by Julia Keller
“It’s a murder investigation. She wants to get it right.” Nick embellished his next remark with a raised eyebrow. “Same way her immediate predecessor operated, yes?”
She shrugged. “Don’t recall.”
“The hell you don’t.” He was trying to make amends. He hadn’t had time to answer Bell’s questions the day before—there was too much to do, explaining to Rhonda why he’d crashed her wedding with his stunning announcement, having a quick private conference with her, making his case—and so he had asked Bell to join him here at JPs this morning.
He had blindsided her—he’d blindsided everybody—and she didn’t like that. And then he topped it off by having his conference with Rhonda. Not her. She liked being in the loop.
But the loop wasn’t where she lived anymore. She’d given that up.
Nick was talking. “So Rhonda convened a meeting in her office last night with Sandy Banville and her attorney. All charges dropped. Sandy was still claiming she’d done it. Whole thing got a little heated.” He chuckled, despite the serious nature of the matters they were discussing. “Can you picture it? Rhonda didn’t even go home to change first. So there she was at the courthouse, going over the details of Sandy’s release—in her wedding gown. Gotta be a first.”
Bell wasn’t chuckling. “Rhonda put a lot of trust in your word. I mean—you show up at the reception out of the blue, you give her your personal guarantee that Sandy Banville’s confession is fraudulent—and boom. Rhonda calls her attorney. And Sandy—whether she likes it or not—is home in time to watch the late local news.”
“Hey.” Nick was surprised at the tone he’d heard in her voice: skepticism mingled with disgruntlement. “What are you talking about? It had nothing to do with any guarantees from me. I have proof. Solid and irrefutable. Rhonda heard me out. She agreed that the new information I provided was enough to clear Sandy Banville. This wasn’t some trick, Bell. No damned rabbits were pulled out of any damned hats. This was about truth. And facts. And evidence. You ought to know that.”
“How, Nick? How exactly would I know that?”
It still rankled. She was on the outside looking in. She didn’t know the rest of what he’d said to Rhonda last night—because seconds after he’d made his pronouncement to the prosecutor, Rhonda had left the room with him for a private conference. It was official business.
Which meant it wasn’t Bell’s business. Not anymore.
He could read the resentment on her face. She was feeling left out. And overlooked.
“You know what?” Nick said. “I don’t think Rhonda would mind if I gave you some background. Exactly how, for instance, I came to know that Sandy Banville didn’t kill Topping. Contrary to her assertions.”
“Well, don’t take any chances.” Bell sounded petulant. “Don’t betray any confidences.”
“I won’t.”
Restless, she changed her position on the bench seat. “I’ll grant you that I wasn’t totally comfortable with the idea of her being the killer. Seemed a little too … neat. Convenient. But then again, she despised the Toppings. She’d always felt superior to them—and then her own son falls down the same rabbit hole as Tyler Topping did. She was unhinged by her hatred of both Ellie and Brett. Brett just happened to be her first opportunity. And she can’t account for her whereabouts at the time of the murder.”
“Yes, she can. She just didn’t want to.”
“What?”
“Sandy’s alibi is not the kind of thing you brag about. She didn’t want to embarrass Rex. And bring even more shame and humiliation on him than she’d done already.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, you don’t. And there’s no way you could. I only know because one of my buddies from up here—Marv Cunningham—called me in Florida yesterday and filled in the picture. He told me what was going on—Sandy’s confession, all the rest of it. The fact that she didn’t have an alibi. Although she actually did—just not one she wanted to admit to.” Nick held up a hand, to stave off more objections from Bell. “Let me finish. Marv said I needed to come up here and talk to Rhonda. Make it right. He knew she’d listen to me.”
* * *
Before Nick proceeded further with his story, they decided to order some food. Nick made eye contact with Jackie LeFevre, and a moment later the lean, taciturn woman who was still a bit of a mystery in Acker’s Gap, despite the fact that she’d been running the diner for over a decade, stood alongside their booth. Today she wore a turquoise flannel shirt, faded black jeans, and knee-high black boots that laced up on the sides.
