“I am sorry, is no other word.” Natalya went to a drawer in the kitchen and got a vinyl-bound address book and a sheet of notebook paper and began copying an address in a beautiful script.
“There’s one more thing I need, while you’re at it. Please give me everything you have on that Topher Manetta.”
“I thought we are deciding is bad idea?”
“Well, we’re no closer to knowing who killed your husband than we were when I got here. I know we’re all hoping this just sort of blows over, but I think that little incident with your sister-in-law is a good reminder that folks don’t tend to go quiet-like into the hereafter. They got all kinds of attachments and entanglements with life here on this planet that can make for trouble when they’re gone. Now you tell me that this Topher’s on good friendly terms with Benton and that’s great, only sometimes things ain’t exactly like what they seem, ’specially when you throw a few male egos into the mix. So I need to check him out, just the same as I’d check out anyone else.”
“All right.” Natalya sighed and flipped through the pages of her address book and continued writing.
For a few moments everything was pleasantly tranquil. Natalya’s pencil scratched on the notebook paper, and Chip hummed quietly as he rooted through the fridge for a snack, and it was almost possible to imagine that the last twenty-four hours had not occurred at all and Stella could choose among a variety of pleasant activities, like calling Noelle to see what time she could come over with her portable manicure kit, or Chrissy to see if she felt like barbecuing steaks or chops—or even Goat, to flirtatiously remind him of the true date of her birthday and perhaps suggest a kiss for luck.
Stella had let herself go quite a ways down the wouldn’t-it-be-nice-path, had in fact arrived at the you-deserve-it-honey cul-de-sac, when a blast of the doorbell broke up her pleasant fantasy.
“That’s an awful strident bell you got,” she groused.
“It’s a rental,” Chip shrugged, as he got up to answer.
“Maybe get set to make yourself scarce,” Stella suggested, but Natalya was miles ahead of her, racing down the hallway to hide in their bedroom.
Chip turned to give her a brief thumbs-up. Then he opened the door.
BJ Brodersen stood on the other side.
Chapter Fourteen
“Aw, I’m sorry,” Stella said for the fifth time. “I can’t even believe my poor manners. Why, I wouldn’t blame you for never speaking to me again.”
“But I don’t care about the truck, Stella,” was BJ’s rejoinder. This, too, had been trotted out several times without resolution. “All’s I care about is your safety. I’m just glad I’ve got the tracker on the GPS, so I knew where you was at.”
Stella exchanged a glance with Chip, grimacing briefly while her face was turned away from BJ. It was one thing to have a man concerned about her—kind of nice, actually, in a chivalrous sort of way—but damned inconvenient in this particular instance, when she had been just about to take the gentleman’s truck on an errand of interrogation.
“What-all have you got in the back, anyway?” BJ asked, as though reading her mind.
“You helped me load it all in there…”
“Yes, but … I didn’t want to pry, only I got to wondering, in between worrying about you being dead in a ditch or lost or held up by robbers.”
“That’s just so awful nice.” Stella beamed and helped herself to a cookie, her fifth. It was almost impossible to resist a nerve-steadying snack while she was working overtime on dealing with BJ’s unexpected arrival and keeping her story straight. Natalya had emerged from the bedroom to say hello, upended a package of Pepperidge Farm Geneva cookies on a china plate and brewed a quick pot of coffee, and then tactfully disappeared, claiming that she needed to lie down.
Chip, for his part, had been employing an increasingly dramatic set of gestures to indicate his willingness to join Natalya and give Stella and BJ privacy, maneuvering himself behind BJ’s chair while pretending to fetch milk for the coffee or fill a glass from the sink. It was sweet, the way he was trying to create privacy in the name of romance, Stella thought—and the timing was reasonably good since the only truly immediate problem, locating Todd, had been taken care of, though the boys had managed to slip out while the adults were occupied and were wandering the streets of town, a notion that worried Stella enough that as soon as she dealt with BJ, she meant to go out and retrieve them.
