“No. I never liked sex. Not with men, anyway.” La Risa stood; she gave Molly a beatific smile. “The peace of the Lord be with you, Molly Cates.”
“Fat chance.” Molly squinted up at her through the smoke. “Are you really a nun?”
La Risa laughed. “You’re supposed to say back to me, ‘And also with you.’ ” As she walked out she called to the bartender. “Qué chulo, Leo.”
When Molly handed Leo a twenty-dollar bill to pay for the drinks, he said, “It’s on the house, señora.” But he took the money and stuck it in his apron pocket. “I’ll put it in La Risa’s health fund. Protection for the little muchachas out there,” he said, gesturing toward the street.
FOR EVERY EVIL UNDER THE SUN
THERE IS A REMEDY OR THERE IS NONE.
IF THERE BE ONE, SEEK TILL YOU FIND IT;
IF THERE BE NONE, NEVER MIND IT.
—MOTHER GOOSE
There was something about being strapped into a vibrating seat inside a capsule hurtling through space at five hundred miles an hour that always stimulated her thinking. The little bottles of white wine helped, too, and Molly Cates made it a rule never to break her reverie by talking to the stranger sitting next to her. She’d formulated the rule some years back, when she’d gotten trapped on a flight from Dallas to Seattle listening to a garrulous stockbroker’s nonstop monologue on the municipal bond market.
This morning she’d left El Paso reluctantly, yesterday’s eagerness to get home dissipated, possibly because she knew now that with each mile she traveled she was getting that much closer to doing something extreme, very extreme. Something that made her long-ago misadventure with Jocko the bull look like a rational, adult decision. But if she was going to restore herself to balance and shake off the past, she needed to take some action. If it was possible to learn who murdered her daddy, she was going to learn it now. If it was not possible, she was going to forget it. The chain of events that had begun six days ago when she saw Olin Crocker in the Senate gallery demanded that she follow this through to the final link. She was going to do it. But this time she was going to control the situation.
On the way home from the airport Molly made two stops, both of them unprecedented. The first was McDavitt’s gun shop, which, on a Saturday afternoon, bustled with men in plaid shirts and boots. She went to the ammunition area and asked for cartridges for a .38 special. The man behind the counter startled her by asking what they were for. He must have noted her confusion, because he added, “Are you fixin’ to do target practice, or are they for home defense?”
“Oh. Home defense.”
“Alrighty,” he said with enthusiasm, “then it’s stopping power you need.” He pulled a box off the shelf and set it on the counter. “My favorites.” The box said Winchester sxt 38. “These are the Black Talons, but they changed the name back when there was all the nonsense in the press.”
“What nonsense was that?” Molly asked, remembering only vaguely.
“Oh, these hollow points were made out to be evil its own self, but they’re just good expansion bullets.”
“Expansion.” Molly took one of the sleek cartridges out of the box and examined the open serrated point. “They probably hurt a lot.”
“Ma’am?”
“I mean they do a lot of damage?”
“On impact they open up just like a flower blooming.” He spread his fingers outward to illustrate. “Nearly triple their size. Massive tissue damage. Real dandies.”
“Sounds like just what I want.”
Molly took the box to the cashier and paid for the bullets as if she were buying a dozen eggs. Only in America.
Her second stop required a bit more fortitude. The porno store called the Pleasure Palace was down near the university. Red neon signs in the window proclaimed ADULT VIDEOS and X-RATED NOVELTIES. NO MINORS. When she walked in, several male heads turned in her direction, then quickly away. The front of the store was lined with boxes of videos turned so the pictures on the front faced out. The images were mostly naked women with balloonlike breasts and legs spread—caricatures of women, as unbeautiful and unerotic as an anatomy textbook. She found herself not repelled but puzzled, wanting to know what it was like to be moved by all these images. Maybe sometime she would do a piece on the porno business, but from the point of view of the consumers. Trying to sell that idea to her editor would be interesting.
