Last Ragged Breath

by Julia Keller

  “He confessed to the crime, for God’s sake,” Serena said. “The investigation’s over. You’ve got your killer.”

  “Yes, but until I get these questions answered—no deal.”

  Dillard shook his right hand, so that the handcuff would rattle and clank. He wanted to get their attention.

  “Look,” he said, “if that’s not going to work—if saying I done it won’t get me home to my woods no sooner—then I take it back. I didn’t kill him.”

  Serena rolled her eyes and sagged back in her chair. “Oh, great. Terrific. That’s just peachy keen.” She bolted forward again, her irritation with Dillard giving her gestures a herky-jerky abruptness. “Listen to me, Royce. This isn’t some goddamned game, okay? You’re wasting everybody’s time.”

  He shrugged. “Told you from the start I didn’t do it. You’re the one who got me to say I did.”

  Bell shared Serena’s irritation with Dillard, but didn’t have the luxury of being able to let it show. She reached for her phone. “Lee Ann,” she said into the receiver, “please tell Deputy Mathers that I’m ready for the prisoner to be returned to his cell.” She hung up and looked across the desk at Serena. “So he’s pleading not guilty. Looks like we’re going to trial.”

  Royce rattled his handcuff again. “Got a question for you,” he said to Bell. He tilted up his head. An inch more and he’d actually be looking at her. But he stopped moving it before that could happen.

  “Yes?” She wondered if he was finally ready to reveal some curiosity about how the proceedings against him would go.

  “Just wondering,” Dillard said, “how Goldie’s getting along. Wouldn’t like the other dogs to hear it, but she’s my favorite. Nice girl, but she can be right skittish in unfamiliar circumstances.”

  * * *

  The prosecutor’s office was quiet now. Didn’t happen often, but the rarity of it had taught Bell to savor it, which was always the lesson taught by rare things. Late afternoons sometimes delivered up this gift of a few minutes of privacy and calm, when no one was clamoring for anything, when the day’s court sessions stood at recess and the phones forgot how to ring. Soon enough, they would remember.

  She reached into a desk drawer. At her request Rhonda Lovejoy had done a LexisNexis search for articles on Royce Dillard and his parents, Mike and Ellie Dillard. On the Buffalo Creek tragedy. The assistant prosecutor had printed out the bounty and put the pages in a file folder. She could have e-mailed it, but she knew that when it came to history, Bell preferred to hold paper in her hand, pages she could touch and sift and sort.

  The older articles—the ones published before the Internet made such searches a matter of a few clicks—existed only as hard copies in archives. Rhonda had used a copying machine to transfer the actual newspaper pages onto letter-sized sheets. They all told the same basic story: According to eyewitness accounts, Mike Dillard had given up his own life to save that of his toddler son, Royce. On one of the worst days in West Virginia history, the account of a man’s spontaneous act of heroism was a bright spot, a gesture that reminded the stunned, grief-bludgeoned survivors that human beings were capable of more than just greed. About greed, they knew plenty; it was greed on the part of the coal company that had caused the disaster in the first place.

  Bell read the article on the top of the stack. It had appeared in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph and was dated March 3, 1972:

  FATHER DIED TO SAVE SON, 2

  (AP) Middle Fork Hollow, W.Va.—Among the dozens of people killed in last month’s flooding in the Buffalo Creek Valley were Mike and Ellie Dillard, parents of Royce Dillard, 2. Eyewitness accounts say that Mike Dillard was responsible for his son’s survival. The tragedy took more than one hundred lives and left thousands of people bereft and homeless.

  “I seen it with my own eyes,” said Vera Tolbert, 22, of Lundale. “That water was just pounding right along. It wouldn’t quit coming. I was up on the ridge. The Dillard house was getting pushed by a lot of other houses that had busted loose, and it started to spin away in the flood. I seen Ellie Dillard and her little boy coming out the window. Just squirting out, it looked like, the both of them, like toothpaste from a tube. Real quick after that, Ellie lost her grip and she went under. She never come up again. Then Mike come along out of the house and he grabbed that boy.

