny’s flashlight illuminated, looking for Yolanda. Or her attacker.
They listened, straining to hear any movement. Anything at all.
A bit of wind rustling the trees.
A dog barking in the yard that was adjacent to the station’s property.
Then, a low moan.
Suddenly, a traumatic, painful memory dragged Stella back to another time, another dark and dirty area where a young woman had been injured.
Far worse than injured.
“Let this one turn out better’n that one,” she whispered. “Please, please, please!”
Manny heard her. He reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her toward him. “Go back to the car, Stella. Please, let me take care of this,” he said. Then, as though reading her mind, he added, “It’s too much like before. Like Prissy, in the alley behind the tavern.”
“I know. But—”
At that moment they heard another low moan. This time they could tell it was coming from a particularly dark area to their right.
The sound was almost more than Stella could bear. She shivered and mumbled, “I’m comin’, Prissy. Hang on, sweetie.”
She yanked her arm free of Manny’s grasp and ran in the direction of the darkness and the groan. “I’m comin’, darlin’. Help’s here,” she called out. “We’re comin’.”
In spite of Stella’s head start, Manny got to the victim first. His flashlight cast an eerie white light on the ashen face of the young woman lying on the ground.
“Yolanda?” Stella heard him ask as he dropped to his knees next to her and leaned over her.
Stella could understand why he was questioning what he was seeing.
The female on the ground didn’t look like Yolanda, the charming teenager whom Stella had known since she had been born. The black-haired, dark-eyed beauty was a town favorite. The citizens of McGill loved the Ortez family, small as it was now that Raul’s wife, Maria, had passed.
Stella couldn’t recall ever hearing a rude word said about any of them. Mostly, when people referred to Yolanda, they called her “that friendly young lady who runs the old gas station on the edge of town—the girl with all that long, pretty, black hair.”
But as Stella knelt next to Manny and looked down at Yolanda, she realized there were terrible differences in the girl’s appearance. Not only was her lovely face bruised, her left cheek swollen, but her long hair was gone. It had been chopped off. Considering how ragged the cuts were, Stella suspected a very sharp knife had been used.
The shorn hair lay on the ground around its former owner.
The sight made Stella sick with sadness and fury.
For a terrible moment, she feared the same instrument might have been used on the victim’s body, as well. Manny seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he was running his flashlight beam up and down her form.
Thankfully, while there were bruises on her arms, they saw no blood anywhere other than on the top of her scalp.
But Stella’s relief was short-lived when she realized that the girl’s blouse had been torn and was hanging on her in tatters.
Yolanda made a slight whining sound, like a wounded puppy, as she attempted in vain to cover her exposed skin with her hands and arms. Immediately, Stella ripped off her own sweater and laid it gently across her.
In a halting, raspy voice, Yolanda said, “Th-thank . . . you.”
“There, there, sugar,” Stella said softly. “Don’t you worry. Not a bit. The worst part’s all over with. You’re safe and sound now. The sheriff here done called an ambulance to come get you. They’ll be showin’ up here any minute.”
Manny reached down and laid his hand on her cheek. “She’s right, Yolanda. Doc Hynson’s on his way, too. He’ll ride with you in the ambulance to the hospital. Okay?”
Yolanda seemed to comprehend what they were saying, because she nodded slightly, and a bit of the fear seemed to leave her eyes.
“Somebody worked you over pretty bad, didn’t they, sweetie?” he continued.
“Ye-yes, sir,” was the mumbled reply.
“Who was it? Who did this to you?”
Instead of answering, she shook her head and started to cry.
Stella patted her arm. “There, there. Just calm down now. Was it somebody you know?” Stella asked, thinking she should probably stay out of it and let Manny do his job.
Yet, if the girl had been attacked by a male, Stella thought Yolanda might find it easier to speak to a woman. Manny seemed to think the same, because when she shot him a quick, questioning glance, silently asking for permission, he nodded and gave her a grateful look.
Stella sat down on the ground, right next to Yolanda’s side, took her hand in hers, and began to stroke it. She glanced down again at the girl’s body and saw that her jeans snuggly fitted, as was the fashion, were still in place, zipped, and buttoned.
She took that as a good sign. As good as it got under the circumstances anyway.
Thank heavens, she thought. Coulda been worse.
“Do you know who it was?” she asked again.
An expression of fear passed over the girl’s face. She shook her head slightly and said, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what, honey?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Manny leaned over her. “Yolanda, if you don’t want to talk to us about it now, that’s okay. The most important thing to me at the moment is that we get you taken care of. We’ll talk later, when—”
“No. Never,” Yolanda said. “Can’t say. Never.”
