Dani dug her hands into her jacket pocket to retrieve her key card. She turned the corner to get to her room and stopped short when she spotted Ruby standing next to her door. The waitress stood pensively sucking on her bottom lip. When she saw Dani, she almost looked disappointed.
“Something wrong, Ruby?”
“There’s always something wrong, little deputy.”
Dani studied her face for a beat and then opened the door to her room, inviting Ruby to enter first. Once inside, Ruby stood next to the doorjamb and hugged herself, her eyes focused on a ringed stain on the table.
“I ain’t got nothing to offer you to eat or drink. I live kind of day to day in this place. Hoping to find a house or apartment to rent soon. Would you like to sit?”
Ruby shook her head.
“Rafe all right?”
“He’s a might spooked, but he ain’t hurt or nothing.”
“Spooked? What about?”
The waitress couldn’t bring herself to answer.
“Look here, Ruby, I can’t help you unless you speak up. Something bothered you enough to show up at my door. Go ahead and talk on it.”
Ruby sighed. “Rafe is deep rooted in these parts, you know that right?”
“I know he’s got a big family…”
“It ain’t just big. His family is thick through the mountains. Can’t take three steps before running into one of his folks from here to the Adirondacks. His people breed like carp. Poor ol’ Rafe is an outcast on account he ain’t got no kids, and he moved down to the flatlands. I’m afraid I’ve deprived him of rug rats and slope living.”
“Well now, Ruby, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about that…”
“That ain’t what’s got me concerned.” She wavered before saying, “You shamed us, Dani.”
Dani cocked an eyebrow. “I did what?”
“Me and Rafe have known of stories from his family for years…” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Kids go missing in the mountains. They just do. It’s the way of things.”
Dani’s heart skipped after hearing the waitress’s claim. “What do you know, Ruby?”
“What you’re asking about is big, Dani. You ought not be messing around with it.”
“If you know about missing children…”
“I know it, Rafe knows it, his people know it. They’ve known it for a long time. It goes back way before you were born, little deputy. It goes back before I was born.”
Dani felt herself growing anxious. “You’re speaking without saying a thing, Ruby.”
“I’m trying to keep you from getting yourself killed, Dani.”
“I’m an officer of the law—”
“And you’re up against something that’s gobbled up the law like cheap peanuts in a bar.”
“Tell me what you know!”
“You want to know what I know? I know these mountains are full of the most precious commodity in this ugly world! It’s full of little white girls nobody gives a shit about!”
Dani’s mouth dropped open, and she hesitated as she absorbed what Ruby had said. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there’s nothing to be done. Why do you think Rafe and me ain’t got no kids? He didn’t want to have no part of it is why. If we’d had a girl, he’d have gone crazy every time she went out of his sight for more than five minutes.”
Dani struggled to compose herself. “I can see you’re scared, Ruby. I get that. If this is what you say it is, you need to sit down with me here and give me what you know. I won’t put your name to anything you tell me. We’re just two friends talking, that’s all.”
Ruby shook her head and turned to the door. “The only thing you’ll get out of me is that you should consult with a preacher.”
“Don’t go…stay and drink with me. I’ll take a quick trip to the liquor store, and we’ll just drink this whole thing away.”
Ruby opened the door. “Get a preacher drunk.”
Dani followed her out the door. “I don’t want to get a preacher drunk. I want to talk to you.”
“A preacher has all the answers you need.” The waitress quick-stepped it around the corner and out of sight.
Dani’s cellphone rang before she got half a step in her pursuit. She fumbled for the phone in her pocket and answered it before the third ring. “Deputy Savage…Who? Kenny…” She peeked around the corner, but Ruby was nowhere to be found. “Right…right, Kenny. I remember you.”
Chapter 34
An amber sky hung overhead as Step sat on a tree stump and stared at a run-down cabin two hundred feet away. From his vantage point, he could see a taut naked girl of about twenty, dancing in a pair of cowboy boots. “Whiskey Before Breakfast” was blasting out of a set of speakers positioned on either side of the small porch. The girl paid no attention to the couple fucking just two steps away from her. A man with an eye patch had a heavy girl bent over the railing. He grunted out a rebel yell about every five seconds while the chunky gal looked bored out of her mind.
Kenny made his way around a bush and stood next to Step. The chubby closeout king stared at the cellphone in his hand with a look of pure wonder.
Step shifted his gaze from the trio on the porch and set it on Kenny. “Well?”
A second or two passed before Kenny replied, “She said yes.”
“Of course she did. What did you expect?”
“I ain’t never had a girl say yes to me before. Not a sober one.”
Step scratched his earlobe. “You do understand why she said yes, right? I mean, you get what’s going on here?”
“She said she likes dancing,” Kenny said.
Step was about to tell him that the deputy lady only agreed to meet up with him because she suspected Kenny and him had something to do with the double murder in Baptist Flats, but he changed his mind. It wouldn’t hurt his partner to think he was desired by a woman.
Kenny bent back a tree branch and watched Tidwell work himself silly putting it to the big girl while she picked at the paint on the railing. The only way she could’ve looked less interested was if she had been asleep. “I don’t get it, Step. How does a one-eyed fella get two gals to poke?”
