Chapter Two
Twila
The Piggly Wiggly sits between a laundromat and an abandoned video store near the Paradise town line. Its red sign has been missing a G from each word for years, which means visitors are welcomed to the PIGLY WIGLY, though Paradise has never attracted enough visitors for anybody to complain.
Three people are waiting outside when I arrive.
Jim Hassle, the assistant manager, is pacing beneath the buzzing entrance light.
A teenage stock boy has his phone held up to film, and I think he’s one of the Adler twins.
The third is a woman wearing one house slipper and gripping a frozen turkey like she’s prepared to use it. Darbee Owens.
I park near the entrance, key my shoulder mic, and say, “Unit twelve, on scene,” before stepping out into air that smells like hot asphalt, laundry detergent from next door, and somebody’s cigarette.
The assistant manager hurries toward me. “Deputy, thank God.”
“What happened?”
“Darbee accused Jima of calling her a heifer.”
The woman with the turkey shouts, “She did call me a heifer.”
A voice from inside the store shouts back, “I said you were blocking the burgers.”
“That ain’t what you said.”
I point at the bird. “Put the turkey down, Darbee.”
“It ain’t loaded.” She shifts the frozen thing higher against her chest like I’ve questioned its character.
“It’s eight pounds and frozen solid.”
“Nine and a half. It was on sale.”
“Put it down anyway.”
She lowers it reluctantly.
I look at the stock boy. “Stop filming.”
His phone drops maybe half an inch.
“All the way, Finn Adler,” I say. Knowing all the names and faces in this town is part of the job.
“That’s my brother,” he complains but shoves it into his pocket.
Inside, fluorescent lights buzz above a crowd gathered near the frozen-food aisle.
Cold air rolls from the open freezer doors, mixing with the smell of floor cleaner and whatever has leaked from an overturned display of canned beans.
One shopping cart lies on its side, and a middle-aged woman in trendy athletic wear stands behind the meat counter holding a spiral ham against her chest.
“Jima Witherspoon.”
“She started it.”
“I don’t care.”
“She threw a turkey.” Jima hugs the ham tighter, as if she expects Darbee to make another run at her.
“She put down the turkey.”
“Only because you got here.”
“Put down the ham.”
“I’m gonna pay for this ham. It’s the last one and I’m not drivin’ clear out of town to make Sunday supper.”
“Then you probably don’t want me logging it into evidence.”
Jima considers that for a second, then carefully lowers it onto the counter.
“Good. Now tell me what happened without using the words heifer, hog, cow, sow, or anything else commonly found in a barn.”
“She cut in front of me.”
“I didn’t,” Darbee says from behind me.
I turn. “You weren’t invited inside.”
“You didn’t say.”
“Both of you stop.”
They immediately start talking over each other, so I raise my voice.
“Stop.”
The entire aisle goes quiet.
Somewhere near produce, a child applauds.
I separate the women, take statements, review grainy security footage from an angle apparently chosen to record everything except actual crimes, and confirm that Darbee did indeed cut in line.
Jima did make a comment involving a heifer and the burgers, and the frozen turkey was thrown only after Jima waved the ham in what several witnesses describe as a threatening manner.
Neither woman wants to press charges once I explain that both of them could spend the night in the county jail. The manager bans them for thirty days, but Jima objects because the Piggly Wiggly is the only store that carries her brand of canned biscuits, so he reduces the ban to two weeks.
Justice in Paradise is flexible.
I’m filling out the incident report at the customer-service desk when a second patrol unit, an aging Dodge Charger Pursuit, pulls into the lot. Deputy Lester Boone waddles through the automatic doors a minute later carrying two coffees and wearing his hat too high on his head.
“Brought backup.”
“You missed the violence.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“One canned-bean display.”
He hands me a coffee. “Baked beans?”
“Pinto.”
“Figures.” Lester is sixty-two and has worked for my father since before I was born. He has bad knees, three ex-wives, and a belief that every problem can be solved with either coffee or duct tape.
He glances toward Darbee and Jima being escorted outside through separate doors. “Darbee and Jima?”
“You know them?”
“Went to school with both. They fought over a boy at senior prom.” He blows across the hole in his coffee lid while watching Darbee gesture aggressively through the glass.
“Same boy?”
“Wasn’t me.” He winks.
I roll my eyes and take a drink.
The radio clipped to Lester’s shoulder crackles.
“Sheriff Dix, line two. Sheriff Dix, line two regarding the missing-person inquiry.”
Lester automatically reaches for the volume control, but the dispatcher continues before he can turn it down.
“Caller reports possible sighting of Kaylee Quill near the old Pearly Gates access road.”
