Last Ragged Breath

by Julia Keller

  “I found twenty-four small plastic bags, each containing what appeared to be illegal prescription narcotics. The state lab tested the contents. Found a combination of oxycodone, Dilaudid and fentanyl.”

  “Your conclusion, based on your experience as a deputy sheriff?”

  “Royce Dillard is either a drug dealer himself or he knowingly aided and abetted drug dealers by allowing his barn to be used as a distribution point.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Royce Dillard. A drug dealer.

  From her position alongside the witness box, Bell took a quick look over at Rhonda. She knew the assistant prosecutor would be shocked at the information that had just been unleashed, information that caused a strong gust of whispers to rustle across the courtroom like a hundred pages being turned simultaneously in a hundred different books. Bell wished she could have tipped off Rhonda, preparing her in advance for the revelation. But there hadn’t been time. The state lab had not delivered its verdict until minutes before Oakes arrived in court. His wink at Bell had been a signal that, yes, the test results had come back. The pills were narcotics. Until Bell knew for sure, she couldn’t bring it up in court, couldn’t risk the embarrassment of the contents of those bags turning out to be, say, Flintstones Chewables.

  Rhonda’s face looked washed of all of its color. She sat behind the prosecution table just as she’d been sitting a few seconds ago, leaning forward, ready to grasp a legal pad from the stack in front of her should Bell request it. But her round chin trembled, and a shudder seemed to run through her big body. For a moment Bell was afraid Rhonda was going to cry—but she underestimated her. There were no tears. Rhonda quickly got hold of herself, shaking off her astonishment.

  On the other side of the aisle, an incensed Serena Crumpler had leaped to her feet so quickly that she startled Jessica Muth, the bailiff, causing Muth to flinch and knock her laptop onto the wooden floor, producing a solid smack. Serena barged up to the bench, demanding that Judge Barbour require Bell to produce the official analysis of the contents of the plastic bags found in Dillard’s barn—and demanding, further, to know why Bell had kept the results of Deputy Oakes’s second search a secret until Oakes took the stand today.

  “Your Honor,” Bell said, having joined Serena in front of the bench. “I didn’t know what—if anything—the search would produce. And the results of the analysis were only made available to me a few minutes before the court convened today. Otherwise I would’ve shared all of this with Ms. Crumpler.”

  “Sure you would’ve,” Serena muttered, acid in her tone. “Anyway, it’s totally prejudicial, Your Honor,” she said, quickly switching her attention back to the judge.

  “Mrs. Elkins?” he said.

  “Judge, it goes directly to motive. We believe that Edward Hackel discovered that the defendant was using his barn as a storage site for illegal drugs. And he employed that information to try to blackmail Mr. Dillard into selling his land. The murder, we believe, occurred in response to the blackmail threat.”

  Barbour turned to Serena. “You’ll have your chance to explain the drugs found on Mr. Dillard’s property,” he said. “Let’s proceed.”

  Bell watched her opponent march away. Serena’s steps were quick, and stiff with umbrage. Bell’s gaze also took in Royce Dillard, stone-faced as usual in his seat at the defense table, head tilted down, and then it swept over to Rhonda. The assistant prosecutor’s eyes were impossible to read, but Bell could sense her disillusionment. Rhonda had believed in Royce Dillard. Believed in his essential goodness. The new piece of information put that assessment in serious jeopardy.

  “Hey—remember me?” Deputy Oakes said. Still in the witness box, he raised his right hand and fluttered his fingers. Two female jurors smiled at that.

  Bell dismissed Oakes and called her next witness: Artie Munson. He was nineteen years old, overfed, with gel-spiked brown hair, droopy eyes, and a zipper-like scar that ran from his cheek to his chin. His dark suit looked as if it had just been pulled out of a box in the basement, and would go right back into it again once this ordeal was over.

  “Please state your name, address, and occupation,” Bell said, after his swearing in.

  “Artie Munson. Trailer park over in Swanville. Ain’t got no job.”

  “Very well, then, Mr. Munson.”

  “Artie’s fine. Everybody calls me Artie.”