  “The people on the ridge—it was me and my cousins and my uncle and some folks I didn’t know—they started yelling at Mike: ‘Throw him up here! Here! We’ll catch him!’ It was plain to see that Mike couldn’t hang on much longer, not with trying to keep his little boy’s head above the water. So he tossed that boy up toward the ridge. Right as he was doing that, a big tree trunk went flying by, and I swear that if he hadn’t been heaving that boy up right then, if he’d let go of the boy, Mike could’ve grabbed that tree trunk and saved himself. But he didn’t. Up on the ridge, my uncle was holding out his arms and he caught little Royce. Caught him in his two hands. Caught him like you’d catch a sack of potatoes thrown your way. Once we saw the boy was safe and we looked back down at the water, Mike was gone. It was so quick.”

  The child, Royce Enoch Dillard, is now living with a relative in Raythune County. Vera Tolbert and her family said they wish the very best for the boy, and hope that when he is old enough, he will understand his father’s sacrifice.

  “His daddy gave up his life for his child,” Tolbert said. “You cannot love somebody more than that—to give up your life for them. I hope that little boy knows about that. I personally would be glad to tell him when the time comes, because I was there and I saw it all.”

  Accompanying the story was a grainy, wavy black-and-white photo—all the photos in the early stories were black-and-white, because this was long before smaller newspapers began to use color photography—of Royce Dillard. The photo was taken when he was twenty-two months old, the caption said, a month or so before the flood. It was a family photo, supplied by a relative, and it was amateurish, out of focus: the little boy sits on the floor, wearing only a diaper, chubby legs stretched out in front of him, playing with what looks to be a toy truck, big grin on his round face. At the edge of the frame, two hands are reaching down. Bell assumed those were the hands of Ellie Dillard, eager to pick up her baby boy and take him off to supper, or maybe just to hold him close, kissing his bare belly and making him giggle.

  Bell read several more newspaper articles about the Dillard family and that terrible day at Buffalo Creek. She envisioned Royce, once he was old enough, reading the same articles, and then being asked, over and over again, about what had happened. As he grew up the interview requests had tapered off; people moved on, and there was always another tragedy in the headlines. But that would not matter. Royce still had the memories, whether or not anyone ever asked him about them. This was his story.

  She slid the sheets back into the folder. She closed it.

  All at once she wished like hell that she could pick up the phone and call Nick Fogelsong, to run some ideas past him. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t talk with Pam Harrison, either, for a different reason: She hadn’t worked with her long enough yet to think out loud in front of her.

  Bell was on her own.

  Fine, she thought. Pride flickered, caught hold, flared. Fine.

  She had a hunch that was sketchy, half-formed, made from materials scraped off the surface of the known facts, but it wouldn’t leave her be. Whatever had happened on the day of Hackel’s death, the origins of that violence lay elsewhere—and the destinies of Edward Hackel and Royce Dillard had been linked from long ago, in ways unbeknownst to either.

  * * *

  An hour later, Bell left the courthouse. She had almost reached her Explorer when she heard a loud, annoyed-sounding voice: “Mrs. Elkins!”

  Diana Hackel, small face bunched in umbrage, was marching across Main Street. A red beret held her hair in check. A few tendrils had worked their way loose and bounced against her neck. The sun had begun its slow descent behind the mountains and
the air was cold; Diana’s cheeks looked raw and tender.

  “Can I help you?” Bell said.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you can. You can promise me right this minute that you’re not going to make some sort of plea deal with that scumbag.” She was slightly out of breath from having moved so quickly to confront her. Bell had the distinct impression that Diana had been waiting to intercept her, so that she could have her say.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Dillard. I heard you’re making a deal with him.” She had recovered her breath but her voice still shook with anger. “It’s not fair, okay? My husband’s dead. My kids don’t have a father—and you’re making a deal. With that killer.”

  A courthouse leaked worse than a slotted spoon. Someone had probably seen Dillard being led from the jail to her office, and told someone else, who told someone else, and word got back to Diana Hackel. Or the gossip might have trickled out through Serena’s office.

  “Mrs. Hackel,” Bell said. She tried to sound more patient than she felt. “There’s no deal. Royce Dillard is pleading not guilty. As of now, we’re going to trial.”