BJ was looking good in his pale green golf shirt and what appeared to be a fresh haircut, sticking pretty much straight up in a way that complemented his broad and ruddy face. He smelled nice, some cologne that he might have been just a tad too generous with.
“It was unforgivable of me to take such a valuable … piece of machinery out of state without keeping you apprised of my whereabouts,” Stella continued. Then she grimaced—her nerves were making her all wordy and silly sounding, and it really was ludicrous, BJ worrying about a fender bender after the actual events of the last couple of days. “I’m especially sorry you had to drive the Subaru up here.”
The car in question, an ancient Subaru Impreza, belonged to BJ’s helper at the bar, Jorge, who was a much smaller man and hence didn’t mind driving a car whose driver’s seat practically lined up with the windshield, to hear BJ tell it. He’d been unable to sit down for the first few minutes of his visit while he worked all the kinks and cricks out of his back and neck, twisting and popping this way and that.
Stella had tried not to stare, but when BJ lifted his arms above his head to stretch, she couldn’t help but get an eyeful of that broad torso tapering down to those neat pressed slacks. BJ had a bit of a spare tire on him, but Stella found herself thinking that it would be kind of nice to cuddle up against a substantial man like that … and she had even considered that if things got going in a vigorous fashion, it would be good to know she wouldn’t accidentally asphyxiate the man, which was something she might worry about with a skinny partner.
BJ twisted to the side, and Stella could see that the man had a nice profile, the kind of butt you could get a good grip on, and a broad neck with a hint of a tan already, though it was barely lawn-mowing season.
He twisted the other way and she just about convinced herself that she might as well take him for a spin and then do all the soul-examining and heartfelt getting-to-know-each-other part of the romance.
Now, though, with him sitting across the table from her, much of his appealing physique concealed beneath the table, Stella found that she was able to see things a little more clearly, and there were lots of things wrong with the scenario. For one thing, if they went to bed right now, or at least as soon as she located the boys, Stella would be asleep within moments, her exhaustion reaching a critical level. Even if she got a nap in, it wasn’t like they could go on a proper date here in Smythe, and they couldn’t really even have a romantic drive home to Missouri, since two cars had now made the trip north as well as a pesky teen who needed to be delivered home.
“You know, I’m worried about the boys,” Stella said.
“Oh, don’t fret, Stella, Luka stays out all the time. Natalya likes him to come home for dinner so she can see for herself he’s eating good, but then he’s off again with his friends.”
Stella considered pointing out that neither Chip nor Natalya had a good grasp of the dangers lurking on the streets of even the tiniest rural midwestern towns these days, but that was a conversation she probably needed to have with them in private, when she had their full attention. She figured that Chip, who had been raised on the neglect plan by his pill-popping mom and absent father, meant no harm and probably didn’t know any better. As for Natalya, the woman was clearly devoted to her son, but she seemed to be truly naive about what went on in America. Besides, it seemed prudent to assume that Luka’s would-be kidnappers might still be in the mood to kidnap him.
“All the same, I’m thinking maybe BJ and I will go for a walk and see if we can find them.”
“Oh.” Chip blin
ked, and then his smile broadened. “Ohhhh. Sure. I get you.”
Stella rolled her eyes at the lack of subtlety, but she carefully noted down the places Chip suggested she look: a sandwich shop that was apparently quite the hangout for local teens, and the little veterans’ memorial park near the town hall.
As they strolled outside, afternoon shadows lengthening along the streets, BJ slipped his hand around Stella’s. He stared straight ahead, his hand warm and very slightly damp, and Stella was charmed that he was nervous.
“I got to tell you, Stella, I was so worried about you I called over to the sheriff’s office. Thought I ought to check did they have any reports from the Highway Department, or whatnot.”
“You did? You didn’t speak to … Goat, did you?”
BJ gave her a funny little sideways glance, his mouth set in a sort of grimace. “Nah, I talked to Irene and she checked with Ian. Goat was out somewhere, I guess.”
