Sophie Littlefield - Bad Day 05 - A Bad Day for Romance Read online

  Of course, that was one of the reasons Stella had taken up with BJ: to get the blasted sheriff out of her head once and for all. Which was one of the better ideas she’d ever had, seeing as it not only kept the sheriff at a glowering, smoldering distance—where he was far less likely to stumble on anything unlawful that Stella might be up to—but also got her a regular supply of Friday night action.

  And if, now and then, BJ’s kissing and caressing left a little to be desired, and if it was becoming increasingly clear that BJ’s timidity about rounding that last base was an indicator of continuing bedroom shyness, well, that wasn’t such a bad thing, was it? After all, Stella was fifty-one years old, an age when many ladies were preparing to retire from the ring, so to speak. At least, that was the conclusion she had drawn from some of the more mature customers who came to her for help in dealing with their abusive partners.

  “I wish I’d a put a lock on my drawers as soon as I had Lance Junior,” Patrice Hartnell lamented.

  “I’ll be pleased if I never have to go toe to toe with a man’s wiener again,” Suzanne Lee vowed, bringing a certain confusing visual to mind.

  “Guess he’ll just have to pleasure his own damn self from now on,” chortled Susan Kolka after a session with Stella’s leather hog crop left her philandering husband pissing crooked but otherwise unmarked.

  On the other hand, Stella had a nagging feeling that there might be a difference between the sexual appetite of a woman who was still smarting from years of pain and humiliation, and one whose self-confidence and tolerance of the male gender had been nurtured back to health.

  After suffering several decades of abuse at the hands of her husband Ollie, Stella had gone a little nuts a few years back and killed him in an unplanned but effective fashion with a wrench. As he bled out all over her kitchen floor, the seeds of a new, independent, and unexpectedly zesty lady were sown. Stella felt better in both body and mind than she ever had—and about a thousand times sexier, too. Wasn’t it possible that she had years of good times in the sack ahead of her?

  If her sensual nature was to enjoy a nice long horizon, was Stella really willing to settle for a man who left her pot simmering gently when there was another fellow waiting in the wings who could blow the lid off and make her whistle blow to boot?

  Stella blushed at the thought, one which had become disturbingly frequent lately. There were just so many dangers to that kind of thinking.

  For one, she’d read the statistics and seen the gals on the talk shows—she knew she was lucky to have any man at all interested in her, since the ratio of available men to women over the age of fifty was something like one to twelve thousand and you were more likely to be carried off by an army of giant centipedes than to marry again.

  For another, it wasn’t like the sheriff was beating down a path to her door. No, he ran decidedly hot and cold on her. Every time he got her all heated up, there would follow a disappearing act, and she wouldn’t hear from him for weeks, even months. Sure, he always had a reason—the department was short staffed, or there was mandatory training at the county seat, or there was a summer spike in traffic crime—but Stella did not care to be toyed with.

  Wouldn’t the smart move be to settle down with the man who actually kept consistent hours, called regularly, showed up on time for dates, brought her flowers and chocolate and, once, a new float for her guest bath toilet when he noticed it was running? Wasn’t there something to be said for considerate?

  All of these thoughts ran through her mind in the time it took Chrissy to give her a look that was half concerned and half intrigued.

  “Okay, so we got a brawl,” Dotty said. “Who started it? Did the sheriff go over to BJ’s in a jealous rage?”

  “No, no, he went over there to bust up a to-do between Hess and Cricket again,” Irene said.

  “Oh, Lordy,” Stella said with feeling. Cricket Catalano was one of those rare clients who Stella regretted taking on, a woman who was looking more for attention than help when she hired Stella to talk some sense into her husband of thirty years. The trouble was—and luckily Stella figured it out before she got to twisting down the stainless steel clamp she’d managed to get Hess’s more vulnerable parts maneuvered into—the public fights the couple regularly staged were actually their peculiar way of revving the engine for naughty love play. Cricket had been trying to up the ante by enlisting Stella to breathe some magic into their romance—without letting Stella in on the plan. When Stella flatly refused to be a party to their erotic pot stirring, the couple had moved their public displays to rougher realms. Just last month they’d turned over a few chairs at the HighTimer. “I sure hope he managed to get them in the paddy wagon before they started breaking bottles.”

