Dewey Hastings drove straight to the Cummings residence, where he found Amos working in his shed.
“Hey, just got word your neighbor up the hill was the one helped Alice escape.”
The big man looked none too pleased at the message, but Dewey didn’t fear his role as messenger. They were partners, of sorts.
“Figured that out myself. So?”
Dewey shrugged, to look nonchalant. “Just sayin’. Figured we could get some revenge.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you know. I got a body in the reservoir. Kinda looked like Alice last time we saw her. I could arrange for the body to float ashore. You could, you know, testify that it’s your girl’s body. The DA’s up for re-election and might like a big case to handle. Might be enough to put the man away for a long time. Just sayin’.”
Amos stopped working, looked at Dewey, grinned and nodded. “It just might at that.”
Eleven
**********
The following morning, Betsy wandered down the main street, afraid to take any side roads until she had a better lay of the land. She took the opportunity to stop at two small motels, inquire about rooms, and confirmed Sally’s statement that she’d find no cheaper room. At the second inn, she asked for and received directions to a hardware store and twenty minutes later, she placed a new padlock, a blank journal, and a map of the city onto the clerk’s counter.
“Can I help you with anything else?” the clerk asked.
Betsy thought for a moment, and then unfolded the map. “Could you show me exactly where I am on this map?”
The middle-aged man quickly pointed to an intersection of two roads.
“Thanks. And if I wanted to get groceries, or get police help?”
He smiled. “New in town, I take it.” He took his pen and made a few marks, “G” for grocery, “P” for a police substation, “H” for his store, and “C” for a small clothing store. “Anything else?”
“A library maybe.”
He chuckled. “Didn’t expect that one. It’s not too close, though.” He marked it with a small star. “Are we done now?”
She didn’t want to ask him to mark the Rest Stop. She’d figure that one out on her own. She grabbed a new pen from a display at the counter and added it to her items. “Yes, Sir. I think. You don’t know anyone with a job opening, do ya?”
He sized her up. “Think you can lift fifty, sixty pounds on a regular basis?”
She held out her arm and showed him the laceration. “I probably can, but not for a couple of weeks. Gotta let this heal.”
“Well, if you think you can do it, when you’re ready, stop back. We need part-timers, but a good worker might get hired on full.” He paused. “Mind if I ask? You here alone? If so, this ain’t the best part a town and you might want a can of that mace o’er there, for protection.”
Betsy turned toward where he was pointing. The canister was too big for a pocket, but would fit into her purse. She thought about his comment and a knife display down the aisle drew her eye. By the time she left, the clerk had sold her on not only the mace but also a pocketknife that bordered on being too large for any typical woman’s pocket. The four-inch spear blade had a spring to assist opening, so she could flip it open one-handed if necessary, and a latch lock to keep the blade open, so it wouldn’t fold closed in a fight.
Betsy’s gut grumbled as she examined the receipt. Her first shopping trip had made a larger dent in her funds than she liked, but she felt more secure and that peace of mind was worth the cost. She made straight toward the nearest grocery and, with one paper bag of food items in tow, she returned to the Rest Stop. A clock in a store window she passed told her it was after two in the afternoon already.
She noticed the wind-scattered debris across the front of the “motel” as she crossed its parking lot. She decided to park her belongings in her room and then make good on her bargain with Sally, a deal which amounted to yet another part-time job at fifteen dollars a week.
She set the grocery bag on the ground and retrieved her key. She unlocked the door, swung it open and gasped. The bed linens lay on the floor and the mattress sat askew on top of the box spring. The small dresser’s drawers sat upended on the floor and her clothes lay scattered across the room. She quickly slid the paper bag inside the doorway, closed the door, and ran to the office.
“Mizz Sally! Mr. Jim!” No quick reply came forth. “Anybody here?” Did she dare to venture beyond the desk? She started toward the gap between the desk and wall when the proprietress appeared in the back door.
“Yes?”
“Please call the police. Someone ransacked my room.”
