A Bad Day for Sorry

that matter—stopped for a burger or a bathroom break or to pick up a pack of diapers, there would be a lot of women on the lookout, women whose lives had taught them to be observant and resourceful. It wasn’t an AMBER Alert, but it was a start.

She also called a few people who had access to official-type information, the type of information that wasn’t generally available to the average citizen.

Between calls, Stella showed Chrissy how to cut the fabric using a ruler and rotary cutter. The rotary cutter looked like a pink-handled pizza wheel, but its blade was razor sharp and easily sliced through several layers of fabric at a time. When the patches were cut, Stella taught Chrissy to join them into blocks, lining up seams and trimming the thread tails, then pressing the finished blocks at the ironing board. When Chrissy held up her first nine-patch, a homely, uneven affair of blue and brown fabric, she smiled faintly.

“I made that,” she said. “Damn!”

Stella rested a hand on Chrissy’s shoulder. “Tell you what,” she said. “Sewing’s good therapy. There were plenty of times when I didn’t feel much like dealing with my life. You know? And I’d sit there at my machine— probably sewed a million miles in seams, just thinking about things.”

Chrissy looked doubtful. “This is okay and all, but I’d still rather be doing something,” she said. “Not just sittin’.”

Stella thought how Chrissy had looked just yesterday, puddled in the chair in her living room, eating her way through her worries. She was amazed at the girl’s transformation. She’d got some fight back in her. Telling off the dreadful sisters seemed to be just what she needed.

Chrissy reminded Stella of herself, in a way, on the day when she’d finally had enough of Ollie’s abuse and made the transformation from passive victim to hell-for-leather avenger.

Nobody had told her, that day, to sit down and relax. Nobody had offered to help her set things right, either. Maybe it was a mistake to try to settle Chrissy down, to keep a lid on her newfound anger… but at the same time, Stella couldn’t figure out any way to include her without putting her into danger. And that was something she simply wasn’t willing to do.

She wasn’t going to let another woman get hurt—or killed—on her watch. She had to do the job alone.

“I hear you,” she said, not meeting Chrissy’s gaze. “But really, there’s not a lot we can do today. Until we start hearing back from these folks, we just got to be patient.”

“Who all’d you call, anyway?”

“Oh… just friends, here and there.”

“Stella.” There was reproof in Chrissy’s voice. “I know you think I couldn’t hear you fishin’ around for stuff you ain’t supposed to know, but I am sittin right here not ten feet from you. And I got young hearing. Now, who was it?”

“Well… the DMV, for one,” Stella said, giving in. She supposed there was no harm in letting Chrissy in on some of her strategy. “I wrote down some plate numbers out at Benning’s. I want to see if they’re all registered to him direct.”

“They just gonna tell you that?” Chrissy asked.

“Well, not exactly. But I got a friend…”

“Uh-huh.” From her expression, Stella could tell she’d made the leap.

“Friends that owe me favors, actually.”

“That’s good with me,” Chrissy said. “Who else?”

“Well, I got some law enforcement… contacts, I guess you’d call ’em, up in Kansas City. Thought I’d see if they have any ideas about what kind of… side business Benning and his friends might be running down here.”

She didn’t like the way Chrissy’s eyes narrowed; the girl’s wheels were spinning. Stella didn’t want to mention the mob or organized crime. She saw no point in scaring her.

Chrissy lowered her pinned patches of fabric to the table. “And what kind of business are they running, Stella?”

Stella bit her lip. “Well, I don’t know. If I knew, I wouldn’t be trying to find out, now would I?”

After a few more seconds of frank and suspicious gazing, Chrissy picked up the quilt block again and went back to work.

“But you’re going to tell me soon’s you learn something, right?” she said.

“Mmm-hmm,” Stella said, feeling worse than she usually did about lying.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot of success with the rest of her calls. Between the customers who straggled in, helping Chrissy with the sewing, and not finding people at their desks or answering their cell phones, Stella hadn’t made much progress at all when closing time rolled around.

She and Chrissy stopped by the FreshWay to pick up dinner fixings. When they got home, Todd was doing skateboard tricks across the street in old Rolf Bayer’s driveway. Stella was surprised, since Bayer had always been hostile to everyone in the neighborhood, and seemed to reserve a special hatred for kids. He’d yelled at Noelle years ago for making chalk drawings on the sidewalk in front of his house.

“Hey,” she called, walking into the street as Chrissy took the groceries into the house. “You tryin’ to get Bayer to call the cops on you?”

Todd shot out into the street, leaping over the curb and landing hard, then skidded to a stop next to her. As usual, he hadn’t bothered to tie his shoes; it was a wonder that the puffy, enormous things stayed on his feet.

“He told my mom he was going to sic the city on us!” he said in a tone of outrage. “Called us trash. So I told him I was gonna skate on his driveway until I broke something and then we’d sue his ass to hell.”

Stella figured she knew what had Bayer’s dander up—the Groffes’ lawn had been neither watered nor cut in a long time, and the girls usually left their Big Wheels and Cozy Coupes in the front yard.

“Well, lemme ask you something,” she said. “You ever thought about cutting that grass of yours?”

“Mower’s busted,” Todd muttered, toeing the ground.

“Ah,” Stella said. Poor Sherilee. In her line of business, Stella occasionally forgot that getting rid of a bad man was only the first step to getting one’s life back. And with Sherilee’s schedule, she could see how lawn care might have fallen down on the priority list. “Well, look here, mine’s working fine. You go and get it out of the garage. It’s got gas in it. Put the clippings in the garden bin, okay? I don’t want to see them left out on the lawn.”

“Aw, Stella—”

“Shut up, punk, and listen. When you’re done with that, come on back here and I’ll loan you some sprinklers. Hoses if you need ’em, too. That lawn is officially your job, now, hear?”

Todd crossed his arms and glowered at her. “Why the fuck would I want to do any of that?”

It had been a long day, and Stella’s patience was stretched thin. Without thinking she reached out for the collar of Todd’s grimy T-shirt and twisted until she was practically choking him.

“Look here,” she said. “You want to grow up like the dirtbag who walked out on your mom, or you want to maybe be someone she can be halfway proud of? Huh?”

It wasn’t until Todd made a strained gasping sound that Stella realized she might be squeezing a little too hard, and relaxed her grip. Todd rubbed at his throat and glared at her.

“Besides,” she said, softening, “there’s twenty bucks in it for you.”

“Mom won’t let me take no money,” Todd muttered.

“Well, that’s right. She shouldn’t. But I’m going to give it to you anyway. That can be our secret.”

Todd stared at her a moment longer. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll do it for ten,” he said, and as he trudged into her garage to get the mower, skateboard tucked under his arm, Stella felt an odd little tug at her heart.

Maybe there was a chance for the kid.

Inside, she put a pot of Rice-A-Roni on and tossed some pork chops with bread crumbs and Lipton French onion soup mix, drizzled them with butter, and stuck them in the oven. Chrissy was slicing veggies for a salad and setting the table, so Stella took her cell phone out to the screen porch at the back of the house and dialed Noelle’s number.

“Hi. You’ve reached Noelle! Gerald and I aren’t here right now…”

Stella’s throat tightened at the sound of her daughter’s voice. She called a few times a week, always when she knew Noelle would be at work, which wasn’t hard to do, because Noelle worked long hours at the beauty shop.

This Gerald thing on the machine was new. But it wasn’t a surprise.

Stella knew a fair amount about Gerald already. An old client who lived in Coffey e-mailed Stella to let her