Glen frowned and nodded. “That about covers it.”
“So I didn’t really miss anything, did I?”
“Guess you didn’t.” Glen leaned back in his chair. He looked at Tom, his grey eyes watching as Tom tossed the remaining mail on his desk. “He never said anything about Lucy Handling this week or any of those other girls that’s disappeared.”
“That’s good.” Walking over to a small apartment size refrigerator, Tom took a cold bottle of water out of it. “You want one?”
“No thanks. So what do you think happened to them?”
Tom twisted the lid on the bottle. “Lucy Handling or those… working girls?”
“All of them.”
Tom shrugged and took a drink. “I don’t know about Handling, but the others high-tailed it out of here. Nothing’s happened to them.”
“You seem pretty sure about that.”
“Think about it. Why would they stay? They’re not making any money over there. I’ll bet if any one of them makes ten bucks a night she’s doin’ good. How much does a blow job cost?’
Glen shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“There’s nothing out here but desert, a very few businesses, which only carry the essentials to survive out here, and a bunch of cheap son-of-a bitches, why would they stay?”
“We stay.”
“Yeah, well I like the hunting. You’ll stay until Kelly starts bitching about not having any place to shop, then you’ll be looking for a job someplace else, just like the others did.”
“How many deputies have you had?”
Tom nodded, thinking. “Since I’ve been here, you’re the fifth… sixth.”
“Sandy, she doesn’t… complain about not having any place to shop?”
“She doesn’t like shopping,” Tom said and took a drink of water.
“Is that normal? I didn’t think God ever created a woman that didn’t like to shop.”
Tom smiled. “Sandy’s special.”
Glen folded up the newspaper, offered it to Tom who declined, then tossed it in the trash. “There isn’t anyone around here that thinks Lucy Handling’s left town.”
“Hell I don’t know! How should I know?” Tom walked over to his desk. “The only ones who seen her the evening she disappeared were Mildred Chaplin and Colton Hornbaker, when she stopped in the café for a coke. They both agree that she was only there for about twenty minutes, than she left, saying she was headed home and that’s the last anyone’s ever seen or heard from her. That’s been four months ago.”
“Long time for a body not too show up.”
“Not out here,” Tom said and took a drink. “But what I can’t figure out is why I haven’t found her truck.” Looking at the mail, he sat the bottle on his desk, picked up an envelope and tore it open. “It’s a big desert.”
Glen smiled, “Maybe Frank Zingg has her.”
“Yeah, right,” Tom said as he pulled a letter out of the envelope and unfolded it. “You think he’s keeping her in the house for private entertainment with Nicole watching?” He sat on the corner of his desk reading the hand-written print.
“I don’t know, but -.”
“She isn’t up in front of a bunch of guys taking her clothes off or I’d have heard about that.” Tom tossed the envelope in the trash. Folding the letter, he put it in his shirt pocket.
Glen shrugged, “There’s been couples where the woman gets off watching her husband with someone else.”
“Not very many,” Tom replied taking off his watch. Turning it over, he looked at the back of it.
“Don’t think Sandy would get off watching you with some other woman, huh?”
“First of all, I wouldn’t do that to her,” Tom said putting his watch on. “And if Sandy walked in on something like that… Her little Irish temper would flare and… she’s a pretty good shot.”
Glen smiled. “Can’t say Kelly would get off on that either. Nice watch. I see ya look at the back of it every once in awhile.”
“Yeah, it is. Sandy gave it to me on our first Christmas. It’s a diamond and gold Rolex. She saved every extra buck she made to buy it. I remember when I opened it.” He shook his head remembering. “I wasn’t very happy she’d bought it.”
Glen shrugged, “Why?”
“We were barely scrapping by at the time. We hardly had enough to pay the rent. But she was so happy.” Tom swallowed. “I couldn’t be mad at her. I just... You can’t be mad at her very long for anything. Her heart’s always in the right place. She had an inscription put on the back of it, and every time something comes up…” Tom shrugged. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, what can I say?”
“Even with her Irish temper?”
“I can handle it.” Tom smiled. “I gave her a spanking once and told her to grow up because she threw a fit over something stupid. It made her madder than hell.”
“So you were in the dog house huh?”
Tom shook his head. “It isn’t hard to make up with Sandy.”
“How’s that?”
“Just screw the hell out of her, she’ll get over it.”
Glen nodded. “The solution to everything.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it.”
“Yeah, well like you said, she’s a special gal.”
Tom nodded. “You don’t know half of it.”
“So what’d you get her on your first Christmas?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I… I’d bought this pistol,” Tom said, touching the gun on his side. “I didn’t have enough money for Christmas.”
“I thought you were barely scraping by?”
“Yeah, I know. I guess I was kind of an ass, wasn’t I? Mad at her for buying this,” he looked at the watch. “This Colt probably cost as much.”
“What’d she say about it?”
Tom looked at him. “She said… Sandy said she’d rather have me home safe every night than getting something for Christmas. And if I needed the gun, than that was fine.”
“Must have been some kind of Christmas?”
“Yeah, well… we went out and shot up every box of ammo I had, then we spent the rest of the day in bed. So I guess it worked out.”