At the mention of police, Sally moved quickly toward Betsy. “Whoa there, girl. Let’s take a look-see first, okay. We don’t ‘xactly like the police nosin’ around here.”
Sally exited the office first and hustled toward Room 2, Betsy rushing to keep up. Sally inspected the door and jamb first, and then flung open the door. She put both hands and her hips and surveyed the room. Betsy joined her inside the room.
“I went out to get some things and came back to this. Why would –”
“Anything missing?”
Betsy paused and scanned the room, thankful she had everything of worth with her. “I, uh, don’t know. I found it like this and came to you right away.”
Sally moved past the table, up righting it first, and walked into the little bathroom. After a second, she turned back toward Betsy. “Here’s your problem. You didn’t have the security bar in the window. Someone jimmied it open and climbed in.”
“I-I didn’t know it had one of those things, too. Jennie showed me the one in the front window. I’m sorry.”
“Doesn’t look like the window’s damaged so I won’t have to charge you for repairs.”
“What?” protested Betsy. “Charge me for repairs. I’m not the one who did this.” Her second thoughts about staying there became third thoughts. As soon as the week was up.
“You didn’t leave the room secured.”
“I didn’t know I had to do anything more than lock the door. You never mentioned any of this last night.”
“Okay, okay. I’m mentioning it now. And soon as you clean this place up, get started on the parking lot and grounds. They’re as much a mess as this room.”
“Hey, wait a minute …” Betsy started to protest. She didn’t like the woman’s bossy attitude or tone of voice. Yet, Sally yielded nothing and walked out of the room.
No sooner was she gone then Jennie and an older blond appeared at the door. “Hey, Betsy, this is … wow, what happened here?”
Betsy sat down on the bed, her shoulders sagging. “This is how I found it.”
The blond picked up a drawer and slid it into the dresser. “Hi, I’m Sue Ellen. Anything taken?”
Jennie helped Sue Ellen clean up the drawers and then straightened the mattress and piled the linens on top. Betsy stood up and began to pick up clothes. She refolded each piece and laid them on the table or top of the dresser. It took but a minute to see that everything was still there and no damage done. The would-be thief had spared her in that sense. Her clothes could have been ripped apart or stolen, not just thrown about.
“Looks like everything’s still here. What little I have.”
“More than I had when I got here,” replied Sue Ellen. Jennie nodded in agreement. “’course, now I can afford ‘bout anything I want in clothes. Just can’t find anything stylish in Asheville.”
Betsy stared at the woman whose attire matched anything she’d ever seen in a fashion magazine. She made Jennie look homespun and Betsy held Jennie high up on the style gauge. Betsy watched Sue Ellen for a moment and then glanced in the nearby wall mirror. Her reflection said “hick” and Betsy resolved right there that she’d work as hard as it took to move beyond the hills and backwaters of her youth with a sense of style, short of selling her body, not that she looked down on the two woman in front of her for using that route.
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br /> As Betsy put away the last of her belongings, Jennie spoke up. “We stopped by to see if you wanted to join us. We got a color television and kind of a communal living area where we hang out together, when we want. It’s behind the office. Kinda hidden, for our safety.”
Betsy’s stomach growled loud enough for the others to hear and she flushed red. The two women laughed.
Jennie added. “We have a kitchen and all that stuff in there as well. It’s like our home.”
“Thanks, but I have a few things to do first.” Betsy didn’t want to feel beholden to Sally or her “girls.” She appreciated their friendliness, but something inside told her to be wary, that to get too comfortable might snare her into their lifestyle.
“Suit yourself, but we’ll be there ‘til after supper, if you want to stop in. It’s right through there, that gate in the fence.” Jennie pointed to a gate in the tall wooden fence just outside Betsy’s door, a fence that ran from the back corner of the office to the near corner of the long structure holding the rooms.
Betsy nodded and shrugged a bit. “Okay, maybe in a while. I’m also trying to figure out how to start lookin’ for my boy.”
