Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts Read Free Book Online Page A

girlfriend in Sequoyah, Oklahoma. With a relative?”
    “No. ”
    “A friend?”
    “No. I left her in a Wal-Mart store.”
    “She have a job there? In the Wal-Mart?”
    Willy Jack shook his head as he began to pick at a tear in the knee of his jeans.
    “Was she going to meet someone there?”
    “No.” Willy Jack pulled at the loose threads, giving the hole in his pants all his attention. “I just left her there.”
    “What do you mean you left her? You let her out?”
    Willy Jack nodded, then hooked his finger inside his torn jeans.
    “You dumped her out?”
    “Yeah.” He pulled at the faded denim then and ripped the jeans open from the knee to the hem. “I dumped her out.”
    “That’s what you were going to do to me, wasn’t it,” the girl yelled. “Dump me off like some stray dog.” Her voice slid into a higher register. “You son of a bitch.”
    “Now Jolene, don’t be harsh,” the sheriff said. “Let’s give Mr.
    Pickens the opportunity to be heard.” The deputy at the door laughed.
    “So what time was it on Wednesday when you dumped this girl out?”
    “I don’t know. ’Bout ten. Maybe eleven.”
    “That’s a lie,” Jolene said. “He was here with me on Tuesday night. Asked me to go to Las Vegas with him. That was late Tuesday night. Said he’d figure out a way to get the money if I’d just go with him.”
    “No,” Willy Jack yelled. “I said—”
    “That’s right, Mr. Pickens. You said. But can you prove it?”
    The sheriff stared at Willy Jack a moment, then raised his eyes to the other man beside the door. When he looked back at Willy Jack, he was shaking his head.
    “You’re a piece of work.”
    “Let me call. See if I can find her.”
    “Call? Call where?”
    “The Wal-Mart store.”
    The sheriff laughed then, like he’d heard a joke that wasn’t funny.
    “You think she’s still there? Waiting for you?”
    “Well . . . no, but . . .”
    “Besides, the Wal-Mart’s closed now.”
    “But there might be someone there. Someone who’s seen her or knows where she went. A night watchman, maybe. Or a janitor. Don’t I have the right to make one phone call?”
    “Yeah, you do. One. This one.”
    The sheriff got the number from the long-distance operator, then dialed. When it started to ring, he pushed the phone across the desk, smiled again, and said, “One.”
    Willy Jack cleared his throat, then put the receiver to his ear. On the third ring, he scooted up to the edge of his chair. By the eighth, he was biting at his lip and twisting the phone cord beneath his fist. At ten, he started whispering. “Ten Mississippi . . . eleven Mississippi .
    . . twelve . . .”
    The receiver was slick and the sound coming through it was distorted, like an alarm echoing through a tunnel.
    The sheriff held up his index finger and mouthed the word, “One.”
    “Twenty-one Mississippi . . . twenty-two . . .”
    Suddenly, Willy Jack shot up out of his chair and hammered the receiver across the edge of the desk, sending splinters of plastic flying across the room. Then, Willy Jack bellowed, the words roaring out of his mouth like sounds riding on strong winds.
    “God-dammit!” he shrieked. “Answer the phone. Answer the goddamned phone.”
    One of them hit him just below his ear. The other one took him to the floor, but Willy Jack managed to hang on to a piece of the receiver.
    He heard someone speaking, but he didn’t know who. A child somewhere whimpering in the dark.
    “Thirty-one Mississippi . . . thirty-two . . .”

Chapter Four
    NOVALEE HARDLY MOVED when the first alarm went off, but when the second one sounded, she turned and stretched inside the sleeping bag, slow and sluggish like a caterpillar nestling in its co-coon. The third alarm, an irritating whistle, got her moving, wiggling out of the bag, then plodding down the aisle to the clock counter. She always set three alarms for fear the first employee to arrive would discover her sleeping—a Goldilocks without her