by Julia Keller
‘Okay.’
‘Rhonda was born and raised here and—’
‘Just like me.’
‘No, Bell. Not like you.’ He hesitated. ‘For one thing, she never left. She’s always been in Acker’s Gap, except for college and law school, and even then, she was home every weekend. She’s a part of this place. She comes from a big family that’s older than dirt. She’s got second cousins and sisters-in-law in every corner of this county. Hell, if you throw a stick in any direction, you’ll hit six Lovejoys without even taking aim.’
‘And?’
‘And that means you need her. You need her connections, her understanding of this town, her grasp of it, her feel for it. Rhonda gets around. She knows people. She talks to them – and they talk to her. That’s why I encouraged you to hire her, Bell. And look at what just happened here today. She tells you that Bob Bevins has been keeping company with the sister of the man who murdered his son – a fact that nobody else has bothered to disclose to us yet. A fact that’s pretty damned relevant.’
‘Okay, but she found it out when she was getting her hair done. Not to mention her nails. And maybe a quick spell in the tanning bed. Might as well throw in a pedicure while you’re at it.’
‘So what? You or I could get a bikini wax once a day, every day, for the next hundred years or so and not come up with one-tenth of the information that Rhonda can get from a single trip to her sister-in-law’s salon.’
Bell shook her head, trying to shoo away the mental image of Hickey Leonard undergoing a bikini wax, when they were interrupted by Sammy Burdette. He leaned over their table – or more accurately, his belly did – and he shook Hick’s hand and then Bell’s.
‘Care to join us?’ Hick said.
‘Nope. Just on my way out,’ Sammy said. The toothpick on the left side of his mouth told the story. With a twitch of his lip, he waggled it. ‘Wanted to say hello, is all. And to wish you two luck. Hell of a time we’re going through around here. Hell of a time.’
Bell was struck, as always, by how much Sammy’s face resembled his sister Dot’s. Those pushed-together eyes were a dead giveaway. Their bodies, however, had chosen entirely separate career paths: Sammy was chunky, while Dot was still as skinny as she’d been on the day of her high school graduation two decades ago.
‘Bet you’re wishing,’ Hick said, ‘that you’d never run for county commissioner in the first place. Nothing but hassles, all day long. That right, Sammy?’
Hick was being ornery. He knew good and well that Sammy’s political connections didn’t do a bit of harm to his insurance business.
‘Don’t know as I’d go that far,’ Sammy said. ‘Gotta give something back, you know. Gotta serve the public.’ Without using his hands, he moved the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. Then he scooted away, because Georgette had come up behind him, bearing their breakfasts.
French toast for Hick. Poached eggs and corned beef hash for Bell.
‘Careful, folks,’ Georgette said. ‘Plates’re hot.’
She slid the heaped-up platters in front of them with muttered instructions to enjoy it, and then she was gone. Ike’s was swamped this morning; Georgette had no time for pleasantries.
‘Take, for instance, this Streeter thing,’ Hick went on, picking up where he’d left off.
He squinted critically at the syrup bottle. Lifting it, he tapped its round glass side with his palm. Then he peered at the pour spout, which was crusted with dried syrup. ‘Rhonda knew who to call and what to say when they answered. It would’ve taken us days, Bell, to get a subpoena for those personnel records – if we even could’ve found a judge to give us one. Which isn’t likely, given the speculative nature of our case at this point.’
Resigned to a syrupless meal, Hick upended the bottle just for nostalgia’s sake. To his surprise and delight, the syrup came out in a soft brown ribbon, falling across his French toast – the slices were stacked beneath a thick white blanket of powdered sugar, like a cantilevered hillside after a snowfall – in luxurious folds.
Bell used her fork to explore the flakes of her corned beef hash. Hick was winning her over. She didn’t mind losing the argument, but she hated to go down without a fight.
‘She’s loud, Hick,’ Bell said, ticking off the final items on her hastily compiled list of Reasons to Fire Rhonda Lovejoy. ‘She’s loud and crude and coarse and – okay, did you get a load of that dress? I mean, it makes Dolly Parton look freakin’ Amish.’