Glen nodded, “The solution for everything.”
“I gotta go.” Tom walked toward the door.
“Where are ya goin’?”
“I have to check a couple of things. Lock up when you leave. I won’t be back before this evening.” As Tom started to open the door a short, scantily clad, young woman in her twenties with bright, blue eyes and long, bleach blonde hair entered.
“You’re Moratelli, the sheriff?” she asked, looking up at Tom.
“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” he said looking down at her. The light blue blouse she wore was unbuttoned down to her belly button, revealing her small, bare, breast. She was obviously one of Zingg’s girls and he thought about what Mitch Ihnen had said about his dog. “And you are?”
“Marla Brewer.”
“What can we do for you, Ms. Brewer?”
“I need to report a missing person.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Girl I work with. She and I are roommates.”
Tom glanced up at the ceiling and took a deep sigh. Like he had time for this? “Where do you work?”
“Does it matter? She’s missing!”
“It matters.”
“I work for Nicole Zingg, at The Club.”
“You’re a stripper?”
Marla crossed her arms in front of her. “What if I am?”
“Is that what your roommate does too?”
“She’s missing man! What does it matter what she does?” Marla asked, raising her voice.
“How do you know she’s missing? Maybe she hitched a ride out of town, shacked up with someone, or shot herself up with too much heroine and is laying out there dead somewhere?”
r /> Marla frowned. She looked around then looked at Tom. “You cops are all the same. You think just because we strip that we hook and do drugs.”
Tom nodded, “That about covers it.” He motioned toward Glen. “Deputy Norman can take your information,” he said and walked out the door.
Marla looked at Glen. “You know, that guy -.”
“Sheriff Moratelli.”
“He’s really an ass,” Marla grumbled as she walked up to Glen’s desk.
“Seems to be a popular opinion,” Glen replied, and motioned for her to sit in a chair beside his desk.
Marla looked at the picture of Lucy Handling on the wall. “Why’s her picture up here? She wanted or something?”
“No, she’s missing too,” Glen answered, as he took a pad of paper from his desk drawer.
“There’s more than just her that’s missing.”
“I know.” Glen motioned to the chair. “Why don’t you have a seat and we can start with your friends name and a description of her?”
Marla sat in the chair looking at him. “Her name’s Chila Herendez.”
“She’s Mexican?” Glen asked as he wrote down the name.
Marla nodded as she moved the chair closer to him. “Yeah, but she’s lived here in the United States all her life. She isn’t illegal or anything. She moved here from Arizona.”
“How long as she been here?”
“I don’t know. Five, six months I suppose.” Marla smiled. “You’re new here aren’t you?”
“Sort of,” Glen answered jotting down the information. “My wife and I have only been here for a couple of months.”
“I’ve seen you around town a couple times, but I’ve never seen you in The Club.”
“Nor will you.”
“Why not?”
“I’m married.”
“So? Most of our customers are.”
“I’m different than most of your customers,” Glen said. “When’s the last time you seen, Ms. Herendez?”
“Yesterday afternoon. She said she was starting a second job than she’d come to work at The Club after she got off from there.”
“Is that what you call it, The Club?”
“That’s the name of it,” she answered, running her fingers through her long hair.
“I didn’t know what it was called. So when did she disappear?”
“After two o’clock.”
“In the afternoon or morning?”
“Afternoon.”
“Did she meet someone or -?”
“I don’t know. The last time I seen her, she was talking to that dude that owns most this town.”
“Colton Hornbaker?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t get hung up on these guy’s names. I’m just a dancer. And I don’t do drugs or hook.”
“Why was she talking to Hornbaker?”
“Chila told me she was going to work for him as a waitress. If it worked out, and she could make enough, working both places, she planned on getting out of this place.”
“Did she leave with him?” Glen asked jotting down Hornbaker’s name.
“I don’t know,” Marla shrugged. “I seen her talking to him then I went to bed.”
“At two in the afternoon?”
“I was tired. I had a late night. But Chila wasn’t at The Club last night and she didn’t come home this morning.”
“Does she usually stay out all night?”
“Sometimes we get sleepovers, you know. But when she didn’t come to work, and then she wasn’t home this morning...” Marla shook her head. “I know somethin’ s wrong, Norman.”
“Glen.”
“What?”
“My name’s Glen. Norman’s my last name.”
“Oh.”
“You said she was planning on leaving town. Are you sure she didn’t split without telling you?”
“No way,” Marla shook her head. “She’d told me if she was leaving. Her clothes, money, everything’s there, including her favorite shoes.”
“Yeah, she wouldn’t leave without those,” Glen commented thinking.
Marla frowned. “This is serious, man! She’s missing!”
“I know it is.” Glen put his hand on hers. “Believe me, I’m not making light of it. There are certain things people don’t leave behind when they take off.”
“Really?”
“I had to find a teen-age girl that ran away once. She took a stuffed dog with her that she’d had since she was a young girl.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah, I’m serious. She said it made her feel secure.” Glen took his hand from hers and ran it back across his short, crew-cut, blonde head. “I’ll post this and talk to a few people. We’ll see what turns up. If you have a picture of her, that’d be helpful?”
