Unsightly Bulges Read online

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. I bolted out the door and trotted over to Frank’s trailer next door.

  I looked back at my living room window. She was standing on the sofa, her front legs on the window sill. She was on full alert. The howling was about to start.

  I rapped my knuckles on his front door, but I didn’t hold out a lot of hope. Frank’s big work pickup wasn’t parked on the concrete slab by his trailer. If his truck wasn’t there, he wasn’t there. But I knocked anyway.

  He wasn’t there. He must have been actively engaged in one of his sporadic bouts of employment.

  I looked back at Stump, waving encouragingly. “Mommy’s right here,” I said. I felt like an idiot.

  She set up the howl, but I think it was mostly just to punish me. It had no real heart in it. Stump was capable of howling so loud that the Trailertopia rental office had twice called the police, thinking someone was being tortured. There were weekly drunken brawls in Trailertopia, one time a man had burned down three trailers and two pickups when his turkey fryer exploded, and there had been an actual murder. Not one of those times had anyone from the front office called the authorities. Stump, sweet and silent as she was when she was content, sounded like the gates of Hell opening when she was stressed.

  Viv pulled up as I was making my way back to my trailer. Dale was in the front seat.

  I seriously thought about staying home. I didn’t really want another day with Dale.

  I could go off on my own, I thought in that moment. I could solve this case all by myself.

  Or, if I was wrong, and they solved it without me...they’d solve it without me.

  “Just let me get Stump,” I called to Viv.

  I opened the door and Stump stood there, staring forward, waiting patiently for me to pick her up. When I did scoop my hand around her she gave her usual grunt, but it seemed to have a “We both knew how this was going to go,” tone to it. I picked up her leash from the table by the door, wondering how I’d gotten myself saddled with such a high maintenance know-it-all dog. But she licked my chin on the way out to the car, and I could hardly hold a grudge then.

  “Do you take that dog everywhere with you?” Dale asked as we climbed in.

  “She has issues,” I said, buckling myself in. “Separation anxiety.” Viv was already roaring down the little street out of the trailer park.

  “She has issues,” Dale said, his tone making it clear where he thought the real issue lay.

  “Viv doesn’t mind,” I said.

  “Do you?” Dale asked her.

  “Of course not,” Viv said. “All detective teams have a mascot, right? I mean, there’s the Lone Ranger and Trigger.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And there’s...” But I couldn’t think of another one.

  “Baretta and that bird,” Viv said.

  “Who’s Baretta?” Dale asked

  “Never mind,” I said. “The point is, I want her with me and Viv doesn’t mind and it’s her car, so it’s fine.”

  Dale turned in his seat and grinned at me. “What are you going to do when that dog dies? How are you going to get by?”

  And that was the moment I knew for sure I hated Dale. Actually, it was the moment I decided to stop feeling guilty and be okay with hating Dale.

  “Why did you say your sisters weren’t speaking to you?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  He scowled and turned to face the front. “A bunch of BS,” he said. “You never know with those two. One minute everything is fine and the next they completely lose it.”

  I could only imagine. My guess was that one minute Dale was merely annoying, and the next he crossed into the intolerable zone.

  I should have felt bad for bringing it up, but I doubted he even made the connection as to why I would. Anyway, I just didn’t.

  We found the alley behind the Sonic and parked at the end.

  “What are we even doing here?” Dale said as we climbed out of the Cadillac.

  “The guilty party always goes back to the scene of the crime,” I said.

  “So, are we gonna just hang out here in the alley until the bad guy shows up?” He looked uneasily around, and I realized he was still freaked out about the body in his dumpster truck.

  This made me unreasonably happy.

  “I just want to get a feel for the place. Breathe it in, you know?” Although when I did breathe it in, I wish I hadn’t. Trash. No good smells there.

  I wasn’t nearly ready for this to be over. I strolled slowly around the alley, kicking at clumps of grass, studying different angles of the alley like I was actually doing something.

