Текст книги "Still Life With Crows"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

A second drone came from out of the lightening horizon, and Pendergast saw a second plane arrive to work the cornfields, flying back and forth at the other end of the landscape.

From downstairs came the rattle of a kettle being placed on the stove. Moments later, the aroma of percolating coffee reached him. Winifred Kraus would also be making his tea, in the exacting manner he had taught her. It wasn’t easy to make a satisfactory cup of King’s Mountain Oolong, getting the temperature of both the water and the pot precisely right, knowing the correct quantity of leaves to add, the right amount of time to let them steep. Most important was the quality of the water. He had quoted to her at length from the fifth chapter of Lu Yu’s Ch’a Ching,the holy scripture of tea, in which the poet debated the relative merits of mountain water, river water, and spring water, as well as the various stages of boiling, and Winifred had seemed to listen with interest. And, to his surprise, the tapwater of Medicine Creek had proven fresh, cool, pure, and quite delicious, with a perfect balance of minerals and ions. It made an almost perfect cup of tea.

Pendergast thought about this while watching the two planes move back and forth, back and forth. And then, rather suddenly, one began to circle.

Just like the vultures had done, not so many days before.

Still thoughtful, Pendergast slipped his cell phone out of his coat pocket and dialed. A voice answered, thick with sleep.

“Miss Swanson? I will expect you here in ten minutes, if you please. It would appear we’ve found the body of Dr. Chauncy.” He snapped the phone shut and turned from the window.

There would be just enough time for tea.

Forty-One

 

Corrie tried not to look, but somehow not looking seemed even more terrible than the real thing. And yet, every time she looked, it was worse.

The site was simple: a clearing carved in the corn, with the body and paraphernalia carefully arranged. The earth around the body had been painstakingly smoothed and patted down, and a many-spoked wheel had been drawn in the dirt around the corpse. Gusts of wind rattled the corn and raised a mantle of dust that stung her eyes. Angry-looking dark clouds gathered overhead.

Chauncy lay on his back at the center of the wheel, naked, arms carefully folded across his chest, legs arranged. His eyes were wide open, filmed over, pointed at unnervingly different angles toward the sky. His skin was the color of a rotten banana. A ragged incision ran from his chest to the base of his gut, and his stomach bulged obscenely where it had been crudely sewn up again with heavy twine. Something, it seemed, had been stuffed inside.

Why the huge wheel? Corrie stared at the body, unable to take her eyes off it. And was it her imagination, or was something actually movinginside the sewn-up belly, causing the skin to bulge and subside slightly? There was something alive inside him.

Sheriff Hazen had gotten there first, and was bending over Chauncy’s body with the medical examiner, who’d arrived by helicopter. It was odd: Hazen had actually smiled at Corrie when they arrived and had greeted Pendergast with a hearty hello. He seemed a lot surer of himself all of a sudden. She glanced at him sidelong, chatting confidentially with the M.E. and the SOC crew, who were combing the dirt for clues. There were the usual bare footprints, but when they were pointed out to the sheriff he’d only chuckled knowingly. An SOC guy was bent over one of them now, making a plastic mold from an imprint.

Pendergast, on the other hand, hardly seemed to be there at all. He had barely spoken a word since she’d picked him up, and now he was gazing off into the distance, toward the Mounds, as if his thoughts were far away. As she stared, he seemed at last to rouse himself. He stepped closer.

“Come, come,” said the sheriff in a hearty voice. “Have a look, Special Agent Pendergast, if you’re interested. You too, Corrie.”

Pendergast stepped closer, Corrie trailing behind.

“The M.E.’s about to open him up.”

“I would advise waiting until the laboratory.”

“Nonsense.”

The photographer took some photos, the flashes blinding in the dim light of dawn, and then stepped back.

“Go ahead,” Hazen said to the M.E.

The M.E. removed a pair of scissors and carefully worked one point under the twine. Snip.The belly bulged, and the twine began to unravel from the pressure.

