by Unknown
Stella ignored the VISITORS, PLEASE CHECK IN AT THE MAIN OFFICE SIGN and started across the campus. In addition to the main building, there were several others, a two-story gymnasium and a science lab and a long, low shed labeled FUNBEARS AFTER-SCHOOL CARE.
It was around the far side of this last one that Stella found Arthur Senior, up on a ladder painting the trim a creamy color a few shades warmer than white. In contrast, the old paint looked dingy.
“That looks nice,” Stella said. “Amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do.”
Arthur set his paintbrush carefully down on the pan that was attached to the ladder, and backed his way down. Once his feet were on the ground he squinted at her and wiped his hands on a rag he kept attached to his belt, then offered it to shake.
“Stella Hardesty, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes sir. Good memory.”
“Well, you’ve had your face in the paper in the last year or two, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oh, that.” Stella could feel a flush rise to her face. That had been a close call; she’d been hailed a hero for dragging Phil Rivka out of his burning house. In truth, she’d intended only to torch the garage and Phil’s treasured Camaro, the one he bought the day after he sent his wife, Irma, to the hospital with series of injuries requiring overnight observation.
Luckily, even Sawyer County’s crack fire investigation squad hadn’t figured out how Stella got the blaze started in the first place, which was a good thing. Stella had refined her technique since then, and there was no longer much risk of her killing herself or anyone else with a botched attempt.
Despite Stella’s protests, photos of her and a very dejected-looking Phil had appeared not only in the local papers but all the way up in The Kansas City Star. Goat himself had called to congratulate her on her heroics. And to apologize for having been out on another call during the rescue. “If I’d been there,” he’d said in that inscrutable voice of his, “maybe we’d have figured what got that fire started in the first place.”
“Guess you’re a bit of a hero,” Arthur continued, but he sounded more wary than admiring.
“No, no, not me. Hey, I was wondering if Roy Dean or Arthur Junior were working with you today.”
Arthur didn’t answer right away. He took a tin of Skoal out of his pocket and slowly opened it, then just stared at the brown-black shreds of tobacco inside. Stella stared right along with him.
Nowadays you couldn’t find many fans of chew. Every doctor’s office in the county had warnings posted—mouth cancer, throat cancer. And Lord knows the spitting and the chawing were nasty, vile habits; the black bits stuck between the teeth didn’t do much for a guy’s appeal.
But Stella had a soft spot for the stuff. Her dad used to treat himself to a chew now and then, out on the back steps where her mother wouldn’t have to watch, and Stella’s own first sweetheart kept a tin in the glove box of his truck, hidden from his parents. He’d have a chew sometimes after football practice when he and Stella went for drives in the country.
“Er, do you mind . . . ,” Arthur said.
“No, no, go ahead.”
Arthur took a healthy pinch between his forefinger and thumb, and tucked it expertly in the pocket between his cheek and gum. For a moment he closed his eyes and concentrated on the tobacco. Then he opened his eyes and breathed a sigh that conveyed a world-weariness far beyond his fifty or so years.
“Neither of my boys is working here today,” he said.
“They take the day off?”
“Well, now, we don’t really do like that. Wish I could say different, but the boys got themselves all involved in these side businesses of theirs, and I’m lucky to have them along more than a day or two a week.”
“Side businesses? How do you mean?”
“Oh, this and that. Arthur Junior, he got on part-time at the Wal-Mart Tire Center, and he’s been doing a program up at ITT on the weekends. You know, all the electronics they got in the cars these days, you practically have to have a degree in computer science to work on them.”
“What about Roy Dean?”
Arthur didn’t look at her but gazed out across the parking lot to the fields beyond. Alfalfa, lush and low-growing, poked its purple-flowered stems toward the blistering sun. “Well, you know, Roy Dean, he’s always got some idea or other. Last year he got himself hooked up with this multilevel marketing outfit. Nothing but a pyramid scheme, really. That didn’t end up all that well, and we had words. Now he don’t much tell me what he has going on.”
