Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet (18 page)

Ted Bundy had driven a Bug; Hingle took that as a good omen.

He worked his way around the building to the rear. An open restroom window clattered in the wind. A dumpster was pushed up against the wall. All it’d take was to give the dumpster a little nudge—after checking it first for rats: Nasty little bastards—and he could boost himself up inside the window. Hingle grinned to himself.

Returning to the front of the building, he hunkered down in the shadows of the forest line, and then he bided his time and waited, watching the waitress with a hungry gleam in his eyes.

It had been four long years since he’d had a woman, and though she wasn’t really his type—a little older than he liked ‘em—Terrence Hingle aimed to catch up for lost time.

The diner was quiet as an Edward Hopper painting.

Tilly was perched at her regular spot at the end of the lunch counter, flipping through a celebrity scandal-rag some customer had left behind. In the kitchen behind her she could hear Earl scraping grit off the grill with a spatula. Glancing up from the magazine, Tilly checked to see how her only customer was getting along with that cup of joe he’d been nursing for damn near an hour. Alone at his window booth, the trucker was stirring his coffee in time to the slit-your-wrists country ballad warbling from the juke between the doors to the restrooms. Tilly hoped the guy didn’t ask for a refill so she could close the diner early. Business wouldn’t pick up on a night like tonight and she was beat from having already worked the day shift.

It should’ve been Mathilda Mulvehill’s night off; Tilly would think about that many times in the hours to come. Not that she’d had any grand plans. Just another night curled on the couch watching TV with Marmalade the cat and a
ménage a trois
with Misters Ben & Jerry. She hadn’t even changed out of her day shift uniform when Big Bob called her at home and asked her to cover his shift tonight, with his usual empty promises of a raise. Of course, she’d agreed.

Scolding herself for being such a pushover—though it was her mother’s voice she heard in her mind—Tilly had ignored Marmalade’s despairing glance as she crammed her aching feet back inside her crepe-soled work shoes. She trudged outside the trailer through the rain to her Bug. The car seemed to have more backbone than its owner, refusing to work at first—but a few more turns of the key and old Betsy Bug finally putt-putted to life.

As she passed through town on her way to the diner, not for the first time Tilly sighed and asked herself what she was still doing in this place. There was nothing keeping her here since mom died. Hadn’t the plan been to save up enough money to go back to school; what had happened to that plan?

A pushover and a coward
… her mother’s voice said.

Tilly turned on the radio to shut up the voice.

What happened to that plan was Lizette Mulvehill.

Sometimes Tilly wondered if her mother started drinking because her father walked out on her, or if dad bugged out because mom started drinking. The story tended to change every time Lizette told it, which was often. What never changed was that Brandon Mulvehill was a no-account piece of trash and that Tilly was her daddy’s daughter and destined to turn out just the same way.

When she went to college she thought she’d finally escaped. But it was less than a week before the phone calls started. Begging her to come home. Saying she was sick.
Real
sick this time. Asking how—after everything she’d sacrificed to raise her daughter right—
how could Tilly leave her own mother to die alone?

Another month of calls and Tilly buckled and went home to do her daughterly duty. It turned out her mother wasn’t
quite
as close to death’s door as she’d led Tilly to believe. It would be another five long years before Lizette drew her final hateful breath. By then Tilly’s dreams of college and bettering herself hung in tatters. Mom had seen to that.

The trucker finally gave up on his coffee. He tossed a few bills on the table to cover the check, and then shuffled to the door. Turned up the lapels of his jacket before braving the rain, the bell above the door tinkling as he left. Tilly glanced at the clock above the lunch counter—quarter to ten. Putting down her magazine, she hopped off her stool and went and locked the door. She flipped the sign in the window to CLOSED. Rain needled her tired reflection in the glass as she watched the trucker’s Peterbilt rumble off into the night. She was a petite young woman—more mousy than cute—with a heart-shaped face, freckles dusting her nose and cheeks, her eyes hiding beneath sandy lashes, and shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair scrunchied back in a ponytail.

