by Gwen Florio
Lola poked at the thumbnail. It wiggled. The man’s pale skin had showed through the eyeholes in the neoprene balaclava. “White guy.”
“Do you always drink heavily during your interviews?”
Bub curled a lip and rumbled. Lola wondered how long it would take Thor to call Charlie and impart the news that his girlfriend had gotten drunk at lunchtime with some stranger in a titty bar. Charlie would probably ask the same questions Thor just had, and would know that her interview at The Train had nothing to do with a story about Indian workers in the patch. Thor voiced that same conclusion now.
“You were talking to him about that girl. What’d you find out?”
Lola thought of the bouncer, how he’d at least confirmed that Judith had been in Burnt Creek, dancing. She saw no reason at all why that information might help Thor catch whoever had lit into her.
“Nothing,” she said. “I didn’t find out one goddamned thing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Oh, my dear. Oh, my word. I’m so sorry, Miss Wicks. This is going to hurt.”
“Call me Lola. Please. You and Thor both.” Lola sank deep into a flowered sofa in Thor Brevik’s living room, succumbing without protest to the ministrations of his wife. Charlotte Brevik was a nurse, Thor had told Lola, and would give her far better care than anything she’d find at the clinic. Lola had expected a rodeo queen with a sticky sprayed cotton-candy poof of hair, jeans Saran-wrapped around a hard little butt. But where Thor was spare, a twist of barbed wire, Charlotte was like a stack of plump pillows challenging the double-stitched seams of her nurse’s scrubs. For a woman so ample and soft, her touch was firm as she probed the lump on the back of Lola’s head. “May I?” she asked before easing up the layers of Lola’s shirts. “You turn around,” she commanded her husband. Her tone was playful, but a flush crept up her neck, patching her delicate skin like a rash. Thor hovered in the doorway of a living room crowded with occasional tables and display shelves, all forested with porcelain figurines. Lola wondered how Thor and Charlotte—especially Charlotte, with her excessive dimensions—negotiated it daily without sending things crashing down. Charlotte pushed her fingers against Lola’s breast-bone. “Does that hurt?”
“Hell, yes, it hurts.” Lola slapped Charlotte’s hand away. “Stop that. Where’s my dog?”
“He’s in the mudroom. It hurts because there’s a bruise. A lot of bruises, bad ones. But beyond that—below it, internally—do you feel any sharp pains?” Lola shook her head.
Charlotte pressed the small of Lola’s back, her abdomen. “There?”
Lola’s stomach twisted. Her head spun. She spoke through clenched teeth. “Same. Hurts, but not the way you said. I feel more nauseated than anything.”
“That’s the stress. And it’s good. It means we don’t have to worry about internal injuries. You can thank that big coat of yours. If this were summertime, we’d be looking at broken ribs at the very least. That knock on your head, though. That’s worrisome.” She produced a tiny flashlight and shined it into Lola’s eyes. “Don’t blink.” Her face was inches from Lola’s, eyes so brown they appeared black, cheeks pink with a dusting of blush, lips tinted with gloss, just enough makeup to disguise the faint lines that too soon would become the claw marks of time. She smelled of lotion and face powder, undercut with something tangy and familiar that Lola couldn’t quite place. She put Charlotte at about forty, only a few years older than she was. Lola touched a hand to her own face and wondered when she would have to start taking makeup seriously.
Charlotte caught the gesture. “Does your face hurt? Did he hit you there?”
“Told you she was good,” Thor called to Lola from across the room.
Charlotte simpered. “That’s how we met. I took care of Thor when he was in the hospital after the bull got him. He called me the prettiest little thing he’d ever seen.”
“That bull knocked me in the head,” Thor said.
Charlotte pressed her lips together and turned away. “Sometimes it takes the bruises awhile to come up. You’ve got some dandy ones on your back. Take a look.” She rose heavily from the sofa, and returned with a hand mirror and raised Lola’s shirts again. “Thor! Honestly. Go into the kitchen and make coffee. And make sure the dog has some food and water. Get him an old blanket to lie on while you’re at it.” She waited until he was gone and whispered to Lola.
