The Taking of Libbie, SD (Mac McKenzie #7)

“How do you know his name?”

“I looked into his wallet. Everything he had in his wallet said Rushmore McKenzie except for a credit card that he had tucked into a secret compartment, although, when you think about it, there are no secret compartments in a wallet.”

“The name Nicholas Hendel was on the credit card?”

“Yes.”

“Which credit card company?”

She told me. I wrote it down.

“How did you get access to his wallet?”

“After we finished fucking he went into the bathroom. I looked then. Does that shock you?”

Geezus, not another one, my inner voice said.

“A big-city boy like me?” I said aloud. “Hardly.”

“I’m not from a big city,” Dawn said. “I’m from a town where the biggest building is two stories high. When I met Perry, we both worked at the same call center in Franklin, which is another shitty little town just down the highway from where I lived. I married him, and I swear to God, I meant to stick with him. I would have, too, if only he had told me the truth. He promised he would take me away from small-town life, from the call center. Instead, he brought me here. Different name, same bullshit.”

I gestured at the name stitched to her pocket.

“You don’t work at the call center,” I said.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go back to that. Instead, I work for this company that delivers groceries to shut-ins and the terminally lazy. They call in with their lists, and we shop for them and deliver their groceries to their doors.”

“At least the job gets you outside.”

“That’s the only good thing about it.”

“Why did you take up with Rush?”

“He … We … I thought he was exciting.”

“More exciting than Ed Bizek?”

“You know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that.”

“Small fucking towns, small fucking minds.”

“If you say so.”

“I know what you think of me. Only I wouldn’t be this way if Perry had kept his promise.”

“If you say so.”

“Look, I came here to do you a favor.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “I’m just wondering why you’re doing it.”

“Because I don’t want Ed to lose his job, okay? Because I don’t want him to have to move away. Is that reason enough?”

“So it’s about Ed.”

“It’s about me. If he left Libbie, I would just die.”

“If you’re so concerned, why didn’t you tell him about Rush when you first learned the truth?”

“I tried. I told him that Rush couldn’t be trusted. Only I couldn’t tell him how I knew—I couldn’t tell him … I didn’t want him to know I had cheated on him. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? About me and Rush?”

“Who would I tell?”

“Ed.”

Not her husband, I thought.

“No,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank you. I hope you find Rush. I really do.”

Dawn rose from her chair and had started to move away when I stopped her with a question.

“Why did you look in the wallet?” I said.

She hesitated before answering. “I wanted to know if he was married. He said he wasn’t.”

“Did he tell you he was going to take you away from all of this?”

“Sure. Men always tell a girl what she wants to hear. If it’ll get them what they want, they’ll say anything.”

I nodded as if I believed her.

Sharren Nuffer waited until Dawn had left the dining room before she approached my table.

“What did she want?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Who? Dawn Neske.”

“Understanding,” I said. “She wanted understanding.”

“Did you give her any?”

“What are you so angry about?”

Instead of answering, Sharren sat across from me and pointed at my meal. “How’s the steak?”

“Quite good,” I said. To prove it, I consumed a forkful, and then another while she watched.

“I was married three times, and not once did I cheat on my husband,” Sharren said. “Not once, although that didn’t stop them from cheating on me. I want you to know that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m like Dawn. Or Tracie.”

“What did the Imposter tell you to get you to go to bed with him?”

“Nothing. I had an itch and I let him scratch it. Simple as that. There was nothing dishonest about it.”

“Sure.”

Sharren stood abruptly.

“Not all of us are lucky in love, McKenzie,” she said. “Some of us have to take what we can get.”

When she left, she followed the same path from the dining room that Dawn had followed. As I watched her go, I had to admit that Sharren was right. Sex between unmarried consenting adults who don’t give a damn about each other isn’t necessarily bad. It just isn’t any good.

What I wanted to do next was illegal. That meant I couldn’t call Bobby Dunston, or the sergeant in the Minneapolis Police Department gang unit that I sometimes paid for information. There was no way I was going to contact Chief Gustafson, either, the blabbermouth. That left only one contact.