A Killing in the Hills

by Julia Keller

  She closed the door.

  She looked at Bevins.

  As cold as it was outside, he was sweating. When Bell sat down across from him, she noticed that moisture speckled his forehead in a slimy band. He was sitting sideways in his chair, one hand on his thigh, the other on the tabletop. He was tapping out a drum solo with his thumb and little finger, but he seemed to realize, all at once, how inappropriately jaunty it sounded, and he stopped. The hand flattened out against the tabletop and stayed that way.

  She placed her briefcase on the floor next to her chair.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Bevins. I haven’t seen you for several weeks. Not since we first took Albie Sheets into custody.’

  He glared at her. He had a meaty face, wide and plump and slack, edged by old acne scars that looked like rivets along a faltering seam. A hump of black hair swooped down generously over each ear. His body was big and sturdy. He was the kind of man led around by his own shoulders. There was a nervous, driving energy to Bob Bevins, an air of bluster and impatience.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he declared, black eyes glittering. ‘Nobody’s told me a goddamned thing. I’m pulled off a plane right after it lands and I’m shoved in a squad car and there’s no explanation. Nothing. Nobody answered my questions, the whole ride over here. Those dumb-shit deputies of yours just sat there.’ He gave the tabletop two fierce smacks, as if the stark interrogation room were a fine restaurant and the ambling waiter late with his entree. ‘What’s the matter with you people? I lost a child less than a month ago. I lost my son – and this is how you treat me? Jesus, lady. You better have a damn good reason for why you authorized—’

  He stopped.

  He realized that Bell was looking at him with an expression of simple curiosity, as if he represented some new species of creature she’d never come across before.

  It unsettled him. He had intended to provoke her into a shouting match. No matter what was going on, no matter what they thought they knew, he’d been sure he could bluff his way out of it. Bull his way through, the way he’d always done, with everything. Every salesman knew that it was all just a matter of confidence. Think you can, think you can’t, Bevins was fond of stating, nodding sagely over his Scotch rocks, either way you’re right.

  ‘Deanna told you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Yes, Mr Bevins. She did.’

  ‘I see.’

  He turned his body in the chair until he sat in a direct line across from Bell. No more sideways talk, sideways cool. The fluorescent bulb overhead seemed to pick out the pores on his face and blast them with light, exposing their greasy inner slopes.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, ‘but you’re wrong. Really.’

  ‘What am I thinking, Mr Bevins?’

  ‘That I’m some kind of monster.’

  Bell gave him a long, impassive stare.

  ‘No, Mr Bevins. I don’t,’ she finally replied. ‘I think you’re selfish and you’re shallow and you’re vain and impulsive. I think you were having an affair, and you didn’t want to get caught, and when you did get caught, you lost your temper. You lashed out. You didn’t mean to kill Tyler. But you were more than willing to let somebody else take the blame. So – a monster? No. Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not that special. I’ve known some monsters in my time, Mr Bevins, and you’re not even close. You’re not even in the running.’

  Sheriff Fogelsong had decreed a decade ago that three-quarters of the lights in public areas of the courthouse would be turned off at six o’clock each night, winter or summer, to conserve energy. It was an admirable cost-cutting move, Bell thought. But it made the hall outside her office so damned dim that she’d very nearly run smack into Serena Crumpler.

  Bell had finished with Bob Bevins. The deputies had hauled him off for processing, after which he’d be placed in a cell. At long last, she could go home.

  First, though, she needed to stop by her office to pick up some files. She was on her way out the door again when she almost ran over the young attorney.

  ‘Whoa,’ Bell said. ‘Sorry. Oh – by the way, you’ll get the paperwork in the morning, once the court clerk can file them, but we’ll be dropping the charges against Albie Sheets.’

  Serena nodded. ‘Figured. But I’m still on the case.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I’ll be defending Deanna Sheets.’

  ‘Good for you. Frankly, though, I’m surprised your firm is letting you do that. Surely they’ve already fulfilled their pro bono quota for the year.’

  ‘They’re not,’ Serena said cheerfully. ‘They said no. So I quit. I’m opening my own criminal defense practice. As of about ten minutes ago.’

