Cold Cold Heart

by Tami Hoag

  “Very funny, Carver,” the detective said. “I’ll have you know this belly runs in my family.”

  “I gotta think that belly don’t run anywhere.”

  Tubman patted his stomach like it was a faithful dog. “This here is a lifelong achievement, son.”

  On the high side of his fifties, Tubman looked like a cross between Teddy Roosevelt and a walrus. He had come to the Liddell County Sheriff’s Office from Indianapolis about the same time Tim had, looking for a less hectic pace on the downside of his career.

  “This belly represents the accumulation of years of expertise in the culinary arts of fried food and pastry.”

  “A man should have something to show for his efforts,” Tim said. “How’s our victim?”

  “She’s been sedated most of the day, but Trish here tells me she seems fairly alert now.”

  “She’s just about due for her pain meds,” the nurse said. “You should talk to her now because she’ll be out of it after that.”

  “Let’s do it,” Tim said.

  The nurse preceded them into the room, speaking to her patient in a soft voice, explaining who the men were and why they were there, then slipped out quietly.

  April Johnson lay propped up in the bed, her head best resembling a giant rotting tomato—misshapen, discolored, oozing. She had taken a beating like a punching bag in a boxing gym full of rage-a-holics.

  She was—had been—pretty enough in a plain sort of way. Young and not terribly bright, she had poured coffee for Tim at the Grindstone on many occasions. Tim had to think she made decent tips because she had a cute figure and she liked to flirt a little in a sweet, innocent way.

  She wouldn’t be flirting with anyone anytime soon. Even once the bruises faded and the swelling subsided, it was going to take a few weeks to get her some new teeth.

  “Hey, April,” he said. “Deputy Carver here.”

  He introduced himself because he doubted she could see him very well with two black eyes swollen nearly shut.

  “It’s good to see you awake,” he said.

  She had been drifting in and out of consciousness when he had first arrived on the scene the night before. She was lucky to have been found. The assumption was that her assailant had followed her from the truck stop down a footpath that cut across a wooded lot and came out about three blocks from the trailer park where she lived. The path had been there forever. Adults had been warning kids not to cut through that lot for as long as Tim could remember. And for that long and longer, people hadn’t listened. It was the shortest distance between two desired points.

  The attack had taken place at the halfway point on the trail, the place where the light from the truck-stop parking lot on one end and the streetlight at the other end was dim and diffuse, the charcoal-gray light of a bad dream. That spot on the path was as far from the opportunity of a witness as possible.

  April had been initially attacked on the path, then pulled off the trail behind a thicket of wild blackberry bushes, where her assailant had sexually assaulted her. He had left her there, facedown in the dirt and loam. She had dragged herself back toward the parking lot of the Grindstone, not quite making it. If not for a trucker too lazy to walk to the building to use the john, she would probably have been there all night. April Johnson owed her life to a guy who had decided to take a leak in the woods behind his big rig.

  She didn’t acknowledge Tim in any way.

  “April, Detective Tubman and I need to ask you some questions. Do you think you can answer for us?”

  She sighed. “Can-n’t hard-ly t-alk,” she said, the words all but unintelligible. Her jaw didn’t move. The sound had to find its way around broken teeth and swollen lips and came out in a wet whisper he had to bend down to hear.

  “We’ll try to keep to yes-or-no questions. If you can’t talk, maybe make a gesture with your hand. Thumbs up for yes. Like that.”

  “April, did you get a look at the man who did this to you?” Tubman asked.

  “Nnn-o-o. D-ark. Mmmm-asssk.”

  “He wore a mask?” Tubman scribbled in a little notebook. “A ski mask?”

  “C-cam-mo.”

  “Camouflage?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Was he a big guy?” Tim asked. “Tall?”

  She made an impatient gesture with her hand, calling attention to the angry red scratches the brambles had etched into her skin as she had crawled and dragged herself toward help. She was tougher than he would have given her credit for. You never knew about people until they were tested by adversity.

