High-Caliber Concealer

by Bethany Maines

  “Librarians—pushing feminism since 1897,” said Nikki.

  “Long before that, dear,” said Bronwyn, her eyes twinkling. “Now, what can I help you with today?”

  “I’m here, I’m here,” said Jane, rushing through the sliding door, panting slightly.

  Bronwyn looked amused, but her eyes narrowed slightly upon spotting Jane’s computer. “You’ll need to sign up for a library card if you want to use our wi-fi.”

  “No problem,” said Jane, then looked to Nikki. “Do I need wi-fi?”

  “Actually, I want to look up articles from the Kaniksu Tribune.”

  “How far back? And are you looking for a specific topic?” Bronwyn was already walking them toward the back of the library.

  “About fifteen years. Topic was a drug bust of a local resident named Phillipe Lanier, who was then extradited to Canada. It would also have involved a Sheriff’s Deputy named Merv Smalls.”

  “Merv Smalls who’s now our sheriff?” asked Bronwyn, glancing up at Nikki.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Bronwyn nodded and seemed to be thinking. “Any way to narrow it down to a specific month?”

  “The arrest, I think, would have been in the spring.”

  “That’s at least closer. Here are the microfiche machines. I’ll be back with the film and show you how to load it.”

  Jane waited until Bronwyn disappeared into a back office, but Nikki could tell by the way she was practically hopping that it was a hard wait.

  “Your dad was arrested?”

  “Yes, for smuggling marijuana. Apparently, he didn’t abandon his family. Apparently, he was actually sent to prison in Canada.”

  “Holy crap!”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “And your mom didn’t tell you?”

  “Not until today.”

  “And we’re here to read the truth for ourselves?” Jane clasped her hands under her chin, her voice throbbing slightly. She had a very romantic view on the liberating power of research.

  “Not exactly,” said Nikki. “I believe that she told me what she thinks is the truth, but there were a couple of problems with her story. There’s also the fact that Ylina is dead.”

  “What?” Jane’s hands dropped. “Shouldn’t we be doing something about that?”

  “We are doing something about that,” said Nikki. “I think the two events are related.”

  “Here we are,” said Bronwyn returning a stack of dusty boxes. She extracted the tiny roll of film from the box and quickly and carefully inserted it into the machine. “Your best bet is to turn to section B where they used to keep the Police Beat. The editor used to enjoy making fun of ‘filthy hippies’ and the like. He would most likely have published a drug arrest.” Bronwyn looked from Nikki to Jane’s pent-up expression. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need some other time frames.”

  “Thanks,” said Nikki.

  Bronwyn walked back to the front desk, her skirt swishing as she walked.

  “I wonder if there’s a course in discretion included in the librarian curriculum.”

  “Who cares about librarians?” demanded Jane. “Can we please get back to Ylina being dead, your father having been in jail, and how are those two possibly related?”

  “My mother said that Dad bought cars at Crazy Cooter’s, ‘fixed them up’ and then drove into Canada to pick up pot. When he started to do it multiple times he switched to having a tow truck driver tow it back across the border. The problem is that my Dad had zero car skills. My grandfather used to say that dad could talk a pig into bacon, but he had the mechanical aptitude of a donkey.”

  “Bill Pims! The owner of the auto body shop! You said he was converting cars to go across the border. You think he helped your dad?”

  “I think he must have,” said Nikki.

  “And then he must have taken over the operation when your dad got arrested,” said Jane, nodding, fixing the puzzle pieces in her mind.

  “I don’t think so,” said Nikki. “When Jackson and I were in his shop, he talked about a boss.”

  “Well, then who’s the boss? Besides Tony Danza.”

  “I have some theories, but I want to look through the old newspaper articles and see if Bill Pims or any of Dad’s other associates ever got arrested or mentioned in the paper.”

