Authors: Gretchen Archer
“How?” Fantasy asked.
We’d finally reached the end of the line. Fisher Iboch used both arms to direct our attention to the massive burning contraption. “I call it,” he paused to let the tension build, “the
Dragon
.”
It was an iron box full of hell, inside a chain-link fence. We were looking at the front and top of it. I had no idea, nor did I want to know, how far back or down it went. “What do you do with the fifteen percent?” I asked.
He held an open palm in front of his face and blew, fairy-dust style. “It’s ash, at that point.”
Fisher Iboch didn’t need a dog. He needed community theater.
“Are you saying the Bellissimo blows fifteen tons of ash into the air?” I asked.
“No. That’s not what I said. Don’t put that in your report.”
He assumed the posture of someone about to give a long lecture I cared nothing about hearing, so I ceremoniously looked at my watch. “We need to get moving, Mr. Iboch.”
“Certainly.” He bowed. (See? Thespian.) “So Mrs. Sanders misplaced an article of jewelry?” he asked.
“She thinks so,” Fantasy said. “A big ole diamond. She thinks she may have thrown it away, and we’re here to look for it.”
“Very well. Follow me.”
Four miles later.
“It’s empty.” Fantasy’s whole head was in the bin.
“It can’t be.” Fisher Iboch stuck his head in too.
Two heads in the garbage bucket were better than three. I held back.
Fisher Iboch produced a flashlight and a ray gun from somewhere around his middle. Maybe it was a barcode gun. Whichever, he aimed it at a panel on the side of the bin, then pulled it to his nose. “This bin hasn’t dumped in five days!” (Barcode gun.) He stuck his head in again. “There’s no way it should be empty!” His voice echoed around. “The elevator must be stuck.”
“Let me see your flashlight.” I held out my hand. His flashlight was a ten-inch Maglite. I knew it well from my years with the Pine Apple Police Force. It could go from spot-to-flood with a twist. I chose flood. We took a look. The chute above the bin was your basic scary, dark, steel opening, and at first glance, nothing looked out of order.
“There’s something.” Fantasy pointed.
“Where?” I aimed the beam.
“There.” Fantasy pointed to a corner. “It looks like a shoe.”
We’d just been through several Hefty bags of Bianca’s rejects. A shoe wouldn’t be out of the question. Fifty shoes wouldn’t be out of the question.
“Oh, my word,” Fisher Iboch said. “No telling how much waste is behind that shoe.” He disappeared, then reappeared, crow bar in hand.
“What are you doing?” Fantasy asked.
He was climbing in the garbage bin was what he was doing.
“If the shoe is stuck, I’ll shove it out of the way. That might release the lift.”
“If it works, Mr. Iboch, won’t you be smothered in garbage?” I took a giant step back. “Won’t it all fall out?”
Clank, clank. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not tall enough. I’ll have to call maintenance.”
I smiled at my ten-foot-tall partner. (She really is almost six-feet tall.)
“No way,” she said. Then after a full minute, “Dammit, Davis.” She hiked her skirt, then lobbed a long leg over the side of the bin, trading places with Fisher Iboch.
She aimed and pushed with the crowbar one time before we heard a mechanical growl. She’d hit paydirt. She scrambled to get out of the bin before the lift released its load, but didn’t quite make it. Peyton Reynolds fell out on top of a mountain of garbage. She was either very dead or very close to it. Fantasy was somewhere underneath.
TEN
“Stop calling her Mr. Microphone’s wife, Peyton Reynolds, Bianca’s bitch, the preacher’s daughter, and everything else under the sun, Davis.” No Hair had No Patience. “I don’t have enough time to figure out who you’re talking about. The prints came back Peyton Beecher, so we’re calling her Peyton Beecher, and that includes you.”
After taking care of almost-naked, almost-dead PEYTON BEECHER, we were back in our offices, which we now knew weren’t all that far from Waste Management.
“You’re on the other side of the property, Davis.” No Hair was far from concerned. “You might as well be in a different time zone.”
“Says you, No Hair,” said me. “We want new offices and a bunch of stock options.”
“And new cars,” Fantasy added.
“Tough.”
Tough didn’t begin to describe what we’d been through. There wasn’t a car out there that would make up for it. My plan was to never set foot in Waste Management again, or even use the words “waste” or “management” again for the rest of my life.
Fisher Iboch and I passed out cold (my new and annoying trick) upon the discovery of the pile of Peyton, which left Fantasy alone to swim up from the waste and then see if the girl had an ounce of life left in her. From the far end of a very dark tunnel, I heard Fantasy call for a bus and our bus-shaped boss, No Hair.
When I came to, Fantasy greeted me with, “Lie back down before you faint again, Davis.”
I was in no position to argue. “Is she alive?” I asked from the floor of the garbage department.
“Barely,” Fantasy said. “Looks like a head wound, but it could be cocktail sauce.”
Fisher Iboch resurfaced as well, mumbling, “Shit, shit, shit, oh, help us, Jesus.”
Fantasy’s head snapped up. “Give me your shirt.”
I began fumbling with buttons.