She didn’t use an order pad. And they didn’t use a menu.
“Nick Fogelsong,” Jackie said. She greeted Bell, then immediately shifted her attention back to Nick. “I don’t see Mary Sue. Did she come along?”
“Not this trip.”
“Okay,” Jackie said. “What can I get you two?”
Nick selected the western omelet and rye toast. Bell ordered two eggs over easy and corned beef hash.
“Coming right up.” By now four additional customers had slung themselves into a booth across the room, two to a side. Jackie abandoned Nick and Bell to see if the new arrivals wanted coffee.
Bell kept an eye on Jackie’s retreating back. “She didn’t seem too surprised to see you here. Almost as if you left yesterday, instead of a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, we’ve communicated a time or two since I moved,” Nick said.
“Really.”
“Yeah. Email, mostly. A few phone calls, now and again. She had some business before the county commission a while back and needed some advice. Things like that.” He finished off his coffee, knowing that Jackie had another pot going. The smell was unmistakable. “She always asked about you, by the way. About how you were dealing with Shirley’s passing.”
“She could’ve asked me herself. I still live here. I’ve been out of Alderson for a while now.”
Nick moved his empty cup around on the tabletop.
“She’s a brave woman, Bell, but she probably didn’t dare.” Trying to make a joke of it.
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on. It can’t be news to you that you’re sometimes a little—well, intimidating. Kind of a hard-ass.”
Bell’s umbrage was front and center. “I was a prosecutor. Being a hard-ass is part of the job description.”
“But you’re not a prosecutor anymore, right? So maybe you could lighten up.”
Bell drew in a deep breath. She’d been hunched forward while they talked, fingers interlaced on the tabletop, and now she sat up straight. She pulled her hands off the table and brought her arms down to her sides. The chill that emanated from her had an arctic tinge to it.
“You’re supposed to be telling me about Sandy Banville. Can we get back to that?”
“Fine.” Nick settled into his story. “Marv Cunningham runs the Motel 6 up on the interstate.”
“I know that.”
“Well, he’s aware of the fact that people have been known to use his establishment for purposes that aren’t strictly savory. Not all of the couples who wind up there have availed themselves of the holy state of matrimony. Or if they have, it’s with somebody other than the person with whom they checked in.”
“This is fascinating, Nick. Is there a point?”
“There is indeed. Marv’s no gossip. He figures he’s got no right to judge anybody, being as how nobody’s perfect. But he does keep his eyes open. That’s how he knows that Sandy Banville was not in her own neighborhood on the night Brett Topping was murdered. She was at the Motel 6.”
“With—?”
“With a good-for-nothing piece of crap named Bucky Travers. He tends bar over in Marbleton. They get a room a few nights a month.”
“Did Rex Banville know about this arrangement?”
“He did.”
“And he didn’t go after this Bucky character with a two-by-four?”
Nick paused, li
fting his elbows. Jackie was back with the coffeepot. She topped off Bell’s mug, refilled Nick’s.
“Food’ll be up real soon,” Jackie said.
As soon as she was gone, Nick continued. “Stress and anxiety have been tearing Sandy apart. Not only have they been dealing with their son’s addiction—but Sandy was determined to hide it. Wanted everyone to believe he was still the golden boy. His freshman year at WVU, he got high more often than he went to class. After pot, it was Oxy. And then—”
“Let me guess. Heroin.”
“Yes. Sandy was frantic. But she felt she had to keep it under wraps. It was a terrible strain.”
“Sounds a lot like what Brett and Ellie Topping were dealing with.”
“It does, doesn’t it? And that’s what irked Sandy no end. She wanted her family to be the exception. Her kids wouldn’t be like other kids. Her kids wouldn’t go down the same dark road as so many others in this town. Her kids wouldn’t use drugs.” He let out a long, sad breath. “She finally got him into rehab.”