“If you’re not careful,” Pendergast cautioned, “some of the evidence might, ah, abscond.”

“What’s inside,” said the sheriff cheerfully, “is irrelevant.”

“I should say it’s most relevant.”

“You can say it all you like,” said the sheriff, his good humor adding insolence to the comment. “Cut the other end.”

Snip.

The whole belly flopped open, and a collection of things came tumbling out, spilling across the ground. A foul stink rose up. Corrie gasped and backed away, holding her hand over her mouth. It took her a moment to take in what it was that had slid steaming into the dirt: a crazy-quilt assortment of leaves, twigs, slugs, salamanders, frogs, mice, stones. And there, among the offal, a slimy circlet that appeared to be a dog’s collar. A wounded but still living snake uncoiled from the mass and sidewinded painfully into the grass.

“Son of a bitch,” said Hazen, backing up, his face slack with disgust.

“Sheriff?”

“What?”

“There’s your tail.”

Pendergast was pointing at something protruding from the mess.

“Tail? What are you talking about?”

“The tail ripped from the dog.”

“Oh, thattail. We’ll be sure to bag and analyze that one.” Hazen had recovered quickly and Corrie caught him winking at the M.E.

“And the dog collar.”

“Yup,” Hazen said.

“May I point out,” Pendergast continued, “that it appears the abdomen was cut open with the same crude implement previously used for the Swegg amputations, the cutting off of the dog’s tail, and the scalping of Gasparilla.”

“Right, right,” said the sheriff, not listening.

“And if I am not mistaken,” Pendergast said, “there is the crude implement itself. Broken and tossed aside.” He indicated something in the dirt to one side.

The sheriff glanced over, frowned, and nodded to the SOC man, who photographed it in situ, then picked the two pieces up with rubber tweezers and put them in evidence bags. It was a flint Indian knife, lashed to a wooden handle.

“From here I’d say it was a Southern Cheyenne protohistoric knife, hafted with rawhide to a willow-wood handle. Genuine, I might add, and in perfect condition until it was broken by clumsy use. A find of particular importance.”

Hazen grinned. “Yeah, important. As another prop in this whole bullshit drama.”

“I beg your pardon?”

There was a rustle behind them, and Corrie turned. A pair of glossy-booted state troopers were pushing their way out of the corn and into the clearing. One was carrying a fax. The sheriff turned toward the newcomers with a big smile. “Ah. Just what I’ve been waiting for.” He held out his hand, snatched the fax, and glanced at it, his smile broadening. Then he handed it to Pendergast.

“It’s a cease-and-desist, Pendergast, straight from the FBI’s Midwestern Divisional Office. You’re off the case.”

“Indeed?” Pendergast read the document carefully. Then he looked up. “May I keep this, Sheriff?”

“By all means,” Hazen said. “Keep it, frame it, hang it in your den.” All of a sudden, his voice grew less affable. “And now, Mr. Pendergast, with all due respect, this is a crime scene and unauthorized personnel are not allowed.” His red eyes swiveled toward Corrie. “That means you and your sidekick.”

Corrie stared back at him.

Pendergast folded the sheet carefully and slipped it into his suit coat. He turned to Corrie. “Shall we?”

She stared at him in outrage. “Agent Pendergast,” she began, “you aren’t just going to let him get away with that—?”

“Now is not the time, Corrie,” he said softly.

“But you just can’t—!”

Pendergast took her arm and steered her gently but firmly away, and before she could recover they were out of the corn and on the narrow dirt service road beside her Gremlin. Wordlessly, she slid behind the wheel, Pendergast settling in beside her as she started up the engine. She was almost blind with rage as she maneuvered through the thicket of parked official vehicles. Pendergast had let the sheriff walk all over him, insult her—and he’d done nothing. She felt like crying.

“Miss Swanson, I must say the tapwater in Medicine Creek is exceptionally good. As you know, I am a drinker of green tea, and I don’t believe I’ve ever found better water for making the perfect cup.”

