Page 60 of Such a Good Wife

“Movies? Rachel. It’s just an old phone. I was probably cleaning and got distracted. I put my iPad in the fridge once by mistake. It’s nothing. I’ll recycle it. Go. You’re gonna keep her mom waiting.”

Rachel has her hand on one hip and looks at me sideways a few more minutes until she hears Ben yell that Katie’s mom pulled up, then she bolts out of the room, seemingly changing moods and forgetting all about it in seconds. I hide the phone in the back of Claire’s medicine cabinet for now, not daring to walk across the house with it in my hand. It will be safe until I get home and find a new hiding place when everyone’s asleep.

Candy’s Strip Club is outside of the county line on a remote road next to a truck stop. That’s probably why Joe Brooks goes to that one. Lord knows there are plenty to choose from, but Candy’s is full-nude and out of his police jurisdiction. I don’t imagine I will run into anyone I know, but if I do, I plan to say that I’m writing a story and this is research. I’ve never been in a strip club, so I need to see one to accurately write about it. The real reason is that Lacy hasn’t returned my last few calls and I’m worried, but selfishly, I also need her help.

Inside, the club is electric with pulses of strobe light. Flashes of laughing faces appear as the spotlight sweeps around the crowd, the light telling a piecemeal story, like hearing snatches of conversation in a crowded restaurant. The light flashes a man tipping back a last swallow of beer, then a girl on a man’s lap, taking a cigarette from his lips, then a young man, drunk, with a paper crown, a bachelor party perhaps.

I’m nervous, and I am trying to resist the urge to turn around and leave, so I walk along the back wall, down a sticky hallway to find a restroom. I must be in the wrong corridor because I see the dancers’ dressing room. The door stands open, and I watch a moment. I can’t turn away from a room full of beautiful women dressing up in heels and gloss, not for a special date, but to walk out and be objectified by a roomful of men.

The bass from the stage speakers rattles glasses, pregnant with ice cubes and colorful cocktails, which rest all along the dressing tables or the floor or on stools. Black plastic ashtrays hold smoldering cigarettes that cloud the small, narrow room. Girls stretch bent legs on stools to fasten garter belts and stockings, covering nipples with tassels, and painting their eyes with beautiful sweeps of purple and glitter. It could almost be mistaken for backstage of a 1930s cabaret. If only they could stay behind that dressing room door and not meet the searing lights of the catwalk.

One of the women, wearing a strappy, glittery wisp of fabric that could fit in the palm of my hand, sees me. I take a step back and look left to right, trying to figure out my escape. She smiles and takes a pull of her cigarette.

“Bathroom’s on the other side, honey.”

I nod, nervously, and because she was kind and didn’t slam the door in my face I ask, “Is Lacy working tonight?”

“Not tonight, sorry.”

I find a small table in the back of the room. I didn’t put a lot of thought into how it would look, a woman alone in a strip club. Pathetic, I suppose. I don’t even know exactly what I plan to do, but maybe if I can find the other girls Joe came to see, I can gain something from talking to them. It surprises me that he can get away with hanging out at strip clubs and paying for sex as a detective, but it’s not a crime to come in here, and nobody would ever admit money was exchanged for sexual favors. It’s all protected. He’s protected. Not just by his badge, but by women too frightened to challenge it—women who, in the eyes of most, have little credibility and are great targets for his type.

I order a vodka tonic and ignore the sideways looks I’m getting from a table of men nearby. I swallow the drink down quickly for liquid courage, and order another. I begin feeling the familiar elasticity in my arms and legs as each sip navigates its way through my blood. I’m slightly more at ease, but still without a plan.

A spotlight illuminates a figure onstage. She’s announced as Sugar Cane, and she’s sucking on a rainbow lollipop and spinning around a pole. “Feelin’ Love” fills the room from speakers hanging in every corner. The moving lights are making me ill. My heart beats in my throat and my head feels light. The room reminds me of going to the roller rink as a kid. It was dark and the lights glittered and danced on the floor like fallen stars. I could never skate over the moving dotted pattern on the floor because it would make me dizzy and I’d fall and trip other passing kids on the rink. I feel like that now, and I decide to just go home, until a woman, almost entirely naked, sits down right next to me, tapping the ash of her cigarette into the tray on my table.

“You here about a job? You gotta talk to George.” She points at a large, sweaty man with a sports coat on, lingering around the bar.

“Oh no. I’m not...I’m just...” I don’t have a reason to state why I’m here, so I stop.

“Well, not many girls come in here unless they’re looking for a job or to catch their man cheating. You’re pretty enough if you want the work. George would put you on a couple weeknights. What’s your name, sweets?” She rests her cigarette between her lips to hold her hand out to shake mine, and she squints to keep the smoke from her eyes.

“Uh...Mel.” Should I have given a fake name? I don’t really see a reason to, and it’s too late anyway.

“Cinnamon,” she says, confidently. “You must be here to bust your boyfriend, then. Maybe I can help. At least if he’s a regular, I might know him.”

“Cinnamon?” I repeat, dumbly. That’s one of the names Lacy gave me. “Have you seen Joe Brooks here recently?” I ask, and her face goes pale. There is something like anger in her eyes, but she stands, wordlessly, and turns to go. I go after her, grabbing at her elbow, but she pulls it away and turns to me.

“You the wife or somethin’?”

“No! I—I know Lacy. I feel like Joe may be involved in something...I...look, can I buy you a drink or something and talk?”

“You’re not an old girlfriend—you’re not gonna trick me here ’cause you’re pissed at him about something?”

“No, I’ve never dated him, it has nothing to do with me, I just have a few questions. I think he might have hurt someone, and any help I can get is—it’s just really important.”

She thinks about this a moment, her face softening a little.

“If you know Lacy, I guess. I was on the early shift, so I’m finishing up soon. You can buy me that drink and meet me over there.” She points to the dressing room, and then dissolves into the crowd.

A half hour later, Cinnamon pulls two small wooden chairs out from the dressing room, and we sit with our drinks in the darkness of the oppressively hot back hallway.

“What’d he do now?” she asks, a question I wasn’t prepared to hear. I never expected cooperation like this. “Lacy’s okay, right?”

“Yeah. She is. I mean, I think. I haven’t heard from her in a few days, but I assume she’s fine.”

I know Joe already has an alibi for the night of the murder, but I ask about it anyway because there was something in Lacy’s reaction when I asked her that didn’t sit right.

“I know it’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t remember if he was here the night of September 20, would you?”

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