Unsightly Bulges Page 5

  Love is patient, love is kind, said a sing-songy voice in my head. “I am aware,” I said. “And if it dries on its own, it will be curly – ”

  “Not that!” Dale said with exaggerated fear. “ Not the dreaded curly hair.” He put his hands up as if to ward off an attacker. “Anything but that!”

  I chewed on my gum so hard I was starting to get an ache in my jaw. “Look, I know it probably seems silly, but these people bought this dog, in part, because of the way it looks. They want it to look the like pictures in Dog Fancy Magazine. They’re paying us good money to make it look like the pictures. I’m telling you now, this is how we make it look like the pictures.”

  Something else ran through my head, something Dale had told me yesterday:

  “I keep getting fired.”

  Things seemed so clear now.

  I took a deep breath and did my best to smile. I raised my eyebrow. “Ready to finish now?”

  I switched the dryer back on and pointed toward a damp spot. “Start there.”

  Dale went back to brushing, and singing. It was so bad I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stand it. I kind of wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to scream at him to shut up. Instead I clenched my fist, chewed my gum, and watched him brush the snow white hair.

  Suddenly he reached over and flipped the dryer off.

  I frowned. “Better, but still not –”

  “I know, I know. I’ll finish in a second. I just – I have to say something.”

  He looked very serious, and I thought for a moment he was going to thank me. I was giving him another chance at earning a living. He had been down and out, and I helped him. I reached out a hand and lifted him up. I could understand that, because someone had once done that for me, and I knew how much it meant. I swallowed a lump in my throat.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but could you just stop with the gum?”

  I blinked. “The gum?”

  “Yeah, your gum chewing.” He gestured toward my mouth. “It’s really annoying. I’m having a hard time concentrating with that – that noise.” He leaned against the table and folded his arms across his chest.

  Dale, thankfully, spent the last hour of the day alone in the bathing room, cleaning cages and straightening up. That gave me time to unclench a little and breathe. During the course of that day he had made four different references to my digestive issues (which didn’t, of course, exist), had told me seven different ways I could do my job better, and (perhaps most egregious of all) had made Flo and Tammy laugh. I was the one who made Flo and Tammy laugh. That was my job.

  Had I promised God just that morning that, if given another chance, I would be nicer to Dale? I was beginning to think God was watching me with one hand, covering a divine laugh.

  I didn’t see how I could possibly handle one more second around him without launching into an obscenity-screaming meltdown, so for that last hour I alternated “Love is patient, love is kind” with “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” By the time I was sweeping up my station, I was calmer. Not calm. But calmer.

  I had decided that, no matter what, Dale was not coming back to Trailertopia with me. I would drop him off at his house and go home alone, if I had to fake the bubonic freaking plague. As it turned out, however, Viv was waiting for us in her Caddy when we walked out of Bow Wow Barbers.

  “Let’s go,” she called through the open window.

  “How did you know I was done?” I never knew from one day to the next what time I would get off work, because we left when we were done. Only Flo stayed to close up the shop at 6:30.

  I shifted Stump, who had started to wiggle when she saw Viv’s car, to the other hip. Viv’s car meant a better chance at fast food than our car did, because Viv always had money and Viv was never on a diet. Excuse me – Strat-EAT-Gic plan.

  “I called her an hour ago and told her when we’d be ready to go,” Dale said from behind me. He grabbed the passenger door handle and was inside before I could protest. What was I going to say, anyway? “Hey, that’s my seat”? I didn’t want to sound like a petulant child. So I huffed and jerked open the back door.

  “Go where?” I asked grumpily.

  “To Channel 11.” Viv swung the Caddy out of the parking lot with only the back tire on my side lurching over the curb. “Talk to your friend.”

  “I’m not sure it’s necessary that we all go,” I said, trying not to look at Dale. “She’s probably busy and if we all converge on her...”