Hick laughed. He came close to choking on the entirely too large hunk of French toast that he’d stuffed in his mouth when he did so, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
‘Well, boss, send her a Talbot’s catalog and a gift certificate and hope she gets the hint,’ he said, once he’d swallowed safely and then secured another large hunk of French toast on the end of his fork. No lesson learned. ‘But keep her on the team. Not, Lord knows, just to be nice. Not because you like her fashion sense. Keep her because you need her.’
36
Chill had decided to consolidate all the mucus in his mouth. He wanted a big wad. Hardly worth the trouble to spit if you couldn’t come up with a monster loogie. Something that made any stranger who happened to be walking by mutter, ‘Gross,’ and then look away with a wince.
Chill was leaning on the piece-of-shit car, hipbone angled against the side panel that arched over the back wheel. The car was parked in front of a 7-Eleven in Harrodsville, a little town about twenty minutes south of Acker’s Gap. It was just after 6 A.M., Thursday. He’d bought a Slim Jim and a package of chocolate Dolly Madison Donut Gems. Salty and sweet.
Chill cradled the snacks tightly against his jacket. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he heard the crinkly rustle of the wrappers. Made him feel like a damned dog who starts drooling when somebody rattles the feed bag.
His cell rang. He had to spit quickly, before he answered it, and he damn near hit the toe of his boot. He had to shift the packages into one hand so he could flip open the cell.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, Chill. This is Eddie Briscoe.’
Eddie was the guy whose party he’d gone to a while back, because there were supposed to be some kids there, high school kids, and Chill thought he could pick up some new customers. You never know. Opportunities are everywhere.
‘Dude,’ Eddie said. Eddie Briscoe was the only guy Chill knew who still said ‘dude.’ It was ridiculous, it sounded like some lame-ass TV show, but that was Eddie for you. He was all flash.
‘Dude, listen,’ Eddie went on. ‘This chick’s been asking about you.’
Chick. Dude. Chill rolled his eyes. Somebody really needed to unhook Eddie’s TiVo box for a week. Maybe a month. Make him get out of the damned house once in a while.
‘What the hell,’ Chill said, ‘are you talking about?’
Eddie didn’t have a clue about just how bad of a badass he really was. Or what he was really capable of. Eddie would’ve heard about the shooting up in Acker’s Gap, naturally – it was still all over the news and nobody watched more TV than Eddie Briscoe – but that didn’t matter. There were plenty of guys who could’ve done it. Too many, in fact. With most of the mines shut down and with a hiring freeze in place at the few that were still operational, with stores going out of business and people losing their houses and their cars right and left, there were men all across this valley who’d be capable of going crazy and shooting up a Salty Dawg. Just ’cause.
Hurting somebody else made you feel better. Wasn’t complicated. Making trouble and stirring up sorrow for other people could do wonders. It was like a math equation. Adding to somebody else’s woe was a good way to cancel out a big chunk of your own.
Anyway, Chill didn’t trust Eddie enough to tell him that he was the shooter. Not even just to brag. Eddie might get a weird bug up his ass and brag about it to the wrong people. Eddie was a loose cannon.
‘Like I said,’ Eddie went on, ‘this chick’s been asking around. Wanting to know if anybody
knows your name. From the party, dude. That party at my place. Remember when them high school kids got there? Skinny chick. No tits on her, but pretty.’
‘Yeah. So?’
Chill tilted his head to the right, pinching the cell between his ear and his shoulder. With both hands now free again, he was able to open the little sleeve of mini-donuts. You had to be careful, though; if you split the seam too far, too quick, every last freakin’ donut would leap out of there and end up on the dirty blacktop. Chill knew that from bitter experience.
‘Well, so she’s asking about you.’
‘What’s she want?’
‘Can’t say. Just asking.’
‘The usual shit, maybe?’
‘I don’t know.’ Eddie’s voice was uncertain. ‘Could be, man, but it don’t seem like that. She don’t mention no pills or nothin’.’
‘What’s it seem like, then?’
