by Julia Keller
“Maybe we should’ve gone somewhere else,” Bell murmured.
“Oh, no—it’s fine,” Rhonda said. She laughed again. “If we avoided all the places in this county where we’d had some unpleasant experiences, we’d never leave the house, right? Anyway—I’ve got some nerve. Your childhood was not exactly a bed of roses.”
Bell shrugged. She was just about to ask Rhonda about the Topping case when her friend cut her off, leaning across the table and grabbing Bell’s hand.
“Besides, none of that really matters. That news I wanted to tell you about—well, hold on to your hat. I’m getting married.” Rhonda blushed fiercely. The blush ran up the side of her face and bloomed across her cheeks.
“Rhonda! Really! That’s terrific.”
At which point Rhonda Lovejoy, prosecuting attorney of Raythune County, a position filled with significant duties that she performed each day with tremendous dignity and skill, promptly began sobbing.
“Hey—hey, come on, Rhonda, what’s the matter? This is wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“I thought—I guess I thought you’d say—” Rhonda was trying to talk through sniffles. “I thought—” She turned in her seat, reaching for the purse whose thick turquoise strap she’d looped across the back of her chair. She dug out a tissue from its crowded depths.
After an extended goose-honk of a nose-blow, Rhonda was ready to try again.
“I thought that maybe—maybe you’d tell me it was a bad idea.”
“A bad idea? Why would I say that?”
“Because—well, because over the years, whenever we talked in general about marriage, you seemed a little—well, kind of down on it. I mean, you’re divorced. And we saw the consequences of so many bad marriages, there in the prosecutor’s office. Love always seemed to end up in fights over money or property or custody of the kids or whatever. And sometimes violence. And you and Clay never—well, you know.”
Clay Meckling had been Bell’s longtime boyfriend. After several years of an on-again, off-again relationship that was fairly tormenting to both of them, Bell had finally ended things for good, just before her life blew up in her face. Six months into Bell’s time at Alderson, Clay had written her a brief letter. He told her that he and a woman named Monica Dean—he’d met her in Charleston, where he’d taken a job with the state division of highways—had been married that weekend. They were moving to Dayton, Ohio. Clay had gotten a managerial job there with a construction firm.
“I just figured,” Rhonda added, “that by this time, maybe you were—well, philosophically opposed to the whole institution.”
Bell shook her head and smiled. “I’ve got nothing against marriage, Rhonda. I just draw the line at me getting married.” She looked up at the waitress, a woman in her late eighties who had just arrived tableside. Bell recognized her. “Hello, Pauline.”
Pauline’s watery, olive green eyes reacted. “My goodness. Belfa Elkins. How long have you been—” Apparently she couldn’t think of a polite way to say “out of prison,” and so the woman with the tight white bun and the corrugated yellow skin simply stopped, blinked, and handed each of them a menu, falling back into her spiel. “The special tonight is chicken-fried steak. The sides are mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans. Oh—and we ran out of the meatloaf, in case you were thinking in that direction.” She gave them a tired smile and left them to their decision-making.
Bell set her menu aside without looking at it. She needed to make sure Rhonda understood her.
“I’m very happy for you. I want you to know that. Okay? Now—back to business. Do I know the guy?”
Rhonda grinned. She finished dabbing at her eyes with the fourth tissue she’d pulled from her bag, a repetition that had begun to remind Bell of a magic act with a top hat and an endless stash of silk scarves.
“I think so,” Rhonda said. “It’s Mack Gettinger.”
Bell thought about it. Did she know him? Yes. She did. She had a hazy recollection of an older man, at least twenty years Rhonda’s senior, with a hawk nose. Eighty-five percent bald. Thin gray mustache, dark eyebrows. Tall. Lean everywhere except in the belly. Quiet.
“He works for Claussen’s,” Rhonda said. “He’s their top sales associate.”
Norbert Claussen’s company had started out specializing in janitorial supplies but expanded over the years into uniforms, floor mats, vending machines, restaurant equipment—the works, Bell recalled. The collection of warehouses in rural Raythune County covered an acre and a half.
