by Julia Keller
He read the reply right off her face: But for how long?
Because she knew him. The promises, the pledges, the whole cross-my-heart hit parade of empty affirmations. He had managed days of keeping himself straight, weeks sometimes, once an entire month.
And they both knew that he always went back.
Always.
The promises were the easy part. It was easy to fill himself up with purpose and ambition. This is it, he’d tell himself. Day one.
And then … things happened. They always did.
There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other.
“The deputy’s out there,” Tyler said. “It’s okay.”
Steve Brinksneader stood on the porch. Beside him was Sara Banville.
“This young lady says you guys are friends,” Brinksneader said.
“We are.” Tyler didn’t know what to say next. Sara looked beautiful. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her face was shining, but there was concern in her eyes. “Do you want to come in?” he said.
She nodded. A smile broke over her face. The deputy stepped aside.
The moment she was inside, she gave Ellie a hug. His mother, Tyler saw, didn’t participate; her arms stayed straight down at her sides.
“My mom saw the deputy’s car,” Sara said, “and we wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
“Everything’s fine.” Ellie’s voice was empty.
“Okay,” Sara said. She was a little embarrassed now. A spot of color dotted each cheek. “I wanted to—we were worried about—”
“It’s just a hard time right now,” Tyler said. “But it was cool of you to come by. Really. Maybe we can talk later. When this is all over.”
Once upon a time they had all been friends: him and Alex, with Sara trailing along behind, begging to be included. Usually they’d say, Sure, yeah, come on, and off they’d go, the three of them. Riding bikes or building forts or reading comic books. Later, other things, too.
That was a long, long time ago.
But maybe …
“Great,” Sara said. Her eyes went to the coffee table. A laptop and an iPad were stacked up next to a monitor and CPU. “So the cops finally brought back your computers? I heard they were going through them. Looking for something, right?”
“Yeah. Looking for something.”
“Guess they didn’t find it.”
“Guess not.” Tyler shrugged. Jake had told him not to talk about the case with anybody other than law enforcement. And his mom. “So. Like I was saying. Maybe we could hang out.”
“Sure,” Sara said. “That would be great. Let me know. I’m around.” She turned. Then she turned back. She smiled. She had a wonderful smile. “You take care of yourself, Tyler. Okay?”
* * *
Now it was just the two of them again. Him and his mother.
And their unfinished conversation.
“Really,” Tyler said. “No more drugs, Mom. I’m clean and I’m going to stay that way.”
His mother, he saw, had aged years in a matter of days. Her prettiness had always been fragile, a ghostly overlay of nice features and daily beauty rituals that enhanced a few natural advantages. But the beauty had gone away now. The long tragedy of their lives—his addiction, the mess he’d made of everything—had finally exploded in one last horror: his father’s death.
All of it had gathered in Ellie’s face.
“How are you doing, Mom?”
“It’s hard. It’s so, so—hard,” she said. “And not knowing what really happened—it makes it harder. Losing Brett but also—not knowing if he said anything. At the end.”
“They’re going to get Foley, Mom,” Tyler declared. “They’re looking for him and they’ll find him. He’ll pay for what he did.”
She nodded. She seemed dazed, as remote as a star. He wasn’t sure she had even heard him.
“They’re keeping me safe, Mom. Just like they’re keeping you safe. Okay? Listen—I need to get some of my stuff,” he said. “In my room. Some shirts. Underwear. To take with me. I’ll be right back.”
She nodded again. He started to move away, toward the big polished staircase, but abruptly he came back to her.
“It’s going to be okay, Mom. Swear. I’m going to stay clean. For you. For Dad. I’ll do it. I really, really will.”
She looked at him. Her expression pierced him. Because her eyes spoke plainly: We both know that isn’t true, don’t we?
Chapter Twenty-nine
The recipe came from Sam’s mother, which meant that Bell had been carrying it around in her head for almost three decades, give or take. It also meant that each ingredient, as she added it to the big pot on the gas stove, came with a memory, a flashback, an invisible tether to previous times and other places she had made the sauce.
