Chapter 9
As long as I live, I will never forget the look on my mother’s face when I walked into the into the prisoner’s area of the Pinellas County Jail. She was sitting in a cell with a half dozen hookers, and a small assortment of other poor souls down on their luck. Katt Dodd was sitting in the middle of them, talking to a particularly young looking dark-haired lady who looked scared to death. With her big round eyes and her trembling bottom lip, the girl looked all of fifteen years old. She wasn’t of course. She had to be at least eighteen to be in here (or at least claiming to be eighteen). But right then, she also had to be mothered, and Katt Dodd was doing her damndest to fit that bill.
Why didn’t that surprise me?
But still, when Mother looked up to see me looking at her through the bars of the cell — a smug and satisfied Deputy NO FUCKING NUTS smirking beside me, I know that my mother’s tears were not that far away from falling themselves. Despite the stiff upper lip, she looked so helpless. She looked so fragile. Goddamn it, Katt Dodd looked old to me. And I didn’t like this one damn bit.
“Well, I bet this is one place you never thought you’d find your mother, huh, Dix?” her voice quavered.
“Certainly isn’t one I’ll find you in for long. Not if I have any say in the matter.”
And oh, fuck, you’d better believe I’d have my say in the matter.
Mother nodded, firmly. One blink of those dark lashes and the tears would be falling. Both hers and mine.
“Well, this is my new friend Bobbie-Sue.” Mother said quickly. She squeezed the hand of the girl on the bench beside her. “We’re going to keep each other company in here tonight.”
“What do you mean ‘tonight’?”
Deputy Almond was only too happy to answer that question for me.
There would be no bail hearing until the morning, he informed me. Mother had refused to talk to police tonight, wouldn’t until she’d spoken to me and spoken to a lawyer.
Smart woman. And I told her. I made her promise to stick to her guns on that, no matter what. She would.
Of course No Nuts had taken this as an indication of her guilt. He’d so much as told my mother so, but Dodd women don’t get intimidated. Nevertheless, it all added up to my mother having to spend the night in jail.
That sent fear up my spine, I’ll tell you. I could handle myself with the toughest of crowds. But my 71-year-old mother? I don’t know when the shift takes places, but somehow that protective mother-daughter instinct does a complete turnaround in the adult years.
I was half tempted to kick Deputy Almond right in the almonds (they had to be that small) right then and there. Surely a good foot to balls kick would earn me a night in jail and I could watch out for my mother. And it would be sooooo rewarding..
“Do it, do it!” urged a little voice.
Mine.
My foot was just itching to fly — heel coming off the floor, toes feeling that special pre-kick tingle that I loved so much….
Then two other officers walked down the darkened hallway. One of them was even clanging/rattling her baton on the bars as she came along. God, I thought they only did that in the movies. They should only do that in the movies … it’s annoying as hell.
Nevertheless, I was pleased when the two officers stopped in front of Mother’s cell.
“You wanted to see us, Deputy?” the officer tagged N. Vega said.
Her partner grunted the same question.
“You two are posted here tonight. Right here. Both of you.” He pointed at my mother. “See that one there — the old one? She’s under arrest for theft,” he said, loud enough so that everyone could hear — me, Mother’s cell mates, and especially Mother herself. “And she’s a definite person of interest in the disappearance of one Frankie Morrell.
“Frankie?” One of the prostitutes spoke up. She’d been leaning her blue-haired self up against the wall with the greatest disinterest up until this point. “Frankie Morrell? I didn’t know he was missing?” She was a little older than most working girls. A little bit more make up around the eyes. She wore a short red skirt, black halter top, and heels that under other circumstances (more pleasant ones I assure you) could be used as lethal weapons.
I made a mental note to get a pair just like them.
Mother turned around and spoke to her. “You … you know Frankie?”
“Tall guy — like about six foot two? Grey haired swept back from his forehead? Glasses that always slipped down on his nose?” Blue Hair answered. “Yeah, I know Frankie.”
“When did you see him last?” Noel and I both asked at the same time.
She teetered left, teetered right. “Can’t remember. Maybe it isn’t even the same guy.”
Mother turned back around. She didn’t look up at me. It was the same guy I could see it in the blush of Blue Hair’s cheeks. I could see it in my mother’s eyes
This was one more kick in the ass my mother did not need.
Okay, so now there was a tie for that coveted place on the top of my shit list.
“So you want us here all night, Deputy?” the second officer, J. North asked. “Right here or down the hall?”
“Right in front of the doors, Officer North.” He looked at both of them. “This woman is an escape artist. She can’t be left alone for a minute. Can’t be trusted. Keep an eye on her. And if she gets out of here, I will hold both of you personally responsible. Do I make myself clear?”
He did. To everyone.
Of course, he thought he was pissing me off. Well, I guess that was a given. But I was pleased nonetheless that Mother would be ‘watched’ all night long. Just in case something went wrong. Guess I wouldn’t be kicking Almond in the nuts after all. Which would have ruined the shoes.
And realistically as much as I would have enjoyed a good nut-kicking, I could do mother more good outside of jail than inside. Could and would.
Like get bail money ready.
I was going to post bail if it cost me every last dime I had and every last favor I could call in. I hadn’t called Peaches Marie yet. There wasn’t a hell of a lot she and her girlfriend could do at the present time while backpacking through Europe. Last email was from somewhere around Glasgow. But if I had to, I’d email Peaches to get money from her.
Goddamn it! I’d do whatever it took.
~*~
I’d called Dylan on my cell phone just as I’d arrived at the station, filling him in on what had transpired. He’d listened to everything (and yes, maybe a little bit too silently when I told him I’d been out on a strictly-business meeting with Almond at the fancy French restaurant). I asked Dylan to find a lawyer. The best in criminal law in Pinellas County. Hell, in all of Florida.
As I walked back out to the unmarked police car that would be driving me back to the Wildoh, Dylan called me with a name. I saw the officer shift when I repeated that name. I repeated it twice more, just to be sure, and saw the tightening of the hands on the steering wheel.
Yes, apparently the name Cotton Carson was a familiar one to the police. And not a well-received one. Good.
