Grace and Jon got out, walked to their trailer.
Mick turned to look at JJ. “You got something to say?”
She kept looking forward.
“JJ?” he pressed her.
A tear slid down her cheek. “You’re hopeless,” she said. “Blind, but it doesn’t matter now.”
She was wrong. It did matter. Mick should have asked her what she meant. Should have asked her what she was thinking, but he was preoccupied. His mind on what he was going to do next.
Mick waited until JJ was inside the Stovalls’ single-wide before he drove off to find a pay phone and call 911. He wasn’t going to give them his name. Just the real location so the girl could be retrieved and given to her family.
JJ’s words about the floater being Cassel’s girlfriend had really upped the ante. Mick guessed she meant Tim, the son, but she could have meant the father. After their school run-in last spring, JJ had told Mick more about Tim’s dad. Scott Cassel—Montana Highway Patrol officer, based in Portage with particular jurisdiction over the roads in Sanders County and the surrounding area. The man had a reputation. Nobody in a fifty-mile radius messed with Scott Cassel.
Years ago, according to Gary Stovall, a speeder tried to shoot him when he approached the guy’s car to give him a ticket. Gary says he was tough before that. After that, he was just plain nasty. Nasty enough that his wife left him. JJ said she moved across the country. His older son, Larry, was on his own, but his younger son, Tim, was stuck with him. He could beat the boy, but no one else was allowed to.
Tim would graduate next year. This year he’d been suspended a week for drinking at school. Barely kept out of jail, so far, by the influence of his dad and Mr. Hammond. Everybody Mick knew was afraid of the Cassels. He thought any of them might be capable of hurting a girl and, if things went wrong, if she made them mad, maybe even killing her.
23
LUCK. FATE. You can have good sense most of the time, take precautions, make good decisions, make a few mistakes and correct them, but once in a blue moon you screw up at the same time that other things go wrong—little things. Maybe Mick had just made a few mistakes, all at once. He could see that it wouldn’t take too many small things to turn his bad luck into a train wreck.
He’d gone to the river park on the east end of town and reported the body. When he got back, he parked his dad’s Pontiac where he remembered it had been. His father noticed these things. People, not so much. Unless they were a danger to him. Being a crackerjack mechanic made it easy for him to get jobs. It also fit his hobby, restoring old cars. The Poncho was his latest, a ’72 Bonneville four-door hardtop that ran like NASCAR and looked like a rusted Batmobile. Ratmobile. The body and interior were always last in his dad’s restoration process and he rarely got to them before he was on to the next car.
Dad, Tighe “Fitz” Fitzhugh, got home a little later than usual, carrying a heavy sack.
Groceries.
“You didn’t work today?” He set the sack on the small table where they usually ate. Lifted out a bag of crushed ice and put it in the cooler on the floor. “Better use that milk tomorrow,” he said. “I’m starting to smell it.”
He pulled a Bosch rotary hammer drill and a heavy-duty DeWalt power saw from the tote.
Definitely not groceries.
Fitz looked out the door to see no one was watching, and then held the saw up to the light, inspecting it. “Barely been used,” he said. He looked around for a place to put it and decided on the canvas duffel where he stored car tools. Saw Mick looking.
“Just left it lying around that work project up there.” He gestured with his head toward north Main where the local chiropractor was adding a room to his office. “Must be broke,” he said. “I’ll fix it later.”
Broke. Right. His dad was starting again, in spite of his promise. Mick wadded up a poem he’d been working on. Why bother? And he still hadn’t met anyone to stay with.
* * *
Years ago, drunk and reminiscing, his dad had told Mick he’d started “finding things” in the army. “Just a little touch now and then to boost my pay.” Usually, his father maintained the fiction that he found things, broken things that others discarded.
Sometimes Fitz ignored that idea like he’d never said such a thing and stole big. The pickup from the mall parking lot, electronic gear from the warehouse where they’d fought the guard, the tool trailer and generator from the construction site.