“Not
you
, Davis.” She pointed at Fisher Iboch. “You.” He stripped off his shirt and tossed it through the air. Get this: he was covered,
covered
, in tattoos. A dragon’s head filled his chest, it’s disproportionately smaller body slid down his abdomen, with a dragon tail snaking up one arm, trailing across his shoulders, and wrapping around the length of his other arm.
I edged as far away from Fisher Iboch as I could manage. One hand clapped over my mouth, I said through my fingers, “Give him his shirt back, Fantasy.”
Just then we heard pounding footsteps from a distance. “Over here!” Fantasy waved her arms. “Over here!”
The EMTs took in the scene, especially tattoo boy, but mostly, they hopped to. A man and a woman climbed into the dumpster, trading places with Fantasy. The other two responders lifted a stretcher above their heads, and within a minute, they’d boarded the girl. They lowered her to the floor, then swarmed. Tool boxes snapped open, a mobile IV appeared, and radios began squawking. I heard the usual medical words through the din—pulse, BP, heart-rate—and the words “penetrating head wound” and “ketchup” were tossed around. They discussed her age (early thirties), general appearance (filthy), and apparent state of severe dehydration (I guess so).
“Is she going to make it?” Fantasy asked.
One guy said over his shoulder, “Ma’am, we have no way of knowing that.”
And they were off.
“Wait!” I scrambled up. They slowed, and I got my first good look at her. She was out cold, wearing a torn and stained jersey-knit camisole and matching bikini panties holding on by a single thread. Her right thigh had an ugly two-inch gash that looked days old, and she was covered in purple-black bruises and black specks of something. Probably coffee grounds. (Gross.) Her hair was mid-length, mid-brown, and in bad need of shampoo. I snapped a photograph of her face, then slid my phone under her right hand, letting her index finger rest on the screen, and took another picture. Without a word, the EMTs sped off. I poked my phone, and within a minute, got a hit on her prints. (How cool is that?) “It’s Peyton,” I told Fantasy. “Her prints come up Peyton Beecher.”
“What about the jewelry? The diamond?”
We turned to Fisher Iboch, still sprawled on the floor, still tattooed, who we’d forgotten was there.
We ran.
* * *
It was early in the evening of the longest day of my life. Fantasy, on her end of the sofa, had just tossed back a double shot of tequila. I was on the other end, working my way through a party-sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. No Hair was at the hospital with PEYTON BEECHER.
“It can wait,” Fantasy said.
“Let’s just get it over with.”
We went into the closet and changed into Bellissimo Property Management jackets and uniform black pants. She made the call.
“Inventory? This is Cheryl in Property Management, and I just got my butt chewed out because twenty-three doesn’t have a new sofa.”
I yawned and stretched.
“What? I sent the requisition this morning, and I copied your boss. Maybe he got it.”
I should change shoes.
“She, then. Maybe she got it, and maybe you’re not hearing me. I have a suite with no sofa. A guest set the sofa on fire and somehow maintenance has managed to get the carpet replaced and the wall painted, but you guys haven’t delivered the new sofa. We’re sold out you know.”
I checked the pockets of the jacket. Nothing.
“Well, twenty-three’s sold out. Completely. Every room.”
My hair was two different colors. I’d been too busy to fix it.
“I can’t help it if you can’t keep up with your paperwork.”
I pushed my cuticles back.
“Your schedule is your problem.”
I thought about snips of my phone conversation with Bradley Cole...
“No,” she said, “a gold one. And not a used sofa, either. A brand-spankin’ new one.”
I remembered I hadn’t checked on my grandmother all day.
“I’ll tell you what,” Fantasy said. “You get it strapped on a dolly and I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up. “Let’s go, Sunshine.”
Thirty minutes later, we had our new sofa. Fantasy was stretched out on it and I was sprawled all over the one Bianca hadn’t ruined when No Hair blasted through the door. “Did you two put your old raggedy sofa upstairs beside Shakes?”
From the brand-new sofa Fantasy said, “No. Why?”
He shook his head. “It looks like a damn yard sale up there.”
We shrugged, smiled.
“You,” he said to Fantasy, “go home, get some sleep. Your shift at the hospital starts at seven in the morning. Be there when Peyton Beecher wakes up.”
He pivoted. “You.” (Me.) “You’re up in the hotel tonight?” I nodded. “Go get some sleep, but get back down early,” he said, “and figure out why Peyton Beecher followed her ex-husband here.”
* * *
Granny was sitting straight up in her Bellissimo bed, mostly in the dark, her blue hair twisted around bright yellow Velcro curlers, wearing a flannel nightgown buttoned up to her nose. She was propped on pillows snoring through a movie. Full blast. The walls were shaking. I located the remote and poked as fast as I could, then tucked her in. It was 7:30 in the evening.
Next, I heard a shrill bell, and looked at the clock to see it was 7:31, but the lights were on. I didn’t remember getting into my own hotel bed or turning on all the lights, but here I was. I pulled a pillow over my head to block out the light, but a load of flowers on skinny legs shuffled in. Who could sleep through that?
“Davis, honey? Are you awake? DAVIS?”
Now it was 7:32. The next morning.