“Honey, I can tell you’ve been drinking. It’s awfully early in the day. Do you need help with that? There’s a good AA group in town. I’ve sent plenty of people there. I’m sure you’ve got one back where you’re from.”
Lola fished for an explanation that would make sense to someone like Charlotte. Doing tequila shots during an interview in a topless bar probably wasn’t going to cut it. “Someone spilled it on me,” she said. Charlotte’s pitying expression told her the lie hadn’t worked.
“Look.” Charlotte held the mirror inches from Lola’s back. Bruises bloomed like peonies. “You think they’re bad now, give them a couple of days. They’ll turn colors you never knew existed. You’ll want to take ibuprofen, four tablets every eight hours, for the next few days. And if you have the least bit of dizziness, you get yourself to a doctor right away. And if you change your mind about that meeting—”
She stopped as Thor emerged from the kitchen with three mugs of coffee on a tray, along with a cream pitcher, a sugar bowl, and little spoons. The cellphone clipped to his belt rang. He put down the tray and detached the phone. “Dawg,” he announced. He turned his back and spoke briefly. “She’s fine. Or she will be. I’ll be back in a few and we can head out. We don’t have much to go on.” He rang off. “He wanted to know how you’re doing.”
“That Dawg,” said Charlotte. “Bet your first look at him was a jolt.”
Lola minimally lifted a shoulder. She was learning to conserve movement.
“Speaking of looks,” said Charlotte, “did you get a good one at the guy who did this?”
Lola took a coffee mug, hoping that neither Thor nor Charlotte saw her fingers quivering. “No. As I told Thor, he was all bundled up. He even had on one of those ski masks.”
“That describes about half the men—and a good number of the women—in Burnt Creek this time of year.”
Lola heard again the harsh breaths, the grunting exhalations in rhythm with the kicks. “I’m pretty sure it was a man. He was so big.” She nestled into the deep cushions, and sipped at her coffee with her eyes closed, waiting for the shaking to stop. It didn’t take long. The Breviks kept their home a good ten degrees, maybe more, warmer than Charlie’s. It had been weeks since she’d been so comfortable. Something drifted around her shoulders. Lola opened her eyes to see Charlotte Brevik arranging a crocheted afghan over her.
“You drink your coffee and then you take a little rest. It’s the best thing for you. Thor’s going to go back to work and try to figure out who did this, and when he comes home, we’re going to have a nice dinner to help you get your strength back. Oh, and take this.” She dropped a round white pill into Lola’s palm.
“What is it?”
“Something for the pain. It’ll help you sleep. I’ll give you another one to take before you go to bed tonight. Tomorrow, you’ll need to start working through the stiffness, but this will give you a bit of break before then. You’ll hurt for a couple of days, but you’ll be surprised how fast you heal.”
Lola gulped it down and handed over her empty mug. She stretched out on the sofa, the bruises screaming at the movement, but stopping as soon as she’d settled. She’d barely murmured her thanks before she fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lola lifted another forkful of chicken and dumplings to her mouth and closed her eyes as she savored the lightness of the dumplings, the peppery gravy that coated them. “I can’t thank you enough.”
Charlotte patted Lola’s arm with a soft hand graced with unexpectedly long, slender fingers, their nails filed to perfect ovals and painted the same shade of peach as her li
p gloss. “Oh, my dear. When I found out that Thor had sent you to The Mint—we like to go there, of course, but it’s no place for a single lady, not these days. Thor, you should be ashamed.”
Thor grimaced obligingly on cue across a round table groaning beneath the platter of chicken, a loaf of homemade bread, a bowl of iceberg lettuce enhanced with cherry tomatoes and bacon bits, and a casserole of creamed butterbeans that Charlotte assured Lola she’d grown in the backyard garden and canned. “Seems like nobody wants to can anymore. But I think there’s nothing better in the middle of a Dakota winter than a little reminder of summer’s goodness. Don’t you agree?”
Lola wondered if she could agree without admitting she’d never so much as successfully nurtured a houseplant in her life, let alone planted a garden and preserved its bounty. She solved the issue by taking another mouthful. Focusing on the food had the added benefit of keeping her from staring at the Jack Sprat disparity of Thor and Charlotte. Despite her good intentions, a question escaped.
