by Julia Keller
“Fiddlesticks,” Lee Ann cried out, interrupting her with the strongest epithet she ever used. “The courthouse is exactly where we need religion. Don’t you see that?”
All I see, Rhonda wished she’d had the gumption to say, is a conscientious old woman whose entire working life was spent at the crossroads of all the sorrows—violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, a dying economy—that can befall a community: the courthouse.
I see a good soul who is heartbroken over what’s become of the home she loves, and who believes in the power of the church—and only in the power of the church—to fix it all.
Lee Ann knew the church-and-state mantra as well as any lawyer. Right now, it didn’t matter to her.
Something had tipped her over the edge. It might have been Brett Topping’s murder, but it also might have been something else, too. Because the tragic, inexplicable events were piling up. The winds were rising, the mountains were crumbling, and to Lee Ann Frickie, God seemed mighty displeased with His servants here on earth.
“Nothing more to talk about,” Rhonda said. She spoke quietly, but firmly. “There can’t be any pillar with the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn. You need to go back to your friends in the Ladies League and make that very clear to them, okay?”
Lee Ann’s jaw tightened. “I won’t. I won’t tell them that.”
“Well, that’s your choice. I just thought it might be easier if it came from you—because you can explain to them the reasons why. You worked in the prosecutor’s office, Lee Ann. You understand these things.”
“No, I don’t understand them. Not anymore.” All at once the old woman leaned across the table, startling Rhonda with the vehemence in her voice. She picked up Rhonda’s coffee cup and set it to one side, clearing the way for her to snatch up Rhonda’s hands and squeeze them. “I’m going to try one more time here. I’ve got to. Rhonda—please. Please. Help us. The Lord is watching.”
Squeezing even tighter, Lee Ann added, “Think of it. Every day, people going in and out of the courthouse would see that pillar. They’d read the commandments. And if even one heart was changed, if even one wayward soul heard the call of Jesus and decided to—”
“I’ve got to get to work.” Rhonda extricated her hands. Her patience had officially expired. She scooted out of the booth and stood up.
“The Lord is watching,” Lee Ann said, glaring up at her. This time it sounded like a threat, a warning.
“Have a good day, Lee Ann.”
“I mean it. The Lord is watching.” Her eyes narrowed. “We’re going to fight you on this, Rhonda. I hate to say it, because I know your parents so well and your whole family and I’ve watched you grow up and I’ve been so proud of you, so proud—but you’re dead wrong this time. You’re on the side of the devil. From now on, you’re the enemy.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
There was nothing more to say.
As Rhonda walked out, she caught a quick glimpse of Jackie over by the cash register, thumbing through a stack of old receipts. JPs was a small establishment, and so it was impossible not to hear customer conversations, especially when those conversations were intense.
Jackie raised her dark eyes. She offered Rhonda a single curt nod of solidarity.
But Lee Ann wasn’t finished. Before Rhonda had cleared the front door, she heard the old woman’s voice again, rising behind her like a fiery whirlwind of righteous conviction:
“The Lord is watching you, Rhonda! The Lord is watching!”
A heretical thought occurred to the weary prosecutor as she made a right turn toward the courthouse: Oh, yeah? Well, I wish He’d do more than just watch. Wish He’d pitch in and help. We’ve got a helluva lot to do and not enough people to do it.
Chapter Twenty-two
“I bet the scenery’s spectacular this time of year,” Sam Elkins said. “The leaves and all of that.”
Bell nodded. “Yeah. Sure is.”
Leaves. Okay, so they’d talk about leaves first.
Sam leaned back in his chair, a high-backed one crafted of sumptuous black leather and featuring a complicated undercarriage of sleek steel.
She waited for the creak. The desk chair she’d used for eight years back in the Raythune County Courthouse had always creaked at the slightest application of pressure. When she leaned back, the way Sam was doing right now, the creak would unleash an assortment of unbearable shrieks and moans. Anyone loitering in the corridor probably assumed that the prosecutor had undertaken a series of executions with the ruthless, next-next-next efficiency of a stylist at Great Clips.