“Same one as Tyler Topping.”
“Initially, yes. Alex has had a hard time, though. He’s been in several different facilities. Nothing works. He stays a week or two and then runs away. Goes back on the streets.”
“Where does the Motel 6 come in?”
“You and I have seen it before, Bell—all the ways people cope with that kind of intense pressure. They drink or they start using drugs themselves. Or…”
He seemed to be slightly embarrassed. He looked away from her, letting his gaze rove across the diner’s checkerboard linoleum floor.
“Or what?” she said.
“Or they have affairs.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Yeah. So—Sandy and Bucky.”
“And Rex knows about this.”
“He does.”
“And he hasn’t tried to stop her? Give her an ultimatum?”
“He loves her, Bell.”
“Still not following.”
“He loves her and he can see that she’s drowning. Barely hanging on. A few seconds away from going under. She needs something—some way to get rid of all that accumulated pressure. Bucky Travers is just a life preserver she’s grabbed onto—that’s all. Rex doesn’t give a damn about Bucky Travers. But he loves Sandy. In fact, he’s got a real blind spot when it comes to her.”
“So he’s been putting up with her affair.”
“For now, yeah. It’s like being in a foxhole. You don’t worry too much about the décor until the shelling stops, okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “Never did understand people. Crazy bastards, every single one of ’em.”
“Can’t argue with you there.” Nick set his palms flat on the tabletop. He was getting to the heart of his story. “So I get that call from Marv Cunningham. On the night Brett Topping was murdered, Sandy was with Bucky Travers at the Motel 6. All night. There are multiple witnesses, security camera footage from the parking lot, a credit card receipt.”
“Credit card receipt? Couldn’t he have been there with another woman?”
“It was Sandy’s credit card—not Bucky’s.”
“She had to spring for the room? Jesus.”
“The Buckys of this world don’t usually have credit cards. Their credit histories are—let’s just call it ‘spotty.’ Anyway, Sandy refused to give that as her alibi. She didn’t want an alibi.”
* * *
Jackie brought their breakfasts. While they dived in, Nick told Bell the rest. How Marv had explained the facts as he knew them, after which Nick realized he had an obligation to fly up and give Rhonda the news:
Sandy Banville’s confession had to be bogus. She wasn’t there that night. She didn’t kill Brett Topping.
Once Nick had laid out the evidence, Rhonda had not hesitated. She called Sandy’s lawyer and arranged for the woman’s immediate release.
“Hated to interrupt the wedding that way,” Nick said, “but I needed to move quickly.” He used his napkin to wipe his mouth. “I know you and Jake Oakes put a lot of work into this case. Can’t feel too good.”
“It’s the truth we’re after, Nick. Our feelings don’t matter.” Bell finished up her second cup of coffee with a quick swallow. “But we’re back at square one. If Sandy Banville didn’t kill Topping—and we already know Deke Foley couldn’t have done it, either—then who did kill him?”
Nick didn’t have an answer, and he also had no wisecrack to mitigate the fact that he didn’t have an answer.
Bell stared at her plate. The remaining trickle of bright yellow egg yolk had encircled the tiny brown island of corned beef hash.
“I’m beginning to think I might have an idea,” she said. “But I’m going to need some help proving it.”
He took a sudden interest in the handle of his cup, fiddling with it. “Guess you’ve got Jake Oakes for that.”
“I could use the both of you.”
He met her eyes. His were bright. “’I’m all yours.”
“Might take a few days. How long are you around?”
“Well.” He cleared his throat. “Thing is, Bell—I may be coming up here a little more often. The timing’s up in the air right now.”
She was surprised. “I thought you and Mary Sue were enjoying yourselves in all that sunshine.”
“One of us is enjoying it. One of us isn’t.”
Chapter Thirty-five
That night, Malik had fallen asleep in Tyler’s room. He had wandered in there after supper, even though, earlier in the day, Molly had gently warned him not to.
