Ashtray Logic in Chopping Block

Although she looked for the Range Rover, she pulled into the Conoco without having seen it at all. Dialing the Sheriff’s Office with shaking fingers, Audrey leaned against the convertible, pulled into the farthest parking spot from Chip’s queue of cars awaiting oil changes and lube jobs. The phone rang twice, then was picked up by the town’s emergency dispatcher.

“Sheriff Evans’ extension. Gloria speaking. Is this an emergency call?”

“Yes,” Audrey said, gratefully. “My car’s been stolen and,”

Gloria interrupted. “What is the nature of your…oh. Okay. Are you hurt? Is anyone hurt?”

“No, no one is hurt. But my, um, friend is missing. I drove him out there and he disappeared.”

“All right, ma’am. What kind of car is it?”

“It’s a 1946 Range Rover.” Audrey felt a sort of grin slide over her lips at saying something so ridiculous, but it was the truth, and damn it, she wanted it back. “Has a cattle catcher on the front and a luggage rack. It’s olive and rust.”

“Doc Butler?”

“Yeah,” Audrey said. “It’s me.”

“Okay and the missing person?”

“Um, he answers to Rhytaas, I don’t know his last name, he’s about six foot even, tanned, wearing a blue flannel shirt, blue jeans, and old black and red Nikes. Oh and,” and Audrey cut herself off. Holy hells, had she really almost just said, “He has a four-foot tail?”

“Yes?” the dispatcher asked.

“Never mind,” Audrey said, feeling foolish. “Most guys have one of what I would have said.”

“Rita, you said, and he’s a man?”

“Not Rita,” Audrey said, carefully enunciating the name. “Rhytaas. I guess his parents were into the unique.” Maybe it was an anagram: Audrey wrote it out on the dust caking the car’s hood and stared down at the letters. Nothing came to mind, but that was the thing about anagrams: you had to be good at them to see anything in them, and words weren’t her strong suit. A sudden certainty that this strange name held more clues than she had so far gripped her, making her want access to the Internet Anagram Server. Too bad she was using her phone already - it couldn’t do that much at once.

“Okay, I’m going to transmit this to Sheriff Evans,” the dispatcher said, “and where can I reach you tonight, Doc Butler? In case the sheriff has more questions.”

“I’m going home,” Audrey said. “2708 Oak Street, apartment 27 B. He’s got me on his speed dial.” Because saying that made her feel particularly wrong, she added, “We worked together last summer on an animal cruelty case, so he had me there then…” Sheepishly, she gave her numbers, and disconnected. Leaning on the sun-baked plastic case of the pay phone, she wondered if she was about to cry: she certainly felt like she needed to cry. And what should she do about the car? She glanced at its smug grille and its flashy lines and felt a kind of dull hatred. With a sigh, she turned back to the phone, dialed the sheriff’s office again. Explaining the car to Gloria, she slid the keys under the driver’s seat and turned away.

“Hey, Doc, wait up,” Chip called, wiping his hands on a shop rag as he darted out of his shady den and into the waning sunshine. “I heard you talking to Gloria, and uh, I got a loaner. No problem since most nobody drives stick anymore, and I know you’ll be careful with her.”

“What is it,” Audrey muttered under her breath, “a Ferrari?”

It turned out to be pretty close: Chip’s teenaged Camaro, a saucy red painted with arcane male hieroglyphics. While she stared, stunned, he burbled on about horsepower and handling and Betsy Bannister, who had been prom queen twice, because she’d just been that pretty. According to Chip, anyway: Audrey had babysat the girl a few times during her run through PS 149 and she’d always considered her a brat. Hard to reconcile that image with the smiling woman who herded twins about in a giant minivan, but time did have a habit of moving right along. You could stand around listening to Bob Seger and buying Geritol or you could patch up the Bannister’s dog, and well, really, Audrey liked a mix of both. Not that she’d ever wanted to be prom queen, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone if she were pretty, would it?

Rhytaas’ voice echoed in her mind as she slid behind the wheel, breathing slowly to try and combat the sweat that popped up like daisies in May at the trapped heat.

“Make me beautiful, make me rich, make me powerful…”

Well. Maybe she could do without a nose job and plastic boobs, at that. Rolling down the windows, she dug out her phone while the stale air in the Camaro traded places with the declining heat of the day, and called Lacy, the dog walker. She agreed to keep the boys overnight when Audrey surprised herself by pulling the hot date card, and with that chore taken care of, she found her fingers tapping out a hyperlink. She’d discovered the anagram server while playing an online game during her downtime at the clinic, and it had served her purposes. She liked to think she remembered to pay her debts.

Rhytaas, she typed in.

Ashtray, the internet Anagram Server responded.

“Shit!” Audrey said, jumping out of the Camaro and racing across the lot. Leaning across the seat, she dug down between the seats, then raked open the door and leaned across. The ashtray was hard to open, welded tight with old rust was her guess. Her heart plummeted down to her feet as she wrestled with it, knowing that if it had been this hard to open, no one else had done it recently. What clue could a ashtray welded shut for heaven knew how long hold? She pushed her finger into the gap and hooked about, knowing it was hopeless.

Her finger flexed on something crisp, something smooth yet crinkled. Jerking her hand back made her grateful for her tetanus boosters. She popped her knuckle into her mouth and sucked the coppery blood away as she glanced down at the sheet of paper in her hand. It was a receipt, printed on the silky stock cash registers preferred, and to her surprise, it was dated only this morning. Her sense of accomplishment faded as she worked out exactly what had been bought at the Mackinaw Academy store: it was replaced with a sense of dread.

“Rope,” she read, “Shotgun cartridges.” That one had given her a minute, but she worked with hunting dogs: she had seen her share of buck and bird shot injuries. Glancing down the list, she riddled out tarps and camping supplies. This was starting to look frightening. More than that, it was starting to look like someone was planning on hiding out for some time, and they had her Range Rover and well, her…All right, so he didn’t belong to her, but she was going to have a look at some men later and ask them what they thought they were about, stealing a man and a car that were both technically hers.

There were only a few sins a good Southern girl didn’t forgive and forget. Screwing with something that was hers was the big one.

She finished reading the receipt and found just one snippet at the bottom. Crumpling the paper in her fingers, she murmured, “It’s a bad day to be named Darren Johnson.”

“I wish,” she said, quietly, digging the keys out from under the seat, “that the sheriff’s office is unlocked and empty. I wish the operator is busy outside. God, Rhytaas,” she said to the empty air, feeling a numb shock spreading through her mind, “I hope to hell you’re the real deal.”

Real deal or not, her hands shook like mad all the way down Main Street, and they hadn’t steadied by the time she slid out from behind the wheel a half a block away from the sheriff’s office.