She walked to the counter in the back where there were several racks of novelty condoms. She took her time looking and ended up buying a package of four ribbed, lubricated, margarita-flavored, glow-in-the-dark condoms.
When she got home to her townhouse she pulled her truck into the garage and closed the door behind her, something she rarely did. It was best if no one knew she was home. She left the newspapers where they lay on the front walk. They were all soggy-looking, anyway; it must have rained while she was gone. The first thing she did was check her phone messages. Since yesterday, there were five messages and eleven hangups, but none from Cow Lady and none from Grady. The others could wait until tomorrow. She wanted badly to call Grady, to hear his voice, and to find out what was happening on the Emily Bickerstaff murder and whether he’d managed to pick up Cow Lady, but she didn’t want him to know she was home yet. What she was going to do she would never share with anyone, especially Grady.
She took a bath, shaved her legs, and washed her hair. She spent more time than usual blowing her hair dry, then rummaged through her drawers to find some lingerie that might pass as provocative rather than comfortable. She came up with a white lace bra and matching bikini pants she’d worn only once because they were scratchy.
She pulled on a pair of tight jeans and a short-sleeved white Henley, leaving the buttons open to reveal a bit of cleavage and the lace on her bra. She did full eye makeup and perfume, which she rarely bothered with. She put on a pair of dangly earrings and then surveyed the finished product in the mirror. Not that bad, really. Of course, she was decades too old to sing a siren song to a man who got off on teenagers, but she was going to give it a shot. She was going to try a brew of sex and bluff and genuine Wanda Lavoy—inspired mayhem on him.
Assessing her reflection, she thought she looked like a handsome, well-tended, middle-aged woman getting ready to try her luck at a honky-tonk on a Saturday night. It reminded her of the time after her daddy died when she used to troll the bars out at the lake. In those days, at sixteen and seventeen, there was no question about being able to attract men; it was automatic, as if a pheromone secreted from youthful sweat gave men no choice but to chase the scent. That sure had been a long time ago.
Really, she thought, continuing to study her image, in spite of all the whining she and her friends did about aging, the physical differences between her body at sixteen and forty-four, nearly forty-five, were quite minor. She put her face right up to the mirror and examined herself coolly. She had a few wrinkles in progress, yes, and some gray hairs, sure, and—she turned and craned her neck to examine herself from the back—her body parts were all lower, yes, but only a fraction of an inch lower—changes that would be barely visible in a smoky bar. It wasn’t those small signs of decay that made women feel less alluring in middle age, she thought; it was that men no longer responded to them with the instinctive attention of bird dogs coming to point.
Molly sat down at the kitchen table and scanned Shelby Palmer’s report for Olin Crocker’s unlisted home number. As she picked up the phone, she paused. This—right here—was the point of no return. Once she dialed the number, she was committed. If she wanted to write this off now, she could still do it. She could call Grady or Jo Beth or Barbara instead and see if they wanted dinner or a movie—the things sane people did on a Saturday night.
She dialed the number. If he answered, she told herself, it was fate telling her to go ahead and do it. If he didn’t, well … maybe she should reconsider. The phone rang and rang. All dressed up, she thought, and no place to go. On the ninth ring he answered. “Yes?” He sounded out of
breath.
“Olin Crocker?”
“Yes.”
“Molly Cates.”
There was a pause. “How did you get my home number?”
“Oh, I have my ways,” she said lightly, trying to sound like a coy and flirtatious teenager.
“Well, I just bet you do,” he said.
“You said I should call you with any questions, remember?”
“I surely do.”
“I’d like to ask you a few things—for my magazine piece.”
“I’d be real glad to talk to you. Why don’t you come by my office Monday?”
“I’m working on this right now, Sheriff. Tight deadline.”
“So you wanna do this over the phone?”
“Well, I have an errand out your way tonight…. I thought I might drop in and see you after I finish.”