  Nikki sometimes wondered, if things had been different, if she had gone left instead of right, if she had never met Z’ev or Mrs. Merrivel and joined Carrie Mae, if she would have been a decent linguist or made it in the world of academics. It was in moments like this that she realized the answer was a resounding no. Searching through old newspapers did not fascinate her. It made her bored and twitchy. Meanwhile, Jane giggled over the ads and pointed out “really interesting” articles on town politics. They found her father’s arrest quickly enough and, after that, a smattering of mentions as the case wound its way through the court. But Bill Pims’ name was absent from all records. In fact, nothing about the smuggling scheme was ever mentioned. It was limited strictly to Phillipe’s possession charge and his extradition.

  After the last article, Nikki sat back in her chair, kicked her feet out, laced her hands behind her head, and stared at the ceiling. Her mother had always hated the pose. She said it wasn’t feminine, but Nikki knew that it was because it reminded her of Phillipe.

  Jane, who knew what the thinking pose meant, began to tidy up by reboxing the microfilm and collecting their print-outs of the articles.

  “It’s the only way it all fits,” said Nikki to the ceiling.

  “Mmm,” said Jane, who was used to this too.

  “We need proof,” said Nikki. “It’s going to be a shock.”

  “Mm-hmm,” agreed Jane.

  “Someone to testify in court would be good too, but I think it’s going to be a tough sell.”

  “Well, yes,” said Jane.

  “And Donny. I’ll have to persuade Donny to cooperate, but I don’t think that will be a problem.”

  “Not a problem.” Jane kept her voice pitched at a soothing murmur.

  “Right,” said Nikki standing up. “We just might make it out of this without totally blowing our cover.”

  “That’s nice,” said Jane, who clearly hadn’t been worried.

  “But first we need to go see Bill Pims.”

  “OK!”

  “Jane, are you doing that thing where you have no idea what I’m talking about, but you’re going to be really supportive anyway?”

  “You always explain eventually and it helps you to talk it out.”

  “Thanks. Also, did you bring that sandwich? I’m still starving.”

  “It’s in the car,” said Jane.

  August XXIII

  Bad Girls

  Nikki sat in the car, finishing her sandwich, waiting for Jane to finish parking. She stared at the auto body shop. The open sign hung jauntily in the window but she couldn’t see inside the office due to the glare of sun off the glass. She rolled down the window as Jane approached and sneezed, tasting the acrid tang of wildfire smoke in the air.

  “So what’s our plan?” asked Jane. “Go in there and rough them up?” she smacked a fist into her palm.

  “We’re going to go ask some questions,” said Nikki. “Ninety percent of finding things out is having the balls to ask questions. People are usually so surprised that they answer.”

  “That’s not as exciting as I was hoping for,” said Jane.

  “Well, this isn’t exactly Al-Qaeda. It’s a middle-aged body / fender guy.”

  “Who might have killed someone.”

  “I don’t think he did. I think it was the boss.”

  “But you don’t know for sure. We should beat the truth out of him.”

  Nikki sighed. “We’ll keep that as a plan B.” She stood, picked up her purse, and then decided against it, tucking it under the seat. Jane only ever carried a messenger bag that could fit her computer and a myriad of other gadgets. Functionally, it was exactly the same
as a purse, but when it came to questioning people it had the advantage. It’s hard to take someone as a serious threat when they walk in with an adorable little Kate Spade.

  Nikki swung open the door to the shop and the bells tied to the handle didn’t so much jingle as clank annoyingly against the door.

  “Be with you in a second,” someone yelled through the door from the garage side.

  “This is awkward,” said Jane. “I’m fairly certain that when coming to question people, you’re not supposed to be kept waiting.”

  “You’ll have to call ahead and make an appointment next time then,” said Nikki.

  “That doesn’t seem practical,” said Jane as Kristine Pims came into the office.

  “What are you doing here?” demanded Kristine, and Nikki frowned. Kristine’s eyes were red and her face was blotchy, and her blonde hair, usually curled and styled, had been shoved into a messy ponytail.

  “I need to see your dad,” said Nikki.

  “Go to hell,” said Kristine. “You’re the last thing he needs to see.”

