by Julia Keller
“Will do. And I better go, too. I think I see an actual customer waiting for me to check her out. It’s a miracle.”
Rhonda laughed. “My best to Harve.”
“You’re a good girl.”
She meant it as a compliment, but to Rhonda, it sounded like an epitaph chiseled on a gray headstone.
Jake
11:37 A.M.
The call had come in on Molly’s cell at 10:12 A.M., summoning her back to work for a double shift.
Christ, she had murmured into the phone. Her voice was low but Jake was able to hear her plainly. Four more overdoses. Should’ve expected it, I guess. Another squad—the one actually scheduled to be on duty right now—was handling the latest call, but that meant there would not be a spare unit to dispatch to any emergencies that might occur in the rest of the county. So Molly needed to clock in.
She would drop Malik back at home, she had said after her call ended, thinking out loud, and then she would go meet Ernie and gear up. Jake had offered to take Malik home, but Molly quickly said, No thanks. Jake did not quite know how to interpret her refusal; either she was reluctant to intrude on his private time, or she didn’t trust him with her brother.
She and Malik had stayed at his house for almost an hour. Malik did most of the talking—if that’s what you could call it, Jake thought, reviewing the visit in his mind after the two of them had gone. Malik’s speech was an odd combination of normal sentences interspersed with tongue-clicks, abrupt sideways jerks of his head, hoots, grunts, and other noises that sounded like runaway hiccups. He was six years younger than Molly. His hair had been razored so close to his scalp that it was more of a shadow than an actual color. His body was oddly shaped; the top half was average-sized but the bottom half was too big, and pudgy and mushy to boot. His hips had a womanly spread to them. His lower lip hung loose, inviting a puddle of drool to linger in the pink channel and occasionally spill over the sides. That would prompt Molly to lift her thumb and gently wipe the spit off her brother’s chin.
When Molly had first introduced him, Jake put out a hand. Malik stared at it.
“No handshakes,” Molly said. “He doesn’t like it. High-fives are fine—but no handshakes.”
Then the three of them had moved into Jake’s living room. Molly and Malik automatically went to the sofa, and Jake slid back into his recliner, as if the seating arrangements had been agreed upon long beforehand. Malik was shy at first, but once he got rolling—look out. Over and over again Molly had to ask Malik to slow down lest his syllables become scrambled and fuzzed, the meaning lost in a confusing tumble of sounds. It reminded Jake of the time he visited his grandmother as a small boy and she sat at the kitchen table, typing on her Hermes manual typewriter. When she typed too fast, the keys would overlap in a dark metal snarl of crossed rods and stuck-together letters. She had to reach in and separate the keys, staining her fingertips with black ink.
“Just tell Jake what you told me,” Molly said. “Take your time.”
Malik’s head wobbled. “Okay,” he said.
The story he told was this: Two days ago he was walking around Acker’s Gap, keeping his head down, looking for spare change or anything else somebody might have dropped and not noticed. Once, he told Jake excitedly, he had found a twenty-dollar bill. Jake nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. Malik had liked that; he offered a thumbs-up right back.
And then he continued his tale. He had checked out the Dumpster behind JPs, the diner a block and a half from the courthouse. Malik had often discovered great treasures back there, he explained, not so much in the Dumpster as close to it, stuff that gathered in a ragged little ring around the big green metal bin with the giant swinging lid on top. He had found, just this week alone, a wristwatch with a broken strap and a smashed face, a bicycle missing its tires, two golf clubs, one brown shoe, a blue plastic bucket, a seat wrenched from a van, and a cardboard box filled with six kittens. When he mentioned the kittens, Malik’s eyes grew wide and his words began to speed up and lose control of themselves, like kids running too fast down a hill. Molly patted his knee and asked him to slow down, please, so that Jake could understand him.
“I took the kittens,” he said. Frustrated, he looked at his sister; he did not seem to know quite how to describe what happened next. Molly nodded and reminded him: “You took the box of kittens over to the courthouse,” she said, “and someone who worked there took them from you and promised they’d see that they got to the Raythune County Animal Shelter.”