Manny’s face hardened. “The man who hurt you, honey, he won’t ever do it again. I promise you. I don’t care what he said to you, how he might’ve threatened you. Where I’ll be putting him, he’s not going to get the chance to hurt anyone ever again.”
She shook her head and looked frustrated, as well as terrified. “Not that. Not him. My . . . my dad.”
Manny looked confused. He bent closer to her to hear her better, then said, “Yolanda, you aren’t telling me that your father hurt
you, are you?”
“No! He would never. Not me. Never hurt me, but . . .”
Stella understood and reached out to gently cup the girl’s swollen cheek in her palm. “You’re afraid your father will go after the mangy skunk that did this. Right?”
She nodded, then winced at the pain it cost her.
“Oh, okay,” Manny grumbled. “You don’t want your father to do anything that’ll get him in trouble.”
Again, she nodded, but ever so slightly.
Manny continued, his voice low and even, “Then you know the guy, and so does your dad, and your father knows where to find him.”
Rising and dusting the dirt off his knees, Manny glanced around the garage with its open door and a car inside that was on the lift in mid-repair. He gave Stella a knowing, angry look.
“You don’t have to tell me who it was, Yolanda. I’ve got a pretty good idea myself. There’s only one yahoo peckerwood in this town that I can think of who’s capable of doing something like this, and he works, off and on, part-time, right here in this garage. When he’s sober enough to pump gas and twist a wrench. Right, sweetie?”
Stella looked down at Yolanda, and the fear in the girl’s eyes told her that the sheriff was exactly right.
Billy Ray Sonner.
Even his name was enough to make Stella feel the need to wash her mind out with some bleach and a stiff toilet brush.
As deeply loved as the Ortez family was by their fellow McGillians, Billy Ray and his miscreant buddies were just as fiercely hated.
The odious threesome—Billy Ray Sonner, Deacon Murray, and Earle Campbell—had proudly dubbed themselves the Lone White Wolf Pack.
No one had been able to convince them that their club’s name was a contradiction in terms, as lone wolves didn’t hang out in packs. But their stupid name was the least of their offenses.
The Lone White Wolf Pack seemed to think that Adolph Hitler was a pretty cool guy with a lot of good ideas about how to make the world a better place.
That alone was reason enough for Stella and the rest of the town to think that the world would be much improved if the LWWP were to fall off the end of it and straight into the fiery furnace of hell.
Some folks had even expressed a desire to lead them to the edge, apply a stiff boot to their back ends, and send them on their way.
Until recently, their despicable attitudes aside, their crimes had been more mischievous than felonious. But some disturbing events had occurred lately that upset the town, and it was widely believed they were behind the trouble.
Sheriff Gilford had his eye on them.
Now more than ever.
At that moment, they heard a most welcome sound, the ambulance siren. Stella jumped to her feet and ran to the side of the garage, then around to the front, to direct them toward the rear of the building and their patient.
As they were pulling past her, heading in the direction she was pointing, Dr. Hynson drove in behind them, parked, got out of his car, and ran toward her.
“Who is it?” he shouted, moving quickly and easily for a man pushing seventy. Being the town’s only physician kept him busy, mentally and physically fit. His once red hair was now mostly silver, but his face still flushed crimson when he was excited. As he was at that moment.
“It’s Yolanda Ortez,” Stella told him. “She’s been assaulted. Head injury, I’m afraid.”
“Is she conscious?”
“Yes. But she was down on the ground when we found her. We didn’t try to move her.”
“Good.”
He rushed around the building, following the ambulance, with Stella only a couple of paces behind him.
Within less than a minute, Yolanda was being gently and efficiently attended by the two paramedics and the doctor. Stella and Manny stood aside and let them work as Doc Hynson checked her vital signs, calming her all the while, his blue-green eyes kind and his words reassuring. Once he had stabilized her neck with a cervical collar, he and the paramedics placed her on a gurney, and carefully loaded her into the ambulance.
As the doctor settled onto the seat next to her, Stella and Manny leaned into the vehicle for one last exchange with Yolanda. Both of them promised her that they’d be seeing her at the hospital soon.
“Please don’t tell my father, Sheriff,” she pleaded as the doors began to close. “Please!”
“I have to tell him you’re hurt,” Manny told her, “but I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. You’ve got nothing to worry about now but getting well.”
As Manny and Stella watched the ambulance pull away, its lights flashing and siren sounding, Stella instinctively reached for his hand.
He clasped hers tightly and the strength and warmth that the gesture communicated gave her a sense of peace.
Manny would make everything all right. In the end.
Or at least, he’d make things better than they were at the moment.