‘Can’t say.’
Chill was getting impatient. Eddie Briscoe could drive you crazy if you let him. His brains’d been fried a long time ago.
‘So it ain’t pills she wants.’
‘Can’t say. Just feels kinda funny to me. The questions.’
‘Okay, well, I gotta go.’
‘Yeah,’ Eddie said. ‘But listen. Watch yourself.’
‘Sure. I’ll watch myself.’ Chill thumbed a donut into his mouth. The chocolate glaze was waxy and hard. Just the way he liked it.
Chill had known Eddie for several months now, since early summer. Eddie sold hot electronics, gear he got from all over the state, as well as stolen cars, and he also helped the boss sometimes. He had a second cousin named Lonnie – Lonnie something-or-other – who lived around Acker’s Gap, and it was Lonnie who had come to Eddie’s party with the high school kids. Fresh meat, Eddie called them. Lonnie and Eddie had a deal: Lonnie worked at a Jiffy Lube, and when somebody brought in an especially sweet car for their three-thousand-mile oil change, he’d mark down the address and then he’d pass it along to Eddie. If Eddie wanted to, he’d go after the car, swipe it right out of the guy’s driveway. It was sweet.
Chill had finished with all the donuts – he pushed them into his mouth the way you’d stick coins in a parking meter, pop pop pop – and now he was using his teeth to try to rip open the Slim Jim wrapper. What teeth he had left, that is.
All around him, the parking lot was filling up. Two or three cars waited for every freed-up spot. Vehicles were coming and going in a constant, livid churn. Exhaust fumes climbed into his eyes, making them sting. Most people didn’t bother to shut off their engines while they ran inside for their smokes or their six-packs or their cardboard cups of coffee or their lottery tickets, using a stretched-out leg to hold open the door for the next customer because their hands were full of the crap they’d just bought.
This was what morning in West Virginia really meant, Chill thought. Not the pictures they were always sticking on postcards – sunrise over the mountains, the scooped-out gorges, and all the wildflowers – but a traffic jam in a 7-Eleven parking lot, the dirty pickups and the cars with mufflers hoisted up and tied there with rope. Kids crammed in the backseats, looking out the side windows, and if you looked back at them, they gave you the finger. Don’t see that on any postcard. Hell, no.
Chill scraped a heel against the cold blacktop, just for something to do, just for a place to put his restlessness. He felt twitchy. He wasn’t getting enough exercise these days. Too much time spent in motel rooms. Or sitting in a compact car with his knees up around his ears.
‘Hey, Eddie,’ Chill said, ‘I got some things to do first, but remind me again how to get out to your place, okay?’
37
Carla hated the nose ring. It itched and it burned. Turned red and sore if she casually scratched it even just a couple of times a day. And if she didn’t swipe the whole area with rubbing alcohol at regular intervals, the ensuing invasion of pimples was, like, epic. Unsightly.
She also hated the way it looked, period, with or without its persistent halo of acne. She’d only pierced her nose in the first place to piss off her mom. But the day she came home with it, her mom was busy on a big case, with files and photos and printouts and transcripts and yellow legal pads spread out across the living room floor like a second carpet. Her mom barely noticed her. And Carla had to point out the nose ring. Her mother’s reaction was totally unsatisfying: Fine, honey. Just make sure you keep it sanitary. I think there’s some hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom cabinet. Later, when the big case was over and Bell had more time, she talked to Carla about respecting her body and making smart choices, but that was it. No drama.
The idea of coming home with an unauthorized nose ring was all about The Moment. The Moment when you walked in the door and your mother took one look at you and screamed, ‘Oh, my God! What the hell have you done to yourself?!’ the way Mindy Monkton’s mother had done.
If there was no hysteria, there was no Moment. And no point to enduring all the itching and burning, not to mention all the inconvenience, of a pierced nose.
Carla flipped the visor back up. She’d contemplated her nose ring way too long already. Lonnie kept a small mirror strapped to the back of the visor on the passenger seat of his Sebring, and she had to force herself not to stare in it for miles and miles. Because it was irresistible, being way better to look at than looking at the crappy scenery. And way better than looking at Lonnie.