  “Oh, good grief! Kristine, I don’t know what your problem is, but get over it. I have never done anything to you. Other than the little incident the other night, I don’t know why you’re mad at me. Frankly, I don’t know why you even care about me at all.”

  “You don’t know…” Kristine’s face flushed red. “This is your fault. This is all your fault!”

  “What is my fault? You living in Kaniksu Falls and working at your dad’s shop? That is not my fault. If you’re unhappy with your life, then leave. Nothing in your life is my fault!”

  “It’s your fault Ylina’s dead. If it hadn’t been for you interfering at the Kessel Run she probably would have just gotten beat up a little. But oh no, you had to swoop in like a big hero.”

  “That is not—” began Nikki, but once started Kristine couldn’t seem to stop.

  “You always swan around like you’re so perfect and the rest of us are nothing, but your dad is the one that started this and it’s your fault!” Kristine burst into tears and dropped onto the chair behind the desk as if her knees had given out.

  “It’s OK,” said Jane, whipping a Kleenex out of her bag. “We all like to hate the way Nikki swans sometimes.”

  “What?”

  “You do swan sometimes. I mean, not a lot. And usually it’s for work. Also, not as much as Jenny. But sometimes there’s swanning. It makes the rest of us ducklings feel ugly.”

  “Yes!” wailed Kristine from inside the Kleenex.

  “I don’t even know how to swan! And that’s not the point. Jane, this is the last time I take you to question someone. You can’t be on their side the moment they start to cry.”

  “But she’s crying for a real reason,” said Jane, patting Kristine soothingly. “Ylina’s dead and her dad’s in trouble.”

  “Yes,” said Kristine. Well, it might have been ‘yes.’ It was hard to hear through the burbling sobs and snot noises.

  “Stop crying,” said Nikki. “Seriously. Nothing ever gets solved by crying and I don’t have time for this.”

  “Nikki,” said Jane, “be nicer.”

  “I don’t want to be,” said Nikki.

  Jane frowned at her.

  “OK, fine,” said Nikki. “Kristine, I’m sorry I swanned. I didn’t mean to swan. But for the record, using racial slurs is still not cool.”

  There was another sob and an emphatic hand wave.

  “I don’t know what that meant,” said Jane, “But I think it was apologetic.”

  “I said, I didn’t mean it,” said Kristine surfacing, and sniffing fiercely. Jane offered her another tissue. “I just wanted to make you mad. It was the first thing I thought of.”

  “Well, the fact that you went first to a racial slur still shows an implicit bias,” said Jane. “You may want to do some serious thinking about your own ingrained racism.”

  Kristine looked at Nikki in disbelief, who shrugged. “Sorry I called you fat,” said Nikki. “I was embarrassed about my outfit and I wanted you to go away.”

  Kristine shrugged herself and blotted her face with the tissue. “I was being kind of bitchy.”

  The door from the garage banged open and Bill Pims came in with a spark plug in one hand. “Krissy, I’m going to need you to order - what the hell is going on in here? Bill looked at his daughter’s red face and the crumpled tissues in her hand and a panic began to suffuse his face.

  “You’ve been smuggling pot for the last decade, that’s what’s going on,” said Nikki.

  Bill’s eyes widened. They went from Nikki to Jane to Kristine, then back to Nikki. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Least convincing lie ever,” said Jane.

  “You started smuggling with my dad for a cut, right?”

  “It was a straight fee,” said Bill, his shoulders sagging. “We both had kids. It was a simple little plan. And it was just pot. I didn’t think it would lead to all this.” He sat down on the bench by the door, dropping the spark plug on a pile of magazines, and began to clean his fingers with a blue shop cloth.

  “And then Merv Smalls arrested my dad, but the smuggling wasn’t over, was it?”

  Bill shook his head. “It quadrupled in the first five years. Doubled again after that. We had to cut back a bit when the century flipped. The DEA has been all over our ass.”

  “Because Merv started using illegal aliens to be the drivers.”