Jennie gave Betsy a curious look and then the two women left the room and Betsy closed the door. She walked into the bathroom and checked the window. Curious, she thought. The security bar in the window lay right where it should have been. She tested the window and could not open it. Had Sally closed the window and replaced the bar in the brief moment she stood in the bathroom? Betsy removed the bar, opened the window, closed it, and replaced the bar. Now she felt certain Sally could not have done that. The window made too much noise as it slid along its rusty track and Betsy would have heard her close the window if that had been the case.
She returned to the main room and began making the bed. How could she go about searching for Jimmy Bob? She had little money and no transportation. She had never traveled any further from home than she had the day before. More importantly, where would she start? The only thing she could be certain of was that wherever her pa had gone with the boy had to involve a short trip. He’d been at home sleeping when she discovered Jimmy’s absence. However, her pa could have delivered the baby to someone from out-of-state just as easily as to someone local. He could have arranged a meeting spot in town. Heck, they could have come directly to the house and she wouldn’t have known it. Her heart sank at the realization of how daunting the task ahead would be.
Betsy’s gut complained again, so with her bed remade and her hands freshly washed, she emptied the grocery bag and stashed most of its contents on the shelf above the clothing rod outside the bathroom door. She took the loaf of white bread and small jar of peanut butter and laid them on the table. She retrieved her knife, but thought better of using it for peanut butter and slipped it into a pocket in her jeans. Without another suitable utensil, she used her finger to spread the oily paste onto a slice of bread and then sucked her finger clean. She topped the sandwich with a second piece of bread. As she eagerly consumed it to satisfy her hunger, she wrote her first entry on the first page of the blank journal. She finished her sandwich long before completing her diary entry. She wished she had more to eat, but until she secured steady work, it would have to do. Besides, she thought as she scrutinized her reflection in the mirror one more time, after seeing these gals, I’m gonna have to lose some weight if I want to become fashionable.
Betsy inspected her room, looking for a suitable hiding place for her valuables. No good place jumped out at her, so she stuffed her purse into a bottom drawer of the dresser, where it wouldn’t be easily seen, and with the windows secure, her knife in her pocket, and her key and the empty grocery bag in hand, she left the room and added her own padlock to the hasp on the door. She worked to memorize the combination but slid the tag holding those numbers into her other pocket.
She worked her way along the front of the rooms and back along the opposite side of the gravel drive, picking up paper, empty soda bottles, and more, and dumping them into the bag. She discovered a few nasty discards she preferred not to pick up by hand but managed to use a small stick to snag these and drop them in with the rest of the trash. She didn’t take long to fill the grocery bag and found herself wondering where to put it. Back home folks threw all the trash into a pit where they burned it once a week. A few of her old friends’ families made routine trips to the community dump.
She looked around outside the office and found a large metal can marked “trash” but it appeared near to overflowing. She realized Jennie would know, so she walked to the gate and hesitantly pushed it open. The other side of the fence held a courtyard unlike anything she’d ever seen. The building that held the office and what she assumed were Jim and Sally’s living quarters extended back into an “L” that enclosed two sides of a large brick patio holding a black metal kettle-like thing marked “Weber” and numerous chairs and chaises. Large sliding glass doors opened into the back of the “L” and revealed the most beautiful furniture Betsy had ever seen, along with a console television in color. She stood mesmerized. Jennie stood up from a suede leather couch and noticed her, waving for her to join them. She walked to the sliding glass and opened it.
“C’mon in.”
Betsy held up the paper bag. “Uh, where should I dump this?”
Jennie nodded and pointed toward the back of the building. “There’s another gate back there. Go through it and hang a left. You’ll see a green dumpster. C’mon back when you’re done and I’ll show you around.”
Betsy had no idea what a “dumpster” was but figured she’d learn soon enough. Walking toward the back she again stopped in amazement. An extensive flower garden, showing its early spring growth, extended for at least half an acre. She wondered what it looked like in bloom. Jim and Sally were discussing something near the middle of the plot. Jim waved first, but Sally followed his gesture and saw Betsy. She said something to her husband and walked toward Betsy. Jim bent over, and with his rear facing them, began to dig, an ample slice of his crack displayed to the sky.