  “It’s three people,” Viv said. “We’re not exactly a Million Man March.” She took off before I got my seatbelt fastened good. With Viv’s driving, that’s not a good thing.

  Dale and Viv chatted away in the front seat. I leaned forward and tried to join in a couple of times, but since they were basically ignoring me, I gave up and leaned back in my seat. I just wanted to get to the station and talk to Trisha. Preferably alone...

  Trisha was coming back from her dinner break when we pulled up, and she waved cheerfully at us.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Hot on another case?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Dale started.

  “Look at you!” Viv interrupted him. “You look amazing! You’ve lost weight!”

  Trisha smiled widely and did a little hip swivel that made her skirt swirl. “Why, thank you!”

  “Seriously, you look incredible. I can’t believe how different you look, and it’s just been a few months!” Viv turned to me. “Look at her!”

  “I’m looking,” I said through clenched teeth. “She looks great.”

  “What did you do? Salem, you should do whatever Patrice is doing. You said you were going to try to lose some weight, right?”

  “I am doing what she’s doing,” I said tightly.

  Dale looked at me, his brows raised. “Did you use to be fatter?”

  I stepped around him, fighting the urge to shove his face into the hood of the car.

  “We are, actually, looking into this CJ Hardin thing.”

  “Found the body,” Dale said proudly. “Me. That was my truck his body got dumped into.”

  Patrice nodded. “I knew you looked familiar.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m something of a local celebrity now.” He sighed deeply and rolled his eyes a little. “Guess I’ll have to get used to that for a while.”

  “Come on inside,” Trisha said. “I need to look at the stories for the ten o’clock, but I can give you fifteen minutes or so.”

  She led us into her office and closed the door. “Of course, I can’t share anything with you that I’ve gotten off the record, so I’m not sure how much help I can be. But I can ask you a couple of questions that might...” She shrugged. “Might give you some starting points.”

  Dale nodded as if this made perfect sense to him. Viv took out a leather portfolio and clicked open a pen.

  I just chewed the inside of my lip. This was kind of weird. She hadn’t made one real joke about our private detective thing. By now I was used to everyone we talked to teasing us about it. Yes, Trisha had been in on mine and Viv’s first successfully solved case, but everyone (except Viv) knew that was a fluke. I had fully expected to have to endure a good five or six minutes of disbelief and derision before we got down to business.

  But, no. Trisha was generous. Supportive, even. Like we were actual professionals.

  She hadn’t stopped smiling the entire time, I realized. Not a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me smile, either. A genuine smile.

  Of course she was happy, I thought darkly. Losing weight was a miracle cure for everything.

  I knew it! Life was just better when you were skinny!

  No wonder I was so grumpy, I thought as I scowled at Dale and took the only remaining chair before he could. I was being denied my right to happiness through weight loss.

  “So, what have you heard?” Trisha asked, leaning across the table.

  “Just what you said yourself on television,” Viv said. “Guy took the mo
ney and ran, isn’t seen for a couple of days. Then his body ends up in the Dumpster behind Sonic.”

  “We did not say he took the money and ran. We took great pains not to say that, in fact. What we said was, he was on his way to deposit the money when he—and the money – disappeared.” She looked at each of us in turn, to make sure we were getting the point. “Big difference.”

  “Yeah, but it’s obvious what happened, right? He was trying to steal that big wad of cash for himself. Probably had a lover’s quarrel with whoever was in cahoots with him and then ended up dead. You find the money, and you’ll find the killer.” He gave a self-satisfied nod and looked to Tri-Patrice for her admiring confirmation.

  Trisha did not nod or in any other way show her agreement (I noted with some satisfaction) but she did ask him, “You’re the one who found the body? That must have been a bit unsettling.”

  “Well, you know.” He lifted the corner of his lip. “Life is like that sometimes. What can you do?” He gave an it-was-no-biggie shrug.

  I gave him a look. “Are you kidding me? I thought you were going to pass out.” Then I remembered. “You did pass out. Right there in the alley.”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “What? That never happened.”

