“Was she carrying a handbag that day, can you recall?” he asked next.
Again Dawn gave the question thought before she answered. “I’m sure she was. I think … yes, she put it down beside her. On the far side of her. I remember seeing the handle of it visible beside her thigh.”
“The handle. Could you describe the bag for me?” There was no handbag at the cabin. Longarm was certain of that.
“It’s an old bag. Nancy never said, but I think maybe it was her mama’s bag or somebody special to her like that. She was real fond of it. I remember a couple weeks ago we were shopping. We’re allowed to shop on Wednesday afternoons, you see. The decent women don’t come into the shops on Wednesdays between three and five. They stay home cooking and getting ready for prayer meetings or quilting bees or whatever, and us whores are allowed to conduct our business then when we won’t contaminate any of the fine ladies or be seen by them. Nancy and me were shopping, and she bought herself some new shoes. Her old ones were falling to pieces. She’d tried sewing them with twine I don’t know how many times, but they’d gotten too bad even for her to put up with. Anyhow, she bought herself some new shoes—God, Nancy was so tight with a penny you’d think she intended to breed them or something—and I saw this pretty little handbag that would’ve looked so awful nice with those shoes, and I told her she ought to get that too, but she wouldn’t. She said her old bag had done for many and many a year, and she expected it would keep right on doing. And of course Nancy herself wasn’t old enough to’ve carried a handbag for years, so it pretty much had to have had sentimental value because of somebody else.”
“That sounds right,” Longarm agreed. “Do you remember what it looked like?”
“Of course. It had a pair of curved wicker handles and was about this big”—she indicated with her hands —“pretty good-sized really, and it was made out of a thick tapestry material, mostly black with a green and yellow and white pattern embroidered all over. The pattern was birds in the middle, surrounded by leaves and flowers.”
Longarm didn’t bother to ask if Dawn was sure. He was positive that she was.
But he damn sure hadn’t seen any bag of that nature at Darby Travis’s place.
“Do you know if Nancy intended to meet anyone that morning?” he asked.
“Who would a whore go off to meet?”
“A customer maybe?” Longarm suggested.
“Not Nancy. She’d had her belly full—in more ways than one—when it came to men. She’d fuck one for pay, but she hadn’t any more interest in men than she did in cows. Either one was just something you might see alongside the road.”
“You’re sure that-“
“Look, mister, I’m being honest with you, okay? I mean, I really want you to find whoever it was did that to Nancy. She was a sweet girl. But I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that she didn’t go off to see no man that morning. And she didn’t need to go anywhere if she wanted to see a woman. You know what I’m telling you? Norma, she’s as bad as the men who run most houses. A girl always has to sleep with the boss free for nothing. Over across town it’s Norma that the girls have to sleep with. And Nancy, she took to that real well. I mean, I suppose it isn’t speaking ill of the dead if it’s the simple truth, is it?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, the truth is that Nancy would fuck a man for business, but for fun she wanted to be with a woman. She asked me more than once. But that isn’t what I like. You know? I mean, I’ve done it. I had to when I worked for Norma, just like all the other girls there. But it was something I did to get it over with and get on with other things. Nancy liked it. So if she was going to take a lover, mister, it wouldn’t have been some client. It would have been one of the other girls.”
“I see. Is, uh, there anything else you can think of that I should know?”
Dawn shook her head.
“If you think of anything, I’m staying at the Jennison Arms. You’ve already been a big help, and I thank you.” He stood.
Dawn reached for his hand and tugged him closer to her.
“Yes?” Before he knew what she was up to, she had the buttons of his fly unfastened and the limp sausage of his cock warm and wet inside her mouth.
“I didn’t mean …” But Dawn reached up to place a finger over his lips to hush him. She shook her head no. Which felt almighty good under the circumstances. And of a sudden he was no longer limp.
He hadn’t, he really and truly hadn’t meant for anything remotely like this to happen. But now that it was …
“I can’t …”
But that was a lie. The truth was that he damn sure could.
Chapter 21
Longarm lit another cheroot and made his way downstairs to the bar. He was more than a little confused. After all, the girl had told him point-blank that, to her and to other girls like her, men were just a business proposition. Then she’d gone and done what she’d done. And had acted as if she enjoyed it. As if she was the one wanting it. He couldn’t really understand that.
Unless she wanted something else. But if that was the case … what the hell was it? Not money. The boss had told her anything Longarm wanted was to be on the house, and sure enough, Dawn hadn’t asked for a cent.
So what was it that she wanted from him?
He shook his head. Either he would find out eventually, in which case he could deal with it then, or perhaps he never would know. In which case it might damn well drive him crazy trying to figure it out.
Either way, though, it would keep for the time being.