There was no answer she could make to this non sequitur. She merely braked the Gremlin at the paved road and stared at him. “Where are we going?”

“You are going to drop me at the Kraus place. And then I’d suggest you return to your trailer and seal all the windows. I understand that a dust storm is coming.”

Corrie snorted. “I’ve seen dust storms before.”

“Not one of this magnitude. Dust storms can be among the most frightful of meteorological events. In Central Asia, they are so severe the natives have given names to the winds that bear them. Even here, during the dust bowl, they were known as ‘black blizzards.’ People caught outside were known to suffocate.”

Corrie accelerated onto the paved road with a screech of rubber. The whole scene had begun to take on a sense of unreality. Here Pendergast had just been humiliated, ordered peremptorily off a case he’d come all the way from New York to investigate . . . and all he could do was talk about tea and the weather?

A minute ticked away, then two. At last, she couldn’t take the silence any longer. “Look,” she blurted indignantly, “I can’t believe you just let that sack-of-shit sheriff dothat to you!”

“Do what?”

“What? Treat you that way! Kick you off the site!”

Pendergast smiled. “ Nisi paret imperat.‘If he does not obey, he commands.’ ”

“You mean you’re not going to obey the order?”

“Miss Swanson, I do not habitually talk about my future intentions, even with a trusted assistant.”

She blushed despite her anger. “So we’re just going to blow him off? Continue our investigation? To hell with the runty bastard?”

“What I do with regard to, as you so colorfully put it, ‘the runty bastard’ can no longer be your concern. The important thing is, I cannot have you defying the sheriff on my account. Ah, here we are. Pull up to the garages behind the house, if you please.”

Corrie pulled behind the Kraus mansion, where a rickety row of old wooden garages stood. Pendergast went to one that sported a fresh padlock and chain, unlocked it, and flung open the doors. Inside Corrie could see the gleam of a car—a big car. Pendergast disappeared into the gloom and she soon heard the roar of an engine, followed by a low purring. Slowly, the car nosed out of the garage. Corrie could hardly believe her eyes as a gleaming, polished vision of elegance emerged into the gray dust of Medicine Creek. She had never seen a car like it before, except maybe in the movies. It came to an idling stop and Pendergast got out.

“Where’d this come from?”

“I always knew there was a chance I might lose your services, and so I had my own car brought out.”

“This is yours?What is it?”

“A ’59 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith.”

It was only then that the full meaning of his prior sentence sunk in. “What do you mean, lose my services?”

Pendergast handed her an envelope. “Inside is your pay up to the end of the week.”

“What’s this for? Aren’t I going to stay on as your assistant?”

“Not after the cease-and-desist. I can’t protect you from it, and I could not ask you to put yourself in legal jeopardy. Regrettably, as of this moment, you are discharged. I would suggest you go home and resume your normal life.”

“What normal life? My normal life sucks.There must be somethingI can do!” She felt a rising tide of fury and helplessness: now that she was finally interested in the case, fascinated even; now that she felt she had finally met a person she could respect and trust—now that she finally had a reason to wake up in the morning—he was firing her. Despite her best efforts, she felt a tear escape. She angrily wiped it away.

Pendergast bowed. “You could help me one last time by satisfying my curiosity on the source of Medicine Creek’s excellent water.”

She stared in disbelief. He really was impossible.

“It comes from wells that supposedly tap into some underground river,” she said, trying to make her voice as stony as possible.

“Underground river,” Pendergast repeated, his eyes blank, as if his gaze had turned inward with a sudden revelation. He smiled, bowed, took her hand, raised it to within an inch of his lips. And then he got into his car and glided off, leaving her standing in the parking lot beside her own junk heap, in a swirl of dust, consumed by a mixture of wrath, astonishment, and misery.

Forty-Two

 

The cruiser whipped past the rows of corn on the airline road at a nice, easy 110 miles per hour. The AC might not work, thought Hazen, and the upholstery might look like shit, but the 5.0 Mustang police package still had what it took under the hood. The heavy chassis rocked from side to side, and in the rearview mirror Hazen could see two rows of corn whipsawing in his wake.