“This is somebody else’s private space, Malik. Even Jake doesn’t come in here.” That was what she’d said to him when she found him there the first time, sitting cross-legged on the bare floor. He wasn’t touching a thing. Just looking around, lifting his face to the meager sunlight sifting through the thin curtain on the sole window.
She had reached down for Malik’s hand. She drew him out of the room.
“It’s not polite,” she had added. “Tyler’s not here, so you can’t ask him if he minds or not.”
She’d had to retrieve him from there two other times last week. Both times, again, he wasn’t bothering anything. Just sitting. Something about the space seemed to call to him. To calm him, even.
Tyler kept the room basically clean, if not specifically tidy; the room combined personal elements—a few library books, a twenty-four-pack of Dr Pepper—with impersonal ones: single bed, chest of drawers, director’s chair with a badly fraying cloth back. Anybody could fit in here, Molly thought, without having to do much adjusting or recalibrating, and maybe that was the point. It was a simple fit. No edges, no odd corners, no rough patches. Maybe that’s what Malik liked about it, too. It was impersonal. Everybody belonged here.
She came out of the bathroom and looked in Tyler’s room. Yep—there was Malik. Again. Except this time he was curled up on his side on Tyler’s bed. He was asleep.
Molly sighed. She went back out into the living room, where Jake was having his first post-supper Rolling Rock.
“Malik’s back in Tyler’s room,” she said. “Fell asleep on the bed. That kid.”
“Don’t worry about it. Tyler won’t be back ’til late. He’s at an NA meeting in Blythesburg. He’s found a good group over there. Real supportive.”
“How’d he take it? The release of Sandy Banville, I mean.”
“Don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”
“How about you? How are you taking it?”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “Guess I’m pissed off, to tell you the truth. A false confession is a waste of everybody’s time and effort.”
He was suddenly tired of talking about it. Brett Topping’s killer might never be found and that offended him. The gun, too, might never turn up. And the file—another lost cause.
“Well,” Molly said. “I do think I ought to keep Malik out of Tyler’s room.” She had sensed Jake’s mood and wanted to change the subject. “Now that Tyler’s g
oing to be sticking around for a while.”
“He likes Malik. He won’t care.”
“Yeah, well—Malik needs to learn about boundaries. I know that ‘Malik’ and ‘boundaries’ don’t even belong in the same sentence—but I want him to be respectful of others. It’s hard for him. Almost impossible. That’s what they told me at the clinic in Charleston. I took him there a few years ago. They said empathy will always be an issue. The problem is, Malik only thinks about himself and what he wants.”
“I know a lot of other folks with the same problem,” Jake murmured. “And they don’t have Malik’s excuse.” He drained the Rolling Rock.
“That was fast.”
“Hey.” He angled the chair so it faced the couch head-on. “Don’t do that, okay? Don’t nag like that.”
She stood up. “You’re right. I was nagging. And you know what, Jake? You can do exactly as you please. You can sit here and get shitfaced every night. Night after night. Often as you like. Not my lookout.” She began to walk around the coffee table.
“Where’re you going?”
“To wake up Malik. Time to go. Dinner’s over, dishes are done, you don’t need a ride anywhere—so we ought to be heading home.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Just don’t.” He looked away, as if meeting her eyes was more than he could take just then. “Please. Sit back down. A little while.”
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then she sat.
In a low voice, she said, “What’s going on, Jake?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Everything’s going well for you, the way I see it. You’re helping Tyler turn his life around. You and Bell have been a big help to the sheriff. She’ll be calling you again. I’d bet on that. If Pam Harrison trusts you—and clearly you earned her trust—she’ll do everything in her power to keep you busy. And it’s work you like. Public safety. Law enforcement. It’s dignified work. Work that makes a difference. It’s not the same as being a deputy—but it’s pretty damned close.”
He nodded. “Can’t argue with any of that.”
“So—what’s eating you?”