There was no creak from Sam’s chair, of course. Because this wasn’t the courthouse, with its older-than-dirt furnishings and a budget you’d need an electron microscope to locate.
This was a partner’s office at Strong, Weatherly, and Wycombe, an international lobbying firm toward which other wealthy firms and individuals insisted upon slinging millions—no, billions—of dollars each year.
“I do find myself missing those hills,” Sam said.
“I bet you do.”
He gave her a sharp look. Was she being sarcastic?
She wasn’t, but she enjoyed his uncertainty.
“It’s good to see you, Sam,” she said, and this time she hoped her sincerity was obvious. “I’m glad you had a moment to chat. And on such short notice.”
If she was going to take on Utley Pharmaceuticals, she needed advice on the best way to approach the company’s CEO, Roderick McMurdo. Bell knew only one person who worked daily with CEOs, who could think like a CEO, who had a CEO’s money and power and influence—and ego:
Her ex-husband, Sam Elkins.
She had been forced to wait for over an hour in the lobby of the slim, magnificent, glass-cladded structure that rose into the sky like an exclamation point. Dropping in the way she did—with no appointment, and not trailing a retinue of obsequious hangers-on—had thrown the security staff into a dither.
Just who was she, exactly? And what was her business with Mr. Elkins?
Her ID was checked and double-checked. The clasp on her purse was examined with the meticulous precision of a bomb-disposal expert checking a detonator. She was photographed—“It’s for a temporary ID, ma’am, and it expires at midnight tonight,” the guard explained—and his female colleague was summoned to pat her down.
Finally Bell had been allowed access to the tenth floor, where the top managers of Strong, Weatherly, and Wycombe had their offices—but not only their offices. The floor also included a private dining room, private theater, private gym and sauna, and—naturally, she thought—private lavatories. God forbid those precious executive butts should have to share the same porcelain as the humble folk, she told herself, as the same female guard who had run her gloved hands down Bell’s backside and across her breasts escorted her to the fabled tenth floor.
Her observations were snotty and childish, and she knew it. The truth was, the scrupulous security was justified; Sam’s company did business with a number of nations whose reputations prompted the fanged envy and murderous ire of adjoining countries. Vigilance was imperative. And she had, after all, shown up here on a whim. Even small-town prosecutors—like she had been—were hard to see on a moment’s notice, much less big-time lobbyists like Sam.
And as for the luxurious accommodations—I could have had all of this, too, Bell reminded herself.
There was a time when she’d wanted it. Definitely. She had left Acker’s Gap to go to college and law school, and by the time she and Sam had married and settled in the D.C. area, her ambitions were fixed: big firm, big salary, big responsibility, big life.
Then she had changed her mind. She gave up all of it—the firm, the salary, the life. The only thing that still remained big, after she divorced Sam and moved back to Acker’s Gap to run for prosecutor, was the responsibility part. Life and death: those were the stakes she’d dealt with, every day.
Not even the complex, billion-dollar transactions of Str
ong, Weatherley, and Wycombe could match that for significance.
“Carla tells me that you intend to stay in Acker’s Gap,” Sam said.
“For the time being, yes.”
“Is that a good idea? With all that’s happened?”
“I don’t know. But it’s what I’ve decided.”
He nodded. He lifted his chin and changed the direction of his gaze, moving it away from her and toward the expansive window that took up an entire wall of his office. Sunlight glinted crisply against the tidy flanks of the surrounding buildings.
Sam was a handsome man. He had the kind of dark-haired, green-eyed, chiseled-chin good looks that usually fade and blur in middle age—but in his case, hadn’t. Bell had fallen in love with him when they were both sixteen-year-old sophomores at Acker’s Gap High School, not because of those looks, but because of what he represented: stability. The thing her life had theretofore notably lacked.
