TV camera. He is wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and is standing behind a second tapeline among other Reporters, Any comments? “Can you confirm?”
O’Malley whistles loud toward four Deputies standing near the second tapeline not doing their jobs and motions with his hands to push them back, “Ten—no, twenty feet!”
He turns back toward the forest and looks up. “I am too old for this crap. Roberta told me to give this shit up years ago.”
Stein runs back toward him, “We’ve got four more, a total of fourteen, ranging from sixteen to twenty-five, according to Alice.”
O’Malley runs back the best he can with his bad knees, bone on bone, following her into the forest and catching back up with Roberts. “So what we got?”
“From what I can tell, fourteen young women, sixteen to late twenties, all strangled and left hand cut off. Four to five have been here from two to four weeks, from signs of decomp and animal bites.”
T. K. Donovan comes crashing out the Roadhouse Grill’s large front window. The old roadhouse club and grill has white large stone bricks around the outside, right out of the fifties, and a large neon sign on the roof. The building has a white double-door freezer unit for bags of ice out front and a large seven-foot-tall carved Indian, like the ones they have outside old tobacco shops near the large, oversized window.
Out front, near the blacktop, is a large parking lot, a dirt area with two old rotary-style gas pumps right out of the thirties, neither working anymore.
“And stay out!” The Cook—a burly, large man in his sixties wearing a white sailor’s cap, white T-shirt, and blue jeans—yells from inside the grill.
Donovan rolls over and sits up facing the bar. “I own it!”
“Then sober up!” the man yells back, laughing.
MacBride drives up in her black Ford Crown Victoria sedan, with red lights flashing in the back window and along the front grille and two quick chirps of the siren. Stopping just shy of Donovan’s head, MacBride gets out, waves over at the Cook. “Hi, Daddy,” she says as he moves back inside.
Donovan turns his head back toward her, shielding his eyes from the bright sun over her shoulder and his massive headache and hangover from the night before.
“I have nothing to say to you!” He stands, losing his balance and leaned against the car and then shuffles off toward the roadhouse.
“I was wrong,” she yells.
He stops, turns, and puts a hand up to his ear. “What?”
“I was wrong, Donovan. I should have left you on the case.”
“You only apologize when you need something, and no, thank you.”
He continues off to the side of the building, up to his trailer, a long fifth-wheel mobile trailer, white with green and black waves, passing a 1956 red Chevy pickup truck, a real classic, and pees under the bunk section.
Rolling her eyes, she yells, “Donovan, O’Malley has ten bodies in Sherman’s Forest.”
He pauses, scratches his two-week growth of brown facial hair, looks back over at her, leaning closer against the trailer, and continues peeing. “What’s the catch? I come with you, and you put me on a bus out of town? You always hated working with me,” he replies, walking back toward her.
“I hated living with you, not working with you. Please?”
“Please.” He laughs. “Okay,” he says, stumbling back to car.
“Donovan!” she yells and points down at his zipper, which is still open, and then looks away with a bit of embarrassment.
He stops and looks down at his oversized orange cargo shorts and black T-shirt, seeing his zipper open. He turns around and zips it up, adjusting his crotch. She rolls her eyes and then he stumbles around toward the driver’s door.
“Oh, hell, no! No, you don’t, Mister. Coffee first!” she says, turning him around and walking him back to the bar. “Daddy, black coffee, and make it strong!”
The Cook, now back at the window, watches this farce between them and, laughing, tosses a white towel onto his right shoulder. “Yes, dear.”
“Why does your Dad hate me so much?” he asks, breathing on her. She turns his face away.
At the counter, and many cups of coffee later, Donovan is resting his head on the edge of the bar, which is over eight feet on one side and four on the other, covered with black marble countertops and black padding along the edges. The bar has a good-sized pass-through window and many bottles around it on the back wall.
“Daddy, why did you throw him out the window?”
Jock MacBride walks down the bar toward them. “Do I need a reason with this bum?”
“This bum is the Father of your Granddaughters!”
“He tried to sell me a bill of goods, some land he has in Colorado—”
Before Jock could finish, she slaps Donovan on the back of his head. He jumps and sits up. “Bastard, how many times have I told you not to screw with my Dad? He is the golden gloves champion six years running. Next time, I will leave you on the ground, and the land is for Marci and Gina. Your Mother left it to them.”
“He knows I was kidding,” Donovan replies, pointing at Jock.
“I did and needed to fix that window anyhow. It’s cheaper if it’s broken.” Jock giggles as he walks off through a set of double doors at the far end of the bar, back into the kitchen.
“Stop messing with my Dad, please?”
“I own this bar. He works for me.”
“He just lost Mom, and you won it in a poker game because you had the better hand. Get over it,” she replies, smacking the back of his head.
“Okay, okay. What you mean O’Malley has ten bodies in Sherman’s Forest?” he asks while pouring more coffee from the pot.
“He was called to a body dump early this morning and, so far, has found ten young women, ranging anywhere from last night to a month ago. We need your help, Donovan.”
He sips some coffee. “Say please?”
A shiver runs down her back. “I am not playing this game again.”
“Say please?”
“Okay. Please?”
“Say pretty please with sugar on top?” Donovan asks with a big grin on his face.
She rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders. “Fine! Pretty please with sugar on top. Are you happy now?”
Jock returns from the kitchen and hands Donovan a fifty. She looks at him, then back at Donovan as Jock tosses him his black jeans and black leather boots onto the bar. Jock then leans over the bar toward her. “Get him out of here.” He motions with his left thumb, pointing at the front
