The Laura Cardinal Novels by J. Carson Black

counted.
    He glanced at his watch. If he was going to surprise her, he’d better get a move-on. She got off work at two. Hurriedly, he picked out a ceramic orca and a card, one of those soft-filtered ones showing two cute little kids together. He also grabbed a roll of breath mints.
    He walked fast, worried he might miss her. As he rounded the bend, he saw the yellow clapboard building housing the Midnight Sun Hotel and Restaurant. He’d just started up the steps when a woman pushed the door out, struggling with a kid in a stroller. The woman looked used-up, your basic white trash—stringy hair, tattoos on her bare arms.
    He waited for her to get through the door. She made a big show of wrangling with the stroller, but he refused to help. She gave him a dirty look and he returned her gaze serenely, not letting her know what he was thinking. What he was thinking: She looks like a hype .
    “Thanks for your help ,” she said.
    He ignored her and went inside. The place was empty except for a woman he presumed worked there sitting at a table by the window. He asked her pleasantly if Misty Patin was there.
    “She just left.”
    “Could I get an address?”
    The woman parted the curtain and then looked at him. “She’s still there. Didn’t you see her when you came in?”
    He felt his heart drop, the funny feeling you get when an elevator goes way up. “I didn’t see anybody.”
    The woman looked at him as if he were crazy. She shoved back the curtain again and pointed. “She’s right out there.”
    He leaned down and peered out. He saw the hype and her kid across the street. A brand-new navy pickup pulled up. The driver looked like an Eskimo, although that wasn’t what they were called around here. He wore a tank top, shorts and flip flops. A little girl, maybe ten years old, hopped out right behind him. She was blond and didn’t look anything like the man or the kid in the stroller. The girl ran down to the rocky beach and threw rocks into the water.
    Looking at her, he knew it was true.
    She looked just like Misty.
    He felt a wall in his gut give way, the dam he had carefully built up over the years. He could feel something dark and toxic seep out, the resentment and anger that had always been there, but that he had managed to control up until now.
    The woman said, “You better hurry if you want to catch her.”
    “Shut up.”
    “No one talks to me like that. You’d better go, mister—“
    “Shut the fuck up or I’ll make you shut up, you dried-up old hag!”
    For a second, there was quiet. Then the woman catapulted to her feet, her chair screeching across the floor and ricocheting against the wall as she made a beeline for the kitchen. “I’m calling the police. Nobody talks to me like that.”
    He ignored her, pulling the curtain back and staring out the window. He watched the little girl, the delight she took in picking out stones and hurling them into the bay. She was fruit of the poisoned tree, but still innocent, like an angel. The way Misty used to be.
    He let the curtain drop. Looking down, he realized he had crumpled the paper bag holding his recent purchases. Also, he’d forgotten to take a breath mint.
    It didn’t matter now.

10

When Laura arrived at the Bisbee Police Department the next morning, she looked for Buddy Holland, but he wasn’t at his desk. She’d planned to divide up the phone work, but that didn’t look like it would happen now.
    Chief Ducotte had scrounged up a phone and phone jack for her computer and given her the table by the window where they kept the coffee urn. Fortunately, the coffee urn had been moved so she’d have some privacy. She sat down in the folding metal chair, thinking that if she sat here very long, her back would be in agony. She scanned the list of contacts at other law enforcement agencies in the state. Might as well get started.
    In the next hour, she reached close to a dozen of her counterparts in other jurisdictions, but none of them had