“I’m too busy doin’ the real thing to waste my time with that trivial stuff. But,” Colton smiled, “I’m good at a lot of things.”
Sandy looked at the door as the small bell jingled. She smiled, sighing some relief that someone had finally got there. “Good morning, Mildred.”
“Can’t say I know the difference between last night and this mornin’,” Mildred growled. She walked up to Colton. “If you ever, ever, hire another stripper, I’m going to hunt you down and shoot you myself.”
“Guess she didn’t show up, huh?” Colton asked.
“No, she didn’t show up!” Mildred said, taking an apron from the hook in the supply room. She draped it around her neck as she walked into the dining room. “Then Katie’s daughter got sick half way through her shift and she had to go home and I had the whole damn place to myself.”
“You should have called me, Mildred,” Sandy said, as she picked up the tray and walked up to the counter. “I could have come in and helped you.”
“Why? So we both could be dead on our feet this morning?”
Sandy shook her head as she sat the tray on the counter. “I can’t believe there isn’t anyone in this town looking for a job besides Zingg’s girls.”
“I know a few.” Mildred turned to Colton. “We need the help. I could bring my niece in tomorrow to work at least for -.”
“I don’t want her fat-ass in here!” Colton snapped. “I want to entice clients, not drive them away. Go home, Mildred. I have a new gal coming in. She can work with Sandy this morning.”
“Another stripper?” Mildred asked.
“Kelly Norman.” Colton looked at Sandy. “You ought a know her.”
“Glen Norman’s wife?”
Colton nodded as he sipped from his cup of coffee.
“We’ve been out to dinner with them a couple of times, but I don’t really know her,” Sandy said, wiping her hands on a dish cloth, from habit. “She never said anything about being a waitress.”
“Says she has experience waitin’ tables. She’s young and pretty, classy lookin’, she ought to draw customers.”
“Katie’s young and pretty, and she doesn’t bring any customers in,” Mildred snapped.
“Between an ex and three kids, Katie has too much drama in her life. Customers aren’t interested in hearing about all her problems. They have enough of their own. If I could find someone decent looking to replace her, I’d fire her,” Colton said. Turning, he walked into the office and closed the door.
* * * *
The small plane banked to the right as Tom and Glen searched the ground below with binoculars, looking for Lucy Handling or her body.
“Lot of desert out here to search,” Jerry stated looking down toward the ground.
Tom looked at him from the seat beside him, “Yeah I know. We’ll give it a couple of hours. If we don’t find something, we’ll call it quits.”
“You’d think if someone killed her and want us to think she crawled away and died, they’d dump her body near her truck,” Glen reasoned.
“You’d think,” Tom agreed, looking through the binoculars.
“There was something that doesn’t belong out here.” Jerry said.
“Where?” Tom asked.
Jerry banked the plane. “There.” He pointed down.
“Looks like someone’s been out here digging,” Glen commented, looking through the binoculars. “Think they buried her out here?”
“Anything’s possible,” Tom said. He looked at the gages on the control panel of the plane. “We have a coordinate to write down so we can come back and check it out?”
Jerry nodded. “I got it. You want to keep looking?”
“Yeah, let’s keep looking,” Glen said, still looking out the window. “We have more girls missing than just her.”
“Those are strippers, Glen,” Tom snapped. “They come and go all the time. I’m telling you, they aren’t out here.”
Glen frowned, not looking from the window. “I’d still like to look.”
Tom shrugged, “Keep it in the air until Glen’s satisfied or you get low on fuel.”
“City’s payin’ for it,” Jerry reminded him.
“Yeah,” Tom nodded. “The mayor will love it.”
Jerry circled the area then moved further into the desert. “I don’t know that anyone would come this far. There’s nothing out here but sage and-.”
“There,” Glen exclaimed as he pointed. “There’s another one.”
“Where?” Tom asked.
“Straight down.”
