Bitch Factor (12 page)

“Merry Christmas! Be happy to lend a hand, only…” He rattled the handcuff along the iron bar where it was fastened. “Afraid I’m temporarily inconvenienced.”

“Perhaps you’d be less inconvenienced sleeping in the backseat of the Mustang. Or in that clawfoot bathtub.” Dixie swallowed her anger. It wasn’t Dann’s fault he had the more comfortable bed. She had actually considered cuffing him to a bathtub faucet knob, but there was no way he could’ve wormed his big frame into a sleeping position, and staying awake all night, he might’ve figured a way to get the knob off. From where she sat now, her decision needed reconsideration.

Pushing at the sides of the cot with her upper arms, she managed to gain enough leverage to pull herself out of the hole. She rose stiffly and stumbled to the bathroom. Splashed a handful of icy water on her face. Wiped it dry on a thin terry towel with faded yellow flowers.

Through the bathroom door, she heard bedsprings creak as Dann shifted positions, and she knew he could hear the rush of water as she emptied her bladder. Never had she been in such intimate circumstances with a prisoner. She didn’t like it.

Emerging from the bathroom, she found he had turned on a reading lamp and was playing solitaire with a dog-eared deck of red bicycle cards. The air had warmed up some and the wind had quieted down. In a partially open drawer of the bedside table she saw a scratch pad, pencils, a box of dominoes, and a book of crossword puzzles alongside the empty playing-card box. Apparently, Sisseton wasn’t brimming with tourist attractions.

Dann scooped up the cards and shuffled them.

“I suppose, sooner or later, the
prisoner
will get a turn at using the facilities,” he said. “Or did you carry in my Mountain Spring Water bottle?”

Dixie massaged a kink in her neck as she considered the wisdom of uncuffing him. He was smart enough to bide his time until he saw the perfect opportunity to escape, but she didn’t expect that would happen until they were out of the storm and into a more populated area, where he’d have a chance of melting into a crowd. Glancing out the window, she noticed it had stopped snowing and ambled over to look out.

“Holy hell,” she whispered.

Snowdrifts swooped and dipped across the landscape, level with the knotty pine windowsills. One drift completely covered the motel office entrance. Similar drifts barricaded the doors to the other cabins.

Dixie strode to their own door, twisted the lock, and pulled. For a moment it resisted; then she heard a sucking noise and the door swung free to reveal a solid wall of snow.

Packed tight.

Not a chink of sky showing anywhere. They were snowed in.

Frigid air curled into the room from the white barrier.

Why doesn’t it cave in?
she wondered.

She touched a tentative hand to the center of the mass. A fist-size section tumbled to the floor. She shut the door quickly.

“Looks of that, we’ll be here all day, maybe another night,” Dann said.

Dixie strode to the window, an old-fashioned casement like the ones at home. A metal storm window was mounted outside it. She opened the toggle locks and pushed upward. Stuck.

“Probably frozen” Dann offered cheerfully. “Be surprised if these old windows were airtight.”

Dixie banged on the casement and tried again to raise it; but it held firm. Ice had caked around the ropes and pulleys. What she needed was a crowbar.

“Sort of like being in jail,” Dann said, “only more comfortable.”

She could pry the window open and…

And what? Surely Buck and Emma Sparks had a back door to their house and tools for dealing with this sort of thing. It was three-thirty A.M., too early for the Sparkses to be awake.

“We won’t be going anywhere for a while,” Dann said. “Might as well get comfortable.”

The Mustang made a hump in the snow, its chrome side mirrors all that distinguished it from other humps, probably shrubs. Eventually, she would have to dig the car out, but until snowplows came through there’d be no place to go. Dann was right. She might as well relax until daylight, when the Sparkses would be up and around. It galled her, though, being trapped.

Behind her she could hear Dann shuffling the cards.

“Gin?” He had smoothed the chenille bedspread and had dealt two hands, the deck centered between them, a discard faceup. Catching Dixie’s eye, he wiggled his heavy brows so comically she almost smiled.

What the hell. They’d get through the day a lot easier if they were both comfortable. Might as well start by letting Dann wash up.

She picked up her keys from the windowsill where she’d laid them the night before and tossed them to Dann. So far he’d been a model prisoner, but she wasn’t about to get close enough for him to hook one of those tree-limb arms around her neck.