“It ain’t the number of eyes on a fella that matters, partner. It’s the size of the balls that counts.”
Kenny turned to Step and then back to the cabin. “Can’t say they look no bigger than mine. I mean, we’re a good ways away and that robust girl is blocking a good bit of my view on them, but still…”
“I meant that metaphorically, dumbass.”
Kenny furrowed his brow. “Then you meant to confuse me because I ain’t exactly sure what met-o-for-actly means.”
“Means Tidwell’s poking two gals because he set out to get two gals to poke. You just gotta go after things like that, Kenny, if that’s what you want.”
“Hell, who wouldn’t want that?”
Step shrugged. “Never saw much use in it.”
Kenny looked at his partner like he had lost his mind. “That’s about the most worrisome thing you’ve said to me yet, Step.”
The music ended, and the big girl reached back and tapped Tidwell on his ass. He ceased thrusting and stepped away from her. The taut girl and the fat girl crossed each other as they swapped positions. The next song kicked in and Tidwell mounted the taut girl. She rested her arms on the railing and looked just as bored as her friend had been. The fat girl sucked on a bottle of beer and swayed back and forth to the music.
“Lord, they changed out activities,” Kenny said.
“Yeah, they did that while you were off chatting with that deputy lady on the phone.”
Kenny chuckled. “Well, I’ll give Tidwell all the praise. He’s held off a lot longer than I ever could. I’d be about three bites into my after-romp sandwich by now.”
“Not if you took the pills Tidwell’s been known to take.”
“Pills?” Kenny shook his head in disgust. “That’s just plain cheating the system.” He watched the scene on the fro
nt porch a minute longer and then asked, “Where you reckon he got those pills?”
Step pushed past his partner. “Let’s go ask him.”
“Where you going?”
“I’m tired of waiting. Tidwell’s liable to go at it until daybreak.”
“Daybreak?” Kenny asked, chasing after his partner.
The two closeout kings approached the cabin without bothering to conceal themselves. Kenny’s amusement grew in proportion to the amount of distance that shrank between him and the three on the porch. Step was unmoved by the scene.
Tidwell slowed his hips as the two men approached, but he didn’t stop. He squinted his eye to sharpen his focus. When he recognized his two colleagues, he picked his pace back up and yelled out, “The closeout kings have arrived!”
Step lit a cigarette and stopped at the edge of the property. Kenny moved around him and stood at the foot of the steps leading up the porch.
Still carrying on, Tidwell said, “This here is Lisa.”
Kenny waved at the taut girl, and she winked back.
“That big one over there is Darla. Y’all know Darla, don’t you?”
The big girl’s fleshy frame jiggled as she pranced around to the music.
“Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Kenny said.
“Sure you have,” Tidwell said. “She’s my step-girl. My wife’s oldest.”
Kenny’s eyes opened wide. “Good Lord. You sure that kind of thing’s allowed?”
“She ain’t blood,” Tidwell said, sounding increasingly winded. “And she was brought up by her granny.”
“We need to talk to you, Tidwell,” Step said.
“Now?”
“Wouldn’t be here if we wanted to talk to you later.”
He groaned and thrust faster. “Hold on.”
“We’ve been holding on…”
“Give me another song, and I’ll just about be able to bust one out.”
“Where’d you get them pills?” Kenny asked.
“Darla.”
Kenny looked at the fat girl and then back at Tidwell. “Where’d she get ’em?”
“Works reception at the clinic in Briar—”
They all barked out screams at the sound of a gunshot.
Step stood with smoke coming out of the barrel of his .45. He let the roar of the shot die down before he said, “I said, we need to talk.”
The girls scrambled into the cabin while Tidwell stood breathlessly in the buff. He moved to the rail and snatched up his beer bottle. “You must need to talk bad doing a thing like that. That’s just outright disrespectful, Step. I was entertaining my step-girl and her friend. That’s bonding time I won’t never get back.”
“You got pants?” Step asked.
“There ain’t no need in me covering up because Ima get back to it lickity-split.”
“You reckon your step-girl there’s got some extra pills I can have?” Kenny asked.
“Shit, she’s got a whole trunk full of those things—”
Another gunshot went off, and the wood railing splintered as a bullet passed through it. Kenny stooped with his hands covering his head, and Tidwell dove to the floor of the porch.
“What in the holy hell?” Tidwell cried out.
“My patience has been worn threadbare,” Step said. “Kenny, go in the house and get this son-bitch’s pants. I’m tired of his tiny pecker staring me down.”
Kenny shook off the nerves from the second unexpected gunshot and stomped up the steps. He took note of the ragged condition of the porch flooring and remarked to Tidwell that he hoped he hadn’t collected any splinters in an unpleasant place. Inside the cabin, the two girls were huddled together, quivering like they had a high fever.
“Can one of you gals direct me to Tidwell’s pants?”
Darla eased her head up and then pointed to the kitchen table.
Kenny quickly fetched them and turned back to the girls. “I hate to say it, but you two oughta get dressed and work your way out of here. Tidwell’s done about all the violating he’s going to do tonight.”
Darla nodded. “Okay.”