Mick knew from past experience that since his dad wasn’t doing any carpentry work himself, he could have that saw and drill sold by tomorrow afternoon … unless he was planning to wait and boost the whole battery-powered outfit and move it for a kit price.
Mick never figured out why his dad pretended about the little stuff. He had made Mick go with him twice, so it wasn’t for his son’s benefit. Maybe he couldn’t quite admit it to himself, the kind of person he was. And Mick … could he admit it? Could he live with another family and be done with the man?
“You didn’t work?” his father asked again, sitting down on the cooler and turning to face Mick.
“Stores didn’t need anybody today. Restock doesn’t truck in till tomorrow.”
“You going to make enough to be ready for school? Think they might be charging for extra stuff now.” His dad didn’t usually give him money, like that would undermine Mick’s independence.
“Don’t need much,” Mick said, “only extra is football, far as I know.” He already had five or six hundred dollars in checks under his mattress and thirty or forty cash under his pillow.
“Well,” his dad said, “you’re big enough for football.”
“We found a body today.” Mick didn’t know why he told him. Probably just to goad him. His dad being so smug about stealing—stuck in Mick’s craw.
“The hell!”
“Girl,” Mick added, “maybe drowned, or maybe worse. We cleaned up after ourselves and left. Too late to do anything for her.”
“We?”
“Me and Grace.” Mick didn’t know why he left JJ and Jon out. Oh. Yes he did. If his dad asked Grace, she’d automatically lie to him. The other two wouldn’t. “East, under the highway bridge on the river,” Mick finished.
“Didn’t tell anybody?” his dad asked, again checking out the front door to see if they could be overheard.
Dovey’s trailer was about a hundred feet away, but sometimes she was in the parking area picking up trash the wind had scattered. As clerk, she did most of the paperwork for the justice of the peace and the sheriff’s office. She knew everything that happened in the whole county and his dad thought she was nosy as hell.
Mick shook his head. He didn’t plan to mention the 911 call.
“Don’t say another word. Don’t beg trouble.”
Mick had known that would be his father’s position.
“Let’s eat,” his dad said, standing abruptly and jerking the cooler open. He grabbed the borderline milk and set it down too hard, sloshing some on the table. Snatched the lunch meat and package of cheese, pitched them alongside the milk. “Get the peanut butter and that grape crap.”
Mick hurried to retrieve the sandwich fixings. His dad was mad. Mad at Mick, mad at the body, mad at the world. Mick didn’t get it. If his dad had stayed put and just worked, he could have had his own shop by now. Maybe even his own home. You don’t make money stealing. Can’t ever fence it for what it’s worth, but arguing with his dad had never changed anything.
Fitz’s credo was live by your wits. If you’re smart enough to find it and keep it, it’s yours. Boasted that he’d never been arrested. “Dumb crooks get caught.”
Was it the drugs that screwed up his dad’s thinking? Lots of thieves got caught. Got jail time. For what? Nickels and dimes. His dad had a streak of outlaw in him. Gave Fitz pleasure to poke the law with a stick. Mick could feel it. Just a matter of time before “luck” ran out and one or both of them went to jail. Mick could kiss his life goodbye. What was a college degree from a pe
nitentiary worth?
* * *
After the meal, Fitz left in the car, a familiar pattern. Making connections to sell what he took, Mick guessed, but his dad could have been looking for people who sold his kind of pills. Or maybe he just went to different bars, drank and played cards. Usually Mick smelled liquor on his dad’s breath in the morning. Did his dad go looking for women? Did he give them money?
Mick was surprised to think that in several major ways, he hardly knew the man. As Mick got older, he and Fitz had sort of evolved into roommates. His father came and went, did as he pleased, rarely told Mick what he was thinking or doing. If his dad fled again, Mick wondered if he’d even miss him.
24
MICK ASKED GRACE TO GO UP to Skinny’s with him to see if there happened to be any news about the body. JJ went, too, but at a distance. She wandered behind, looking at the sky and the illuminated signs along the highway.
