CHAPTER 8

“HI, CHERYL.”

Grady sat down at a front booth and watched her putting away silverware in the drawer beneath the counter. They were the only two in the diner. He figured Bandy was in the back somewhere like always. He was seldom far away. Grady figured he didn’t trust the help all that much. Either that or he didn’t have a home. Or maybe he did. One that came complete with a ball-buster wife, he suspected.

“Hi Grady. We heard about Jack. A bunch of us were talking about going up and seeing him. Can he have visitors?”

Grady could see the concern in her eyes. He and Jack spent many hours in Bandy’s, drinking cup after cup of coffee. Flirting with the girls. Cheryl was nice. Hell, Cheryl was gorgeous, who was he kidding? She seemed to ignore her looks. He’d considered asking her out several times but hadn’t. Back at Dunbar High, he had a crush on her but never got around to taking any action, like asking her for a date.

“I don’t think so, Cheryl. Not yet anyway. He’s in pretty bad shape. He’s in and out of consciousness. Not a coma...that’s what the doctor says...but it looks like one to me. When he comes to, he doesn’t seem to be aware of much. He doesn’t recognize anything or anybody. The doctors say it will take time. They...they’re not sure if he’ll ever be all right again. The impression I get is that if he makes it, he might be able to serve hamburgers at Mickey D’s, but he’ll need some help if he has to make change.”

“Oh, my!” Cheryl’s hand flew to her mouth and she sat down in the seat across from Grady in his booth. “Oh, my!” she said again, and, brow furrowed, she asked, “Are you all right?”

“What? Yeah. Compared... Sure. Listen, Cheryl, I need some help. The suits tell me you were on duty the night this thing happened.”

“You kidding, Grady? I work twelve-hour shifts. I’m always here. I told the police everything I could think of.”

“I know. I d like you to tell me if you would. You said a guy came in?”

Her brow lifted and she nodded. “A real jerk!”

“How so?”

“Well, he kept bitching about the coffee.”

Grady snorted. “That makes him a jerk? Cheryl, everybody comes in Bandy’s trashes the coffee.”

She twisted her mouth. “Well, yeah, maybe, but this guy was...well, he was odd. You guys are joking, but he was like bent out of shape over it. And we know you guys. You’re teasing. This guy was different. Nasty-like. That wasn’t what got me, though. It was his hair.”

“Hair?” Grady leaned forward.

“Yeah. Weird. It was blond.”

“What’s weird about blond hair?” Grady was puzzled.

“It was the wrong color for his eyes. His eyes were brown.”

He was thoroughly bewildered.

“I don’t get it.”

She got up and went around behind the counter, poured out a cup, put it on the counter and shoved it over, indicating with a nod of her head it was for him. He got up, went over and slid onto a stool, poured cream and sugar into the cup and stirred it.

“It’s a wonder I noticed anything at all,” she continued. “I was running my ass off. There was a mob of people in here. You know, come to think of it, I remember seeing a light on over at Jack’s. Nothing unusual. At least I didn’t think so at the time. You know Jack. Always coming in at weird hours, messing around with that stuff he has over there. I didn’t think anything about it until now. Would that be important?”

“Maybe. What’s this stuff about the guy’s hair?”

“Well,” she sat down on a stool and leaned over, placing her head in her hands and her elbows on the counter and gazed at Grady. “Like I said, he has blond hair and brown eyes. Oh--and a beard. And glasses. The beard was blond, too. Darker, but blond.”

“I still don’t get it.” He picked up his coffee and sipped. He was getting exasperated, but tried not to let it show.

Cheryl laughed. “I shouldn’t wonder! Men never observe things like that.”

“Like what? Cheryl--”

“Keep your shorts on. I’ll explain.” She reached behind her for the coffee pot, turned and poured more into Grady’s cup, then put the pot back on the warmer. “Blond hair and brown eyes are the rarest combination of hair and eye color there is.”

“It is?” He didn’t know that. It seemed to him it was a pretty common combination. He said so.

“Well, it isn’t,” Cheryl said, snappishly.

“Come on. I’ve seen lots of people with that combination.”

“You have?”

He sat for a moment trying to remember which of his acquaintances had blond hair and brown eyes and was surprised that he couldn’t remember a single one.

“See?”

It was as if she were reading his mind.

“Cheryl!” It was Bandy. He stood at the rear of the diner, hands on hips, a little martinet of a man, all in white, a cigarette stuck between his lips.

“What?”

“You got those receipts done?”

“Pretty much. I’ll bring them back in a minute.”

“Twenty minutes. I need them.” He turned and disappeared into the back room again and closed the door.

“Asshole,” she said, shaking her head and turning back to Grady. “I went to beauty school for a while after Dunbar. Wigs were my specialty. I can spot a wig a mile away. This guy was wearing one. Fake beard, too, would be my guess although I have to admit this was a decent enough one. I wouldn’t have caught it if it wasn’t for the color of his eyes. Soon as I saw his brown eyes, I knew he was either wearing a wig or had colored his hair. Another thing. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, but it seems odd, doesn’t it? He kept looking over at Jack’s place. Like he was studying it.”

Grady’s stomach muscles tightened.

“Can you describe him any more?”

Cheryl nodded, her eyes widening. “That’s easy. Not a real big guy, but one who works out. You could tell. Muscles. He looked...hard. Like his suit didn’t fit him right, you know? I don’t think he needed glasses, either. Don’t ask me why I think that. I don’t know, something about the way he was wearing them. Like he wasn’t used to them. He kept messing with them. Taking them on and off. Maybe he got glasses for the first time, I don’t know.”

He slid his empty coffee cup over for a refill and asked a couple more questions trying to pin her down to a more detailed description, but she wasn’t able to add much more other than the color of the suit, which was blue. The man’s tie was blue as well, but that was the most she could remember. Grady wrote down his home phone number and told her to call him if she remembered anything else, no matter how slight or unimportant she thought it might be.

“Thanks, Cheryl.” He put a dollar bill on the counter on top of his card. “I appreciate your help.”

“You need anything...,” she said as he opened the door, “...you call. We all like your brother around here.” You too, he thought he heard her say as the door closed behind him.

Grady climbed in his car and began the drive home. Along the way he went over in his mind the information he’d gathered. Why would a guy be wearing a wig? For a disguise, sure, but why? What would a guy in a disguise want from Jack? That is, if he was his brother’s attacker. Somehow, he knew Cheryl had described Jack’s assailant. There was no hard proof, just a gut feeling. Over the years he’d learned to trust such feelings.

Sometimes, gut feelings were all you had to go on.