Hell's Belles

Della looked like an angry rottweiler guarding its kibble. Was that a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth? Mattie stifled a hysterical laugh at the thought, then straightened, attempting to gain control of her ping-ponging thoughts.

“I’m sorry. I—I really can’t say—stay…” she stammered. “I have a shipment of books from Ralph Barnes’s estate that I need to go through.”

“Ralph Barnes?” Erica shivered. “He gave me the heebie-jeebies. Always walking around in that silk smoking jacket like Hugh Hefner.”

Della ignored her, focusing on Mattie. “You’re not wiggling out of this one, Missy. I don’t care if St. Peter died and left you the keys to heaven.”

Erica fidgeted with a bar napkin, seemingly oblivious to Della’s rising temper. “Isn’t St. Peter technically already dead?”

“It’s okay,” Shay said, shooting Della and Erica disapproving looks. “We understand.”

Erica shrugged but Della landed on her feet, pointing at Mattie. “No, we don’t!”

Mattie cocked her head, studying the image of her friend. With her arm extended in perfect pointer position, she looked more rabid golden retriever than rottweiler.

“Mattie!” Della’s voice cracked and Mattie jumped, suddenly alert. “I’ve waited twenty years to hear what’s inside of that envelope of yours.” Della’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “What are you so afraid of, Mattie Harold?”

Oh crap. All sorts of things came to mind—bugs, the bottom of her garbage can when she lifted the bag out, the rejection of men dipped in self-tanner….

Mattie had never had an athletic moment in her life. She’d always assumed that whatever gene was responsible for hand-to-eye coordination was dormant in her body. She had a colorful history of sending tennis balls into outer space and gymnastic coaches to the ER. But for one shining moment, she was Olga Korbut and Chris Evert rolled into one. She was on her feet before anyone could blink. Her hand shot out, unchallenged, grasped her envelope and shoved it safely into her purse. She executed a perfect half-spin and was halfway across the room before Della knew what had happened.

“Gotta run!” she called cheerfully.

Then she tripped over the threshold on her way out the door.

Jack watched Mattie Harold weave her way hell-bent through the maze of bar tables and pinball machines toward the back door of the bowling alley. He’d suspected she was tipsy earlier. Her gaze had seemed a little out of focus and her face had been flushed. But when she stumbled over the threshold, arms flapping like she was an agitated flamingo in an effort to keep from falling, he realized she was more than tipsy. He grinned. Damn, she was cute. She’d always been the cute one in the bunch. She was Della’s age, a few years younger than he was, but she still looked like the kid he remembered.

A kid who was about to walk into traffic drunk as a skunk.

He stepped out of the building and slipped behind Della’s minivan, ready to intervene if necessary. But Mattie successfully made her way through the cars in the parking lot and to the sidewalk that lined Main Street. But she’d now stopped and was fiddling with a piece of paper. An envelope, maybe? What in the world was she up to? He thought he recalled seeing a stack of envelopes on the bar table, but hadn’t paid much attention. The haze of his own embarrassment at his appearance had been pretty thick.

He watched as Mattie began tearing the paper into pieces. He couldn’t help but grin. She appeared to be seriously pissed off at the envelope. Mattie then wadded the pieces of paper into a ball and tossed it into the roadside ditch.

Jack felt a rush of curiosity that he hadn’t felt since he’d stopped taking on personal investigations. He slipped his shades on and repositioned himself by another car, making certain that Mattie wasn’t headed toward a vehicle of her own. The last thing she needed to do in her condition was to get behind the wheel. Thankfully, she was leaving on foot, though her feet didn’t look too steady, either.

He watched until Mattie disappeared from sight, then his gaze settled on the ditch. Whatever lay crumpled in that soggy ditch was none of his business.

But that wasn’t going to stop him.

Mattie dipped the sponge into the soapy water and squeezed, her head pounding as she bent over the bucket. She straightened, pushing her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose with her free hand. She’d slept off the tequila last night—well, yesterday afternoon and last night—but woke this morning feeling like she’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler. And had been dragged behind it for about a mile.

