“Might be Lucas Carr,” John said. “He’s done some stick work for M. C. from time to time.”
I didn’t have to ask what stick work was. “Have you ever heard any rumors about Grinny Creigh and children in the county?” I asked him.
“Other than she cooks ’em and eats ’em?” he asked.
“Yeah, besides that. Something maybe worse.”
He didn’t say anything for a long minute, just kept puffing on his cigarette. It looked like a white toothpick in his massive paw.
“We did a road scrape once,” he said finally. “You know, one’a them real messy MVAs? Old boy had drove himself into a tree on a bad curve. His bottom half was puddled up a coupl’a feet from his top half. The top half was still alive, talkin’, like nothin’ had happened.”
“Adrenaline’s amazing stuff,” I said.
“Mm-hmm,” he agreed. “So’re seat belts. Boy couldn’t see he’d done been cut right in half. He was goin’ on, mile-a-minnit, sayin’ he had to do surgery, that he was a doc, and he was late. He didn’t look like no doc, more like one’a them ay-rabs. Wasn’t no way we could move’m or help’m, so we let him talk, just kinda waitin’ for him to bleed down. Couldn’t’ve got’m out without a backhoe, you know what I mean? I asked him where he was goin’ in such a damn hurry.”
“And?”
“Said he had to git to the county hospital here in Marionburg. Kept jabberin’ on about how late he was. Other boy with me, he asked’m who was he cuttin’ on. Said he had to do surgery on a kid. By now, he was nose down and goin’ fast. Other boy asked him, what kid. Said one’a them kids over to Miz Creigh’s place.” John glanced up at me to see if I’d heard the important bit.
“Kids? As in plural?”
He nodded. “Kids. At Grinny Creigh’s place.” He ruminated on that notion for a moment before continuing. “Now, there ain’t been no kids to go anywhere near that Grinny Creigh’s place for some time, not after hearin’ the old folks around Robbins County talk about her boilin’ babies by moonlight an’ all. Anyway, M. C. shows up. Wasn’t unusual-he always comes out when we get a bad MVA.”
He took a final drag on the hapless cigarette and pitched it. “You know what?” he continued. “I b’lieve he knew that fella. M. C. got there just about the time this so-called doctor crossed Jordan. M. C., he tells us to go back on patrol, he’s takin’ over the scene. Called some other deputies in, called the funeral home over here in Marionburg. Last we heard of it.”
“When was this?”
“Three years back,” he said. “If there’s any paperwork, M. C.’s got it in them private files of his.”
“Fatality on the highway, the state cops do the investigation,” I pointed out. “The state police reconstruction team comes in. They close the road, make a big deal.”
“Not if they don’t hear nothin’ about it,” he said calmly.
I leaned back on the left front fender of the cruiser and thought about this little story. One among many about Robbins County.
Stories. Unfortunately, that was about all we had. Stories and flashes of mortal violence in the night that seemed to evaporate in the cold light of day. What in the hell would a foreign doctor be doing up here? I’d seen one last night, but no locals would want an Asian or any other kind of foreigner working on them-they’d call in a woods healer first. But kids, plural, at Grinny’s place? This would interest Carrie, along with what I’d overheard, a lot. I told him that Sam King would want to talk to them both.
Bigger John was watching two teenaged boys lounging around an expensive German car, trying to pretend they weren’t checking out something interesting inside. John turned on the cruiser’s headlights and caught them square. They put their hands in front of their faces, moved away from the car, and then sauntered back toward the main lodge as if nothing had happened. I heard the radio crackle into life inside the cruiser. John bent forward to listen and then grunted.
“Gotta go back in,” he said. “You okay here for a little while?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’ve got my buddies in the cabin. And Nathan Creigh’s ten-gauge.”
“How’d you get ahold of that?” he asked. I told him, leaving out the part about Rue Creigh.
“Hope you whaled on him real good,” he said. “ ‘Cause that old boy won’t rest till he gets it back. And you with it.”
“I’ll be happy to face him again if he’s really interested,” I said.
“Not his style,” he said. “Think big-caliber ball, Reb rifle.”
After he left I walked across the parking lot and up to the main lodge. I’d left the shepherds in the cabin, along with the ten-gauge. I might get away with carrying a handgun into the hotel, but a shotgun would definitely make the waitstaff nervous. For that matter, the remaining shells were now thoroughly soaked and probably useless.
The lodge had a nicely appointed cocktail lounge. I limped in and ordered a single malt and a hamburger, in that order, and tried not to think about long guns. It was ten thirty, and I was disappointed at not being able to go along on the ride to recover Carrie Harper Santangelo. Special Agent King was right, of course, but I was also ashamed of having just left her there. The hamburger came; if the bartender thought it was strange to be washing down this culinary extravaganza with twelve-dollar scotch, he certainly didn’t say so.
The lounge was full and humming. They had a fusion blues trio in one corner, a small dance floor that allowed for as close a dance as you might want, and the usual collection of mildly desperate men and women looking for love or at least some company. Including one Moses Walsh, who was ensconced at a corner table with a woman in her late forties trying hard to look thirty-nine. He was dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and clean, faded jeans and had some kind of Indian decoration in his hair and at his throat. With that face, he had the part covered in spades.
The woman got up to visit the powder room, so I grabbed my scotch and sauntered over.
“Big Chief on the road to glory?” I asked.
I got a sonorous western movie grunt and a squinty-eyed sideways look. “Big Chief on short final,” he said. “He hopes.”
“I think I would need some more scotch for that one,” I said, watching her walk away from us. “Not sure that would be a good wake-up.”
“Ain’t never gone to bed with no ugly woman,” he quoted. “But I have woke up with some. Where’d you hear about Big Chief? I haven’t heard that since high school.”
I told him and he smiled. “Didn’t know her,” he said. “She pretty?”
“Very,” I said. “And a senior internal affairs inspector in the SBI.”
“Oh,” he said.
I laughed. We talked for a few minutes, and then the woman came out of the bathroom, headed back toward the table. She stopped to talk to another woman of a similar stripe.
“You gonna introduce me? See if she has a friend?”
“Paleface blow Big Chief’s cover, he’s gonna die.”
“No worries,” I said. “And what kind of Indian are you supposed to be tonight?”
“Chippewa.”
“I don’t believe they were ever in these parts,” I said.
“No, but everyone’s cherokee’d out up here, so Chippewa it is.”
I got up, trying not to laugh out loud, and walked away, nodding at the returning lounge queen. Fifty trying for forty was more like it, but Mose was obviously a practitioner of the Go Ugly Early rule. He was also probably getting lucky a whole lot more than I was these days.
I went back to the bar and signaled for a refill. I was enjoying said refill when Sam King slid onto the adjoining bar stool.
“Those shepherds of yours aren’t always friendly, are they,” he said.
“Depends on what their orders are,” I said. “They’re German shepherds. Partial to clear orders. You guys all set up?”
“Better than that,” he said, signaling the bartender for a whiskey. “We got her back. A motorist found her standing in the middle of the highway on the Carrigan County side of the county line. She was dazed and wearing duct tape across her eyes. Guy called 911 and then brought her into the sheriff’s office. They took her to the county hospital, and they’re holding her overnight for observation.”