'the midnight plan of the repo man' chapters 13 & 14  | members only access

Her eyes were doubtful as she turned back to me. “Then how, how did he—” I was tired of being discussed as if I weren’t there. “I was walking in the woods,” I explained. “And I just ...” I

shrugged. _“You just happened to notice a body submerged in muddy water and identified it as someone who has been missing for eight years,” _Alan suggested helpfully. Katie was looking at me

with wide eyes, and I knew she was thinking of what had happened back in my jail cell. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, I’m so, so ...” “Hey, forget about it,” I advised uncomfortably. “Happens

all the time.” She cocked her head, contemplating the sort of life I must lead if people spat on me all the time. Congressmen? Despite the circumstances, we smiled at each other. Disapproval

flickered across Strickland’s face. “Miss Lottner, you need to be going,” he told her. His voice was still gentle but it held a definite “move along” tone that probably could have quelled a

riot. Katie responded with a nod of surrender. As soon as she was out the door my pleasure at seeing her evaporated and I realized I’d had all of the jail I could stomach for the day.

Strickland was giving me an expectant look that I doubted few people ignored, but he’d said himself there was no reason to keep me here. “Sheriff, I have to leave. I have business in

Kalkaska.” He shook his head. “It will have to wait, Mr. McCann.” _“He can’t hold you unless he places you under arrest,” _Alan stated. Legal advice from a dead Realtor. “I have to go,

Sheriff,” I repeated, giving him a look both honest and unyielding. After a moment he grunted, acquiescing. _“Told you!”_ Alan hooted triumphantly. The sheriff and I made an appointment for

the next day. Strickland raised a farewell hand as I backed my truck out of the parking lot, and I had the strange feeling the guy sort of liked me. Alan and I were both silent for the first

few minutes as we drove, processing the day’s events. Charlevoix had long faded in my rearview mirror when I cleared my throat. “So, Alan. I’m sorry about that. About your daughter, I mean.

Must have been sort of a shock.” _“Sort of a shock,” _he repeated. _“The last time I saw my little girl she was sixteen years old. Now she’s a grown woman. And you say it was ‘sort of a

shock.’ ”_ “What’s with the attitude all of a sudden?” “The attitude? When were you going to tell me you knew my daughter?” he demanded. “Oh, that.” “Yes. That.” “Yeah, well ...” I sighed.

“I met her a week or so ago.” Alan was completely silent in a way that felt heavy with judgment. I rushed to fill the void. “But I just found out yesterday that her last name was Lottner.

You were asleep, and I called her and got her answering machine. It’s sort of hard to figure out what to do in a situation like this, you know?” He was still quiet. “I mean, either I’m so

completely demented that I’m sitting in a padded cell somewhere hallucinating this entire thing, or I just led the police to dig up the body of a murder victim based on _his voice in my

head._ I think I’m to be forgiven if I’m making a few mistakes in etiquette, here.” Finally Alan spoke, his voice subdued. _“She was still a child when I saw her last. God, she was so

beautiful.” _“She’s beautiful now,” I interrupted. _“She is, isn’t she? Ruddy, seeing her today was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the

world.”_ A deer caught my attention and I braked. She stood by the side of the road, appearing alert and wary, but I knew from experience that her species was prone to sudden leaps across

the pavement without wisdom. After I crept past she dashed back into the woods. _“I wonder if that was the right thing to do,”_ Alan reflected. Somehow I doubted he was talking about slowing

down for the deer. _“Before today everything was ... contained. Now my body has been found, the sheriff’s suspicious, we know Burby is one of the killers, Katie’s involved ... it feels like

it’s getting out of control.”_ “Out of control? You were shot, remember? When was it ever _in_ control?” I flicked on the windshield wipers to clear away the light spray of sleet that had

begun to fall. “I think we needed a little disorder, shake things up a little. See what we can make happen.” Alan thought about that, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded troubled._ “I

just have a bad feeling that things are going to start happening very quickly now, and we have no idea what they are.”_ It gave us both something to worry about on the way back to Kalkaska.

14 AND THERE SHE WAS Alan was asleep as I parked my truck. I walked into the Black Bear and stopped dead, frowning—in what I would classify as an unauthorized activity, Kermit was setting

down a couple of beers for a few people at a table near Bob the Bear. Becky was standing with her back to the room, hunched over something by the cash register. Kermit’s eyes widened when he

saw me. “Hi, Ruddy,” he called in Becky’s direction, like a prairie dog sounding a warning. “I was just improvident, here,” he explained to me. “I’ll say,” I agreed. Becky was working the

little machine that we used to authorize credit card numbers. “So this is Kermit’s get-rich-quick scheme?” I asked in a disapproving tone. Her lips pursed, a sign of stubbornness from

childhood, but she didn’t look up at me. Curious despite myself, I stepped around the bar to watch. She was entering credit card numbers and dollar amounts from a computer printout. None of

the amounts was more than three hundred dollars. “Shucks,” Becky muttered, writing _unauthorized_ next to one of the entries. I could see that for the entire page, close to a quarter were

winding up unauthorized. “Why would a psychic send us credit card numbers for somebody over his limit? Wouldn’t the psychic know?” I asked innocently. “Are you going to tell the same joke

over and over again?” “Becky, I have a real, real bad feeling about this.” “You do?” Her eyes were bright with resentment. “That’s funny, Ruddy. I’ve already run ten thousand dollars today.

That means we’ve made more than a thousand dollars for a couple of hours’ work. Can you see anything wrong with that?” “Well, yeah. If you’re making more than five hundred an hour entering

numbers on a little machine, why doesn’t everybody do it?” “Kermit explained all that.” “What does Kermit get out of this, anyway? Besides demonstrating to all of us that he is a financial

wizard.” Becky didn’t look at me. “Becky, you’re not paying him, are you?” “He gets a commission, yes,” she shot back. “How much?” I pressed. “Third.” “A third?” I repeated incredulously.

“That’s a hell of a commission. I don’t think even drug dealers get that kind of percentage!” “You get your third, too, Ruddy, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” Becky responded

bitterly. I thought about this. Instead of my being paid a salary as a bouncer, the arrangement that had always worked for us was that when the Black Bear made money, Becky divided the

profits between the two of us. But this felt wrong, and after a moment I shook my head. “Keep it,” I told her. When her eyes grew blank with an emotion I was afraid might be hate, I gestured

at the bar. “Put it into your improvements,” I mumbled. “Or, as Kermit would probably say, your improvisations.” A genuine smile lit up her face then, full and open, without her hand

reflexively covering it, and I gulped back a sweeping affection that literally choked me. If this made her happy, how bad could it be? Her smile turned even more radiant as Kermit rounded

the bar, and in a motion that caught me in complete surprise, the two of them embraced, their lips coming together for a kiss. I realized I was staring, and spun away so they wouldn’t see

the shock on my face. Jimmy wandered in an hour later and we played a little pool. We’re not any good at it and I don’t think either of us even likes it, but we’ve probably shot ten thousand

games over the years. I felt Alan wake up, but he remained moodily silent. “Hey, what were you doing last night?” Jimmy asked as he gracefully stroked the cue ball, causing it to kiss off

the four to no good effect whatsoever. He mournfully shook his head. “What do you mean?” I lined up and shot, spreading the balls around but not sinking any. “I saw you out jogging or

something,” Jimmy explained. “About four miles down the road. I honked, but you just kept plugging. You trying to lose some weight?” “What are you saying?” I asked indignantly. “You think I

need to lose weight?” “No, uh ... I just wondered what you were doing, is all.” “Well, it wasn’t me.”