The midday sun was now glaring off the chrome bumper of her car like a laser, and the sunglasses were no match. And she was unnaturally hot, even in shorts and a tank top. Not to mention a little queasy. She wanted to go inside her duplex, pull the curtains and die. But she wasn’t going to. Washing the land barge was her penance for drinking like a fish and buying the ridiculous vehicle in the first place. Besides, she wasn’t exactly mentally sharp, and washing the car was one task that didn’t require her to think. She’d managed to retrieve one load of books from Ralph Barnes’s estate this morning, but by the time she’d hauled the heavy boxes into the store she’d felt bloodless and about as strong as a noodle. No more tequila, she vowed. Never, never, never.

She squatted next to the side of the car and scrubbed at the dingy silhouette of the police shield as if it would miraculously disappear. No such luck. Little flakes of faded white paint stuck to her sponge. Groovy.

Mattie stood and snatched up the hose. She shot a stream of water at the sudsy side and pretended the nozzle was an Uzi. More paint chips cascaded to the asphalt with the water and settled in a mocking little puddle around her bare feet. So much for improving the outside. Hauling the estate books this morning had left a trail of spiderwebs and grime in the back seat, so she traded the hose for her cordless vacuum, shoved her sunglasses on top of her head and crawled inside.

The car was like a vault. But it wasn’t the size that unnerved her as much as the car’s gender. Insane, she knew, but the car was a guy.

She’d always had a secret habit of assigning gender to inanimate objects. This car had male written all over it. Testosterone practically haunted the thing, left behind by the countless police officers that had driven it. It even smelled like a man. The scent of aftershave and the faint odor of cigarettes still lingered, forever embedded in the worn upholstery.

It was completely foreign to her.

Men in general were a mystery to Mattie. She was an only child and therefore had missed brother exposure. Her parents divorced when she was ten, wiping out any chance that she’d have a sibling and severely altering her view of her father, who’d gone from father extraordinaire to awkward director of every-other-weekend activities in the blink of an eye. Of her friends, Shay was an orphan and Erica’s older brother had married and moved away by the time they’d become close. Della was the only friend with a brother still at home, and Mattie’s feelings for Jack were hardly sisterly.

Mattie’s gut took a one-two stomach-acid punch as an image of Jack, complete with bad self-tanner, formed in her head. She moaned, revved the vacuum and went to work on the upholstery. Her tenuous grip on mental and physical health just couldn’t process the new Jack.

A mechanical scream suddenly came from the hand vac, ripping Mattie from her thoughts. She dropped the vacuum and listened with dread as a chopping sound replaced the screech, decreasing as the engine sputtered to a halt. She eyed the vac, which now lay on the floorboard like a dead animal. Obviously something other than lint had been sucked into the lint trap. She sighed.

The day just got better and better.

She sat cross-legged on the back seat, pulled the vacuum into her lap and popped it open, exposing the disposable lint trap. Sure enough, a small hole had been ripped through the liner. She pulled the damaged lint trap out, holding the edge of the crud-encrusted thing with two fingers, then tossed it out the car door. But when she tilted the vac to examine the exposed motor, a ring fell out, landing on her bare thigh. She was shocked. She’d expected a small rock, maybe a penny, but not a ring. She picked it up. It was a thin gold band with a filigree setting, centered with what looked to be a ruby. The ring’s band was marred with a few nasty scratches from the motor, but was otherwise intact.

She mentally backtracked, trying to judge where the nose of the vacuum had been when it sucked up the ring. Probably the seat’s crevice, she reasoned. Mattie held the ring up to the sunlight, examining it. The setting was old-fashioned, either a reproduction or an antique—it was difficult to tell. She pushed it onto the ring finger of her left hand for safekeeping.

In all likelihood, the ring had been stored with the books she’d bought from Ralph Barnes’s estate and had fallen out when she was transporting them. Since Ralph had no living relatives, she could only ask the Realtor handling his estate if she knew anything about it. If that didn’t turn up anything, she could always ask around at the police precinct. But she doubted that would do any good, given that all Haddes’s officers were male. Maybe she could keep it. A gift from the universe for having treated her so poopy lately. Mattie spread her hand, admiring the ring. It really was beautiful.