  “Did you get a good look at the body?” Trisha asked him.

  “I got a better look than he did,” I said. “And I was on the other side of the fence. He saw one foot and freaked completely out.”

  Trisha cocked her head. “What do you mean, you got a better look than he did? Why were you there?”

  “I wasn’t in the truck with him, I was at the...” I trailed off as I realized what I was about to say. “I was at Sonic. Getting a Diet Coke. My weekly treat for myself.”

  She nodded. “So, what did you see?”

  “Just a dead body, falling from the dumpster into the truck.”

  “There wasn’t anything...unusual about him?”

  “Well,” I said slowly. “He was naked. And he was dead. Is that not unusual enough?”

  “But no marks, that you could see? Anything painted on him, attached to him—“

  “Attached?” Viv, Dale and I said at the same time, with the same horrified tone. Good Lord.

  “Not attached, exactly. Just...nothing?” She looked from me to Dale.

  “What were they supposed to see?” Viv asked.

  “Was he facing you, or did you see him from the back?”

  I cocked my head at her. “Ummm, Trisha? Your probing questions about what I saw on a naked dead man are kind of making me uncomfortable.”

  “I just...front or back?”

  “Side,” I said, although I guess I had kind of seen him from the back. I remembered a clear view of a bare butt and shoulders, because that’s how I’d been so sure he was fully naked.

  “I’m catching on here,” Viv said. “Was there something on his front that she was supposed to see? A clue?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Trisha said. “I never said that out loud.”

  Viv and Trisha exchanged a knowing look. Dale and I exchanged a confused look.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Ooh, I get it!’ Viv said excitedly. She leaned forward in her seat, her narrowed gaze on Trisha. “There’s a rumor going around?” She checked Trisha. Trisha’s face was very carefully blank. “There’s a rumor going around that the body had some kind of...marking on it?”

  Again with the blank look.

  “That’s it!” Viv shouted, gesturing like she was playing charades. “There was something on his body, but it was on the front and you didn’t see it.”

  Trisha tried to hide a smile. “The Lubbock PD did announce this morning that it was being investigated as a hate crime.”

  “Of course it is,” Dale said with a sneer. “Anybody else can end up in the Dumpster and it’s just a crime. But a black guy or a gay guy ends up in the Dumpster, and it’s a hate crime.”

  “Why?” I asked. I’m slow sometimes. A lot of times.

  Trisha just raised her eyebrows and flattened her lips.

  “Something on the guy’s body to indicate it was a hate crime.” Viv stood and paced in front of Tri-Patrice’s desk, one finger on her lip. “You were asking about paint or marking.”

  “I honestly don’t know what it was,” Trisha said, and with a normal look now, so I believed her. “What I have is off the record and I can’t tell you what little I do know. But now you’re about caught up, at any rate.”

  “This really makes my blood boil.” Dale crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and leaned back in his chair, looking disgusted. “Who gets to decide when a person hates something more than other people do? I mean, don’t you think you’d hate it if you ended up naked and dead in a dumpster? I know I sure would. But because they’re so – so –” He raised his hands and made air quotes. “Sensitive, then it’s a hate crime. Because it’s so much worse for them. After all the – ” more air quotes — “abuse they’ve taken from society. Pure bull, if you ask me.”

  Viv, Trisha and I stared at him, uncomprehending. Then Trisha said, “It’s not called a hate crime based on the victim’s feelings about it. It’s called a hate crime because it’s motivated by hate.”

  “Oh,” Dale said. “Still.”

  I blinked a couple of times, then decided to erase the last fifteen seconds from my memory and move on. “So he had something on his body that makes the police think it was motivated by hate. After all the brouhaha about his sexual orientation this last week, I’m not surprised.”

  “Me either,” Trisha said. “Half the town acts like he betrayed them in some way.”

  “Well, it is a betrayal to misrepresent yourself,” Dale said.