  “Well, Hess took a swing at some poor man who was just trying to get out of Cricket’s way, but by the time the sheriff got there, they were making out in their car. But then I guess Goat made some crack to BJ and it was, well, you know how tempers get all worked up in that sort of setting. Adrenaline leaking all over the place and the testosterone flying around”—Irene sighed dramatically before taking a fortifying sip from her drink—“well, that was that.”

  “That was what?” Dotty asked. “The sheriff insulted BJ and then BJ hit him?”

  “Not exactly. Now, mind, I don’t have all the details, but from what I’ve been able to piece together, the sheriff said something and BJ said something, and then the sheriff said what all and BJ came around the bar fixing to tell him what he thought, right to his face, and everybody backed up ’cause I guess folks have been waiting to see this one play out for quite a little while now and—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Stella felt her face flush, the prickling sensation continuing down her neck, and then she realized it was the pins she’d stuck in her shirt collar for safekeeping when she was taking up the hem earlier. “See what play out?”

  “Oh, don’t be playing all coy with us,” Chrissy scolded. “You got that sheriff jumping around like a water bug in a dry ditch. And then you got BJ so worked up he don’t know if he’s coming or going. I’m surprised you weren’t there with a front-row seat, fanning your bad self and taking bets.”

  “Chrissy!”

  “Well, I guess if y’all don’t want to know how it ended,” Irene said, licking the sugar crust off the rim of her glass. “Whatevs.”

  “Whatevs?” demanded Chrissy. “Where on earth did you learn to talk like that, Miz Dorsey?”

  “I do spend my time with a cross section of society. I hear all kinds of things. You got any more of this punch, young lady?”

  “I’d like to know what happened,” Dotty said hurriedly. “How did it end? Who won?”

  That was exactly what Stella wanted to know, and she couldn’t help noticing a strange buzzing current in her head, almost like an unwanted opinion about who the victor ought to be. Surely it was a trick of the subconscious mind, because Stella was well aware that the man on her weekend dance card, the man who had insisted on putting the hotel room on his credit card when she invited him to the wedding, the man who’d promised he’d be there Friday evening just as soon as he made sure Jorge was set for the bar rush—the man who had purchased a new shirt-and-tie ensemble in a daring shade of plum with silver accents to go with his navy suit—that man was BJ Brodersen. So the fact that she imagined Goat with his handsome face hardened in possessive rage, Goat with his large hands clenched in take-no-prisoners fists, Goat—rather inexplicably—bare-chested with only a loosened tie around his neck—that was most inappropriate. Fearing someone would notice her blush, Stella focused on taking the pins out of her neckline one by one and dropping them onto the magnetic holder.

  “Well, I don’t know’s I’d say anybody won,” Irene said. The gleam was back in her kohl-rimmed eyes now that she knew she had her audience well in hand. “I mean, don’t know how you could pick a winner when one fella gets carried off t
o County Regional with lights and sirens going, and the other one gets arrested by his own deputy.”

  “What!” This time there was a chorus of exclamations.

  “Is BJ okay?” Stella managed, hand to her throat.

  “Sure, sure, he tripped over a lady’s purse she’d left on the floor and went down on that little platform under the bar stools.”

  “Ouch!” Chrissy exclaimed. “That’s a mighty hard edge.”

  “Cracked his head and bled all over creation, and he was out for a little while. And they don’t mess around with that no more. Nowadays they treat every concussion like it’s some big thing.”

  “But he’s okay now?”

  “Oh sure, sure, his head’s just fine. They put a stitch or two in it, from what I’m told. The bigger problem is he did something to his back when he went down, some old sports injury of his. Something I imagine Stella might could tell us all about.”