Thus it was more than ground beef, parsley, oregano, onions, diced tomatoes, and all the rest: It was Buckhannon, West Virginia, where she and Sam had shared a small apartment while they finished up at West Virginia Wesleyan. It was Morgantown and another small apartment, when Sam was in law school. And an even smaller apartment in Alexandria, Virginia—the rents had made their heads snap back in astonishment—when Sam had started his first job and Carla was a trouble-seeking toddler and Bell had just decided to apply to law school herself. And then it was an enormous house in Bethesda, first of the ever-more-enormous houses they lived in, as Sam’s career achievements went up, up, up, and his income level rose right along with it. The Elkins family sauce made frequent appearance in each place—first out of economic necessity, later from nostalgia.
After the divorce, it was this rambling stone home on Shelton Avenue in Acker’s Gap. The years as prosecuting attorney.
Another Saturday night, another dinner invitation to Carla. The water for the pasta had just come to an enthusiastic boil when her daughter arrived.
“Hey—I’d know that smell anywhere. Grandma’s famous sauce,” Carla said, zipping into the kitchen. She didn’t even take off her coat before picking up the wooden spoon to sample it. “Yep. The taste of judgment and prejudice and recrimination. With a pinch of bitterness and bile. Mmmmm.”
Bell laughed. “Okay, so Bessie could be a little—”
“A little racist, sexist, homophobic, and misogynist? Um, yeah.” Carla took another sip from the spoon. “But her sauce rocks. I’ll grant you that.”
“Seemed like a good idea for my first real meal here in a long time. Other than the Big Macs and fries I’ve been inhaling, I mean.”
“Don’t forget last week’s pizza. You know what, Mom? You’ve been living like you’re in a frat house.”
“Until now. Here—hand me that pot holder. The steamed broccoli’s ready.”
They sat down at the big wooden table.
“I read another story today in the Gazette about that murder,” Carla said. “Only time Acker’s Gap ever makes it into the news—drug overdoses and murders.” She tore off a hunk of crusty bread. “I guess they haven’t arrested anybody yet.”
“No.” Bell took a bite of pasta. “Do you remember Jake Oakes?”
“Oh, yeah. The deputy. Really cute guy.”
“He’s too old for you. Anyway, you remember how he was shot.”
Carla’s lightheartedness vanished. “Of course. How is he?”
“Better, I think. He’s had a lot to deal with. But he’s adjusting.” Bell filled their water glasses from the glass pitcher. “We keep in touch. He’s been working for the sheriff’s department. Something called a special consultant.”
“Well, he knows a lot about law enforcement. Sounds like a good idea. Maybe he could help you out with the Utley Pharmaceuticals thing. Pressure the CEO—Lord Voldemort, right?—to make amends.”
“Lord Voldemort would probably resent the comparison. And—sure, maybe. Maybe he can help. But in the meantime, Jake got the same deal for me.”
“Same deal?”
“Yeah. Special consultant. It’s a temporary thing. Rhonda called
me the other day. Said they could use some extra hands with the Topping case.”
“Doing what?”
“Checking out a rehab place in Florida, for starters. Just making phone calls. Tyler Topping was in court-ordered rehab a bunch of times. Rhonda thinks he might have made some friends—and I’ll let you add your own quotation marks around the word—down there. Addicts who might’ve kept up with Deke Foley. He’s the main suspect.”
“Phone calls,” Carla murmured.
“What?”
“I just mean—Jesus, Mom. Phone calls? You have a law degree from Georgetown.”
Bell took a long drink of water.
“Let me tell you a little story,” she said. “When your Aunt Shirley first came back, I gave her a lot of pep talks about fresh starts and new horizons. Encouraged her to get her GED, find a good job—all of it. Blah, blah, blah. She probably wanted to strangle me. Or stuff a sock in my mouth.” Bell smiled. “But she didn’t. She listened. And she tried. In the end, though, she wound up where a lot of people who’ve been to prison wind up—in a crummy, low-paying job with no prospects. It’s damned hard to break through. Like it or not, we all carry our past around with us.”