  “Was he bigger than you?”

  She raised her thumb.

  “Was he heavyset?” Tim asked. “Did he have a big ol’ belly like Detective Tubman here?”

  “Nnn-no.”

  “Did he say anything to you before or during the attack?” Tubman asked.

  “Nnn-nooo. Just starr-ted hit-ting mm-me.”

  “Could he be anyone you know, April?” Tim asked. “Someone angry with you?”

  “Wwwhy?” she asked. “Why wwwould any-body . . . No.”

  “Can you tell us anything about him, April?” Tubman asked. “Anything at all?”

  She didn’t respond for so long, Tim thought she might have passed out or died. Finally she sucked in a deep breath and said, “So . . . st-rong . . . Angry. So . . . so . . . ang-ry.”

  She began to cry then, a strange, soft, mewling sound that was both piteous and eerie. Her hand scratched at the bed, balling the white sheet into her fist.

  “Hurts,” she said on a moan. “It hurts.”

  The door opened and the nurse slipped back into the room, dragging a cart loaded with medications.

  Tim and Tubman went back into the hall. Tubman scribbled in his notebook as they waited for the elevator. Tim rested his hands on his belt.

  “So she was attacked by an angry, average guy in a mask,” Tubman said. “That narrows it down.”

  “A camo ski mask,” Tim stipulated.

  “So we’re looking for a turkey hunter—or any guy with a Cabela’s catalog,” Tubman said. “We’ve tracked down most everybody that was in the Grindstone last night. People remember April leaving because she said good-bye. Nobody saw anyone follow her out.”

  “So the guy was in the parking lot.”

  “Or he knew she would be cutting through that lot at that time, and he was lying in wait.”

  The elevator opened and a pair of square, middle-aged women in pastel track suits got off, one with a bouquet of flowers, the other with a bag of knitting. Coming to sit with a sick loved one. Maybe they were related to April Johnson, and they would sit in her room and watch game shows on TV, and talk about nothing, and pretend it was all normal while April breathed in and out through her broken teeth.

  “Then she wasn’t just an opportunity; she was a target,” Tim said as they got on the elevator and the doors closed behind them. “In which case he must know her.”

  “He was wearing a mask. Maybe because he didn’t want her to recognize him.”

  “A ski mask is pretty standard equipment for your average rapist.”

  “Maybe so,” Tubman conceded, “but I think he knew April Johnson would be on that trail. And I think you have to be from here to know about that trail in the first place.”

  “So he’s somebody who has it in for April. Why?” Tim asked. “She’s a sweet girl. Not too bright, but not the kind to piss people off.”

  “Rejected suitor?”

  “She’s been pining away for Tommy Lynn Puckett, whose worthless bony ass is sitting in our own fine jail right now for driving on a suspended license.”

  “Does Tommy Lynn have any enemies who might want to take out their frustrations on his girl?”

  Tim shrugged. “Other than April, I don’t think there’s a person in Liddell County—or the world, for that m
atter—who gives two shits about Tommy Lynn Puckett, including his own mama.”

  They got off on the first floor and Tubman took a detour to the vending machines down the hall from the waiting room.

  “You were on patrol last night,” he said, feeding a couple of bills into a machine and punching buttons for a cappuccino. “Was anything going on?”

  Tim shook his head. “Naw. Not really. I heard there was a bit of a media circus over at Senator Mercer’s house in Bridlewood. You know, because Dana Nolan came home. But I wasn’t over there.”

  “I saw that on the news.” Tubman sipped his coffee and made a face, though whether the look was prompted by the taste or by his memory wasn’t clear. “Poor girl looks like an extra from the Walking Dead.”

  “That was hard to see,” Tim admitted. “Dana was a pretty girl, never a hair out of place. She always had everything in her life lined up just so. She’d make a goal and have a plan, and go right down the checklist until she achieved whatever it was. No deviation from the plan, ever. Rigid, I guess you could say, but she got where she wanted to go.”