“Mack’s got the accounts for the whole southern half of West Virginia,” Rhonda said. Bell was touched by the pride she heard in her friend’s voice. “And they’re going to be expanding, too.”
“He’s from around here, isn’t he?”
“Born and raised. We started dating a while ago. I was fine with things as they were. And then last month—out of the blue—Mack just said, ‘Dammit, let’s do it.’” Rhonda laughed. “Romantic, right? That’s what he said. No more, no less. Next thing, I know…” She held out her left hand. The stone was small and the setting was a simple one, which is why Bell hadn’t noticed it, but she could sense Rhonda’s pleasure in the fact of it, and so she uttered the expected murmur of admiration.
Rhonda slid her hand back into her lap as Pauline returned. The woman took their orders and departed again.
“I suppose I can understand,” Bell said, “why you’d think I didn’t believe in marriage.”
“Yeah. And I guess I was sort of afraid that—that if I was happy, it would be sort of a reproach to you. And everything that’s happened.”
“So those times you came by Alderson—you didn’t tell me that you and Mack were dating because you thought I’d resent you? For God’s sake.” Bell was exasperated. She sat back, crossing her arms. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
Rhonda’s answer came quickly: “Nobody knows you, Bell.”
Bell waited. “Point taken,” she finally said.
“Anyway, I know this is a shock, but it’s next week. At Rising Souls. We had to be quick about it. Church gets booked up early.” Her voice was bubbly again. “I would’ve been fine just taking some vacation time and heading to Vegas—but with my family, that’s impossible. My great-aunt Lulu said she’d tan my hide if I didn’t get married in a church. Mack doesn’t care one way or another.”
“Sounds like a good man.”
“He is. Even Lulu’s impressed. And she’s the kind of woman who finds fault with everybody. Thinks Jesus should’ve trimmed the beard and ditched the muumuu.”
Bell laughed. Something occurred to her, and she changed the subject. “You know what? I think this is a new record.”
“For what?”
“Longest we’ve ever gone without talking about the drug problem.”
“You’re probably right.”
During her visits to Alderson, the topic had always returned to the opioid addiction crisis, which took up a huge chunk of Rhonda’s time as a prosecutor—just as it had taken up a huge portion of Bell’s tenure, too. If it wasn’t the illegal drug activity itself, it was everything that followed in its wake: robberies, home invasions, car thefts, prostitution.
Bell lifted her water glass in a salute. “Here’s to you, Mack Gettinger, for helping us to change the damned subject.”
Rhonda smiled and lifted her glass. She took a sip and set it back down. “So you and Carla’ll come, right? I’ve got your invitations in my purse. Wanted to make sure you got them in time.”
“You can count me in. I can’t speak for Carla—her work schedule’s always erratic. But I know she’ll try. She thinks the world of you, Rhonda.”
“Mutual.”
Their dinners arrived. They had both ordered the chicken-fried steak. Not because they had a craving for it—but because it had been suggested and was easier than picking something else. Pauline set the steaming platters in front of them and then stood back, draping the towel she’d used as a pot holder across a skinny forea
rm. She clasped her knobby hands and awaited the verdict on how it all looked.
“Everything okay?” she said.
The waitress was referring to their dinners, Bell knew, but she decided to interpret it in her own mind as a general question about Acker’s Gap.
And the answer was: no.
Everything was not okay. Not by a long shot. Dark forces were destroying it from within and from without. There’d been a horrific murder of a prominent local citizen in his own driveway just a few nights ago.
Yet for the first time in eight years—the realization came to Bell once again, as she tapped a finger on the rim of her water glass, a signal to Pauline that she’d like a refill—she wasn’t a prosecutor. She had no public position at all. No staff and no budget and no power and no portfolio. It wasn’t her responsibility to fix things.
So why did it feel as if—somehow—it still was?