She retrieved a fresh lint trap from the duplex and reassembled the vacuum. To her relief, it revved back to life and she returned to work, keeping an eye out for foreign objects. She came across a quarter and a hairy cough drop but nothing else out of the ordinary.

Finally, exhausted, she treated herself to a cold cola and a break. She dragged a folding chair from her porch to the driveway and plopped into it. She wasn’t wearing her age-defying makeup with an SPF of a gazillion and, frankly, she didn’t give a damn. In fact, she spritzed her legs with a fine mist from the hose, hiked up her shorts a little, slid her shades down over her eyes and leaned back. Burn, baby, burn. She was still too hungover to do anything but succumb to the sunshine. And she didn’t care who saw her. She wiggled her toes. Besides, her neighbors were all of the geriatric set. If you didn’t steal the Sunday newspaper or play loud rap music, they generally didn’t notice you.

“What say, Mattie Harold?” The voice was deep, a little raspy and a lot sleazy.

Mattie bolted upright and was rewarded with a pounding pain to her right temple and dancing spots before her eyes. She blinked up at the silhouette that was now blocking her sun, but she’d know the voice anywhere. She pressed her fingertips to her temple. The voice was about as welcome as a tornado siren. She adjusted her sunglasses as she stared up at Shay’s ex-husband, Mac McKay.

“Mac.” It was more of a statement than a greeting. Her voice was cold, lacking inflection. And that was just how Mattie intended it. “What are you doing here?”

He ignored the question. “Getting a little sun?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” He shifted and the sun hit her full force, blinding her. If possible, she was even more annoyed. “What do you want?”

“I just saw the cruiser. And you.” He hesitated and the comment suddenly seemed suggestive. “I thought I’d stop and see if it was still performing like it should be.”

There was a certain emphasis on the word performing. What a creep. She thought of Shay and wondered if Mac had gotten wind that his ex-wife was back in town. She felt a surge of protectiveness and stood. He wouldn’t learn of Shay’s whereabouts from her, that was for sure. Mattie had been raised to forgive and forget, but she doubted that she would ever forget the sight of Shay’s battered face.

At five foot four, Mattie was petite. Though Mac was average for a man, probably less than six feet tall, she hardly came to the center of his chest, especially in bare feet. But that didn’t keep her from wanting to take a swing at him. Especially today.

“The car’s running fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to finish what I started.”

He shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask.”

When he didn’t make a move to leave, Mattie turned to find him staring at her with an odd expression. She suddenly felt vulnerable with her bare feet and legs, her thin tank top.

After a minute, Mattie accepted that he wasn’t leaving without fulfilling some police quota of small talk. She sighed. “Any news on Christina Wilson?” Christina was a local teenager, just eighteen, who had been missing for almost a week now. Mattie was concerned, as were all the locals, and she figured the neutral topic was as comfortable a one as she’d get with Mac.

“Of course not.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, made a kind of hissing noise and looked off into the distance as if the question perturbed him. “She’s a runaway. Her daddy just needs to accept the obvious.”

Whether Christina had run away or had been taken by force was a question being asked throughout Haddes. You couldn’t go to the barbershop or the grocery store without someone engaging you in the debate. The way Mattie saw it, either scenario was heartbreaking, especially for Christina’s father, Rand Wilson, who had been Jack Murphy’s closest friend in school and as underfoot in the Murphy household as Mattie. She had a lot of respect for Rand and she wasn’t the only one in town that felt that way. He’d unexpectedly become a father at nineteen and had raised his daughter alone when his young wife took off in search of a less demanding life. Rand had risen to the occasion and Christina had become the center of his world.

Mattie could only imagine what hell Rand was going through, and Mac McKay’s callous dismissal of the girl was just another strike against him in her book. As if she needed another reason to dislike the man.

Mattie narrowed her eyes and picked up the hose, wishing for all the world that it really was an Uzi. She really didn’t want to start a fresh debate with Mac, but she couldn’t resist adding at least one last word. “Maybe,” she said.

Mac threw his arms into the air, hissing again, like a punctured tire. “The girl left a note. How much clearer can you get? She’s a runaway, plain and simple.”