Stella noted the sad note in Arthur’s voice. Recognized it all too well.
“I understand,” she said. “My daughter, Noelle and me, we don’t talk much either. We had a falling-out, I guess you’d say, after her dad passed, and now she just lives thirty miles away in Coffey, but sometimes I feel like it might as well be the moon.”
Arthur pursed his lips together and nodded slightly, and the two of them stood there in a silence that was plenty melancholy, but not uncomfortable: just two parents wondering where they’d gone wrong.
“I guess they just have to go their own way,” Arthur finally said. “How old’s your girl?”
“She just turned twenty-eight in July.”
“Arthur Junior’s thirty. Roy Dean’s twenty-seven. . . . You know, when we were that age, we were settled down, raising kids. I think Gemma’s about given up on having any grandkids.”
“Oh, now,” Stella said soothingly, “don’t let’s give up yet. You know the kids nowadays. They like to wait before they have children. Besides, what about little Tucker? Chrissy’s boy?”
A smile flashed across Arthur’s ruddy features, crinkling all the wrinkles around his eyes and his mouth and making him look ten years younger. “Ain’t he a pistol? Aw, Gemma and I took such a shine to him.”
“Eighteen months old, I think Chrissy told me.”
“Yeah.” The smile slipped, and the light flickered out of Arthur’s gaze. “Thing is, those two, Roy Dean and Chrissy, they don’t get on so well. I think Gemma’s trying not to get attached, you know? If Chrissy goes back to her ex, why, she’s not likely to bring the little guy around anymore, see.”
“Her ex?”
“You know, that Akers boy, from up around Sedalia.”
“But they’ve been divorced for years.”
“Uh, well, the way I hear it, he didn’t want the divorce. He’s been after her all this time. They say . . .” He cleared his throat but didn’t look at her directly. “They say he used to get a little rough with her.”
Stella wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“I don’t mean to speak out of turn,” Arthur said quickly, “and I know my boy’s not easy to live with. Why, if Chrissy’s been . . . visiting with the Akers boy, on account of Roy Dean being away from the home so much, it wouldn’t be my place to blame her.”
“Arthur,” Stella began, then stopped, not sure how to say what needed to be said. “I wonder if you’ve noticed, that is, when Chrissy comes to visit, you might have seen, well, all manner of bruises and such—”
“I have,” Arthur said, his voice going sharp. “And if it turns out that Akers boy put ’em on her, why, I’d like to reckon with him myself.”
This time he did look at Stella, but it was only a quick glance with those troubled eyes.
It was possible the man really believed what he was saying.
It was also possible he suffered from the same disease that afflicted so many of the people Stella encountered: denial. Stella had battled denial herself long enough that she knew the pathology well, how it could really take a toll on a person as they struggled to keep believing the unbelievable.
If Arthur Shaw had convinced himself to ignore the facts in front of him, Stella wouldn’t judge him for it. They say most violent men follow paths that get set early in their own lives, that they’d been abused themselves and knew little else. Well, Stella’d bet a hundred bucks that Arthur Shaw had never raised a hand to his boys in anger.
>
Sometimes it just worked out that way. Sometimes you did your level best with a child, gave them all the love and direction you knew how, and things still didn’t work out the way you wanted.
Stella tried again, cautiously. “But you don’t think Roy Dean—”
“Oh, Roy Dean’s a trial,” Arthur interrupted, turning away from Stella and picking up his paintbrush again. “But he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Oh,” Stella said. “Huh.” She thought about mentioning some of the convincing details Chrissy had shared about Roy Dean, then decided Arthur had punished himself enough for one day.
“Ah, well,” Arthur said, making his way up the ladder again. “Sorry I couldn’t help you more.”
“No, you were—you helped plenty,” Stella said.
“Just one thing. It ain’t Arthur Junior causing anybody trouble,” Arthur said without looking at her, picking up his brush and dipping it carefully in the creamy paint. “He’s a good boy, just gets a little distracted sometimes.”
“I’ll remember that. You have a good day, now.”