Hazen felt better than he had all week. Pendergast was out of the picture. He had a firm handle on the case, and it was getting firmer all the time. He glanced over at Chester Raskovich, sitting next to him. The security honcho looked a little gray around the gills, and beads of sweat had popped out on his temple. The speed of the cruiser didn’t seem to agree with him. Hazen had much rather it had been Tad sitting in the passenger seat than this campus grunt; the confrontation that was about to take place would have been good experience for him. For the thousandth time, Hazen found himself wishing that his own boy Brad had grown up more like his deputy: respectful, ambitious, less of a wise-ass. Hazen sighed. Wishful thinking wasn’t important right now. What wasimportant was keeping Raskovich in the loop, and by extension, Dr. Fisk. If he played this right, he was certain Medicine Creek would get the experimental field.

The first outlying farmhouses of Deeper flashed past, and Hazen slowed quickly to the speed limit. It wouldn’t be too swift to flatten some Deeper kid just as the case was breaking and things were going his way.

“What’s the plan, Sheriff?” Raskovich managed to say. He had begun to breathe again.

“We’re going to pay a visit to Mr. Norris Lavender, Esquire.”

“Who’s that?”

“He owns half of the town plus a lot of these fields out here. Leases ’em out. His family owned the first ranch in these parts.”

“You think he’s involved?”

“Lavender’s got his finger in every pie around here. Like I asked Hank Larssen: who’s got the most to lose? Well, no mystery there.”

Raskovich nodded.

Now the commercial district of Deeper hove into view. There was a Hardee’s at one end of town and an A&W at the other; in between, a bunch of shabby or shuttered storefronts; a sporting goods store; a grocery; a gas station; a used car lot (all AMC shitboxes); a coin-op laundromat; and the Deeper Sleep Motel. Everything dated from the fifties. Could be a movie set,thought Hazen.

He turned into the parking lot behind the Grand Theater (long abandoned) and the Hair Apparent salon. In the rear sat a low, one-story building of orange brick, completely surrounded by a shimmering expanse of heaved asphalt. Hazen drove to the glass-doored entrance and parked his car across the fire lane, illegally, in your face. Hank’s cruiser was parked neatly nearby. Hazen shook his head. Hank just didn’t know how to do things in a way that commanded respect. He left the cruiser with its pinball flasher going like mad, so everyone would know he was there on official business.

Hazen pushed through the double doors and strode into the chilly air of the Lavender Building, Raskovich at his heels. He glanced around the reception area. A rather ugly secretary, with a voice of such efficiency that it bordered on unfriendliness, said, “You may go straight through, Sheriff. They’ve been waiting.”

He touched the brim of his hat and strode down the hall, right, and through some more glass doors. Another secretary, even dumpier than the first, waved them past.

They grow ’em ugly up here in Deeper,he thought. Probably marry their cousins.

Hazen paused at the threshold of the rear office and looked around with narrowed eye. It was pretty snazzy, with a slick cosmopolitan look: bits of metal and glass in various shades of gray and black, oversized desk, thick carpeting, potted figs. A couple of cheesy Darlin’ Dolls prints, however, betrayed Lavender’s white trash origins. Lavender himself sat, smiling, behind the giant desk, and when Hazen’s eye fell on him the man rose easily to his feet. He was wearing a jogging suit with racing stripes, and a diamond ring in a platinum setting winked on one pinky. He was slender and rather tall, and he invested all his movements with what he no doubt assumed looked like aristocratic languor. His head, however, was overly large for his body and shaped like a pyramid, a very wide mouth smiling under two gimlet eyes set close together, tapering to a narrow forehead as smooth and white as a slab of sliced suet. It was the head of a fat man on a thin body.

Sheriff Larssen, who’d been sitting in a chair to one side, rose also.

