Chapter 20

Randy was on his way within a few minutes, shaking with anger and half tempted to hunt Joel up at work and beat the living shit out of him, although his better instincts prevailed. He found a nearby Burger King, pulled into the parking lot and pulled out his cell phone.

"I didn't expect to hear from you quite this soon," his father said. "Did you learn anything?"

"All too much," Randy told him. "She's being emotionally abused, and badly, physically to a lesser extent. He watches her like a hawk, doesn't trust her with anything, especially her money, which I think he thinks is his but she won't let him get at it. He's gone a lot and she's stuck at home with no chance to get out, no car, no friends, and he's trying to keep her isolated from us. I don't know all that much about all the signs of spouse abuse but what I see makes me think that she's got to be a classic case of it."

"Sounds like it," his father replied. "You're sure about it?"

"As sure as I can be. I always thought Joel was an asshole, but he's even worse than I thought."

"I wonder why this didn't come out when they were here in January?"

"Beats the hell out of me," Randy said into the cell phone. "He may have been watching her too closely too much of the time. She says it's gotten worse since Brent's legacy came down, so I suspect he wants her money real bad. I don't know why Ruth hasn't picked up on it, but Rachel says she hasn't talked to Ruth very much, either. She ran me the hell out of there, too, saying that she didn't want Joel to know that I'd been there."

"That's bad," Ryan replied. "It's all bad. I guess you were right on your gut feelings. Now, the question I have is what do we do now?"

"Beats the hell out of me," Randy told him. "You get right down to it, there's not much we can do. I reminded her that she still has family in Spearfish Lake, and she can count on us if she needs the help. It's going to have to be up to her if she leaves him, but I can't think of much we can do till she makes that decision."

"Damned if I know what to tell you," Ryan sighed. "Maybe I can call her up and say pretty much the same thing, for what good it'll do. I think we need to bring your mother and Ruth in on this, but I think I'll want to be careful about how we do it. Your mother is going to pitch a shit fit."

"I don't doubt it," Randy agreed. "But maybe she can use some logic we can't. A woman thing, you know. One thing, though. I'm sure Joel wants to get his hands on Rachel's money, and that means the land is going to have to get sold. Could you maybe call up Binky and have her hide that listing in a file drawer or something, and not advertise it?"

"I'll do it," he replied. "That's a little under the table, but we're good enough friends that I think she'll go along with it. So what do you plan on doing now?"

"Damned if I know," Randy said. "Maybe I can call the airline and get my flight back changed from Sunday to Saturday. That way I can get home that much quicker. I'm a little worried about being gone from Nicole right now."

"Could be, but the airlines are getting a little sticky about changing reservations. So how's the weather out there?"

"Not bad, maybe about sixty. Short sleeve weather for me for this time of year. I think I'm going to find a big box store and find a short sleeve shirt."

"Well, you're in one of the more interesting towns in the country," Ryan advised. "Why not do a little sightseeing? I'm sure you can find something to kill a day in San Francisco."

"I'm a little reluctant to do it with Nicole not with me. I'm sure it's something she'd like to see."

"I can understand that," Ryan sighed. "But how much stuff has Nicole seen that you haven't? She's forever trying to push you out the door to do these things, and I know it. Here's a chance to take advantage of it."

"Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean I want to do it, especially with this stuff with Rachel on my mind."

"Me either, now that you put it that way. Keep your cell phone on, we may come up with something for you to do. On that subject, do you think there's any percentage in hiring a detective?"

"I don't know what they could pick up that we don't already know in general. It'd just be a way to waste money."

"Maybe, but maybe not. You said he's gone a lot. Do you think he's seeing someone on the side? If he is, then maybe that would be a way to convince Rachel to get the hell out of there."

"Not impossible," Randy told his father. "Rachel didn't say anything about that, but I didn't go anywhere near that issue with her. She might not have a hint of it even if he is. I get the feeling Joel is managing her like a mushroom."

"You mean keeping her in the dark and feeding her shit? I wouldn't put that past him, either. I always knew there was some reason I didn't like the guy, and he's turning out to be even worse than I expected. Even if we leave Joel's alleged business ethics out of it, I think it might not be a bad idea just to turn a detective loose on him, just on general principles. I don't have any idea how I'd find one, other than having you go through the phone book out there. That's really taking a stab in the dark."