The marriage had not survived her return to West Virginia. But the two of them had always been cordial, and they stayed in each other’s lives because of Carla. Sam, Bell had learned over the years, was an absolutely first-rate father.
Like everyone else, he had not understood her decision to plead guilty to a crime for which she was manifestly not responsible. He had argued with her. The argument had become quite heated.
Yet in the end, Sam gamely observed that, once again, Belfa Elkins had done exactly as she pleased. And would live with the consequences—without complaint.
“Can I do anything to help?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He was intrigued. She’d always rebuffed his offers of assistance.
“Do tell.”
“Utley Pharmaceuticals.”
Sam waited for more.
“I’m not a prosecutor anymore,” she continued, “so I won’t be chasing down dealers and putting them in prison. But I still want to do something about the opioid crisis. So how would I approach Roderick McMurdo?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—there’s a lot his company could do to help West Virginia recover from this. He has a moral obligation to—”
“Come on, Belfa,” Sam said, interrupting her. He sounded impatient. She understood: He’d probably expected her to hit him up to cosign a car loan. Not weigh in on moral culpability. “Rod runs a billion-dollar company. If somebody occasionally abuses the drugs he produces—that’s not his fault.”
“‘Rod’? Sounds like you know him personally.”
“I do. We sit on some of the same boards. I’ve played a few rounds of golf with him.” Sam offered her a puckish grin. “I whipped his ass.”
“So how does he justify the fact that one hundred and forty-five people a day die of opioid overdoses? Or that more people died of overdoses in 2016 than were killed in the Vietnam War? His company makes a fortune selling the drugs that have created this crisis.”
“The same drugs that have helped millions of people deal with their pain.”
“Look, Sam—we could debate this all day. And you don’t have all day. I just thought you might be able to suggest a way of getting McMurdo’s attention.”
“Some way other than a lawsuit, you mean.”
“My lawsuit days are over. I was thinking of soft power.”
“What?”
“You know—gentle persuasion.”
Sam laughed, but not in an unkind way. “Look around you, Belfa. All of this”—he swept a hand in a wide half-circle to indicate the sumptuous breadth of his office and the pristine view beyond the window—“is completely dependent upon the fact that there’s no such thing as ‘soft power.’ There’s only the hard kind. Hard and blunt. The kind that people pay for, and that other people are intimidated by. If you can’t sue Rod McMurdo, and you’re not in a position to lobby some federal agency to impose penalties on his company and thereby affect his bottom line—then he’s not going to deal with you. Why should he? What’s in it for him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a good night’s sleep?”
“So you think Rod has trouble sleeping?”
“A guilty conscience can do that.”
Exasperated, Sam stood up. He took a few steps back and forth behind his desk, hands in his pockets, frowning down at the carpet. Then he stopped. He looked at her.
“I can assure you that Rod sleeps just fine,” he said. “Utley’s products didn’t create this crisis.”
“Then what did?”
“Too many greedy, irresponsible doctors writing too many prescriptions. And too many people looking for a quick fix for complex problems—or sometimes, just an easy high. There’s a lot of blame to toss around, Belfa. But in the end—what good does it do?”
“Better than doing nothing, I guess.” She was searching for another way to explain herself. “If McMurdo and his pals didn’t know, and just kept pushing these pills because they honestly thought they weren’t so ferociously addictive—then, fine. But there’s mounting evidence that they did know, Sam. And if you know the truth—but you don’t admit to knowing it—isn’t that the worst sin of all?”
“Sin. Now, there’s a word.” He smiled. “Sounds like you’ve been hanging out with Lee Ann Frickie and that crowd from Rising Souls Baptist Church.” He knew the same people she did. His roots went just as deep into the soil of Raythune County as hers did—although he’d spent the majority of his adult life thus far trying to hide that fact.
He had yet to sit back down. It was, she realized, a signal that it was time for her to go.
She rose. They regarded each other across a gulf much wider than a strictly numerical measurement of the space could have accounted for.