He could smell the french fries cooking a hundred yards away. Knots of kids were hanging out together around the building, swatting bugs and sipping Cokes. As Mick got close, he could hear the buzz.
“From Plains … last year … Evans? Edmonds?… graduated…”
Mick glanced at Grace. No sign. Had she seen the girl before? He knew he hadn’t. They stood around. Listened. Mick bought a coffee and shared it.
“Sounds like she could have worked in the café. You know her?” Mick talked low, right in Grace’s ear. He wished he’d visited the café. At least once. Bought a cup of coffee. Watched Grace work. Left her a good tip.
“I might’ve seen her. Probably not,” she whispered back, but she didn’t meet his eyes.
He knew right then she was lying. Didn’t he? Wanting Grace, acting cool to impress her, kept him from asking more questions that could have made a difference. Mr. Hammond owned the Rock Point Motel and Grill on the north end as well as the motel and café in town. He was somehow connected with county social services, assisted with foster care placements, and provided a fair number of jobs to teenagers. He liked to hire good-looking girls. The more Mick thought about it, how could Grace not have at least met the girl?
“Didn’t she even look familiar?” he asked.
“I didn’t really look at her,” Grace said. “Too creepy.” She shook her head. “Nobody’s safe,” she said, annoyed.
A girl in the group of kids next to them said, “You got that right,” not realizing that Grace was talking to Mick.
They’d been whispering, maybe not soft enough. Mick looked around but everybody seemed zeroed in on their own friends. He took Grace’s hand and they edged a little closer to one of the bigger groups, blending, catching the news. “… Drowned?… waitress … reputation…”
He tried one more time. “Think one of the Cassels killed her?”
If Grace heard him, she gave no sign.
Mick remembered JJ and scanned the crowd. Spotted her sitting out by the highway on the concrete block that anchored the drive-in’s sign. Waiting for the sliver of moon to clear the clouds, watching traffic, the kind of thing she usually did. JJ was right. She was almost invisible. She didn’t usually join in and nobody paid her any attention.
A quick movement at the edge of the parking lot drew his eyes. Younger kids, squirreling around among the trees in the nearest yard. Mick could see the flash of Jon’s face darting in and out among five or six others. He didn’t tell Grace. She would think she needed to do something about it, grab him and haul him home or something. Mick knew that wouldn’t work. Jon would hit her and run off until she gave up trying to deal with him.
In a corner of Skinny’s in the same direction, Mick saw Tim Cassel and his lineman buddy, Cunneen, talking with some other ballplayers and a couple of cheerleaders. He and Grace continued to comb the crowd but avoided that bunch. Nobody at the drive-in seemed to know who the dead girl went out with, or what her dad did for a living. After another fifteen minutes, they collected JJ and went back home, knowing that they’d hear a lot more in the days to come.
Not telling Grace or JJ about seeing Jon was another mistake, one more little thing that caught up with him.
25
JJ LIKED TO WATCH the night traffic, follow the patterns of moving lights. More, she was happy waiting for the moon to clear the clouds, sneaking around like it had a secret. The evening sky had a washboard look, clouds thin, stretched by high winds. The moon made a soft glow traveling above them, peeking from time to time through small rifts. This moon … Banana? No, it was more special than that. A bright curve, pointed on both ends … like sideways horns. Longhorn Moon.
Her concentration was interrupted by something stinging the side of her thigh. Horsefly? She brushed her leg. Felt it. Inside. In her pocket. She drew out the dark jewel she’d found by the river. What could it have come from? A necklace? A ring? And how long had it been lying by the river? Who lost it? A fisherman? A rafter? Did he even know it? Could it be a woman’s? Didn’t seem like that kind of jewelry.
She looked at the stone more closely but the light wasn’t really bright enough. Square, dark, glossy, the silver inlay a “V” with a small sparkly gem in the very middle. The pattern reminded her of a logo, or a crest, like in her castle. Or Egypt, that god-eye shape. She didn’t think she’d seen this exact design before. She’d have to ask Gary.
