Pernicious (34 page)

         
That definitely wouldn’t work. No matter what he said Tasha would still get pissed and probably demand her keys back.

         
And that would be the end of our monthly interludes.

         
“Damn!” He noticed that he’d put his underwear on backward.

                                     
Chapter 17

         
Tasha blew the horn, the fifth time. Still no response from inside the garage.

         
“Where is your Daddy?” she asked Derrick.

         
Derrick shrugged. “I don’t know.”

         
Unusual, Tasha and Derrick both knew, for Neal not to show up in the last four days. If he’d left town, surely he would have informed them. Tasha had been worried about him ever since she had that nightmare.

         
“Go knock on Miss Mabel’s door and ask her if she’s seen your daddy.”

         
Derrick jumped out the car and ran to the house.

         
Maybe, Tasha thought, I’ve been too hard on Neal.
Derrick thinks so. I’ll take him and Derrick to that new seafood restaurant in Cabot. Neal loves shrimp.

         
Derrick came back. “She said she ain’t seen him.”

         
“She
hasn’t
seen him.”

         
“Yeah. She thought he was with us.”

         
“That’s strange.” To herself: “Where has he got his sorry butt off to?”

         
“What you say, Momma?”

         
“Nothing. Where do you want to stay? Here or at home by yourself?”

         
“At home.”

         
“Are you sure?”

         
“Yeah.”

         
“Okay. I’ll call you, and I’ll try to come home for lunch, okay? You know who to call in case of an emergency?”

         
“Momma, you think something bad happened to Daddy? He’s been gone a long time.”

         
“Derrick, a few days isn’t a long time. He’s probably--why you say that?”

         
Derrick shrugged. “I don’t know. I just think something might have happened to him. Something bad.”

         
“No, Neal’s okay. Maybe he found a job.”

         
Derrick stared hard at his mother. Tasha, feeling the heat of his gaze, studied the road.

         
“Run that by me again,” Derrick said.

         
Tasha looked him in the eye, and they both burst out laughing.

                                     
* * * * *

         
There were five messages on her desk, four of which from Doris Davis. Tasha moaned.

         
“She’s been calling you all morning,” Bob said. “Maybe you should break the bad news to her.”

         
“You’re right. I’ll call her later this evening.”

         
“Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a local yokel waiting for you in the break room.”

         
“Who?”

         
“A sheriff. He’s been here all morning.”

         
Sheriff Ennis Bledsoe was reading Helaine Freeman’s column in the
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
and sipping coffee when she walked into the break room.

         
“You’ve come a long way for free coffee,” Tasha said.

         
“It’s worth it,” he said, folding the paper. They shook hands.

         
Tasha sat next to him on the wooden bench. “What brings you to these parts, partner?”

         
He took a sip and smiled. “You city folks make darn good coffee.”

         
“You should have called, and I would have mailed you a bag.”

         
He took another sip. “I’m here to chat with our friend Perry.”

         
“About what?”

         
“Forgive me for asking. Did you change something?”

         
“New hairstyle. Tell me, what’s up with Perry?”

         
He stared at her hair. “It looks good.”

         
“Thanks,” Tasha said. “What’s going on with Perry?”

         
“A few days ago a woman pulled a gun on three ginheads down in Dawson. She popped one upside the head pretty good, had to have thirteen stitches. Prior to my responding to the call, I was in the process of searching Perry’s vehicle, a black Cadillac Escalade.”

         
“You think Perry did it?”

         
“Yes, I do. All three ginheads described her and her car to a tee. Unfortunately, none of the three made the plates and I do not have a photograph of Miss Perry.”

         
“Why in the world would she do that?”

         
“I don’t know. I plan to talk with her about it. That’s why I’m here. Figured to check with you first. And I tend to get confused on four-lane highways.”

         
“Are you going to arrest her?”

         
“I will if she ‘fesses up. If not I’ll ride back home with a photograph, have one of the ginheads ID her, and then I’ll come back and arrest her.”

         
Tasha rubbed her hands together. “I’m sorry, we don’t have a useable photo of her. Her driver’s license was mishandled and she’s never been arrested.”

         
“No problem. We can take a snapshot.”

         
Tasha arched an eyebrow. “We?”

         
“Why sure. You wanna join me, don’t you?”

         
“I’ll have to get it okayed.”

         
“At least give me good directions.”

         
“I’ll be happy to tag along. First let me run it by my captain.” She stopped at the door. “We’re talking felonious assault, right?”

         
“With a weapon. Punishable up to thirty years.”

         
Offering no details, Tasha asked Captain Dennis Franklin for permission to accompany a Dawson County sheriff on a suspicious person contact. He agreed.

         
“Green light,” Tasha told Sheriff Bledsoe.

         
He stood up, hoisted his utility belt and applied his Smokey. “Let’s turn some corners. After I get another shot of this coffee.”

         
“You got a camera, don’t you?”

         
“In the car,” pouring himself another cup.

                                     
* * * * *

         
Riding through downtown, Sheriff Bledsoe leaned his head out the window and stared up at Metropolitan Bank, Little Rock’s tallest building.

         
“Man, imagine falling from there!”

         
Tasha patted his knee, to direct his attention to traffic. “You don’t get out the country much, do you, Sheriff?”

         
“I’ve been here before,” resuming normal driving position. “A long time ago. I don’t remember Little Rock being this big.”

         
“It’s growing.”

         
Sheriff Bledsoe stopped at a red light. Tasha pointed at the River Market building, a recently refurbished warehouse now home to an art museum, a bookstore and several restaurants.

         
“Two years ago it was a seedy building you couldn’t get winos to go into.”

         
Sheriff Bledsoe stared in amazement. “I see why Perry left Dawson. You can be a big fish here.”

         
“Yes, you can. With enough money, you certainly can. To be honest with you, Sheriff, I’d very much like to see Perry go down. I’m convinced she’s criminally psychotic. All the signs are there. Troubled childhood, violent overreactions, obsessed with money, abject lack of empathy. She’s like no criminal I’ve ever dealt with, male or female.”

         
“Sounds to me you’ve skirmished with Miss Perry.”

         
“Yes, I have.”

         
“She won round one?”

         
“Yes, she did. I let her get under my skin.”

         
Sheriff Bledsoe nodded. “She most definitely has a way of doing that.”

         
Tasha directed him to Perry’s house.

         
“Golly, Miss Molly,” Sheriff Bledsoe said. “I heard she had money…I couldn’t have imagined all this.”

         
“Ask how she got it. Come on, let’s see if we can huff and puff and blow it down. Don’t forget the camera.”

         
Tasha rang the doorbell several times.

         
“She might not be home,” Sheriff Bledsoe said.

         
“She’s here,” Tasha said, and rang the doorbell again.

         
The door opened and Perry appeared in an oriental robe, face covered in a thick, lime-green paste.