  “How did he misrepresent himself?” I asked with as much patience I could muster, which admittedly wasn’t much.

  “He had a girlfriend,” Dale said defensively. “I saw them on the news.”

  “He did have a girlfriend,” Trisha confirmed. “Remember her, Salem? She’s a couple years younger than us, but she was on the Lubbock High debate team, and a National Merit finalist? Desiree Shaw. Even when I was a senior and had two years’ experience on her, she intimidated the heck out of me when we met up at school competitions and stuff.”

  I furrowed my brow like I was thinking, but the truth was, when Trisha was heavily involved in extracurricular academic pursuits, I had been heavily involved in research as to how I could maintain a constant alcoholic buzz. And getting knocked up.

  “Not ringing any bells,” I said.

  “Well, it’s been ten years. Anyway, Desiree finished law school, worked for the DA for a few years, and then went into private practice. She and CJ were seen everywhere together, and of course everyone assumed they’d end up married.”

  “Lucky for her he got knocked off first,” Dale said with a laugh. “She could have been in for a real shock. Honey, I’m home! Wait, what? Why are you and our TV repairman naked in bed together?”

  “Maybe she was a beard,” Viv said. “You know, one of those girls who help gay guys look straight by pretending they’re a real couple.”

  “I don’t know,” Trisha said. “But if she was acting, she was a good actress. I saw them every year at the Hope for Home benefit, and she looked like she was really crazy about him.”

  Someone poked their head in Trisha’s office and said, “Dierkus wants to see you.”

  “That’s my boss, I need to go.” She clicked a few keys on her keyboard and the printer hummed. “ We just heard this rumor today, so I had my assistant put together a list of local hate groups that could be behind this, if it is a hate crime. It’s as good a place to start as any.”

  She handed me the paper. “I can’t do anything with the information until I get the go-ahead from the PD, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to do some homework, right?” She shrugged into a cute little fitted jacket and held the door open for us. “Let me know what you find out, okay?”

  We were shuffled out too
quickly to say much of anything besides “Thanks, bye.” I stopped by the water cooler and poured one of those paper cone cups for Stump.

  I hustled to the car and claimed the front seat before Dale could do anything about it. I held the cup tilted for Stump to drink up, feeling a little disoriented by it all.

  “That was easier than I anticipated,” Viv said.

  “I know.” I leaned back in my seat, chewing my lip. “She was really...nice.”

  “Well, she’s a nice person when she wants to be.”

  “I agree. But why does she want to be?”

  “Maybe she’s trying to make up to you for how mean she was on our last case.”

  Dale leaned forward and stuck his bony face in between us.

  I scowled at him and leaned forward so I could see Viv. “Maybe. But I have a feeling there’s something more going on here.”

  “Well, whatever it is, she gave us a starting place. Read off those hate groups.”

  I studied the list. “Well, there’s the Klan, of course. Top of the list.”

  “I doubt it’s them,” Viv said. “Hank Zumer said it’s a bunch of old coots with maybe three teeth between them. All the strong young guys are in the patriot groups.”

  “Isn’t Hank Zumer that guy with the bushy white hair coming out his ears?”

  Viv nodded.

  “They must be old if Hank Zumer thinks they’re old. Okay, next on the list is something called The Creativity Group. Their headquarters is out on the west side of town.” I studied the address. “Sound like where the old air force base used to be.”

  “Good, we’ll hit them this afternoon if we can.”

  “Then there’s Church of the Word. It’s on the south side.”

  “What?!” Dale reached over and grabbed the paper. “That’s not a hate group. That’s my church.”

  I shrugged. “Says right here it’s a hate group.”

  “That’s baloney. It’s a place of love for the word of God.” He sank back in his seat. “Frigging liberal media nonsense. No wonder this country is going to hell in a handbasket. When a man of God like Rupert Parker, a man with a fiery passion for God, is called the leader of a hate group.” He shook his head.