  “So Dale,” I said nonchalantly. “Try to remember what you saw, when you looked over the edge of the truck bed and saw that foot.”

  He went instantly white. “What? Why?”

  “Because, you might have seen something else that could be a clue. Something near the foot – something that fell out of the dumpster with him.”

  He made a sound that could have been a scoff, if I was in a generous mood, which I was not.

  “I saw a foot. A bare, white, dead...” He started looking a little green. He swallowed. “I just saw a foot.”

  “Yeah, but you know people say our subconscious picks up everything around us, and our conscious mind just filters out what it thinks is unimportant.”

  Viv, oblivious to his queasiness, put a thin hand on his shoulder and looked intently at him. “All you have to do is relax and let the memory float up to your consciousness.”

  “But, I don’t want anything floating up.”

  “Come on, this will be a big help. Take deep breaths. Relax. You’re back in that afternoon. You feel the metal of the truck bed under your hands, against your stomach as you lean over the side. You smell the smells.”

  Dale swooned a bit.

  Viv just kept going with it. “That’s good, that’s good. Relax all the way.” She helped him down to the grass beside the first dumpster. “You’re there. You can see the whole truck. All the details. It’s all coming back to you.”

  “Uhhhnn,” Dale said. Then, something that sounded like “Glerp.”

  Viv stroked his shoulder as he sat on the ground, bowlegged, his elbows sagging between his knees. “See it. Right in front of you. It’s so clear you can reach out and touch it. See the colors. Now tell me, Dale. What do you see?”

  Dale made a horrible sound between a retch and the loudest, most godawful burp I’d ever heard.

  “Eww,” Viv said. She gave me a “What the hell?” look.

  I shrugged. “I’m going to just walk along here and see if anything triggers a memory.” Stump and I strolled slowly along the grassy center of the alley, looking for who knew what. It did trigger memories, but not especially helpful ones. Wishing I’d stayed back at Sonic and added bacon to my cheeseburger. Talking to Dale, trying to keep him from hitting his head when he passed out. Actually feeling sorry for him. If my future self could go back to that moment, I would scream at my past self, “Don’t do it! Don’t fall for that lovable loser bit. He’ll rip your life apart!”

  Of course, even my future self thought that was melodramatic, but we all agreed that Dale had become much more annoying pain in the neck than he was lovable loser.

  I made it down to the end of the alley without one stinking insight. I didn’t mind, though. Whatever else happened now, I would consider this day a success now that I’d almost made Dale toss his cookies.

  “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” I said as I got closer to Dale, who was still on the ground and looking only slightly less green, and Viv, who stood beside him looking a bit annoyed.

  Then I looked over to see Stump chomping hugely on something, jaws cracking wide with each chew. She only chewed like that when she knew it was something bad and she had to get it down before I took it away from her. And peanut butter. She chewed that way with peanut butter.

  “Stump, no!” I lunged after her.

  She feinted to the left, th
en ran between my legs. Whatever it was, it must have been really bad, because she as holding on for dear life.

  She was, however, fat and stumpy. So I caught up with her, grabbing her by the chubby back legs.

  She gave a half-hearted snarl, but by then she had done all the damage she was going to do. I grabbed her jaws and pried them open.

  I don’t know what it was – or had been – but good Lord, did it smell.

  I let her go and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Yuck, Stump!”

  She gave me a defiant look, then sat on her rump and burped, stretching her neck out.

  “Do you remember seeing anything?” Viv asked me. “Any clues that we could go on?”

  “Not really. All my attention was on freaking out about the dead body and trying to keep Dale from passing out.” And wishing I’d gotten bacon on the cheeseburger that I never got to eat.

  “I wasn’t passing out,” Dale said feebly.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “The thing is,” I said, “This isn’t even the real crime scene. I mean, it’s part of the crime scene. A crime took place here, because I’m sure it’s against the law to dump a dead body in a dumpster. But the murder didn’t take place here.”