  She didn’t react to that. “How do you support yourself?”

  “Odd jobs. Helping folks out. Whatever.”

  “Are you acquainted with the defendant, Royce Dillard?”

  “Sure. I seen him around.”

  “And how about the victim? Did you ever meet Edward Hackel?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t know his name. But when I seen the picture, I knew it was him.”

  “How did you come to be acquainted with Mr. Hackel?”

  Munson waited. He looked apprehensive. He tugged at the bottom of his suit coat.

  “Mr. Munson,” Bell said. “You’ve been granted immunity from prosecution. You won’t face charges for anything you tell us today.”

  Relief made Munson smile. He knew the terms of the deal he’d made, but wanted to make sure he had it right before continuing. “Okay. Yeah, well, I got a buddy who works on the cleanup crew out at Mountain Magic, and he told me there was somebody there who was looking to—well, to party. Get high.”

  “To obtain illegal narcotics, you mean?”

  “Yeah. So I met up with the guy. It was Hackel. Told him where to find what he was looking for.” He pointed at Dillard. “His place. A barn on his property.”

  A stir raced around the courtroom like a tiny car on a circular track. Judge Barbour frowned. The stir ceased.

  “How did Mr. Hackel react to this information?” Bell asked.

  “He just grinned. Grinned real big.”

  Bet he did, Bell thought distastefully. She could imagine Hackel’s glee at the news that finally, at long last, he had something to hold over Royce Dillard’s head. He had leverage. Blackmail bait. He had in his possession a fact that Dillard would be desperate to keep under wraps.

  But was it enough? Would it explain to the jurors’ satisfaction why quiet, self-effacing Royce Dillard had taken a sharp-edged shovel to the back of a man’s neck, after which he’d dumped the corpse in an icy creek?

  * * *

  “Tell them, Royce. Tell them what you told me.”

  Serena stood behind Dillard’s chair. The prosecuting attorney’s office in the late afternoon was dim and chilly. As the sun went down, it snatched back the light and warmth offered up throughout the short day; not even the three lamps were enough to counteract the gloom.

  The trial was in recess until tomorrow. Serena had asked for a meeting in the prosecutor’s office. Bell sat behind her desk; Rhonda had chosen the couch. Dillard was hunched over in the wooden armchair, his face pale and stricken as he stared at the tops of his knees.

  “It was for money,” Dillard said. His voice was slow, as if the words themselves, and not just the shameful truths they signified, were burdensome. “That’s why I did it. But it was a big mistake. I knew right away. See, I needed cash. For my dogs. Two of ’em got to have surgery. Utley’s hip is a mess. Pains him something awful. And PeeWee’s got a real bad eye infection. So I said they could use my barn. State police wouldn’t think to look for nothin’ way out there. That’s what they told me.”

  Bell looked up at Serena, and then back down at Dillard. Clearly he was deeply troubled by what he’d just revealed, filled with embarrassment and regret.

  “I never sold no drugs,” Dillard said, the pace of his words quickening. “Never. I’d already told them to come and get that shit out of my barn. Didn’t want it there. No matter what they were gonna pay me. Not enough money in all the world.”

  “Did Hackel threaten to expose you? To reveal the fact that you were storing illegal drugs?” Bell asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “So that’s why you killed him.”


  Dillard studied the floor. “I didn’t kill him. Told you that already.”

  Serena put a hand on Dillard’s shoulder. He flinched, but she didn’t remove it. “Bell,” Serena said, “I’m asking for a little forbearance here. I hope you don’t intend to add drug possession with intent to distribute to the charges against my client.”

  “No. I think first-degree murder is enough for now. We’ll be presenting it as motive for the crime, of course, but no additional charges will be filed.”

  Serena was relieved. “Good. That’s good. So we’re okay here?”

  “As long as Mr. Dillard cooperates.” Bell picked up a pen. “Who did you deal with?” she asked him. “Who gave you the drugs? I want a name.” She had already tried to get the same information from Artie Munson, in exchange for not charging him, but concluded that he was as ignorant as he looked. Munson was an errand boy. Nothing more.