“Do you eat like this every night?” She bit her lip, too late. Tried again. Made things worse. “Everything is so delicious. I’d be big as a house if—” She stopped. There was no recovering from that one.
“Oh, yes. Charlotte’s a wonderful cook.” Thor’s voice was flat. Lola couldn’t tell if Thor was coming to her rescue, or his wife’s. Layers stacked his own plate. He appeared to have one of those constitutions that withstood calories and cholesterol and sheer volume. Lola wondered what Charlotte had looked like when they married; if she’d cooked to keep up with her husband’s galloping metabolism, sacrificing herself on the altar of being a good wife, the bright sparkling girl she’d been slowly dimming beneath pads of fat. Lola speared a butterbean and ordered herself not to think about the mechanics of their sex life.
The red patches reemerged on Charlotte’s face, creeping up her throat, finding purchase in her cheeks. She reached for the butter dish. One, two, three pats were deposited atop a dumpling. Charlotte poked at them with her fork, speeding their transition into a golden pool. She lifted the gravy boat and swamped the little butter pond with a tidal wave. Back to the fork, a sodden mouthful scooped up and deposited. Eyes closed in defiant bliss. The flush subsided. A row of Hummels watched from a sideboard, their wide innocent eyes a rebuke to Lola’s uncharitable thoughts. A seated porcelain boy took shelter under an umbrella nearly as big as he was; another boy also held an umbrella, this one furled and resting on his shoulder. He toted a portmanteau in his other hand and strolled along whistling. With their round eyes and rounder cheeks and winsome blond locks, the Hummels looked like miniature versions of Charlotte. Or, Lola thought with a start, like Dawg. Pre-ink and steroids, of course. She cleared her throat. She needed to say something to cover her gaffe, but had no idea what. She’d forgotten how Thor tended to fill in any silence, no matter how brief, with bursts of verbiage.
“Charlotte makes sure to keep my strength up. Which is a good thing because the things that are happening in Burnt Creek these days have me running day and night.”
Lola broke in before he could build up verbal steam. “What sorts of things?”
He ladled a helping of butterbeans onto his plate. Lola thought it one of the paler meals she’d ever consumed, the yellow beans swimming in their cream, the bread and dumplings whiter still, the lettuce almost startling with its hint of green, the tiny red tomatoes downright shocking. A chandelier tinkled overhead in the steady hot breath from the furnace, its crystals refracting shards of light across the dishes.
“You, for starters. Some animal attacking a woman right on the street, in broad daylight. Nothing like that ever happened here before. That’s not Burnt Creek, that’s big city stuff. If that’s the kind of life we wanted, we’d move to Denver or Chicago or someplace, and Charlotte could take herself shopping in fancy department stores every day.”
“How are you feeling, dear?” Charlotte dished more chicken onto Lola’s plate. “Let’s get some more protein into you.”
Lola was pretty sure all the protein had been cooked out of the chicken, but she dutifully took another mouthful. “Sore. A little headachy, but no dizziness, none at all,” she added quickly as Charlotte’s features creased in concern.
Charlotte sat back. “Good. Then you should be able to drive home tomorrow.”
Lola slid a dumpling through some gravy. She wanted nothing more than to leave this frozen, confounding place. But returning to Magpie wasn’t much of an improvement. She’d have to explain to Jorkki that she’d wasted time on a story that had vanished. Charlie would no doubt assume that her injuries had been caused by Lola doing something she shouldn’t have. And she’d have to tell Joshua she hadn’t found out a damn thing about Judith, and admit to Jan that she hadn’t even asked about the other girls.
A thought pushed through the haze of carbohydrate overload. “I can’t leave tomorrow. I set up a meeting with a couple of people. I’m trying to find out what happened to a friend. I’m afraid she ended up in one of the bars out here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Breviks exchanged looks. Charlotte pressed a hand to her chest. She had the sort of generous bosom that Lola associated with dental technicians and elementary school teachers, a comforting place to press one’s head, a refuge.