As Stella made her way back to the car, her heart felt like it had got weighed down and rode a little lower in her chest. She hoped Arthur Junior, at least, would not give the quiet man on the ladder any more cause to live by the lies he told himself.
When Stella pulled up in front of her house, the sun was casting long shadows across the lawn, and Todd was doing skateboard tricks in her driveway.
“Hey, Stella, park out on the street,” he called. “I want to use your driveway.” He did some sort of flip that involved him leaping into the air with his skinny legs out at a comic angle while the skateboard flipped both over and around in a circle. When he landed, with a crash so loud it was miraculous the deck didn’t split in half, Todd teetered for a moment and then fell on his behind.
“Ow! Shit!”
“Watch your mouth,” Stella said, but she did as he asked and left the car in the street. Better to have him flopping around on her driveway, leaving patches of his skin on the concrete, than in the street getting run over. She walked over and glared at the boy, not bothering to offer to help him up.
Todd examined his palm, which was scraped red and crusted with old scabs.
“I reckon you ought to put some Neosporin on that,” Stella said.
“You got any?”
“I might, but am I your personal nurse? I don’t think so.”
“Aw, come on, I don’t want to have to go all the way back—”
“Todd, you live two doors down,” Stella said, pointing.
Todd shrugged and got to his feet, as graceful and light as a dancer, and jumped back on the board. He wore his hair down around his shoulders, but it looked as if he’d cut it himself, and maybe he had. His mother had more than enough on her plate.
“Well, you got anything to eat?” he asked, wiping his bloody hand on his baggy shorts.
Stella rolled her eyes. “I guess. Come on in.”
“There’s a lady in your house,” Todd said. He toed the end of his skateboard, and it flipped up into his hand. Not a bad trick, really.
“Yeah? Leave that filthy thing outside and wipe your feet. What kind of lady?”
“Kind of fat, but not too fat. Blond hair. Giant boobs.”
Chrissy.
Inside, Stella called out a hello—no sense spooking the poor girl. Found her in the same chair from the morning, but she’d fallen asleep. Startled awake, Chrissy pushed at the strands of corn-silk hair that had matted themselves to her face with sweat.
“How’d you manage the lock, sweetheart?” Stella asked.
“Oh, I showed her your key,” Todd said. “You know, under the pot on the porch.”
“Todd,” Stella said sternly. She’d shown Todd the key last winter when she hired him to water her plants during a visit to see her sister Gracellen in California. “You do not give strangers my key. You don’t let strangers into my house. Hear?”
“Yeah, well, I—”
“She could be anyone. You know, an axe murderer or something.”
Todd looked dubious. “Her?”
Stella bit down her unease. It was true that Chrissy looked about as dangerous as a toy poodle. It was also true that Stella had always managed to keep the unseemlier aspects of her work away from her home, but the day might come when some disgruntled asshole came around looking for trouble. She grabbed Todd’s arm hard and gave it a yank. He had already passed her up in height, but she had the advantage of mass and bulk.
“Hey!”
“Listen up, cupcake, or no snack. You don’t ever let anyone in here without me saying so. And if you ever see anyone hanging around, you go straight home and lock your doors and don’t be coming over here until you see me back here in person.”
“Christ! Okay, okay,” Todd said. When she released his arm he rubbed at it and glared at her. “Isn’t it almost dinnertime, anyway? Maybe we should skip the snack and have pizza or something.”
Stella stared at the boy, shaking her head slowly. “Your mom get hung up late again?”
“Yeah, she called. She’s got to pick up the twins at day care so she won’t be back for another hour at least.”
“What’s for dinner?” Chrissy said, her voice sleepy. “And did you find anything out yet?”
Stella looked at the pair of them, back and forth, and wondered why the Big Guy had seen fit to deliver these pathetic, hungry souls to her house, when all she wanted was to put her feet up and fix herself a giant Johnnie Walker Black on ice. Well, there was no rest for the weary, was there?
