“Do you have Salma’s number?”
“Yeah, I don’t give out other people’s numbers.”
“I lost my car keys that night,” I said. “They had a My Little Pony keychain?”
“I think I saw them, actually! On the bar when you were talking to Connor.”
So he did steal my keys! “Speaking of keys, someone keyed my Impala,” I fibbed. “It was parked behind the club. Any chance you saw anything going on back there before you left?” I studied her face for any flicker of unease but it was smooth and blank as a professional poker player’s.
“When I was getting in my car to leave for the hospital, I did see Pumpkin Spice heading down the back alley. Though Daniel Radcliffe would be more likely to key a car.”
“Who’s Pumpkin Spice?” I said.
“She took a few classes here a while back. No idea what her real name is, but I never forget a pole name.” Cheyenne flicked her pink locks over one shoulder. “Look, I gotta work on this combo I’m hoping to try out at the club tonight, okay?”
“Wait! One more thing! Salma Hayek’s real name? Lupe something?”
“You’ll have to ask her when you see her, hon.” Cheyenne grabbed her pole, inverted, and began a series of moves that would confound Nadia Comaneci. Our conversation was over.
As I headed back to my own pole, fresh anxiety rippled through me. Because now it was clear: I had just one option. The only way to prove to myself—and the police—that I didn’t kill Connor was to prove that someone else did. I needed to go to Burgdorf to meet Baylee and get that SIM card.
My cell phone rang. The woman in the thigh-high boots speared me with a blistering glance. I shrugged apologetically and answered in a whisper. It was the nurse at the twins’ school, calling to tell me Phoebe had a stomachache and needed to be picked up as soon as possible.
Twenty-Three
Saturday
During an Idaho summer, there are two kinds of folks: mountain bike people and ATV people. The mountain bike people are generally lean, college-educated liberals who feel superior about it. The all-terrain vehicle people are often thickset high school grads with a libertarian conservative lean who love the sound of an engine gunning in open air. During an Idaho winter, these same groups transform into ski people and snowmobile people (aka slednecks).
Before heading into Cheap Thrills Rentals for a snowmobile in McCall, I’d donned Phoebe’s red Little Mermaid wig, while Layna wore a platinum-blond number that had once been part of aKill Billcostume. A grumpy clerk with hair bottle-dyed the exact color my mom always used—L’Oréal Paris Light Amber Brown—fitted us with suits, boots, and helmets and gave us a map to the snowmobile pickup site. But when she asked for an ID, I panicked. I’d emptied out the Therapy Jar to pay for the rental in cash, but hadn’t considered I’d need to show identification. I’d meant to drop Miranda’s driver’s license in her mailbox, but with everything going on I’d forgotten. Now I slid it across the counter. The guilt pang only lasted a moment. Miranda did me dirty in high school. Some would say she had this one coming.
Though I’d never ridden a Ski-Doo, as Layna and I walked across the snowy parking lot in our black snowmobile suits, I felt we were doing a decent approximation of slednecks.
“I’m having second thoughts about this probably terrible plan,” I confessed.
“What choice do you have?” Layna said, tossing platinum strands over one shoulder. “You’ve got to get some proof Errol murdered the mansicle.”
“By five thirty,” I reminded her.
Last night after I’d put the twins to bed, I’d found Emmylou sipping Malibu rum and Diet Coke on her purple velvet couch while watching a comedic lesbian murder mystery set in Tasmania. Instead of confessing everything, I rattled off a white lie about getting an evite reminder for a baby shower in McCall I’d totally forgotten about. She agreed to loan me her all-wheel-drive Subaru to make the two-hour-and-fifteen-minute snowy trek up ID-55. All I had to do in return was swear onThe Comedy BibleI’d be back by five thirty so she could make it to her date with Oat Willimena.
“I wasn’t sure Oat Willimena would be your type,” I’d said. Nate was my type. Just last night we’d nearly kissed and now he was completely and permanently out of reach.
“Oat Willimena is from a huge Catholic family,” Emmylou said. “It’s not the same as being raised Mormon like me, of course. But the guilt parallels are there. And she pulls a tarot card every day! Do you know how hard it is to find a man in this town who doesn’t think the King of Cups is a brewpub?”
“I’m excited for you! Oat Willimena seems really—” I searched for words to describe my interactions with the potter. “Artsy and... and knowledgeable about raccoons. Is she really into animals? Maybe she’d want to adopt Little Sister.”
Emmylou made a face. “This is about my date, not your desire to dump that dog. Just promise me again you won’t be late.”
“I promise,” I said.
Now the neon-yellow snowmobile wrapped with the Cheap Thrills logo sat waiting for me and Layna at the end of the parking lot. A bulky guywearing a worn fleece and well-fitting jeans waved us over. His baseball cap saidThe Man Behind the Bump. There was perhaps nothing more irritating than a man trying to take all the credit for the hard work a woman does growing, carrying, and giving birth to a baby.
“Where are you two coming in from?” the Man Behind the Bump asked.
“Boise,” I said.
“Twin Falls,” Layna said at the same time. She shot me a look.