Pearly Gates again.
The name already has too much attached to it.
Sophie uncovered enough Montgomery money moving through charities and property connected to that ministry to make everybody uncomfortable, and I know the Kings have been asking questions of their own.
What they know, they haven’t exactly volunteered to county law enforcement, and I know even less about what the connection actually means.
Now a missing nineteen-year-old might have been seen near the old retreat access road.
My attention sharpens. Kaylee Quill is nineteen, with brown hair and green eyes, last seen leaving her shift at a gas station outside Hell six nights ago. Her flyer hangs beside the copy machine at the department, smiling out at anybody who stops long enough to refill the paper tray.
I look at Lester. He looks away too quickly.
I press my radio. “Dispatch, unit twelve. Repeat last traffic.”
There’s a pause before the dispatcher answers. “Unit twelve, stand by.”
“I heard a possible sighting of Kaylee Quill.”
Another pause. “Sheriff Dix is handling.”
“I’m ten minutes from the access road.”
“Negative, unit twelve.” This time the answer comes in my father’s voice.
I tighten my grip around the radio. “Sheriff, I can respond. I’m ten minutes out.”
“Negative. Remain in Paradise, Deputy Dix.”
Beside me, Lester slowly turns his coffee cup between both palms without looking up.
“The sighting is in county jurisdiction,” I say. “Was Kaylee seen alone?”
“Units are responding. Clear the air.”
“Which units?”
“Ain’t your concern.”
“I’m a county deputy. It’s exactly my concern.”
“Twila.”
The warning in his voice would stop most people, and it almost stops me.
“Was she alone, Daddy?”
“Return to the station and clear the goddamn air.”
The channel goes dead. I stare at the radio for a beat before clipping it back to my shoulder while Lester takes a very long drink of coffee.
“What do you know?”
“About what?”
“Kaylee Quill.”
“Same thing you do.”
“You looked away.”
“My neck hurts.”
“Your neck always hurts.”
“I’m old.”
Rolling my eyes, I step closer. “How many girls?”
That gets his attention. “What?”
“How many girls have disappeared?”
“A couple.”
“Bullshit. There’s been more than that in the paper.”
His gaze flicks toward the employees pretending not to listen from behind the service desk. He takes my elbow and guides me toward the doors, and I let him because I want him talking more than I want to remind him I can walk on my own.
Outside, the night feels cooler than it did in Hell.
Fluorescent light spills from the storefront and washes the parking spaces an ugly white.
Darbee sits in her truck with the frozen turkey buckled into the passenger seat like a dependent, while across the lot Jima stands beside the laundromat telling an audience of three exactly how oppressed she has been by local government. She sees us and points our way.
Lester waits for the automatic doors to close behind us.
“You need to let your daddy handle it.”
“That ain’t an answer.”
“He has more information than you do.”
A loose cart rattles near the entrance, its metal wheels clicking across the asphalt until it bumps a curb. I catch the cart and return it to safety.
“Then he should share it.”
“He’s the sheriff.”
“I noticed.”
“He’s also your father.”
“Hard to miss.”
Lester hooks two fingers beneath the brim of his hat and pushes it back, buying himself a second before answering.
“Kaylee ain’t the first girl to miss a shift and take off.”
“That ain’t what I asked.”
“Young people leave Paradise. Nothin’ here for them. Heck, either.”
“Without their cars?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Without picking up their paychecks? Without taking clothes? Without calling their mothers?”
“Twila.”
“There was another girl from Hell last month. Everybody said she ran off with a trucker.”
“Maybe she did.”
“Her mother said she hated semis.”
“That don’t mean anything.”
“It means she probably didn’t run off with a trucker.”
He looks across the parking lot instead of at me.
I study the angle of his shoulders, the way he keeps checking the store entrance, and the fact he still hasn’t taken another sip of the coffee he usually treats like life support.
“Who else?”
“Go home.”
“Lester.”
“I ain’t getting between you and Amos.” He checks the road, then the storefront again, making sure nobody has wandered close enough to hear us.
“You’re already between us.”
“No. I’m standing beside you. There’s a difference.”
“Who else? I’m talking about ones not making the paper.”
He sets his coffee on the hood of my Interceptor.
“You didn’t hear this from me.”
“Never do.”
“Two girls before Kaylee, at least. Maybe four.”
The joking part of me disappears as I set my own coffee beside his. “Names.”
“I don’t know.”
“Lester.”
“I swear. One worked somewhere in Hell. The other was from down near Official. Families didn’t file right away, and by the time they did, everybody had a story for why the girls might’ve left.”
“When?”
“Past six months.”