Tilly cleared the trucker’s booth. Stuffed the tip the cheap bastard had left in the apron bib of her uniform. Earl shoved his head through the kitchen service hatch, wearing his cook’s hat like a rumpled paper crown. “I thought he’d never leave,” Earl said. “You mind if I scoot, Tilly? Leave you to lock up?” The question was of course rhetorical; Earl was all but already out the door and buzzing away home astride his Kawasaki.

“Go ahead,” she sighed.

“You’re—

(
such a pushover
)

“—a doll,” Earl said.

The kitchen door banged shut behind him; she heard the waspy whine of his bike tearing away from the lot.

Tilly turned off the juke. If she heard one more country song tonight she thought she’d scream; the dreary lyrics were like her life set to music. She fetched the menus off the tables. Piled them at the waitress station at the end of the lunch counter. Stacked the chairs on the tables. Considered sweeping and mopping the floor before she remembered she was working again first thing tomorrow and deciding it could wait until then. She checked the windows in the restrooms were locked. The ladies room window had blown open, clapping in the wind. Tilly had to stand on tiptoes and lean outside—and was rewarded with a ripe whiff from the dumpster—before she could drag the window shut.

Returning to the diner floor, she took the cash float from the register and went to Big Bob’s office to stash it in the safe. In the corner of the office was the staff closet. Big Bob also kept a surplus of waitress uniforms and kitchen whites and a change of his own clothes, because even on cold days, Big Bob would sweat like a racehorse. Tilly took her parka off the rail, car keys jangling in the pocket as she shrugged it on. She fetched her bag from the closet. Slung the carry strap over her forearm. At the bottom of the closet was a crumpled cardboard box with LOST & FOUND Sharpied on the side. Customers were always forgetting their hats or scarves or—

“Alone at last,” said a man’s voice behind her.

Tilly whirled towards the voice, thudding back against the wall and knocking the EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH photo to the floor. The glass frame shattered and a crack zigzagged through the Tilly-in-the-photo’s timid smile.

Silhouetted in the doorway stood a slender young man with brilliant blue eyes. His dark hair was slicked back with rain. Tilly thought he was wearing kitchen whites at first. Then she realised it was some kind of uniform, like a hospital orderly or a male nurse might wear. His white shirt and pants were soaked through, soiled with mud and torn in places, as if he’d crawled through hell just to get here—and Big Bob’s coffee wasn’t
that
good.

The man grinned at her with huge white teeth, the Big Bad Wolf wearing human skin. As he crept towards her, trailing mud and rainwater across the carpet, Tilly saw one of Earl’s fillet knives clutched in his fist. She gave a low moan. In the event of a robbery—please God, that’s all this was—there was a procedure she was supposed to follow. But the only thing she could think was

“Muh-money’s in the safe,” she said, in panicked staccato.

The man nodded calmly. “That your car in the lot? The Bug?”

He had a soft Southern accent. All that was missing was the stalk of prairie grass in his mouth, maybe LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles.

It took a moment for his words to register. Then she clawed through the pockets of her parka, found her car keys and held them out. The keys jangled in her shaking hand. “Tuh-take it.”

He took the keys and she snatched her hand back to her chest.

“Ted Bundy drove a Bug.” The man grinned. “Did you know that?”

No. No, she hadn’t known that. What person in their right mind
would
?

Fear shuddered through her. “Oh god, please, don’t hurt me—”

He whipped up the knife and pressed the cold blade to her lips.

“Hush now,” he said. “You do what I say when I say it, me and you are gonna get along famously. Now why don’t you open that safe you mentioned?”

Removing the knife from her lips, he backed up a step. With a flourish of his arm, he gestured for her to move past him to the safe—a gesture that might have been gentlemanly had he not been clutching a big-ass fucking knife.

He parked his butt casually on the edge of Big Bob’s desk.

Tilly glanced at the telephone beside him—

He stabbed the knife down into the desk, blocking her view of the phone.

“You get any bright ideas like that,” the man warned her, “you’d best remember you’re just a waitress at a greasy spoon diner and not Brain of the fucking Year.”

He nodded at the safe. “Go on now.”

She kneeled in front of the safe. What was the combination? She couldn’t remember. Her mind had gone blank. For the life of her she would not have been able to unlock the safe with a gun to her head … or a knife to her throat. And then it suddenly came back to her. Nearly sobbing with relief she entered the combination and unlocked the safe and dragged the heavy door open.