  “Oh.” She stepped back, slightly chagrined. “Oh—well, then. Okay. Good. That’s good. Fine. Have a nice evening.”

  Bell opened the Explorer door. She had nothing more to say. She didn’t want to prolong this encounter. Diana was under stress; she had lost her husband, and Bell would cut her slack on account of it.

  But Bell also believed that she’d devoted enough—more than enough—of her day to courts and plea deals and grieving widows. Right now, she wanted to go home. Home to be with Goldie.

  Her last sight of Diana came in her rearview mirror. The woman was standing on the sidewalk with a cell pressed to her ear, talking with animated fervor.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The house was intact. The hardwood floor bore a few scratch marks, thanks to Goldie’s toenails, and the couch cushions sagged with a Goldie-sized imprint, but that was the only significant proof that a dog was now in residence—except for the animal herself, of course, who must’ve jumped up when she heard Bell’s key in the door and now stood alertly in the front hall, tail going furiously, muzzle raised expectantly.

  Bell moved past her into the living room, which is when she saw the couch and its mildly pummeled cushions. She’d received a text from Ben Fawcett shortly after the conclusion of her meeting with Serena and Royce Dillard: she 8 lunch I let her out I cleaned up poop n backyard

  Good to know.

  She set down her briefcase. Goldie whined softly. Clearly, the dog wanted something. And the something, Bell suspected with dawning dread, was a walk.

  “Can I change my clothes first?” Bell said. Then she realized that she was not only talking to a dog, but also expecting an answer. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Stay here.”

  She began to climb the stairs. After three steps, she realized Goldie was following her. “No,” Bell said, turning to confront the dog. “No. Go back.”

  Goldie’s tail swished.

  “I mean it,” Bell said. “Really.” She turned around and resumed her climb. From behind her, she heard the soft padding of a dog’s paws.

  “Fine,” Bell muttered. “You can come up while I change. But no cracks about the sweat pants I’m going to put on, okay? I’ve had them for years and they’re kind of droopy and saggy.”

  Now they stood once again at the front door. Goldie had been politely silent about the sweat pants, the ones Bell always yanked on after a long day, finishing the ensemble with a battered red T-shirt whose front featured a woodcut of a coal miner crawling along on all fours above the logo I’ve Got Friends in Low Places, plus a gray hoodie with a fleece lining, and tennis shoes. Rhonda Lovejoy had left her a leash. But Bell wasn’t certain how the process worked. She wondered if there was a set of magic words she should utter to ensure Goldie’s cooperation, such as, “Let’s go!” or “Come on!” Would the dog walk calmly along beside her, or might Goldie bolt and flee? Presumably Goldie missed her home. Surely she’d make a break for it. Sure as hell know I would, Bell thought.

  She stuffed a few plastic bags in the pocket of her hoodie, to pick up after Goldie when the necessity arose, and she and the dog headed outside and down the front porch steps. The air was even colder, the sky stained an intense violet; by now the sun had completely disappeared behind the mountains, giving up on this world for another day. Reaching the sidewalk, Bell stopped. Goldie stopped, too, and sat down. She seemed accustomed to a leash, ready to go in any direction Bell led. Which was both good and bad—good because it would make the walk easier, bad because it put all the responsibility on Bell to pick a destination. She flipped an imaginary coin and went left. Goldie followed.

  The rest of the houses on Shelton Avenue were at lot like Bell’s: venerable, well-worn, three-story stone structures set back from the street, sporting long front porches and a flourish of dormers, turrets, finials, and cupolas, jumbled together in a showy architectural mishmash. Most had been built in the late nineteenth century, when the streets were dirt and the choice of transport either a horse or your own two feet.

  “Hey, Bell. Got yourself a pet, didya?”

  She was passing Myrtle Bainbridge’s house, a large, gray, decaying one with half of its shutters missing, bordered by a falling-down fence and topped off by a disintegrating roof. She hadn’t noticed Myrtle up there on her porch, fussing around her flowerpots, getting ready for spring planting. Bell waved. She would’ve preferred to keep on walking, but living in a neighborhood brought certain obligations.