Lavender said nothing, merely extending an arm with a very small white hand at the end of it, indicating a seat. It was a challenge: would Hazen obey, or choose a seat himself?

Hazen smiled, guided Raskovich into the seat, and then took his own.

Lavender remained standing. He placed his childlike hands on the desk and leaned forward slowly, still smiling.

“Welcome to Deeper, Sheriff Hazen. And this is, I believe, Mr. Raskovich of Kansas State University?” His voice was smooth, unctuous.

Hazen nodded quickly. “I figure you know why I’m here, Norris.”

“Do I need to call my lawyer?” Lavender made it sound like a joke.

“That’s up to you. You’re not a suspect.”

Lavender raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”

Indeed. And here his grandfather was a damn bootlegger.

“Indeed,” Hazen repeated.

“Well then, Sheriff. Shall we proceed? Seeing as how this is a voluntary interview, I reserve the right to end questioning at any moment.”

“Then I’ll get to the point. Who owns the Deeper land chosen as a possible site for KSU’s experimental field?”

“You know very well that’s my land. It’s leased to Buswell Agricon, KSU’s partner in the project.”

“Did you know Dr. Stanton Chauncy?”

“Of course. The sheriff and I showed him around town.”

“What’d you think of him?”

“Probably much the same as you.” Lavender gave a little smile that told Sheriff Hazen all he needed to know about Lavender’s opinion of Chauncy.

“Did you know in advance that Chauncy had chosen Medicine Creek for his site?”

“I did not. The man played his cards close.”

“Did you negotiate a new lease with KSU for the experimental land?”

Lavender shifted his body languidly and leaned his heavy head to one side. “No. I didn’t want to queer the deal. I said if they chose to go with Deeper, they could have it at the same rate as Buswell Agricon.”

“But you were planning to increase the leasing fee?”

Lavender smiled. “My dear fellow, I ama businessman. I was hoping for higher fees for their future fields.”

My dear fellow.“So you expected the operation would expand.”

“Naturally.”

“You own the Deeper Sleep Motel, am I right?”

“You know very well I do.”

“And you own the Hardee’s franchise?”

“It’s one of my best businesses here.”

“You own all the buildings from Bob’s Sporting Goods to the Hair Apparent, right?”

“This is a matter of public record, Sheriff.”

“And you own the Grand Theater building—currently empty—and you’re the landlord of the Steak Joint and the Cry County Mini-Mall.”

“More common knowledge.”

“In the past five years, how many of your tenants have broken their leases and gone out of business?”

Lavender’s wide face remained smiling, but Hazen noticed that the man had begun winding the diamond ring around his pinky.

“My financial affairs are my own business, thank you very much.”

“Let me guess then. Fifty percent? The Rookery closed down, the Book Nook’s long gone. Jimmy’s Round Up went out of business last year. The Mini-Mall is about two-thirds empty now.”

“I might point out, Sheriff, that the Deeper Sleep Motel is currently running at one hundred percent occupancy.”

“Yes, because it’s filled with media folks. What happens when the big story ends? It’ll go back to being about as popular as the Bates Motel.”

Lavender was still smiling, but there was no mirth now in those wet lips that stretched across the lower half of his face.

“How many tenants are behind on their rents? Trouble is, you’re not really in much of a position to get tough and kick ’em out for missing a payment, are you? I mean, who’s going to take their place? Better to lower the rents, stretch things out, write a note or two.”

More silence. Hazen eased up, let the silence build, taking a moment to give the office another once-over. His eyes fell on a wall of photographs of Norris Lavender with various big shots—Billy Carter, brother of the president; a couple of football players; a rodeo star; a country-and-western singer. In several of them, Hazen could see a third figure: hulking, dark-complected, muscle-bound, unsmiling: Lewis McFelty, Lavender’s sidekick. He hadn’t seen him when he came in, although he’d been looking out for him. More evidence to back up his theory. Hazen took his eyes off the creepy-looking man and turned back to Lavender with a smile. “You and your family have owned this town for almost a hundred years, but it looks like the sun might be setting on the Lavender empire, eh, Norris?”