* * *
Rhonda and Bell had each made a valiant attempt to conquer the chicken-fried steak, but without measurable success. Their plates looked remarkably the same as when Pauline had dropped them off. The food was overcooked and tasteless, but it wasn’t just that; they had too many topics to address, such as Mack’s three adult children from a previous marriage and how Rhonda might go about handling that delicate situation.
Rhonda also filled her in on Lee Ann Frickie’s faith-based stubbornness. Bell had had her own battles with the woman. “She was a great secretary,” Bell said, “but she could be a real pain in the ass when it came to that church of hers.”
And then it was time to talk about the Topping case.
“How’s it going?” Bell said. “I know you can’t discuss specifics, but—”
“I don’t mind discussing specifics. For heaven’s sake—you were the prosecutor for a lot of years.”
“I’m a civilian now.”
Rhonda grinned. She used her fork to point at her entree. “You’re about as much of a ‘civilian,’ Bell, as this thing was ever an actual cow.” She set the fork down. “Frankly, progress is pretty slow. We still haven’t recovered the gun. All we know is that it was a handgun. Nine-millimeter slugs.”
“I hear his wife was cleared as a suspect.”
“Well, we always start out close to home. But Ellie Topping’s alibi is solid. She says she was at a cemetery in Charleston, putting flowers on her brother’s grave. Stayed all afternoon and late into the evening. Several independent witnesses put her there when she says she was—the caretaker, three families who were also visiting. And it’s a trip she makes frequently—in case you were thinking what I was thinking.”
“That she went there specifically the day of the murder, in order to create an alibi,” Bell said.
“Right. But that seems unlikely. We also checked her odometer and the receipts for gas purchases. As far as the specific moment she claims that she arrived home—minutes after the murder—that, we can’t prove or disprove.”
“Did she have a motive? Or access to a weapon?”
“Motive, no. Weapon, yes. The Toppings had a registered firearm. It’s missing. And Ellie knows how to shoot.”
“So does nine-tenths of Raythune County,” Bell muttered.
“Exactly.”
While Rhonda took a long drink from her water glass, Bell said, “Their son’s drug problems are common knowledge, yes? I assume that’s the next best possibility.”
Rhonda nodded, filling her in on Deke Foley’s threats and the file that Brett Topping had been keeping.
“Topping and a friend of his—a man named Pete Pauley—took turns following Foley,” Rhonda said. “Pauley reported back to Brett Topping and then destroyed his own notes. Names and locations of drug deals. License plate numbers of buyers and sellers. The kind of thing that could put Foley out of business. Topping added his own observations. Kept the master file.”
“Pretty reckless,” Bell declared. “I assume Pauley’s been ruled out as a suspect? I mean, maybe he and Topping had a disagreement. Did he have an alibi?”
“Airtight,” Rhonda answered glumly. “He was speaking at a sales training seminar in Swanville in front of about four hundred people.” She lifted her hands off the table, preparatory to forming air quotes with her index fingers. “The topic was—and I quote—How to turn a ‘Hell, no’ into a ‘Heavens, yes.’”
“Quite a challenge.” Bell shrugged. “Well, he’s a brave man. Brave or stupid, I guess. To join up with Brett Topping and go after Deke Foley.” Bell shivered slightly. “I remember Foley. One of the meaner SOBs I ever ran across. First arrested when he was thirteen years old. Stealing cigarettes from a 7-Eleven. There was a look in his eye—even way back then—that told you he was trouble.” She shook her head. “By the way, his name’s not really Deke. Just calls himself that. He thought Randy sounded lame. Not nearly cool enough or tough enough.”
Rhonda’s voice was darkly certain. “We’ll get him.”
“Know you will.” Bell had spotted her opening. “And once you do—and once this wedding business is out of the way”—she toyed with the salt shaker, moving it an inch across the tablecloth—“you’ll have a little free time. Right?”
“Emphasis on ‘little.’”
“Okay, well—I might need your help with something.”
“Do tell.”
