A Grant County Collection

by Karin Slaughter

  Lena had stayed at the front door, reading the notices on a bulletin board. As she walked across the room, every man watched her, whether in person or through one of the many mirrors. Even the girl on stage seemed curious, missing a beat as she swung around the pole, probably wondering if she had some competition. Lena ignored them, but Jeffrey saw their stares, their eyes tracing up and down her body in a visual rape. He felt his fists clench, but Lena, noticing, shook her head.

  'I'll go in the back and check the girls.'

  Jeffrey nodded, turning around to get his beer. There was two dollars and some change on the bar, but Chip was nowhere in sight. Jeffrey drank from the mug, almost gagging at the lukewarm liquid. Either they were watering down their drinks with sewage here at the Pink Kitty or they had hooked up the taps to a bunch of horses they kept under the bar.

  'Sorry,' a stranger said, bumping into him. Jeffrey instinctively reached back to check his wallet, but it was still there.

  'You from around here?' the guy asked.

  Jeffrey disregarded the question, thinking this was a pretty stupid place to cruise for dates.

  'I'm from around here,' the guy said, listing slightly.

  Jeffrey turned to look at him. He was about five six with stringy blond hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks. Drunk out of his mind, he was clutching the bar with one hand, the other straight out from his side as if he needed it there to balance. His fingernails were edged with dirt, his skin a pale yellow.

  Jeffrey asked, 'You come here a lot?'

  'Every night,' he said, a snaggled tooth sticking out as he smiled.

  Jeffrey took out a photo of Abigail Bennett. 'You recognize her?'

  The guy stared at the photo, licking his lips, still swaying back and forth. 'She's pretty.'

  'She's dead.'

  He shrugged. 'Don't stop her from being pretty.' He nodded at the two mugs of beer. 'You gonna drink that?'

  'Help yourself,' Jeffrey told him, moving down the bar to get away from him. The guy was probably just looking for his next drink. Jeffrey had dealt with that attitude before. He had seen it in his father every morning when Jimmy Tolliver dragged himself out of bed.

  Lena made her way to the bar, her expression answering his question. 'Just one girl in the back,' she told him. 'You ask me, she's a runaway. I left my card with her, but I doubt anything will come out of it.' She looked behind the bar. 'Where'd the bartender go?'

  Jeffrey hazarded a guess. 'To tell the manager a couple of cops are here.'

  'So much for coming in soft,' she said.

  Jeffrey had spotted a door beside the bar and assumed that's where Chip had scurried off to. Beside the door was a large mirror that had a darker tint than the others. He guessed someone, probably the manager or the owner, was on the other side, watching.

  Jeffrey didn't bother knocking. The door was locked, but he managed to bust it open with a firm twist of the knob.

  'Hey!' Chip said, backing into the wall with his hands up.

  The man behind the desk was counting money, one hand going through the bills, the other tapping out numbers on an adding machine. 'What do you want?' he asked, not bothering to look up. 'I run a clean place. You ask anybody.'

  'I know you do,' Jeffrey said, taking Abigail's photo out of his back pocket. 'I need to know if you've seen this girl around here.'

  The man still didn't bother to look up. 'Never seen her.'

  Lena said, 'You wanna take a look and tell us again?'

  He did look up, then. A smile spread out on his wet lips, and he took a cigar out of the ashtray at his elbow and chewed on it. His chair groaned like a seventy-year-old whore when he leaned back in it. 'We don't usually have the pleasure of such fine company.'

  'Look at the picture,' she told him, glancing down at the nameplate on his desk. 'Mr Fitzgerald.'

  'Albert,' he told her, taking the Polaroid from Jeffrey. He studied the image, his smile dropping a bit before he stretched it back out. 'This girl looks dead.'

  'Good call,' Lena told him. 'Where are you going?'

  Jeffrey had been watching Chip edge toward another door, but Lena had caught him first.

  Chip stuttered, 'N-nowhere.'

  'Keep it that way,' Jeffrey warned him. In the light of the office, the bartender was a scrawny guy, probably from a serious drug habit that kept him from eating too much. His hair was cut short over his ears and his face was clean shaven, but he still had the air of a derelict about him.