Sheriff Larssen spoke. “Look here, Dent, this is sheer bullying. I fail to see how any of this could possibly connect with the killings.”

Lavender stayed him with a gesture. “I thank you, Hank, but I’ve known what Hazen’s game has been from the beginning. This dog is all bark.”

“Is that a fact?” Hazen shot back.

“It is. This isn’t about the killings in Medicine Creek. This is about my grandfather supposedly shooting your poor old granddaddy in the leg.” He turned toward the KSU security man. “Mr. Raskovich, the Lavenders and Hazens go back quite a ways here in Cry County—and certain people just can’t get over it.” He smiled back at Hazen. “Well, sir, it just isn’t going to warsh. My grandfather never shot your grandfather, and I’m no serial killer. Look at me. Can you imagine me in a cornfield carving someone up like one of those turkeys you people turn out over there in Medicine Creek?” He looked around smugly.

Warsh.There it was, rising to the surface like fat in a stew. Norris Lavender might sprinkle his speech with all the “indeeds” and “my dear fellows” in the world and it still wouldn’t cover up the smell of white trash.

“You’re just like your grandfather, Norris,” Hazen replied. “You get other people to do the dirty work for you.”

Lavender’s eyebrows shot up. “That sounded remarkably like an accusation.”

Hazen smiled. “You know, Norris, I kind of missed your pal Lewis McFelty when I came in just now. How’s he doing?”

“My assistant, poor boy, has a sick mother in Kansas City. I gave him the week off.”

Hazen’s smile broadened. “I certainly hope it’s nothing serious.”

Another silence.

Hazen coughed and continued. “You had a lot to lose with this experimental field going to Medicine Creek.”

Lavender opened a wooden box full of cigars and pushed it across the table to Hazen. “I know you’re a committed smoker, Sheriff. Help yourself.”

Hazen stared at the box. Cubans, wouldn’t you know it. He shook his head.

“Mr. Raskovich? Cigar?”

Raskovich also shook his head.

Hazen leaned back. “You had everythingto lose, didn’t you?”

“Does anyone mind if I indulge?” Lavender reached into the box and removed a cigar, holding it up like a question between two thick fingers.

“Go ahead,” said Hank, casting Hazen a malevolent glance. “A man has a right to smoke in his own office.”

Hazen waited while Lavender slid a little silver clipper off his desk, trimmed and clipped the end of the cigar, admired his handiwork, picked up a gold lighter and heated the end of the cigar, then licked the other end, placed it in his wide mouth, and lit it. The process took several minutes. Then Lavender rose and strolled to the window, folded his tiny hands behind him, and stared out across the parking lot, puffing languidly, from time to time removing the cigar to stare at its tip. Beyond his slender figure, Hazen could see a horizon as black as night. The storm was coming, and it was going to be a big one.

The silence stretched on until Lavender finally turned. “Oh,” he said to Hazen, feigning surprise. “Are you still here?”

“I’m waiting for an answer to my question.”

Lavender smiled. “Didn’t I mention five minutes ago that this interview was over? How careless of me.” He turned back toward the window, puffing on the cigar.

“Take care not to get caught in the storm, gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder.

Hazen peeled out of the parking lot, leaving precisely the right amount of rubber behind. Once they were on the main drag, Raskovich looked over at him. “What was that story about your grandfather and his?”

“Just a smokescreen.”

There was a silence and he realized, with irritation, that Raskovich was still waiting for an answer. He pushed the irritation aside with an effort. He needed to keep KSU on his side, and Raskovich was the key to that.

“The Lavenders started as ranchers, then made a lot of money in the twenties from bootlegging,” he explained. “They controlled all the moonshine production in the county, buying the stuff from the moonshiners and distributing it. My grandfather was the sheriff of Medicine Creek back then, and one night he and a couple of revenuers caught King Lavender down near the Kraus place, loading a jack mule with clearwater moonshine—old man Kraus had a still in the back of his tourist cave in those days. There was a scuffle and my grandfather took a bullet. They put King Lavender on trial, but he fixed the jury and went scot free.”

