“Yeah,” Ike said. “Good riddance, I thought. But he threatened to come back and get his things. I told Roxy to get a restraining order, but she thinks he doesn’t have the balls to drive all the way up here.”
“But you think he does,” I said, trying to keep the surprise from my voice. I agreed with Roxy on this one. A third-generation do-nothing wasn’t going to drive across three states just to retrieve his things. That would take too much effort.
“Yeah, I do,” Ike said. “He’s a mean, weasly little bastard who thinks my daughter is something he owns.”
He took the final sip of his beer and sighed.
“I’m not the smartest man in the world,” he said, “but I’ve seen guys like him before. When they think they’re losing the only things they own, they get dangerous.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Ike was right; sometimes do-nothings became violent and possessive. I hadn’t seen that in the Bastard, but then I hadn’t done much more than exchange a few sentences with him in a little more than five years.
“Why would he take Wicked?” I asked.
Ike gave me a chilling glance. “Because my daughter loves that horrid little dog. Although for the life of me, I have no idea why.”
* * * *
In the next few days, the Wicked saga became the focus of neighborhood gossip. From Dave the plumber, I heard that Ike had the cops searching for the Bastard’s truck. From old Mrs. Gailton, I heard that Roxy had been getting threatening phone calls. From Stella, I heard that Roxy had finally hired an attorney to finalize the divorce and to get that all-important restraining order.
The whole family believed that the Bastard had stolen Wicked, although the chief of police, Dan Reilly, thought the little dog had finally run away.
“Good riddance,” he said. “The nasty thing peed on my leg one afternoon.”
We had run into each other at the local A&P. We stood in the fresh fish aisle, which smelled of both fish and cocktail sauce. Twice during our conversation, the butcher snuck us bits of a steak he was cooking up in the back.
“We’re looking for the Bastard, of course,” Reilly said. He was a big man with gym-rat muscles. They made him look formidable in his gray-green uniform.
As he spoke, I smiled to myself. Ike had everyone in town calling his daughter’s soon-to-be ex the Bastard. “But I doubt we’ll find him. He knows better than to come back here.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“He’s got a bench warrant,” Reilly said. “You didn’t know that?”
“No,” I said. “Does Ike?”
“Now he does.”
“What did the Bastard do?” Even I had picked up the phrase.
“Robbed the Cruise Inn one Friday night using his father’s forty-five. Got away with about one hundred dollars, but the crime’s pretty serious. See, it’s—”
“Armed robbery,” I said. “A felony.”
Reilly’s eyes twinkled. “Forgot you write about this stuff.”
Usually I write about bigger things. Stockbrokers taking down entire corporations and having hit men after them; the President surviving assassination attempts; and, of course, my biggest seller, the serial killer truck driver working the Pacific Northwest who finally gets caught by the plucky female cop from the Oregon Coast.
“How come I never heard about this robbery?” I asked.
Reilly shrugged. “The Cruise Inn doesn’t want anyone to know how easy they are to rob. Or how often they do get robbed.”
“How often do they get robbed?” I asked.
“At least once a month. We leave it out of the police report as per their request.”
I shook my head, this time letting my amusement show. These things happen in small towns. In fact, when I moved to Seavy Village, Ike Maize told me that the best way to get your news was to talk to the locals. The paper didn’t cover most of the interesting stories, since we were a tourist town and we didn’t want our tiny crime waves to scare the tourists away.
“How long has he had that warrant?” I asked.
“Since before he went to California,” Reilly said.
At least a year then. “Why didn’t you tell Ike? He knew where the Bastard was.”
Reilly sighed. “I thought about it. But Ike and Roxy fought about the Bastard enough. Ike almost lost his daughter because of it. So I never said anything to Ike, although I did find out where the Bastard and Roxy lived. I tried to get someone down there to act on the warrant, but they wouldn’t. Seems a hundred-dollar theft, even if the thief used a forty-five, is small potatoes to them.”
I wondered how much anguish it would have prevented for the Maizes to have the Bastard arrested in California. But that would have been before the marriage went south, and Roxy might’ve gotten stuck, like so many women did, waiting for her man to get out of prison.
“What if he has come back to town?” I asked.
“I would’ve heard about it,” Reilly said. “Everyone’s looking out for him.”
“Now they are,” I said. “But a week ago? I had no idea this was going on. Neither did anyone else in Crest Hill. And we were the ones most likely to see him.”
“He’s not in town,” Reilly said. “You can take that to the bank.”
If I took it to the bank, I wouldn’t be able to deposit it. Much as I liked Dan Reilly, he was a place-holder chief of police, one of the local boys made good until the out-of-town replacement showed up like she was supposed to do sometime the following spring.
Reilly, for all his certainty, really didn’t know much about police work. He knew Seavy Village, and nothing else. Usually, in this town, that was enough. But bench warrants, armed robbery, and hints of violence took the Bastard out of the local small-time range and into something much more dangerous.
Something I really didn’t want on the other side of my fence, not even for a short, dog-stealing visit.
Still, I didn’t hear any more trucks except Ike’s reliable one-ton. Occasionally Isabel barked, but those were welcome-home barks for her family or her standard warning to the UPS guy not to get too close.
The Goddess and I worked every day. I progressed on the latest book. She growled at the raccoons. We both had a productive week.
Until we heard a truck zoom its way up the Maizes’ driveway. The Goddess murped at me as she ran from the double glass doors to the library window.
I didn’t go to the library window at all. I hurried out of the office, grabbing my cell phone along the way.
The truck I heard was bigger than Ike’s. It was one of those with the double-long bed. I had no idea what kind it was — trucks aren’t my specialty — but I called this kind, which stood higher, wider, and longer than most trucks, penis-shrinkers. I figured any guy who wanted one of these was overcompensating for something.
I had already dialed 911 as I approached the fence. Through the slats, I could see the Bastard. He had stepped out of the truck’s cab, leaving the door open. The truck was running, and even over the roar of the diesel engine, I could hear the dinging of the warning bell, reminding us all that the keys were in the ignition.
The Bastard ignored the sound. He was one of those guys who changed from a thin, somewhat good-looking teenager to a muscular, menacing twenty-something.
As I reached for the gate’s handle, I saw Roxy step out of the garage. Isabel was barking, a strange, frightened bark I hadn’t ever heard from her. She blocked Roxy’s path, but Roxy went around her.
Roxy, still carrying baby weight around her hips and stomach. Roxy, carrying the baby — now a cute blond toddler — tightly in her arms.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said in a frightened voice as the 911 dispatch answered on my cell.