A Bad Day for Sorry

know when Gerald and Noelle started keeping company. Within two weeks of their first date, Stella had his priors memorized. Could draw his family chart from memory, the whole unremarkable clan over in Arkansas. Knew the details of the warrant he was avoiding across the state line, for putting his old fiancee in the hospital.

Stella still didn’t understand what it was that made a girl who grew up in a house filled with anger and violence seek out the same. Even if Ollie never smacked Noelle, she was barely six the first time she saw him punch her mother—and Ollie doled out a steady stream of verbal abuse to both of them. Why hadn’t Noelle arrived at adulthood, looked around, and said to herself, “Oh goody, look at all these perfectly nice, ordinary men—they’re not one bit like Dad”?

But Gerald wasn’t the first man her daughter had dated who treated her badly.

He was the second.

Unfortunately, Stella had dealt with the first one so decisively that he lived in Alaska now, not daring to show his face in the continental U.S. Stella didn’t regret it—not even when Noelle called her up sobbing and cursing and promising never to speak to her again for the rest of her life.

No, she only began to regret it when Noelle went out and found herself someone worse.

Stella dialed her daughter’s number again and listened to Noelle’s voice, that sweet voice that had called her “mama,” had shrieked with laughter during tickle fights, had sung in every concert the Prosper High School chorus put on.

“Oh, sugar, why do you want to do this to yourself?” Stella whispered, then hung up when the phone beeped.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket and rocked back and forth on the glider. She was keeping a close watch. If things got to where she needed to intercede with Gerald, she would. But she’d learned a lesson, and the fact that it broke her heart didn’t make it any less important that she stay a little further out of her daughter’s life than she wanted.

Next time, there was nothing to stop Noelle from moving even further away. And though Stella doubted there was anyone better at finding people who wanted not to be found, she was terrified of pushing Noelle further out of her life than she already was.

After the dinner was done and the dishes washed, Chrissy settled in to watch Talladega Nights on pay-per-view, and Stella went to check her e-mail. She planned to make an early night of it. Tomorrow, when she had a little more information, she’d put together a plan. Head up to Kansas City, if that’s what it took.

When the phone rang she picked it up right away. No sense taking Chrissy away from her movie. Lots of folks used TV as an electronic babysitter for their kids; Stella was finding it convenient for keeping Chrissy’s mind off trying to get involved in the case.

“Hello?”

“You lookin’ for Roy Dean,” a voice said on the other end. A weird voice, tinny and deep, as if its owner was speaking through layers of Reynolds Wrap.

“Might be,” Stella said slowly, trying to place the voice and having no luck.

“I got some information could help you find him.”

“Is that right? What sort of information?”

There was a pause, and Stella could hear breathing.

“I don’t want to say, over the phone.”

“Whyever the hell not?”

“Line might not be secure.”

Stella sighed heavily. “What, you think the FBI came in while I was at work and bugged my place? Wait—fine, fine, whatever. You want to meet somewhere?”

“Yeah. And I was thinkin’ you could make it worth my trouble. You know.”

Stella was mystified: could it be a friend of Roy Dean’s? Someone he’d blabbed to at a bar? One of Benning’s employees? Benning himself?

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, trying to sound puzzled.

“A hundred ought to do it.”

“A hundred?”

“That’s what I said.”

“That’s—oh, whatever, fine. Where?”

“Bench on the southeast corner of the pond next to the county golf course. Be there in an hour.”

Stella could picture the muddy little pond, a ball-catcher at the bottom of a hill. She didn’t remember a bench, but the county was messing around with the community park and golf course these days, ripping out the landscaping they’d installed in the sixties and seventies and updating it. Bright tubular plastic equipment replaced the swings she’d pushed Noelle in. A mulched plot of azalea bushes grew near the park entrance where there had been an overgrown bank of arborvitae. Worst of all, “exercise stations” had sprouted along the brick walk that used to be a simple muddy track around the pond.

“I’ll find it,” Stella grumbled, hanging up.

She changed into some stretchy black yoga pants and fastened on her holster, a quick-draw abdomen model made of black nylon with Velcro in the back, and tucked the Raven into it. She shrugged on a tank top and slipped a light jacket over it. It was too hot by half to be dressing like that, but Stella didn’t intend to meet up with unknown would-be conspirators without some sort of insurance hidden on her.

As she was corralling her hair into a big plastic barrette, the phone in her bedroom rang. She picked it up, pretending not to notice the gosh-wonder-if-it-could-be-Goat thrill that zipped around her insides.

“Hello?”

There was only the sound of breathing—rather labored breathing—before a young woman’s voice finally said, “Is this Chrissy? Or the other one?”

“Uh, this is Stella Hardesty. Who’s this?” “It don’t matter who I am. Kin I please speak with Chrissy?” Stella considered. It wasn’t likely to be one of the other Lardner girls—presumably they knew their sister’s voice. Ditto any close friends. Which meant that a stranger was calling for her client. A stranger who somehow knew that Chrissy was staying at Stella’s place.

“Chrissy’s occupied at the moment,” Stella said briskly. “May I take a message?”

A bit more silence, then, “How about if I wait? Is she in the bathroom or something?”

“Actually, I’m taking all of Ms. Lardner’s messages at the moment. Can you tell me the nature of your call, please?”

“It’s—I’m—see here, I need to talk to Roy Dean.”

That caught Stella by surprise, but she answered carefully: “Roy Dean isn’t here, I’m afraid.”

“Well, y’all gonna be seein’ him soon?”

“We… may be, yes,” Stella said, thinking fast. Whoever the mystery caller was, she clearly didn’t know Roy Dean had disappeared. It was possible she might unwittingly spill information that would lead to him.

“Well, look. I need him to, to come over and get this, uh, this thing that he left here at my place.”

Stella’s heart sped up. The way the girl said thing… it was as if she had a secret to keep. “What sort of thing are you talking about?” she asked carefully.

Another pause. This gal required a fair amount of thinking time, Stella decided. “Something of his I don’t want around here no more, that’s what kind of thing. Look here, I didn’t know he was married, not when we first hooked up, okay?”

“Um… okay, sure. Can you at least tell me when he dropped the thing off?”

“A few days ago. But look. He said he’d be back for it and he ain’t been. I can’t keep it around here, you know? I don’t want to be responsible.”

Tucker—it had to be Tucker. Roy Dean had dropped the baby off with this girl—his girlfriend, from the sounds of it—maybe even the one he’d been pestering at the speedway. And then, for whatever reasons—reasons having to do with Benning and the Kansas City mafia, maybe, or more likely something a lot more simple, like he got drunk or high or otherwise distracted—he hadn’t been back for the boy.

“Look here,” Stella said in as kind a voice as she could muster. “Is this thing… being well looked after?”

“Huh? Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Look, tell Roy Dean to come get it tomorrow at noon. I’ll come home on my lunch