“Mom, come on. You were in a minimum-security prison. That’s not the same thing. I mean—you can’t be comparing your situations. You’re not like Aunt Shirley.”
Bell couldn’t speak for several seconds.
“You’re right about that,” she finally said.
Carla, who had missed her mother’s meaning entirely, stood up. “Unless I’m way off base here, we’re having ice cream for dessert, right? I mean, you haven’t totally abandoned the frat house lifestyle?”
“Bowls are in the same place in the cupboard they always were. Oh—and there’s Hershey’s syrup in the fridge.”
“Score!”
* * *
They were loading the dishwasher when Bell’s cell rang. She levered it out of her pants pocket.
After a quick check of the caller ID, she swiped a finger across the bottom of the screen.
“Hey, Nick. What’d you find out?”
“Plenty. Got a pen?”
“Hold on.” Bell lowered her cell. “Sweetie, is it okay if I’m on the phone for a minute? I asked Nick to make some inquiries down there. He knows Florida a lot better than I do. Being as how I don’t know it at all.”
“Sure.”
Bell withdrew into the living room.
“Okay,” she said. She wedged her cell between her chin and her shoulder while she hunted for a pen and notepad in her purse. “Go.”
“It’s common knowledge nowadays that Florida’s crawling with drug rehab facilities. Because there’s huge money to be made in rehab now. Tons of desperate parents with addicted kids. And insurance companies, legally required to pony up the big bucks for inpatient treatment. It’s like a grim new kind of Disney World down here.”
“Right.”
“So I drove up to the last rehab place where Tyler Topping was admitted. It’s about an hour and a half north of here. Naturally they wouldn’t give me any information. HIPAA laws, confidentiality rules, et cetera.”
“None of which slowed you down in the least.”
“Of course not.”
She smiled. Same old Nick.
“I hung out at the convenience store across the street,” he continued. “Sure enough—ten o’clock rolled around and some staff members took their smoke breaks. I struck up a conversation with a guy we’ll call Camel Filters. Now, they’ve hiked the price of cigarettes so high that you have to take out a second mortgage to buy a carton. So in exchange for some folding cash, my new friend agreed that—once he was back at his desk—he’d give me a list of the residents who were there during the past six months. But here’s where it gets interesting.”
“Do tell.”
“Twenty minutes later Camel Filters called me. Kept his voice low. ‘You said you’re checking on a resident from West Virginia, right?’ I said, ‘Right.’ And he said, “Acker’s Gap, right?’ I said, ‘Right.’ And he said, ‘Got him right here. Name’s Alex Banville, right?’ And I said, ‘Whoa.’”
“Something’s not right. Alex Banville is Tyler’s neighbor. Goes to WVU. A good kid. Clean.”
“I thought so, too.”
“You know him?”
“A bit. His father, Rex Banville, is an acquaintance. And now it turns out—and I had Camel Filters double-check it, just to be sure—that Alex was admitted to that rehab center a few weeks after the last time Tyler left. Not for the first time, either. You could’ve knocked me over but it’s true—Alex Banville is an addict. And.”
“There’s more?”
“He was just readmitted two days ago. He’s there right now. Had a major relapse.”
Chapter Thirty
As writing surfaces go, the dinette in Jake’s kitchen was not the most ideal foundation upon which Bell had ever worked. It wobbled. It shimmied. It shifted. The uneven top was marred by nicks, trenches, gouges, scratches, burns, and sticky spots. He explained to her that he’d bought it used—the one from his other house was too big to fit in the tiny kitchen—but then he corrected himself: It’s not just used. It’s used up.
“Doesn’t matter,” Bell said. “We’ve got work to do.”
She had arrived at his house a little after noon. The night before, Bell had sent Carla back to Charleston with a kiss, a Tupperware container of leftover spaghetti, and a promise to call her if there were any breaks in the case.
