“I’m sorry.”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “I scored a thirty on the Wonderlic and they were looking at me for the third round—”
The skinny woman asked. “What the hell is the Wonder-whatever-it-is?”
The kid smiled broadly. “It’s a short-form cognitive abilities test that the NFL Combine uses as a predraft assessment—limited to twelve minutes, only about two to five percent even complete the test.”
I gestured toward the offending joint. “Why didn’t you get it fixed?”
He smiled a sad smile. “No money, and the repair to the damage was iffy at best, so nobody would take the chance.”
I kept my eyes on him, my expression neutral, the same one I used to give my daughter when her explanations for youthful transgressions were found wanting. His eyes darted away but then returned to mine. “What?”
I continued to say nothing, just staring at the acne on his neck leading down his back and into the T-shirt.
The skinny woman called out to him. “Curtis, you sure you don’t want something to drink?”
“No, Kay—I’m good.” He watched her for a moment and then came clean. “Steroids.” He blew air from his lips in an unattractive noise. “Some speed . . . Nothing everybody else wasn’t doing, but I got caught.”
“Are you clean now?”
“Oh, yeah.”
It really wasn’t my business.
I pulled the piece of paper from my pocket and unfolded it, handing it to him. “Know her?”
He took the poster I’d gotten from Lorea and nodded. “The Basque Rose, Jone, yeah . . . She worked here for a while.” He looked up. “She was kind of hard to miss.” He looked at the poster. “We used to run together . . .”
Kay’s voice sounded from behind me. “Just run, huh?”
He looked past me at the woman, who was finished playing at washing glasses and was now resting an elbow on the bar and pouring herself a stiff vodka without the rocks. His eyes went back to the poster. “Yeah, just running.” The knee pained him again, and he winced as he shook his head. “The sister came by here a couple of times.” He glanced up at me. “That where you got this?”
“Yep.”
“I figured you were some kind of cop.”
“Sheriff, actually.”
He looked surprised. “Really?”
I nodded. “I’d show you, but it’s in a new leather holder and I’d just drop it on the floor.” I glanced down at the thick and highly suspect shag carpeting. “And to be honest, I don’t know where this floor has been.”
He glanced around. “I do, and I wouldn’t get too close to it.”
“What happened to her?”
“She just disappeared; got off work late, around two or three, and when I went to go knock on her door to get her to go for a run the next morning she didn’t answer.” He gestured toward the back. “Her car was gone, so I figured she was just out doing errands—but she never came back. A day or two later I busted open the door and all her stuff was gone.”
I leaned on the bar and draped an arm on the surface. “Did a detective by the name of Gerald Holman ever come by here asking questions?”
“Couple of times, yeah.”
I looked at him questioningly. “Only a couple?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Just curious. What about another detective by the name of Richard Harvey—tall, thin guy with a handlebar mustache?”
“Nope.”
“You’re sure?”
He shook his head. “Well, didn’t talk to me, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t here.”
“What happened to the trailer?”
“What trailer?”
“4661-A, Jone Urrecha’s trailer.”
Kay interrupted. “Tommy sold it.”
“I thought it burned.” I turned to look at her. “Who’s Tommy?”
She gestured to the building as a whole. “The owner.”
“And where is he?”
She smiled. “Usually comes in around five.”
Curtis gestured with a hand to get my attention. “It’s not what you’re thinking—”
“And what am I thinking?”
“That there’s something going on. Tommy doesn’t charge the girls anything but buys and sells the trailers all the time as a sideline.”
The voice spoke from behind me again. “Tommy has a lot of sidelines.”
I spun my hat. “And burns a few of them, too.”
“Huh?”
“4661-A.”
Curtis smiled. “Space heater; nobody got hurt.”
“Glad to hear it.” I glanced back at Kay, but she ignored me and sipped her drink. I stood and walked over to the kid. “Pick up your leg and put your ankle on your knee.”
“What?” He looked at me for a moment and then did as I said.
“Now push down on your knee and twist your foot and stretch it out with your other hand.”
I could see the immediate relief in his face as his knee popped back in place. “Oh, wow!”
I slugged down the rest of my iced tea like Philip Marlowe, rested the empty can on the bar, and picked up my hat. “You say Tommy shows up around five?”
The kid stood, looking more like his Thor Asgard self. “You want me to say you stopped by?”
“No, I’ll introduce myself.” We shook hands, and I went around a sticky brass railing and down the steps. “Little known fact: offensive tackles score higher on the Wonderlic than any other position.”
“No shit; better than quarterbacks?”
“Better than quarterbacks—average of twenty-six.”
He thought about it. “So, I’m above the average for the highest-rated position?”
“Looks like.”
He waited a moment before asking. “You ever take the test?”
I slipped my hat on and started out the door. “Not in the NFL.”
—
I sat in my truck outside the Sixteen Tons, the best and only bar in Arrosa. There wasn’t anything to munch on since Dog had eaten the remainder of the ham, the red and gold foil remnants lying on the passenger-side floor mat.
He looked at me, completely unrepentant.
“You could’ve saved me a little.”
I spent my time on stakeout leafing through the files, looking for something, anything, that would connect the three women. I rested them against my chest, also wondering why it was that Gerald Holman, if he was so upset by the disappearance of Jone Urrecha, had visited her residence and place of employ only twice. It was easier to understand why Richard Harvey hadn’t made the trip to Arrosa, in that he was trapped in a basement with the cry and hue of Inspector Holman’s career coming to rest upon him—like he said, shit rolls downhill.
After a few moments, I saw the inspector general come out of the post office, lock the door, and start toward my truck. I rolled the window down as he stood by the Bullet.
Dave Rowan glanced at the SIXTEEN TONS sign. “The bartender says to tell you that you’re bad for business.”
I rested the files on the center console. “I’m hoping not to be here for much longer.”
“So is he.”
“You know this Tommy who owns the strip club?”
“Some; I’m the one who sorts the mail and puts it in the box for Thor.”
“The bouncer?”
“Yeah.”
“Seems like a nice kid.”
He stared at me for a moment. “You’ve obviously never seen him knock somebody down and kick their head for five minutes.”
I glanced at Dirty Shirley’s and the lurid blonde on the sign, thinking the kid might not be completely off steroids. “Bad news, is he?”
“Yeah. Sometimes in the afternoon, if his victims can’t find anyone else to call them a cab or an ambulance, they crawl into the post office.”
I sighed. “Does the owner of the strip club live around here?”
“No, or they wouldn’t have their mail delivered to a P.O. box.”
“Good point.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the intersection, where a familiar Cadillac Escalade EXT rolled through the stop sign. “Speak of the devil; you can ask for yourself.” He gestured with a hand and sounded like a sick Ed McMahon. “Heeeeeere’s Tommy!”