  Bell gave her an appraising look. ‘Not to be too nosy, Serena, but I don’t think Lori Sheets has two nickels to rub together. And she might be facing a lot of trouble herself right now. I’m not sure how – or even whether – you’ll ever get paid.’

  ‘She’ll pay what she’s able to pay. Anyway, I can always supplement my income by setting up a coffee cart on the courthouse lawn. What do you think? Four bucks for a small latte? I’ll be rich.’ She grinned as she squared her thin shoulders. ‘Well, I’d better run along. Got some motions to prepare.’ Another grin. ‘The first one will be to suppress Deanna’s confession.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Bell said dryly. A thought occurred to her. ‘How about Bob Bevins? As long as you’re signing on to lost causes, what about him?’

  ‘He’s on his own. Can’t save the whole damned world, now, can I?’

  Bell shrugged.

  Serena’s smile turned a bit devilish. ‘Something tells me,’ she said, ‘that we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other in the years to come, Mrs Elkins.’

  Bell lifted her palms in a Who knows? gesture. She watched the young woman walk down the courthouse corridor.

  Bet her folks are proud of her, Bell thought. Plenty of reason to be.

  Then it struck her.

  She still hadn’t heard from Carla.

  45

  Carla wasn’t sure what had happened. Only that it had happened very fast.

  She and Lonnie had gone into Eddie’s house. They didn’t knock. Lonnie just barged on in, as if that was what you were supposed to do in such places, and Carla followed him.

  It was the scummiest, foulest, filthiest, creepiest house she’d ever been unlucky enough to enter. As disgusted as she’d been by the outside, the outside was freakin’ Buckingham Palace compared with the inside. There were clothes and shoes flung everywhere, along with wadded-up sacks that had once ferried food from – you could tell by the screaming logos – Hardee’s and McDonald’s and KFC and Salty Dawg and Taco Bell. There were fist-sized holes knocked in the flimsy dark-paneled walls. A couple of dusty NASCAR posters with curled bottom edges fluttered from thumbtacks: Jeff Gordon leaning sexily against a race car, lazy half-grin on his face; Dale Jr. standing with his pit crew, feet spread, wrench in his hand, eyes crinkled from the upward thrust of his smile.

  The filthy couch sagged so low that it was almost level with the floor. Most of it was covered with newspapers and empty blue Tostitos bags. The carpet – the parts of it that were visible, the parts that weren’t covered with dirty sweatshirts and floppy old boots hungry for laces – was a ratty brown shag.

  The whole place smelled of pot and body odor and sour food and a backed-up toilet.

  I came to a party here? Carla asked herself. Then she remembered how drunk she’d gotten a few times back then. How reckless she’d been. And how important it had seemed, at the time, to put herself in the most degrading circumstances possible, just to prove to her friends – and to herself – that she wasn’t anything at all like her mom.

  Yeah, she thought. I probably did come to a party here.

  Eddie was waiting for them. He stood in the middle of the living room, a joint clamped between his thumb and his index finger, looking glassy-eyed, amiable. He wore an oversized black-and-green-checked lumberjack�
�s shirt and carpenter’s pants. He had a buzz cut that had left little nicks all over his head, like polka dots, and a bulbous face. A watermelon slice of a smile.

  ‘Hey, Lon,’ he said. ‘This your friend?’

  ‘Duh,’ Lonnie replied. Carla couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to her as if Lonnie, too, was embarrassed at the state of the place. And at the state of his friend.

  ‘Nice to meetcha,’ Eddie said to Carla. His grin intensified into a leer. ‘Lookin’ good, girl. Lookin’ real good, gotta tell ya.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Carla said. She didn’t want any trouble. She wanted to get the name, and then get the hell out of here. ‘I guess Lonnie told you what I’m after. There was a guy at the party here a few weeks ago. Older guy.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah,’ Eddie said. He performed an elaborate pantomime of searching his memory: He scratched the side of his head, looked at the ceiling and then back down again. He bunched up his face in a cartoon version of a contemplative frown. ‘What’d he look like, sweetheart?’

  ‘Like a pig,’ Carla said. ‘Little tiny eyes and a turned-up nose. He was giving out a lot of shit to people. Pills. For free. And telling them where they could get more.’