  “Never got a name,” Dillard said. “Fella just dropped them off. Told me he’d get in touch when he needed to.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Big man. Fat. Had a ball cap on, so I never really saw his face. Wore one of them wool coats.”

  “Well, what did the coat look like?”

  Dillard pondered the question. His eyes traveled along the front edge of Bell’s desk and then back again. “Green,” he said. “It was green plaid.”

  * * *

  “Do you believe him? About the drugs, I mean—do you believe he’d really changed his mind about storing them in his barn?”

  Bell and Rhonda were leaving the office together, walking side by side down the long courthouse corridor, when Rhonda asked her the question.

  “I don’t know,” Bell answered.

  “Royce Dillard is no drug dealer,” Rhonda declared. Heat in her tone. “He’s no murderer, either. I do my job—you know that, Bell—and my job is to help prosecute him, but when I look at Royce, I don’t see a killer. I see a victim.”

  Serena had taken her leave a while ago; Royce Dillard had been returned to his cell. But Bell and Rhonda had continued to work. They needed to discuss their plans for the next day’s court session, when the defense would begin its turn. Before they could settle into that, however, Bell had put in a call to Sheriff Harrison. Don’t know if it’s relevant, Pam, she said, given the fact that there’s a hell of a lot of plaid jackets in these mountains. But thought I’d mention it. Just in case it helps in the search for Nick’s assailant. The sheriff’s voice had sounded wrung out with weariness: Wish we were making more progress. I’m assisting Sheriff Ives as much as I can, but we’re short on manpower and long on cases. So’s he. I’ll pass it along, though. Every clue helps.

  Fatigue had finally worn down Bell and Rhonda, too. They decided to call it a night.

  “I appreciate your passion, Rhonda. I do.” Bell paused at the end of the hall. Most of the lights were already switched off. Around the corner was the front lobby of the courthouse. Here, Bell remembered, Diana Hackel had waited for her and Sheriff Harrison on the night Ed Hackel’s body was found. The courthouse was the place where the aftermath of all tragedies seemed to gather, the place where all the sadness in a small town eventually coalesced; here it was sorted out and labeled and ranked, and here is where the propagators of those sorrows finally were made subject to justice. Sometimes, she corrected herself. Sometimes, that’s how it happens. If we’re lucky.

  Rhonda jumped in before Bell could speak again. “I know it looks pretty bad for him right now. But I’m telling you—something’s going to happen. I can just feel it. Somehow we’re going to find out what really happened to Ed Hackel, and we’re going to know why, and it’s going to take everybody by surprise.”

  Bell was too tired to argue. Plus she had a dog to get home to. “See you in the morning, Rhonda.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Goldie had eaten her supper with unusual relish and now she licked the bowl, dragging her long pink tongue around the circle again and again. Watching from across the kitchen, Bell wondered if she was giving her enough food. She dumped in another half cup of Pedigree. Goldie finished it in seconds and then dropped into a sitting position, an indication that she was satisfied. Her tail swished back and forth—but for her, the rhythm was a bit subdued. It lacked the crazy excitement normally visible in that tail. This was a thoughtful, almost melancholy tail-wag.

  “You miss him, don’t you?” Bell said. She had abandoned any embarrassment about talking to a dog, and now routinely conversed with Goldie. “It’s okay.” She scratched a small area behind Goldie’s right ear. The sweet spot. The tail incrementally increased the vigor of its wag. “It’s okay.”

  Bell took her coffee cup into the living room. Goldie followed her. At first Bell had disliked the dog’s habit of staying close to her that way, following her as she went from room to room; it felt like having a big hairy stalker with bad breath tracking her in her own home. But in just a few days, Bell had begun to enjoy it. Now she took Goldie’s loyal lockstep for granted.

  She settled in her chair. Goldie, as usual, repaired to the couch, and promptly stretched out for her post-meal snooze. Bell planned to catch up on some paperwork and then drive over to the hospital to see Nick.

  Her cell rang, startling her and awakening Goldie. The dog’s big yellow head popped up like a curious periscope.

  “Elkins,” Bell said.

