by Ann Minnett
"College?"
Jesus. He was going to pry into every detail.
"The University of Missouri."
"When?" The neckband of a white undershirt showed at his collar.
"Fifteen years ago. Sixteen now."
"And you didn't recognize him from then?"
Lark shook her head, no.
"This university connection might help us learn more about him," he said.
Good luck.
“What have you learned so far?” She could be guileless, too.
The deputy frowned and said, "So he knew you from back then?"
"He recognized me from this tattoo." She stood and modeled her left leg—the reason for her skirt today. She still had good legs.
"You had this tattoo in college?" His pale eyebrows asked the question more so than his intonation.
"Uh-huh." Technically, she did not lie. "Not many girls had tattoos like this back then." The story sounded plausible. Take it easy and simply answer his questions—like the kindergarten sex talk.
"Your son said you might have gone out with Whalen?" He flipped back to previous pages of dark blue undecipherable script.
Verifying facts?
"We never dated," she said quickly and sat down. "But we, my friends and I, saw him now and then at McCord's."
"What can you tell me about him?"
"He’s a loner." She wanted to be sure to state this. She pretended to think. "I’ll bet a lot of people have said this about him.” The deputy didn’t take the bait, so she added, “His dog was attacked by wolves…"
"Yeah, I talked to the vet's office about the attack." He didn't write down that part.
"I wanted to write an article about it for my class. I'm a journalism student." Her hand smoothed the back of her neck and pulled on her earring. She couldn't make that arm rest in her lap to save her soul.
Sorensted had stopped writing all together and absorbed her story as if nabbing it before the words escaped from her sore throat. He disturbed her. Those pale green eyes. His hands. She blew her nose, biding time to snap out of it.
"Anyway. He wouldn't let me use his name or his photo for the story. Can you imagine?" She leaned toward the deputy, sharing incredulity she had practiced in the mirror. "Not wanting to share a wolf story?"
"Hmm. He likes his privacy."
She nodded.
"What else?"
"What do you mean?" she asked nervously. “What else have you heard?”
Sorensted flipped a few pages back. "Neighbors say they saw Whalen here at your place a couple of times. You and he had heated conversations on the lawn and," he scanned a page, "in your car?" His green eyes verged on gray.
“Who the hell notices such things?” she said involuntarily. “People have nothing better to do than watch their neighbors?” Naturally, the deputy didn’t answer her. No telling who witnessed Zane's fist fight with Mick Eidsvoldt and the police cars. Dammit! "He did come by once to talk about that article I told you about." Thinking fast now. "Let's see, my friend Dee was here, too. Rob helped Zane with geometry." She shrugged like no big deal. “What did my neighbors say?”
The deputy sighed while writing. She didn't know many clean-shaven men these days. Sharp angles made him more imposing. He glanced up, catching her staring at him.
“And the argument in front of your place?”
Lark sighed. “He told my son to shut up. I didn’t like him talking to Zane that way.”
The deputy nodded, made a note. "What else?”
She blurted, “Should there be anything else?”
“Anything that might help fill in his background?" His ballpoint hovered over a fresh page.
"Not that I can think of. Like I said, he usually had a beer with us at McCord’s and left." Lulu probably slept with him. He gave me lots of money and stupid shoelaces. He stalked me. He might be my son's father and is a rapist. “Oh, I know. He said he worked in finance. Originally from St. Louis?”
Sorensted printed St L finance? in his notebook.
She added, “Does that jibe with what you’ve learned about him?”
The deputy said, “Rob Whalen is a puzzle for now.”
What the hell did that mean? A puzzle?
He heaved himself out of the chair. She stood, too. Did she say too much or give herself away? She spotted her cigarettes resting on the bookshelf beside the patio doors.
"If you think of anything else, give me call." He shook her hand and let himself out into a sudden icy rain.
Dee, Nora and Kirk would back her up. The group hardly had a thing to do with Rob at McCord's, if he decided to check it out. Calm down.