Looking out the window Tom saw an area that had been dug up. Like the first one, it was about six feet long and two feet wide. “Christ!” He shook his head. “Let’s keep looking.”
“It’s a good place if you want to get rid of someone. You can’t get any more isolated than out here in the middle of nowhere,” Jerry said. “Hunters don’t even come out here.”
Six
Tom wiped sweat from his forehead as he stopped digging. “Who the hell was it that said you can’t sweat in the desert because it’s a dry heat?”
“People who don’t live here,” Russ answered, as he threw a shovel full of sand away from the area they were digging.
Glen swallowed as his shovel hit something that made it bounce. “I… I think I found something.”
“Let’s… Just be careful.” Tom ordered. He gently scrapped off a layer of sand with the side of his shovel uncovering a rust colored piece of cloth.
Russ looked at Tom and swallowed. “What do you think?”
“Take a look and see.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
Russ got down on his hands and knees and wiped the sand away from the piece of cloth. Recognizing it as a blouse, he brushed the sand away from a girl’s face as everyone watched, waiting. “It’s not her! It’s not Lucy Handling,” Russ announced. “Thank god, it’s not her.”
Glen looked at the dark hair and dark skinned girl lying in the grave. “That’s Chila Herendez.”
Tom motioned to the men standing around watching. “Get her out of there and put her in back of the truck.”
“You’re not gonna help?” Mitch asked from where he stood over at the side watching.
“I dug her up, you load her! Then let’s go check that other one,” Tom said and wiped his face with his handkerchief.
“It’s a different kind of sweat,” Jerry said, watching as four men knelt down beside the body. “It’s the kind that comes from nerves, not the heat.”
Tom looked at him. Hell too. It was from digging. “I was really hoping it was her,” he grumbled, throwing the shovel in back of a pickup.
“You want to find her dead?”
“I want her find her for Nancy and Garrett. I already figure she’s dead.”
Tory Stoutman looked at the body of the Herendez girl as she was lay in the back of his pickup. “You want me to take her back to town or do you -.”
Tom shook his head. “Let’s go check the other one while we’re out here. No reason to be making any more trips than you have too.” Getting in his car, he started it and flipped on the air-conditioner as Glen got in beside him.
“So you think Lucy’s going to be in the next one?” Glen asked, as Tom drove behind Stoutman’s pickup down the desert road.
“How the hell should I know?”
* * * *
Pulling up beside Stoutman’s pickup, Tom got out of the car. Taking the shovel from the back of the pickup, he threw it to Mitch. “You dig for awhile.”
Repelling the shovel, Mitch let it hit the ground. Frowning, he reached down and picked it up. “You need the exercise, Tom.”
“I got mine with the last one, your turn.”
“I don’t -.”
“Dig!” Tom ordered. He watched as Mitch, Tory and Glen began digging. As they dug along the side of the area that had been disturbed, they were caref
ul not to remove too much sand with each shovel full.
“You think it’s Lucy?” Russ asked, standing beside Tom, watching the men dig.
Tom didn’t comment.
“We got a body,” Glen announced after several minutes of digging passed.
“Be careful,” Jerry said. “Just in case it’s her.”
After most of the sand was shoveled away from the body, Tom knelt down beside the shallow grave. “Give me a hand,” he said, as he started brushing the sand away from the girl with his hands.
Glen and Tory helped him brush away the sand, uncovering the girl’s body.
“Well?” Jerry asked, as he looked out across the landscape, not looking at them. “Is it her?”
“It isn’t,” Tory answered. “It isn’t Lucy.”
Tom sighed as he sat back on his heels. Looking at the girl in the grave, he looked at Jerry, which by the look on his face, he didn’t envy him his job. “Load her up,” he ordered. “Jerry, I need you to fly these bodies over to the medical examiner at Santa Rosa.”
Jerry nodded, “It’s no problem, Tom. Glad to help. If you think we need to cover more area -.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how far out in the desert anyone would have taken them, but...” Tom looked around. “We’re a long ways from town. We’ve already covered a lot of miles.”