“This must be beautiful in bloom,” Betsy stated.
“My little slice of heaven,” replied Sally as she waved toward the garden. She noticed Jim and huffed. “For God’s sake, man, pull up those pants!”
Jim stood erect, tugged on his trousers. Yes, honeybuns.” He waved at them before bending over again with the same display resulting.
“Goodness, I ask for hemerocallis and all I see is hemorrhoids.” She turned away from him and continued, “But he does go out of his way to please me. Lord knows why.” Sally pointed to the bag. “I see you’re keeping up your end of the deal. Dumpster’s through that gate and to the left.”
“What’s hemero …?”
“Callis. The botanical name for daylilies.”
Betsy wasn’t sure what a daylily looked like, but figured it would be beautiful with a name like that.
“Honeybuns, where do you want this one?” Jim yelled as he held up another bare-root plant.
“To the left and behind the first one, like I told you.” Sally shook her head. “Better get back over there or I’ll go hoarse giving the ol’ fart directions.” She left Betsy and returned to the center of the garden.
Betsy walked through the gate and found a large, grass green metal bin with hinged lids. “So that’s a dumpster,” she thought. Empty-handed, she returned to the courtyard and tapped on the glass door. Jennie, holding a partially unwrapped chocolate bar, waved her inside.
Betsy stared at the candy in Jennie’s hand, unfamiliar with the elegant wrapper.
Jennie followed her gaze. “It’s Belgian chocolate, from Belgium, in Europe. It’s called Godiva. You can only get it from Wanamaker’s Department Store in Philadelphia. Want some?”
Betsy nodded and took a small square from Jennie. She felt like she’d died and gone to heaven. Never had she tasted such exquisite chocolate.
Jennie laughed and said, “I know. Perfect, huh? I think I’m addicted to it.” S
he paused to let a square begin to dissolve in her own mouth. “Here, let me show you around. This is where we live. Nice, huh?” Jennie showed her their kitchen, the main living area with the color television and two luxurious bathrooms. Adjacent to the baths she saw a room that looked like a small school gym.
“We use the weights and stuff to stay in shape. It’s a whole lot easier to do it here than travel halfway ‘cross town to a gym,” explained Jennie.
Betsy noted hesitancy in Jennie’s statement and wondered if that was the only reason.
“We’re going to fix dinner soon. Then we got to get ready for our clients.” She stressed the word “client.” “Want to join us.”
“Thanks, but not tonight. I, uh, want to rest a bit before going to clean Lester’s bus. Plus, I gotta figure out how to get there.”
Jennie’s face contorted and she looked uncomfortable. “It’s just a few blocks that way, but you sure you want to do that?”
This was Betsy’s second warning about Lester.
“I need the money. So, until I find something else ...”
“He calls himself Sally’s handyman when he comes around here, and he sure gets handy, if you catch my drift. We call him Lester the Letch.” She paused. “You know, it’s real nice here and the work, well, that has its risks but the money’s good, really good, and your days are mostly yours to do what you want. In January, we can head south with Sally or stay here. Look, I know we just met, but I kinda like you. I’d like to see you stick around.”
Betsy didn’t know what to say. She had no desire to sell her body, but she didn’t want to insult Jennie. On first impressions, she liked the young woman, too, and realized she might be the only one she could call on for help.
“I like you, too, Jennie, but I don’t know I’m cut out for this. It’s, uh, well, I …”
Jennie hung her head as she said, “I understand.” Then she held her head high and continued, “You know, we’re not bad people. The girls here, we all got into a bind, some were livin’ on the street; none of us knew where our next meal might come from. We did what we had to, to survive. And then Sally found us and here we are, maximizing our assets as she always tells us. There’s lot of pimps who’ll run you into the ground, who don’t give a hoot ’bout you except you make them money. Others’ll get you hooked on drugs and control the supply so you get trapped there.”
Killer Reads: A Collection of the Best in Inspirational Suspense Page 59