Haydee was talking to the crime consultant, leaning over close to him and nodding while he wrote something down. Wasn’t that just fucking precious? It sure the fuck was. Haydee the saint and Haydee the model citizen.
Haydee turned around and pointed at her. Althy nearly spit.
“Listen,” Haydee said, coming up to her with the crime consultant in tow. “Ma, this is Gregor Demarkian. He’s helping with the Chester Morton investigation—”
“I know who the fuck he is,” Althy said. “I’ve seen him before.”
“Fine.” Haydee closed her eyes. “I was just telling him I wasn’t home all day. I only got home about an hour ago. He needs to talk to somebody who was home all day.”
“I wasn’t the fuck home,” Althy said. “I was the fuck asleep.”
“And it’s not just today,” Gregor Demarkian said. “It could have been last night.”
“I wasn’t the fuck here last night,” Althy said. “What do you take me for? I was out till two at least and then when I came the fuck home I just passed out. I’m not some fucking plaster saint.”
“I was telling Mr. Demarkian that I heard a lot of vehicles before I went to sleep, but there are always a lot of vehicles around here.”
“All the fucking time,” Althy said. “Somebody must have brought a fucking truck.”
Gregor Demarkian leaned in, interested. “A truck? You saw a truck?”
“No, I didn’t see a fucking truck,” Althy said. “What do you take me for? I tripped on the rut, that’s all. We came home and I came down this path and there was a fucking rut the size of a whale right here in front of my door, and I tripped on it. I fell flat on my face. Hurt like fucking hell.”
“It was an old rut?” Gregor Demarkian asked. “It was dry?”
“No, it wasn’t the fuck dry,” Althy said, her voice at maximum volume, as if she were talking to somebody who couldn’t speak English. “There’s mud everywhere. What the fuck is wrong with your fucking eyes? It was just a big rut, is all. Deep and wide. And I fell the fuck into it. Fuck, if there’d been a truck the size of that rut around, I’d have seen it. I’m right in the fucking middle of the park. I’d have seen it even if it were black as shit and had its lights off.”
“Yes,” Gregor Demarkian said. “Yes, I see.”
“I don’t see why you have to shout,” Haydee said.
“Go fuck yourself,” Althy said.
Then she turned to look at the whole mess of them out there milling around doing nothing useful, and headed back to the trailer.
There was more than one way to make sure you had enough money to have a good time, and Althy Michaelman knew all of them.
2
Kyle Holborn was on the desk when the call came in, and for the next half hour all he did was make little notes in the margins of the call sheet to make sure there was a record of who was going out there and why. Well, maybe not why. There was no why to this thing besides panic, and just as it was with all panic, it made a lot of noise. What Kyle couldn’t get his head past was just how much he resented it. He resented being at this desk. He resented the incredible fuss this was causing. He resented Mr. Gregor “Great Detective” Demarkian, who had waltzed in here and acted like none of them knew what they were doing.
It was the kind of gossip that got around town very fast. He didn’t expect to be the first to tell anybody about it. He really didn’t expect to be the first to tell Darvelle, who spent her day with women who lived for the moment when they could impart shocking information to somebody. He called Darvelle anyway. So many of the other people in the station were either on their way over to the scene or huddled into tight little groups to discuss it, he thought he was probably safe no matter what he said.
Darvelle’s cell phone rang so many times, Kyle thought he was going to get that message that told him to stop trying. Then Darvelle picked up, and she sounded angry.
“Darvelle Haymes,” she said, as if she hadn’t seen his name on the caller ID.
Kyle took a deep breath and let the air out very slowly. He imagined himself as a plastic blow-up clown, deflating.
“It’s me,” he said. “You had to know it was me.”
“Oh,” Darvelle said. “Oh. I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking. Things are a little tense here.”
“Are you out with a buyer? I didn’t mean to get you in the middle of something.”
“I’m back at the shop. But there are buyers here, and I don’t know who else, and the whole place is going crazy. If you called to tell me they found Chester Morton’s body sitting up in a chair, stark naked, in his old trailer, I already know. Mice at the town dump already know.”