I jumped up. “Granny, give those to me.” There were twice as many flowers as there was Granny.
“Don’t you want to know who they’re from?”
“Not just yet.” I looked for a space large enough to hold the arrangement, and settled on the bathtub. Granny was right behind me. We stared at the ridiculous display.
“That’s a good idea,” Granny said. “You’re full of good ideas.”
“I need to get full of coffee, Granny.” I rubbed away the last traces of sleep, then yawned the rest of the way awake.
“I’ll fix you right up.” Granny shuffled out, but not before snatching the card from the arrangement.
We sat at an oblong glass-top table in a large sitting room between the bedrooms in our Bellissimo suite, which had two of everything one could ever want. I was looking for the edge of the ocean, sipping coffee, while Granny opened the envelope.
“It says,” Granny cleared her throat, “‘
Had to come back and see me this soon? Dinner tomorrow night. Eight sharp. Violettes. Thatch
.’” She looked up. “What’s a violette?”
“The French restaurant downstairs.”
“Ah.” Granny tipped a sixteenth of a teaspoon of Amaretto into her coffee. She held the teeny bottle up in offering.
“Gotta pass, Granny.”
“Don’t you tell your mother about this.” She stirred. “And what’s a thatch?”
“It’s Matthew Thatcher,” I told her. “Your friend’s grandson? The announcer here?”
“I never said she was my friend,” Granny said. “I said I knew who she was.”
I grabbed the television remote, which I’d read was the absolute germiest thing in a hotel room, ever. I clicked until I reached the guest portfolio screen and saw the name I’d booked the suite in: Laura Kasden. That was how he knew I was here.
I showered at my end of our swanky hotel room (in a streaky medium-spice brunette, out a redhead), then dressed for work in Ray-Ban Wayfarers under a Zephyrs baseball cap above a Property Management blazer and black pants. Granny showered at her swanky end (in a pink plastic shower cap covering her blue curls and singing Nikki Minaj at the top of her lungs), then dressed for the casino like a polar bear with a cardigan sweater over a cardigan sweater set above double-knit pants, all the color of lime Kool-Aid.
We stepped into an empty elevator and I pushed M for Mezzanine and C for Casino, which anywhere else would have been L for Lobby. I went to work; Granny went to gamble. My purse rang as I stepped into control central. The caller ID displayed the number of the home I’d grown up in.
Oh, dear.
I generally communicate with my mother through my sister. “Tell Mother to stop hanging up when she calls and Bradley answers the phone. It’s rude.” And, “Meredith, tell Davis that she needs to stop letting strange men answer her phone.” And, “Meredith, tell Davis Dr. Bubba has sent three postcards reminding her that it’s time for her to get her teeth cleaned and be sure to point out she only gets the one set of teeth.” And, “Tell Mother to tell Dr. Bubba that I don’t live in Pine Apple any longer and have a new dentist in Biloxi. One that doesn’t work out of the back of his moonshine liquor store and climb on top of people to yank out their perfectly good teeth with needle-nose pliers.”
When Meredith wasn’t handy to pass notes between us and Mother was forced to call, three out of four times I let the machine get it. I’d logged on to all four computers before she finished.
“Davis!” Her discontent bounced off all four walls; her disapproval filled the room. “What’s this I hear about you taking your grandmother to Beehive? If I
ever
hear of you taking her to Beehive again, I will skin you alive. I have a good mind to tell your father, and the only reason I’m not going to is because I don’t want to upset him. Your grandmother doesn’t even have enough money to get into that place, and even if she did, do you honestly
want
that for your grandmother? Who put you in charge of your grandmother, Davis? Sometimes you think you’re the only person in the family with a lick of sense, and it would do well for you to remember that I am also a college graduate. And besides, you’re the one always going on and on about how busy you are. Do you have time to go to your grandmother’s funeral?”
Finally, she took a breath.
“One. Last. Thing.”
I would bet my bottom dollar that there would be more than one last thing.
“I told Eddie and he said he’d tell Meredith, but I’m telling you to tell your sister, because you know about as well as anyone how unreliable Eddie is. I had to call six or seven times in a row before he would even wake up and answer the telephone. Half the day already gone and him still in the bed. Anyway, I told him to tell Meredith, and you make sure he did, that Riley has a homework assignment to do a…hold on…diorama? Whatever that is? There’s something here called a…hold on…rubric? Whatever that is? I don’t do this new math, you know. Meredith needs to get back home and help her daughter with this because it’s the biggest bunch of nonsense I’ve ever looked at. You tell her, because I don’t think Eddie was half listening. He’s just like his father. Pickled all the time.”
She took another big breath.
“I meant what I said, Davis.”
My fingers flew across the keyboards. I pulled up the list of So Help Me God benefactors who didn’t exist yesterday—no federal taxes, no DMV records, no Social Security activity. I ran them again, this time through Lee County, Alabama’s Department of Health Statistics and the SSDI, the Social Security Death Index.
Why would my mother leave a message for my sister (who is here) with my ex-ex-husband Eddie the dumb-dumb (who is there)? It made no sense—my mother rarely did—although she pointed me in the right So Help Me God direction. The people putting money in the church plate were dead.