“An errand out here?”
“In Taylor, actually, a quick one, but I hear you’re close by.”
“You know where I live?”
“You’re a few miles east of Taylor on Carlson Road, aren’t you?”
“Who told you that?” His voice carried a wariness that worried her. She’d have to say something to put his mind at ease. This would never work unless she could disarm his suspicions and appeal to his vanity and his lust.
“When I saw you in the gallery it set me to wondering about you. So I asked around.”
“You asked Cullen Shoemaker about me.” He said it in a flat voice.
Oh-oh. She should have figured Cullen would tell him about her inquiries.
“Yes. I find myself real … curious about you, Sheriff.”
“We do have some unfinished business, don’t we?” he said in a voice so cold and quiet Molly found her skin prickling.
“Well, how about it?” she asked with an attempt at lightness. “I’d probably get to you around nine o’clock.”
There was a long delay. Molly found herself holding her breath. Finally Crocker said, “We better wait till Monday on this.”
“Tonight is better. I’ll bring the beer. Olin.”
“I was planning on getting to bed early. Molly.”
“You could stay up for me, couldn’t you?” Lord, this was demeaning.
He chuckled. “Oh, hell, why not? You coming alone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Look for the third driveway on the left after FM 4563, the one with the stone mailbox. Don’t pay no mind to the dog—bitch is all bark and no bite.”
Molly put the phone down. The die was cast.
She dumped out the contents of her big bag onto the kitchen counter. Next, she opened the box of cartridges and loaded six of them into the Ruger, with the gun pointed down, just as Wanda had taught her. She set the gun carefully on the counter. Then she transferred into Wanda Lavoy’s pistol-packing handbag the few things she might need—her wallet, a lipstick, keys, and the garish yellow and black condom package; finally she slipped the .38 into its separate compartment on the side of the bag.
She slung the bag over her shoulder, grabbed a six-pack of beer, and headed out the kitchen door to the garage. She pushed the garage door opener. The light came on and the door began its slow, creaky ascent. As she reached for the truck door, she saw something in the corner of her eye and whirled around to look. A pair of long legs was being slowly uncovered by the lifting door. Inch by inch, the door revealed a lanky man dressed in fatigues, standing just outside her garage. She had time to get in the truck or run back into the house, but she didn’t. She just stood rooted. She recognized him—the yellow beret, the long face. It was the militia crazy from the Senate gallery. She should have run when she had the chance. She started to retreat toward the kitchen door.
He stepped forward. “Miss Cates, don’t worry. Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m Special Agent Heller.”
She hesitated.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I was just going to ring the bell when I heard you in here. I need to ask you some questions, please.”
Molly walked toward the open garage door. She needed to get out in the open, to the street. He stood aside to give her plenty of room to pass. She strode down the drive to the street and waited there for him. It was just starting to get dark and she was relieved to see a car coming their way and a neighbor several doors down weeding his flower beds.
He followed her slowly, careful to give her space. “Sorry to alarm you like that, but I’ve been trying to call you for two days. You been away?”
“Let me see some ID,” she said.
“We don’t carry a badge when we’re undercover, ma’am.”
“Then how do I know you’re what you say?”
In a very quiet voice he said, “Rain Malloy sends her greetings.”
Molly felt her mouth fall open in surprise.
“She says you’re one real standup guy and I should remind you to keep a low profile if things get hot.”
Molly found herself smiling at the memory. Low profile, indeed. Rain Malloy was an FBI agent Molly had met eighteen months ago during the Jezreel hostage incident. Before the two of them had entered the cult compound, the agent had instructed Molly to lie flat on the floor and cover her head when the shooting started. It would have been impossible, Molly thought now, for anyone to get her profile lower than Molly had done that night. Besides Molly and Grady, only a few select federal agents knew Rain Malloy had ever been in Austin. The only way this man could know about Molly’s involvement with her was from the FBI.