Jake had smiled at this, but his thoughts were darker. He was tired, he had had a busy night filled with death and the potential for more of it, and Molly had brought her brother to his house to talk about—kittens?
Really?
“Go on,” Molly said, and Malik rocked back and forth, as if he were nodding with his entire body.
“Okay,” Malik said. He had gone back to the alley behind JPs, he told Jake, to look for more stuff. By the time he returned, there were three dark men in the alley, standing by the Dumpster. They were smoking cigarettes. They did not see him, because they were very focused on each other; they were arguing. “And one of them grabbed the other man and he hit him and threw him down,” Malik said. “They were all talking about money and about how the man on the ground needed to give it to them. The other man kicked the man on the ground.” Finally, he said, the man on the ground gave them some money. It looked like a lot, Malik added. It looked like a lot of bills, folded over like a ham sandwich, with a rubber band around it. And then the other two men hauled him up. They handed him several small packages, each one wrapped in plastic. And then somebody else was coming down the alley. So the men went away. They did not run, but they were gone very soon, Malik said. “Molly told me about the bad men,” he added. “And she told me about the drugs. Drugs are bad, too. The men are selling drugs.”
“What do you think?” Molly said, addressing Jake. “When Malik says they were dark, he means Mexican. Hispanic. Not black.” Jake nodded. Racial politics were simple around here: White was the default, always. West Virginia was about as diverse as a crayon factory that made only one color of crayon. If another shade showed up in the package, it was a mistake. Somebody had pushed the wrong lever on the production line.
“Because,” Molly went on, not waiting for his reply, “it seems to me that Malik could be on to something. They might be part of that gang. The one from Mexico. The one that’s been bringing in the lethal stuff. I would imagine they’ve gotten kind of careless lately. It’s just too easy. So I can believe they’d settle a dispute with one of their employees in an alley, right? Maybe a dealer was holding on to part of the profits. Or something like that.”
Malik grunted and pulled at Molly’s shirt. He was excited.
“I know, sweetie, I know,” she said, settling her brother down. “I’ll tell him.” Back to Jake. “Malik’s a pretty good detective,” she said. “Show him, Malik. Show Jake what you picked up on the ground, after the men left.”
Malik pulled a matchbook out of the back pocket of his jeans. “They used these,” he said, handing it to Jake. “I watched them. Then they threw it down. Littering is bad.”
Jake turned over the matchbook: STARLINER MOTEL, ACKER’S GAP, WV. The Starliner was a dilapidated, one-story strip of brick located far too close to the road, with only a narrow gravel parking lot separating it from traffic. The building’s chipped cinnamon-colored façade was broken at regular intervals by an identical series of gray metal doors. Woods hemmed in the place on three sides. The STARLINER sign, raised up high on a rust-ravaged white pole, always featured at least two burnt-out letters at any given time, so the full name was never in residence; it was always ARLINE or STARL or, if the management was especially negligent, a simple LI E.
The joke about the Starliner—it was a joke made about all fleabag motels—was that its rooms were rented by the hour instead of by the night. Lately, though, the joke had lost its naughty relevance; such places were mostly used for drug transactions now, not r
omantic trysts. The rooms were rented by the week and the month to drug gangs. They were a one-stop-shopping location for local dealers to come by and top off their supplies.
Jake closed his hand around the matchbook in his palm, as if it were precious to him. In truth, of course, it was worthless. The information about what had happened in that alley might prove valuable, but the matchbook was a nonstarter, useless as any kind of clue about anything, but he didn’t want to hurt Malik’s feelings. Jake was puzzled; Molly must have known that it was useless, just as he did, and so why did she …
She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings, either. She was indulging her brother. Making him feel special.
“Okay, buddy,” Jake said. “Thanks. I’ll hold onto this.”
“You’ll get ’em, right?” Malik said eagerly. “You’re gonna do that?”