  “This is Melanie Treadwell. I’m sorry to be calling you at dinnertime, but I just got back from a conference in Stockholm. And your message indicated that this was urgent.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Thanks for getting back to me.” Bell took off her reading glasses and settled more comfortably into her chair. “I appreciate this.”

  “Not a problem. David Gage has been a friend of mine for years, and he left me a message as well. He speaks quite highly of you. I’m happy to help however I can.”

  Bell had Googled her, and David’s praise was justified; Treadwell had written and spoken extensively on the psychology of childhood trauma. She traveled a great deal, often visiting war zones and refugee camps, helping young survivors of violence deal with their horrific memories.

  “Just to be clear,” Bell said, “this is a private conversation. I won’t be quoting you in court or asking you to testify—nothing like that. I’m just trying to get a feel for a few things about the case I mentioned in my phone message.”

  “Understood,” Melanie said. “Works for me, too. Frankly, Mrs. Elkins, I wish I could talk informally like this with every prosecutor in the country. Childhood trauma is astonishingly pervasive. I think it influences adult criminal activity to a degree we haven’t even begun to deal with yet—but if you try to bring it up, a lot of prosecutors think you’re angling to get murderers off the hook. I’ve had the phrase ‘bleeding heart liberal’ flung at me so many times that I probably ought to adopt it as a nickname. And ‘academic’ is another word that’s somehow become pejorative.” She let out a long, frustrated sigh before continuing.

  “I’m not suggesting that a bad experience in childhood ought to excuse anything an adult does. I’m just saying that if we intervene early, and get these kids some help, we could not only stop a fair number of adult crimes before they happen—we could also improve lives. People who grow up with terrible pictures in their head are living a kind of half-life. A shadow life. One part of them is always back there in the middle of the trauma, still hiding, still cringing, still terrified—while the other part is here in the present, trying to function normally. The friction between those two scenarios can cause an immense amount of psychic pressure to build up. And that pressure ultimately has to be released.”

  In her impatience to get to the bottom of Royce Dillard’s ordeal, Bell hadn’t realized how close to the edge of her own history this conversation might stray. And it was not anywhere she wanted to be. Not now. Not ever.

  “Okay,” Bell said, eager to move on. “I get that. But specifically—the defendant in my case was only two year
s old when he lost his mother and father in the Buffalo Creek flood back in 1972. Would a two-year-old remember enough so that it might haunt him into adulthood? And if he did—could those memories affect his impulse control? The evidence is conclusive. We’re sure he committed the crime. What I’m trying to figure out is the origin of the sudden violence. Was it inevitable—or could the defendant have somehow stopped himself? I’ll be making my sentencing recommendation to the judge very soon, and I want to make sure I’ve taken everything into account.”

  “Buffalo Creek.” Treadwell’s voice grew ruminative. “I’ve read some articles by the psychologists who talked with the survivors. Fascinating cases. Such devastating losses could tear a child to pieces emotionally.

  “This area of research,” Treadwell went on, “was pioneered by Anna Freud. She interviewed children who had survived bombings in World War II. Entire cities throughout Europe ended up as smoking piles of bricks and dead bodies.”

  “What happened to those kids?”

  “Many of them carried psychological wounds the rest of their lives. And the same has been true of the children of Buffalo Creek. As adults, they’ve experienced everything from anxiety disorders and phobias to sleep issues and sexual dysfunction. Plus physical symptoms such as chronic headaches and stomach problems. Not to mention alcoholism and other addictions.”

  “So even if the defendant was too young to remember—”

  “Oh, he remembers, all right,” Treadwell said, finishing the sentence for her. Sadness in her voice. “They can talk about survivors all they want, but the truth is—when something like Buffalo Creek happens, nobody really escapes. Ever.”

  Bell was quiet for a moment.

  “Mrs. Elkins?”

  “Sorry,” Bell said quickly. “I don’t mean to be wasting your time.”

  “You’re not wasting my time. In my profession, you learn to get comfortable with silence. I just want to be sure I’m telling you what you need to know.”

  “Yes. You are. So—what do you think? If someone lived through the Buffalo Creek disaster as a child, could he end up a killer?”