“That was quite a promise you made the girl just now,” she told Manny. “Her daddy’s as kindhearted as any man I’ve ever known. He’s slow to rage. A true gentleman. But when he finds out some guy hurt his little girl . . . and hurt her in that particular way . . .” Stella felt a tightening in her throat that cut off her words.
Manny supplied them. “He’s gonna have a strong opinion about it, just like I do.”
“Raul thinks the world of that child. Since losing his Maria to cancer and his farm failin’ like it is, his daughter’s all that poor man’s got left in the world. He’s gonna at least be tempted to do something fierce.”
“Most any father would.”
“Who’re we gonna look for first? Them ignoramus Loner guys or Raul?”
“We? Before I do anything, I’m taking you home. This sorry so-called ‘date’ of ours has to be one of the worst first dates in history, darlin’.”
“I’ll give you a rain check, but I don’t wanna go home just yet.”
“That was a serious crime, Stella, and whoever did it has shown how dangerous they can be. I won’t put you in danger by dragging you along while I hunt them down.”
Again she asked, “Who are you lookin’ to find first? Raul or the Loners?”
“Raul. He’s got a right to know his daughter’s been hurt, and those fools aren’t going anywhere.”
“They’re too dumb to pull their heads in before shuttin’ a window, let alone engineer an escape.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re not afraid that Raul’s dangerous, are you?” she asked, giving him a sly grin.
He sniffed and shook his head, obviously seeing through her ploy. “Only to Billy Ray and his boys, I reckon.”
She slipped her arm companionably through his as they continued on toward the cruiser. “Then you ain’t gittin’ rid of me, boy. Not yet anyway. This ‘Worst First Date Ever’ we’re sufferin’ through, it ain’t over till both parties agree it is.”
He chuckled and grinned down at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 4
No sooner had Stella and Manny settled into the cruiser than the radio crackled, and an unpleasantly nasal voice filled the car. “Sheriff! Sheriff! You there?”
Manny sighed, picked up the microphone, and answered, “Yes, Mervin. What’s up?”
“A ruckus and a half over at the grocery store. Miss Violet called it in. Said Raul Ortez was there, buyin’ his girl’s favorite cereal and the next thing you know, he went plumb crazy, makin’ a big ol’ stink over somethin’. Threatenin’ to stomp a mudhole in them Lone White Wolf fellers’ backsides, he was. One of ’em, that little one called Earle, works there, ya know.”
Manny turned to Stella, sighed, and said, “So much for me needing to inform Raul.” Into the microphone, he said, “Okay, Merv. I’m on my way over there now. And Deputy, I’ve had it up to here with bad news for one night. If you hear anything else amiss, just keep it to yourself, all right?”
“Yeah, sure. Gotcha, Sheriff. Ten-four,” Deputy Mervin Jarvis replied with a suspiciously g
rave tone.
Manny sat silently for a moment, his brow furrowed. Stella could tell he was mulling over that last exchange. Finally, he once again pressed down on the microphone button and said, “Deputy Jarvis.”
“Yes, sir?”
“That thing I said about not bothering me with any more bad news . . . you know I was joking. Right?”
“Huh? Oh. Right, sir.”
They heard a nervous chuckle, then Mervin clicking off.
Manny groaned. “That boy’s one nut short of a pecan pie.”
Stella giggled. “He ain’t handsome, God love ’im, but he sure is dumb.”
“Somebody done blew out his pilot light.”
“His cornbread ain’t quite baked in the middle.”
“Yes, but he means well. . . .”
“Bless his heart.”
* * *
Stella had been shopping at the Bagley’s Grocery Store for most of her life. As a child Stella had seen Flo’s father-in-law, Bud Bagley Sr., working hard behind the counter. He was a kind man in spite of the fact that his son, Bud Jr., had turned out to be one of the town’s meanest ruffians. Unlike his no-good offspring, Bud the father understood poverty and, therefore, extended credit for groceries to families who would have otherwise gone hungry.
Stella’s mother had been one of those.
If it hadn’t been for the Ol’ Man Bagley, as the town had dubbed him, Stella would have been one of those children sent to bed with a piece of stale bread, instead of a proper evening meal of fried potatoes and milk gravy.
Stella had never forgotten Mr. Bagley’s kindnesses, even after he and his worthless son had passed on, leaving the store to Florence.
Having spent forty years working in that store, Flo had decided to retire after her husband’s passing. She had sold the store to Violet Wakefield. Though Stella couldn’t get used to the new sign over the front door, she continued to patronize the establishment.
Unlike many of her fellow townsmen, Stella flatly refused to drive to a bigger, nearby town to shop at one of those large chain stores who wouldn’t even notice she had been there, whose giant budgets would devour her meager grocery money and never know the difference.
Murder at Mabel's Motel Page 3