'Yes, but I questioned him closely.'
'Lot of the girls are lesbians,' she said.
'What's love got to do with it,' I said.
'Exactly,' she said.
The yellow cat turned his head back toward the dark lawn, then silently disappeared off the railing. There was a scurrying in the bushes and a small squeak and then silence. I waited some more.
'Sapp's a good man,' Polly said.
'Seems so to me,' I said.
'You was smarter,' Polly said, 'maybe you'd ask me about Stonie Clive.'
'Cord Wyatt's wife?'
'Yes.'
'Tell me about her,' I said.
'She worked for me for a while.'
'When?'
'Two years ago.'
'You know who she was?'
'Not at the time.'
'How'd you recruit her?'
'She came to me. Said she'd heard about me. She said she had always wanted to do this kind of work and could I take her on? She was a nice-looking girl. Upperclass. I figured she'd do well.'
'So she actually worked.'
'Yes. But here's the cool part. I service a truck stop on the Interstate, up by Crawfordville. Normally I send the worst girls up there. Mostly it's head in the cab of some ten-wheeler at twenty bucks a throw. Stonie wanted that.'
'BJ's at a truck stop?' I said.
'If you don't waste a lot of time talking,' Polly said, 'you can make a pretty good night's pay.'
'Why would she need money?' I said.
A little light spilled out onto the veranda through the screen door. It was enough so that I could see her shrug.
'She's not still with you?' I said.
'No. Left about six, eight months ago.'
'With no notice?'
Polly almost smiled.
'Nope, just stopped showing up. Lot of girls do that.'
'How'd you find out who she was?'
'Saw her picture in the paper, some big racetrack thing.'
'You're sure it was Stonie?'
'I know my girls,' Polly said.
'She ever say why she wanted to do this?'
'Nope.'
'You have any theories?' I said.
She rocked some more.
'Most of the girls it's simple. They got no education. They got no skills. They need money. So they do this. Some girls do it because they get something out of exploiting men.'
'The men are often thought to be exploiting them,' I said.
'Uh-huh.'
I could tell that Polly had her own position on exploitation.
'Some girls just like it,' she said.
'Truck stops at twenty bucks a… pop?'
'Not usually. But everybody's different.'
'You think Stonie liked it?'
'No.'
'It wasn't the money,' I said.