  “Hi, Myrtle. Goldie’s just visiting.” At the sound of her name, Goldie’s tail engaged in a few energetic loop-de-loops.

  “Well, that dog looks pretty happy to me. Might be a longer visit than you imagine.” Myrtle emerged from the shadows of her front porch and stood at the lip of it. Her short white hair rose from her scalp in a delicate little frizz, like the drawings of static electricity in science textbooks. She was vastly, unfathomably obese; her body comprised an almost perfect circle, as wide as it was tall, and her facial features joggled in a rubbery sea of fat. She wore an immense canvas jacket and carried a trowel in one hand and an empty clay pot in the other. “Can’t wait for this weather to turn. Got big plans for my garden this year. I mean big.”

  “Myrtle, you class up the neighborhood, no question.” Bell waved again and moved forward. A slight bit of pressure on the leash was all that Goldie required; the dog matched Bell step for step. Sure wish Carla had been this easy to control, Bell thought ruefully. Or my ex-husband.

  She was enjoying herself. That surprised her. She knew what running did for her, even though she rarely got around to it anymore—but walking? Bell had been a runner in high school and college, and relished her time on the track team; she knew the enveloping pleasure of a good long run, the way the endorphins crashed into your system and temporarily chased away fears, anxieties, everything but a sense of the body’s brisk motion. Walking, though, brought a subtler satisfaction. She walked every day, of course; her life was spent in motion. But for Bell walking, like driving, typically meant getting from one place to another as fast as she possibly could. Having a destination in mind. A goal. And a timetable, a deadline. This kind of walking—loose, easy, with a dog trotting along beside her—was new, and, to her surprise, nice. It was also conducive to thinking.

  What the hell did Edward Hackel do to push Royce Dillard’s buttons? With what did he threaten Dillard? How could he possibly have goaded him into a lethal attack? A shadow moved in the back of Bell’s mind, like something she had glimpsed a while ago but now could not quite recall, could not put her finger on. A tiny, crucial piece of information floated just an inch or so above her conscious thought.

  I’m missing something. It’s right there. I can feel it.

  Her cell went off. The ringtone told her who it was. She kept on walking as she answered.

  “Hey, Shirley.”

  “Guess I’m the last to know. What’s t
he deal with the dog?”

  “Good Lord. Yes, I have a dog. Not sure why everybody’s so damned surprised by that fact.”

  “I lived with you, little sister. Remember? I know the hours you keep. Last I heard, dogs need a little more attention than two minutes in the morning while their owner’s rushing out the door, late for a court date.” Shirley tried to start another sentence but was thwarted by a cough. She’d put a hand over the mouthpiece but Bell could still hear the massive, gravelly racket. “Jesus,” Shirley said, voice still strained. “Sorry ’bout that. Hope I didn’t split your eardrum.”

  “Don’t like the sound of that cough.”

  “I’m fine.” Shirley’s tone closed down the debate. She was six years older than Bell but in recent years it was Bell, not Shirley, who had functioned as the older sister, the protector, the advice-giver, a circumstance that did not exactly thrill Shirley. After some initial difficulties they had settled into a better place, a place that could usually withstand the sudden gusts from the past that came sweeping by, threatening to tear down the fragile peace they had built.

  “Yeah,” Bell said, “you sound fine, all right.” She knew she shouldn’t meddle, but she couldn’t help herself. She was not naturally nurturing—except when it came to Shirley.

  Her sister’s voice was curt. “So when was the last time you went for a checkup?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Yeah. And nobody ever died of anything else, right? Look, before we get too far off topic—I left a message at your office today. For you to call me back. You ignoring me or what?”

  Bell winced. Goldie seemed to sense her dismay; without slowing the pace, the dog looked up. Bell rewarded her with a head pat.

  “Sorry. Busy time, Shirley. No excuses—I clean forgot. What’s up?”

  “Just needed to confirm the dog rumor. Couldn’t believe it. I mean—this is a real, live dog we’re talking about, right? Not a stuffed animal? And not just a picture of a dog? We’re talking about a living, breathing creature, correct?”