“How many girls are missing?” Tory asked Glen as they loaded the girl into the back of the pickup beside the Herendez girl.
“Eleven more.”
“Eleven!”
Glen nodded. “Yeah. Doesn’t look good, does it?”
* * * *
Tom pulled up in front of the police station.
Glen got out, looking across the roof of the car at Tom. “You goin’ over to the café?”
“In a few minutes,” Tom said, as he closed the car door. “I’m going to clean up a little and I have to make a couple of calls. You can go on. Tell Sandy I’ll be there shortly.”
“You’re callin’ someone about the bodies we found, aren’t ya?”
“Yeah, I’m callin’ about the bodies we found.” Walking into the police station, Tom took a bottle of water from the refrigerator. After taking a long drink, he sighed then dialed the telephone. Putting it on speaker phone, he listened as he washed his face and arms. “Shitty day’s about to get shitter,” he mumbled.
“Hello,” a woman answered.
“Diana.”
“Tom. You got the letter I sent you?”
“I got it a couple days ago,” Tom answered, as he hit the speaker button. “Kaylah’s not coming here to live with me and Sandy.”
“She’s your daughter too you know!” Diane’s voice blared out, as Tom held the receiver out from his ear.
“I don’t care if she is my daughter. You’re the one who wanted custody and child support, and you’re the one who let her screw around and get knocked up, so you can just keep supporting her.”
“She’s your daughter, and she’s had your grand -.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned,” Tom snapped, shaking his head. “She needs to give it up for adoption or -.”
“It’s her flesh and blood. She wants to keep her baby.”
“Well, if she wants to keep it, she can get a job like other people and support it, but she’s not coming here for me and Sandy to support -.”
“You’re not being fair to her, Tom.”
“Fair! She hasn’t talked to me in ten years and now she wants me to support her and that kid she’s had! What the hell’s fair about that?”
“She’s your daughter.”
“Diana, damn it! I don’t want her here!”
“She needs your support, Tom.”
“She’s nineteen! She can get a fuckin’ job!”
“Don’t you use that kind of language with me! Just because you’re a poor, damn, cop doesn’t mean you can talk to me that way.”
“You’re right. I’m a damn, poor, cop, especially after having to deal with you and your fuckin’ lawyers. Kaylah should have thought about that before she got her ass knocked up by that worthless, black -.”
“Tom! Kaylah’s your responsibility too.”
“Not anymore. What’s wrong, Diane? The child support comes to an end so you don’t want to support her and a kid?”
“She’s standing right here. She wants to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to her!” Tom put the receiver down swearing.
“Hey, dad,” a weak voiced girl came on the telephone. “Can I come live with you.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
Tom shook his head, “You’re not coming out here to live with me and Sandy. You haven’t hardly talked to me in ten years and you don’t like Sandy. I don’t want you here.”
“I’ll get along with her, I promise.”
“Kaylah, you want me to give you some advice?”
“I don’t want your advice. I want to come live with you.”
“I’m going to give you some anyway. Give that kid up for adoption and get a job.”
“I can’t. I can’t find anything around here and I’m not giving up my daughter.”
Tom shook his head as he listened to her. “You come out here, you can rent a room from Zingg, who own the strip joint and work for them, but we’re not supporting you.”
“I’m your daughter! Allison’s your grand-daughter, you have to be kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. Me and Sandy I aren’t gonna support you and that kid you’ve had. You can make it on your own like other responsible adults do.”
“But you haven’t even met Allison!”
“And I’m not going too! Look, Kayla you made the decision to keep that kid so you fuckin’ support it!”
“But she’s your -.”
“I don’t give a damn about that half… that kid you’ve had, and I don’t want to see it!”
“Mom supports my decision!”
“Then she can support you, but I’m not goin’ too.” Tom slammed the receiver down. “I can’t believe that fuckin’ bitch wanting to push her and that kid on me!” He stormed out the door. As if his day wasn’t bad enough?