Marla nodded as she stood. “I’ll get you a picture. Are you going to talk to that dude she was going to work for?”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to him. I appreciate you coming in. When something happens… you need to come and see us.”
Marla looked around the station. “I don’t think that sheriff, what’s his name?”
“Sheriff Moratelli.”
“Yeah, I don’t think he wants to see us.”
“Then you come and see me.”
“Yeah, all right. I’ll do that.”
Glen watched as she disappeared out the door. Looking at the picture of Handling on the cork board he shook his head. “I doubt very much if you’re alive. And no harder than what Tom’s looking for you, I guess he feels the same way,” he said out loud. “Like he said, it’s a big desert. But if you’re out there, I wish you’d give us some kind of sign.”
Three
Entering the small house through the back door, Tom walked through the kitchen to a doorway, which entered straight into the living room or left into a bathroom, which also served as the laundry. Looking in the bathroom he saw Sandy batching clothes into piles on the floor. Barefoot, she was still dressed in the white blouse and black skirt she’d wore to work.
“Hi honey,” Tom greeted, as he walked into the bedroom, which was around the corner from the bathroom doorway. Taking off his gun belt, he laid it on the dresser then unzipped his uniform shirt. Taking it off, he tossed it into a basket beside the wall, than unbuckled his belt.
“Home already?” Sandy asked, walking around the corner from the bathroom. She leaned against the doorway and smiled as she looked at Tom in his shorts and tee shirt. “I love a man out of uniform.”
“How much?”
Unbuttoning her blouse, Sandy walked up to him. She stretched her five-seven up and kissed him. “Glad you decided to come home early.”
“I know you are. But I’m on tonight you know.”
“You have a few minutes,” Sandy said as she slipped off her blouse, tossing it on top of his uniform, she kissed him.
“That’s why I’m here,” he said between her kisses, “to take care of you first.” He unfastened her bra strap. “I don’t want you getting lonely, and I kind of thought you needed a little attention this evening.”
“What gave you that idea?” she asked, unzipping her skirt, as Tom pulled her over to the bed.
“If you’d got your hand any higher on my leg under that table, you’d been rubbing my balls,” he answered, sitting on the edge of the bed looking at her.
“They have table cloths.” Sandy giggled, sliding down her skirt and panties.
Tom pulled her closer to him. “I’m know they do, but I don’t need to stand up with a hard on.” He buried his face in her breast, kissing her as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“You’re going to take off your shirt and shorts aren’t you?” she asked, moving on top of him as they moved up on the bed.
“You want me too?”
She kissed him as she reached down into his shorts, rubbing his dick. “Yeah, I want you too.”
“That’s what I like about yo
u,” Tom said as he took off his t-shirt. “You don’t waste time, or words.”
“I really thought you liked something else about me.” Kissing him, she moved down to his chest, continuing to kiss him as she moved down to his groin.
“I like that too. Good thing you weren’t under the table doing that.”
“That’s the midnight special.”
“Glad you close at nine or you’d never get home.” Tom took her hand and pulled her up to him, then rolled her over and moved on top of her as she cradled him between her legs. “Is this what you want?” he asked, sliding inside her.
“Oh yeah. Oh god, Tom. You feel so good.” She braced her feet on the bed, pushing her hips up against him, working with him, moaning as the springs under the bed squeaked.
* * * *
Glen walked up the sandy and gravel driveway to the back door of Moratelli’s house and knocked on the screen door. After waiting for several seconds, he knocked again. Hearing the washing machine, he opened the door and crossed the small kitchen. Stopping in the doorway, he could hear Sandy’s moaning and the squeaking of the bed. Glancing into the bedroom, he saw their bare legs on the bed.
“Don’t stop,” Sandy gasped. “Oh god, Tom!” Her voice was exhilarating as she grasped Tom’s forearms.
Glen quickly exited the door. “Washing machine, sex, no, I guess he couldn’t hear me knock. So how long should I wait?” he said out loud. “Knowing those two,” he shook his head. “Tom’s on duty.” He knocked again. Without any luck, Glen turned and walked to his car. Reaching inside, he gave a shrill on the siren.
Tom, lying on top of his wife, breathing heavily, looked toward the doorway of the bedroom. “What the hell was that?”
“Somebody’s playing with the siren on your car,” Sandy said, brushing his hair out of his eyes.
“Son-of-a-bitch! I thought I locked it,” Tom snorted. Pulling on his shorts, he got out of bed and grabbing his uniform pants from the clothes basket, pulled them on then walked to the door. Looking outside he saw Glen standing beside the car. “What the hell are you doin’?”
“I knocked on the door,” Glen said walking to the house, “but I couldn’t get you. I thought maybe you were out around here, or something.”
“Well, what the hell is it?”
“Hunters found Lucy Handling’s pickup,” Glen said, stopping at the door. “Tory Stoutman said it looks like she drove it off over a cliff.”
“Shit!” Tom looked back into the house then opened the screen door. He motioned Glen into the house. “Where did they find it?” he asked walking into the bedroom.
Glen stopped in the middle of the kitchen.