  Albert said, 'Wanna lookit this, Chippie?' He held out the photo, but the bartender didn't take it. Something was going on with him, though. Chip's eyes kept darting from Lena to Jeffrey to the picture then the door. He was still edging toward the exit, his back pressed to the wall as if he could sneak away while they were watching.

  'What's your name?' Jeffrey asked.

  Albert answered for him. 'Donner, like the party. Mr Charles Donner.'

  Chip kept sliding his feet across the floor. 'I ain't done nothing.'

  'Stop right there,' Lena told him. She took a step toward him, and he bolted, swinging open the door. Lunging, she caught the back of his shirt, spinning him around straight into Jeffrey's path. Jeffrey's reaction was slow, but he managed to catch the young man before he fell flat on his face. He couldn't keep the kid from banging into the metal desk, though.

  'Shit,' Chip cursed, holding his elbow.

  'You're fine,' Jeffrey told him, scooping him up by his collar.

  He bent over at the waist, clutching his elbow. 'Shit, that hurt.'

  'Shut up,' Lena told him, picking up the Polaroid from the floor. 'Just look at it, you pud.'

  'I don't know her,' he said, still rubbing his elbow, and Jeffrey wasn't sure whether or not he was lying.

  Lena asked, 'Why'd you try to run?'

  'I've got a record.'

  'No shit,' Lena said. 'Why'd you try to run?' When he didn't answer her, she popped the back of his head.

  'Christ, lady.' Chip rubbed his head, looking at Jeffrey, beseeching him for help. He was barely taller than Lena, and even though he had about ten pounds on her, she definitely had more muscle.

  'Answer her question,' Jeffrey told him.

  'I don't wanna go back inside.'

  Jeffrey guessed, 'You've got a warrant out on you?'

  'I'm on parole,' he said, still holding his arm.

  'Look at the picture again,' Jeffrey told him.

  His jaw tightened, but Chip was obviously used to doing what he was told. He looked down at the Polaroid. He showed no visible recognition on his face, but Jeffrey saw his Adam's apple bob as if he was trying to stop his emotions.

  'You know her, don't you?'

  Chip glanced back at Lena as if he was afraid she'd hit him again. 'If that's what you want me to say, yeah. Okay.'

  'I want you to tell me the truth,' Jeffrey said, and when Chip looked up his pupils were as big as quarters. The guy was obviously high as a kite. 'You know she was pregnant, Chip?'

  He blinked several times. 'I'm broke, man. I can barely feed myself.'

  Lena said, 'We're not hitting you up for child support, you stupid fuck.'

  The door opened and the girl from the stage stood there, taking in the situation. 'Y'all okay?' she asked.

  Jeffrey had looked away when she opened the door, and Chip took advantage of the situation, sucker punching him square in the face.

  'Chip!' the girl screamed as he pushed past her.

  Jeffrey hit the floor so hard he literally saw an explosion of stars. The girl started screaming like a siren and she fought Lena tooth and nail, trying to keep her from chasing after Chip. Jeffrey blinked seeing double, then triple. He closed his eyes and didn't open them for what seemed like a long while.

  Jeffrey was feeling better by the time Lena dropped him off at Sara's. The stripper, Patty O'Ryan, had scraped a line of skin off the back of Lena's hand, but that was all she had managed to do before Lena twisted the girl's arm behind her back and slammed her to the f
loor. She had been cuffing the stripper when Jeffrey finally managed to open his eyes.

  'I'm sorry,' was the first thing Lena said, but it was somewhat drowned out by O'Ryan's brutal, 'Fuck you, you fucking pigs!'

  Meanwhile, Charles Wesley Donner had gotten away, but his boss had been helpful, and, with a little prompting, gave them everything but Chip's underwear size. The twenty-four-year-old had been working at the Pink Kitty for just under a year. He drove a 1980 Chevy Nova and lived in a flophouse on Cromwell Road down in Avondale. Jeffrey had already called Donner's parole officer, who had been less than pleased to be awakened by a ringing phone in the middle of the night. She confirmed the address and Jeffrey had dispatched a cruiser to sit on it. An APB had gone out, but Donner had been in prison for six years on drug trafficking charges. He knew how to hide from the police.