  “Sounds like a bitch.”

  “No, no. As sweet as she could be. Unless you rocked her boat, then, man, she’d cut a person off like a dead limb. Boom! Just like that. Done.”

  “Is that the voice of experience talking?”

  “Me? No,” Tim said, looking pensive. “We split up because it was time; that’s all. We were each going our own directions. We were kids, for crying out loud. Who stays with their high school girlfriend all their life?”

  “About two-thirds of people around here.”

  “Well, me and Dana were destined for bigger things.”

  “Yet, here you both are,” Tubman pointed out.

  Tim shrugged. “Life takes some funny twists. I stopped by to see her today, and I asked her about the Doc Holiday thing,” he said. “Asked did she remember seeing him back when Casey Grant went missing.”

  “And?”

  He shook his head. “She says she doesn’t remember anything that happened to her, doesn’t remember what the guy looked like. Doesn’t want to.”

  “Not even if it helps her friend’s case?”

  “Does it, though?” Tim asked. “Casey’s gone. If that guy took her, she’s dead and gone. Either way, we don’t get Casey back.”

  “We could get a lead, though.”

  “A lead on a dead man.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Tubman said. “In fact, that would be the best of all worlds if we could put the victim with a known serial killer who is now dead. The state wouldn’t even have to go to the expense of a trial. It’d be like virtual justice.”

  “The best of all worlds for you is putting a teenage girl with a serial killer? That’s cold, man.”

  “I’m not wishing it on her. I’m just saying. If she’s dead, she’s dead. I’d like to close that case. That’s all.”

  “Well, you’ll have to do it without Dana Nolan,” Tim said. “Unless I can get her to soften up.”

  Tubman smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “I have faith in you, my young, handsome friend.”

  Tim laughed. “I hope you’re good at holding your breath. She all but threw me out of the house for even bringing up the subject today. I wouldn’t expect her to change her attitude anytime soon. In the meantime, though, I did see someone last night you might want to have a conversation with.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “John Villante. He was Casey Grant’s boyfriend. I hadn’t seen him since that summer. I heard he got packed off to the army, but he’s back. He’s a delivery guy for Anthony’s Pizzeria. I came across him out by the state park last night, sitting in the parking lot back by the maintenance buildings. Said he wasn’t doing nothing, just sitting there gathering his thoughts, but you and I both know the kind of stuff that goes down back there.”

  “Refresh my memory. Does he have a record?”

  “Juvenile shit when we were kids. Since then . . . I don’t know. Like I said, the last I knew he was in the army.”

  “Drugs?”

  “He liked to smoke a little weed as I recall, but I don’t know what else. I can tell you the boy had a short fuse and quick fists. I’m sure you know from reading the file that Detective Hardy liked him for Casey’s disappearance, but nothing ever came of it. You have read the file, right?”

  Tubman made a face like he was passing gas. “Yeah. A seven-year-old disappearance with no victim and no evidence? I’m all over that.”

  “Well, John Villante was the key person of interest. Now he’s back in town and a girl gets raped and beaten . . .”

  “Was he violent with the Grant girl?”

  “I never saw any bruises on her, but they had one of those breakup/makeup relationships. They had a blowout right before she went missing.”

  “What about?”

  Tim shrugged. “I wasn’t privy to it. Dana and I had already split up by then and I was busy with other things. I do remember Dana was fed up with the never-ending drama. Casey and John would break up. Casey would go running to cry on Dana’s shoulder. Dana must have told Casey a hundred times to dump that loser, but Casey always took him back. They had a kind of Romeo and Juliet syndrome, Casey and John. Star-crossed lovers. She was going to be the one to save him from . . .” He shrugged as he searched for what might have made sense to an eighteen-year-old girl. “His upbringing, his bad attitude, his . . . whatever.”

  “You mean their families didn’t get along?”