She took out the money float and placed it on Big Bob’s desk. Backing away to the wall, her legs turned to jelly and she slumped to the floor beside the safe. She dragged her legs to her chest, laced her arms around her shins to stop her body from shaking, watching as the young man clawed the bills from the cash drawers.

“That’s it?” he said.

“We banked our week’s takings yesterday.”

“How about you?” he said. “What’s in that bag of yours?”

She kicked her bag across the floor to him.

He upended the bag over Big Bob’s desk and started rooting through all the junk she’d collected—her makeup bag and compact, wadded tissues, losing Lotto tickets, a few too many candy bar wrappers—the clutter of a miserable wage-slave existence. He found her purse and read the name on her photo ID aloud.

“Mathilda Mulvehill.”

“Tilly,” she said. Maybe if he started thinking of her as a person, and not a victim, he wouldn’t hurt her? “My name’s Tilly.” It was printed in capital letters on the nametag pinned to the breast of her uniform.

“Tilly …” he said, taking the name for a spin. “Well, then you can call me Terry.” He grinned his toothy grin. “Terry n’ Tilly: It’s almost cute.”

He returned his attention to her purse. Added what little money he found to his swag from the cash float. “That’ll have to do it, I guess.”

Then he glanced down at her and kept on looking.

Tilly choked back a scream as he unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his pants.

A little snort of amusement. “Sorry to disappoint you, sis. There’s no time for hanky-panky. And I’m not getting caught with my pants down again.”

He peeled off his soaking shirt and pants—he was whipcord lean, muscled like a terrier—found an apron in the closet, towel dried his hair. Next to the closet on the wall was a mirror. He paused to admire his reflection. Combed his hair with his fingers. Shook his head and sighed. “Lookit what those fucking headshrinkers done to me …” Tilly thought he still seemed pretty pleased with himself. He caught her watching him and shot her a wink. She looked away quickly.

He snatched a pair of Big Bob’s slacks from the rail in the closet; had to cuff the ankles, and bore a new notch in his belt with the knife before they fit him. Then he rummaged through the LOST & FOUND box. Salvaged a dorky ensemble of a smiley face tee shirt, a jean jacket, and a black knit beanie hat.

He gave Tilly a little twirl. “How’d I look?”

She didn’t answer.

He stuffed the money from the safe and Tilly’s purse in the breast pocket of the jean jacket.

Then he squatted in front of where she huddled on the floor.

Over his shoulder she could see the knife embedded in the desk behind him.

The way he was squatting in front of her she could kick him in the balls and snatch up the knife and—

“—at home?”

He was asking her something; oh Christ, what had he asked her?

He snapped his fingers in front of her face.

“You with me, sis?”

She stifled a sob and nodded.

“You got anyone waiting for you at home?” he said again.

“Yes,” she said.

But she’d hesitated just long enough for him to smell the lie. “Bullshit.”

Tilly couldn’t help bristling in offence. Was it really so farfetched? Marmalade certainly wouldn’t think so. She tried to remember if she’d fed the cat before she left for—

“Alright,” he said. “Here’s how it is, sister. You and me are gonna go for a little drive.”

“Please, I gave you all the money—”

He reached behind him. Wrenched the knife from the desk. Pressed the blade to her lips once again. “Don’t interrupt,” he told her. “I don’t like that.” She nodded weakly. “Good girl,” he said. He hooked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear with the knife. The tip of the blade caressed her earlobe.

“Now there’s people looking for me, see. I’m not so keen that they find me. So now you and me are gonna go for a little drive—like I was saying before you rudely interrupted me—and you’re gonna see that it doesn’t happen …

“You help me get out of Dodge,” he promised, “and all this will be over.”

They left the diner linking arms like lovers. Terry embraced her protectively. The knife was pressed up under her arm, the blade pricking her armpit. The rain beat down hard on the parking lot asphalt, erupting into a deluge as Terry led her to the Bug. Through the sheeting rain, Tilly could hardly see the used car dealership across the street. The married owner sometimes worked late with his pretty young secretary. But not tonight. She glanced along the street but there was no one to be seen. There usually wasn’t by the time Big Bob closed his kitchen. And especially not on a night like this.
My night off
…