“Papa Martino’s,” she said. “You call ’em, Todd. Coupon’s on the fridge. Get a large. Half combo and half whatever you want. Oh, get a dozen wings too, extra spicy.”
“Fuckin’ A!”
“And watch your damn mouth!”
While they waited for the pizza, Todd went back out on the driveway to flip his lanky, awkward body over the skateboard some more.
“I believe I’ll go watch him some,” Chrissy said, rolling forward off the couch. “He’s something to see, ain’t he?”
“Hold up there just a sec, hon,” Stella said, settling down on the ottoman. “I’ve got something to ask you. Something of a personal nature.”
“Sure,” Chrissy said, bobbing her chin.
“It has to do with your ex,” Stella said carefully. “Pitt . . .”
“Oh,” Chrissy said, her face going a little pale. “It’s that damned Internet, ain’t it.”
“The . . . Internet?”
“I tol’ Pitt don’t be takin’ them dirty pictures, seein’ as they always end up on the Internet.”
“Pitt . . . took pictures of you?’
“Yeah, dirty ones.” Chrissy sighed. “I didn’t mention it ’cause I didn’t figure it was, you know, important. And it ain’t, neither—if I get Tucker back I guess I don’t even care what-all anyone wants to put on the Internet about me.”
“Um . . . were these, ah, recent pictures?”
Chrissy shrugged. “Well, yeah, I guess. I mean it was like, I don’t know, March probably.”
“You’ve been seeing Pitt.”
Chrissy shrugged. “Not regular or anything. Just, you know, sometimes.”
Stella heaved a sigh. “You know, back when you first came to talk to me, I told you that I had to know everything. Remember? Don’t leave anything out, I told you, because every detail counts, even the ones that might not seem important at the time. Well, I surely wish I wasn’t only finding out about Pitt now.”
“I’m sorry,” Chrissy said, staring down at her hands. “It’s just . . . I didn’t want you to think I was . . .”
She swallowed and Stella could see her eyelashes fluttering.
“. . . a slut,” she finished in a whisper.
Stella’s annoyance shrank up to see the girl so remorseful. “Oh, wait, I’m not trying to judge here. I don’t think that, I really don’t. Only, it’s been suggested that, uh, Pitt was the one who hu
rt you.”
“Pitt?” The tremulous note in Chrissy’s voice gave way to a snort of disbelief. “Pitt ain’t but five foot three on a good day and a hunnert twenty. ’Sides, he wouldn’t never hurt me. He’s crazy about me. We’d prob’ly still be married if I hadn’t taken up with his boss.”
Stella nodded, trying to assimilate all these new details. “How’d Pitt feel about Roy Dean? And Tucker?”
“Well, he pretty much hated Roy Dean,” Chrissy said. “Always threatening to come to the house one day and blow him away. And Tucker—well, he thinks Tucker might be his, even though I’ve told him a million times I was seeing someone else, and besides, anyone can see Tucker’s going to grow up twice as big as Pitt. Ain’t no way they’re kin.”
Stella felt a chill along her neck. Enraged boyfriend, denied not only his woman but the child he believes is his . . . men had certainly committed crimes for far less.
“People see what they want to see, sometimes,” she said.
Chrissy’s expression sharpened up. “Stella,” she said dubiously, “you ain’t actually thinking it was Pitt stole Tucker, are you?”
“Well . . . you said he went missing right after Roy Dean was at your house so—”
“But Pitt was there too. I mean, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about it, but Pitt was over visiting that morning, and when Tucker fell asleep in his playpen Pitt ’n me went back to my room for a spell . . . and when Roy Dean came to the door, Pitt hightailed it to the guest bedroom to hide out.”
Stella bit back another scolding. Honestly, the girl tried her patience.
“Is that it? Or is there anything else you need to tell me beside the fact that there was a whole other person present when Tucker disappeared?”
“I said I was sorry,” Chrissy said.
“Yeah, okay . . . just . . . But why’d Pitt need to hide, considering that you and Roy Dean were split up? You’re free to live your life any way you want now,” Stella said.