Dead Mann Walking

is nice to them.

She gave him a slow smile. “I’m sorry, honey, but I had to use the knife. If I left any rot in there, it’d keep growing, infect you. You could lose a lot of muscle.”

“And those boyish good looks,” I added. But it was like I wasn’t even in the room.

He kept staring at Misty, scrutinizing her as she made her last few stitches. I watched him watch her. Finally he turned his head nearly sideways and asked, “And then I’d die?”

Misty looked up at him. He waited to hear from her, but she didn’t know how to put it. “Hess, you want to answer that?”

I shook my head. “I think you should. Probably doesn’t matter what words you use. Maybe he’s remembering puberty.”

“Hess!”

“Well . . . maybe he’s remembering something.”

“Fine. No, Ashby, it won’t kill you, but it can eat away at your flesh, make you mostly bone. You don’t want that, do you?”

Her motherly tone made me wonder if she had a kid of her own out there. Misty wasn’t much for talking about her past, and I wasn’t much for asking.

He shook his head. “No, I don’t want that.”

She made a few more stitches and said, “There, all done.”

I let go. He twisted his arm, looked at the line of plastic thread, and grinned. “All done, heh-heh. Do I look okay?”

“Of course you do,” Misty said.

I nodded. “Like you’re all set for your junior prom.”

Halloween prom, maybe.

His eyes followed her movements as she stretched her arms and back, then returned the needle and thread to the little kit. I almost enjoyed watching her myself.

“Misty, you’re a real Frankenstein Nightingale. And I mean that in the nicest way.”

I pulled one of the envelopes out of the desk drawer and pulled out a few more bills.

“Wish you’d deposit that,” Misty said, screwing the cap back on the bleach bottle. “I don’t like having it around.”

“You and me both.”

“You should deposit it,” Ashby said.

“That’s right, Ashby,” Misty said. “He should. You tell him.”

She took the ashtray, dumped the contents in the small toilet off my office, and flushed. Ashby was riveted, like he was watching his favorite movie.

“You got a next move, Detective?” she asked.

I shoved the envelopes back in the drawer. “I was afraid you’d ask that. I still don’t know what happened to Turgeon. Oh. Wait a minute. Maybe I do.”

“What do you mean? You think he survived?”

With a stubby thumb and forefinger, I gingerly took out the bloody cell phone. “No.”

“Oh, my God, Hess, is that . . . ?”

I nodded. “Evidence. And my pocket isn’t exactly a sterile environment. We got a plastic bag around here somewhere?”

Exasperated, she said, “Sure, why don’t I just pull one out of my butt?”

“Probably be cleaner than my pocket.”

“Heh-heh. Heh-heh.”

She shook her head at the kid. It was me she was annoyed with, but Ashby took it personally. Surprising us yet again, he looked sheepishly at Misty and said, “Sorry, can’t help it.”

“Oh, that’s okay, honey. I know it’s not your fault,” she said. She stuck a thumb in my direction. “Him, though, I know he can keep his trap shut when he wants. I’ve seen it.”

“Hah,” he said. Just like that, a real laugh. Hah.

At first I thought of Misty only as a good way to keep him steady, but this was getting interesting. I pointed to the door. “Misty, a word in the reception area?”

The “reception area” was a gray piece of work; the only bits of color were what peeked out behind the peeling paint and looked sticky. It doubled as a storage space and Misty’s bedroom. She sat on the edge of her cot and crossed her legs. As I sat next to her, some vague half memory told me I should be looking at them. It was just a twinge, and it left as soon as it came, but it made me realize Misty had been looking healthier lately.

I whispered, “I want you to try to ask him about last night. Whatever happened, he was there. When I talked to him about it, he kept flashing back to his arrest, but you . . .”

“You really think I can focus him?”

“Looks that way so far,” I said. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

She nodded and stood. I hesitated, but then I figured, Why not? “It probably wouldn’t hurt if you sat down close and crossed your legs.”

“Hess!” she said. She slapped me playfully on the shoulder, then paused and frowned. “Really?”

I shrugged. “Worth a shot. If you don’t remind him of his mother, maybe you remind him of some teacher he wanted to screw.”

She rolled her eyes and went back in. I settled back and leaned my head against the wall. The rot smell wasn’t so strong here, and I caught a whiff of the cheap perfume she used, buys it by the quart. Big heart, Misty. Works with the bleach so much, her hands are always dried out. I keep telling her to use those big yellow gloves, but she never listens.

I heard her talking, softly, Ashby doing the nervous laugh, but I couldn’t make out any words. I put my ear against the plaster. Still no go. With no confession forthcoming from the Boyles, Turgeon was my only other link. Even if he was dead, it’d be a lot tougher to hide a liveblood body. His boss, at least, would be missing him. That was something I could follow up on.

After a while, there was more “heh-heh” than not. When she opened the door I could hear Ashby running like a lawn mower—“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”

“Anything?”

“I think so. For some reason, they went back out of town. A black car cut them off and two men attacked them, one with a lot of muscle and a scar on his forehead, the other older, African-American, I think, with short white hair. They forced them to drive off the road, out into the desert. One of them pulled out a set of head clippers. Ashby says they tried to hold Frank down, but he put up enough of a fight to kick open the door and push Ashby out. Ashby thinks they chased him, but he wasn’t sure.”

I blew some dry air through pursed lips, but still couldn’t whistle. “Maybe you should be the detective.”

She sat down and rubbed her temples. “No, thanks. I don’t have the stomach.”

“I could give you mine.”

“Cute.”

I tried to picture the scene. “The goons were probably hired guns. If they were local, the descriptions might ring a bell with Jonesey. Anything about Turgeon?”

She shook her head. “Only that he and Frank had been talking about a man named Kendrick.”

“Frank Boyle’s husband. It might mean something, or maybe Turgeon was just being nosy again.”

“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”

Misty shrugged. “Anyway, that’s when he started making that sound over and over. Maybe if I had nicer legs.”

“Your legs are fine. You could stand to eat more. But the name shouldn’t upset the kid. Kendrick wasn’t Ashby’s dad.”

“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.” It was coming out nonstop now, like a machine gun.

“Maybe it upset Frank and that upset Ashby?”

“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”

It made sense, but it felt like it should make more sense, like I’d understand if I could only focus. The laugh