“Oh.” Stella tried to look like she didn’t much care, but the damage was done. Ian Sloat, one of Prosper’s two deputies, was sure to say something to Goat—if Irene, the departmental assistant, didn’t beat him to it. All of them were aware, one way or another, of the ongoing whatever-it-was between Goat and Stella, which was a funny thing because Stella herself couldn’t decide what it was half the time.
“Listen here, Stella,” BJ said earnestly, and Stella knew what was coming. Damn, but the man had an uncanny way of going straight to whatever was on her mind—especially things she was trying to keep concealed from him. “I’m just, ah, wondering. Are you seeing the sheriff? I mean like is he your boyfriend?”
“No,” Stella said quickly—probably too quickly, judging by the relief that washed over BJ’s face. “We’re friends, good friends. But there ain’t any, not anything really going on between us.”
“Oh! ’Cause I thought … I mean, I seen you with him here and there, and folks say … well, you know how folks talk, but I guess I should know as much as anyone most of it’s just a bunch of horse manure. I mean, you wouldn’t believe some a the rumors I heard about … uh, some people.”
“Is that right.” Stella knew the rumors he was referring to were about her, and she could only imagine, given that much of BJ’s time was spent across a narrow wooden bar from drunk folks who felt like revealing their deepest secrets and wildest conjecture—and at times that conjecture probably touched on her exploits. Stella had chased down more than a couple of ne’er-do-wells at BJ’s, though she was always careful to conduct her business far away from the establishment—aside from that one time when she’d hid out in a lawn chair on the other side of the electric cattle fence on the side of the parking lot that butted up against Neils Persson’s buckwheat field late one Thursday evening, waiting for Cray Tollifer to lurch drunkenly out to his wife’s Pontiac, the same one he’d been driving since she was laid up with a broken wrist that made it difficult to drive.
“And a’course I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that,” BJ continued, though he did seem to grab on to her hand a little tighter and the clamminess was entirely gone, making the experience that much more pleasant. “But I have been thinking, Stella, I’d sure like to get to … ah…”
His voice trailed off and his pace slowed a bit as they approached the park, a little triangular affair in what was once probably the center of town but, now that strip malls had siphoned much of the business a few blocks away, lay shadowed and abandoned on the back side of the imposing limestone town hall. It looked like the local garden club hadn’t visited in a while, either; the lowest branches of a ring of untrimmed fir trees bowed down close to the ground, shielding much of the center of the park from view. Only by peeking between the boughs did Stella glimpse the marble obelisk rising in the center of a number of benches.
It was the occupants of these benches that had given BJ pause. Four heads bent over an object that was blocked from their line of vision, but the hunching of shoulders and general furtive air did suggest that something illicit was going on.
“That sure does look like that Groffe boy,” BJ added. Stella murmured her agreement. Since Noelle had taken on the supervising of the boy’s grooming—Noelle being in the beauty business and viewing Todd as a sort of brother she never had—it was hard to miss his hair, which had a sort of punky two-tone look and reached down around his shoulders. There was also the matter of his shoes, giant boatlike sneakers, which looked like they belonged on someone twice his size, and which were visible under the bench, along with three other pairs of similarly outsized and unlaced shoes.
Next to him, the tallest of the four boys looked like a sure bet for Luka, and Stella was pretty sure she remembered that blue shirt.
Positive enough ID for her.
“Um, BJ, I wonder, would you mind waiting here for a moment?” Stella asked, gently disentangling her hand from his. “Here” was a cracked segment of sidewalk beneath a lilac bush, so it had the advantage of being pleasantly fragranced, and Stella hoped she wouldn’t be long—hoped, in fact, that she was wrong entirely about what she thought she was seeing.
“Sure, Stella,” BJ said doubtfully. It would take too much time—and be a bad idea for lots of other reasons—for Stella to explain that she had become awfully good at sneaking up on people, and that that was a task best done solo, so she set off on her own, sticking to the inside edge of the sidewalk that was shaded by overhangs and awnings, until she was situated behind one of the fir trees and had a clear view of what was going on.
Her heart sank to see Luka holding up a little plastic bag. While Stella couldn’t make out the contents, she did note that one of the other boys was smoothing out a stack of crumpled bills. As she watched, Luka palmed it smoothly, and the boy stuffed the bag into the pocket of his jeans.