Molly took a closer look at special agent Heller. He was very tall and lean with a long dour face. Dark stubble covered his sunken cheeks. He looked even more menacing than he had when she’d first spotted him in the Senate gallery six days ago. “You aren’t a militia crazy from the panhandle?”
“So everyone buys my cover?”
“I did.”
“I’d rather no one saw us standing out here, Miss Cates. Could we go inside? I don’t think this will take long.”
“They’d just think I was interviewing you. I’d had that in mind, anyway.”
“Yes, ma’am, but it’s much better if we don’t stand out here on the street.”
It wasn’t until this moment that Molly remembered she was carrying a loaded handgun in her bag. It wasn’t illegal here on her own property, of course, but once she left home it was, and she’d clearly been on her way out. What rotten luck. The one time in her life she packs a gun—the one time!—a federal agent appears at her door. It was like having sex one reckless time and ending up pregnant. She resisted the impulse to hug the purse closer to her body. Instead she asked, “What’s this about?”
“I want to ask you about Wanda Lavoy and her group that meets out at Clem’s range.”
The light dawned. The white Camry. “Was that you parked there on Tuesday?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A car drove by them, catching them in its headlights.
He gestured toward the open garage. “Please, Miss Cates.”
“Come in, then,” Molly said, glancing at her watch. “I’ve got an appointment, so—”
“Ten minutes,” he promised.
“Okay.” Molly walked back into the garage and unlocked the door. The box of cartridges on the counter among the other clutter startled her. Without turning on the light, she led him quickly through the kitchen into the living room.
She switched on a lamp, stuck her bag out of sight under the wing chair, and sat down. “Sit down. How did you know about Rain Malloy? I thought that was top secret.”
He chose the other wing chair, in front of the big window. “After I saw you with Wanda Lavoy in the gallery and then when you showed up at the range, I put your name in the computer. It came up with a connection to a past agency action. It was sealed but Agent Malloy’s name was attached to it. She was one of my instructors at Quantico, so I called her. I still don’t know what the action was, but from the date of the file and the location I’d guess the Hearth Jezreelite matter.”
“Are
you testing me, Agent Heller? You know I can’t talk about that.”
“Yes, ma’am. What I’d like to know from you is your impression of Wanda Lavoy and her Women in Control.”
“My impression? Why?”
“Well, there’s persistent buzz about some pending violence.”
“At the Capitol?” He nodded.
“I’ve noticed the increased security.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call that security. They’ve put a few more troopers on, is all.”
“Is this in connection with the handgun bill?”
“Yes, ma’am. According to the buzz.”
“Why Wanda?”
“Her name just keeps on coming up. She talks wild.”
“I know, but I think it’s mostly talk.”
“What makes you think that?”
Molly was silent, unsure how to answer.
“Think out loud,” Heller said.
“Okay. When Wanda talks, it feels to me like bravado. I think she’s got a world view that makes her scared all the time, so she’s got to do a lot of whistling in the dark. Also, she’s got no political grievance right now. She supports the bill and it’s going to pass and it will enrich her because she’ll become one of the instructors for getting a license. Also, there’s the gender thing.”
Molly thought she saw a twitch at the corners of Heller’s long sour mouth. “Which gender thing are you referring to, ma’am?”
“Well, women are just too sensible, and too busy, to shoot up cafeterias or bomb federal buildings. That’s male territory, Agent Heller. Surely all your profiles and computer printouts tell you this.”
“There are exceptions.”
“I know, but I don’t think Wanda’s one.”
“Does she carry a weapon?”
Molly shifted her gaze away from him to the darkening window. She hated this. She wanted to cooperate, but her personal loyalties had always taken precedence over group ones. If there really was violence brewing here, she wanted to help them avert it. But she could not bring herself to answer this question.
She shrugged. “I can’t believe the FBI is worrying about a bunch of women who get together to do target practice.”
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