While he worked the handcuff lock awkwardly with his left
hand, she retrieved the .45 from the floor beside the cot, took the gun’s magazine from her pocket, shoved it in place, and sat down in one of the wooden chairs. When Dann had freed himself, she held out her hand for the keys.

“Five minutes,” she said.

“Right. We’re on a tight schedule here.”

“You need more time than that, maybe we’ll get a doctor in to check you over, see if you’re getting enough fiber in your diet.”

“Flannigan, we got a bathroom here with no window, no sharp objects, no chemicals to build a bomb—on the off chance that I knew how to build a bomb. I’m flattered you think I’m so crafty, but short of stopping up the plumbing, I don’t think I can create much chaos in there.”

“Four and a half minutes.”

He shot her a dark look and slammed the door.

Dixie laid the gun and keys on the table. She emptied a packet of coffee in the automatic dripolator positioned on a pine shelf that served as a sideboard. Having filled it with water the night before, she now plugged it in. She inspected two cups for spiders. The pot gurgled, filling the air with a rich coffee aroma.

Scooping up one of the gin rummy hands—two aces; king, ten, and three of hearts; five of spades; deuce of clubs—she thought about checking out the other hand, wondered if Dann had already seen it, and before she could make up her mind, the bathroom door opened. Drops of water clung to the front of Dann’s dark hair. His shirttail was tucked in neatly. Being shut in together would be less frustrating, she realized, if Dann weren’t so obviously male.

She tossed him the keys. “You’ll have to double-lock the cuffs to keep them from tightening down as you move.”

“Ah, yes. ‘Trust not the deviant mind, though it be dulled by sloth or drink or age; ‘tis nonetheless twisted and therefore…
treacherous.’
Better lock me up, Flannigan. No telling how much mayhem I’d cause if allowed to move about freely.”

“Fancy yourself an intellectual, do you, Dann?”

He bounced the keys a few inches into the air, watched them clink back into his palm.

“A student, Flannigan. Merely a student of life.”

“Especially when you’re a few hours in the bottle, right?”

He flushed, which surprised her. Most drunks she’d known were hardened to criticism about their drinking, always certain they had it under control. She must have hit a nerve.

He bounced the keys in his hand again, making no move toward the handcuff.

“Being chained to this bed might make sense if there were somewhere for me to go. How far you think I’d get with four feet of snow on the ground?”

Dixie couldn’t argue the four feet of snow.

“I don’t cotton to spending another day and night cramped up with one arm anchored to that friggin headboard.”

Better than a cot with no canvas. Dixie sympathized, but she couldn’t let Dann roam freely about the cabin. He probably had a whole bag of tricks she hadn’t seen yet. She aimed the .45 at his kneecap.

Bunching his fist around the keys, he pointed to the phone.

“Say I
did
get free. Call the sheriff. A snowmobile would run me down in no time.”

With each word, she could see his anger mounting.

“Dann, you’ll be a damn sight less comfortable with a busted leg.”

“And you’d have some explaining to do. Listen to how quiet it is out there. Think that gunshot won’t ring out all over the countryside?”

Dixie reached behind her. The gun never wavering, she pulled the wool blanket off her cot and wrapped it around her gun hand.

“Now nobody will hear the shot.”

Dann stood his ground, blue eyes fierce in the lamplight.

“I don’t think you’ll do it, Flannigan. You won’t shoot me in cold blood.”

“Think again.” Dixie cocked the .45, the click barely audible
through the folds of wool. “Remember those jailhouse stories you heard?” She hoped he’d heard the meanest ones.

He vacillated another thirty seconds, knuckles pale and rigid around the keys. Then he picked up the loose handcuff, snapped it around his wrist, and locked it.

Dixie put the gun down and accepted the keys, glad as hell he hadn’t called her bluff Then she stood and turned her back to him, her hands shaking as she poured two cups of coffee. She set one cup on the bedside table for Dann.

“You really think we’ll have to stay another night?” she said, as if the past few minutes had not occurred.

Anger engraved in every line of his face, Dann picked up the coffee cup. She could see him making an effort to calm down. Finally, he glanced up at her. His blue eyes had regained their amused insolence. He had backed off this time. They both knew he’d try again. Meanwhile, the time would pass easier if they put the incident behind them.