"You may be right, but ... hey, I got an idea. How about asking Blake if he could weasel out a lead? He knows the security business a little, and he used to have some contacts out here."

"That's a better idea than anything I've come up with," Ryan said. "I'll give him a buzz as soon as I'm off the horn with you. Go see the sights and check out your graders."

"If there's anything I can do, let me know."

Randy clicked off the cell phone and sat back in the seat of the rental car. Sightseeing really wasn't on his mind, and going to the construction equipment show had only been an excuse in the first place. The real purpose of the trip had been to check on Rachel, and now that he'd done it everything else seemed to take a back seat. But what else could he do? He was tempted to go take a swing by Joel's business just to see if he was there, but realized that was fruitless – he knew he couldn't identify Joel's car, and Joel would know who he was if he saw him. Rachel had said that it was best if Joel didn't know that Randy was in town, and being recognized could really screw things up for her. That left just about nothing constructive that he could think of to do.

Well, there was one thing. It was the middle of the day now, so late afternoon back in Spearfish Lake, and he hadn't had anything to eat since a cup of coffee and a doughnut some silly number of hours before. And here he was in the parking lot of a fast food place – might as well do something about that, he thought. A Whopper and fries beat airline alleged food any way you cut it.

Randy got out of the car and went inside. It was close to lunchtime, and the line at the counter was long. Now that he was standing upright, he realized that it was a good time to use the bathroom, so he headed around the counter and down a short hall. It only took him a moment before he was heading back out to wait out the line. He glanced around the room on the way back to the counter and saw a sight that brought him to a dead stop: Joel, sitting in a booth across the room!

Come on, Randy thought. This kind of stuff only happens in bad movies. He looked again, and sure enough, it was Joel or his twin brother, sitting and talking to a nicely-turned-out blonde wearing a pencil skirt, frilly blouse, black glasses, hair up in a bun, almost looking like a parody of a business person. Joel's attention was entirely on the woman, and Randy didn't think he'd been seen. One thing was clear, though – this wasn't a good place to be standing around in a long line waiting for service. He headed for the door, noticing that the two were picking up the trash from their lunch and were close to getting out of there.

Back out in the car Randy's mind was whirling. It was entirely possible that the two were having an honest business lunch, although Burger King didn't seem like the kind of place that they'd want to talk stocks or taking someone to the cleaners, whatever it was they were discussing. It would have been nice to be a bug on the wall, or just have a bug on the wall, but there was no way he could have gotten close enough to pick something up without running the risk of being noticed. But what to do now? One sighting of Joel having lunch with a woman could easily be perfectly innocent – there were plenty of legitimate reasons it could have happened.

He was still sitting in the parking space, watching the front door in his rear view mirror, when he saw Joel and the blonde come out and head for a car – Randy noticed that Joel and the woman were walking hand in hand. That, he thought, doesn't look quite as innocent.

Between the mirror and the corner of his eye Randy watched the two walk across the parking lot to a white BMW. Joel courteously held the right side door for her, then walked around and got in the left side.

Randy knew he was a total amateur at this kind of thing, but there was no way he wasn't going to tail him, at least for a ways, and see what was happening. All of his knowledge of how to tail a vehicle in traffic came from movies and TV and novels, but summarized, it came down to not following too close and trying to avoid being noticed. He watched as the BMW backed out of the parking space, then started his rental car and backed it out to follow.

Son of a bitch, I don't believe I'm doing this, he thought as he made a right turn into traffic, coming out three or four cars behind Joel and the blonde on the busy street. Tailing a car without losing it in heavy traffic proved to not be as easy as he'd thought it might be, but as fortune had it they only went a mile or so, not making any turns until they turned off into a motel parking lot. Randy knew better than to follow, so drove right on by, went around the block, and saw the BMW parked toward one end of the building, a motel where the rooms' doors opened onto the parking lot.

Yep, not very innocent, he thought. That's a nooner if ever there was such a thing. Again, he drove right on by and around the block, not that it was likely that he'd been noticed, and wondered what to do next. A couple times he almost reached for his cell phone to report in to his father, but decided to put it off for a bit to see if he could learn a little more. He made up his mind he wasn't going to tail Joel any further – luck had already been much better to him than it had any right to be – but it would be nice to know how long the two were in there.