  Eddie nodded. He was the philosopher again, head tilted to the side, thinking long and hard. ‘Like a pig,’ he said, as if he wanted to make absolutely sure he had the particulars right. He took a short hard nip at his joint, holding in the smoke as long as he could, then letting it out with a gasp.

  ‘Yeah,’ Carla said.

  Now Lonnie spoke, impatient, annoyed. ‘C’mon, Eddie. Tell her what you got. Either you have the guy’s name or you don’t, and if you don’t, we gotta go.’

  Eddie turned his bleary face toward Lonnie. ‘Hey, Lon. Turn down the fuckin’ volume. Okay, dude? I got to think about it.’ He tapped an index finger against his temple. He tapped slowly. Each tap was like a drop of water escaping a leaky spigot, drop by drop by drop. ‘Think.’ Pause. ‘Think.’ Pause. ‘Think.’ Pause. ‘Thin—Hey,’ Eddie said, interrupting himself, ‘I got another question for you, sweetheart. Why’re you looking for this guy?’

  Carla had a second to decide, and she opted for honesty. Maybe if Eddie knew why she was asking, maybe if he knew how serious this was, he’d be more forthcoming. Even somebody as wasted as Eddie Briscoe would understand how crucial it was to find a murderer.

  ‘I was in the Salty Dawg on Saturday,’ Carla said, ‘and I saw the shooting. I saw the whole thing. And it was the same guy. The guy at your party. So if you give me his name, I can tell the police.’ She looked intently at Eddie, who hadn’t moved since she began speaking. ‘And if I tell them, they’ll go after him, okay? I know they will. Because my mom’s the prosecutor. Of Raythune County, I mean.’

  Chill, listening in the kitchen, felt his stomach do a funny little flip at the words. It made everything clear. It made his next move obvious. So that, he thought, is why she’s lookin’ for me so hard. Huh. She was there that day. And she’s the daughter of that bitch.

  Mystery solved.

  Girlie, Chill added to himself, reveling in the sudden golden certainty of his path, all doubt erased, hope you gave your mama a nice warm good-bye this morning and maybe a hug, too, cause you ain’t never gonna see her again.

  Carla was startled. A man was coming out of the kitchen, but that’s not what caught her attention. She didn’t look at him. Not at first.

  She looked at what he held in his hand.

  It was a gun, a sleek-looking thing, charcoal gray. When she tore her eyes away from it and forced herself to look at his face, she thought, Mr Piggy.

  That’s him.

  She almost said it out loud – That’s him – but she didn’t get a chance to say anything, because suddenly Lonnie had left her side and was charging at the man, suddenly he was running at him, arms extended, making a growling sound in his throat.

  Lonnie must’ve seen the gun, too. Lonnie must’ve thought Mr Piggy was going to hurt her.

  Mr Piggy lifted the gun like it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Like you’d raise your arm to wave at a friend across the room. With barely a flicker of his index finger, he triggered three quick shots.

  Pock

  PockPock

  They hit Lonnie dead-square in the chest.

  His body dropped to the carpet with such blunt ugly force that it was as if all of Lonnie’s bones had suddenly been snatched away, vaporized. There was nothing to stop his fall.

  His shirtfront instantly filled with the reddest blood Carla had ever seen, and the blood kept coming, kept coming, blossoming across Lonnie’s chest, seeping out of his shirt like an underground river, soaking it.

  She screamed. She wanted to call Lonnie’s name, but when she opened her mouth a second time, after the scream, Mr Piggy’s hand was slammed against her mouth. His hand was big enough to cover her mouth and her nose, too. She couldn’t breathe.

  Mr Piggy hit her in the side of the head with his gun.

  It was like no pain Carla had ever felt before; it was so vast and startling and oceanic a pain that she had no way to think about it or react to it, nowhere to put it, nothing to do but slide to the floor in a gelatinous ooze, her consciousness rushing away, but as she fell she could hear, from far away, from oh-so-far-away, the voice of Eddie Briscoe The hell you gonna do with her and then the voice of Mr Piggy Don’t you worry ’bout that if you wanna worry about something asshole you worry about this and then there was another shot and then she didn’t hear anything else and all she could think was It happened so fast

  So fast

  So fast

  Bell was trying to talk herself out of panicking.

