“Oh, you didn’t say.”
“It just happened.”
“I’m sorry about that, man. She seemed okay.” Desmond played a riff, then cut a glance to the side. “Shegonegone?”
Took Moll a moment. “What? No, no. Of course not.”
Though it wasn’t an unreasonable question.
Desmond was happy finding satisfaction at truck stops. Mollwanted something more with a woman. The settling-down part that his mother used to mention. He could nearly picture the future. He would hunt and work and paint furniture and return home to help her, whoever she might be, fix up the house, go to county fairs, prepare dinners and eat them not in the driver’s seat of a Ford van but at a real dining room table. He’d help her with the dishes and pick a good wine. He was determined to teach himself the subject.
Jean, a voluptuous brunette who’d been a manager at Huxley’s Pub, had been the sort who might fit the bill.
But she was also smart and observant, which defined the dilemma. Smart and observant people had the potential to be significant liabilities in his line of work.
Why do you have to deliver the furniture yourself? You could ship it.
Did you cut yourself? Is that blood in the van?
Et cetera.
So, a conundrum.
He would get it worked out someday. Meanwhile he liked painting. He liked making bodies and liked finding creative ways for them to go away forever.
Someday...
Desmond asked, “She still in the area? Jean?”
Moll said, “She moved back to Dubuque.”
“That’s a funny name.” Desmond shrugged. “But I’m one to talk. Mine you don’t hear much.”
Moll offered an indistinct grunt. Thank you, Mother and Father, so very much. They’d believed she was delivering a girl, to be named Molly, after a relative. Oh, damn. It’s a boy. Let’s improvise. He recalled when a classmate said, “Hey, isn’t ‘moll’ what they called some slut, you know, a gangster’s whore?”
The kid was out of school for the rest of the semester, after being injured in a freak accident whose nature he simply could not recall. And no one ever made fun of Moll’s name again.
Moll’s phone hummed. He read the words and smiled. “Dawndue.”
“What?”
“Merritt found somebody. We’ve got an address.” He started the engine and typed on the GPS screen. The men buckled up. Moll said, “And speaking of weird names? His is Villaine. Spelled different, but like a bad guy in a movie.”
“Okay,” Desmond conceded. “He wins.”
56
Allison Parker and Hannah joined Frank, who was clearing the island, moving his computers and documents to a cluttered desk in the corner of the kitchen.
Frank asked, “Soda? Coke? I have diet. Not that you need it.”
The girl came close to smiling. “Yeah, diet.”
He got one for her.
“That’s the biggest refrigerator I’ve ever seen.”
Frank lifted an eyebrow to Parker and picked up a bottle of red Italian wine. He’d be thinking that after Jon’s problem she would abstain. She didn’t drink much but wanted some now, needed some. She nodded.