Kenny was about to exit the cabin, but stopped. “Say, where’s this chest filled with pecker pills Tidwell talked about?”
“Chest?” Darla asked. “I got a box at my granny’s.”
Kenny rubbed his chin. “Write down the address before you go and leave it on the table. I got a date coming up, and…Well, things probably won’t go that way being it’s our first get-together, but just in case, you know?” He grinned and stepped outside.
Step had moved his way up the porch and was squatting next to Tidwell. Kenny tossed the man with the eye patch his pants. “Where’s your woman?”
Tidwell stood and worked his way into his pants. “Asleep in the back.”
“Asleep? Shit, she must be a heavy goddamn sleeper with all the goings-on around here.”
“They got pills for sleeping, too,” Tidwell said, looking for his beer.
“You’re the pill-poppin’-est bunch I’ve ever come across,” Kenny said.
Tidwell groaned when he discovered his beer bottle had toppled over, leaving it empty. He pointed to the cooler behind Kenny. “Fetch me a new one. Might as well help yourself to a bottle while you’re at it.”
Kenny shrugged and moved to the cooler. “Step?”
Step shook his head. Kenny retrieved two beers and handed one to Tidwell.
The one-eyed man twisted off the cap and took a big swig. “So what in the hell is so goddamned important?”
“Sarah Campbell,” Step said.
Tidwell considered the name and then shrugged. “Who the hell is Sarah Campbell?”
“Billy’s young-un,” Kenny said.
Tidwell nodded. “Okay, what about her?”
“Where is she?” Step asked.
“How the hell should I know? I ain’t her daddy. Ask Billy.”
Darla and Lisa slowly emerged from the house fully dressed.
“What the shit?” Tidwell said. “There ain’t no need for you two to be on your way. Ima take care of this business in five minutes’ time, and we can take back up with the musical romancing.”
“Musical romancing?” Kenny asked with a snort. “That what you call it?”
Step looked at the girls. “You two weren’t here today. You understand me? I find out you say different…” He held up his gun.
“Yes, sir,” Darla said, grabbing Lisa’s hand and yanking her down the porch.
“How come they can’t say they was here today?” Tidwell asked. “Wha’cha got planned?”
Step sat on the railing. “I was planning on you not being a pain in my ass. I was planning on you answering my questions without feeding me bullshit. But things haven’t gone as planned, so I’ve made adjustments.” He held up the gun and smiled.
Tidwell looked concerned for the first time. “Boss send you?”
“The floor ain’t open for your questions, Tidwell. Only mine.”
“The problem is you ain’t allowed to ask the kinds of questions you’re asking.”
“Who says?”
“No one,” Tidwell said, taking a drink. His hands were noticeably shaky. “That’s the point. No one is allowed to say a thing about what you want to talk about. Not a thing. If nothing can be said on it, no one can ask about it. It ain’t a policy made by no one, it’s just a known fact. You understand?”
“This gun says different.”
“You gonna kill me?” Tidwell asked after taking another drink.
“I’d like nothing better,” Step said, “but Ima give you a chance to make it out of this still drawing in air.”
Tidwell eyed the skinny closeout king nervously. “If I answer your question, you mean?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“That ain’t a good answer.”
“You did take her though, right?” Kenny asked.
Tidwell nodded.
K
enny’s stomach turned. “Why would you do a thing like that? All this time, I thought you were a decent fella.”
Tidwell laughed. “Decent?” He looked at Step. “Is he serious?”
Step nodded.
“I’m the same as you, Kenny. Neither one of us is decent. Not even close.”
Kenny furrowed his brow. “I ain’t a bad fella.”
“You ain’t? You saying you don’t kill folks?”
Kenny hesitated and then said, “Not for the fun of it…I mean Boss gives me a name and I…It ain’t the best way to make a living, I suppose, but until recently, I didn’t think the folks we was closing out mattered all that much…That is to say, I thought they done themselves in with illegal and immoral dealings…Recent information has got me rethinking on that, however.”
“Face it, Kenny. You and me are both evil fucks. Step, too.”
A shot rang out, and Tidwell’s beer bottle exploded. Several large jagged shards planted themselves into his good eye. He fell to his knees, cupping his face with both hands. He wailed for a minute or two before dropping to his back.
“Goddamn, Step!” Kenny shouted. “I wish like hell you’d stop firing off shots without telling me. My ol’ heart just about stops every time.”
“The girl, where is she?” Step asked, kneeling beside Tidwell.
The man with no good eyes writhed on his back, in pain. “You blinded me!”
“I told you it wasn’t a good answer. Where’s the girl?”
“I don’t know. I took her to an ol’ dirt road and left her tied to a tree.”
“You left her there?”
“That’s how it works, goddamn it! They give us GPS coordinates where to leave the girls, and someone comes and picks them up after we leave…My fucking eye…”
“Who’s us?”
“Me and Gunner.”
“Gunner know more than you?” Step asked.
“My eye…”
Step put the barrel of his gun to Tidwell’s forehead. “I asked you a question. Does Gunner know more than you?”
“I…I…yes…probably…I guess. He’s been doing special collections longer than me…”
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