Bell briefly recounted her research into Utley Pharmaceuticals. “So maybe,” she said, “we can persuade them to take some responsibility. For what their product has done to the people around here. The misery it’s brought—the lives it’s ruined, all the premature deaths.”
Rhonda didn’t answer right away. She lifted her fork and gave her mashed potatoes a poke. They offered no resistance, so it was not a satisfying activity. “Responsibility,” she said, repeating Bell’s word but making it sound far more dubious.
“Right.” Bell snapped her fingers. “Wait—I get it. You’re thinking like a lawyer. I don’t mean financial responsibility. I’m not talking about lawsuits. Yes, lawsuits have been a part of all of this, and will continue to be—if you’ve got lawyers, you’ve got lawsuits. But those would have to come from the state attorney general. That’s not where I’m going with this. I mean moral responsibility. I mean getting their CEO to understand just how the opioid crisis has hollowed out these mountains—even worse than strip-mining has.”
Pauline popped up again, asking about dessert. They both said no so emphatically that the old woman took a step back. They weren’t being rude; they were simply absorbed in their conversation—to which they returned before the waitress had even cleared their airspace.
“That’s fine, Bell, but I think you’re being a bit—well, let’s say optimistic.”
“The word you really want to use is ‘naïve,’ right?”
Rhonda frowned. “Okay, fine. Yes. Naïve. That’s it. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. No CEO on the planet is going admit any kind of culpability for something like that. The minute they do—boom, that’s when the lawsuits come flying in from every direction. You’re talking about tens of millions—no, hundreds of millions, even billions—of dollars at stake for a multinational pharmaceutical. I’m sorry, but it’s a total lost cause.”
“We have to try, don’t we?”
“No. We don’t. Not unless we enjoy getting our hearts broken over and over again.”
They looked at each other, knowing exactly what the other was thinking: Their roles had reversed. Bell was now the starry-eyed idealist; Rhonda, the grim voice of reason.
Neither could have predicted such a turn of events, all those years ago, when they sat in Bell’s office—now Rhonda’s office—in the Raythune County Courthouse, with Rhonda arguing for the positive side of an issue and Bell pushing the negative. With Rhonda enthusiastic, Bell somber and grounded.
“I guess,” Bell said, “we’ve both changed over the last three years.”
“Yeah. That seems to be the case.” Rhonda’s voice was neutral. “The truth is, you’re right. Pharmaceutical companies like U
tley should be held accountable. But that’s the global view. That’s way up here.” She raised a hand over her head, waggled it, and then let it drop. “I’ve got to worry about things a little closer to ground level.”
“Like illegal drugs. Not legal ones.”
“Right. And like the dealers. The local scumbags who get the drugs into the hands of addicts. I don’t have any power over the Utley executives. But I do have power over the dealers that Sheriff Harrison tracks down for me to prosecute. I can put their sorry asses in prison.”
“But those dealers would have a lot fewer customers if it weren’t for those executives.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Okay, then. Yes. Definitely.” Rhonda’s irritation was growing. She was being forced to say things that Bell already knew, things they both already knew from their years of working side by side in the prosecutor’s office. “Yes, it’s true that if Utley and other drug companies hadn’t dumped their crap here by the boatload—and if doctors hadn’t prescribed the pain pills because that’s a hell of a lot easier than really listening to what’s bothering people or ordering some physical therapy—yes, for sure, the dealers wouldn’t have a market to sell to. People get hooked on the pills and then the next thing you know, they’re not buying from Walgreen’s anymore. They’re buying from some guy in a Dodge Charger in a Walmart parking lot.
“But you know what, Bell? I can’t do a damned thing about Utley. On the other hand, we’re actually making some headway against some of the most active dealers. The Deke Foleys.”
Bell nodded. She’d gone after the same kind of dealers when she was prosecutor. It was about as effective as killing cockroaches. Step on one—and there were still a million more to go.
But she understood why Rhonda kept on fighting on the local level. Amid all the uncertainties, there was one irrefutable certainty: A drug dealer in jail meant one less drug dealer on the street. And that could never be a bad thing.