* * * *
Sandy looked at the door then checked her watch. It was almost two o’clock.
“You may as well go ahead and take your break,” Mildred suggested. “Tom isn’t going to make it in today. Maybe he got a call, or something.” She looked over at a petite, blonde haired, blue eyed young woman cleaning tables. “Kelly’s really good.”
“Yeah, she is.” Sandy checked her watch again. “I’ll wait. Tom always calls me if he’s not going to make it. He’ll be in.”
“How’s it goin’ girls?” Colton asked, coming out of his office. He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door.
“All right,” Sandy answered.
“Your hubby isn’t gonna make it in today.”
Sandy frowned. “He’ll be in.”
“You makin’ good tips off these hunters?” he asked, opening a can of beer.
Sandy nodded. “They’re all right.”
“Those skinny-assed strippers over at Zingg’s had tits like yours, they’d make better tips too,” Colton said and chuckled.
Sandy didn’t look at him as she rolled her eyes. How was it, working for him was the only job in town? Feeling the necklace, she twisted the chain around her finger as she looked at Mildred, who shook her head. She noticed Kelly look at her.
“It’s a pretty necklace,” Kelly complimented.
“Thanks.” Sandy smiled weakly. “Tom gave it to me on our first anniversary.”
“Most money’s he’s ever spent on her,” Mildred stated.
“It isn’t, Mildred.”
“Really! What else has he ever given you except debt?”
Sandy shook her head. Mildred didn’t understand. No one in town understood what she and Tom had been through. r />
The small bell above the door jingled as Mitch Ihnen staggered through the door and up to the counter, sitting down. “I’ll have what he’s having,” he said, motioning toward the beer in Colton’s hand.
Mildred looked at Colton and frowned. “We don’t serve that in here.”
“Guess cold tea will have to do then,” Mitch said.
Sandy poured him a glass of tea and sat it in front of him.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like you’ve been working,” Mildred said. “I didn’t know you or Russ ever worked.”
“I’ve been out diggin’.”
“Diggin’? Diggin’ what?” Mildred asked. “I didn’t think a shovel handle knew how to fit your hand.”
“I’ve been diggin’ up dead girls.”
“Where at?” Sandy asked, as Kelly walked up.
Mildred swallowed. “Did you find Lucy?”
“How many girls?” Kelly asked.
Colton leaned against the wall, slowly drinking his beer, as he listened.
“Two,” Mitch answered. “We found two.” He took a long drink of the tea. “Where’s the sugar?”
“On the counter in front of you.” Mildred slid the sugar dispenser over to him. “Was Lucy one of them?”
“But there’s probably more,” Mitch said, pouring sugar into his tea.
“How do you know?” Sandy asked.
“All them girls that’s disappeared! There’s got to be more than two. Unless the animals dug them up.”
“Damn it, Mitch! Was Lucy one of them?” Mildred asked loudly.
Sandy looked at the door as the small bell above it jingled. Looking at her husband, in a sweaty and soiled uniform, she hurried to the door and embraced him. “Tom, you found Lucy Handling?”
“No honey, we didn’t.” Tom gently pushed her back. “I’ve been digging, I’m sweaty and I’m really dirty. You have something that’s not too cold?”
“I’ll get you something.” Sandy hurried to the kitchen.
Tom sat at a table under a ceiling fan. He looked at Colton, leaning against the wall. “Colton, you hunt all over. Have you come across anything out there that looks like a grave, or where the ground’s been dug up?”
Colton shook his head. “Not in the area I hunt. Mitch says you found them in the desert?”
Tom nodded, “Southwest of town.” He looked at the door as Glen, entered wearing a clean uniform.
“That’s all sand down that way,” Colton was saying as Sandy brought a plate and pitcher of water out of the kitchen. “Elk and ram don’t inhabit something they can’t graze on.”