Mattie supposed he had a point. There had been a note left on her bed, a one-liner saying that she was leaving. But Rand thought she’d been forced to write the note, had pointed out the obvious changes to her handwriting, the cryptic wording. And the way Mattie looked at it, Rand knew Christina better than anyone else in the world. If he sensed something was wrong, it just might be.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything to the contrary?” He eyed her with suspicion, his gaze suddenly dark as it raked over her.

“No, of course not,” she answered. As if she’d be calmly washing her car if she had any useful information for the police. What an idiot.

She squeezed the nozzle’s trigger and the hose jumped to life. Mattie sprayed the car, making certain that the overspray drifted in Mac’s direction. When droplets began to cling to his dark uniform, he got the hint. Backing up, he lifted his hand. It was both a wave goodbye and a dismissal, as if he’d given up on the conversation. Good riddance, she thought as he turned and sauntered off in the direction of his shiny new patrol car.

Since the Crown Vic had gotten way more attention than it deserved and Mattie was ready to throw in the towel on the sorry excuse for a day, she emptied the mop bucket and gathered her sponge and wheel brush, then tossed them inside. She was coiling the garden hose over her shoulder when the chirp of an electronic car lock caught her attention. She looked up to see a man crossing the street toward her.

Good grief, no. Not now. Couldn’t a girl wash her police cruiser in peace?

It was Jack Murphy. Six foot three, two hundred pounds of recently banished adolescent fantasy. And he was walking toward her with the same masculine stride he’d had at nineteen.

She wanted to run. Instead, she threw down the hose. Then instantly picked it up again. Mattie felt like a squirrel dashing about in the middle of the road, looking for the perfect place to hide, the best direction to avoid the wheels of the car. In the end, it was always the lack of a decision that got the squirrel. Taken out by a Michelin on the centerline stripe.

Her next thought as he neared was that he looked more like the old Jack than he had last night. It was strangely comforting. He was ruggedly handsome, like a smiling—and overly tanned—model from a Jeep ad. The tan was a little uneven, but what the heck. He wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt that only accented his dark hair. But gone, thankfully, was the spiky, over-gelled hair, replaced with a top-down, windblown look. Deceit like that should be illegal, she thought. It was false advertising in the cruelest sense.

“Hey, there,” she said when he stopped before her. She heard the friendly lilt in her own voice, marveled at it. Talk about bogus.

“I was hoping to run into you today.” Jack paused, a shy-looking grin lifting one corner of his mouth.

“Thanks. It’s good to see you again.” Liar, liar.

Jack put his hands on his hips and stared at her car rather than her, distracted, no doubt, by its sheer ugliness. He finally dragged his gaze to meet hers, picking up where he’d left off. “I know my appearance was a little weird last night. I hope Della filled you in.”

Mattie bit her lip, not certain what to say. All the bizarre comments that popped into her head were far from politically correct. And she wanted desperately to be supportive. So she nodded and smiled. There was little you could do to offend someone when you nodded and smiled.

But now that he was within detail range, she could see that the self-tanner cut a jagged line along his jaw. More subtle today, true. But still there.

“Kimee should come with a warning label,” Jack said.

Mattie realized, with a start, that the expression on his face was one of embarrassment. “You mean Kimee from the salon?”

“She ambushed me when Della had to leave early.”

“Oh.” She tried to process the information, but the conversation was moving faster than her recently damaged brain. “Uh, yeah. Kimee has half the mothers in Haddes stirred up. She’s very, uh, innovative.” Good, she congratulated herself. Nice benign comment.

“Innovative.” He laughed and rubbed at his jaw. “That’s a nice word for it. I can’t get this crap off. I can’t believe it. I’ve been away from Haddes for years and the first day after I move back, I’m walking around my hometown like a beauty queen. How’s that for embarrassing?”

Mattie frowned. That comment was a little self-depreciating. Not to mention that he used the Q word. A niggling doubt crept in, but the questions that floated through her brain were sure to make her look like a hick, or worse, intolerant. Yet she wanted to blurt out, Are you sure you’re gay? ’Cause I never thought so. Mattie bit her lip instead. She was surrounded by steaming piles of faux pas. And no matter what escape route she took, she’d be ankle deep.