  “Casey’s mom didn’t like John. And nobody gets along with his old man. Mack Villante is the most contrary, mean, nasty son of a bitch you’d ever want to come across. He’s been a guest of the county more than a few times. He’d probably have a rap sheet as long as my arm if people weren’t too scared of him to press charges.”

  “So maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” Tubman said. He tossed back the last of his coffee and dropped the cup in the trash. “See if you can’t get John Villante to come in for a chat.”

  14

  They looked so young in the photographs. Dana turned through the pages of her high school yearbook, reading the things her classmates had written in their farewell to childhood. The usual sentimental tripe of teenagers: I’ll never forget you! We’ll always have S.M.H.S.! Best Friends Forever! Rock on!

  Rested after a short nap, she had pulled the book from the shelves and propped herself up against the pillows for a trip down memory lane, hoping her memory would participate. Tuxedo joined her on the bed, curling himself into a purring knot of fur up against one of the piles of clothing Dana had yet to deal with. The yearbook seemed a better choice than organizing the clothes, despite what Dr. Burnette had said about setting a goal to put her stuff away.

  There had been 173 kids in Dana’s graduating class. If their names hadn’t been printed beneath their photographs, Dana thought she probably couldn’t have recalled more than a dozen at a glance. The faces were familiar. The photographs that put them in context with activities like cheerleading, the school newspaper, and yearbook staff helped trigger memories. Once one memory was triggered, others with the same cast followed.

  She had had many acquaintances in school, but only a few really close friends. She had always been a creature of schedules and lists and goals. So much time had to be allotted to her studies, so much to clubs, so much to activities, so much to her friendships. The balance had to be maintained so she could achieve the level of success she wanted in each area.

  It hadn’t made sense to her to try to be besties with a gaggle of girls. She had structured her friendships in tiers. Casey was her best friend. Nichole Findlay had been her—and Casey’s—second-best friend. Then came a tier of girls and guys she knew through classes and activities, with whom she had been friendly but not close.

  As she thought back on the meticulously organized girl
she had been, Dana felt a strange mix of familiarity and distance. She thought of the Dana in the photographs as someone she used to know rather than someone she was or had been. And yet, there were photographs that triggered strong memories and strong feelings that were deeply, intrinsically hers.

  Tucked among the pages was a strip of black-and-white photo-booth photos of her and Casey. Side by side, cheek to cheek, one light, one dark, smiling and laughing, making faces and cutting up for the camera. As she stared at the pictures, a cavernous sense of grief yawned open inside her, and Dana could picture herself, tiny, teetering on the edge of it, ready to fall into the abyss of sadness and longing.

  “I miss you, Case,” she murmured to the dark-haired girl in the photographs. And she felt it, really felt it, like a heavy pressure on her chest. She missed her friend, the girl she hadn’t thought of in months until last night.

  Tim said she and Casey hadn’t been getting along at the time of Casey’s disappearance. It made her sad to think that they had wasted time being angry, not knowing that their time was about to run out. A spat over Casey’s relationship with John Villante, Tim suggested. It wouldn’t have been their first disagreement on that subject, but it would have been their last.

  John was dark and moody and overly sensitive. He didn’t like Casey’s friends—which, of course, rubbed Dana the wrong way. Casey had been her best friend long before she had ever wanted anything to do with boys. And Dana prided herself on being a good and loyal friend. That was the whole point of having a few close friendships as opposed to many casual ones—so she could be the best friend possible. Who was John Villante to criticize her? What did he know about being a good friend? He didn’t have any friends . . . except Casey.

  Dana turned another page of the yearbook, and another, taking in the photographs. John and Tim as football stars, as basketball stars. Sometimes they got along; sometimes they didn’t. There was a picture of Casey and herself in their cheerleader outfits. Casey under the caption “Most Friendly.” Dana and Tim under the banner “Most Likely to Succeed.” Herself and Tim decked out as homecoming royalty, and another photo of them looking serious as student government leaders.