* * *
Sam walked to his cruiser, mildly ashamed of his behavior. He had no business asking Lark Horne those questions because there was no case left to investigate. He just didn’t want to say goodbye.
* * *
After the deputy left, Lark retrieved her cleaning bag from the hall tree, carried it to the patio doors, and lit a cigarette. She sat cross-legged on the floor, watching smoke billow from her lips into the wet gray air outside. She prayed silently in her half-assed way. Such a hypocrite, she questioned her belief in God. If God did exist, He wouldn't be pleased with her lately. Good intentions paved the road to hell, and hell glowed on her horizon.
She peered inside the bag. No envelope. A quick check of her purse revealed no envelope. In a panic, Lark mentally retraced her actions after finding it under her front seat. She’d dropped her cleaning supplies and cloths on the sidewalk to retrieve the envelope. Stuffed it into the interior pocket. The envelope should be in the large bag, but it now held only detergents and solvents. She remembered with growing fear that she had stopped at the complex’s laundry room to wash her cleaning rags when she got out of the car.
She threw her cigarette onto the patio and raced out her kitchen door toward the laundry hut. A freezing rain and wet pavement wouldn’t help her cold. Who cared? An unfamiliar woman carrying a blue plastic basket grazed Lark on the narrow sidewalk but didn’t make eye contact. Lark burst into the small out building to the sound of both washers grinding. Someone had dumped her clean damp rags on the folding table to empty the washer. Lark tossed through the pile, finding nothing more. She was sick and rain-drenched, the authorities suspected her, and now she had misplaced evidence connecting her to a crime. She wanted to give up.
She noticed a tan pulp wad in the trash. The paper had been washed. She smoothed out the creases, the fragile pulp. Remarkably, the envelope hadn’t been shredded, but it had been torn and contained nothing.
Lark rushed outside, but the unfamiliar woman had disappeared. Shivering now, Lark went back to the trash can and removed the black plastic liner. Among the discarded detergent boxes and dryer lint, there might be a clue as to what Rob had kept inside the envelope. She scooped up the wet envelope and trash bag. Glancing around the dirty floor for any clue, she noticed a single earring someone had lost under the folding table, and she left.
Inside her own kitchen, she carefully extracted laundry trash and the occasional candy wrapper, piece by piece. A chandelier earring stuck to crusty liquid detergent on a bottle. Odd. Then she found a wire hoop. Neither matched the simple stone earring she had spotted on the laundry floor. By the time Lark found the sixth unmatched earring, she stopped the search and ran back out to the laundry to retrieve the one on the floor. That made seven. Toward the bottom of the plastic bag she found the third and fourth hoops and two tiny studs. In all, eleven unmatched earrings.
She lit a cigarette and tried to remember the envelope’s shape before she mistakenly washed it. Bumpy. A tangle of earrings might make a lump like that.
She turned on the faucet to rinse off the earrings. Why would Rob keep them?
* * *
Lark sat at her dinette table for hours staring at the row of mismatched earrings laid on a paper towel before her. She had thrown on her plaid robe and thick socks over her clothes and hadn’t budged in hours when Zane came h
ome after ten Monday evening.
"Did you eat?" she asked.
"I had dinner at Katie's."
Of course you did.
He asked, “What are those?”
She folded them carefully into the paper towel and put it in her pocket. "I found them in the laundry room today.” He had already walked away, not really listening to her answer. “When are we going to talk, Zane?" Fatigue had shut her down—mental fatigue more than her cold or work schedule.
"Mason's gone," he said, dropping his backpack by the rocker.
"Gone? Where?"
Zane shrugged.
She stood with difficulty and went to him. "Tell me."
"All I know is his old man beat him once too often, and he took off sometime over the weekend."
"Did he tell you where he went?"
"He's not giving up our big secret, Mom." His derision made her shrink away from him.
"I'm worried about Mason."
"Right." He went into his room and closed the door.
She went into his room. "I have a right to know, don't you think?" Her arms folded across her robe. She could be stubborn, too.