  “Me? Why’s that?” Stella didn’t miss Irene’s signature facial expression, one drawn-on ebony eyebrow lifted heavenward while the other bore down over her left eye, managing to convey lascivious speculation.

  Before Irene could answer, Dotty’s cell phone trilled. “It’s Tilly,” she said, squinting at the display. “I best take it in the other room, the way y’all are carrying on. But I want to hear everything when I get back.”

  “I think that’s so cool, Tilly doing the service and all,” Chrissy said as Dotty disappeared into the suite’s sitting room and pulled the French doors shut behind her. “Did she pass her finals, or whatever?”

  “I don’t think they have finals, exactly,” Stella said. “But Tilly’s out of the seminary and she’s got her official license from the state of Missouri, so it’s legal. And this is going to be her first wedding. What were you saying about BJ, Irene?”

  “Well, I hear his pain flares up when he’s on his back. You see what I’m sayin’.”

  “I certainly do not.” Stella, who was generally not easily embarrassed, found that the notion of a septuagenarian speculating on the positions in which BJ and she might be engaged during coitus, when in actuality he had only gotten as far as gently tugging at the sturdy elastic of her Maidenform Custom Lift Hi Cut Brief once or twice, was simply too much to bear. The fact that she’d expected to have him in just such a pose by tomorrow night, having had no prior knowledge of his delicacy in that position, was a matter of concern as well.

  “Mmmm. Well, BJ’s looking at some physical therapy down the line but they’re saying he can’t get out of bed for a week.”

  “What about the sheriff?” Chrissy demanded.

  “Oh, that… well, everyone was carryin’ on so bad it was hard to hear over the pager, but Ian showed up and took one look at BJ laid out on the floor and figured Goat was the one done it to him, and you know how Ian can be a touch quick to jump to conclusions, and Goat wasn’t exactly defending himself. Fact is he’d poured him a big old jigger of Knob Creek and was settin’ on a stool all by himself in the back. Well, Ian got the cuffs on him so fast Sheriff didn’t have a minute to explain himself. They’re still getting it ironed out over at the office now.”

  “Tell me Ian wasn’t going to put him in the Dumpster!”

  The Dumpster was the nickname of the holding cell where the accused cooled their heels before being shipped up to the county jail in Fayette. It had received the nickname because it was built on the site of the old Hardee’s trash enclosure, the Hardee’s having been converted into the Prosper Municipal Annex.

  “Hardly,” Irene said. “When I left they’d got Mike talked into being their designated driver and they was sitting out on the curb draining Burt’s old bottle of Colonel Lee, after they drank everything else.”

  “Wow,” Stella said. Sheriff Burt Knoll, Goat’s predecessor, had passed away more than three years ago. Beloved by all, he’d been known for his fondness for rotgut bourbon in addition to his Solomonlike wisdom. “They must have been desperate to drink that shit.”

  “This has gone far enough, Stella,” Chrissy said glumly. “It ain’t just your good times at stake now, he had to go and get Ian involved.”

  Ian was due to arrive tomorrow for the rehearsal dinner as well, Stella knew. A lesser-known fact was that Chrissy had purchased a special ensemble for the weekend, one that would rival anything in Dotty’s lingerie haul.

  “I’m not in charge of that man,” Stella said hotly. “He don’t answer to my call.”

  “At the moment he ain’t answering to any call at all that don’t come out of the bottom of a bottle,” Irene murmured, taking a sip of the refill Chrissy had poured for her.

  The French doors burst open and Dotty tottered through them, her face pale and her expression crestfallen.

  “Dotty, honey, what’s wrong?” Stella said, rushing to take her arm and guide her to the sofa.

  “I just don’t know what to do. Tilly says Divinity’s gone missing and she has to go help them search for her and I might ought to start hunting up another preacher.”

  * * *

  Half an hour and a tab of Xanax later, Dotty was propped up in an upholstered chair in the Ha Ha Tonka party room in front of a huge pile of gifts.