  Jeffrey eased open Sara's front door as gently as he could, trying not to wake her up. Chip wasn't strong, but he had landed his fist in the exact right place to bring Jeffrey down: under his left eye, just grazing the bridge of his nose. Jeffrey knew from experience the bruising would only get worse, and the swelling already made it hard to breathe. As usual, his nose had bled profusely, making it look a hell of a lot worse than it was. He had always bled like a faucet whenever he was hit on the bridge of his nose.

  He turned on the under-counter lights in the kitchen, holding his breath, waiting for Sara to call out to him. When she didn't, he pried open the refrigerator and took out a bag of frozen peas. As quietly as he could, he broke up the freezer burn, separating the peas with his fingers. He clamped his teeth together and hissed out some air as he pressed the bag against his face, wondering again why it never hurt as much when you got injured as it did when you tried to fix it.

  'Jeff?'

  He jumped, dropping the peas.

  Sara turned on the lights, the fluorescent tubes flickering above them. His head seemed to explode with it, a dull throbbing matching the flicker.

  She frowned, taking in the shiner under his eye. 'Where'd you get that?'

  Jeffrey bent over to pick up the peas, all the blood rushing to his head. 'The gettin' place.'

  'You have blood all over you.' It sounded more like an accusation.

  He looked down at his shirt, which was a lot easier to see in the bright lights of her kitchen than in the bathroom at the Pink Kitty.

  'It's your blood?' she asked.

  He shrugged, knowing where she was going with the question. She seemed to care more about the possibility of a stranger getting hepatitis from him than the fact that some stupid punk had nearly broken his nose.

  He asked, 'Where's the aspirin?'

  'All I have is Tylenol, and you shouldn't take that until you know the results from your blood test.'

  'I've got a headache.'

  'You shouldn't be drinking, either.'

  The remark only served to annoy him. Jeffrey wasn't his father. He could certainly hold his liquor and one sip of a watered-down beer didn't qualify as drinking.

  'Jeff.'

  'Just drop it, Sara.'

  She crossed her arms like an angry schoolteacher. 'Why aren't you taking this seriously?'

  The words came out before he anticipated the shitstorm they would kick up. 'Why are you treating me like a fucking leper?'

  'You could be carrying a dangerous disease. Do you know what that means?'

  'Of course I know what it means,' he insisted, his body feeling slack all of the sudden, like he couldn't take one more thing. How many times had they done this? How many arguments had they had in this same kitchen, both of them pushed to the edge? Jeffrey was always the one who brought them back, always the one to apologize, to make things better. He had been doing this all his life, from smoothing down his mother's drunken tempers to stepping in front of his father's fists. As a cop, he put himself in people's business every day, absorbing their pain and their rage, their apprehension and fear. He couldn't keep doing it. There had to be a time in his life when he got some peace.

  Sara kept lecturing him. 'You have to be cautious until we get the results from the lab.'

  'This is just another excuse, Sara.'

  'An excuse for what?'

  'To push me away,' he told her, his voice rising. He knew he should take a step back and calm down, but he was unable to see past this moment. 'It's just another thing you're using to keep me at arm's length.'

  'I can't believe you really think that.'

  'What if I have it?' he asked. Again, he said the first thing that came to his mind. 'Are you never going to touch me again? Is that what you're trying to tell me?'

  'We don't know –'

  'My blood, my saliva. Everything will be contaminated.' He could hear himself yelling and didn't care.

  'There are ways around –'

  'Don't think I haven't noticed you pulling away.'

  'Pulling away?'

  He gave a humorless laugh, so damn tired of this he didn't even have the energy to raise his voice again. 'You won't even fucking tell me you love me. How do you think that makes me feel? How many times do I have to keep walking out on that tightrope before you let me come back in?'

  She wrapped her arms around her waist.