He unbuttoned his shirt, saying, "I got a text. Mason hitchhiked down to Missoula. I don't know more than that." Zane allowed his shirt to hang open. His smirk challenged her, and he defiantly unzipped his fly. His jeans dropped to the floor, and he got into bed.
How she would love to run away, too. But no. Zane’s self-righteousness diminished her. It didn’t make her any less angry with him. "Poor Mason. Maybe he’ll be better off.” On second thought, she added, "You're not thinking of running away, are you?"
His breath rushed through his nose. "Where would I go?"
"You've thought about it?"
"Just leave me alone and turn out the light." He turned his back to her and pulled the sheet over his head.
"No weed," she said. The stupid order sounded hollow.
From under the covers she heard, "Katie doesn't like it."
"Doesn't like what?"
"Katie doesn't want me to smoke weed," he said wearily. "So I stopped."
Katie was her unexpected ally. Lark flipped off the light and backed out of his room. Four in the morning would come too soon, but she couldn't think about sleep just yet.
She sat at her dinette table, opened a graphed composition book—the structure of note-taking on graphed paper calmed her—and listed the parts of her life in the crapper since last Wednesday evening. The list morphed into a webbed doodle. She flipped to a clean page and wrote her name in the center and circled it. Spokes radiated out to signify connections to people who knew about Rob’s connection to her. Sky. Lulu. Patty. Dee. Nora and Kirk. Jenean. McCord's staff. Other bar patrons? Ozzy for gods sakes. Cheryl at Sister House knew someone had given Lark cash—money Lark hadn't wanted for herself.
Alice! Oh, my God, Alice. The newspaper fiasco hadn't been connected in any way to Rob yet, but it might be later. Lark gouged out the writing so hard the page ripped.
Of the Dirty Half Dozen, Mason fled, Nora and Kirk ice-fished a hundred miles away in the wilderness, and Zane refused to talk to her much beyond one-word sentences. Dee's salon didn’t open on Mondays, yet she hadn't answered her phone or responded to texts since Sunday.
Lark studied her name at the center of the page. A stranger examining the web would assume all these events trapped her at the center of an unraveling scheme over which she had no control. But then, Zane’s name or Dee’s could have appeared at the center of the web. What they had done affected them all.
How selfish she had been.
CHAPTER 26
Absolutely nothing happened all day Tuesday.
Dee agreed to meet Lark at Mc Cord's that evening. Their tight group hadn't shown up at the hangout since the event, and Lark worried people might put two and two together. Since Zane no longer bothered coming home for dinner, Lark arrived early, around six, to have dinner and take the temperature of local gossip.
A young couple scooped nachos from a shared plate at Lark's usual table. Tourists. Locals wouldn't occupy their table—not even after a week’s absence. Lark sidestepped past the interlopers, sizing up how long they might stay. They held hands across the table, eating and sipping beers with the other hand. They were in no hurry.
Every last damn thing has changed, she thought.
She found a vacant booth in back, a safe spot for a private conversation. She tossed her jacket across one of the bench seats and bent to slide in.
Twenty feet to her right, Nora and Kirk leaned against the railing separating the pool tables from the restrooms. They didn’t see her. Nora lofted a pool cue and eyed her next shot. Kirk drained a beer while his wife approached the table, running the cue between her fingers.
"What the hell?" Lark said.
"Hi, there." Nora stroked the shot. She stood up slowly, and Kirk sidled up to the corner pocket separating the two women, protective and wary. He extended a barbequed chicken wing toward Lark.
Lark slapped his hand, launching the saucy wing onto the floor. She said, "Hi? That’s it? When did you get back, and why haven't you answered my texts? What's going on?"
Nora placed her cue on the table and gently shoved Kirk aside. "It's okay, Kirk." She led Lark by the elbow to the booth and slid in across from her. Leaning over the table close enough for Lark to smell barbeque sauce on her breath, Nora whispered, "Calm down. We got home last night."
"Why didn't you let me know?"
"There isn't much to talk about, is there?" Nora's stubby index finger traced old cigarette burns in the marred tabletop.
