Free Pretty Girl Gone by David Housewright Page B

same about most things most of the time, and since we lived in the same place at the same time forever, we were able to communicate volumes to each other with a single word or sentence fragment or a raised eyebrow.
    He lifted my Belshaw Donut Robot Mark I, capable of making one hundred dozen mini-donuts per hour, thank you very much, while I grappled with my Paragon 1911 Brand Sno-Cone Machine. I do like my treats.
    “Where’s the Jeep Cherokee?” he asked.
    “In the garage.”
    “I thought the Audi was going to be the summer car.”
    “It’s just so damn fast.”
    Last spring a Chevy Blazer I was chasing outraced me on the freeway. The Audi satisfied my vow that it would never happen again.
    “Why are you home?” I asked.
    “Accumulated time off. I put in sixty-seven hours last week.”
    “Nice hours if you can get them.”
    “If people would stop killing each other, I might actually have time for the family.”
    “Where are the girls?”
    “They had better be in school.”
    “Why wouldn’t they be?”
    “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because their surrogate uncle likes to tellthem stories about how he and their father used to skip class to run around the city and they think it’s cool.”
    “Sorry ’bout that.”
    “I can tell.”
    A few moments later, the machines were arranged side-by-side in the Dunstons’ living room.
    “I thought you were bringing these over Friday,” said Shelby.
    “I have to leave town and I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I wanted to make sure the girls had them for their fund-raiser.” I turned to Bobby. “That’s why you don’t have to worry about them skipping school. Because they’re Girl Scouts and we—”
    “We were never Scouts.”
    “Not even a little bit.”
    “Where are you going?” Shelby asked.
    “Victoria, Minnesota.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m doing a favor for Zee Bauer.”
    “No kidding,” said Bobby.
    “Who’s Zee Bauer?” Shelby asked.
    “Lindsey Bauer,” said Bobby. “She’s married to the governor now.”
    “Lindsey Barrett, the first lady? You know the first lady?”
    “She used to live not far from here, near Summit Avenue, on what, Howell?” Bobby said. “McKenzie dated her younger sister, Linda, when we were seniors in high school.”
    “You called her Zee?”
    “Lind-
zee,
” said Bobby. “Not to be confused with Lind-
duh.
”
    “Linda wasn’t the smartest girl in the class,” I said.
    “She was a slut,” Bobby said.
    “Hey, hey, hey, c’mon . . .”
    “Tell me I’m wrong.”
    I didn’t. I couldn’t.
    “What are you doing for the first lady?” Shelby asked.
    “I can’t tell you.”
    “Figures.”
    “Does it have anything to do with the Ford Escort parked down the street?” Bobby asked.
    “You noticed.”
    “I’m an experienced law enforcement professional.”
    “I heard that rumor. Didn’t they just promote you to lieutenant of something?”
    “A richly deserved reward for my many years of outstanding service working homicide.”
    “Want to do me a favor?”
    “You don’t know who’s in the Escort, do you?”
    “Not a clue.”
    Bobby sighed, said, “I’ll make a call.”
    “When you find out, call me on my cell. I want to lead him out of the neighborhood in case there’s trouble.”
    “Trouble?” Shelby said the word like she had just heard it for the first time. “Why does there always need to be trouble?”
    I didn’t know how to answer that.
    “I understand why Bobby takes risks,” Shelby said. “It’s his job. But why do you?”
    “We all take risks everyday, Shel. We all walk down dark alleys without knowing what lurks in the shadows . . .”
    “Metaphorically speaking,” said Bobby.
    “We risk death riding in hurtling automobiles and by golf balls that are sliced out of bounds and from burritos that aren’t cooked properly. There are diseases waiting for us out there that we’ve never even heard of and probably couldn’t pronounce if we had—”
    “Here we go,”