“I feel bad for any girl who ends up in one of those places. You could just cry,” Charlotte said. “I go to the high school every year, talk to the girls—nowadays, the boys, too—about nursing. It’s a good job, pays well, and you can take it anywhere in the country. The world even. But when I tell them the pay, they just laugh at me. The same way they laugh at me when I try to tell them the downside of working in the patch. The girls, you see how they end up. And the boys, sure they make great money. But it’s dirty, dangerous work. You can end up hurt bad, dead even.”
Thor ladled more dumplings onto Lola’s plate before she could object. The tightness in her stomach was beginning to rival the bruises on her back in terms of discomfort. “Now, Mother,” he said. “Think of all the ways you can get hurt ranching. Just look at me. I’ve been all busted up since I was in my teens. And it’s not like I made any real money for my pains.”
The response had a well-rehearsed air. “For reasons that escape me, he felt obligated to ride those bulls when he was young,” Charlotte told Lola. “As far as I’m concerned, he brought his injuries upon himself. Good thing he married a nurse.” Thor, unsmiling, raised his glass to his wife. The light caught the golden cider within. Lola craved a wine, or even a beer, but as far as she could tell, the Breviks were teetotalers.
“We interrupted you,” Charlotte reminded her. “You were talking about your friend. If you’re trying to find her, it shouldn’t take too long. Burnt Creek’s grown, but not so much that it should take you more than a day or two to track somebody down here. Besides, maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll find her working in one of the fast-food places or cleaning the motels. There’s lots of ways to make money here, good money, and still keep your dignity.”
Thor shook his head before Lola could reply. “Lola already knows where her friend is. I expect she’s just trying to find out how she got there. Am I right?”
Charlotte clapped a hand over her little mouth as Lola explained the circumstances of Judith’s death. “I think she got into some kind of trouble out here. I’m supposed to have dinner tomorrow night with a couple of guys she met here. One of them seems pretty rough. Don’t worry,” she said in response to Charlotte’s look of alarm. “I’m meeting them at The Mint. I know you don’t like it, but it still seems safer than any other place in town.”
“Do you know their names?” Thor asked. “Maybe I’ve run across them. If that’s the case, there might be some information in the files you could use. It’s all public record. But you being a reporter, you already know that.”
Lola could have kicked herself. What the sheriff said made eminent good sense. “All I’ve got is Swanny. Big red-haired guy from Idaho. Elvis sideburns. His friend is
Ralph. I don’t know either of their last names. Ralph looks like this.” She sucked her lower lip beneath her teeth. “Hangs out at the Sweet Crude. And The Train, too. At least, that’s where he was today.”
Charlotte’s eyes grew avid. Lola thought that you could take a church organist, a Sunday school teacher, a maiden aunt, people as far removed from the world’s hard realities as possible, people who insisted they avoided newspapers and television because the news was simply too upsetting, and yet every last one of them reliably lit up at a hint of scandal.
“The Train! That awful place. Do you think they killed her?” A shred of lettuce, drenched in ranch dressing, fluttered from her fork onto the tablecloth unnoticed.
Thor answered. “The sheriff back there thinks it’s natural causes. I can tell you for a fact he doesn’t appreciate Lola poking around. He called me again today, wanted to know what she’d been up to. Luckily, it was before Lola ran into trouble.”
Lola coughed, dislodging a butterbean in the back of her mouth. She spit it into her napkin. “He called again?”
“Even all the way out here, your Sheriff Charlie Laurendeau has a reputation for being thorough.”
“Charlie Laurendeau.” Charlotte rose to clear the table. She paused with the platter of chicken denting her side, the dish of butterbeans in her other hand. “Isn’t he the one—there was something with a woman. A child, too, if I remember correctly.”
Lola stared at her lap. As far as she knew—which, she realized now, wasn’t very far at all—Charlie had never been married. Which of course didn’t mean he hadn’t had serious relationships before, let alone a child. But he might have told her. And even if he hadn’t, she was surprised that neither Jan nor anyone else in Magpie had informed her about it the very second her involvement with Charlie became public knowledge. Which appeared to have happened about five minutes after the first time she slept with him. She made a mental note to herself to go online and check birth announcements from the reservation as soon as she got a free minute.