"We have a hell of a lot to discuss. Like the sheriff's department talking to me and to Zane."
That got Nora's attention.
"Like DNA testing and Mason running away. Like…" The earrings. Like shit falling apart.
Nora reached for Lark’s fists. "Kirk and I don't know what we're going to do."
"What you're going to do?" Lark's voice became too loud. "Nothing! That's what."
"Isn't your conscience bothering you?" Nora signaled to Kirk, and he slid his bulbous gut in beside her. "Well?"
"You bet my frigging conscience is bothering me. So now you're feeling guilty?"
Kirk's meaty arm pushed behind Nora's shoulders. He hugged her in close.
Lark visualized thumping them both on their shiny foreheads in the cramped quarters.
"I feel guilty for getting Kirk involved," Nora said. "I feel guilty about driving to Rob’s cabin and for not stopping Dee. But neither of us fired a shot or lit a match. And we have the kids to think about.”
The bald truth took Lark's breath away. Her mouth opened to speak but air and silence collected on her tongue. Nora scratched her head and smoothed her dishwater blond hair, pulled too tightly into a skimpy ponytail. She never did have good hair. Her open round face, so plain and earnest, now lined by crow’s feet and distorted by puffy skin at her jowls—the tired mom of twin two-year-olds. Nora spoke the truth, and lucky girl, she had a loving partner to support her through this horror.
Lark’s chin sank closer to her chest.
Dee appeared out of the clamor in the room. She tapped unpolished nails on the table top. "I just about didn't see you back here."
Kirk pried himself out of the booth, saying, "Nora, let's go. Joyce can’t babysit past eight tonight."
Nora grabbed his extended hand and said, "I would never do or say anything to hurt either of you."
"We're taking the trailer.” Kirk said, pulling his wife across the bench seat, “and heading south until spring."
"Your garage," Lark said. "What about the business?"
"Rudy and Joyce will cover for a while." True, Kirk relied more and more on his son and daughter-in-law to run the repair shop.
Nora hugged an immobilized Dee and said, "I just can't take being here right now." She pointed at a crusty fever blister in the corner of her mouth—a symptom of her distress. Nora, the tender-hearted sensitive one, held ont
o her emotions. "There's nothing for me to do here except confess as an accessory. And that would be the end for you two." Kirk fetched their coats and helped her into hers. They walked out, Nora's head down, and Kirk's hand placed firmly on her shoulder, guiding her toward the exit.
"We're on our own," Lark said to Dee as they watched the couple leave. "Come on and sit." Lark waved at the bartender and held up one finger indicating a beer.
Dee raised her hand. "Make that two." She sat.
Lark said, "So you're drinking now?"
Dee had abstained since the night of the rape. She sighed, "If not now, when?" Her elbows rested on the table, her fingers massaged her forehead. She had applied too much foundation, and it rubbed off, making her fingertips appear greasy. She snatched a bar napkin from the plastic container and dabbed under her smudged eyes.
The beers arrived. "Y'all girls want food, too?" Cajun Jim, as friendly as his accent, leaned over their table.
Lark spoke up. "Cheeseburger and fries for me." Jim rapped a knuckle on the table for got it, and peered at Dee.
“What? Ms. Vegetarian eats a cheeseburger?”
“If you can drink a beer, I’ll have a burger. We’re going to hell anyway.”
"Oh, why not," Dee said. "Cheeseburger for me, too.”
“You got it,” Jim said and hurried away.
Lark checked her phone, hoping for a text from Zane. Not a word. She nabbed the Marlboro pack in her purse and danced it across the table for something to do.
“This booth is quiet and cozy,” Lark said, sort of amazed at the unusual perspective on McCord’s. “Why do we always sit at the front-facing bar table?”
“To see and be seen,” Dee said.
Lark watched the interlopers leave their table. At another time, she would have urged Dee to move, reclaim what belonged to them, but not this evening. "You know, Nora has a point."
“Which is?"
"She didn't shoot anyone or burn anyone's house down." Lark tapped the pack between her hands. "That pretty much says it all."