Anna and I were lounging on the sofa, drinking beer, watching the first season of Lost on the TV/DVD combo she’d haggled for at Pete’s Pawnshop, when my cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“Mercy? It’s Winona. Look, I don’t have much time, but I wanted you to know that Cherelle just walked in.”
“She alone?”
“For now.”
“Good. I’ll be there in fifteen. Keep her there-give her free drinks, whatever.”
“I’ll try.” Winona hung up.
I vaulted to my feet and shimmied out of my loungewear, dressing in the ensemble I’d worn earlier. Except I added my favorite accessory in my back pocket: my Kahr Arms P380. I sat on the bed and tugged on my blue-camo Old Gringo boots.
Anna leaned in the door frame. “Where’s the fire?”
“Clementine’s. It’s not on fire, but someone I’ve been wanting to talk to just showed up, so I’ve got to go.”
“Is this more campaign crap?”
“No.”
A gleam appeared in her eyes. “This has to do with Jason?”
She’d see through a lie, so I didn’t bother. “Yes.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let this just fade away. You still feel like you owe him, don’t you?”
“I do owe him, Anna.”
“So do I. I’m coming with you.”
I didn’t have time to argue with her. “Get a move on then.”
Surprisingly, Anna didn’t pester me for more details on the drive to Clementine’s.
My candidacy was the perfect excuse to wander through various clusters of bar patrons. Anna hit the bar, and I presented a big ol’ smile to George Johnson’s group. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?”
“Good. You out on official business?” George asked.
“Yep. Pressing flesh. I figured I deserved a little liquid fortification beforehand.”
Mike lifted a plastic cup off a stack in the center of the table and poured me a beer. “The first one’s on us.”
“Thanks.”
“How about a toast?” Rocky raised his cup, and the guys at the table followed his lead. “To Mercy Gunderson, the next sheriff of Eagle River County.”
I smiled and drank up. For the next few minutes, I made banal chitchat with my supporters as I closed in on my real target in the back room.
After I talked to members of the dart league, I waltzed right up to Cherelle’s table and thrust out my hand. “Mercy Gunderson. I’m running for Eagle River County sheriff.”
She ignored my hand. But she didn’t duck her scarred face from view as I’d expected. A sneer settled on her misshapen mouth. “I don’t give a flying fuck who you are. Not interested. Get lost.”
“Now, Cherelle, is that any way to start a conversation? When I just want to talk about the issues that affect you personally?”
Her eyes flashed annoyance. “If you know my name, then you also know you don’t wanna be around when my friends get here.”
“Speaking of friends… we have a mutual friend.”
“I doubt it.”
I paused. “But you did know Jason Hawley, Cherelle.”
“Never heard of him.” Cherelle slid to the end of the booth, intending to leave.
“No need to run off. My buddy Anna just got here. And look. She brought refreshments.”
Anna set three cups and a pitcher of beer in the middle of the table. She slid in. I turned and bent forward to snag a chair from an empty table, making sure Cherelle got a good look at the bulge in my back pocket.
When I turned back around, Cherelle demanded, “Since when are you allowed to carry in here?”
“Since always.” I straddled the chair, allowing easy access to my gun and blocking her in. “So, Cherelle, here’s what we know. You talked to Jason several times, even on the night he was murdered. We have a few more questions about that topic of conversation.”
“I ain’t telling you shit, cop,” she spat.
“Although I hope to win the election, I’m not a cop yet, which means anything you tell me is off the record.”
“Right.”
Anna shoved a cup of beer at her. “So who fucked up your face?”
The bluntness caught Cherelle off guard.
“I’m betting it was some asshole guy who wanted to mark his territory.” Anna swallowed half her glass of beer. “I hope you castrated the son of a bitch.”
Cherelle’s gaze darted between us. “You are both pathetic. You think you can flash a piece at me and I’ll piss my pants because I’m scared? Of you two old bags? Don’t make me laugh.” She focused on Anna. “You think acting all fake, like we’re sisters under the skin, united against asshole men, is gonna make me break down because I’ve finally met a woman who understands what I’ve been through? Fuck off. You don’t know nothin’.”
“Yeah?” Anna jerked her T-shirt down, pointing to the long gash that ran from the right corner of her collarbone to her sternum. “I know exactly what it’s like to have some sadistic fucker cut you up.” She lifted her shirt, exposing the five knife wounds scattered at random intervals across her lower abdomen. “Ever been stabbed? Clear through your body so the knife comes out your back? You ever had to wait, knowing the insane motherfucker was going to stab you again? So don’t you sit there all fucking smug and tell me I don’t know nothin’.”
Cherelle stared at Anna with unabashed interest.
Some of Anna’s story was exaggerated. The gash on her chest was from scaffolding slicing her that night in Bali. But the stab-wound story was real. At age sixteen, Anna’s ex-boyfriend cornered her at a public park in California and attempted to kill her. An army medic saw it happening, called the cops, and stabilized her until the ambulance arrived. Surgeons repaired her liver, but Anna lost a kidney, her appendix, and her uterus, and gained a new appreciation for the army.
“Looks like you win this round. But tell me, Anna,” Cherelle repeated her name sarcastically, “do you ever see the guy who used you as a whetstone?”
Anna shook her head. “He’s in jail.”
“See, that’s where we’re different. I have to live with the guy who did this to me every day of my life.”
Tempting, to chug the whole pitcher and quit bitching about my lot in life.
“Why do either of you give a damn about that Jason Hawley guy? If the dude was trouble, I think you’d”-Cherelle pointed at me-“be happy he wasn’t around anymore.”
I started to answer, but Anna beat me to it. “Maybe she is happy, but I’m not. Jason may’ve been a scummy guy to her, but to me he was… mine. Know what I mean?”
Cherelle’s forehead puckered with total skepticism.
Anna pounded her beer and poured another. “Look, I’m not good with words, and I won’t bore you with the star-crossed-lovers bullshit, although it was true for me ’n’ Jason. He was…” Anna closed her eyes. “Dammit. He was great. He was everything. We had the real deal. Had it, and now it’s gone.”
The confession appeared to be working. Cherelle wasn’t look-ing defiant, just… interested. Concerned maybe, but not totally convinced.
“When Mercy called me after she’d found his body, I had to come here. I don’t know, probably sounds stupid, but I thought maybe I could… sense him or something.”
Ooh. Anna was good.
Cherelle broke the silence. “I do know what you mean. I had that real thing once, too.”
“Got it taken away from you?” Anna asked.
“Yeah. Just like you did. It sucked. Still eats at me.”
“So it doesn’t get better?”
Cherelle shook her head.
Anna confided, “I’m going crazy. I’d be grateful for anything you can tell me about what he said or did the last time you talked to him.”
Cherelle’s voice was so low I strained to hear it. “I met with him a couple of times. The last night we couldn’t come to terms and… that was the end of it.”
Bullshit. I waited, but I suspected that’s all we’d get from her. We’d probably gotten more than most. Definitely more than Dawson.