  The last anyone had heard, Divinity Flycock had gone camping with her fiancé, Bryant Molder, in nearby Bennett Spring State Park. She’d been due back that morning, and no one had heard from her or Bryant.

  After a round of questioning and several phone calls revealed nothing further about Divinity’s disappearance, Stella convinced Dotty that there was nothing more to be done tonight and she might just as well let the shower proceed as planned. As a crowd of female relatives and friends and future in-laws crowded around—Rashita and Soorat turned out to be quite enthusiastic about the shower—Stella managed to sneak Chrissy off to a corner of the room, carrying a pilfered bottle of wine and a plateful of hot appetizers.

  “This isn’t Indian, is it?” Chrissy said, nibbling at the corner of a triangular pastry. “I’d call it more Greek maybe. What with the spinach and all. Or maybe it’s that—what do you call it?—fusion business.”

  “Can you please stop stuffing your face for one minute and focus?”

  Chrissy widened her lovely violet eyes as she chewed. “Really, Stella? You’re gonna tell me to focus? When the whole time you were in the ladies’ room trying to get Goat to answer his cell phone, I was doing research?”

  She dug into her purse and pulled out her little tablet computer. Ian had recently surprised Chrissy with a pair of ruby earrings that she promptly and unapologetically returned, using the cash to buy herself the new tech toy, and she’d taught herself all its secrets in no time.

  “Okay, what did you find?”

  “Well, the park cut back their services so much, it was real hard to get a fix on where Divinity and Bryant might even have gone. But I found a few trail closures. There’s a footbridge out over the creek, and a rock-slide area along a ridge. The thing is, Bryant had appointments scheduled this morning that he didn’t show for—I talked to his assistant.”

  “But there could be a dozen reasons why. They haven’t even been missing twenty-four hours. Couldn’t they just have decided to stay an extra night? I mean, I doubt a girl that age would be all that excited to party like it’s 1985 with a bunch of her aunt’s friends.”

  “The whole reason they were going Tuesday and Wednesday wasn’t just so Divinity could get back for the shower tonight. Tilly said she wanted to rest up her voice for Saturday. She and some friend of hers are going to sing ‘Ave Maria’ at the wedding.”

  “Well, she could rest it in a tent as good as in a hotel room, couldn’t she?”

  “And that’s probably all it is, and Divinity can’t call ’cause there’s no service out in the forest, but I guess her mom’s real worried anyway.”

  “Oh, Taffy was always a terrible drama queen,” Stella sighed. “The t
orment she used to put us through when we were kids!”

  “Explain that whole family tree to me one more time, Stella.” Chrissy kicked off her high-heeled sandals and got comfy on the couch they’d taken over.

  “Well, you know Dotty and me were the same year in school. Taffy and Tilly are her first cousins, and they were three years ahead of us. But they lived nearby, so our folks would send us all out to play together. Dotty and the twins got sent to the same summer camp and Sunday School, and they spent every holiday and family vacation together.”

  “Are Taffy and Tilly identical twins?”

  Stella snorted. “Lookswise, I guess, only they were so different temperamentally you never would’ve known it. Tilly was the wild one, you should have seen her in her big-hair stage—her greatest ambition was to follow Foreigner around.”

  “What foreigner?” Chrissy said, looking interested.

  “The band? Foreigner?” When Chrissy still looked blank, Stella sighed in exasperation. This was the biggest problem with having a partner twenty years younger than you—she had no comprehension at all of twentieth-century culture before 1985. “ ‘Hot Blooded,’ ‘Juke Box Hero’? ‘Feels Like the First Time’?”

  Chrissy shrugged. “Okay. So somewhere along the way Tilly put her wild ways aside and became a minister—”

  “Well, you left out the part where she met Curt, accidentally got knocked up young, popped out three more kids, spent twenty-some years taking care of that bunch, and got the calling about the same time she started having hot flashes, but that’s basically it.”