“According to the radio reports,” he said, “this was a freak storm. Sudden, violent, widespread. They’ll clear the main highways and essential routes first, to airports, hospitals, shelters… I’d guess the storm hit this area hard, being on the plains. Means some folks will need emergency rescue.” Hooking the other wooden chair with his foot, he scooted it over beside the bed and sat down. The lines in his face had relaxed. He picked up his card hand and moved the deck to where they could both reach it. “Considering also that it’s Christmas, the cleanup crews will be shorthanded. All in all, lady, there’s not a chance in hell we’ll be out of here before tomorrow.”

Twenty-four hours, maybe thirty
. Dixie recalled the snow-flakes she had caught on her tongue, and one of Kathleen’s needlepoint maxims came to mind—
Be Careful What You Wish
. Dixie had gotten her white Christmas, all right Unfortunately, she was spending it with a prisoner.

She fanned her cards, paired up the aces, moved the deuce to one side. Drawing a jack of hearts, she discarded the deuce, and for a few minutes they played in silence, the cards giving the antsy part of her mind something to do while another part
wrapped around the problem of what to tell Buck and Emma Sparks about Dann.

If she managed to get the window unstuck and helped shovel snow, they’d wonder why Dann wasn’t helping, too. If she sat tight and waited until Buck Sparks dug the snow away from the door, he’d surely knock and she’d have to mince around to keep him from spotting Dann’s handcuffs. A lot depended on how friendly their hosts turned out to be.

“Strange job for a woman,” Dann said. “Bounty hunting.” He drew a card from the deck and tossed down the four of clubs.

“Strange job for anybody, but someone has to do it.”

He grinned. “Otherwise scum like me would be shirking their comeuppance all over the country.”

“Screwing up the judicial system, putting bail bondsmen out of business.”

“Cheating juries out of their moment in the limelight.”

“Not to mention disappointing the arresting officers.” She drew the four of hearts, thought about it for a moment, and dropped it on the discard pile.

Dann drew a keeper, rearranged his hand to accommodate it, then discarded the six of clubs.

“Heard you were favored for stepping into the DA’s seat. Must be quite a story, you giving them the bird and taking up bounty hunting.”

Dixie looked at him over the top of her cards. The story wasn’t any secret. She’d joined the lower ranks of the DA’s office right out of law school. Like the Ghostbusters of movie fame, she wanted to rid the world of slime, but it oozed through loopholes, slithered back into society, and expanded.

“Remember the Leigh Ann Turner murder trial?” Dixie’s last case had made national news.

“Turner… Turner…” Dann eyed the discards. “Accused of killing her aunt, wasn’t she?”

“Flora Riggs. A scrawny old woman with pink-tinted hair and clothes recycled from the decadent twenties. Good-hearted and stronger than horseradish.”

Dixie had met Flora Riggs a year before her death, after
the old woman witnessed a mugging. When Dixie questioned her eyesight, Flora had retorted,
I saw those two boys beat that man as clear I can see those ugly shoes you’re wearing
. Dixie’s plain brown pumps were comfortable, which is what she required of all her clothes. She asked Flora if she tried to stop the boys.
Oh, fah! It was over before I could get my old bones out the door. But I sicked Pooch on ’em
. Pooch was the German shepherd that lay at Flora’s feet and growled at anyone who came near.
He’s old like I am, and not a sharp tooth left in his head, but he can still bark a ghost back in its grave
. Flora’s hearty cackle had made Dixie smile.
Those boys took one look at Pooch tearing across the yard and they turned tail fast. Then I dialed 911
.

Thanks to Flora’s swift reactions, the victim had lived, and for once the Texas judicial system worked as it should: the two young men went to prison. But the murder of Flora Riggs was not so easily resolved.

“Newspapers said a neighbor found her hanging from a ceiling fan,” Dann said.

“Engineered to look like suicide. The chair she supposedly climbed on was tipped over, as if she’d kicked it aside after fixing the rope around her neck.”

The neighbor had also found Pooch, dead beside his water dish, a nasty lump between his eyes.
Me and old Pooch keep each other alive out of pure cussedness
, Flora had told Dixie.
We’re both too ornery to go first
.