  'I know, Sara. And it's not that many more times.' He looked out the window over the sink, his reflection staring back at him.

  At least a full minute passed before she spoke. 'Is that really how you feel?'

  'It's how I feel,' he told her, and he knew it was true. 'I can't keep spending all my time wondering whether or not you're mad at me. I need to know . . .' he tried to finish, but found he didn't have the energy. What was the point?

  It took some time, but her reflection joined his in the window. 'You need to know what?'

  'I need to know you're not going to leave me.'

  She turned on the faucet and took a paper towel off the roll. She said, 'Take off your shirt.'

  'What?'

  She wet the towel. 'You've got blood on your neck.'

  'You want me to get you some gloves?'

  She ignored the barb, lifting his shirt over his head, taking particular care not to bump his nose.

  'I don't need your help,' he told her.

  'I know.' She rubbed his neck with the paper towel, scrubbing at the dried blood. He looked at the top of her head as she cleaned him. Blood had dried in a trail down to his sternum, and she wiped this up before tossing the towel into the trash can.

  She picked up the bottle of lotion she always kept by the sink and pumped some into the palm of her hand. 'Your skin's dry.'

  Her hands were cold when she touched him and he made a noise that sounded like a yelp.

  'Sorry,' she apologized, rubbing together her hands to warm them. She tentatively placed her fingers on his chest. 'Okay?'

  He nodded, feeling better and wishing that she wasn't the reason why. It was the same old back and forth, and he was letting himself get pulled back in.

  She continued to rub in the lotion in small circles, working her way out. She softened her touch, lingering around the pink scar on his shoulder. The wound had not completely healed yet, and he felt little electric tingles in the damaged skin.

  'I didn't think you would make it,' she said, and he knew she was thinking back to the day he had been shot. 'I put my hands inside of you, but I didn't know if I could stop the bleeding.'

  'You saved my life.'

  'I could have lost you.'

  She kissed the scar, murmuring something he couldn't hear. She kept kissing him, her eyes closing. He felt his own eyes close as she kissed a slow pattern across his chest. After a while, she started to work her way down, unzipping his jeans. Jeffrey leaned back against the sink as she knelt in front of him. Her tongue was warm and firm as it traced the length of him, and he braced his hands on the countertop to keep his knees from buckling.

  His whole body shook from wanting her, but he forced himself to put his hands on her shoulders and pull her back to standing. 'No,' he told her, th
inking he'd rather die than risk giving her some awful disease. 'No,' he repeated, even though he wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her.

  She reached down, using her hand where her mouth had been. Jeffrey gasped as she cupped him with her other hand. He tried to hold back, but looking at her face only made it harder. Her eyes were barely open, a rush of red pinking her cheeks. She kept her mouth inches from his, teasing him with the promise of a kiss. He could feel her breath as she spoke, but again could not hear what she was saying. She started kissing him in earnest, her tongue so soft and gentle he could barely breathe. Her hands worked in tandem, and he nearly lost his restraint when she took his bottom lip between her teeth.

  'Sara,' he moaned.

  She kissed his face, his neck, his mouth, and he finally heard what she was saying. 'I love you,' she whispered, stroking him until he could no longer hold back. 'I love you.'

  TUESDAY

  EIGHT

  Lena heard Jeffrey yelling through his closed office door as soon as she walked into the squad room. She lingered near the coffee machine by his office, but couldn't make anything out.

  Frank joined her, holding out his mug for a top-up even though it was already full.

  She asked, 'What's going on?'

  'Marty Lam,' Frank said, shrugging. 'Was he supposed to be sitting on that house last night?'

  'For Chip Donner?' Lena asked. Jeffrey had ordered a cruiser to wait outside Donner's house in case he showed up. 'Yeah. Why?'

  'Chief drove by on his way in this morning and nobody was there.'

  They both paused, trying to make out Jeffrey's words as his tone rose.

  Frank said, 'Chief is pretty pissed.'

  'You think?' Lena asked, her sarcasm thicker than the coffee.

  'Watch it,' Frank said. He had always thought that the almost thirty years he had on her should afford him some kind of deference.