  “You’re the one who said we should go the scene of the crime,” Dale reminded me. He held his hand out so I could help him up.

  “Yes, well, I don’t know where that is, do I?” I tugged a little more forcefully than necessary.

  “If that jerk boyfriend of yours wasn’t such a jerk, he could give us some of his jerky information.”

  “He’s not a jerk,” I said, although he had been, when he sent us on the false PDDL trail. “And also, not my boyfriend.”

  “We should go talk to him anyway,” Dale said.

  I thought he was mostly just looking for a reason to get out of the alley, but I also knew Dale would go into Bobby’s office and start in with his stellar personality. I wanted to get major revenge against Bobby for the PDDL thing. In the absence of anything better, Dale would have to do.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  About a block down the road Stump burped again. The stench flowed out like a wave of green fog.

  “Oh.” Viv whipped her head around. “Oh good Lord. Did you step in something?”

  I opened my mouth to tell her the truth, but then I stopped. There would be no end to Dale’s remarks if I told where the smell was coming from, and I felt very protective of Stump.

  “I must have,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Man, that is rank,” Dale said. “Roll your window down.”

  I rolled the window down and let Stump hang her head out. Hopefully, if she barfed it would all go down the outside of the door.

  At the police station, I fixed Stump’s leash to the leg of the bicycle rack. She started hacking and coughing as soon as she saw the thing, remembering the last time I’d tied her there, when she’d acted like the leash was so tight she couldn’t breathe. Her drama hadn’t worked that time, either.

  This time she tried a new tack – old school video game mode. She walked to the end of the leash, whimpered when it came up taut against her neck, then tried again. Three steps forward, bump against the end of the leash with a surprised whimper, stumble back. Repeat.

  “Is she okay?” Dale asked, looking concerned.

  “As if you care,” I said, remembering his earlier remark.

  “She’s a damned fine actress is what that dog is,” Viv said, genuinely impressed. “We need to find some use for her talents.”

  At the front desk, we asked to see Bobby Sloan and were shown the very uncomfortable plastic chairs in the lobby. From where we were, I could see Stump out on the sidewalk. Apparently in intermission now, she’d laid down with her wide nose between her paws, watching the parking lot. A patrolman parked and got out of his car, and as he made his way toward the door she started up again. Walk to end of leash, whimper in surprise, step back, repeat.

  The performance earned a sympathetic scratch on the head, so it hadn’t been wasted. Stump stretched out her neck, eating up whatever sympathetic words he was crooning. Then she opened her mouth and belched again.

  The patrolman’s face first registered concern, then horror. Then he came inside, casting an unsure glance over his shoulder.

  “Is that dog okay?” he asked, thumbing toward the door.

  “She’s just a really good actress,” Dale informed him.

  Bobby only kept us waiting about five minutes, so I figured he hadn’t realized it was us. He did look a little surprised when he rounded the corner and saw me and Viv, but then his face broke out into a wide grin. “Well, look who it is. You guys need some more help with clues?” He laughed.

  “Jerk,” Viv said, her wobbly chin sticking out. “Plus, you’re not nearly as hot as you think you are.”

  “Of course I am,” he said. “Come on back.”

  The problem was, he was exactly as hot as he thought he was. I kind of missed the days of seeing him in a uniform, but now that he was a detective he got away with wearing jeans with a shirt and sport coat. At the moment he’d done away with the coat, and I could have done away with the shirt if we weren’t in a public place in front of witnesses and I wasn’t all married and stuff.

  “How’s your heart?” he asked Viv as he sprawled in the chair behind his desk.

  “I could go at any time.” Viv said it like a threat, eyeing him levelly across the desk.

  “We could use some information,” Dale said. He crossed his hands in front of him and spread his feet wide, taking the same stance he’d taken when we went to Marky’s apartment.

  “Could you, now?” Bobby said, sounding bored.