‘So I been asking around like you told me to,’ he said. ‘Checking it out.’ Lonnie held the steering wheel by his fingertips, as if it were an afterthought. Sometimes, in response to some inner compulsion, he’d twitch his skinny shoulders and start bothering the bottom half of the wheel with his thumbs, getting a rhythm going, and then he’d try to make sound effects with his mouth and his tongue and his teeth, like a rapper.
‘Just drive, Lonnie, okay?’ Carla said, in her super-annoyed voice. ‘Can you do that? Can you just drive like a normal person?’
He was climbing her last nerve.
She had to depend on him. She wasn’t thrilled about the situation, but there you were: She still had five more weeks to go on her license suspension. For the time being, she couldn’t drive the beautiful car her dad had bought for her. It just sat in front of the house now like a big fat red reminder of how stupid everything was.
If Carla wanted to go anywhere, she had to rely on the leering and mercurial and often annoying Lonnie, along with his even less dependable car. The dull gold Sebring needed new wheel bearings. Wheel bearings were expensive. The scraping sound was unbearable.
Yet it was slightly less irritating than listening to Lonnie.
He’d picked her up right after school on Thursday. She was standing at the bottom of the front steps, scowling at the line of bloated ugly buses that waited for students to hoist themselves aboard, when she spotted Lonnie’s car over in the parking lot. He’d wanted to catch her before she headed home and so he’d been driving in circles around the lot, waiting for school to let out. Good metaphor, Carla thought, for how Lon’s brain works. Round and round and round. Like a hamster in a wheel. Going nowhere fast.
He’d honked. When she whipped her head in that direction, she spotted Lonnie’s skinny splayed hand, thrusting up out of the driver’s-side window. Waving at her.
It turned out, Carla discovered from Lonnie as soon as she slid in the car, that the guy who hosted that party – the one she’d been asking him about – might know the guy she was looking for. It wasn’t a for-sure thing, but maybe. They ought to drive back out there, Lonnie suggested, back out to Eddie’s, and check it out.
Like, today. Now, even.
Why the hell not? Carla had thought. There wasn’t much else to do.
It was a chilly, overcast day. The sky was white. It was the kind of sky that could easily unzip into a snow sky.
Carla leaned her head back against the car seat. She knew how much Lonnie cared for her. He showed it all the time, even though he wouldn’t name it, wouldn’t push it,
because he had a good idea that she wasn’t into him – not in ‘that way,’ anyway. She’d made that clear. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could ever be confused about. Still, he hung around.
Lonnie was a puzzle. He did plenty of bad stuff, all right. Hell, he was no saint. She knew that. There was a lot of smallness in Lonnie Prince, a lot of pettiness and laziness and spite and drift, but there was something else as well. Something bigger. Something she’d sensed about him. Lonnie himself probably didn’t know the extent of it.
And neither did she. Not really.
38
Lonnie twisted the wheel of the Sebring, forcing it to head down a dinky, unpaved lane.
‘Eddie lives here,’ he said. ‘Last one on the right.’
A bunch of scrubby one-story houses in various stages of disrepair were scattered up and down the street. The houses looked to Carla as if they’d landed here by crazy accident, after being picked up and flung around by a storm in some other part of the county. It made her think of that scene in The Wizard of Oz, when the farmhouse goes flying and lands with a disgusting splat on a pair of legs in funky shoes.
If another storm came along tomorrow, she guessed, these same houses would be scrambled all over again. Because in this kind of place, nothing lasted. Everything was tentative, temporary. You couldn’t count on anything. Not even more of the same.
As Lonnie drove slowly down the road – the pace was a must, because the potholes were humongous – Carla looked left and right. Gutters dangled at crazy angles off the front edges of these houses, looking like broken arms. Two of the houses were dark wood, while the rest were swallowed up by dirty aluminum siding. The wood-sided ones needed a paint job. None of them had any grass in the front yards. There were no sidewalks.
Even though it was cold, Carla pushed the button to roll down her window.
