“Huh,” Marjorie said. She didn’t want to hear any more of his excuses. She had too much to think about.
Ronnie touched a hand to his forehead and winced. “Jeez, Ma. You really clobbered me.”
“Shut the hell up, Ronnie. You’re the one who screwed things up. Now I gotta think for a while.” Marjorie got up and walked out of the room. Her voice trailed after her. “I have to figure out what to do.”
Retreating to her craft studio (if you could even call it that), Marjorie grabbed her tweezers and resumed working on the doll’s eyelashes. She nipped and poked for another ten minutes until she had them just about perfect. The whole time she worked, her brain skittered along, planning, scheming, trying to calculate the odds. She knew the Cannon Falls kid probably wouldn’t present that much of a problem. If Ronnie had left it in the woods like he said he had—and she had no reason to doubt him—they should be fine. Animals, rain, wind, and snow would have erased any little bits of telltale evidence.
No, the real problem, the major dilemma Marjorie faced right now, was talky old Muriel Pink. Muriel Pink, who had started flapping her lips once they poked a TV camera in her face. Because as sure as God made little green apples, the cops were gonna go back and talk to that old bitch again.
*
BY nine o’clock that night, Marjorie had devised what she figured was a pretty smart plan. It was dangerous, even daring. But executed properly, would surely put an end to all their worries. They’d be safe again. And Marjorie, just like a little brown spider who’d administered its lethal bite, would be able to scuttle back into her snuggle hole again. Because she wanted to, needed to, be safe.
Ronnie was standing in the kitchen, refrigerator door wide open and drinking milk directly from the carton, when Marjorie said, “We’re going out. Just get your car and don’t ask any questions.”
Ronnie wiped his mouth. “Can’t,” he said. “My battery’s fried. I tried putting a charger on it but it wouldn’t hold worth shit. Probably gonna have to go to Fleet Farm and buy a new one.”
“Can you take the battery out of my car for now?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Ronnie said.
“Do it.”
Marjorie knew that Ronnie’s car, a two-door lowrider from the late eighties, was the perfect crime car. Painted a dull brownish burgundy, it had been stripped of any make or model insignia, and a bystander would be hard-pressed to give an exact description of it. Besides, the car was registered in Ronnie’s name. If things really went off the rails tonight, if Ronnie got caught red-handed and hauled down to the police station, it might give her the break she needed to get away. She still had five grand in cash stashed in a lockbox in Eau Claire. After that . . . well, she’d just have to improvise.
Five minutes later, Ronnie came stomping back inside. “Done,” he told her.
“What’s done?” Shake asked. She’d heard doors opening and closing and had crept in to investigate.
“None of your beeswax,” Marjorie said. That’s all she needed was Shake nosing around. She didn’t trust the girl as far as she could throw her.
“Ronnie?” Shake said. But Ronnie was focused only on Marjorie.
“How bad’s the weather?” Marjorie asked. She’d already looked up Muriel Pink’s address in an old phone book.
“It’s sleeting like a bastard out there,” Ronnie said. “Really coming down.”
“What are you two up to?” Shake asked. She clutched at a ratty pink cardigan that barely stretched across her belly. “Where are you guys going?”
“Just some business,” Marjorie said. “I have to run over to the Family Resource Center.”
“At this time of night?” Something didn’t feel right to Shake. But she was dog tired and her ankles were sore and swollen again. All she could think about was crawling back into the lounger and settling into a restless sleep.
“We won’t be gone long,” Ronnie assured her. “You take it easy. Get some rest.”
“I guess,” Shake said. She stared at them again, then waddled out of the room.
Marjorie turned anxious eyes on Ronnie. “Do you still have your night vision goggles?”
“Yeah, sure I do.” Ronnie had bought a set of Sightmark Ghost Hunter night vision glasses that were his pride and joy. He’d earned the money to pay for them by doing taxidermy jobs for local hunters. Sometimes he even hit the jackpot and got to work on something really great, like the bobcat he’d done for the guy over in Red Wing. A great big cat the man had shot when he was hunting out in Wyoming.
“And you need to bring your hunting knives, too.”