“Do you really think Lavender’s behind the killings?”

“Mr. Raskovich, in policework you look for motive, means, and opportunity. Lavender’s got the motive, and he’s a goddamned son of a bitch who’d do anything for a buck. What we need to find out now is the means and opportunity.”

“Frankly, I can’t see him committing murder.”

This Raskovich was a real moron. Hazen chose his words carefully. “I meant what I said in his office. I don’t think he didthe killings himself: that’s not the Lavender style. He would’ve hired some hitman to do his scut work.” He thought for a moment. “I’d like to have a chat with Lewis McFelty. A sick mother in Kansas City, my ass.”

“Where’re we going now?”

“We’re going to find out just how hurtingNorris Lavender is. First, we’re going to take a look at his tax records down at the town hall. Then we’re going to talk to some of his creditors and enemies. We’re going to learn just how deep in the shit he was with this experimental field business. This was his last chance, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he bet the farm on this field coming through.”

He paused. A little public relations never hurt. “What do you think, Chester? I value your opinion.”

“It’s a viable theory.”

Hazen smiled and aimed the car in the direction of the Deeper town hall. It sure as hell was a viable theory.

Forty-Three

 

At two-thirty that afternoon, Corrie lounged restlessly on her bed, listening to Tool on her CD player. It had to be at least a hundred degrees in her room, but after the events of the other night she didn’t have the guts to open her window. It still seemed impossible to believe that guy from Kansas State had been killed just down the street. But then, the entire last week was beyond belief.

Her eyes strayed to the window. Outside, huge thunderheads were spreading their anvil-shaped tops across the sky and a premature darkness was falling. But the approaching storm only seemed to make everything muggier.

She heard her mother’s voice through the bedroom wall and cranked up the volume in response. There were a few muffled thumps as her mother tried to get her attention by knocking on the wall. Jesus. Of all days for her mother to call in sick, when Pendergast no longer needed her and she was stuck at home with nothing to do and too freaked out for her usual retreat on the powerline road. She almost longed for Labor Day and the start of school.

The door to her room opened and there was her mother, standing in her nightgown, too-skinny arms draped over a too-fat stomach. Smoking a cigarette.

Corrie slipped off her earphones.

“Corrie, I’ve been yelling myself hoarse. One of these days I’m going to take away those earphones.”

“You toldme to wear them.”

“Not when I’m trying to talk to you.”

Corrie stared at her mother, at her smudged mascara and the remains of last night’s lipstick still staining the cracks of her lip. She’d been drinking, but not, it seemed, enough to keep her in bed. How could this alien be her mother?

“Why aren’t you out working?Did that man get tired of you?”

Corrie didn’t answer. It really didn’t matter. Her mother was going to have her say regardless.

“As I figure it, you got paid for two weeks. That’s fifteen hundred dollars. Is that right?”

Corrie stared.

“As long as you’re living here, you’re going to contribute. I’ve told you this before. I’ve had expenses up the wazoo lately. Taxes, food, car payments, you name it. And now I’m losing a day’s tips because of this nasty cold.”

Nasty hangover, you mean.Corrie waited.

“A fifty-fifty split is the leastI can expect.”

“It’s my money.”

“And whose money do you think’s been supporting you these past ten years? Certainly not that shitbag father of yours. Me. I’ve been the one working my fingers to the bone supporting you, and by God, young lady, you’re going to give something back.”

Corrie had taped the money to the bottom of her dresser drawer and she wasn’t about to let her mother see where it was. Why, oh why, had she ever told her mother how much she was making? She was going to need that money to pay for a fucking lawyer when her trial came up. Otherwise she was going to end up with some crappy public defender and find herself going to jail. That would make a terrific impression, mailing her college applications from jail.