The natural thing would have been for Jake to come to Bell’s more spacious quarters, but there was a problem with that: The house on Shelton Avenue wasn’t wheelchair-accessible. Getting Jake and his chair up the seven steps onto the porch was a daunting prospect.
So they’d given up the big, beautiful, polished table over there for the teensy, ugly, unstable one right here.
“It’ll keep you humble,” Jake said. He guided his wheelchair up under the table so he could share it with her. “Want a beer?”
“Really, Jake? A beer?” Bell gave him a withering look. “This isn’t a social occasion.”
“Okay, okay.” He rolled his eyes. “Clean forgot that Mother Superior had decided to fly down from heaven and grace us with her perfection.”
He was teasing her, an activity in which she fully expected him to engage on a regular basis. And she ignored him, which was precisely what he’d expected her response to be.
Thus they had fallen smoothly, effortlessly, back into their old partnership.
The first thing Bell did was to arrange her work materials across the dingy, scarred top: two legal pads, a box of Bic pens, a scattering of photos. These were copies of photos Rhonda had requested from Ellie Topping: happy, smiling people, the Toppings and their friends.
“Where’s Tyler?” Bell asked, looking around.
“One of his NA meetings. Sometimes you have to drive a while to find one when you need it, but Steve Brinksneader is always around to give him a lift. So far, they’ve done wonders for the kid.”
“Good to hear. Did you get a chance to ask him about Alex?”
“Yeah. Gave him the news this morning. He was shocked. Said he was, anyway. He admitted that Alex had gotten high a few times. All three of them had—Tyler, Alex, and Alex’s sister. But Tyler didn’t know that Alex was dealing with his own addiction.”
“What do you think? Is Tyler telling the truth?”
Jake did as she’d requested. He thought about it. “You know, if you’d asked me a few days ago, I wouldn’t have known how to answer. Addicts lie. They lie even when they don’t have to lie. They lie just because it’s the one thing they know how to do. And they do it so well. But now? Yeah, I believe him. I don’t think Tyler had any idea that Alex was in that kind of trouble.”
Bell nodded.
She sifted through the photos, setting aside the ones of Brett, Ellie, and Tyler, from various vacations. She found what she was looking for: a photo of Tyler and Alex and Sara
Banville. Their names had been written at the bottom.
Tyler and Alex were sitting on their bicycles, facing the camera, long, tanned arms hanging over the handlebars, squinting into the sun. Sara squatted on the ground on the right, holding a jar filled with some kind of insects. She looked like a young Jodie Foster. She had lean limbs and freckles and sun-bleached, straw-like hair. Bell called that style “I-don’t-care-about-my-hair” hair, which Bell knew about because she’d had that kind of hair, too, when she was that age. The girl in the photo simmered with a quiet, understated beauty-to-be, a loveliness that rested just under the surface, ready to rise when she hit puberty.
Sara was gazing longingly up at the boys, as if she was hungry to be part of their adventure but had been told to play with her grasshoppers instead.
All three were in shorts and T-shirts. The photo said “Summer” so clearly that Bell almost thought she could hear the word being whispered.
“What are you looking for?” Jake asked.
“Nothing in particular. Just getting a sense of these kids. Take a look at Tyler and Alex. Clear eyes, great smiles. They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them. Why in God’s name would kids like that start messing around with drugs?”
“I don’t know, Bell. I guess I’m more surprised these days at the kids who don’t—more than the kids who do. ’Cause most do.” Jake was not so jaunty right now.
Bell’s next move was to reach for the legal pad she’d brought along. As they talked, she made notes on it. Each time the table wobbled, she slid the pad to another quadrant to stabilize it.
“Okay. So Alex Banville is an addict,” Bell said. “Contrary to what everybody apparently thought. Relevant?”
“You’re damned right it’s relevant. Maybe he was working for Deke Foley, too. Just like Tyler.”
“How would that change things?”
“Maybe Foley sent Alex to kill Brett Topping. As part of his job.”
Bell checked her notes from her call with Nick. “No deal. Alex went back into rehab in Florida the day before the murder.”
“Damn.”
“Right. So we’re still back to Foley.”