  “Wait, Merv? Isn’t he the sheriff?” demanded Jane.

  “He is now. Probably financed that campaign with drug money.”

  Bill nodded in confirmation.

  “He took over my dad’s operation.”

  “And expanded it,” said Bill. “Once he figured out that he could use the Mexicans to drive, it was fat city. I’d modify a car every weekend in the nineties. If they got caught, he didn’t care because they’d get deported.

  “Wasn’t he concerned that they’d talk?” Jane was reaching for her computer.

  Bill shook his head. “He picked the ones who had family here. If they talked he’d make sure their family was dead by the time anyone came for him. But the DREAM act put a real crimp in his recruiting practices. Now it’s a lot safer for them to admit they’re illegal and go to the authorities. So he’s shifting business models again.”

  “What do you mean? Shifting business models how?”

  Bill mopped his forehead with the shop rag leaving streaks of black. “Well, with pot being legal in Washington now, he doesn’t see any reason to keep smuggling from Canada. He’s recruited one of the botanists from up there and he’s planning on starting his own pot farm. I mean, he’ll probably use someone else to run it because he has to be anti-drug when it comes to running for sheriff, but that’s his plan.”

  “I thought the farms were going to be limited in size,” said Jane. “How’s he planning on growing enough to maintain his supply? Or is he really going straight?”

  “That man is so crooked he could fit around a corkscrew without trying,” said Kristine. “Besides out here, who do you think they’re going to call to investigate the size of a farm?”

  “That’s a good point,” said Jane, nodding.

  “The problem is that if he’s not smuggling out of Canada anymore, does he really need you?” asked Nikki. “Either of you.”

  “Why do you think I’ve been sweating it so hard,” said Bill. “I keep telling Kristine we’ve got to get out of town.”

  “He’d only have his friends take care of us somewhere else,” said Kristine. “What’s the point?”

  “Would you testify against him?” asked Nikki.

  “Yeah, right. We’re going to walk into the police station and someone is going to believe us,” said Bill. “Don’t be crazy.”

  “If he was arrested first,” said Nikki. “Would you testify then?”

  Bill and Kristine exchanged a long stare.

  “I would,” said Kristine quietly. “He killed Ylina. We may not have been best friends, bu
t I always liked her. He shouldn’t get away with it.”

  “I guess I would,” said Bill after a long moment. “But I don’t see how you’re going to get him arrested with no evidence.”

  “We’ll find something,” said Jane, with confidence that Nikki thought was just slightly misplaced. “Let us worry about that.”

  “Ylina said she had an insurance policy that she was going to cash in,” said Nikki. “Do either of you know what she meant?”

  Bill shook his head, but Kristine bit her lip thoughtfully. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe, what?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but one time I used her phone. She had an auto-record app open on it. One of those sound activated ones, so someone just had to start talking and it would start recording. She kind of flipped out when she saw me using her phone.”

  “Recordings of the sheriff? That’s a worthwhile insurance policy. I didn’t see a computer at her place though.”

  “I don’t think she had one,” said Kristine with a shrug.

  “You think she kept the recordings on her phone then? That doesn’t sound smart.” Jane frowned at the sloppy technology use. “She should have made a back-up. What if her phone crashed?”

  “I don’t know,” said Kristine with a shrug. “I don’t even know that she actually made recordings.”

  “That’s fine,” said Nikki. “We can take it from here.”

  “We can?” Jane looked surprised.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Bill. “Whatever it is, we can’t be involved.”

  “Then you don’t want to know what I’m going to do, do you? Just keep your heads down and don’t say anything to anyone. Donny Fernandez will let you know when it’s safe to talk.”

  “The little Fernandez kid?” Bill looked unconvinced.

  “You mean, the three-times decorated, undercover narcotics cop? Yeah, that’s who I mean.”

  “Oh. I guess I’m just used to thinking of him as a kid.”

  “Well, we all grow up sooner or later,” said Nikki. “You probably ought to adjust your thinking.”