“Gonna try.” Jake put the matchbook down on the coffee table. He didn’t just toss it. He was careful with his gesture, lining up the bottom edge with the edge of the coffee table. Making it symmetrical. It was another way of honoring Malik’s contribution: treating his clue with respect. “Hey, would you two like some coffee?”
Before Molly could answer, her cell intervened with its sharp ring. That startled Malik. His body lurched to one side. Jake was half-afraid he was going to fall off the couch.
“Yeah,” she said into the phone. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it.”
She re-pocketed her cell and rose, reaching down for Malik’s hand. She pulled him up beside her. “Four more overdoses. Jackson Avenue.”
Jake knew the place well. The apartments on Jackson Avenue were notorious. Two T-shaped piles of pink cinder blocks spread out in a swampy area too close to the Bitter River. They were the last resort for people who had very little money and even less hope. Some of the apartments had been home to two and three generations of the same family, with each new passel of children facing a future bleaker than that of their parents, a steady winnowing-down of possibilities for a satisfying and meaningful life. Anyone who worked in law enforcement was familiar with Jackson Avenue. There were more calls from Jackson Avenue in a typical week—ODs, drunk and disorderly, domestic violence—than from the rest of the county in a month.
“You’ve got to be beat,” Jake said.
“Sure. But we’re overloaded. Too many runs to handle. I’ll be okay. And besides—Ernie and I will just be on call. In case there’s anything else while the on-duty squad handles Jackson Avenue.”
She and Malik were at the door now. Malik walked out ahead of her, marching toward the truck as if it were him and not her who would be answering the call, going about the important work of saving lives. That gave Molly a brief private moment with Jake.
“We don’t know,” she said. She held the front door open so Malik could see that she was coming.
Jake was puzzled. “You don’t know what?”
“We don’t know what happened to Malik. Eventually you’ll get around to asking me—everybody does—and I just wanted to save you the trouble. He was born at home. It wasn’t easy, but my mother didn’t have the money to go to the hospital. Or any way to get there, for that matter. No paramedics in Briney Hollow. Not back then, anyway.” She laughed a short, hard laugh, a laugh born out of her current expertise and the bitter realization of what a difference it might have made at the time. Jake was guessing about the origin of her laugh, but he knew he was right. “Malik didn’t get enough oxygen during his birth,” Molly went on. “So that’s why he’s the way he is. Developmental delays and disabilities. My mother and father are both gone. I take care of him now. When I’m not working. Other times, I pay a lady to come in and make his meals and watch over him.” She spoke in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way, but Jake could sense the emotion that crowded up behind the words. Like him, Molly had learned the trick of delivering unpleasant facts in a bland manner. It was a mixed blessing, he thought; it enabled you to do your job, but it was a difficult skill to turn off when you wanted to, when you were in another kind of setting. A gentler one.
“Okay.”
“And by the way.” She was interrupted by the truck’s horn, a series of three impatient-sounding bleats. Molly waved to Malik. “Be right there, buddy,” she called out. “Hang on.” She turned back. “Look, I know that matchbook doesn’t prove a damned thing. You can throw it away. But he was just so excited about finding it. I’d told him about our night and all the overdoses. He’s been listening to me go on about the drug gangs. So when he saw those men by the Dumpster—and when he found the matches…” She shrugged. “He wants to help. That’s it. He just wants to be a part of things. Pitch in. Coming by here this morning—I know it was a lot to ask, having you listen to Malik. But he was thrilled to meet you. I’ve told him all about you. So I hope you don’t mind.”
I’ve told him all about you.
Jake let the phrase wash over him. It gave him a distinct, specific pleasure, limited but intense.
“No problem,” he said. Lame—but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He was too nervous. She made him that way. He was mad at himself; after all, he was supposed to be a funny guy, a real smart-ass, the life of the party. Around her, though, he was stupid and boring. Christ. What was he—fourteen years old?
His cell belted out its ringtone. He had left it back on the coffee table. Molly put a hand on his forearm. “Bet they’re calling you in, too,” she said. “So much for a day off, right? Doesn’t look like either one of us is gonna be getting any rest. See you around. And thanks again.”