So more nodding and smiling ensued.

“Listen, I was hoping maybe we could get together.” Jack’s eyes were concealed by the shades but his gaze flickered downward and, just for a moment, traveled over her body.

Mattie squirmed. She wanted to look down and see if she had a blob of mud from the hose on her tank top. That was probably it. Coming from any other man, she’d think he was checking her out. Flirting, even. Not that she got checked out much lately. But occasionally, when the moon and stars were aligned, it still happened. At least often enough that she still recognized it.

“Maybe we could have dinner. Catch up,” he continued. “And I didn’t get a chance to tell you how great you look. You still look eighteen.” He lowered his voice. “Only better.”

He was staring at her so intently that she couldn’t think of a thing to say. It was like… Her brain felt like it was sloshing around in her head, still a little pickled by tequila and a lot off balance. It was like he was coming on to her. But why would he do that? To what end? She didn’t get it. A glimmer of hope shone in the dark recesses of her brain. Maybe she’d misread the whole situation. It occurred to her that she could out-and-out ask Della, but then the jig would be up. Her feelings for Jack would be written all over her face.

She didn’t get men. Never did. Probably never would. The old Jack was gone, that much was clear. But so what? He was always a great guy. And, no matter what, he was Della’s big brother. Maybe the universe was offering him up to her as a sort of learning tool, a risk-free piece of her incomplete “man puzzle.”

They could be buddies. Mattie fought the sinking feeling that followed that thought. At the very least she could learn from him, understand what it was—or wasn’t—that made men tick. It would be like watching a football game from the safety of the press box rather than getting creamed on the playing field.

It was a consolation prize, but she’d take it. Mattie lived in a small town and that meant playing by small-town rules. Most of her friends were married, which meant they had little time left between soccer games and laundry for hanging out with her. And bonding with other women’s husbands was a recipe for disaster. So for those situations where she mingled with couples her own age, she wore her bookstore spinster status like an access badge: Harmless—no threat to marriage. Full clearance to barbecues and bar mitzvahs.

In other words, she was boring.

But Jack could change that. Suddenly the image of him as her hip gay friend was appealing in an off-center sort of way. They could hang out. Maybe he would take her to Atlanta, introduce her to the club scene. She felt a sly grin tug at the corner of her mouth as her mind drifted to the boxes of unworn shoes that lined her closet. They were hers, bought and paid for, but off-limits in some self-imposed way. Yet in the back of her mind hadn’t she’d always thought a day would come when she’d wear at least one pair? Up until now she just hadn’t been able to imagine what day that would be….

“Mattie? You okay?”

She blinked, aware that she’d been drifting on her own thoughts. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She looked up at Jack as if she were seeing him for the first time, the awkwardness suddenly gone. “Yes, I’d love that,” she answered.

“Great.” He seemed a little taken aback by her response, as if he’d expected her to say no.

“So…” Mattie took a deep breath and searched for something supportive to say. She could do this. “So have you and your partner found a house yet?”

“My partner has his condo on the market.” Jack shifted uncomfortably, as though he wanted to say more but then decided against it. “As for me, I still need to look around, check out the local real estate.”

Mattie managed to babble for a solid three minutes, offering advice as though Jack hadn’t lived here for the first twenty years of his life. All the while her brain tried to process their new relationship, stalling while she fought for balance. Her old Jack fantasy was deteriorating somewhere in a ditch. That was okay: a new friendship was budding. She swallowed hard and forced herself to stop talking.

“Thanks.” Jack nodded, an amused expression on his face. “I’ll, uh, try and remember all that.”

Humor the crazy babbling lady. She wanted to die.

“So what about dinner tomorrow night? Pick you up at seven?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Good.” He finally raised his head, looking over her shoulder. “I should go now.” He frowned. “But before I do, I have something to ask you.”

She frowned. “What’s that?”

He grasped her shoulders and gently turned her to face the Crown Vic. “Is this your car?”

“Uh, yes.” She met his eyes. “Why?”

He shook his head in mock distress. “Because I spent fifteen years of detective work developing a theory about vehicles and their drivers.”

“And?”