Another thought. When she’d seen the body, it looked like a girl she’d seen Larry Cassel talking to three or four times. Once, basket to basket in the grocery store. Another time the girl looking in his car’s passenger window as if he’d just honked at her. Last week, him smiling at her as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the café. That’s why she’d said Cassel’s girlfriend, but she had no idea whether it was true.
She held the jewel up in Skinny’s neon illumination. Sell it? It looked valuable, exotic. Too beautiful to trade for cash. A wedding ring? No. Nobody had such a dark wedding ring. That was probably bad luck or something … and in that moment she had another thought. Could the jewel belong to the dead girl? Upriver, right by the water. But if she took it to the police, she’d have to tell them the whole story. No, she’d better ask Gary.
26
WHEN THEY GOT BACK TO THE COMPOUND, Mick was too restless to sleep. His dad was still gone. Mick lay on his bed, tried to read. Gave up and went to look at the river. Once in a while at night you’d see otter playing in the current. None tonight. Just JJ. Mick sat on the ground near her and stayed quiet, imagining that she never spent time in the trailer if she didn’t have to.
She spoke first. “That girl. I tried to sleep but I kept seeing her.”
“Up at Skinny’s they said she was from Plains,” Mick told her. “Waitress. Grace said she didn’t know her.”
“Somebody could kill me and nobody would notice,” JJ said, picking up a small rock and throwing it in the river.
“No way. Me, Grace, the Stovalls. You don’t think she drowned?”
JJ shook her head. “Alone, naked, no car? You think somebody could have dragged her to the water? Upstream a ways? Pushed her in?”
“Maybe. Did you see something?”
“Maybe.” She looked up at the sky. “I need to ask Gary … I don’t even know who my father was,” she said.
Mick was losing her. Did the dead girl spin her out?
She went on, “I don’t know how come I can play softball. Gary played catch with me maybe five times total. Think my real dad was a ballplayer?”
He didn’t know what to say.
“I just tried it at recess one day and I could do it. I was as surprised as everyone else. I’m pretty good, but you came to the games. I don’t think the girls on the team even know my name.”
It could have been true. Mick never saw anybody but the coach talk to her.
“I was chubby until seventh grade and then I grew taller. Everybody in my classes for years? They didn’t notice.” She shook her head. “Nobody would take me…”
He saw tears in the corners of her eyes.
She gave him
a weak smile, rose to leave.
Mick felt bad for her. Girl who didn’t think she was pretty enough to kill. “What kind of moon is this?” he asked, shifting his look to the sky.
“Waning,” she said. “Past gibbous.”
Mick thought “gibbous” was a monkey. He didn’t say that. “Name?” he asked.
She smiled again. “Um, Longhorn Moon,” she said. “Or maybe it should be Death Moon. Dead Girl Moon.”
She was right about that.
Mick reached out and touched her arm to stop her. He told her how he got his scar that went from the corner of his mouth to over by his ear. How he’d had it since he was ten. How he got it from one of the motels he and his father lived in after his mom split. How he was running, chasing a butterfly and not looking down, and tripped on a small brick wall the owner had put around a tree, probably so people wouldn’t back their cars into it. How he fell headlong and crashed his face into the edge of the bricks and cut the whole side open. How his mom was long gone, but he still missed her.
“Zipper,” she said.
Somehow Mick didn’t mind it coming from her.
He still didn’t tell her that his dad was a thief. He didn’t think to tell her about seeing Jon when they were up at the drive-in, and he didn’t talk about Grace. Mick liked JJ, but it wasn’t the same. Grace had something he wanted. Mick was afraid to put a name to it.
27
THE HIGHWAY PATROL got the car and the probable site of the killing. Tuesday morning the ranch owner living at the end of the dirt road with the mailbox made his daily trip to town. Saw a red sedan in the narrow clearing. The car was small, not likely used by hunters, and the man thought little of it; someone walking a dog or taking pictures in the woods, whatever. That afternoon on his return trip he was surprised to see it still there. Lived down this road twenty years. Never seen a car parked in that spot.
Dead Girl Moon Page 6