Elisa heaved a sigh and began putting the food back in the fridge while her sandwich grilled. I could tell she was thinking things through, and I held myself still, when I really wanted to shake her and ask why Bevie’s life was over. She shoveled the sandwich onto a plate with a spatula. When the bar top was clean of everything except her plate and her beer, she pulled up a stool, sat, took a bite, and considered me.
“Bevie is from a really strict farm family. Like, she couldn’t date or anything until she was eighteen. Growing up, she had to work the farm, feed chickens, gather eggs, help birth cows. Like that. But she was really smart in high school, like, number one in her class, and she got a full ride at TTU. So when she went away to college she went kinda wild. Dated a lot of guys. Like, alotof guys. And girls too. And then last year she met Stella and... well, Stella’s got this public persona, a paragon of straitlaced propriety, you know? But in reality? Back before she was a star and got squeaky-clean branding? She spent five years living with several people in a pansexual relationship, and she still has, well, lots of lovers. Bevie was one of them and her family and her church will freak if they find out. And she really loved Stella. We all did. Even the ones of us who didn’t spend time in her bed. Stella was this magical creature, you know?”
Elisa took a bite and chewed and swallowed. “Stella could look at you and tell exactly what you were feeling and exactly what you needed to be whole and happy. Some of her riderscame from bad home lives, were really broken, and she paid for meds and counseling. Some of them were practically homeless and she let people stay here or in her RV between tours, until they got on their feet. She was agood person. And anyone who says different can kiss my butt.” Almost viciously, she bit into the sandwich and chewed, her eyes on me. A string of cheese stretched from her mouth to the bread.
I accepted all that without a change of expression, even the butt-kissing part. Elisa turned her attention fully to her sandwich, the stringy cheese, and sipped her beer. I didn’t ask her age or if she was legal to drink.
“You don’t seem upset by all that sex stuff,” she said.
Keeping my voice unemotional, I said, “I come from a polygamous background. My own mother is one of three wives. I was married at fifteen. I understand relationships that are different from society’s norm.”
“Holy shit. Fifteen? Wait. Theyforcedyou to get married?”
I had no idea why, but I answered. “No. I married to keep from becoming the preacher’s youngest concubine. One of several, in addition to his several wives.”
She chewed. Frowned. “I saw this show on TV one time.Sister Wives? You know it?”
“I’ve heard of it.” Never watched it. Had no interest in it.
“So it would help to solve Stella’s murder if you knew the people she slept with on a regular basis?”
I pursed my lips, thinking how I wanted to phrase my reply, because we hadn’t released anything about a trigger fordeath and decay. The termmurderwas being bandied about by the press, but not by PsyLED, and my boss wouldn’t be happy if I used it now. “This was a very violent way to die,” I said carefully. “Ifsomeone set this up to kill Stella, then they wanted to not just kill her, but wipe her and her friends and her musical instruments and even unpublished songs off the face of the earth.Ifit was murder, it was personal.”
“I could... I... I know a lot of names. Maybe not all.”
“Anything you can do will help. And I’ll try to keep Bevie’s name out of any media releases. Law enforcement has no desire to bandy about anyone’s personal business.” The media would eventually find out everything. If this went to court they’d discover even more.
Elisa finished her sandwich. Cleaned up the crumbs and wiped down the island’s surface. She stood, silent, her hands flat on the island top, and sighed. She nodded, more at her own thoughts than at me. Opening a drawer, Elisa took out a long narrow pad, the paper printed with cats at the top. She tore off four pages. At the top of one she wrote,Commune. At the top of the next, she wrote,Band. On the third she wrote,Riders. And on the last she wrote,Current Regulars. Then she began to list names on each pad with a star beside Stella’s lovers. Stella Mae had been a very busy woman. And, if anyone was underage, maybe a sexual predator.
I got a bad feeling about all this.
***
Occam woke me with a soft kiss on my forehead. Before Occam entered my life, I had never been kissed with gentleness or tenderness. Not ever. So I knew instantly who it was that touched me in the dark. “Hey, cat-man,” I murmured as cold air filled the car. My door was open and dawn was graying the sky. I had fallen asleep in the car and we were back at the hotel.
“Hey, Nell, sugar,” he cat-growled. “You’re tired, and I’m a big strong were-creature, so I intend to carry you to your room. You got anything negative to say about that?”
“Not a thing.” I raised my arms and he lifted me out of the car, closed the car door with a knee, and carried me through the lobby, where I waved at the man behind the desk to show I wasn’t being abducted. Outside my room, he kissed me again, this one far less platonic, and opened my door with my room card. I was of a mind to go with him to his room, but he pushed me inside, alone.
Moving quietly in the dark, I put the vampire tree on the table by the window, near the tiny plastic bud vase holding the slightly wilted lavender rose. I fell into bed.
***
When I woke, T. Laine was gone and the room smelled of coffee and donuts. It was nearly noon on Saturday. I had three texts telling me that Occam was heading back to Stella Mae’s, that HQ wanted clarification on the names from the lists I had collected last night, and that FireWind was pleased with the night’swork and the lists of names. On the way home from the farm, I had photographed the cat papers and sent them to HQ, keeping the originals in evidence bags. I also had a voice message from Mud that had arrived at five a.m., telling me that we needed chickens. And that Esther made Cherry sleep on the back porch. A second voice mail—a longer one—told me that Esther’s husband formally divorced her in morning devotionals and that Esther was now living permanently on Soulwood.
I either cussed or said a miserable prayer. Beingpunishedby Ernest “Jackie” Jackson Jr., had hurt Esther bad. I remembered her as a happy child, but as an adult, she was neither happy nor pleasant, seeming to want to hurt her family, the ones closest to her. I tried to be understanding, though it had occurred to me that she might possibly use that horrible part of her past to maneuver me to doing what she wanted. Most churchwomen were masters of manipulation.
Esther had been a solo wife with no second wives. She was used to getting her way. Hers had been a love match, not an arranged marriage or a negotiation for safety. She had been given time to grow up before being subjected to Jedidiah Whisnut, before taking care of a man, before running his household like a good churchwoman.
She was a teenager, just eighteen. She was pregnant. Divorced. And she was growing leaves. Any of those things could make her hard to get along with. All of those things gave her the right to be a pain, but none of them meant I had to take it.
I started my first cup of coffee, transcribed all my notes and thoughts from last night, texted the team that I was heading back to HQ, and packed.
I made it to my car when FireWind appeared in the parking lot and called, “I need a token female. Come with me.”
Token female? What’s a token female?
***