  “We need to know the actual scene of the crime,” Dale went on, oblivious to Bobby’s tone. “We know that CJ Hardin was killed at a separate location, and his body was then placed in that dumpster.”

  “Good work,” Bobby said. “You must have been watching the news. Or, you know, thinking logically.”

  Dale, bless his idiotic heart, actually took this as a compliment. “We are trying, sir. So now we just need to know where the actual murder took place, so we can go there and investigate.”

  Bobby studied him for a few seconds, as if he was trying to figure out if he was full of, well...poop, or not. Then he leaned forward, making his chair squeak. “Son, you do realize that I’m not actually obligated to tell you a damn thing, right?”

  “Of course you are! Freedom of information. Ever heard of it?”

  Bobby leaned back in his chair, his elbow on the arm of his chair and one finger over his lips. “Have you filled out an open records request?”

  “No,” Dale said. “How do I do that?”

  “Jeannie up at the front desk will give you one. She can probably advise you how to fill it out, too.”

  “How long does it take after we fill it out?”

  “Usually takes a week or ten days.”

  “That’s too long,” Dale said.

  Bobby shrugged. “The wheels of justice grind slowly, my friend.” He turned to me. “Who else have you talked to?”

  “Fill out an open records request,” Viv interrupted. “We’re not telling you a thing.”

  “So after a week or ten days, this open records thing will tell us where the murder took place?”

  “Hell no,” Bobby said. He put his feet up on his desk.

  While they argued back and forth, I looked around the room. Bobby’s office was a mess, with files stacked on a credenza behind him, papers and more files on the desk, and a couple of storage boxes on the floor at his feet. One of the boxes was open, and a flash of orange caught my eye.

  I bent and lifted out a plastic zip bag.

  “Salem, what the hell are you doing?” He reached over and snatched the bag out of my hand.

  “But I already know what that is. I saw it in the alley that day. It’s a piece of a t-shirt, I think. Was it part of CJ’s clothes? Something with bacon on it.”

  “You fool around an
d get your fingerprints on my evidence, you’re going to see your name on a list of possible suspects.”

  I sneered at him. “Shows what you know. My fingerprints are already on it. I’m the one who found it in the alley.”

  “Well then, that explains the star by your name. Witnesses always turn into the best possible suspects.”

  I was fairly sure he was kidding, but I did feel some clarification was in order. “All I did was order a cheeseburger at Sonic, and I saw the body fall out of the dumpster. That’s it.”

  “Mmmmhmmm,” he said.

  The room was silent for a couple of long ticks. “I need to go check on Stump,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

  It didn’t take long for Viv and Dale to join me on the sidewalk. In that time I wondered if the judge would grant me bail so I could take care of Stump during the period before the trial. Maybe if not, Tony could take care of her for me.

  “What a pompous jerkweed,” Viv said, slipping designer tortoise-shell sunglasses on as she and Dale emerged into the light.

  “Be nice to him,” I said. I didn’t want my debt to society to include Viv and Dale’s disrespectful attitude.

  Back at the car, Viv turned the key in the ignition and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. “Good work back there,” she said. “We know where our next stop is.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Ummm, we do?”

  “Yeah, Matt Macon. Obviously that shirt was significant enough for them to consider it evidence. Where is that radio station, anyway?”

  “Out by the strip club,” Dale and I said at the same time.

  “Wait,” I said, not keeping up well. “That shirt said bacon.”

  “Yeah, from his slogan. ‘Have some Macon with your Bacon.’ Because of his morning radio show.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t listen to Matt Macon,” Viv said.

  “Oh, well sure, but you know, at work it gets so loud sometimes...” I leaned back in my seat, feeling like an idiot. This whole week I’d been thinking bacon, when the clues pointing at Macon had been all around me.

  “You ever feel a need to hear a paranoid conspiracy theory, Matt Macon is your man,” Viv announced. “The man is hilarious.”