No time to waste. Stella sprang out of her hiding spot with the focused release of energy that she’d been practicing on the heavy bag during the warrior burst drill. In half a dozen nimble steps she was ideally positioned to deliver a groin kick to the buyer. Before any of the others had time to react, the boy was doubled over, clutching himself and moaning.
“Awww, no, man,” Todd exclaimed. “Shit, Stella—really?”
“Yes, really,” Stella said, puffing from exertion while she grabbed the downed boy’s hands behind his back.
“What the hell?” Luka demanded, as the fourth boy squeaked with surprise and fear and took off at a sprint.
“Don’t bother running,” Todd said gloomily. “She’ll find you. I know she don’t look like much, but trust me on this, man.”
“Look, Mrs. Hardesty, I don’t know what you think you saw,” Luka said, talking fast, “but me and Todd and these guys, we were, uh, just talking about these codes? For Final Fantasy?”
“Can it, I’m in no mood,” Stella snapped and gave the boy’s arms a firm upward yank. He howled as Stella dug in his pocket and pulled out the ziplock bag.
Pills.
“Oh, good lord,” Stella sighed. “Todd, I don’t got my specs—read me what they say.”
“Those are for allergies,” Luka said quickly. “He ran out and—”
“I said shut the fuck up,” Stella snapped.
Todd took the little bag and squinted at it. “Wyeth,” he read in a resigned tone. “Got a big A on the other side.”
“No fucking way. Ativan?” she demanded. “Tranks? Do you have any idea what those can do to you, young man?”
The boy shook his head vigorously.
“I want the rest,” Stella said, holding out her hand. “Now.”
Luka hesitated, then started digging around in his own jeans.
“Now listen here,” she said to the boy while she waited. “I’m DEA. Special division. It ain’t just me, either, there’s a whole bunch of us old ladies have got dispatched up here. So every time you’re tempted to buy yourself a quick little high, you think about the lady you seen in line at the grocery or next to your family in church or helping on the playground at your little brother’s school, an
d you remember that could be one of us.”
The boy nodded vigorously.
“This Russian shit they’re importing, it’s all fake,” Stella continued. “You can’t ever know for sure what it’s gonna do to you. Sad case last week, boy about your age, over in a little town to the north of here—thought he was getting Concerta and ended up with his balls shriveled up about as big as a couple of grapes. Doctors sayin’ the damage is permanent, too—they ain’t ever gonna unshrink. You want that to happen to you?”
The boy shook his head so hard it was a wonder it didn’t fall off his neck, and after a final “ow”-inducing squeeze Stella released him. He took off down the street, never once looking back.
Then Stella regarded the two remaining boys with narrowed eyes. “I’m gonna get up now, and sit my ass down on the bench, ’cause crouching down like this is hell on my back. I can count on you two to stay put, can’t I?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Todd said glumly.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” Stella asked, addressing Luka. “You’re getting it from back home?”
“Yes,” Luka sighed.
Stella knew a little bit about the prescription drug market, having learned more than she cared to a while back when a good friend of hers had gotten himself hooked and subsequently unhooked from painkillers only to find himself accused of having killed someone while he was out-of-his-mind high.
“You got a friend sending it to you? What’s it cost, anyway, them two pills you just charged that boy thirty bucks for?”
“About … forty cents,” Luka said, “but you got to think about all the overhead, the postage—”
“Leaving you about what, a fifty thousand percent profit or something, right? Which I can understand would make this little business of yours pretty irresistible and all. But here’s something you don’t know. There’s folks who got here before you, the ones who gave the people in this town their first taste of diazepam or Rohypnol or hydrocodone, convinced them they liked it enough to spend their hard-earned money—or allowance, as the case may be—on the shit. Laid the foundation, so to speak. Primed the pump. And how do you think they’re gonna feel about you coming along after they’ve put in all that work and just start milking the cash cow? Hmm?”
A Bad Day for Mercy Page 13