Jake was not able to watch her go, as much as he wanted to; he had to return inside and answer his phone. And yet during his brief conversation with Sheriff Harrison—that’s who was on the line—he was less focused on the information being conveyed, as urgent and dire as it was, and more on Molly Drucker, letting his mind stray into territories of rank speculation. She had probably patted Malik’s knee when she got back in the Silverado, and told him everything was going to be okay. She probably had to say that fifty times a day.
Jake’s forearm still felt the press of her hand from when she had touched him there, quickly, casually, offhandedly. It was a random gesture. It didn’t mean anything to her.
It meant everything to him.
“I need you to clear the Jackson Avenue scene,” the sheriff was saying. Jake forced himself to concentrate on her words. What the hell was his problem? “Squad already left with the victims. Just poke around, ask some questions. See if you can get any leads on the dealer. Then you can run down the names you sent me.”
“Okay.”
The sheriff coughed. Jake heard a deep tiredness embedded in that cough, a rattling spasm of profound exhaustion. He recognized it because he’d let loose with the same kind of cough himself more than a few times, after an extended shift with a lot of complications. “I know it’s your day off, but it’s all hands on deck today,” she added, once her cough had run its course. “Jackson Avenue might be the end of it. And then we can move on.”
They both knew better than that. But they still did not know—because no one could know—just how bad it was going to get.
Shirley
11:58 A.M.
Knob Creek. Ketel One. Wild Turkey. Absolut. Grey Goose. Stolichnaya. Cuervo Gold. Tanqueray. All the rest.
Each bottle lined up across the double-decker shelves behind the bar bore a label, a name. But Shirley paid no attention to that. She wasn’t interested in the names. She saw only the shapes of the glass, because the bottles themselves were so lovely: blues and creams and silvers and blacks and browns and lilacs. Each bottle seemed to catch the light and hold it, and while holding it, transform it. The light did not make the bottles any more beautiful than they already were; rather, it revealed the essential truth about beauty itself, the fact that beauty was not a single static thing but a revolving constellation of possibilities. Beauty could be anything you wanted it to be. You could find beauty anywhere. And everywhere.
This was the Mud Creek
Tavern. Its name had long ago been shortened to the Creek. If Shirley had a weekday off from work, she sometimes found her way here. Lately, in the wake of the news given to her by the specialist in Charleston, she had been coming in even more often. The colored glass was a comfort. The rows of bottles soothed her. She did not know why.
She took a seat at the bar, leaned forward, hooked the heels of her boots around the bottom rung of the wooden stool. After leaving the church she had run a few errands. Then she had parked at one of the meters along Main Street in downtown Acker’s Gap.
Before she had even gotten out of her car, however, the text from Bell came through:
Sorry—can we make it another day? Swamped.
Shirley had texted back:
No prob. Call me later.
Truth was, Shirley felt relieved. The relief washed over her like a cooling spray. Her plan had been to tell Bell at lunch—tell her the part about her diagnosis, anyway. The rest of it would come later. The minister had suggested that she break the news into two parts, and thus not load up a single encounter with such an immensely heavy burden. It made sense to Shirley.
But she was off the hook now, at least for a little while longer. So she could settle herself down at the makeshift art gallery at the Creek: the rows of colored glass illuminated by the tiny lights screwed into the front edge of the shelves behind the bar.
Midday was the perfect time to come here. Shirley didn’t like bars at night. Too many people, too much noise, plus the heavy, layered smell of heat and sweat and cheap cologne, and of raw, pulsing, human need. Fresh out of prison a few years ago she had enjoyed that, even craved it; nowadays, she couldn’t abide it. During the day, though, a bar felt very different. It was a neutral place. It featured only a few people, and they generally didn’t bother you. They were here for their own reasons. They didn’t care about you, and that was fine with Shirley; she had accepted the world’s indifference a long time ago. Counted on it. It was a relief.