When he spoke, his voice was bemused. “Sounds to me like you’re looking for a new crusade. Now that you’re not a prosecutor anymore. But why this one? It’s hopeless. Utley will never admit that it did anything wrong.”
She didn’t reply. She knew the answer—but she couldn’t share it with Sam. She couldn’t share it with anyone. It would come too close to revealing the secret—the one buried so deep in her, the one that was so impossible to bring to the surface that it might as well be part of her bone structure.
The one that only Shirley had known, and only then at the end of Shirley’s life.
Sam was talking again. “How much of this—this battle against Utley, I mean—is to take your mind off things?”
He didn’t need to identify the “things.” He knew what Shirley’s death had meant to her. After Carla, Shirley had been the most important person in her life.
Bell shrugged. She didn’t mind him bringing it up. They had known each other a long time. Because of Carla, she and Sam were family. They always would be.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t.”
He accepted that. “I wish I had more time today.” A quick look at his wristwatch. “But I’ve got a conference call in a few minutes.”
“No problem. I need to start for home, anyway. Long drive.”
“But a pretty one, right? Those leaves.”
So it was back to leaves again.
“Thanks for your time today, Sam. Hope we can revisit the topic sometime.”
He didn’t answer, and his face was noncommittal.
She was almost to the door before he asked the question.
“Are you ever going to tell me?”
She stopped. Again, she didn’t need any clarification.
“I don’t think so, Sam.”
Some tension in his voice now. He’d held it under wraps but this was his last chance. “It wasn’t your fault. That’s what I don’t get. You were a traumatized little kid. You didn’t even remember what you’d done. How did it make any sense for you to go to prison, for God’s sake? You threw away your whole life, Belfa.”
“No. I didn’t throw it away. I still have it. It’s just different now.”
“You’re telling me.” An alarm sounded on his cell. “Damn. My call’s starting in one minute.”
She waved, leaving him to his work. And his pretty things. And his questions.
Chapter Twenty-three
The waitress led her to a table back by the fireplace, weaving a path around a forest of round tables covered with identical white tablecloths and flowery centerpieces.
Empty tables, Bell noted.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. She draped her coat across the back of the chair. “Just got back from D.C. Met with Sam. Had some things to go over with him.”
“How is he?” Rhonda asked.
“You know Sam. Always polite. No matter how annoyed he might be.”
“Well, count your blessings. He didn’t go all hillbilly on you. Didn’t take out a shotgun and spit a wad of smokeless on your shoes.”
They both laughed at the incongruity of the image: dapper, debonair Sam Elkins, toting a firearm and ruining his perfect white teeth with a pinch of snuff.
Bell looked around the room. It was past the regular dinner hour, but there still should have been more customers. This was the Chimney Corner, a restaurant in Blythesburg that had been here roughly forever, with no discernible updates to the menu—but was still the best dining option in the area.
Rhonda had texted her that afternoon, proposing dinner. Bell was a little surprised—surely Rhonda was up to her eyebrows with the Topping murder case?—but she was pleased. She dearly missed conversations with the woman who’d been her best friend in Acker’s Gap, as well as her trusted colleague. And there was the small matter of Rhonda’s secret and the promised revelation.
Sure, she’d texted back.
Rhonda’s reply: Chimney Corner @ 7
Bell had swept in at 7:12, trailing cold air and apologies.
“Used to come here as a teenager,” Rhonda said. She looked around. “It was that kind of place, you know? The kind where you have lunch with your mom when you’re sixteen years old, after you’ve gone shopping for school clothes. And your mom’s pissed at you because nothing fit you. Not even the skirts from the section of the store they called ‘Chubbette.’” Rhonda laughed, and so Bell did, too. “And then,” Rhonda continued, “you sit down at one of these tables and your mom makes you order the ‘Dieter’s Plate’—it’s the restaurant version of the ‘Chubbette’ section—and the waitress brings you a little mound of cottage cheese topped by a single pineapple ring. And it’s garnished with this sad, limp lettuce leaf.”