  She was sitting in her favorite chair in the living room. Tonight, the chair held no magic for her; she was too preoccupied to savor its soft familiar contours. She might as well have been perched on a flagpole in a high wind, for all the comfort it brought.

  When she had arrived home a short time ago, she turned on all the lights on the first floor and then, just for good measure, called out Carla’s name. Called it again.

  She’d tried her cell again. Straight to voice mail. Bell’s texts – Hey, sweetie. Pls call. Luv U – were left hanging. No response.

  It was past 10 P.M.

  But Carla had been out this late before. Plenty of times. Even on school nights. Without checking in. This was Acker’s Gap, for heaven’s sake. And whenever Carla complained about living in what she referred to as a ‘mangy microdot’ of a town, Bell would turn it around: Look at the freedom you have. You’d never have this kind of freedom in a big city. Never. A year ago, when she was in the pep band – Carla had had a brief but intense flirtation with the clarinet, the memory of which deeply embarrassed her now – she’d often come home later than this. If Bell called around, trying to make sure she was okay, Carla became sputteringly angry. It was a delicate balance: keeping tabs, while also acknowledging that Carla was not a kid anymore. Bell couldn’t win.

  When her cell phone chimed, she leaped for it, nearly knocking it off the coffee table in her fumbling haste. Lifted the screen to check the caller ID.

  It didn’t say what it ought to have said, which was: CARLA.

  It said: RAYTHUNE COUNTY CORONER’S OFFICE.

  Before she could speak into the phone, she heard the slow, apologetic drawl of Buster Crutchfield.

  ‘Bell,’ he said.

  Buster was seventy-eight years old and had been county coroner for fifty-five of them, and his solemn, courtly voice sometimes seemed to carry the combined weight of all the bodies that had been laid out on the stainless-steel table in his tiny office on the outskirts of Acker’s Gap, year after year, decade by decade, each death a separate and distinct tragedy but also part of a larger blur, a heavy and flesh-colored one. One that his voice scooped up in its arms and bore through the world, a step – a word – at a time.

  ‘Sorry to call you at home, darlin’,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got some bad news. They found a body in a car out
by the interstate. Deputies brought it in. I’m just getting started with the autopsy, but wanted to let you know about it right away.

  ‘Worst part of it is,’ he went on, after a pause to accommodate his own heavy sigh, ‘is that it’s a young one.’

  46

  In normal times, Bell found Buster Crutchfield’s slow way of speaking to be restful, soothing, in a lemonade-on-the-front-porch-on-a-summer-Sunday-afternoon kind of way. Carla, less enthralled, always claimed that he sounded a lot like Foghorn Leghorn.

  But until he clarified his announcement – until Bell understood that it was a male, not a female body that had been delivered to his stainless-steel table that night by deputies Greenough and Mathers – she found the unhurried pace of his speech to be excruciating.

  Bell couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.

  The relief, when it came, made her feel so weak that she had trouble holding her cell. Light as it was, it was too heavy.

  The body wasn’t Carla.

  It wasn’t Carla.

  She knew because Buster’s next sentence had a ‘he’ in it, as in, ‘He died from an overdose of pain pills, Bell, that’s the quick ’n’ dirty version. I’m guessing OxyContin or something similar, but I’ll know the particulars when I get the toxicology screen from the boys at the state lab.’

  Boys. In Buster’s world, lab techs were always men. Or ought to be.

  Hell. So were prosecutors.

  ‘Any ID yet?’ she asked.

  A rustling of papers. Buster was checking his notes.

  ‘Fella’s name was James Pugh,’ he said. ‘Twenty-one years old. On probation for possession of a controlled substance. I know you’re keeping track, Bell. That’s why I called. This is the seventeenth overdose in the county this year. A new record.’

  She let a moment go by. She remembered Jimmy Pugh as he’d looked in court that day, she could picture his goofy smile and his skinny wrists and his bad skin, and then she could hear his lazy cackle of a laugh, and she recalled how pleased he was at how he’d licked the system.

  He’d licked it, all right.