know where he is, it means he may not even show up. Or if he does, his credibility is already shot because of his flaky nature. This is all good. So the faster we go to trial, the better for us.”
Hand leaned back on his boot heels and smiled.
“One other thing,” Marybeth said. “My mom is innocent.”
“Of course she is!” Hand said.
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.
“I
“We don’t have to let it,” he said, after swallowing. They had local grass-fed beef at the Burg-O-Pardner, ground lean, and they broke state law by cooking it medium rare on request. He wished he didn’t like the hamburgers so much.
“Our girls are weirded out and neglected,” she said. “April is no doubt plotting something while our attention is diverted, and Lucy is miffed how little attention she’s gotten from us about that part in the play. Joe, she’s the lead. She sings and everything. The girl is talented, but you know what she said to me this morning before she went to school?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘Female stars like to say they’re actors, not actresses. So if an older woman kills someone, is she a murderer or murderess?’ ”
Joe put down the rest of his sandwich. “She asked that?”
“Yes. This plays heavily on her mind. No doubt she’s heard things at school.”
“How is April handling it? At school, I mean. High school kids are the worst.”
Marybeth sighed. “They are. And it’s even worse in that she said some of popular kids now think she’s kind of cool having a grandmother who’s accused of murder. Can you imagine that?”
“I can,” Joe said sullenly.
“And there’s a lot going on we’re missing. I almost forgot to tell you, in fact. Eleanor Sees Everything at the library said Alisha Whiteplume didn’t show up for work last Monday and no one’s heard from her. The folks at the high school are getting worried. Apparently, she’s not at her house and her stepdaughter is still with her grandmother. And her grandmother hasn’t heard a word from her.”
Joe’s mouth got suddenly dry. He took a long drink from his iced tea. He said, “Alisha is missing?”
“It’s not like her,” Marybeth said. “You know how responsible she is.”
Joe rubbed his jaw.
“Do you think Nate knows she’s missing?” Marybeth asked, trying to act nonchalant. “I think he’d want to know, don’t you?”
He grunted.
“I know what you’re thinking, that she’s with him. But she wouldn’t leave that little girl without letting her grandmother know.”
“Has anyone called the sheriff?”
Marybeth rolled her eyes. “Eleanor said they called yesterday. She said one of McLanahan’s flunkies said Alisha hadn’t been missing long enough to do anything yet. He implied keeping track of local Indians wasn’t their first priority since they almost always show up eventually.”
“He said that?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know whether he said it outright. Either way, Eleanor was angry about it. But that doesn’t matter. If Alisha is missing, that’s a big deal.”
She let it hang there.
Joe finally broke the silence. “Honey, I’m not sure whether you’re asking me to try to find Bud, clear your mother, try to find Alisha, call Nate, go to the school play, lecture April, or do everything at once. I’m only one guy, and I have a job to do on the side.”
Her eyes narrowed and shut him down. He was immediately sorry he’d let his frustration boil to the surface. He reached out and squeezed her hand. The one without the fork in it.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I think if we traded minds for an hour there’d be so much going on in yours I’d drive off a cliff because I couldn’t take all the voices. You, however, would probably be able to relax because it’s so quiet and not much is going on except maybe you’d want to take a little nap.”
She simply stared at him for a moment before she burst out laughing.
“That’s what I wanted to see,” he said, and chanced a smile back.
